Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 555: Summer Season Begins
After staying overnight at the wrap party, Liu Zhou stayed in North America for nearly another week to arrange the beginning and end of "Joker" before taking a flight back to China.

Although this movie was invested by Warner, Summit Entertainment's investment share is even greater, so the final editing rights of the movie are still in Liu Zhou's hands.

Although Warner was somewhat worried, Liu Zhou was the investor after all, and not just an ordinary director, so they finally agreed to give the final editing rights of the film to Liu Zhou.

However, because "Aftershock" was about to be released, Liu Zhou had to return to China first.

He first gave them a rough cut of "Joker", and after "Aftershock" was released, he returned to Hollywood to complete the post-production of "Joker".

For a feature film like this, the editing level in Hollywood is actually quite good. After all, there are only a handful of directors in Hollywood who have the final editing rights, and many classic movies were edited by professional editors.

But the movie "Joker" was released seven or eight years earlier and was very important to Liu Zhou, so in order to avoid any accidents or butterfly effects, he thought it would be better to keep the editing rights in his own hands.

Having made movies for more than ten years and participated in the editing of many movies, Liu Zhou is no stranger to this and has his own experience.

Although it is impossible to perfectly reproduce the original "Joker", at least the core of the movie can be retained, while also adding a unique mark of Liu Zhou.

In fact, after "The Blade of Embroidery", although the movies shot by Liu Zhou are all set in the original time and space, they are slightly different from the original versions.

His four years of study in college and the experience he accumulated after graduation were not in vain. He will definitely create something of his own instead of blindly copying others.

If it weren't for the sense of immersion, Liu Zhou might have prepared to create a few original films.

But the audience and readers are the most important, so even if little Liu Zhou has great power, he has to hold it back.

However, Liu Zhou still showed his own way in "Aftershock". Although the name is the same, the plot of the movie is completely different from Feng Kuzi's version.

I just don’t know if this little bit of willfulness can satisfy people, and the answer will be revealed in this year’s summer movie season.

After returning to Beijing, Liu Zhouxian rested for two days. Although he was not too tired physically during the filming of "Joker", as a director and producer he had a lot of things to worry about, and he was still mentally exhausted.

Only after returning home, spending time with his family and eating delicious meals did Liu Zhou finally relax completely.

However, when Liu Zhou was at home, he was not oblivious to what was happening outside. He opened his computer and browsed the latest developments in the domestic film industry.

Several movies released during the May Day period have now been taken off the screen. "Guan Yunchang" starring Zhen Zidan and Jiang Wen barely earned 200 million yuan at the box office, which is considered the box office champion of this small period.

Another movie, "A Chinese Ghost Story" starring Koo Tim-lok and Da Tiantian, only earned 1.4 million yuan at the box office. I wonder if this movie can save Da Tiantian's reputation as a box office poison in the future.

Although the reputation of these two movies is not very good, at least they still made money.

Although "A Chinese Ghost Story" took advantage of the fame of its predecessor, this movie was not bought with Da Tiantian's money, but was won with her image, temperament and connections.

So this movie can be considered as an example of her success, unlike the previous films which all failed.

Looking at the box office of these two movies, Liu Zhou can also intuitively feel that after the stimulation of last year's Lunar New Year blockbusters, the domestic film market has become increasingly prosperous, and movie box office exceeding 100 million is no longer a new thing.

After all, movies like "Guan Yunchang" and "A Chinese Ghost Story", which are considered bad movies, can still get good box office because they have a strong enough star lineup.

However, the market has begun to prosper, and the performance of "Blades of Sin", which was released at the same time as the above two films, was mediocre.

Despite Golden Harvest's strong promotional capabilities, the film ultimately only grossed 38 million at the box office, failing to even reach the predicted 40 million.

In fact, this result is quite good for Wuershan’s debut work, and it also made money for the investors. If it happened to someone else, they would definitely start to brag about it.

You should know that in the original time and space, Ning Hao's "Crazy Stone" only earned more than 20 million at the box office, which made him an instant hit.

