Chapter 426 This Year Is the Year of the Oscars!
The 82nd Academy Awards to be held in 2010 still has many excellent Hollywood movies nominated. (っ◔◡◔)っ
But this year is obviously the year of "The Hurt Locker".
This movie is contrary to the norm of American war movies and avoids the usual Hollywood war blockbuster model. Through the perspective of a bomb disposal team, it reflects the real life of the US military in Iraq to a certain extent.
Film art is the platform for humans to think and discuss war most deeply.
Compared with the extremely politically metaphorical war movies preferred by Europe, "The Hurt Locker" is undoubtedly more commercial. While looking through human nature through war, it also brings the audience a tense and exciting blockbuster viewing experience.
If everything develops according to the expected trajectory, "The Hurt Locker" will win the four major awards of this year's Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing, as well as two minor awards for Best Sound Effects and Best Sound Editing.
However, "Avatar", which has won more than one billion US dollars in box office, can only run as a runner-up. In addition to the best photography, it can only win a few technical awards.
Although the Oscars are not as literary as the three major European awards and are more commercial, they are not so good at sci-fi movies that pile up special effects and computer technology.
Since the establishment of the Oscars and the birth of sci-fi movies, sci-fi movies have always been at the bottom of the Oscars' contempt chain. Except for awards such as Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Effects, heavyweight awards are rarely awarded to sci-fi movies.
Occasionally, one or two sci-fi movies that can win important awards appear, and the reason for their winning is that the story is deep enough, not how gorgeous the pictures are.
For example, the original time and space "Gravity" won the Best Director Award at the 86th Academy Awards for its deep and connotative story.
Obviously, "Avatar", with its simple and straightforward story, will not have any fate with the Oscars.
On the contrary, "Gravity", which was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film Award, has a good chance of winning this award.
Since the nomination list was announced on February 2, 2010, "Gravity" has been the most popular award-winning movie predicted by major media.
Perhaps it is because other works and directors nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Award are not as famous as Wu Yuan in North America.
It is really difficult for them to let the arrogant Americans understand international films.
In comparison, Wu Yuan, who is in Hollywood, is more familiar and recognized by Hollywood.
I swear to God, Wu Yuan really didn't ask John to do any public relations for "Gravity".
The last time "Love" was nominated, he did ask John to do a lot of Oscar public relations in North America before winning the Best Foreign Language Film Award that year.
After winning this award, Wu Yuan has no obsession with this award, and he is even more reluctant to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on public relations for the judges.
But this time, the North American media almost unanimously believed that "Gravity" could easily win this year's Best Foreign Language Film Award.
The reason is also very simple. The movie itself is good enough, and compared with other nominees, Wu Yuan is definitely more popular with the group of old white men in the Academy.
After all, he has created a lot of wealth for Hollywood.
In the case that other nominated films did not spend money on PR, Wu Yuan's "Gravity" would not lose under fair competition.
In contrast, John did spend money on PR for "The Blind Side".
As mentioned before, after so many years of development, although Guangshidai is still a small and fine independent film production company, it does need to work hard on awards.
From the earliest "Hangover" series, to the later low-cost comedies and romances, to the "Twilight" series, Guangshidai's ability to make money is indeed very high, and its performance every year is perfect.
But a Hollywood production company cannot just sell box office.
And the more independent the company, the more it needs to work hard on awards.
Take the Oscars as an example. Basically every five years or so, a movie produced by an independent North American company will win the Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director.
This is not a coincidence, but most independent film production companies are counting on the Oscars to launch a film that can become their own "masterpiece", so that the company can achieve a leap in status in Hollywood.
And this kind of masterpiece cannot be represented by box office, but must be supported by awards.
Including the six major Hollywood companies, each company will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in awards every year.
For example, Fox Searchlight, a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, specializes in small and medium-cost award-winning films. "Juno" on the original track is an example of this company's successful award-winning.
And "Black Swan" was also made by them.
Going back, "The Blink of an Eye" is also an award-winning work of A24, a North American independent film company, and is a product of "zzzq".
There are countless examples like this.
These independent film companies spend tens of millions of dollars every year on Oscars. Is it because they have too much money to burn?
Of course not, but the Oscar awards can bring them far more than tens of millions of dollars in benefits.
Just like the three major award-winning films in Europe have no worries about selling copyrights.
The movie "The Blind Side" did well at the North American box office, grossing over 100 million U.S. dollars, but it only earned less than 40 million U.S. dollars in overseas markets, with Time Warner only receiving a few million.
If this movie can win an important award at this year's Oscars, such as Best Director or Best Actress, then the copyright of this movie can be sold immediately for 20-30 million US dollars, including the purchase of distribution rights by film producers in some countries that did not originally release this movie, and the production of genuine DVDs by DVD producers in various countries.
Although the genuine DVD market in China is rotten, in most countries around the world, the current DVD market revenue can account for one-third to one-half of the revenue of a movie.
For Hollywood movies, box office profits only account for half of the total revenue, and the remaining half depends entirely on selling DVDs and copyrights.
John is very dissatisfied with the revenue of "The Blind Side" other than the box office. This movie is not as popular as the "Twilight" series, and the DVD copyright is not worried about selling, and peripheral partners are also rushing to cooperate and make joint products.
Coincidentally, this movie is not like the "Hangover" series, which is fully capable of participating in the Oscar competition.
In this case, John must spend a sum of money to try public relations.
It's just that this year's Oscars are indeed a big year, and "The Hurt Locker" has already won all the awards at the outpost.
Movies such as "Crazy Heart", "Love Life", and "Inglourious Basterds" are also eyeing the prize.
Although "Blind Side" was also nominated for the Best Picture Award, the chances of winning this award are very slim.
John set his sights on the Best Actress Award, which was also nominated!
He spent nearly 10 million US dollars and did all the public relations measures he could. Now he is waiting for the Oscars on March 7!
And Wu Yuan is also waiting for this day.
On March 5, Gong Li and Wang Xueqi, as well as the crew's cameraman, art director, and scientific consultant, arrived in Los Angeles together.
With them, there was also a group of reporters from CCTV Film Channel.
After meeting up with Wu Yuan and Liu Yifei, the crew of "Gravity", which represented China in this year's Oscars, was now fully present!
Two days later, the 82nd Academy Awards officially opened! (End of this chapter)