director of the millennium

The movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is based on real events.

The setting is Los Angeles in 1969, when Hollywood was at the height of hippie culture.

The film performed very well at the global box office, earning more than 3 million US dollars, and that does not include the domestic box office, as the film failed to pass review in the country.

But it is worth mentioning that some of the plots in this movie about Bruce Lee were widely disapproved by Chinese and some European and American fans after its release.

Well, one of the main reasons why this movie was withdrawn from the mainland was because it "insulted Bruce Lee."

The main controversy in this section is that many people believe that Bruce Lee in the film is portrayed as an arrogant and unskilled martial artist, which is inconsistent with the image of Bruce Lee in real life.

But is this really the case?

Hard to say.

In many of director Quentin Tarantino's films, we can see his love for Eastern culture, especially Kung Fu. Even his violent aesthetics is deeply influenced by John Woo.

Not only that, Quentin also declared himself to be Bruce Lee's number one fan.

In "Kill Bill", you can see elements of his tribute to Bruce Lee.

So it's not surprising that Quentin would include Bruce Lee in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", a film that tells the story of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.

But did he deliberately discredit Bruce Lee in the movie?
It doesn't seem right either.

Because most of the people who criticized and scolded Quentin for tarnishing Bruce Lee's image did not understand Bruce Lee themselves, and did not know that Bruce Lee was indeed a somewhat arrogant person.

His arrogance is understandable, because in that era, if a Chinese lived in North America and relied on "Kung Fu" to make a living, he would be bullied to death if he was not arrogant.

This is a person who studies martial arts. How can a person who studies martial arts be as gentle and refined as a scholar?

Moreover, Quentin often spoofs and exaggerates the shortcomings of the characters to create interest in the film, so the Bruce Lee in the film was ultimately created under this premise.

Maybe it's an exaggeration, but to call it an insult is to make a mountain out of a molehill.

However, it can be seen from this aspect that Bruce Lee still has a lot of fans. Even though he has been dead for decades, there are still many "spiritual worshippers". These people undoubtedly represent the commercial value of Bruce Lee.

Previously, Wu Yuan's attitude towards the biographical film "Bruce Lee" was mainly to win awards, and he had no idea about the box office.

Otherwise, he would not have chosen to start filming at such a sensitive time in 2019.

But as the filming of the movie went smoothly, coupled with Chen Guokun's outstanding performance, Wu Yuan's thoughts gradually began to change.

He suddenly felt that "Bruce Lee" was actually quite commercial.

Because the film mainly tells the story of Hollywood in the 70s, first of all, it has a nostalgic style, and after the hit of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", it can have some influence.

Secondly, Wu Yuan added a lot of fighting scenes in the movie.

There are scenes of Bruce Lee fighting against the Japanese and Americans who came to challenge him during his time in Seattle, as well as scenes of him working as a martial arts instructor in Hollywood and directing fight scenes for various crews. There is also a film-within-a-film that shows the wonderful fight scenes from his many kung fu films.

It can be said that this biopic is itself a martial arts film.

There is no other way. You can't talk about Bruce Lee without talking about his Kung Fu. Talking about his Kung Fu will inevitably involve various fighting scenes, as well as the classic nunchaku. With the help of veteran martial artists invited from Hong Kong Island, and the fact that Chen Guokun was originally influenced by Hong Kong Kung Fu films in the 1980s and 1990s, the fighting scenes in Bruce Lee's movies are full of the flavor of early Hong Kong Kung Fu films.

That’s the second level of nostalgic appeal.

Taking into account the appeal of "Bruce Lee" itself, Wu Yuan suddenly realized that the commercial value of "Bruce Lee" seemed to be no less than its artistic value. A box office result of $2 million in North America and $3- million worldwide was foreseeable!

He suddenly understood why Disney, after decisively asking to take on all the production costs, actually took the initiative to ask whether the company wanted to make additional investments and prepared a large amount of publicity and promotion funds after learning that the biopic was about Bruce Lee.

It turns out that when Disney confirmed the project, it was certain that this movie would be a big hit!

It can both sell and win awards. It's no wonder that Disney is so proactive when it comes to this good thing.

However, after thinking it over, Wu Yuan, who was halfway through filming, didn't feel that he had suffered much of a loss.

He can get 10% of the box office share for free!
The higher the box office of "Bruce Lee", the more he will earn.

What did you say?

You may make a small profit, but I will never lose!
However, since we are considering that the movie will get good box office, the release date must be carefully considered.

Wu Yuan remembers very clearly that in the first half of 2020, the international environment was actually relatively relaxed, and the epidemic did not affect the international film market.

However, after June 2020, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. The world was plagued by the epidemic and large-scale infections occurred. All walks of life had to face the irresistible cold winter.

It was under such circumstances that "Mulan" had to cancel its offline release and choose to be released on Disney+ in September, which was a devastating blow.

So if you want to get box office revenue, "Bruce Lee" has to be released before the first half of 2020.

Fortunately, this does not conflict with Disney's original plan.

When the crew of "Bruce Lee" had been filming in Los Angeles for more than a month in October, Disney, after confirming that the progress was smooth, asked the producer to have a talk with Wu Yuan and roughly determined the film's award-winning route.

Target – Oscars in February 2020!
Before December, Wu Yuan must complete the filming and post-editing of the movie. Disney will carry out large-scale promotion from the end of December to the beginning of January, and will start small-scale screenings in art theaters in North America at the end of December.

The first batch of cinemas to screen the film will only be around 100, and then they will start to build momentum for the Oscar for Best Picture and lobby the judges.

This is also the route taken by most films competing for Oscars.

It will be screened on a small scale first to meet the Oscar nomination requirements, and then public relations will be started and money will be spent to win the award.

If the movie really wins an award in February, it will be immediately released on a large scale, and with the fame of the award, it will attract Oscar-watching fans to go to the cinema to watch the movie.

This is a way of leveraging the fame of the Oscars to build momentum and promote the film. It is also one of the few ways of releasing art films in recent years that can achieve the best results.

At least it works in North America, where the Oscar for Best Picture is worth at least $20 million in box office revenue.

Of course, Disney has ambitions for "Bruce Lee" and is definitely not satisfied with 20 million.

Privately, the producer and Wu Yuan revealed that Disney expected the global box office of Bruce Lee to be $3 million, comparable to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood! (End of this chapter)