Chapter 676: "The Great Wall" Is in Preparation

Since the crew of "Ready Player One" finally got on the right track, Wu Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After the most difficult problem of combining virtual special effects with reality was solved, other small problems were not difficult to solve.

Wu Yuan no longer needed to bring low pressure to the crew every day. The atmosphere of filming was getting better and better every day. A month later, the crew moved from Beijing to the foggy city to shoot some realistic scenes.

At the same time, as time entered June and July, another major project of this year was also established at Light and Shadow Times.

Last year, the two largest projects of Light and Shadow Times were two new works in the Xianxia movie universe, "Shushan" and "War of the Demonic Tide".

When making ordinary special effects blockbusters, Light and Shadow Times is already familiar with it, just like Marvel, which is used to making superhero movies, and can almost shoot in an assembly line manner.

Both films were successfully completed before the Spring Festival, and the post-production special effects of "War of the Demonic Tide" shot first were half done, and "Shushan" has also started to produce special effects. It is expected that one will be released at the end of the year or during the Spring Festival, and the second will be released during the summer vacation next year.

This year, Light and Shadow Times does not plan to continue to make subsequent works in the Xianxia movie universe.

This thing cannot be done every year, and fans must be given room to look forward to it. Sometimes, if you ship too much, it will make fans feel boring.

You have to keep their interest hanging.

So this year, Light and Shadow Times's big project is Wu Yuan's "Ready Player One", which needs no further explanation, and the other is Zhang Yimou's first blockbuster after joining Light and Shadow Times - "The Great Wall"!

In fact, Zhang Yimou has already cooperated with the company once after joining Light and Shadow Times, which is the art film "The Return".

Light and Shadow Times did not do anything to interfere with Zhang Yimou. It was very happy to set up the project and pay the money, and let Zhang Yimou play freely.

Even though this is an art film and it doesn't look like it will be a big hit, Guangying Times is willing to invest money for Zhang Yimou's status and fame.

In the end, Zhang Yimou also handed in a brilliant answer sheet to Guangying Times.

The mainland box office of "Coming Home" reached 342 million yuan, breaking the box office record of domestic art films and was shortlisted for many film awards.

("Love Letter" is not an art film, but a commercial love film, so the box office of "Love Letter" has nothing to do with the record of art films.)

This movie box office performance is more than 40 million and nearly 50 million higher than the box office of the original time and space. Among them, the current domestic film market is larger than the original time and space, and there are more moviegoers. There are also reasons for better publicity and promotion.

Compared with the "LeTV Company" that does the Internet, Guangying Times knows how to do movie promotion and promotion better, and is much more professional than LeTV, which has just started to explore the film industry.

And Zhang Yimou did make a very good art film, so naturally he can get such a good result.

After the success of "Coming Home", Zhang Yimou naturally regained his confidence and became interested in making blockbusters and commercial blockbusters.

And "The Great Wall", which had been prepared for him for a long time, could naturally be launched smoothly.

In fact, when Zhang Yimou joined Guangying Times, Wu Yuan talked to Zhang Yimou with the story outline of "The Great Wall" and invited him to make this movie. Li Xiaoping was also very interested at that time.

It was just that Zhang Yimou was at the center of public opinion of "the two Zhangs broke up" at that time, and the scandal was exposed. Although everyone was calling for his death, the situation was really bad, which made him a little unconfident and autistic.

He was originally introverted, and he was not willing to take over such a big project at that time.

Just like Zhang Yimou said when he was shooting "Hero" that year, he was responsible to the investors when making movies, and he also did it with the attitude that he must succeed.

In 2012, he really didn't have the courage to make "The Great Wall" with an investment of at least 200 million yuan.

It was not until the success of "Coming Home" that he regained his confidence. The Zhang Yimou who dared to challenge and liked to try new things came back.

In the second half of last year, Zhang Yimou had been doing the early preparations for "The Great Wall", looking for screenwriters to create and improve the script, contacting special effects companies, making special effects storyboards, designing monster images, making original paintings, etc. ...

It was not until after the Chinese New Year that all these preparations were completed, and the characters and roles were all determined, and Zhang Yimou began to work on casting.

But just this casting issue made Zhang Yimou toss for several months.

Now this new version of "The Great Wall" is almost two movies from the "The Great Wall" in Wu Yuan's impression.

Although the core concept of the Great Wall to resist monsters has not changed, and the setting of the Shadowless Legion, an army stationed on the Great Wall, is still there, the main plot and characters have changed beyond recognition.

The story of the new version of "The Great Wall" revolves around "defending the country" and "protecting the territory" as the main story line, and the protagonists are the generals and soldiers who guard the country on the Great Wall.

Although there is a love line, it is only a secondary line, more like Guo Jing and his wife when they were defending Xiangyang, linking personal feelings with family and country feelings, and more showing the strong feelings of the couple fighting against foreign enemies together.

That is, great love, not the kind of small love that young men and women are busy dating, quarreling, and breaking up while guarding the Great Wall.

Therefore, when casting, Zhang Yimou mainly wanted a group of tough guys and heroic actresses.

This is not easy to find.

In 2014, it was when the Korean wave overwhelmed the Chinese wave.

Or in other words, since 2010, the aesthetic taste of the younger generation in China has gradually changed. The actors that the older generation thinks are more "normal" are no longer the style that the younger generation likes.

Young people prefer the Korean and Japanese-style handsome boys or soft and handsome guys.

It is indeed incorrect to call them "sissy" and it is insulting.

But we have to admit that the aesthetic taste of the entertainment industry during this period is indeed more neutral and delicate.

Those tough guys and rough guys are completely out of the game.

The heroic and graceful actresses are even more vulnerable in front of sweet girls, royal sisters, and vixens.

In this case, it is really not easy for Zhang Yimou to put together a tough guy group and Hua Mulan and Mu Guiying.

He almost went through all the existing actor resumes in the entertainment industry, watched one video after another, and conducted large-scale auditions, and only then did he find the only group of tough guys and heroic girls in the entertainment industry.

Yes, Wolf Warrior is definitely selected, and he became the male lead.

The heroine is Miao Pu, who brought Mu Guiying to life.

The other main supporting roles are all male actors who are serving in the military in the domestic entertainment industry, such as Zhang Yi, Duan Yihong, and Zhang Guoqiang.

It's just that it's really hard to find a heroic female actor.

Apart from Miao Pu, Zhang Yimou searched everywhere, and even held an open audition to find Zhong Chuxi, but it was still not enough.

It was only with the recommendation of Wu Jing from Wolf Warrior that Zhang Yimou found Yu Nan, an actress who was also serving in the military in the domestic entertainment industry, and barely made up the cast.

It's this cast that makes you think it's a special forces movie at first glance.

Anyway, Wu Yuan couldn't hold back when he saw the cast list.

The only thing that "The Great Wall" is similar to his impression of "The Great Wall" is the title (end of this chapter)