Although there was a five-year gap between the two films and the market prosperity is not comparable, Wuershan's box office of more than 30 million is not bad at all.

Historically, "Blades of Legends" only had a box office of more than 20 million, which is more than 10 million less than it is now. Despite this, it still made him favored by big companies.

After "Blades of Sin", the second movie he filmed was "Painted Skin 2", and the one after that was "Mojin: The Lost Legend".

However, "Mojin: The Lost Legend" was the movie that truly made the outside world widely recognize his abilities, which is why he was able to raise huge amounts of money to shoot the Fengshen trilogy.

Before the first two parts were released, his trilogy was highly anticipated both in the outside world and in the online literature world.

However, with the release of the movie, the word of mouth is not very good, especially when compared with "Nezha 2", the sincerity of the "Fengshen" series seems to be lacking.

In fact, the audience also had great expectations for the "Fengshen" trilogy, otherwise the box office of the first two films would not have exceeded 1 billion despite the fact that the movie reputation was not very good.

But everyone’s patience is limited. If the quality of the third film is not very good, it will be difficult to break the 1 billion box office again.

In any case, the fact that Wuershan was able to come up with such a large project shows that he is still highly regarded.

However, in this life, before "Blades of Sin" was released, he was recruited by Golden Harvest to be the director of "Painted Skin 2", which made him jump from an unknown advertising director to a rising star in the industry.

While gaining huge attention, he also suffered more doubts.

So even if the movie "Blood Dagger" is considered successful, it is obviously not successful enough when it comes to Wuershan, and it is a failure in the eyes of most viewers.

Especially fans of Golden Harvest and "Painted Skin" have even greater doubts about him.

Before the release of Painted Skin 2, they had been able to hold back and not say much because of their trust in Golden Harvest's vision in selecting talent. But now that Blade of the Dragon has come out, they naturally think that Wuershan is not qualified to be the director of Painted Skin 2.

So he has been questioned and even attacked during this period of time.

In addition to these movies in May, also worth mentioning are the Hollywood movies that will be released at the end of the month.

Hollywood blockbusters are generally released in May, July and August. Because a new agreement was signed with Hollywood last year, Hollywood blockbusters can now be released simultaneously in China and the United States.

Even if they cannot be synchronized, the release times in the two places will not be too far apart.

Hollywood's summer season begins in mid-to-late May, and the first few movies are generally the major blockbusters of major studios.

Therefore, in China, the Hollywood blockbusters released at the end of May are also relatively heavyweight movies. The first one is "Kung Fu Panda 6.5", which beat all the movies released in the same period and won million box office.

Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" withstood the pressure from "Kung Fu Panda 2" and earned 5.9 million yuan at the box office.

"Fast & Furious 5" earned 2.8 million yuan at the domestic box office, a new record for the series, and also completely spread the reputation of the series in China.

Then Marvel's new superhero movie "Thor" was relatively inferior, with the box office barely breaking 100 million.

From the end of May to the whole of June now, for more than a month, the domestic film market has been dominated by Hollywood blockbusters, with one blockbuster after another bombarding the market.

Together, they grossed 1.6 billion RMB at the box office, completely dominating the schedule for more than a month, making it difficult for domestic films to catch their breath.

Although June has not yet passed, there is less than a week left and there are no movies worth looking forward to.

There were even some domestic films that were so frightened by how brutally they performed against Hollywood movies this year that they had to withdraw their films from the schedule.

Because those who are stubborn almost all become cannon fodder.

For example, the kung fu comedy "Choy Li Fot", which brought together most of Stephen Chow's production team and starred popular star Wang Baoqiang, was released in June, and the box office barely broke one million.

This is not just the movie's box office for one day, but the movie's total box office.

In addition, another film released at the same time was "New Choi Li Fot Boxing", starring Sammo Hung and his son Sammo Hung, which was also a huge flop.

Before the movie was released, the two movies were inevitably compared because they were of the same type, or even the same subject matter.

So the promotion of the two movies was very enthusiastic at that time, and everyone thought they would achieve good results, but unexpectedly, both movies were terrible.

