director of the millennium

"Daniel, your fame and influence are no less than Quentin's."

"Since his movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood earned $3 million worldwide, there's no reason you can't do it!"

"We all believe in your talent, and we believe even more in Bruce Lee's charm!"

Jovan Garfield, a producer from Disney, praised Wu Yuan with great enthusiasm.

It can't be said to be exaggerating. In his opinion, Wu Yuan's new Hollywood film is indeed full of potential and the timing of its release is also very appropriate.

This movie may not mean much to other major Hollywood film companies, but it is very important to Disney.

Wu Yuan also discovered something wrong from his words and emotions.

Disney is, after all, the top film company in Hollywood and the only major Hollywood company that has not been traded so far. Its Marvel studio is the world's number one in terms of earning power. It makes no sense for them to be so excited about a movie like his that only aims to make $3 million at the box office.

"Jovan, is Disney in trouble?" When dealing with this group of Europeans and Americans, you have to be straightforward.

Facing Wu Yuan's straightforward question, Jovan Garfield scratched his head, thought about it and felt that there was nothing he couldn't say, so he explained: "It's a bit troublesome."

"The live-action film plan at headquarters has not been going well in the past two years."

"You know, after the success of Beauty and the Beast, the company's live-action film strategy shifted to princess films."

"But the failure of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms last year was a slap in the face to the company."

"At the same time, the production of Mulan has not been going smoothly. The crew has been shut down, which has cast a shadow on the headquarters' live-action film strategy."

Disney is currently one of the largest film companies in Hollywood. It has successively acquired independent film giant Miramax, 3D animation overlord Pixar, animation giants Marvel and Lucasfilm.

However, after the acquisition, these companies were operated independently and were not fully integrated into Disney.

Unlike Marvel and Lucas, which are becoming increasingly popular, Disney has indeed suffered some setbacks in its film investments in the past two years.

Disney's live-action fairy tale film "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms", which cost $1.2 million to invest, suffered a box office failure after its release in November last year. It flopped across North America and ultimately only earned a total box office of $11 million.

In fact, Disney is an expert in adapting live-action fairy tale movies and has produced many super hits.

"Maleficent", "The Jungle Book", "Alice in Wonderland" and "Beauty and the Beast" are all Disney live-action fairy tale films that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

But since 2018, Disney has started to have trouble with its live-action fairy tale movies.

Wu Yuan was aware of the failure of "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms", but he was really unaware of the setback of "Mulan".

"What happened to Mulan?" he asked in confusion, "Isn't Mulan already being filmed? I remember seeing it on the news at the end of last year."

"Oh, this is really a terrible thing." Jovan Garfield sighed and said, "Speaking of which, this matter is also related to you."

"I?"

"Yes."

"Ms. Niki Caro, the director of Mulan, originally wanted your wife, Crystal Liu, to play Mulan."

"She believes that among all Asian actresses in the world, only Crystal Liu can play Mulan, Disney's most special princess." "But Crystal Liu did not reach a cooperation agreement with the crew in the end. I heard that this was related to your instruction."

"Of course, there's no point in saying all this now. I know Crystal is pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful princess for you."

"In short, after losing Crystal Liu, Disney finally chose a Hollywood actress of Chinese-American descent, Chloe Bennet, to play Mulan. This is the most suitable actress Disney could have chosen."

"Niki Caro accepted the result at first, and Chloe also joined the group and started training."

“But things started to go wrong from there.”

"Although Chloe has starred in many SHIELD TV series, her fighting scenes are really average. During training, she always asked for slacking off with various reasons and excuses. The originally scheduled three-month training was dragged on for half a year before it was barely completed."

"After finally completing the training and the crew officially started filming, Niki Caro was very dissatisfied with her performance. She thought her attitude was perfunctory, her fighting scenes were weak, and she didn't have the flavor of Chinese Kung Fu."

"In short, the two of them had a lot of conflicts on the set, and it's now an open secret that the leading actress and the director don't get along."

"Last month, the crew even stopped working. Niki Caro asked to reshoot the film with a different female lead, or to replace her. The company is also very distressed and is trying to mediate the conflict between the two."

After listening to Jovan Garfield's complaint, Wu Yuan not only failed to resolve his doubts, but became even more confused. "This shouldn't be the case. How dare Ms. Chloe go against the director?"

"She's not some top-tier Hollywood actress, let alone a movie queen."

"Oh, that's a complicated matter." Jovan Garfield shrugged: "I can only tell you that there is a reason why she got the role of Mulan."

At this point, Wu Yuan realized that it seemed that someone was supporting her behind the scenes.

This is indeed troublesome.

After all, Niki Caro herself is not a very influential director. She can only be regarded as a mediocre second-rate director in Hollywood.

No wonder she could only say things like "Either I go or she goes" to force Disney to make a choice.

It is already a very frustrating thing for the director to be forced to this extent.

"So what will Disney decide in the end?" Wu Yuan gossiped with interest.

"I don't know about that." Jovan Garfield sighed: "With things getting to this point, only one of the director and the leading actress will stay."

"But this matter may take several months to come to a conclusion. Mulan may have to be re-shot, and the company will waste a lot of money."

Pursing his lips, Wu Yuan really didn't expect that the movie "Mulan" would be so difficult to produce in this time and space.

It’s hard to say whether the ending of the streaming media release in the previous time and space was more tragic, or the result of the current time and space that couldn’t be filmed with so many twists and turns was more tragic.

However, he still prepared for the worst and said, "Jowan, let's make it clear in advance that even if the Mulan team plans to kick out the heroine, don't even think about coming back to look for my wife."

"Unless the script and crew arrangements are in accordance with our requirements, this cooperation is impossible."

"You know, as Chinese actors, we have very strict requirements when we take on movies about our country. Just like Cheng Long never plays a villain, Crystal also doesn't act in movies that change the historical background and don't respect Chinese culture." (End of this chapter)