440 A movie and movie universe that was born ten years earlier
Also coming with Mr. Xu was his wife Shi Nansheng.
These two are husband and wife, and they have always worked well together.
After the two parties greeted each other, they sat down to talk.
Old Monster Xu and Jiang Yan have met before, but they didn't have much contact. The last time they met was at the premiere of "Infernal Affairs" in 1998.
During this meeting, Mr. Xu himself had to admit that the "second generation" Jiang Yan, whom he didn't think highly of at that time, is now a figure that cannot be ignored in the film and television industry in mainland China and even Asia.
And when I came here this time, I heard that Jiang Yan was throwing away money, so he came to attract investment for the movie.
And that movie, no surprise, is "The Legend of Shushan".
"I have already filmed this subject once. I wonder if Mr. Jiang knows about it," Old Monster Xu took a sip of tea and asked Jiang Yan, who was reading the script.
Jiang Yan answered without even raising his head, "Yes, last time it was "New Shushan Swordsman", played by my goddess Qingxia, so of course I have watched it."
With that said, Jiang Yan talked about the relevant information of "New Shushan Swordsman" in detail. Of course, it was mainly about the subsequent evaluation of the movie on the Internet.
When Old Monster Xu heard that Jiang Yan knew so much about his movies, he was happy but also slightly nervous.
In fact, given his seniority in the Hong Kong circle, there was no need for him to have such a mentality.
But there was no other way. In 1983, he used advanced special effects to shoot "New Shushan Swordsman", which was considered groundbreaking at the time.
But the problem is that "New Shushan Swordsman" invested more than 20 million, and the final box office was 15 million, causing Jiahe to lose everything.
Those who make commercial films lose money, which means they lose their confidence.
So if Mr. Xu talks about other movie projects this time, he will definitely be tough, and he may not come to Jiang Yan, but when he talks about "Shu Mountain", half of his chest will be gone in one breath, and many people are not willing to invest.
.
Of course, with his status and connections, he was able to attract sufficient investment in the end.
But this does not prevent "Shu Mountain" from becoming his heartache.
But having said that, he has full confidence. After all, more than ten years have passed since then, his level has greatly improved, and he has experience in the production of many excellent works. If he opens the "Shushan" IP again, he feels
Nine times out of ten, sure.
This time, he decided to use the most popular actors, the best special effects, and spend a lot of money to make "The Legend of Shushan" a milestone.
Old Monster Xu was chatting there, and he was very proud of his special effects team, saying that they were hired from the "Star Wars" team and had already started preparing for it.
All in all, full of confidence.
But these words are useless to Jiang Yan.
He knew that "The Legend of Shushan" ended up losing both word of mouth and box office.
In fact, "The Legend of Shushan" is regarded as a masterpiece in Jiang Yan's opinion. At least when compared with a bunch of peers, it is indeed a masterpiece.
But I still have to say that Shushan was filmed at least ten years early.
The first is the special effects.
When I was a child, I watched this movie and thought the special effects were amazing. When I watched it again later, I felt that while the special effects were far ahead of the times, they were also very "simple and antique" and extremely close to the imaginary fairy world.
But the problem is that special effects alone are useless for a movie.
And what was the most criticized thing about "The Legend of Shushan" by a lot of film critics?
That's a matter of plot.
Many people are shouting, why can't you tell a good story?
But in fact, a large part of the reason here is due to the problem of the "Shushan" IP.
Even in 2022, Jiang Yan is convinced that there are still many people who have watched "The Legend of Shushan" and don't understand what's in it. People who don't understand Xianxia don't understand the mysteries of "The Legend of Shushan", and they don't know the "The Legend of Shushan Swordsman".
In this book, I don’t even know why the plot develops like this.
Therefore, there will be many "holes that have not been filled in", "many bugs", "cannot understand who and why and why" and so on.
The reason is very simple. If you don’t know what Xianxia is, how can you understand the background of the story?
It's the year 2000. Let's not talk about "The Legend of Shushan Swordsman", let's talk about the fairy tale theme. How many people know about it?
This is completely different from martial arts. When it comes to martial arts, almost everyone in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan doesn’t know about it, but when it comes to fairy tales, almost everyone is numb.
After "The Legend of Shushan" was released in the Mainland, many people still criticized it and said, "How can people still fly like this?".
In addition, Mr. Xu also has a big problem, that is, he cannot assume that the audience can quickly understand Xianxia just by using straightforward Chinese.
As mentioned above, many people don't understand the concept of "Xianxia" (not a few now, but at least now that the Internet is developed, you can look it up on your own, but not at that time).
So Mr. Xu tried his best to write his lines as straightforwardly as possible. As a result, he was criticized by many people, saying that he was too pale, or too pretentious, and what the hell was this film about?
So it is a pity that if "The Legend of Shushan" does not solve the problem of too few audiences, it will basically not be able to win much at the box office. To make matters worse, the mainland, the largest market, has not developed movie-watching habits, and piracy is rampant, so it is not higher than
A lot of quality, no need to think about it.
Finally, there is the matter of plot.
Monster Xu crammed a lot of plots into a one-hundred-minute movie, and everyone was blown away by it. Nothing was explained clearly. It's surprising that it was good.
