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

Chapter 771 Speechless… (14)

"The original title of the movie 'Door Lock' is 'While You Were Sleeping'... It's a film whose plot unfolds from a criminal perspective. The male protagonist is a dormitory supervisor, so he can freely break into the female protagonist's home..."

“Our national conditions are different, and when making this film, director Shen Ao conducted some interviews about the safety of women living alone… The safety of women living alone is indeed a serious issue!”

"Women living alone have always been a vulnerable group in society for various reasons, and they are the primary targets of criminal groups, whether for robbery or sexual assault."

Besides these, it's common for women living alone to be spied on. Although their physical safety isn't affected, the complete exposure of their privacy can cause psychological harm... After learning about these situations, he wrote the first draft of the script for "The Door Lock"...

"Shi Shi is the producer. The copyright for this show was bought by Brother Ji Xiang. It was originally supposed to be done by me, but if Shi Shi wants to do it, then let her do it!"

"I looked at the script and asked him to cut some characters. After all, it's a crime film, and too many characters can confuse the audience. He revised the script three times..."

Shen Yan was live-streaming and naturally started talking about Shi Shi…

Her fans are generally aware of his relationship with Shi Shi.

The first batch of CP fans are probably already in elementary school!
"Director Shen Ao graduated from Beijing Film Academy. He's very famous for his commercials. I've known him for a long time... He directed the Sprite commercial I was the one he was in!"

"Later, I asked him to produce 'Northeast Love Brother'... then 'Saving the Suspect' produced by Shi Shi, and 'Door Lock'..."

"He's very talented and smart!"

For example, when he was a junior in college, he tried to get sponsorship from the Youth Film Studio to make his graduation project. At that time, films were generally shot on film, and the equipment was expensive. There were 19 students in his class, and only 4 spots were available. With the money, he could make a decent short film as a stepping stone to becoming a director in the future, and it would be even better if he could win an award at a film festival.

He came up with a solution, consciously weaving together elements that foreigners might be interested in—class, ethnicity, church, and Cui Jian's songs—to create a story about a Korean man and two young men from Beijing.

This method secured him sponsorship and also garnered him favor with the film festival.

He told me, "It was a very shameful act, and I felt ashamed for a long time."

The first award was the Silver Award for Short Film at the San Sebastián Film Festival. In Spain, he interacted with foreign students, chatting politely and pleasantly, and then watched their films. The feeling was simply "impressive but incomprehensible." He still remembers the Gold Award, which was about a chicken farm in Brazil, and he couldn't understand it at all.

Yes, it's the student short film section of the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain. The San Sebastián Film Festival is considered an international A-list festival, but it doesn't have much of a reputation. After all, the three major European art film festivals are considered the temple of European art cinema, so a Spanish film festival is bound to be less well-known…

Then a bunch of netizens commented "fake award"...

Shen Yan said, "It's not some low-level award... Anyway, just remember that apart from the three major film festivals, the other A-list film festivals are all regional awards... By the way, back then, when 'A Sigh' won the Grand Prize at the Cairo Film Festival, it was mocked by Wang Shuo as a 'township enterprise award.' The Cairo Film Festival is also an A-list festival, but that doesn't mean that A-list festivals are superior!"

"Chinese-language films either go to the three major European film festivals, or the Tokyo International Film Festival... or at the very least, the Shanghai International Film Festival. But if they go to other major A-list film festivals in Europe, America, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, traveling across oceans to participate, such as San Sebastián, Montreal, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, Cairo, etc., it's really just for the sake of prestige..."

"Of course, all sorts of bizarre film festivals, such as the Houston Film Festival, the American Asian Film Festival, the London Chinese Film Festival, the China-UK Film Festival, the BRICS Film Festival, the Italy-China Film Festival, the China-Australia Film Festival, and so on, are just frivolous awards, their prestige not even comparable to the Dapanji Cup Community Championship..."

"Although I didn't have any films directed by myself nominated for the three major European film festivals this year, my A24 brought four films to Venice, including two Chinese-language films!"

"Of course it's because I recommended them... Well, I have a good relationship with Venice, so what's wrong with me recommending a few good movies?"

Five films: *The Lobster*, *Lady Bird*, *Call Me in Your Name*, *Moonlight*, *Hello, Crazy!*, and *Kaili Blues*…

"Hello, Crazy!" and "Kaili Blues" were simply added in...

He has the ability to cut in line, so why doesn't he?

As an aside, *Kaili Blues* is a film distributed by Maoyan, exclusively for art-house cinemas…

Maoyan has released quite a few independent films, such as "Summer in Xixiahe", "Taste of Rice Flower", and "The Coffin in the Mountain". The box office was not high, but it was not low either, basically staying between 1500 million and 3000 million!
There's still money to be made, mainly because Maoyan has a very strong distribution network, and you can leverage Maoyan's short video marketing...

Moreover, Maoyan has partnerships with iQiyi and Tencent, so basically, once a film is released in theaters, it can be available on the platform the next day.

Each film can basically generate several million in revenue...

Shen Yan originally intended to stop here, but then a netizen asked about "The Grave Robbers' Chronicles" and "Sweet Sixteen"...

"I estimate that 'The Lost Tomb' will gross 6 to 8 million yuan at the box office. After all, it's a big IP, and there aren't many other movies with particularly strong box office potential after it..."

"...Yes, 'The Folk Tale of Western Hunan: The Girl from the Fallen Flower Cave' will be released on Qixi Festival...Please support it!"

"I won't even comment on 'Sweet Sixteen'... it's already got me trending on social media for all the wrong reasons..."

"I'm not afraid of anything... I just think it's unnecessary. I'm not like them. I don't like the movies they make; they're full of money."

"How can it not reek of money? It's all about exploiting people; there's no point in discussing this kind of work!"

……

Well, actually, the box office of "Sweet Sixteen" was very low, mainly due to the dispute over billing order - which caused a fight between the die-hard fans of Han Geng and Wu Fan!
Han Geng's side has a dispute with the production company over the script and has refused to participate in promotional activities.

According to a statement from his studio, the production company concealed the differences between the script versions—he initially thought he was the male lead when he accepted the role, but after filming wrapped, he discovered that he had been reduced to the second male lead.

It is said that the original title of "Summer's Desire" was "Elegant Paradise". Han Geng, who played the male lead, filmed for three months. After Wu Fan joined the crew, a large number of Han Geng's scenes were cut!

This matter has had a pretty bad impact...

First of all, the lead actors weren't cooperating with the promotion...

Then the movie itself was terrible, and Han was Wu Fan's direct senior...

This also put Wu Fan in a very difficult position...

Well, the main problem is that the movie was terrible, and the trend of youth films is waning!
In the original timeline, this film ultimately didn't reach 200 million at the box office...

This time it's definitely going to be even worse!

Then... Wu Fan's fans started spreading rumors that Shen Yan was targeting Wu Fan because "Door Lock" was released earlier than scheduled!
Okay, that's true.

But you can't say that...

Because "Door Lock" didn't receive very good reviews, with a Douban score of 6.9, and a box office of 1.8 million yuan in its opening weekend, its final box office is estimated to be only around 5 million yuan, which can only be considered 'barely acceptable'...

Then, because of Wu Fan's fans' deliberate attempts to discredit him, he made it onto several trending topics!
Cinemas have also increased the number of screenings…

It actually grossed 3700 million yuan on its first working day, just 4700 million yuan less than "The Lost Tomb" which grossed 1000 million yuan...

The two sides had a difference of nearly 25,000 screenings...

Is Wu Fan really that useful?

(End of this chapter)