Chapter 119: Collaboration Finalized, "Your Name" Launched!

Jackie Chan really wants to have another series of film projects in Hollywood.

In 2002, in the "Hollywood Star Power Ranking" selected by "The Hollywood Reporter", Jackie Chan ranked 16th, a top-tier superstar.

But look at what movies he took on next?

"Royal Dragon", a co-production between the United Kingdom, the United States and Malaysia, using his own fame to bring Malay girls and Hong Kong boys, and the Hong Kong movie "The Dragon's Rebirth".

That's it.

Not to mention Hollywood big productions, he didn't even take a movie with a cost of more than 50 million US dollars.

Is it because he doesn't want to take it?

Although he wanted to bring more Hong Kong stars into Hollywood after entering Hollywood because of the face of the Hong Kong circle, he still knew the priorities.

It's just that there are really no suitable Hollywood movies looking for him.

It's really difficult for Asians in Hollywood to get suitable scripts.

At this stage, the main characters of the big-budget movies in Hollywood are all white. Not to mention Asians, even blacks can't get the main role. At most, they can play important supporting roles or villains.

Will Smith is the only exception.

Even so, considering that North America really needs a black superstar now to take care of the increasing proportion of black people.

Asian?

There is really no place for you.

There are also several Hollywood movies that want Cheng Long to act, but it's still the same old routine. They hope that he will play a cruel villain from the mysterious China, that is, the kind of character with strong martial arts, doing all kinds of bad things behind the scenes, and finally defeated by the righteous protagonist.

Considering that he represents the entire Chinese actor group in Hollywood, Cheng Long really dare not take such a role that damages the image of Chinese people.

Compared with director Wu Yuan, it is more difficult for Asian actors to get along in Hollywood

Now there is an opportunity to be the male lead in a new series. How can Cheng Long not be willing?

If there is a chance, he doesn't want to act in those bad movies!

He is not old now, and he can still work hard!

"Director Wu, whether it's Rush Hour 3 or the subsequent Kingsman series, I will follow the director's arrangements."

Perhaps because he was afraid that Wu Yuan would misunderstand him as a drama tyrant, after all, Chris had a falling out with him, Cheng Long took the initiative to say: "I have always followed the director's will in the crew."

"Chris didn't want to star in Rush Hour 3 because his salary was too high, not because I excluded him or acted like a drama tyrant in the crew."

He knew that in the eyes of the outside world, the Rush Hour series belonged to Cheng Long.

He is the most important person in this series, and anyone else can be replaced, but not him.

This will inevitably lead to misunderstandings that Cheng Long is the one with the most say in the crew, and everyone has to listen to him and look up to him, including the director.

But this is not the case.

Although Cheng Long's private life is a bit messy, with all kinds of young girls appearing in his room every day, he is still very serious and hardworking at work, and never oversteps his authority.

An Asian who went to Hollywood to work hard can't be said to have been working diligently, but he certainly wouldn't dare to do anything like a drama tyrant.

"I have heard of Brother Cheng Long's reputation." Wu Yuan looked at Cheng Long with a smile, and did not deny his words.

Cheng Long, apart from his chaotic private life and his failure to manage Prince Fang, is indeed admirable at work and has good personal conduct.

At least Cheng Long refused to play the ugly Chinese villain in Hollywood, which was enough for Wu Yuan to admire.

If he hadn't always held this bottom line, he wouldn't have been unable to get a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster when he was at the peak of his career due to the huge sales of "Rush Hour 2".

Hollywood is still happy to make some commercial blockbusters in which brave white heroes defeat the evil Chinese villains after going through hardships.

"I personally hope that Brother Cheng Long can continue to play the leading role in "Kingsman: The Secret Service."

Wu Yuan shrugged: "I've even thought about it. If New Line doesn't plan to cooperate, I can ask Universal or Fox to make the "Kingsman: The Secret Service" series."

"I will also recommend you to them to play the leading role, but the background story must be revised."

"Without Inspector Li, we can also have Agent Chen, right?"

When Wu Yuan said this, he did not mean to avoid Elad at all, and he deliberately used English.

Ellard, who was sitting next to Cheng Long, heard it clearly, and his face was wonderful.

"No, no, no, Daniel, since I came to visit you with Jackie, of course I want to cooperate with you."

Ellard said nervously: "It is not a good thing to cooperate with big companies like Universal and Fox. These big companies not only give harsh conditions, but also take away most of the profits. They are not good partners."

