Huayu: From an ordinary person to a happy director

Chapter 32 Premiere

Shi Lei's expression changed. Asking him to show his true strength in the next movie was actually mocking him that this movie was not up to his strength.

Damn, who is this?
Marketing is also part of strength!

Today’s directors have no limited vision. They don’t know the power of publicity, nor do they know that good marketing is also a kind of strength.

No, we can't generalize. Many directors also know how to do publicity. For example, Feng Dapao made a horse sex scene that cannot be broadcast, and Zhang Jizhong can make a casting very dramatic.

It's just that they don't have the concept of marketing.

Marketing is not just about publicity, it is also about knowing what the audience wants and making movies that suit their tastes so that they feel the tickets are worth buying. This is the key to making a movie a big hit.

If the fighting scenes in "The Matrix: Guardians" weren't exciting and there wasn't the shock of the iron flowers, the box office wouldn't be a huge hit!

Shi Lei was too lazy to talk nonsense with Director Yin Shi, and directly made a gesture of invitation: "You go in first!"

Director Yinshi still has some remnants of the old times. Previously, his family was on a show that was meant to show the audience the warmth of a family. But as soon as he got on the stretched Lincoln, he said in front of the national audience, "We are upper-class people."

To call their son who was abroad to come back, two Chinese people spoke in English. After the son came back, he didn't even dare to enter the door and had to wait outside for an invitation.

There was a Western sense of ritual during the meal, with dancing, and the couple commented on the dishes. Their son was not qualified to sit at the table and was not allowed to do so until halfway through. Even after he was at the table, he could not eat directly. He needed to give the go-ahead for a dish before his son dared to take it!

this is too scary!

"Huh? What did you say?"

Director Yinshi frowned and didn't reply to him! He didn't even say a few words to him! This is disrespectful to him! ! How dare you, a new director, ignore me! ! !

The receptionist of the China Film Studio who was accompanying Shi Lei was sweating profusely and said quickly: "Director Chen, please go in first! There are too many people here."

"Hmph! You don't know what you're talking about!" Director Yinshi snorted coldly and walked down the stairs with the China Film staff.

We still have to give face to the employees of China Film Group.

After this little incident, the reception went smoothly and no one criticized him.

In fact, Feng Dapao wanted to say something, but was stopped by Wang Zhonglei!

Wang Zhonglei is a businessman. Now that Shi Lei has made it into Hollywood, he still wants to do business with Shi Lei in the future. There is no need to offend him!

In addition to famous directors, Shi Lei also received well-known actors.

Jet Li held Shi Lei's hand and said, "Director Shi, I want to work with you on a martial arts film!"

Because of the pay issue, he did not star in "The Matrix 2", which was a box office hit. He didn't mind that because "The Matrix 2" only paid him 2 million, which was much lower than his net worth of 300 million US dollars. No Hollywood actor would reduce his pay so much to star in a commercial film.

But he was somewhat envious of Shi Lei's "The Matrix: Keepers", as the movie he just shot, "Cradle of Death", only grossed 5600 million US dollars worldwide.

Moreover, no Hollywood movie in which he played the leading role has grossed more than 1 million US dollars so far!

If Shi Lei has a good script, he would like to work with Shi Lei once.

Shi Lei pretended to be in deep thought for a while, then shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, the next movie is a Hollywood movie, and the movie after that is a martial arts movie, but I have an appointment with Zhou Zhaolong."

It’s not that I don’t want to work with Jet Li, but Jet Li is too expensive.

Jet Li's new film "Deadly Cradle" cost 2500 million US dollars, and Jet Li received a salary of 5600 million US dollars. The global total box office was 50 million US dollars, the cinema's share of the box office was 55~6%, and the publicity and distribution company charged 15~% of the box office share.

Even if he got the best treatment, he would only get 44%, which was barely enough to recover the cost.

Then he doesn't have the ability to distribute it in the disc market, and the probability is that he will sell the copyright of the disc to others.

The profit margins are too small.

Even if he performs well and the global box office reaches 2 million US dollars, Jet Li's salary next time may be 1500 million US dollars, and the next time it will be 1800 million US dollars + box office share.

