Life in the Light and Shadow of Chinese Entertainment

"I won't give up easily!"

Yang Mi's eyes were filled with envy and jealousy, as well as strong resentment and stubbornness. Back when they were filming "The Return of the Condor Heroes", Liu Yifei was the female lead, while Yang Mi was just a minor supporting actress, although her portrayal of Guo Xiang received positive reviews.

Unfortunately, Yang Mi wasn't even considered a third-tier actress back then, but because she was the same age as Liu Yifei, she set her sights on catching up with her.

Over the years, he never complained about hardship or fatigue, but just kept his head down and charged forward, finally reaching the peak of the second tier in 09.

He did not renew his contract with the company when it expired last year. Instead, at the urging of his agent, he went to Hong Kong to develop his career.

Refusing to undress or offer herself, she naturally failed to secure good resources. In the end, she filmed a borderline thriller, attracting a group of movie fans with her swimsuit debut. Although the movie made money, it didn't make a splash because the total box office didn't exceed 100 million.

Fortunately, a work she filmed 10 years ago became a huge hit, which not only helped Yang Mi successfully enter the ranks of first-tier actresses, but also brought her career to its peak. She received so many GG endorsements that she was overwhelmed, and various ancient costume romance dramas followed one after another.

Since Yang Mi aims to emulate Liu Yifei, she naturally has more ambitions than just television dramas; she also aspires to become a top-tier film actress.

Unfortunately, the scripts she gets are either low-budget roles that barely qualify her as the female lead, or roles that require her to sacrifice herself for money in order to get a supporting role in a big-budget production.

TV series and movies have different audiences. The former is free and belongs to popular art, while the latter requires real money to buy tickets and belongs to the director's personal art.

We haven't entered the era of traffic yet, and the fan economy is still in its infancy.

Nowadays, moviegoers are quite rational when it comes to buying tickets. Apart from Hollywood blockbusters, they generally only recognize a few top domestic directors or a few international superstars.

Despite being a top-tier TV actress, Yang Mi still struggles to land leading roles in big-budget productions.

Contacting Wu Yang was a desperate measure to cast a wide net, but unfortunately Wu Yang has no director's mannerisms at all.

Looking at the major directors in the Chinese entertainment industry, every single one of them has had a long list of ex-girlfriends.

As a result, Wu Yang emerged as an oddball, who was introverted and unkempt during his school years.

Despite making numerous inquiries, Yang Mi was unable to find out that Wu Yang had ever been in a relationship during his school years.

Now that he has achieved great success, he doesn't get close to any women except Liu Yifei, and he doesn't attend drinking parties in the entertainment circle.

Although they had a feud with Huayi, it was because Huayi betrayed them first.

Moreover, his collaborations with Huayi and Guangxian occurred before their IPOs, and Huayi betrayed Wu Yang afterward.

The stock price immediately collapsed, falling from a peak of 108 yuan to 33 yuan. It was only thanks to Feng Xiaogang's "Tang Zhen" and Jackie Chan's "Chinese Zodiac" that it barely recovered to 45 yuan.

Once valued at over 100 billion, Wu Yang's current market value barely stays at 45 billion. That's the true value of Wu Yang!

If that doesn't prove anything, then look at the impressive stock. Since its listing, it hasn't experienced any significant drops, rising from 78 yuan to its current 104 yuan.

If you said that Wu Yang didn't contribute to this, no one would believe it.

Moreover, whenever Wang Changtian announces good news to the public, he always mentions Wu Yang.

Furthermore, he repeatedly expressed his gratitude to Huayi, making his gloating intentions quite obvious!

Most importantly, Wu Yang has connections in Hollywood. If Yang Mi can get on Wu Yang's coattails, it will definitely make her film career smoother!

It's a pity that after two years of hard work, from exchanging greetings during holidays to now only being able to chat about everyday things.

This kind of relationship is not only not intimate, but also creates a stronger sense of distance.

Every time Yang Mi invited Wu Yang to dinner, Wu Yang would make an excuse to say he was busy. What really broke Yang Mi's guard was yesterday's premiere.

As early as January 7th, Yang Mi contacted Wu Yang in advance, wanting to attend the premiere.

I didn't get a reply to that message, so I sent another congratulatory message this morning.

Wu Yangcai replied with a single sentence, without offering any explanation for not replying to his previous message.

Yang Mi knew in her heart that Wu Yang didn't take her seriously at all, at most regarding her as a colleague.

This made Yang Mi extremely unhappy, and at the same time, she began to doubt her own charm.

It can only be said that Yang Mi has no idea how attractive the combination of a "white moonlight" and a first love can be to a man!

……

"That's a good box office result!"

Liu Yifei leaned on Wu Yang's shoulder, looking at the first week's box office report on the computer screen.

"It's really good!"

Wu Yang tilted her head and nuzzled Liu Yifei's pretty face, also looking at the computer screen.

The first three days of "Lost in Thailand" happened to be the weekend, so the box office curve rose all the way up. The first day was 6898 million, the second day was 7118 million, and the third day was 7256 million. The box office exceeded 2.12 million in three days, successfully breaking the record for the highest-grossing Chinese film on its opening day and three days.

Starting from the fourth day, which was Monday, the daily box office dropped by half to 4655 million, and remained above 4000 million for the next three days.

The film grossed 4.45 million yuan in its first seven days, received rave reviews on social media and online, and was rated 8.5 by Yangdou, even after Wu Yang gave it a few eye drops.

Thanks to the powerful moves by Han Sanye and Wang Ju, Yangdou has been revamped since last year and is now online, featuring a new function that allows users to rate movies by filling in the serial number on their ticket stubs.

Without the deliberate smear campaigns by the sheepdogs and online trolls, the atmosphere surrounding Yangdou has gradually improved; at least before making a review, you have to buy a movie ticket first.

Sure enough, the box office rose again over the following three days of the weekend, with Friday's single-day box office reaching 5582 million yuan and the two days of Saturday and Sunday both exceeding 6000 million yuan.

In just 10 days since its release, the total box office has exceeded 5 million yuan, and starting from the new week, due to the arrival of winter vacation.

Many students also went to the cinema together, and the box office revenue on weekdays remained above 4500 million every day.

Its explosive popularity is unstoppable. Although it has not yet broken the box office record for Chinese-language films, it is getting closer and closer.

It will definitely break its record before it leaves theaters. With "Lost in Thailand" and "Lost on Journey", Pei Le has successfully entered the ranks of first-class film directors. He is already known as the sixth greatest Chinese director!

Wang Baoqiang, Deng Chao, and Huang Bo have all entered the ranks of top-tier film stars!

The salary offered by outsiders has reached around 800-1000 million yuan, which has placed him in the top tier in mainland China.

Only slightly behind some international superstars and veteran A-list film stars in Hong Kong, they are already in the stage of catching up.

It will take several more years before we can truly achieve parity and surpass previous achievements.

Don't be fooled by the fact that established Hong Kong A-list actors charge over HK$3000 million for their projects; they may not even get a chance to film a single project every few years.

Moreover, each time they take on a role, the actors' salaries are so high that they sometimes account for more than 70% of the total investment, leaving no room for the remaining investment to guarantee the quality of the film.

Even if they are eventually made, most of them are bad movies, and even fewer make money. Most of them leave investors with nothing!

Take "Poisonous Fat" as an example. If it weren't for "Let the Bullets Fly" which helped him recover, his recent few bad movies would have almost made him reclaim his nickname "Poisonous Fat".

It was thanks to "Ip Man" that Donnie Yen was able to carve out a path for himself; otherwise, he would have died on the way!