Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 139: My Own Swordsman

In November of 04, two major events occurred in the film and television industry.

One is that "The Shallows" has exceeded 100 million yuan, which actually has a lot to do with the war of words, and the other is the launch of the TV series "Blood Romance".

"Blood Romance" is the work of Du Liang, a period drama about the life of children in a compound.

The director is Teng Wenyi, Teng Huatao's father.

At this stage, CCTV is the undisputed leader in the field of TV dramas. The TV dramas it broadcasts are generally well-produced and have high ratings.

Especially at 8 o'clock every night, the ratings champions are basically CCTV's big dramas.

But recently it has been overshadowed by Jiangsu Satellite TV because it started broadcasting "Blood Romance".

As soon as the film was broadcast, it immediately aroused heated discussion among the public.

The premiere ratings exceeded 1, reaching a peak of 13.6%.

Then the characters in the play quickly became the topic of conversation among the general public.

People like Zhong Yuemin, Yuan Jun, Zhang Haiyang, and Li Yuanchao were born in military compounds, and their parents are high-ranking military officers.

Although we have the same background, everyone's life is different.

Zhong Yuemin has served in the army, opened a restaurant, and sold pancakes. He is the male protagonist of the whole drama, but he is a man full of romantic feelings.

It's shown in the play that he is unreliable.

He is in his thirties and still hasn't married. He has no career and just pursues freedom every day. He would rather hunt poachers on the border than live a down-to-earth life.

The others are relatively normal. Yuan Jun develops in the army and becomes a diplomatic military attaché.

Zheng Tong, who has always been a talkative person, finally became a doctor and did research in a down-to-earth manner.

Zhang Haiyang became the captain of the criminal police team and solved many major cases.

Li Yuanchao has the strongest family background. He was the core of the compound when he was a child. When he grew up, he was also one of the first to go abroad. He lived in a villa, drove a luxury car, and enjoyed life.

Everyone is talking about it with great interest. To put it bluntly, the lives of children born in military compounds are still mysterious and full of curiosity to the public.

The show became popular largely because it is realistic.

The children of the wealthy families are all doing well, but the common people are still living in poverty.

As a member of the common people, Li Kuiyong had struggled before, but ultimately he could not fight against his fate. His family was in a mess, and he eventually fell ill and died due to years of overwork.

The little bastard is a very outstanding character, a troublemaker who refuses to accept his fate.

But he was also the first to go offline, and died at the Xiannongtan.

In this drama, you feel that there are no villains in the traditional sense.

Everyone is interpreting his or her own life.

The children of common people and those of wealthy families are naturally in opposition.

Sun Li played Zhong Yuemin's first girlfriend in this drama. Even though she became the ratings queen in later generations, no other work could surpass the ratings record of this drama.

The original author Du Liang once said that Zhong Yuemin played by Liu Ye is not the Zhong Yuemin in his book at all.

But people like it very much, and they think that Zhong Yuemin should be like this.

To put it bluntly, it was still a problem of the thinking trend at that time.

During that period, the education we received from childhood to adulthood was about dedication, sacrificing one's own family for the sake of the public, labor is the most glorious, and hard work leads to wealth...

Everyone is required to live the same way.

So whenever someone does something out of the ordinary, they will be regarded as an example.

Although individuality is not encouraged in this era, it is what people desire.

Everyone has a rebellious psychology. When they are suppressed for a long time, they want to change the way they live. If it is impossible in reality, it can only happen in dreams, and TV dramas are the dreams of adults.

That's why people like Zhong Yuemin. Although he is unreliable, he dares to do things that people want to do but dare not do.

It just fits the line in the lyrics by Wong Ka Kui - forgive me for my unruly and free-spirited life.

Most of the people who like Zhong Yuemin are men, and everyone wants to be Zhong Yuemin because in reality they are all Li Kuiyong.

At this time, people’s thoughts were very simple: I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t know what to do.

With the development of information in later generations, the summary is clearer.

What is freedom?
It's not that you can do whatever you want, but you have the right to refuse when you don't want to do something.

Dong Jianqiang came to Zhang Chen to talk about "Blood Romance" because he wanted to make a TV series.

Don’t think that Star Entertainment’s two movies sold well and made a lot of money.

But those are exceptions.

It is generally recognized in the circle that making movies has a greater influence than making TV series, but making TV series makes more money than making movies.

But the prerequisite is that you have to have a relationship.

Your drama can be sold after it is filmed.

"Are you related?"

“I didn’t, but the light did.

Guangguang initially started out by producing television programs. To date, the television sector has been Guangguang's biggest profit point, and they have very good relationships with all television stations.

We can definitely cooperate. We can help them with movies, and they can help us find connections for TV series, or we can work together."

It is obvious that Dong Jianqiang has been thinking about this for a long time. The reason why he didn't mention it before was probably because the company had no money and the entire company was revolving around "The Shallows".

If The Shallows succeeds, everything will be fine. If The Shallows fails, everything will be over.

Now that "The Shallows" has been released, it's time for Dong Jianqiang to put a series of plans on the agenda.

“But we have no money~”

Zhang Chen put his hands together and invested all the profits from "The Dark Side" into the production of "The Shallows" and "The Dark Side 2".

Although "The Shallows" made a profit, it will take at least half a year to wait for settlement.

"We don't have it, but others do. Only a fool would use his own money to make a drama now~"

Dong Jianqiang looked at Zhang Chen as if he was a fool. He had long been dissatisfied with the company's stupid behavior.

The film and television industry is a high-risk industry, but Zhang Chen is thinking of using his own money to make a movie. Isn't this stupid?
The latter scratched his head and thought, you are too disrespectful to your leader.

