Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 560 High Standard and Beginning

The total investment of "Aftershock" was 300 million yuan, of which Golden Harvest Group accounted for 70% of the investment share, and the remaining 30% belonged to Tangshan.

Although this project was initiated by Tangshan and specifically found Golden Harvest, or Liu Zhou, in order to prevent the film from becoming a cookie-cutter main theme movie, Liu Zhou took the leading role.

Tangshan wanted to make this film not only to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the earthquake, but also for the purpose of city publicity, to publicize how Tangshan rebuilt a modern metropolis from ruins in 25 years.

In the original time and space, Feng Kuzi's "Aftershock" spends a lot of time describing the plot that happened more than 20 years later. This is not a bad thing, but it is a bit too superficial.

Liu Zhou feels that such subjects can be filmed more deeply, and it is better to focus on people rather than the city.

The earthquake itself is painful and despairing enough, and then constantly describing how terrible it was will cause people to have relatively large emotional fluctuations, but these fluctuations will soon calm everyone down.

It's also hard to remember such a movie.

If the focus is on depicting people, when facing a major disaster, they still have hope instead of being immersed in grief.

When you watch this movie, it is obviously a very tragic movie, but when we finish watching it, we will be moved and feel that the people of this nation are amazing and that this nation has hope.

The reason why "Schindler's List" is a classic is that it does not simply depict the tragic experience of the Jews. The Jews in the movie are quite smart, and both adults and children are always able to adapt to changes!

Therefore, audiences around the world will be touched by the Jews after watching "Schindler's List".

We were also victims of World War II and experienced the Holocaust, but there has never been a movie like "Schindler's List" in our film and television works.

Our film and television works always blindly depict how miserable things are, but lack this kind of spiritual portrayal.

In fact, there are very few film and television works in China that tell the story of the massacre, let alone Lu Chuan's "Nanjing Jinling". For Chinese people who are familiar with that period of history, their blood pressure will soar after watching it.

Another well-known one is Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War". Overall, this movie is actually quite good, at least it depicts that period of history.

Originally, with Zhang Yimou's influence, "The Flowers of War" should not have been such a big flop in its overseas screenings, but it encountered suppression from Sony Columbia.

So it is really paradoxical sometimes. Others have always been very wary of that period of history, but we ourselves seem to not care. Later, when we become culturally confident, we become to the other extreme and often troll in the name of patriotism.

This time, "The Flowers of War" is invested and operated by Golden Harvest. When it is released overseas, it will definitely be a competition between Sony and Columbia.

But this time, Golden Harvest was not like New Picture, which had no ability to fight back.

There is still half a year before this movie is released, and Liu Zhou feels that some preparations need to be made in advance.

Perhaps "The Flowers of War" may not get much box office overseas, but to a certain extent, the overseas box office of this movie is not the top priority for Golden Harvest.

To get back to the point, Liu Zhou's idea was eventually recognized by Tangshan, and they no longer required that the city's construction achievements more than 20 years later must be reflected.

However, they attach great importance to this movie, so although they handed over the leading power to Golden Harvest, they also needed to ensure that the final film would obtain their approval.

This is also the more troublesome part of cooperating with official departments, as there are too many things to pay attention to.

But if we can communicate well with them and reach close cooperation, then cooperation with official departments would also be very good.

Not only did it completely solve the worries about filming, but the film review process was also smooth.

Golden Harvest and Liu Zhou only need to be responsible for making the movie well, and don’t worry about anything else.

Even Tangshan, out of trust in Liu Zhou, not only invested in the filming location and other logistical support, but also invested 50 million yuan in cash.

Although 50 million is not a lot, it was enough to solve the problem of Jiahe's insufficient funds at that time.

At that time, Golden Harvest not only needed to invest in the production of "Interstellar" and several other films, but also had to take into account the construction of cinemas and film and television bases.

Golden Harvest was unable to fully come up with the 210 million yuan investment needed for "Aftershock", but with the introduction of Tangshan, Golden Harvest borrowed 150 million yuan from a bank in Tangshan.