"Regarding the script idea of ​​"Rush Hour 3" you proposed, we went back to discuss and felt it was great."

"Jackie has no problem with the "Kingsman" series, and we have no problem with New Line. We can indeed cooperate deeply."

When the topic came to this, Wu Yuan felt that it was enough.

He interrupted: "Of course, New Line is definitely the best partner for this project."

"As long as you are willing to cooperate, we can sit down and talk slowly."

"But I will return to China next, so I will talk to John about the specific details."

Wu Yuan refilled Cheng Long and Elad with a cup of tea, "If Rush Hour 3 is written according to my ideas, I can accept 10 million US dollars + 5% box office share and take over the directorship of this movie."

"As for the Kingsman series, I may not have time to direct it myself, and maybe I need to find a new director at that time.

Wu Yuan wants to make money by bringing New Line and Cheng Long together, not to frame himself.

It is enough to take on a Rush Hour 3, help New Line finish the show, and start the layout of the Kingsman series.

Let him shoot the Kingsman series again?

How long will it take?

Wu Yuan is very dissatisfied with his Hollywood director Elad has a clear plan for his acting career. In addition to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, he has several movies to shoot before 2010, so he really doesn't have time to take charge of the "Kingsman" series.

Elad didn't force Wu Yuan to personally direct the "Kingsman" series.

The recent performance of "Pirates of the Caribbean" is really amazing.

Even a fool knows that Wu Yuan's current focus must be on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, and it is impossible for him to make a brand new series of movies.

Fortunately, Elad's original plan was to ask Wu Yuan to take over "Rush Hour 3" and help to clean up the mess.

Elad was very grateful that Wu Yuan agreed.

"Then is it settled first?" Wu Yuan saw that Elad had no objection, so he continued: "I plan to write the script of "Rush Hour 3" myself."

"And the script of "Kingsman" will be personally responsible for the follow-up."

"I want 20% of the copyright of "Rush Hour 3", after all, I wrote the script. ”

“For the Kingsman series, when the time comes, Guangshidai and New Line will each contribute 50% and the copyright will be half each.”

“No problem, right?”

If an ordinary screenwriter wants 20% of the copyright just for writing a script, it is a no-brainer.

But who asked Wu Yuan to make this condition?

Considering the subsequent cooperation in the Kingsman series, and the importance of Rush Hour 3 as the prequel of Kingsman, Elad still agreed to Wu Yuan’s request.

Cheng Long can ask for 15% of the box office share, so it is acceptable for Wu Yuan to take 20% of the copyright.

The copyright income of the Rush Hour series is still quite high, or in other words, the copyright income of movies starring Chinese kung fu superstars is good.

After all, in North America, various kung fu movies and Cheng Long’s action movies are really good in the DVD rental and sales market, and can bring tens of millions of dollars of income to New Line every year.

“No problem!” Elad nodded in agreement.

“Okay, then I wish us a happy cooperation in advance. "Wu Yuan smiled brightly.

Cheng Long also laughed. His bumpy journey in Hollywood seemed to finally be on a smooth road.

The specific cooperation of the "Kingsman" project was handed over to John to negotiate with New Line. He will also be one of the producers of this series.

Of course, even if everything is settled, this new series will not be established very early.

Even "Rush Hour 3" is estimated to start filming in the first half of 2004 at the earliest, and strive to be released in the summer of 2004.

"Kingsman" is even more out of sight. The first part will be delayed until 2005 or even The filming will not start until 2006.

After finalizing this cooperation, Wu Yuan's work in North America was temporarily dealt with.

"Pirates of the Caribbean" is still in hot release, and has been the box office champion for two consecutive weeks. The total box office has exceeded 100 million US dollars.

Unfortunately, no matter how high the box office of this movie is, Wu Yuan will not get any money. Compared with this, he is more concerned about his new movie now.

On July 28, Wu Yuan left the United States and flew back to China.

Still no one came to pick him up, so he took a taxi back to the courtyard.

But it was different from before.

This time when he returned home, Wu Yuan saw a Mercedes-Benz C-Class parked in the courtyard. .

This was ordered by someone before he went to the United States. It was an imported car made in China. The price was not very expensive. The license plate was already on it, so it was just right for transportation.

He had just returned home and had no intention of test driving. After taking a rough look at it, he went back to his room to sleep and adjust to the time difference.

However, before going to bed, he edited a short message and sent it to many people in a group, then turned off the phone and fell asleep.

In the Magic City, in the small white building of Tangren Film and Television.

