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After a while, the call was connected.

"Hello, connection? I'm Huang Ze."

"It's Director Huang!" Li Lianjie, who was lying on the opposite side of the phone, stood up immediately when he heard that it was Huang Ze on the other end of the line.

One reason is excitement.

The second is the fear that there might be something wrong with the tone when lying down.

It’s better to stand.

If he said that after "Speed", he would be able to make a name for himself in Hollywood with his real abilities and become a world-class star.

At the very least, you will enter the 20 million US dollar club.

Now he faces the reality.

After Speed, he made two or three more action films, each of which grossed around 50 million U.S. dollars.

The lowest-priced one was only over 30 million.

It’s not bad, but compared with the 100 million yuan of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and the nearly 150 million yuan of "Speed", the three films combined don’t even make 150 million!

This number is really too shabby.

"Speed ​​2", which he considers to be his comeback work, is a big production with a budget of nearly million US dollars. It is the sequel to the blockbuster "Speed" and it looks like it will be a box office hit no matter how you look at it.

In the end, he only received more than 40 million US dollars.

Warner lost a lot of money.

The director and the female lead are both American.

As the leading actor and a yellow man, he obviously became the biggest scapegoat for the film's box office failure.

No one comes to him to make films anymore.

Even if there was, the pay was reduced a lot. Not to mention the 2 million required for "Speed ​​", it was even reduced directly to million US dollars, to only million.

Then turn around and look at Jackie Chan.

I didn't even consider it as a competitor.

But that guy has recently made a successful comeback.

He became the leading actor in the $2 million movie "Rush Hour ", which ranked third on the North American box office list last year.

Two hundred and twenty million!
The box office of my last four films combined is not that high.

His title as the so-called No. 1 Chinese movie star, which he had only held for a few years, suddenly became precarious.

He was also very clear about the reasons for all these changes.

It’s Huang Ze on the other end of the phone.

And I heard that Huang Ze is also planning to collaborate with Jackie Chan on a film to help Jackie Chan transform.

This made him even more afraid to be nicer to Huang Ze.

Who knows if these two people working together can completely leave him behind!
He also wants to cooperate with Huang Ze again to make a comeback.

Therefore, his attitude became better and better.

"Director Huang, I haven't received your call for a long time. What do you want to talk to me about this time?"

"Do you have any film contracts recently?"

"No!" Li Lianjie smiled bitterly. "To tell you the truth, I'm not afraid of you making fun of me. After Speed ​​2, I haven't received many offers for films. I don't like those scripts."

"What's wrong? Director Huang, you are here to talk to me. Do you have a new film and need me?"

"It's not my new film." Huang Ze said, "Do you know Director Zhang Yimou?"

"Of course I know!" Li Lianjie nodded repeatedly.

"He's planning to make a martial arts movie. I just read the script and it's pretty good. Are you interested in playing the leading role?"

"No big problem!" Faced with Huang Ze's personal invitation, Li Lianjie couldn't refuse immediately even though he was not his director.

Of course, he still needs to understand what he should understand.

After all, although Zhang Yimou is very famous, he has always been active in the art film market.

Who knows what a commercial film shot by a person like this would look like?
If he messed up the script, wouldn't he be in deep trouble? So Li Lianjie asked immediately, "Where are you guys now? Can I go take a look at the script first?"

"It's on Hong Kong Island. The hotel address is ..."

"Wait for me. I'll be there in an hour at most."

……

It really didn’t take an hour.

Just thirty minutes later, Li Lianjie arrived.

After knocking on the door, he walked over with an anxious look on his face.

"I just happened to be staying in Hong Kong Island during this period."

"Director Huang, Director Zhang."

"Hello!" Zhang Yimou and Li Lianjie were not very familiar with each other, so they shook hands and greeted each other.

"I have admired you for a long time!"

After a long pause, Li Lianjie turned his gaze to Huang Ze, "Director Huang, can you let me see the script?"

"of course."

Huang Ze handed the script given to him by Zhang Yimou back to Li Lianjie.

"You two chat, and I'll watch mine."

Li Lianjie smiled and started reading the script.

After flipping through it in more than an hour, Li Lianjie frowned slightly.

He thought the script was just average.

Some parts are even a bit far-fetched and don't make sense at all.

but……

He wasn't quite sure, so he arbitrarily concluded that the film was not very good.

After all, he had never been to school and had been practicing martial arts since he was a child. He did study cultural subjects, but he never studied them carefully.

He was truly unsure about the script that was approved by both Zhang Yimou and Huang Ze.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling a little dissatisfied?"

"No." Li Lianjie thought of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". He also thought the script of that movie was not very good, but it achieved super high box office. So Li Lianjie immediately nodded and said, "I am willing to do it."

"Who are my opponents?"

"I haven't thought about this yet!" Zhang Yimou glanced at Huang Ze, "I didn't expect you to bring Li Lianjie to play the leading role!"

"Then I'll decide!"

Huang Ze drank some water and said, "Changkong, Zhen Zidan."

"As for Canjian." Liang Chaowei himself didn't like Liang Jiahui, and he always felt that his current appearance was not good enough to play this role, "Let's try Zunlong."

"Feixue, Zhang..." Huang Ze felt that it was not appropriate to say this. This time Gong Li and Zhang Yimou did not have a falling out, so he immediately changed his words, "Gong Li!"

"For the last one, Ru Yue, I plan to let our company's Li Bingbing try it out. It's the female killer in Rush Hour 2. What do you think?"

"Sure!" Zhang Yimou nodded, "In this case, it can be said that the stars are shining."

“Isn’t the production cost a bit too high?”

"It's okay. I can give you a discount on the salary. Five million US dollars. What do you think, Director Huang?" Li Lianjie took the initiative to lower the price.

"Then let's put it this way." Huang Ze originally wanted to have Li Lianjie break his bones, but since he took the initiative to reduce his pay, he didn't feel comfortable making any more suggestions and instead patted Zhang Yimou's arm.

"As for the production costs, don't worry, Lao Zhang. We at Xinghai will pay for it all."

"Just take good care of the shooting!"

These people's pay seems high, but except for Li Lianjie, it's not much when converted into US dollars.

The final production cost was around 30 to 40 million US dollars.

For Huang Ze, this production cost is a bit exaggerated, but it is not a problem. With the funds in Xinghai Films' account, it can easily come up with such a sum of money. (End of this chapter)