Although the bank already had projects to lend money to film and television companies to invest in movies at that time, they were still not very mature. With the introduction from Tangshan, Golden Harvest saved itself a lot of trouble.

Therefore, Golden Harvest only invested 60 million to leverage a large project with an investment of 300 million. The scale of investment is even higher than that of "Interstellar".

Although "Interstellar" is a science fiction movie, "Aftershock" has more special effects shots and is more difficult to produce.

You should know that the preparation time for shooting "Aftershock" alone took nearly a year, especially the earthquake special effects. In order to make it more realistic and shocking, Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio spent a lot of time and also sought cooperation with many foreign special effects companies.

Liu Zhou also has high hopes for "Aftershock". Not only does he hope it can be released domestically, he also hopes it can be released on a large scale overseas.

This is also the reason why Tangshan supports Liu Zhou so much, because if the film is shot like Feng Kuzi's, not many people will watch the film even if it is released on a large scale overseas.

After the film was completed, there was still more than 30 million yuan left, but all of this money was used for publicity.

"Aftershock" has been a domestically watched project since its inception and has been highly anticipated, but it does not have the same expectations of breaking box office records as "Interstellar".

Therefore, considering the quality of the film, the more than 30 million yuan of domestic publicity funds is barely enough.

However, now that it is suddenly facing "Transformers 3", this publicity budget is obviously not enough, and both parties decided to add more than million to make up a total of million yuan.

Although this cannot be compared with the more than 100 million yuan of publicity funds for "Interstellar", it is a special case after all. 60 million yuan of publicity funds can be said to be very high.

Of course, the overseas publicity budget must be calculated separately, but because the distributor is Golden Harvest, after communicating with Tangshan, Golden Harvest will first advance the overseas publicity funds and then settle them together at the end.

As for the investment in the premiere ceremony, the venue and other logistical support will be provided by Tangshan, while everything else will be provided by Golden Harvest.

So in order to hold this largest premiere ceremony for Chinese-language films, more than 30 million yuan in real money was spent.

If we calculate strictly, Jiahe is certainly at a disadvantage, but the accounts cannot be calculated clearly.

It’s not because it’s a blessing to suffer losses when cooperating with official departments, but because Tangshan did give Golden Harvest great support in the early stage, and Golden Harvest was responsible for the distribution of the film both domestically and overseas.

Golden Harvest could make a lot of money on the distribution fee, so there was no need to worry about spending more money on the premiere. On the afternoon of the premiere, audiences began to gather outside the Tangshan Sports Center from 2 o'clock. By 5:30 when the tickets were checked, there were at least more than 10,000 people.

The enthusiasm of Tangshan people for the movie "Aftershock" is beyond imagination.

In order to avoid safety accidents, the ticket checking should have started at 6 o'clock, but now the audience has to start checking in at 5:30.

Because there were so many spectators, the ticket checking process was unable to cope with the surge of the crowd and the whole scene seemed a bit chaotic.

However, despite some confusion, the audience still managed to enter on time, and the premiere began on time at 7 o'clock.

This premiere ceremony was promoted as the world premiere of "Aftershock".

In the past two years, when domestic films were released, they all liked to claim that they were world premieres, but this is often just a gimmick, and there are really only a handful of films that can actually go abroad.

Most domestic films are difficult to be released on a large scale overseas, but the world premiere of "Aftershock" is truly worthy of the name. In addition to being released domestically, it will also be released overseas in the next two weeks.

With the gimmick of being the world's first 4K disaster film, Liu Zhou's slight fame, and Golden Harvest's publicity and distribution channels, the film's release in many overseas countries has already been negotiated.

The film will be released in Southeast Asia at the same time as the mainland, while it will be released in South Korea, India, the Middle East and other regions within a week.

As for the most important overseas region, North America, it will hit theaters one week after its release in mainland China.

The North American distribution will be handled independently by Summit Entertainment, and will be shown on more than 1800 screens on the first day of release.

For a Hollywood movie, 1800 screens is considered B-level, but for a foreign language film, this scale of release is already very good.

Movies from other countries are generally released on a small scale in North America, and then the scale of screening is slowly expanded based on word of mouth or awards.