It's really too expensive. Knowing that the movie can make money, of course the lower the actors' pay is, the better!
So he prefers to continue to cooperate with Chou Zhaolong, who has a certain reputation in Hollywood and he is confident that he can promote him. The main reason is that Chou Zhaolong is cheap. Although he is an actor with a global box office of over 2 million, this movie is based on the fame of "The Matrix 200" and he has only one work, so the salary for the next movie can be reduced to million.

He can use it many times!

"What a pity." Li Lianjie heard the implication of Shi Lei's words and sighed.

Cheng Long also came over and expressed a similar intention to Li Lianjie, but was still rejected by Shi Lei.

As I said, knowing which movie makes money, the actors’ pay must be as low as possible.

Of course, movies that rely on celebrities to boost box office sales don’t count!
Soon after, all the people who needed to be received by Shi Lei in person arrived, and the rest were naturally received by Deng Hongxu and China Film staff.

Shi Lei led Dong Xuan to walk the red carpet. Although it was just a premiere, a red carpet was still rolled out. There were many media outlets attending the premiere, so many that they almost covered all the domestic media, big and small.

China Film Group has put in a lot of effort!
Dong Xuan wore a black deep V dress, half of her body was exposed, she looked elegant and charming at the same time.

Well, after I capture the fairy, I will let her participate less in such activities.

The beauty of the fairy belongs to him alone!

The premiere was hosted by Teacher Guo Li. After Shi Lei brought the main creators to the stage to praise the film for a few words, the movie began to play.

Today’s premieres are not so fancy, with fewer procedures and interviews held after the film.

The film officially starts with an attractive fight scene, showing the superb martial arts of the protagonist Cheng Xiazi (played by Zhou Zhaolong), and then the plot begins.

Cheng Xiazi meets Ni Yan (Dong Xuan), a bartender whose family was murdered and humiliated. Ni Yan begs Cheng Xiazi to avenge her family murder and humiliation, but Cheng Xiazi refuses. But when Ni Yan is wronged again, he is deeply moved by the difficulty of a small person fighting against the powerful and decides to help. Although his confidant Qin Niang (Liu Tao) advises him: "We can't afford to offend the Yuwen family", Cheng Xiazi is determined and no one can stop him. After being ambushed on a rainy night and besieged in the snow, he says: "I will kill them". He didn't want to intervene, but was gradually involved in a dark dispute with a huge force. Cheng Xiazi began to embark on the road of seeking justice and revenge.

The literary scenes in the beginning were just average, but the fighting scenes were top-notch in the industry, and the iron flowers in the final battle shocked everyone.

They have never seen this thing.

Like foreign audiences, after seeing such fighting scenes, they all felt that the movie was worth the price of the ticket.

This is very important and is the key to word-of-mouth fermentation!

The movie ended and the interview began.

"Director Shi, you wrote the script. Can you tell me where your inspiration came from?"

Shi Lei pretended to recall the past before replying, "Inspiration! I have loved martial arts movies since I was a child, and I have always wanted to be a hero who helps the weak and fights against the strong. When I grew up, I made up this story to fulfill my dream of being a martial arts hero."

"Can you tell me why you chose Zhou Zhaolong as the protagonist?"

Shi Lei smiled and said, "This question should be answered by our protagonist."

Zhou Zhaolong raised the microphone and said loudly: "The director actually told me why he chose me. His original words were, 'I can play the villain in so many movies, my martial arts must be strong, so I was chosen as the protagonist.' In fact, I did not disappoint Director Shi. My fighting scenes in the film were clean and neat, without any drag."

Then Shi Lei introduced the other actors: "Dong Xuan is a professional actor with superb acting skills, Liu Tao is Ah Zhu in "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils", she is beautiful and kind...

The most important thing is that they are all from Taolin Company.

"

The previous introduction is serious and sanctimonious, but the last sentence speaks the truth.

This sentence made everyone laugh. Although everyone knew that this was the main reason, all directors were reserved, unlike Shi Lei who spoke the truth.

The next step was to interview the famous directors and stars present, who first made a few comments on the film and then gave their own opinions, and everyone was unanimously optimistic about the box office.

The quality of the film is there, and the publicity is also good, so it is inevitable that it will be a big hit at the box office!

(End of this chapter)