Chapter 692: Doctor Strange Is Mentioned Again

Although Ready Player One has not been released yet, the film has already achieved a record of achievement.

That is the most expensive Chinese-language film in history.

According to the current budget and actual expenses, Ready Player One is expected to cost nearly 600 million yuan in production costs.

This is indeed different from the 1.5 billion yuan cost of the Spielberg version, but considering the actual film market, 600 million is the maximum cost that Wu Yuan can spend.

If it spends more, the film will not be able to make a profit.

Based on 600 million, Ready Player One must have a global box office of at least 1.8 billion to recover its costs!

A box office of more than 1.8 billion is pure profit!

Wu Yuan's box office estimate for this film is at most 1.8-2 billion in the mainland, and 500-800 million in other Asian countries.

Ready Player One is expected to be released in 2016.

The highest-grossing film in 2016 was The Mermaid, which had a box office of 3.3 billion, but this result is not of reference value.

The 3.3 billion of The Mermaid was achieved by Stephen Chow overdrawing his past and future, and with the right time, place and people, which he himself could not replicate.

In terms of the content of this movie alone, it is actually not worthy of this box office performance.

Rather than saying that this box office is from The Mermaid, it is better to say that it is the movie tickets that Stephen Chow's fans from two or three generations in the mainland bought for the pirated discs of Stephen Chow that they watched in the past, and it is just the mainland tickets for all his Hong Kong Island movies.

The second highest-grossing movie is Zootopia with 1.5 billion, which is worth referring to.

Because Zootopia can achieve 1.5 billion, Wu Yuan set the mainland box office expectation of Ready Player One at 1.8-2 billion.

As a director who fights in the local area, Wu Yuan is still confident that the box office will exceed Zootopia, but he does not have a Stephen Chow complex, so the limit potential is 2 billion.

As for other Asian countries, at best they can contribute 500-800 million yuan in box office revenue. This is not Wu Yuan's problem, nor is it a problem with "Ready Player One". It is because the film market in East Asia is so big. It would be the same if other Hollywood blockbusters were brought in. These are all top-notch results.

Results like Japan's 20 billion yen box office and South Korea's 10 million moviegoers are only achievable by their own films, and they only release one every few years. Foreign films cannot do this.

Wu Yuan's "Your Name" can create miracles in Japan because "My Name" is originally a Japanese film.

It is just exported and sold domestically.

Wu Yuan himself cannot replicate this success.

Having been a director for so many years, he may not be able to predict the box office of bad films, but he can predict the box office of hit films.

After all, Wu Yuan has the trend of the film market every year in his mind and knows where the box office limit of mainland films is every year.

This limit has nothing to do with the quality of the film, but is completely based on the number of people entering the cinema at present.

Just like "The Wandering Earth" is good, it would not have been possible to get 4.6 billion in box office in 2010, which has nothing to do with the content of the movie itself.

In his estimation, if "Ready Player One" is released in 2016, the global box office (mainly in East Asia) will be around 2.5 billion at most.

Under this upper limit, if the movie costs 600 million, the profit is about the same as the profit of an ordinary feature film with a box office of 1 billion.

But once the cost is increased to 700 million, it will immediately make less than an ordinary movie, and 800 million can only barely break even.

This is something that cannot be reversed by human power. Unless "Ready Player One" can become a global hit, it will be able to make a lot of money even if it costs 200 million US dollars.

Unfortunately, this is impossible. Hollywood's cultural hegemony cannot be broken for the time being, and domestic films do not have any distribution and promotion channels in Europe and the United States.

Unless you go to Hollywood to shoot.

Don't say it, don't say it.

Just when Wu Yuan was worried about the post-production of Ready Player One and thought of the blockbuster directors in Hollywood who could easily spend $100 million or $200 million to make blockbusters, and how cool it was, there was actually a long-distance call from Hollywood to Wu Yuan.

It was from Marvel.

I don’t know how many brainstorming sessions, meetings, and quarrels Marvel had.

In short, in the past two or three months, the main executives of Marvel have made a big change in their mentality.

The China-only version of Iron Man 3 has been reviewed many times within Marvel.

They don’t pay enough attention to the Chinese film market, and even fooled Chinese movie fans.

Before, they didn’t think it was a big deal. They did Sino-US co-production just to bypass the movie import quota and release it directly in China. They wanted this quota, not to pay attention to the Chinese film market.

Now, after seeing that the box office of X-Men: Days of Future Past in China exceeded $100 million, they have to pay attention to the Chinese film market.

This is $100 million!

In order to make up for the mistake made in "Iron Man 3", Marvel immediately thought of the cooperation with Wu Yuan on "Doctor Strange".

Originally, Marvel planned to shoot this movie in the third quarter of 2015 and release it in the fourth quarter of 2016.

But now, they think the progress of this movie can be faster, maybe shooting in early 2015 and releasing it in early 2016.

And Marvel also hopes that more Chinese actors can appear in "Doctor Strange".

Originally, the screenwriter kept the role of "Wang", the assistant of Doctor Strange, and gave it more plots.

Now Marvel is considering that Ancient One, who was originally set to live in seclusion in the Himalayas and whose real name is Yao, and who appears in the comics as a typical Asian white-bearded grandfather, can also be played by a Chinese actor.

Yes, the original screenwriter's design of Ancient One as a Celtic female with a bisexual personality was rejected by Marvel executives.

Before this, Marvel executives thought this design was quite interesting, and they would rather Ancient One, a powerful and mysterious character, be a European and American.

But now.

Marvel has to respect and understand the Chinese film market.

Changing Ancient One, a powerful "superhero" originally set by the Chinese, into a Celtic does not seem to be a good thing.

Comic readers will find it very strange. In the comics they read, Ancient One is clearly a Chinese old man, how did he suddenly become a bald woman?

After learning about this, Chinese movie fans will also feel that Marvel is deliberately discriminating against and disrespecting Chinese people.

Why are there almost no changes in other superhero adaptations, and even the casting is specifically looking for actors with similar images and temperaments. Robert Downey Jr. is like Tony Stark who walked out of the comics.

When it comes to Ancient One, you become a woman from a man, and a Chinese becomes a Celtic. What do you mean by this?

So, Marvel called Wu Yuan.

"Of course I think it is better for Ancient One to maintain the character setting in the comics."

"Why change him into a female Celtic? What does it mean to the movie itself? It seems to have nothing to do with the main story?"

"If a female character is needed to embellish the movie, isn't Doctor Strange's girlfriend enough? She will be set to be a big blonde beauty that meets American aesthetics!"

Wu Yuan talked freely on the phone and agreed very much with the idea of ​​Marvel executives insisting on Ancient One's character setting.

However, he strongly refused to shoot the film in advance: "No, there is no need to advance the schedule!"

"I don't have time, and the screenwriters should redesign the plot according to the Ancient One in the comics, so let's stick to the original schedule!"

"Please!"

Wu Yuan really doesn't want to work non-stop anymore (End of this chapter)