Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 532 Inspection
Golden Harvest Group has a series of plans for "Ghost Blows Out the Light", and its first adapted film is a crucial one.

Because this is related to whether the subsequent plans can be carried out.

If the first movie adaptation of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" fails, it will be useless no matter how well the book sells, and it will have to stop there.

Therefore, Liu Zhou and Golden Harvest attach more importance to "Mojin: The Last Dragon" than "Painted Skin 2". The latter is almost a one-time deal, while the former is related to the subsequent value of tens of billions.

Therefore, Liu Zhou was more than happy to see Xu Ke volunteer to be the director of this film.

In the original time and space, although Wuershan made a very good film "Mojin: The Lost Tomb", which grossed over 1 billion yuan at the box office and had a very good reputation, it was a good start for the film adaptation of the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series.

But later due to copyright disputes, I thought "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" was the peak at the beginning, but I didn't expect that all the movies were made into online movies later.

But Wuershan has not yet experienced the baptism of "Painted Skin 2", so Liu Zhou dare not give him "Mojin: The Last Dragon". Even though he already has experience in filming "Painted Skin 2", Liu Zhou is still not very reassured.

Compared to Wuershan, Xu Ke is more reassuring. After all, this is a big deal involving tens of billions of dollars.

Liu Zhou felt that even if the producers of "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" in the original time and space knew the value of the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series, they would definitely not dare to give the director of "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" to Wuershan.

They don't have the God's perspective that Liu Zhou has had in recent years, so when they made "The Mojin: The Last Dragon", they must have treated it as a movie adapted from a novel.

Although they took it very seriously and invited the top male stars from mainland China at the time, Chen Kun, Huang Bo and Shu Qi, they were definitely in a trial mentality.

Unlike Golden Harvest, which had already made a series of plans around "Ghost Blows Out the Light" before the film was even launched.

Therefore, for "Mojin: The Lost Tomb", both Liu Zhou and Jiahe cannot afford to make any mistakes. Although Wuershan is also very talented, Xu Ke is still more reassuring.

Not only that, in order to ensure that "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" is foolproof, in addition to director Xu Ke, Golden Harvest Films President Chen Guofu will also serve as the producer of this film.

Since being promoted to the president of Golden Harvest Films, Chen Guofu no longer personally serves as the producer of a film. He has focused more on the management of the company. At most, he is listed as the chief producer on some key projects, but he does not take care of the specific matters.

This time, Chen Guofu once again went to the front line and participated in the preparation and filming of a movie. It is conceivable how much he values ​​"Mojin: The Lost Tomb". After all, as one of the top management of the group, he is very clear about the value of this movie.

The combination of Chen Guofu and Xu Ke, plus the starring cast of Liu Ye, Liu Yifei and Huang Bo, makes the cast completely complete.

Even Liu Zhou had considered directing "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" himself, but considering that he had other plans, and that he might not be able to do a better job than Xu Ke in directing this kind of film with a touch of classical fantasy.

That's why he didn't force himself to do it. Even though many of his fans wanted him to direct, he still didn't give the position of director to Xu Ke.

Although he did not serve as the director, he wrote the script himself.

For movies or TV series adapted from novels, the most taboo thing is to change the plot, characters, and water down the plot.

The problem of watered-down plots appears more often in adapted TV series, but rarely in movies. After all, a movie is only two hours long at most, and there is no time to water down the plot.

The concern with movie adaptations is that too much content might be crammed into just two hours, which would make the entire film a mess.

However, magical changes in plots and characters often occur. When the wave of online literature being adapted into movies and TV series emerged in later generations, this situation was very common.

Tudou himself was speechless when he saw the plot of the fight turning into a horse.

But there was no way, he couldn't participate in the TV adaptation at all, so he could only watch the live-action TV series of "Fights Break Sphere" being ridiculed by the public.

Liu Zhou was also worried that the same situation would occur if other people adapted the script of "Ghost Blows Out the Light". Although he would review it in the end, it would be better for him to write the script himself to save trouble.

Now that "Mojin: The Lost Tomb" has been officially approved, Chen Guofu has started the preparatory work, and Xu Ke will also take care of this side while filming "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate".

"Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" will be completed in more than a month. The more important part of this movie is the post-production. When the time comes, Xu Ke will immediately join the project of "Mojin: The Lost Tomb".

According to the general plan, "Mojin: The Lost Legend" will start filming in July and the shooting time will be about three months.

After the filming of "Mojin: The Last Wagon" was completed, it was already October, and "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" also entered a period of large-scale publicity. The movie will be released during the Lunar New Year holiday this year.

If nothing unexpected happens, "Mojin: The Last Dragon" will be released during next year's summer vacation, while "Painted Skin 2" should be scheduled for next year's National Day vacation.

In addition to these two highly anticipated films, another announced Hong Kong film "Cold War" also attracted a certain amount of attention.

Although Hong Kong films are in decline nowadays, one or two relatively high-quality films still emerge occasionally.

This is especially true for Hong Kong films produced by Golden Harvest. Not to mention "New World" directed by Liu Zhou, the subsequent "The Disciples", "Overheard" and "Ip Man" are all box office hits with good reputation.

These films all have one thing in common, that is, Golden Harvest attaches great importance to them and provides them with resources far exceeding those of ordinary Hong Kong films.

As it turned out, these movies did not disappoint.

Now "Cold War" is undoubtedly a Hong Kong movie that Golden Harvest pays more attention to. They have even started to promote it before filming began, and put it together with two other popular films "Painted Skin 2" and "Mojin: The Last Dragon".

Out of trust in Golden Harvest, many people are looking forward to "Cold War", especially some Hong Kong film fans. After all, for them, there are too few high-quality Hong Kong films now.

When there were no movies to watch, they kept rewatching old Hong Kong movies. But after so long, they have already watched "A Better Tomorrow" seven or eight times.

Compared to "Painted Skin 2" and "Mojin: The Lost Legend", which have already confirmed their casts, "Cold War" has only been approved as a project.

However, the preparation and shooting of Hong Kong films are generally very fast, and this movie does not have any special effects, so it was completed much faster than the previous two.

Liu Zhou would not allow "Cold War" to be converted into 3D for the sake of publicity like the original version, and promote it as a 3D movie.

To be honest, I don't know if the producers at the time really thought that the audience were easy to fool like fools. Police and gangster movies like "Cold War" have almost no 3D effects. Anyone who has some knowledge of 3D will not watch the 3D version of "Cold War".

So there is no need for "Cold War" to do anything fancy, just make a good movie. The quality of this movie is really good, and it is a rare high-quality movie after the new century.

The actors should still be invited to play the role of Tony Leung Ka Fai and Aaron Kwok. Their performances are quite good, especially the scene where they are arguing, which is one of the few classic scenes after "Infernal Affairs".

However, Liu Zhou didn't care much about this movie. Although it was a project that Golden Harvest attached great importance to, it was not to the extent that he cared about it. While the outside world was discussing Golden Harvest's related projects, several senior executives of Golden Harvest had been busy since that meeting, and even Liu Zhou was no exception.

For more than half a month after the meeting, he stayed in the Sina Building, handling matters related to Sina Group and Golden Harvest Group, and personally gaining an in-depth understanding of the specific situations of the two companies.

It's not like everything will be fine after holding a meeting and learning some information from the general managers of each branch.

That only shows the results. It takes time to understand the company's specific operating conditions and detailed development plans.

In addition to Golden Harvest Group, Sina Group also held a similar high-level meeting.

In the past two years, Liu Zhou not only has little time to pay attention to Golden Harvest Group, but the same is true for Sina Group.

However, one slightly better thing about Sina Group is that it has been listed for many years and the company as a whole is relatively stable.

Moreover, after Liu Zhou took charge of Sina Group, the company's main business had already been determined, and it only needed to operate according to the plan.

As for the tentacles of the mobile Internet era, Liu Zhou had made arrangements at the annual meeting two years ago, which was to follow the path of later generations of Tik Tok.

The Toutiao app has been developed and is currently undergoing final testing. It is expected to be officially launched in the second half of this year.

In addition, mobile applications such as Sina Weibo, Sina Video and Kugou Music have already been developed and have been installed in large numbers.

Therefore, there is nothing major happening in Sina Group at the moment, and each department is deepening its respective business according to the plan.

