Chapter 473: Did Director Wang have smooth sailing in his bid for the award?

On the afternoon of February 2, the flight from Los Angeles back to Beijing landed safely. Wang Chengguang was picked up directly by President Han at the airport.

In the car, Lao Han looked radiant with glory. "Director Wang, Director Nan, Director Zhou, we really made a lot of money. The North American box office took in 2900 million dollars in the first weekend, and more than 2500 million in Europe, which is nearly 5600 million in the box office."

"As expected, North America and Europe still make more money, almost catching up with China and South Korea in the first weekend plus the second week."

The current box office sales in Europe and the United States have little to do with them, but this officially represents Chinese films sweeping the global box office with the scale of a blockbuster.

The film industry has really stood up! There is nothing wrong with that. The EU and the US have a population of less than 800 million, but the ticket prices are more expensive than in mainland China.

Previously, The Wandering Earth was shown in China and South Korea for more than 20 days, which was the final stage of a blockbuster movie and was about to be taken off the screen. The problem is that its box office performance last week was still impressive.

The mainland's weekly revenue is still just over HK$4000 million, Hong Kong and Macau's is over HK$1.5 million per week, and South Korea's is HK$ million per week. It doesn't look like this is a big movie that is coming to an end.

Up to now, it is impossible for pre-sales to be sold out in advance, but the audience has entered the cycle of watching 3DIAMX in the cinema once and not feeling satisfied, and wants to watch it a second and third time.

There are also many passionate movie fans who are infected by 3DIMAX. When they find good things, they want to share them with those around them and drag their family and friends to watch movies together.

It easily broke the total score of 11 billion Hong Kong dollars of Train to Busan!
In the new week that started yesterday, the 17th, box office sales are still encouraging.

Wang Chengguang laughed and said, "After all, it took us a year or two to make this. We spent so much money and encountered a technological revolution. We became the first to try it."

“Don’t worry, Mr. Han. Regardless of whether Train to Busan can win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Wandering Earth will definitely win next year.”

President Han was delighted. "Did Director Wang have a smooth time in getting the award?"

When he was seeing someone off at the airport last time, he was worried that a national treasure-level director like Director Wang would be treated unfairly and be blackmailed over there.

Now it seems that he was thinking too much.

Wang Chengguang laughed, and even Nancy and Zhou Wenwen laughed out loud.

President Han was even more surprised. "Looking at your reaction, it's really going well. If that's the case, then should we attract some North American funds for Wandering 2? If we give up 10%, then next time Wandering won't just be able to compete for Best Foreign Language Film, but also Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress."

It is said that the Oscars have been built to be the top international award in Hollywood and North America, but if you really want to win the award, without American capital investment, you can usually only compete for the Best Foreign Language Film.

For awards such as Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture, you basically won't be given a chance.

In this regard, the Oscars are not as open as the three major European festivals. For example, mainland Chinese films and directors have been able to continuously compete for the Golden Lion, Golden Bear and other awards since the early 00s, and Hong Kong and Macau also had the three major festivals for Best Actress in the last century.

This has lasted for many years, but few have been able to achieve success at the Oscars.

Even a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, received 10 Oscar nominations, but not only was there no nomination for Best Actor or Best Actress, not even a single Chinese actor was given a spot for Best Supporting Actor or Best Supporting Actress. However, a lot of awards were given for Art Direction, Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, etc.

Even this Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has investment from a large Columbia company.

The biggest difference between the Oscars and the three major European festivals is that the latter are more open, but in some cases the three major festivals only accept films that have not yet been released in the market... Now that Wandering One has started bombarding the European cinema chain, Venice, Cannes, and Berlin are basically out of the question.

Of course, this is not absolute, it only applies to most situations.

Parasite, a 2019 film produced by South Korea's CJ Foundation, not only won the Cannes Palme d'Or for Best Film, but also won a series of major awards including the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Film, and Best Original Screenplay.

CJ is the main group of the consortium... The ordinary 996 workers have no idea about the happiness of the chaebols, so we filmed it for you to see, and keep playing the music and dancing.

The movie Parasite was made with an investment of just over 1000 million US dollars. Not to mention the global box office of 2.6 million US dollars, the awards it won can be said to be a massacre-level harvest.