Throughout the entire month of June, not a single domestic film grossed over 10 million yuan.

After the Spring Festival, Hollywood movies can be said to have been suppressing domestic films. The only two movies that could save the reputation of domestic films were "Guan Yunchang" and "A Chinese Ghost Story", two movies that were criticized by many netizens.

So now the country is in urgent need of a movie that can restore its reputation. After counting, the two movies that were chosen are "Wuxia" directed by Chen Kexin, which was released in early July, and "Aftershock" directed by Liu Zhou, which was released at the end of July.

Both are great directors, both films are star-studded and have huge investments.

Relatively speaking, the audience is more looking forward to the latter. After all, "Aftershock" is much more influential than "Wuxia" in terms of both subject matter and director.

Moreover, "Aftershock" has been highly anticipated since the beginning of the project. It is also Liu Zhou's first movie after "Interstellar".

There is another Hollywood movie released in mid-July, which is the well-known box office bomb "Transformers 3".

If nothing goes wrong, "Transformers 3" will sweep the summer movie seasons in both China and the United States.

But now with "Aftershock", domestic audiences and media have expectations, and this movie can also compete with "Transformers 3".

Whether it can retain the title of domestic summer box office champion this year, we can only pin our hopes on "Aftershock". As for "Wuxia", although it is also a blockbuster, everyone feels that it is still not good enough.

Therefore, July is the month when the competition for this summer movie season is the most intense.

Although Hollywood movies have been rampant in June, a Sino-US co-production movie "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" held a grand premiere ceremony in China at the end of June.

In fact, this movie has already been released in North America and other overseas countries, and it is said to have received good reviews.

However, Liu Zhouke, who had just returned from North America, knew very well that although "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was distributed by Fox in North America, it did not make any splash at all.

In order to avoid making the film look too bad, the film's director Wendy Deng secretly paid for the film out of her own pocket and made the North American box office reach $134 million.

Don’t think that all kinds of fraud only exist in China. Hollywood has a complete film industry system, and it’s the same.

However, the failure in North America did not affect the operation of this movie in China at all. This time it began to be released in domestic theaters. Although it is an art film, it still made a lot of noise because of the gimmick of co-production.

When Wendy Deng learned that Liu Zhou had also returned from Hollywood, she sent him an invitation to the premiere ceremony.

Although "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was a collaboration between Wendy Deng and Huayi, the film's producers also included Shanghai Film Group and investment industry giants such as Softbank and IDG Capital.

What's more, Liu Zhou still had to rely on 20th Century Fox in Hollywood, and he had rested well. The premiere was held in Beijing, so he agreed to attend after a little consideration.

On June 6th at o'clock in the evening, Liu Zhou came to Huaxing Cinemas, where the premiere ceremony of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was held.

When Liu Zhou appeared on the red carpet, the audience's cheers became noticeably louder and the photographers pressed the shutter much faster.

Liu Zhou has always been a focus figure in China, especially in the entertainment industry, where his popularity is unmatched.

Moreover, he is not like those stars who will be forgotten by everyone if they don't appear in public for a long time. So no matter how big their name is, they will always make some noise for no reason, just because they are afraid of being forgotten by the audience.

But Liu Zhou doesn't need to worry about this. She hasn't appeared for a long time and not only has everyone not forgotten her, they also bring her up from time to time.

This time, because of the preparation and filming of "Joker", he has not appeared in public for two or three months, and everyone only knows that he went to Hollywood to make a movie.

During the time he was away from the country, he was frequently mentioned in some entertainment news.

Now that he suddenly showed up, both the media and the audience couldn't help but feel a little surprised. Before this, they didn't know that Liu Zhou would attend the premiere.

Liu Zhou also greeted the fans and audience enthusiastically, waved with a smile as he walked across the red carpet, and then walked into the screening room after dealing with the reporters.

When Liu Zhou Yi came in, he saw Deng Wendy greeting him with a smile.

She shouldn't be so enthusiastic, not only because of Liu Zhou's status and position, but also because of his high popularity. She could hear the cheers of the audience outside just now.

(End of this chapter)