Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 458 Beijing Film Festival (14)

The Empress of China...

Fan Xiaopang is really hardworking!
Perhaps her previous portrayal of Yang Guifei subjected her to endless ridicule…

—It's horse riding!

She was subjected to various forms of ridicule, especially after Wang Sicong directly confronted her, saying, "You f*** your Jinbao, Xueqi, and Jiayin."

Mr. Wang is truly utterly incompetent.

Little Fatty said to him: I'll do my work, you go find your dad, we're both self-reliant.

Mr. Wang could easily reply: "I'll find my biological father, you can find your godfather, we're both relying on our fathers."

Directly naming names is tantamount to tearing off all pretense of civility!

As for "The Empress of China," it can be considered her ultimate Mary Sue dream.

On the surface, she exudes an air of dominance: I don't need to marry into a wealthy family, because I am a wealthy family!

In fact, after being proposed to, she posted on Weibo, "I don't want the stars in the sky, I only want happiness on earth!"

To be honest, Fan Xiaopang is really amazing.

At an age when she should have faded into obscurity, she defied expectations with "The Empress of China"—achieving an average viewership rating of over 3...

If you look at her resume, the movies she starred in have all had pretty poor box office performance. The only exception was "Skiptrace," which benefited from Jackie Chan's involvement and grossed over 880 million yuan, and "Lost in Thailand," in which she had a cameo role, which grossed over 1 billion yuan…

The other films all grossed between 1 million and 3 million.

People like that... are too cheap!

So when Dilraba asked her why she didn't cast Fan Bingbing in her films, Shen Yan replied directly, "Too expensive, and too easily replaceable... there's no need to cast her!"

"what?"

"Moreover, big stars have their own teams and are very concerned about their status. To get them to act, not only do they need high salaries, but they also need to be given considerable preferential treatment in terms of screen time, character design, and billing, which can make the plot feel disjointed to some extent. For my commercial films, when choosing the female lead, I either look for well-acted actresses with solid acting skills, such as Qin Hailu and Yuan Quan, or I simply look for newcomers!"

Dilraba retorted: "...But you didn't use any newcomers either!"

"I haven't used any new players yet? I've only used new players!"

"You've never used me!"

Shen Yan was speechless: "Heaven and earth bear witness, didn't I bring you along for 'The Criminal' and 'My Love from the Star'? I didn't even bring Chen Yao!"

"Chen Yao has filmed many dramas with Sister Shi Shi..."

"They're all minor supporting characters..."

Well, Chen Yao has indeed acted in a lot of dramas. Basically, in every drama that Shi Shi stars in, Chen Yao will play a small role, including in "Legend of Dance and Music" and "Legend of Fei"...

On the one hand, they're accumulating experience; on the other hand, they're building up their national recognition...

"Hey, Beijing Film Festival, are you a judge?"

"I'm not... I'm just participating normally..."

The main purpose is to sell films through the Beijing Film Festival.

Compared to the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Beijing International Film Festival focuses more on film trading, and also has a project pitching section…

Shen Yan is one of the judges for this year's venture capital unit and is going to a meeting.

……

Shen Yan is already one of the top producers in the industry. Although he has not yet joined organizations such as the Directors Guild or the Producers Guild, his reputation is the most prominent!

Because they really achieved results!
In the commercial film market, whoever gets the highest box office is the most awesome.

In order to enhance the reputation of the Beijing Film Festival's project pitching event, Shen Yan had Qi Yukun take the "Funeral Coffin" project to the festival's project pitching session...

The most famous project from the Beijing Film Festival's project pitching event was "Till the End of the World," starring Mark Chao and Yang Zishan, which ultimately grossed 2.34 million yuan.

Generally speaking, film festival pitching projects tend to favor art-house and drama genres.

If it's a commercial genre and the script is good, a company would have already approached you!

You should know that during those years when hot money was pouring into the industry like crazy, a bunch of inexplicable projects were launched.

They're really throwing money around like crazy... In the bars of Sanlitun, you can find a bunch of people talking about movie investment, and 100 million yuan is just small change to them!

Ahem...