Therefore, "The Legend of Shushan" was filmed more than ten years ago. It can be said that it was not born at the right time. Ten years later, it still depends on the support of colleagues...
While Mr. Xu talked for about ten minutes, Jiang Yan didn't say a word.
It wasn't until Mr. Xu felt something strange that he stopped and asked, "Mr. Jiang, what do you think?"
Hearing this, Jiang Yan put down the script and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Xu, if this film is shot as you say, I won't vote for it."
Jiang Yan did not decline politely, but directly expressed his intention.
Old Monster Xu was naturally puzzled. He asked, "Why is this? Do you think the investment is too much?"
The movie is currently being prepared. The original budget was 40 million. Xu Laoguai and Jiang Yan said that 40 million was probably not enough and that it would cost about 60 million. He wondered if this money was a bit too much.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! But Jiang Yan shook his head directly, and then asked the series of questions.
"Shushan" IP has a low audience, too many storylines, etc.
After finishing speaking, before Old Monster Xu could start to refute, Jiang Yan simply gave him his final suggestion.
"If I invest, I don't want you to just shoot like this, but to popularize the theme of fairy tales first."
"Besides, 60 million is not enough, 600 million is about the same. And I will never let you make just one film. If you want to make it, make a trilogy. The time doesn't matter. It won't matter for three to five years. If you want to make it, you have to make it."
Set a benchmark for Chinese immortals!"
"Don't think that I just invested too much money. The plot of "The Lord of the Rings" is very simple, but the special effects have been prepared for 7 years! They have enough patience to do this, rather than rushing to put a half-finished product on the screen.
I dare to guarantee you here that if the investment for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is less than 300 million U.S. dollars, and the total box office is less than 2 billion, my entire Stars and Seas Company can give it to you!"
"Content is the most important thing. The core of a movie is to tell a good story and tell it smoothly. So I think that the subject of Shushan is far from being developed in a trilogy. We can even make a fairy tale."
The universe!"
"What is the Xianxia Universe? Does Marvel know? If not, let's talk about "Feng Shen Bang". Everyone in it can make a separate movie, or even a series of movies. There must be linkages between different protagonists' movies..."
"Do you know Marvel, the old American, I believe that Marvel will definitely become the most successful movie universe in Hollywood in the future. Why, because they have grasped the core..."
After ten minutes of output, Jiang Yan took a sip of tea, looked at the startled old Xu with piercing eyes and said, ""Shu Mountain" is our own Chinese universe, the fairy universe. I dare to think about it, too.
If you dare to shoot, then, do you dare to shoot?"
When Old Monster Xu heard this, he couldn't help but swallow his throat.
He just came here today to discuss investment. He never thought that Jiang Yan would come up with such a grand plan in a simple meeting.
That’s a movie universe!
I had never heard of this concept before.
So Jiang Yan is indeed a genius!
If this was shot well, it would have a production value of tens of billions.
Of course, this is definitely not something that can be done easily.
So Old Monster Xu really didn't dare to agree to Jiang Yan's "Do you dare to take the photo?"
Shi Nansheng and Wang Jin on the side were also silent at this moment. Shi Nansheng looked at Jiang Yan, his eyes shining. At this time, Jiang Yan looked very much like Mr. Xu when he was young. The momentum in his whole body seemed to break through the ceiling.
Wang Jin looked at Jiang Yan, and there was a fire growing in his heart that seemed to have been extinguished long ago.
Although Jiang Yan only gave a rough idea today, just by looking at the four words "movie universe", you can tell how big Jiang Yan's ambition is!
Looking at Jiang Yan again, he was drinking tea calmly at this moment, but he was shouting wildly in his heart.
I originally wanted to refuse today, but while we were chatting, why did we end up talking about the universe?
Moreover, this thing can really be done!
I can’t take over the Marvel Universe, and I’m not sure about the Xianxia Universe, so I can only trick others into doing it, but I can still get my hands on the Monster Universe.
Can you buy the rights to Godzilla now?
Godzilla, King Kong, etc. are all very good.
If you can't figure it out, you can also create a parallel universe with monsters and human mechas... eh? Isn't this "Pacific Rim"?
Well, let’s think about how to deal with copyright later.
In addition, the copyright of Godzilla is really hard to come by, so we can just make a version of the mythical beast from the Book of Mountains and Seas.
Anyway, I’m just making a movie.
What is the core of monster movies? The huge size of monsters and the insignificance of humans, terror, horror, and powerlessness...
Then monsters fight monsters, and that's it.
As for the special effects, if you really don’t want to spend money, then shoot them in real locations...
But we have to wait until the theater chain is built. It won't be possible for three or four years.
As for now, Jiang Yan glanced at the time, and then said to Mr. Xu who was silent.
"Uncle Xu, this is what I think. If you are willing, let's have a good chat. This is an issue related to the history of Chinese films, so I hope you will consider it carefully. Of course, it doesn't matter if you stick to your own ideas. What I just said
, just treat it as a joke."
With that said, Jiang Yan apologized, then said goodbye to everyone and went to Master Xing's house.
And Old Monster Xu fell into serious hesitation...