He was also considering letting Nancy continue the trend.

He and Zhou Wenwen each have their own Chinese mythology project movie and super science fiction movie. As for the deformed social artistic film topics controlled by the consortium, it is most practical to leave them to Nancy.

The CJ Group was able to break the rhythm of winning numerous film awards without the injection of North American capital. If Wang Chengguang were to take charge, he would certainly not be weaker than CJ.

He calmly handed Mr. Han a cigarette and said, "Mr. Han, Wandering 2 is a bit far away, so let's not talk about it for now. The new project I'm preparing for Nancy is still like Train to Busan, where we'll select a few Chinese actors to lead the cast and film in South Korea."

"By then, with the influence of the few friends I made in Los Angeles this time, as long as I shoot quickly, I'll have a chance to get it into Cannes, France, and release it during the summer. Then I'll try to win the Oscars for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress next year."

"When it comes to winning prizes, we are all serious about it."

Chief Han took a breath and said, "So fast?"

It's already February 2th, and Cannes usually starts in mid-May, so there are only three months left. No, if you want to be nominated you have to apply even earlier.

Wang Chengguang was happy. "The new movie doesn't have any special effects. It's purely about the actors' acting skills. With the talent of an award-winning actor like Huang Zhenhua, and a few more groups, it can be finished in more than a month with fast shooting and editing. There's plenty of time."

After thinking for a while, he suddenly complained, "Da Huang is still a little old, he needs to be made up to look younger. This time, let Huang Jianzhi, Huang Zhenhua and Huang Yimei act together as a family."

In Parasite, a family of unemployed vagrants live in a villa of the upper class.

It really belongs to the Huang family who starred in this performance!
The only discordant thing is that Huang Zhenhua is old, and he plays the eldest son of an unemployed homeless family, and has to take the college entrance examination many times... This requires some technology and hard work.

It's no big deal, it's just black technology! Relying on the power of Xiaohuo's intelligent split body, the 30-year-old Huang Zhenhua, who played the real face, was retouched back to his 20-year-old appearance through technological photo editing.

This special effect is similar to the short Captain America in Captain America who turns into a muscular big man in a short time. Supercomputers can do it.

Of course, for Wang Chengguang, he can just pinch a human skin mask to make Huang Zhenhua look ten years younger when he wears it, which will not affect his facial acting skills and can easily solve the age problem. At worst, he can just give him some elixir and he can instantly look young again.

Even in a world without spirits, it is easier for the audience to accept facial reshaping by technology.

With Huang Zhenhua like this, Huang Yime can also return to the watery version, a little fairy of fifteen or sixteen years old. How to say it, a rose with this appearance is really fragrant when she is fifteen or sixteen years old.

President Han was amazed and couldn't help but give a thumbs up. "Although the Huang family is not lacking in anything, it is really a great opportunity to meet a mentor like Director Wang."

What can Han say? From the Infernal Affairs series to Hurricane, Train to Busan and The Wandering Earth, the main characters are basically all from the Huang family. The other main and supporting roles are replaced from time to time, and the Huang family can get in.

If it was true that Mr. Wang had a secret relationship with Little Rose, as fans all over the internet and even around the world were discussing, outsiders would still say that Director Wang was genuine. But it was already 2003 and The Wandering Earth had already become a hit.

As a 20% investor of China Film Group, Mr. Han knew that Wang Chengguang had no hidden rules with Huang Yimei! It would be outrageous! ! After he learned that everything was just a publicity rhythm for hype, Mr. Han began to doubt Wang Chengguang's hobby.

But that's even more wrong. It's true that he brought Nancy and Zhou Wenwen with him. At least when they were not on the crew or filming, the three of them would often book the top floor of the hotel, three of them on one floor, guarded by bodyguards.

We have been living in the same hotel for almost two years.

Even if the outside world didn't know more, at least it was confirmed that Wang, Nan, and Zhou were unclear, and didn't admit, deny, or explain. No one would believe that the three of them were in their twenties and didn't have any normal human desires.

Thinking of this, Mr. Han was too lazy to think about it anymore. He suddenly realized that although everyone was in the same circle, there were also many differences.

