Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 548 Mulan's Audition

Li Qiutang's work in New Zealand came to an end, and she left her team to go to the United States alone.

He went specifically to support Guo Fan.

Disney's first round of interviews for Guo Fan's "Mulan" took place at Disney's New York headquarters.

This may be the most important interview Guo Fan has ever conducted since he started working.

Li Qiutang arrived at Guo Fan's hotel the day before his interview and met him, along with his good friend Gong Geer and his team members.

Accompanying Guo Fan was a vice president of the company's overseas business division.

Now that things have come to this point, Li Qiutang didn't say much to put pressure on Guo Fan, only telling him to relax: "A Disney interview is nothing special. Just prepare well and have the right mindset."

The following day, Li Qiutang attended Disney's interview with Guo Fan as a business partner.

Gong Ge'er participated in the director audition as Guo Fan's assistant and helped Guo Fan complete the audition speech and communication.

The two of them each dragged a suitcase into the audition room.

Wang Qing, Vice President of Disney China, joked with the two men in Chinese: "What are you doing dragging in two huge suitcases?"

"These are all the materials we prepared," Guo Fan explained.

Wang Qing nodded, turned to explain the two boxes to his Disney colleagues, and then gestured for Guo Fan to introduce himself and begin today's director audition.

The all-English interview was a real challenge for Guo Fan and Gong Geer. They practiced for a long time, but they still stumbled over their words on the spot.

However, the Disney officials must have anticipated this situation and did not make things difficult for Guo Fan with words.

This audition focused on assessing Guo Fan's directing abilities.

Guo Fan had done a great deal of preparation beforehand, and during his presentation, he fully demonstrated his understanding of the story of Mulan through PowerPoint presentations and printed materials.

"Mulan is one of the most unique women in Chinese culture. She is a literary figure; there was no real Mulan in Chinese history. However, the story of Mulan taking her father's place in the army has been passed down in China for over a thousand years. During these thousand years, Chinese folk tales, operas, and even ancient emperors have continuously emphasized and praised Mulan and her deeds..."

If Guo Fan's audience were domestic film companies, this entire section could be cut, but he was addressing a group of foreigners.

Even though Disney is making "Mulan," none of these vice presidents, managers, or producers necessarily know anything about Mulan and her story. Guo Fan needs to reintroduce it to them.

Fortunately, Mulan's spirit is universal; her courage, resilience, wisdom, filial piety, and loyalty are qualities that anyone can understand.

Building upon these points, Guo Fan proposed the concept of self-transcendence: "Mulan is not only a brave warrior, but also a person with a high degree of self-awareness and self-transcendence. Through her own efforts and determination, she transcended her self-limitations and achieved continuous progress and growth."

These are timeless themes in the Disney Princess series, especially the theme of surpassing oneself; Disney would love to incorporate this theme into all of its movies.

However, Guo Fan's interpretation of Mulan's qualities was only accurate, not particularly insightful.

It wouldn't light up the film anyway. The story of Mulan has been passed down for thousands of years, and the spirit of Mulan has been thoroughly understood. After all, this was an interview for the director, and after explaining the story of Mulan, everyone returned to the film.

The first question that Guo Fan had to answer was: "I see that you only have experience in making two low-budget films before, but the investment in 'Mulan' is at least $1 million. I don't doubt your directing skills, but how can I believe that you can make such a blockbuster well?"

But Guo Fan was clearly prepared: "I understand that jumping directly from two low-budget films to a big-budget production seems like a huge leap. It's perfectly reasonable for you and the company to have concerns about this."

"But I want to emphasize that, regardless of budget, the core principles of filmmaking are the same: telling a good story, creating compelling characters, building an engaging world, and establishing an emotional connection with the audience. In my two low-budget films, I honed these core skills with extremely limited resources—how to tell a story with the most concise visual language, how to inspire actors to reach their best performance in a short time, and how to make the most effective creative decisions under the dual pressure of budget and time."

"And in my opinion, the key to handling large-scale productions lies in solving a few core challenges, which are precisely what I have been deeply considering and am prepared to address:..."

Next, Guo Fan elaborated on his preparation and understanding of large-scale productions from four aspects: large-scale management and communication collaboration, budget and risk control, maintaining creative focus and artistic integrity, and making good use of the advantages of large-scale productions.

"My experience with low budgets has taught me to unleash creativity within constraints, make efficient decisions, and build strong connections with the team. These abilities are invaluable assets when managing large-scale productions, preventing projects from spiraling out of control and maintaining team vitality and creative passion."

Li Qiutang nodded in agreement. Guo Fan was actually best suited to be a producer, not a director; his approach was entirely focused on crew management.

The director audition lasted three and a half hours. It was clear that the Disney representative was very satisfied with Guo Fan's performance today, saying on the spot, "We look forward to seeing you in China."

Today we talked about creative concepts and crew management. The next audition in China will test scriptwriting and filming skills.

Li Qiutang, this incompetent boss, finally came to the company for the first time half a month after Lantern Entertainment went public.

Lantern Entertainment's most valuable IP, "The Hunger Games," officially ended last year.

Although the company also has "The Maze Runner" and "The Purge" franchises, both of these series are considered cult films and their earning power is far less than that of "The Hunger Games".

The company is now betting everything on "John Wick," with filming for the second installment already underway and expected to wrap up next month. The budget has also increased from 2000 million for the first film to 4000 million.

Michael Lynn wanted to make a series of blockbusters, but IPs aren't so easy to create. Legendary only had King Kong, and Lionsgate only had Saw. Both companies were frantically trying to develop new IPs—otherwise, Legendary wouldn't have made Pacific Rim. Lantern Entertainment, the youngest of the three, was lucky to have The Hunger Games, and was also able to make low-budget cult series like The Maze Runner and The Purge. Michael Lynn should thank God, not to mention that the company had money for him to make the John Wick series.

Lantern Entertainment is just too young and has too few film libraries and copyrights; otherwise, its market value wouldn't be lower than Lionsgate and Legendary Entertainment.

Li Qiutang and Michael Lynn have always had significant differences in their IP strategies. Michael Lynn's approach is aggressive, while Li Qiutang advocates a conservative approach.

Li Qiutang disagreed with Michael Lynn's decision to blindly invest in large projects, believing that the company already had sufficient intellectual property and should not make aggressive investments.

Even if new IPs are developed, they should focus on low- to medium-budget horror and monster movies. Li Qiutang firmly opposes the company venturing into science fiction and fantasy, but Michael Lynn has a particular fondness for these two genres.

There is also a struggle between the chairman and the CEO.

For example, right now, Li Qiutang is keeping it from Michael Lynn and has the vice president go to Warner Bros. to discuss the film remake rights for the 1990 TV series "It".

Li Qiutang dared not gamble on whether Michael Lynn's hatred for Warner had subsided.

Michael Lynn is 65 years old, and his health hasn't been very good these past two years. Li Qiutang should consider finding him a successor.

(End of this chapter)