However, at this year's venture capital conference, Shen Yan actually saw a few promising projects: *Monkey King: Hero Is Back*, *Mr. Donkey*, and also *My Heart Leaps Up* and *Nezha*...

Uh, the venture capital amount isn't much, only 500 million in total…

However, if you're selected for a high-quality project, you'll have the opportunity to promote yourself in front of a bunch of film and television company bosses...

Many film and television companies in mainland China support the Beijing International Film Festival, with Hehe Pictures being a prime example.

Hehe Pictures was founded by Yang Wei, whose representative works include a bunch of flops: *The Looming Storm*, *Northeast Tiger*, *Super Me*, *Send Me to the Clouds*, *So Long, My Son*, *Dog Thirteen*, *Hidden Man*, *Wrath of Silence*, *Love After Love*, etc.

Must be a fan of art-house films!
……

The Beijing International Film Festival was indeed a lively event.

Just like at the Shanghai International Film Festival, a bunch of film crews appeared on the red carpet…

Many film crews, including those from "Man of Tai Chi", "3D Iceman", "Iron Man 3", "Switch", "A Thousand Arrows Piercing the Heart", "Back to 1942", "Silent Witness", and "101st Proposal".

More than 300 domestic and international superstars, including Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Lin Chi-ling, Deric Wan, Yvonne Yung, Liu Yan, Christy Chung, Aaron Kwok, Jiang Yiyan, a poetry prodigy, Jay Chou, and Zhang Guoli, appeared on the red carpet at the opening ceremony.

Uh, gradually catching up with the Shanghai International Film Festival!

The Tiantan Award in the main competition section went unnoticed.

The whole film festival felt very superficial…

Shanghai has an international film festival, so Beijing must have one too!
And so it came about...

By the way, last year Wang Jianlin was full of confidence about launching the Qingdao International Film Festival and invited a star-studded lineup of Hollywood celebrities.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and seven other stars…

The biggest news, of course, is Leonardo DiCaprio…

And then... the Qingdao Film Festival didn't get approval!

Come to think of it, you want to create a world-class film festival? What about the Beijing Film Festival then?
If you're going to sell a house, just sell a house honestly. What's the point of all that fancy stuff?
Shen Yan also led the cast and crew of "Making a Name for Themselves" onto the red carpet...

"Confirmed for release on July 4th..."

"The original schedule wasn't suitable..."

Shen Yan gave an interview and talked about the release date of "Fame and Fortune".

Well, "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" dominated the Dragon Boat Festival box office.

For some unspeakable reasons, Shen Yan had to free up his schedule...

Sun Jianjun, the director of "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains"... has a powerful background!
Shen Yan originally planned to release the film on the same day as "Tiny Times"...

Forget it, since it's already been withdrawn, might as well go all the way and go head-to-head with Du Qifeng...

Oh, Johnnie To's "Drug War" has been released, and it grossed 7824 million yuan in its first five days...

In terms of box office figures, it was completely crushed by "Finding Mr. Right", which grossed 1.87 million yuan in its third week.

The film grossed 160 million yuan in its opening week, 2.44 million yuan in its second week, and 1.87 million yuan in its third week. As of April 8th, "Finding Mr. Right" had been in theaters for 19 days, accumulating a total box office of 5.91 million yuan…

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it's unlikely to be the box office champion this week—a new romantic comedy starring Bai Baihe, "A Wedding Invitation," is being released on Friday.

Bai Baihe is truly amazing in the realm of chick flicks…

After "Love is Not Blind", she is an invincible presence in this field!
However, "Finding Mr. Right" has already made a fortune - with a cost of less than 30 million, the box office has reached nearly 600 million, and it's still showing in theaters. Based on the current box office trend, the total box office could reach at least 700 million before it leaves theaters.

Wow, it's almost surpassing "Painted Skin 2"!

The host also asked about "Finding Mr. Right" (Beijing Meets Seattle), and Shen Yan smiled and said, "Thank you to director Han Yan and all the actors for their hard work... Of course, I am most grateful to the audience."

Do venture capitalists have projects they particularly like?

"Yes... I'm planning to have a serious talk with him..."

(End of this chapter)