This is February 2003, not September last year. The Spark platform has been valued at 2 billion US dollars by venture capital. Is that outrageous? The original track penguin was listed in 9 with a market value of more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars. Now the Spark platform has nearly 04 million active users at home and abroad, and various functions such as sending emails, chatting, and private messaging are gradually expanding. The friend column function of the Spark blog, private chat and group chat have also been developed.

Not to mention the power of blogs as a propaganda mouthpiece.

After emerging from the Internet bubble crisis, it is normal to be valued at 10 billion US dollars. This cannot be simply described as a platform. It has become the largest Internet company in China in the early and mid-00s.

There are already three people here who are striving to create a wealth of 10 billion!

After expressing his feelings about the Huang family's good relationship with him, President Han changed the subject and said, "By the way, Director Wang, a secretary of a leader in Shanghai came to Beijing the day before yesterday just to visit you. He wanted to discuss the Shanghai International Film Festival and hoped to invite you, Director Nan, and Director Zhou to attend this year."

"Our Shanghai International Film Festival is said to be an international A-level film festival, but its influence is quite poor. If we want to make it more grand, we still need a large number of exciting films and blockbusters to join us."

"Since Director Wang said that Director Nan's new film will be able to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France in May, then if he can win the award and then try it at the Shanghai International Film Festival... his status will go up a lot."

Wang Chengguang has always been quite skilled at this kind of fraud.

But having risen to Mr. Han’s position and title in society, he must be very proficient in it.

Wang Chengguang nodded, "It's not a big deal. I'll meet him when we get back to the hotel."

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

…………

After a while, they finally arrived at the hotel where they were staying. Wang Chengguang almost sprained his waist as soon as he entered the first floor door, because the secretary of his current leader, Song Siming, who had been waiting here the day before, was here.

The one who lives in the small apartment.

Wang Chengguang held back his laughter as he went to meet Secretary Song under the guidance of President Han. They joked that living in a small apartment... It really is an example of working hard in the north and living in a small apartment in the south.

In fact, if we look at the whole story of "Snail House" from a sideline, the second female lead, Guo Haiping, is anxious to borrow money every day to make a down payment for buying a house in Shanghai. This is a bet on the right track. After all, a square meter of house in Shanghai only costs a few thousand yuan.

Even ahead of the struggle timeline!

It was 2002 when Guo Haizao just graduated from college and moved into her sister and brother-in-law's small rental house. At that time, Guo Haiping kept urging her to rent a house, but the housing price in Shanghai was less than 5000 yuan per square meter.

It's nothing more than that Guo Haiping gained her own happiness by sacrificing her sister's first love, while the Secretary Song in front of him should not have met Guo Haizao, who is still in her sweet first love with Xiaobei.

Secretary Song in front of him is even younger.

After some simple pleasantries, Secretary Song got straight to the point and sincerely invited Wang Chengguang and his family to go to Shanghai to compete for awards. He also hoped to use Nancy's influence to attract more South Korean films to compete for awards. After all, if there are only mainland films at the international film festival...

It's all unreasonable.

The more foreign films participate in the exhibition, even if they are not awarded awards but only nominated, it will be a good face-saving job for the Shanghai film and television circle and trophy world.

As long as Wang goes, the official will cover all his food, clothing, housing and transportation. In the future, directors from Wang Chengguang's studio who want to go to Shanghu to shoot movies or TV series will also receive the best treatment. Apart from all these, they also hope that Wang Chengguang will shoot a movie related to Greater Shanghu.

Whether it is the Shanghutan structure of the 1920s and 1930s or the new era Shanghu films, the government can invest in it, including the construction of film and television cities, film and television streets, etc.

The various favorable conditions are really top-notch.

This is necessary. It is 2003 now, and Infernal Affairs has been released in various theaters for more than a year and a half. With all these developments, who dares to refute that Wang Chengguang is already an internationally renowned director?

Even if he normally attends Hollywood cocktail parties, he would receive so many business cards from Hollywood foreign stars, movie actors and actresses that his hands would be numb.

After going through the formalities and inviting him warmly, Secretary Song took a sip of tea and asked curiously, "Director Wang, I heard that it is widely rumored in the film and television circles that you have a debut film that has not been released in theaters because it is too artistic and high-end, so ordinary audiences and fans cannot understand it."