Since signing a seven-year and five-film cooperation agreement with Light and Shadow Times, Tangren has breathed a sigh of relief.

The new TV series project that was originally not planned to be promoted for the time being and needed to wait until the funds were turned around before it could be prepared for filming was also immediately put on hold. Ma entered the preparation stage.

The next TV series that Tangren wants to make is "New Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio is one of the few fantasy IPs with public copyrights in China, and Cai Yinong has long wanted to get involved.

Before, I was always worried about insufficient funds and no money to make exquisite magic special effects, so I kept delaying the TV series.

Now that there is a cooperation agreement with Guangshidai, what is there to be afraid of?

Just when Cai Yinong was planning to take the script of "New Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" to Wu Yuan for cooperation, a Taiwanese colleague she met in Hong Kong Island came to her.

The other company bought the copyright of the game "Legend of Sword and Fairy" and tried for several years but couldn't shoot it, so they wanted to transfer it to Tangren.

The game had no script. Cai Yinong spent a night studying it and read through thousands of comments from netizens on the forum. She was pleasantly surprised to find that the game had a large number of loyal fans, who were simply given away for free.

When making a TV series, it is of course best to have a fan base, so that there will be a group of viewers to watch it when it is broadcast, and the starting point is higher than other TV series, and it is easier to become popular.

She immediately wrote a 5,000-word story outline and decided to shoot "Legend of Sword and Fairy" in less than 3 days.

He even thought of the actors.

Although the company wanted to invite Hong Kong and Taiwan big stars such as Ruby Lin, Nicholas Tse, and Gu Guji, she felt that according to the original work, it would be best to find two actors around 18 years old for the male and female protagonists.

Especially for the male protagonist, she wanted to use Hu Ge from her own company.

Although when Hu Ge signed with Tangren, he changed into ancient costumes, and the ancient hairstyle made his face look very long and ugly, so he was put on the ancient costume blacklist by Li Guoli.

But Cai Yinong felt that Hu Ge was suitable for ancient costumes, but the makeup was not done well.

Obviously, the company's management did not think so, and they were about to quarrel.

Cai Yinong thought about it and realized that it was not good for her to make her own decision, but it would be different if she found some foreign help to support her.

Moreover, adapting a game like "Legend of Sword and Fairy" into a TV series requires a lot of special effects, and it is also a very expensive production. She must find Guangying Times, a "sucker", to share the risk.

So she thought about talking to Wu Yuan about the TV series and trying to get his support. If he supports Hu Ge to play the leading male role, then Tangren's management will not be able to refute it.

However, Guangying Times has not found a suitable manager yet, and Wu Yuan is not in China.

Just when Cai Yinong was thinking about whether to make a cross-border call to Wu Yuan to talk about this matter, her phone rang first.

Wu Yuan sent a text message.

"Mr. Cai, my new movie is casting. If you are willing to participate, please come to Guangying Times for an audition at 10 am on August 1 with Hu Ge, Yuan Hong and Sun Li."

Cai Yinong immediately forgot about "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "New Liaozhai".

Beijing, Shunyi.

Summer vacation is a very happy time for every student.

Liu Yifei is the same.

Although she was a little worried about not seeing Wu Yuan often after the rehearsal of the drama, this worry was soon diluted by the happy vacation.

"The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" has not been broadcast yet. For the time being, she only has "The Story of a Noble Family" to enjoy a leisurely life.

Lying on the bed with her legs crossed, Liu Yifei was concentrating on playing the Snake game on her mobile phone.

Every time the snake she controlled ate a candy, she would happily shake her legs in the air.

"Xixi, don't stay in your room all the time during the holidays!"

"Mom will take you swimming in the afternoon. There is a new swimming pool in Tiantongyuan."

"Or we can go to Shichahai for a stroll."

The mother's shouting came from outside the door, disrupting Liu Yifei's concentration. Her hand shook, and the snake hit her body and broke into pieces. The game was over.

"Mom!" Liu Yifei pouted and shouted unhappily. Just as she was about to refuse, her mobile phone "dingdong".

She opened it absent-mindedly and took a look. A text message caught her eye.

"Xixi, my new movie has officially entered the casting stage. I hope you can come to Guangying Times at 10 am on August 1st to audition for the heroine!"

Looking at the name of the sender, Liu Yifei excitedly clenched her fist.

"Mom!" This time her shout was full of excitement and happiness.

"Director Wu invited me to audition for his new movie!!"

It's still two in one.