It is extremely rare for a movie like "Aftershock" to open with 1,800 screens right from the start.

As for the release in Europe, Australia, South America and other regions, it will be handed over to Lionsgate Entertainment and will be released two weeks after the mainland release.

Movie premieres often invite celebrities to attend and promote the film, but "Aftershock" did not invite any celebrities to attend, not even the artists under Golden Harvest were invited to come.

In order to respect the subject matter and story of the film, there was not even a red carpet session. All the guests wore plain clothes and entered the scene directly.

A premiere ceremony does not seem more grand the more stars it invites.

Although there were no other celebrity artists besides the main creators this time, many leaders and senior executives from film and television companies in the industry were present.

In addition to the four leading teams in Tangshan, there is also a deputy in charge of propaganda in Beihe Province, a deputy of the chief minister, and the director of the Film Bureau.

Then there are Han Shanping from China Film Group, Ren Zhonglun from Shanghai Film Group, as well as Wang Changtian, the Wang brothers, Yu Dong, Big Dog from Xiaoma Pentium, and Boss Yang from Emperor Entertainment Group.

Of course, the most important thing is the 12,000 live audiences.

So even though the starlight at this premiere was a little dim, it was still the largest in scale and second only to the original "Hero".

People from Haizi participated in the premiere of "Hero", which is really incomparable.

Backstage, Liu Zhou felt that even veterans like Mr. Zhou and Hu Jun were a little nervous in the face of this occasion, not to mention Liu Yifei and Zhang Yi, both of whom kept their lips pursed and said nothing.

Liu Zhou was fine, as he had seen many leadership situations. Although this was his first time facing so many audiences, he had already developed a confident and calm mentality over the past decade, so this casual situation had little impact on him.

"How are you guys preparing? Don't mess up your performance when you go on stage!
It’s not convenient to use the restroom here. If you want to use the restroom, go quickly. When all the audience enters the venue, there will be more than 10,000 people, so it will be inconvenient to use the restroom!”

After hearing what Liu Zhou said, Master Zhou and Mr. Hu did not move, but Liu Yifei and Zhang Yi actually stood up and walked towards the temporary toilet built on the spot.

At 7 o'clock in the evening, accompanied by the sound of passionate music, the lights on the stage slowly lit up and a short film began to play on the giant screen.

Although the short film is only more than five minutes long, it includes interviews with those who experienced Tangshan at the time, the origin of this film, and the expression of the crew's respect for this city and their remembrance of the 240,000 dead.

When the short film finally stopped, there were four big characters on it, which read "Tangshan Night", and then the whole scene burst into warm applause.

Accompanied by music, movie channel host Jingwei walked onto the stage wearing a black long skirt and holding a microphone.

Such a solemn occasion still needs a professional host to control it so that people can feel more at ease, so none of the hosts under Sina, Liu Zhou, were called.

The host of the movie channel, Jingwei, is undoubtedly the most suitable one.

After coming on stage, she first thanked the people of Tangshan, the film producers, leaders at all levels and guests, made an opening speech, and then announced the official start of the premiere ceremony.

Afterwards, one of the chief's deputies gave the opening speech for the premiere ceremony:

"The film "Tangshan Earthquake" records the ordinary people of Tangshan who persevered in the face of disaster... The value of this film is not only... but also the artistic expression... of the song of life!"

Then, the leader of the Tangshan team expressed his heartfelt gratitude and respect to the film's main creators and all those who worked hard for the film, and wished the film a successful screening around the world.

After that, there was a series of performances arranged by Tangshan.

Finally, Liu Zhou led the film's main creators to the stage and shared some behind-the-scenes stories of the film's preparation and shooting.

Due to time constraints, Liu Zhou couldn't stay on the stage for too long and only stayed on the stage for about half an hour before leaving.

At 8:30 in the evening, the movie began and the entire sports center fell quiet.

At this point, the audience's emotions were completely aroused, and they were waiting nervously and excitedly for the movie to begin.

Back at the scene, Liu Zhou and other main creators, as well as leaders, guests and more than 10,000 audiences, all stared intently at the big screen that suddenly lit up after darkness.

(End of this chapter)