"Even many famous directors and well-known film critics in the industry said that the movie was too advanced and that one had to watch it at least ten times to get the basics."

“I wonder if we can invite Director Wang to take that masterpiece to the Shanghai International Film Festival?”

Nancy suddenly couldn't help but burst out laughing, and then she said hastily, "Sorry, I just had a burst of inspiration and thought of saving some interesting script segments for the new script Parasite, and the segments I imagined made me laugh. I was distracted."

No matter how she felt about making movies before, now that she has become a big director aiming for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, she is truly a big shot in the industry.

Even if Nancy had the wisdom and ability to structure Wang Chengguang's debut work in the background, she wouldn't be able to do it... This is really too difficult.

Secretary Song was speechless. "Director Nan is indeed the savior and pioneer of the South Korean film industry. He is also a great leader of the revival. He is always thinking of better scripts. He is amazing."

He is very curious now. He thinks that among the secrets circulating in the film and television circles, there is a debut work that you can't understand the basics without watching it ten times. He is very curious and wants to take a look.

Look at the series of Infernal Affairs, Hurricane, Train to Busan, and The Wandering Earth. How much glory and value have they created? The Spark platform is now estimated by capital to be worth US$10 billion. Zhou Wenwen holds 80% of the shares and Nancy holds 20%.

Even in this situation, Nan and Zhou Ernu have always followed and accompanied Lao Wang, quietly acting as good wives or movie-making machines.

How amazing is this!
Secretary Song's status in the industry makes him not care about ordinary directors and wealthy people, but no matter whether they are world-class directors or billionaires, he cannot help but take them seriously.

President Han opened his mouth to say something, but there was a hint of confusion in his eyes.

Normal people, in their normal life rhythm, watching Wang Chengguang’s series of miraculous performances, suddenly talked about his masterpieces that he had also watched several times, and they would doubt themselves a little bit!!
His reason and life experience told him that it was a terrible movie that no one would watch, but Director Wang was shooting various new films, including Parasite which was planned to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in France, and he was full of confidence.

So, this is really a masterpiece that Old Han can't understand, right? ?
Wang Chengguang couldn't help but glare at Zhou Wenwen. This girl started pinching her thigh behind people's backs. You can imagine how hard it was for her to hold back her laughter. He took the initiative to say, "I won't talk much about my debut film, but I talked to President Han about my new film on the way here. Parasite, which was given to Nancy, has a good chance of winning the Cannes Palme d'Or for Best Film in May this year."

"I have a good chance of winning the Best Actor or Best Actress award, but I'm not sure about the trophy. I'll bring it back to Shanghai in June and have it be the opening film of the film festival."

Song Siming said happily, "Thank you Director Wang for your support. Thank you Director Wang for your support. You can rest assured. Although I am only a secretary of a leader, I am here to invite you on behalf of the entire city."

"By June, Director Wang will definitely feel our sincerity in coming to Shanghai."

He knew that the people in front of him were not short of money, both small and big, and that they were mainly based in Beijing and Hong Kong Island. It was not convenient to talk too much since this was their first meeting.

We will get along slowly in the future. There is always hope that we can ask the other party to open branches in Shanghai, settle down, etc. The Xinghuo platform is valued at 82 billion yuan, and it is a giant Internet company.

After a few more polite remarks, Wang Chengguang politely declined Secretary Song's invitation to dinner, and then he took Nan Xi and Zhou Er back to the top floor. As soon as they entered the elevator, the two girls laughed and rubbed their stomachs one after another. Nancy even exaggeratedly said, "Boss, if you had been in the film industry for another three to five years, maybe your debut film would have become a perfect textbook that countless filmmakers would want to worship."

“It will become the bible of the film industry!”

In a few years, after Parasite, Chang'e Flying to the Moon, The Rural Teacher and a series of other works have impacted the world and created an Internet and film conglomerate with a valuation of hundreds of billions, how many people will still complain that a debut work with twelve main storylines is a big lump?
Wang Chengguang wanted to complain, "I heard that the classmates or junior students who participated in my Virgo filming are also becoming famous?"

This is really a huge makeshift troupe performing.

He is now powerless about his debut work that bankrupted him in the background, but he can't really snap his fingers to change people's memory and timeline, right? That would be too childish.

(End of this chapter)