"Don't worry about the funding, I'll take care of it. You don't know how many people wanted to invest in our company after The Shallows.

The company has produced two movies so far, each of which made a lot of money, and the third one is likely to make money as well. For a company like this, as long as I spread the word that I want to raise funds, there will be plenty of people willing to pay for it.”

"Okay, okay, it's up to you."

When it comes to other people's professional fields, Zhang Chen can only shut up.

"The key is the project. Whether you can find a good project or not, relationships are important, but the quality of the work also needs to be acceptable."

"What are you going to do?"

"Of course what I want to do most is a period drama. Bloody Romance is very popular now, and the previous Passionate Years was also good. Unfortunately, this is too difficult."

Zhang Chen knew about "The Passionate Years", which was also a very popular drama at that time. It was also known as "The Love Story of Shi Guangrong and Chu Qin". At that time, he thought it was really good, and the soundtrack was also good. He watched it several times in a row without getting tired of it.

It's a childhood memory.

The male and female protagonists later got married and became a real couple.

Originally, things had developed quite happily up to this point, with the male and female protagonists finally becoming a couple both on and off the screen, creating a beautiful story.

Then things changed.

After they got married, they converted to Christianity together and started doing all kinds of weird things.

In their mouths, "Journey to the West" has also become a book promoting Christianity. Anyone who can read knows that it is a story about Buddhism.

The two also criticized domestic affairs and licked the American father in various ways.

After 2010, he simply immigrated, claiming that he would rather pick up trash in the United States than return to China, and then he really started picking up trash.

I really can't understand it. I have already achieved success in my country, but I am not as good as picking up trash in the United States?
Lu Ke became famous together with Ge You. In the 1990s, the TV series "The Story of the Editorial Department" made her a household name.

"Dongbao, who are you thinking about?"

"Thinking of Ge Ling~"

"Don't think about it. Let me introduce you to a new friend, Shuanghui Ham Sausage. Do you still miss Ge Ling?"

"Who is Ge Ling?"

Those born in the 1980s and 1990s probably all remember this sausage advertisement.

The memory of a generation.

Then the memory collapsed. After Ge Ling and Shi Guangrong went to the United States, they worshipped foreign things in various ways, making it completely impossible to understand their way of thinking.

Kang Honglei probably didn't expect that such an excellent drama of his would be banned because of the pranks of the two leading actors.

Thinking of Kang Honglei, Zhang Chen suddenly remembered his other drama "Soldier Assault", also known as "Erna Assault".

It’s also a divine drama.

It seems that it was produced in 04 or 05.

But as soon as this thought arose, he suppressed it.

"Soldier Assault" is indeed a good drama, but it is too alternative.

The entire TV series revolves around a group of men, without a single female lead.

Can you believe that there is no heroine in the TV series?
Can you believe that there is no love line in the TV series?
"Soldier Assault" dares to do so.

Therefore, "Soldier Assault" was difficult to sell at that time. All major TV stations were not optimistic about it. It was left unsold for a long time and no one bought it.

In the end, Shaanxi 2 bought it at a very low price, and the first broadcast did not make much of a splash.

It really became popular during the second and third rounds, and even won the annual ratings championship in 2007.

But it was no use, the second and third rounds were no longer affordable.

His producer Tianyi Film and Television did not make much money from the drama.

The real profit might be some money earned from online copyright a few years later.

Although this kind of drama is a great one, Zhang Chen doesn't dare to get involved with it.

So he didn't even mention it.

"Forget about the period drama, we can't do that. Oh, by the way, go ask around and see if there's a drama called 'Wulin Wai Zhuan' in the industry?"

Having just rejected the hit TV series "Soldier Assault", Zhang Chen immediately thought of another hit TV series "Wulin Waijia".

He had thought about this drama before, but he didn't have the money at that time.

"Wulin Wai Zhuan? I know. It's Shang Jing and Ning Caishen's project. They approached me for investment a few days ago, but I rejected them. So, are you interested?"

Zhang Chen was stunned. "Rejected? Why did you reject?"

"These two are so unprofessional. Sitcom is synonymous with low cost, but they insisted on making a costume sitcom. Costume films are the most expensive. What are they waiting for if such a project doesn't lose money?"

Ok?
It sounds like it makes sense.

But no matter how reasonable it is, it won't work.

Zhang Chen knew clearly how much money "Wulin Waijiao" made.

In the original time and space, the producers of "Wulin Waijia" seemed to have made a net profit of more than 1000 million just by selling the drama, not to mention a series of derivative products. It seems that the game of the same name is also very awesome, making million in a year.

A true cash cow.

It can be said that this drama is enough to support Xingchen Film and Television.

"Listen to me, this drama will definitely be a big hit, get it now, don't worry, the production cost won't be too high..."

As far as I can remember, the production cost of this drama seemed to be 1200 million, which is definitely very cost-effective.

The production of a TV series often costs tens of millions.

"Okay, then I'll contact them and try to get this show..."

"It's not about striving, it's about making sure~"

Zhang Chen continued to emphasize that if he really let others pick the peaches, he would regret it to death.

"Okay, don't worry. I didn't say anything final yesterday. I will definitely catch him for you." Dong Jianqiang issued a military order.

In terms of creation, he still admires Zhang Chen's vision. If Zhang Chen says it's good, then it's good.

Zhang Chen also realized that his tone was a bit too harsh, and explained: "Brother Dong, don't mind, I'm just anxious, but this drama is really good, forget it, you will know later."

(End of this chapter)