Moreover, Sina Group has Liu Zhou's confidant Zhong Lifang, who, as senior vice president, is in charge of Sina Group's administration, finance, personnel and legal affairs.

Although she is not involved in specific business, she is also the undisputed third person in Sina Group, second only to Chairman Liu Zhou and President Cao Guowei.

At the end of last year, Wang Yan officially stepped down as president of Sina and was succeeded by Cao Guowei.

Originally, Wang Yan would have been kicked out by Duan Yongji in 2005, but Liu Zhou intervened and took over Sina.

In return for Wang Yan's support and to appease people, Liu Zhou retained Wang Yan and let him serve as Sina's president until the end of last year.

Wang Yan is quite capable. Under his management, Sina Group has completed the plan arranged by Liu Zhou very well.

Having been the president of Sina for five years, he seemed to be a little tired of it. At the same time, Liu Zhou also felt that his sense of mobile Internet was not that sensitive.

So it seemed that both parties were willing, and Wang Yan also submitted his resignation to Liu Zhou.

Liu Zhou didn't try any tricks to retain him. They both understood each other tacitly, so he approved it directly.

In fact, for Wang Yan, working at Sina Group is just an attempt at his own life.

He came from a prominent family and lived in the same compound with Qian Lao when he was a child, so he had many choices.

Having been at Sina for such a long time, he had never been kicked out of the company in the middle of his tenure, and he felt that his performance during his tenure as Sina's president was pretty good.

So he felt that staying at Sina was a bit boring and not very challenging.

To be honest, Liu Zhou was relieved about Wang Yan's intention to leave.

His abilities are indeed good, but Liu Zhou feels that he is good at maintaining the status quo but lacks the ability to explore new areas.

As we enter the mobile Internet era, competition will be extremely fierce. If Sina follows the path of Tik Tok, it will compete with Penguin Group in all aspects.

Penguin is one of the three giants of domestic Internet companies, a real behemoth. Although Sina Group is also strong, there is still a certain gap compared with Penguin Group.

Liu Zhouzhen was worried that Wang Yan might not be able to lead Sina Group to compete with Penguin Group.

So instead of waiting until then when he would have to be replaced, he took the initiative to resign now to preserve some dignity and friendship for both of them.

Relatively speaking, his successor Cao Guowei was much more resilient in character. He truly climbed up step by step from the bottom with his own abilities.

In the original time and space, after gaining Duan Yongji's trust and becoming the president of Sina, he not only developed the blog and microblog businesses, but also prevented Sina from falling behind.

Later, he defeated Duan Yongji and took control of Sina Group. He also acquired more than 10% of Sina Group's shares through MBO and became the major shareholder of Sina Group.

This also means that Sina has completely ended its fragmented situation and officially entered the Cao Guowei era, and the nickname "Sina Cao" began to spread.

However, since Cao Guowei is not the founder of Sina after all, and he took over Sina relatively late, his reputation as Sina Cao is far less than that of Penguin Ma, Jack Ma, Wang Yiding and Sohu Zhang.

They are all symbols of their respective companies, but in everyone's mind, Cao Guowei does not have such a status for Sina.

But everything Cao Guowei did demonstrated his outstanding abilities.

Moreover, after working together for five or six years, Liu Zhou had a better understanding of his abilities, so after Wang Yan resigned, he officially promoted him to the position.

Starting this year, Sina Group has officially entered the era of Cao Guowei at the helm.

After working like a white-collar worker in Beijing for more than half a month, Liu Zhou set off for Hangzhou on the first day of March to inspect the construction of the Golden Harvest Film and Television Base.

He hasn't visited it since the launching ceremony. After all, this project is the largest investment of Jiahe Group so far, and it would be unreasonable not to go and see it.

At this time, the discussion about Golden Harvest's related projects has subsided. After all, there is news in the entertainment industry every day, and a hot topic is unlikely to last for long unless it is extremely popular, and it will only last a week at most.

In the era of traffic and short videos, there are hot topics every day, and even news that breaks the circle is difficult to maintain for long.

It was under such circumstances that Liu Zhou came to Hangzhou in a low-key manner.

(End of this chapter)