Huayu is here for you

Chapter 172 Senior Brother! Hurry up!

Lin Yu didn't say much about it. After all, it was half of his own film, and Shu Chang was the female lead. There was no question about it. When the finished film of "Kung Fu Jungle" was submitted for review and approved, and the release date of the film was announced, he also tagged the movie "Ip Man".

Lin Yu stopped worrying about casting. He had no objection to whoever Yinghuang chose, not even if it was the original universe pill.

Because he didn't believe that Yu Zhou Dan would dare to bare his teeth and talk to him about how much his salary would increase!

Now that his market value has increased, Lin Yu will give him a raise as much as he deserves; he won't be heartless. But if he thinks he can make a fortune off this film series, Lin Yu will turn around and cancel the movie altogether! He'll also give him a subtle ban from the industry!

Let's see who suffers more then!

The post-production of the movie "Wanted" is also gradually coming to an end, but the special effects will take some time to complete, and it won't be ready until next year at the earliest.

But it just so happens that Lin Yu remembers that Lu Taro's "Nanjing" is scheduled for release in late April next year. Without a doubt, we must snipe it! We absolutely have to snipe it!

Even if it's not a film of the same genre, Lin Yu doesn't intend to let it go. In fact, Lin Yu is even considering releasing "Your Name" at the end of April next year, or around May Day, if the film were made earlier!

We'll attack you from both sides, one in the front and one in the back! We'll kill you!

Having considered everything, Lin Yu, seeing that he no longer needed to worry about the post-production of the movie "Wanted," immediately began working on the project for the movie "Your Name."

Lead actor/director/producer/screenwriter: Lin Yu!

Female lead: Liu Yifei!

Second Man: Hu Ge!

Second female lead: Shu Chang!

Male 3: Yuan Hong!

Five pre-selected roles were announced directly to the public!

As for the selection of other supporting roles, Lin Yu simply handed them over to Guo Fan, Wen Muye, and Xiao Ou.

He then took Ms. Liu with him and embarked on a journey to find filming locations, without wasting any time!

Because he wanted to take advantage of the time while Bob was in North America casting and promoting "Inception" to get "Your Name" on the line, and then bring Ms. Liu into the cast seamlessly!

As for the role of the outpost, which he had in his hands besides Miss Liu, he had already reserved it for Luo Jin.

Being a director, producer, and actor at the same time is indeed too tiring.

However, the scene in the script where the Dream Builder was tricked into kissing the Outpost was changed by Lin Yu with a wave of his hand to: the Outpost's attempt to deceive failed, and he was slapped by the Dream Builder instead.

This way, the comedic moments of the plot are still there, and Lin Yu can feel a little more at ease.

As for Luo Jin, he's going to get beaten up for no reason again?

"Isn't he an actor? Isn't it normal for him to get slapped like that?" Lin Yu thought to himself.

If Luo Jin knew that what was supposed to be a scene where he gained an advantage had been changed by Lin Yu into him being slapped, he'd probably be very upset—well, probably quite happy!

After all, Lin Yu gave him this role, which is essentially the second male lead, with an investment of 1.6 million US dollars, starring Leonardo DiCaprio! A global release!

This series of words was enough to soothe the sadness in his heart!

"Your Name" was originally an anime from Japan, and the country grossed over 300 million US dollars with it, setting a new box office record for Japanese anime films. Locally, it only slightly surpassed "Spirited Away".

Lin Yu's filming in this lifetime will definitely require a change of scenery, which is why Lin Yu dragged Miss Liu on a trip during her busy schedule—well, to find a filming location.

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As for the ideal filming location, Lin Yu already had a general idea in mind.

First, the location should ideally be a village, and the village must have a small lake. As for the lake created by the meteor, that can be done as a special effect later.

In addition, there also needs to be a loudspeaker that can broadcast to the whole village. However, these days, there are still many places with public loudspeakers in small mountain villages, so Lin Yu is not worried about this at all.

The only difficult place to find is a lake. There are many ponds in the mountain villages, but places with lakes are still very rare.

Therefore, Lin Yu had already prepared for a "long-term trip" when he set off.

Lin Yu's movie "Your Name" has a total investment of about 100 million yuan. Apart from the actors' salaries, he plans to invest all the remaining money in special effects. Although there aren't many special effects, Lin Yu is aiming for world-class special effects. After all, the more dazzling it looks at the beginning, the more heart-wrenching it will be later!

As for how much of the film's budget the actors will cover?

Let me put it this way! Lin Yu felt that ten million was more than enough, after all, apart from Lin Yu and Miss Liu, he didn't plan to find any big stars with high salaries!

As for Lin Yu and Miss Liu, they were making a movie for their own family, so their pay was just a token amount.

However, it still needs to be reported to the outside world in a serious manner.

Director Lin Yu's salary, including the producer's, screenwriter's, and male lead's salaries, was quoted as a "discounted price" of 20 million US dollars. After all, this was the outside world's estimated price for him. Lin Yu did not intend to lower his own value. It was just a matter of transferring money from one pocket to another, and he did not feel any pain at all.

As for Ms. Liu, let's just quote five million US dollars. With her previous work on "The Witch" and the recently completed "Wanted," she's more than qualified. Besides, nobody in China is offering her roles anymore—no particular reason, they simply can't afford her.

It could also be said that hiring Ms. Liu to act in a film domestically would be a bit cost-effective, and the production company would probably be reluctant to do so, given that Ms. Liu's international fame is currently in an awkward position, neither particularly high nor low.

A salary of five million US dollars is arguably the highest salary ever paid to a female star in China.

So if those movies are aiming for a good price overseas, they might as well hire Gong Li!

Many people might think that Zhang Ziyi, who is currently enjoying great popularity, should have the highest salary, but that's actually a misconception. After being spotted by Zhang Yimou and cast in "The Road Home," Zhang Ziyi rose to fame and went on to star in many Hollywood productions.

However, even with her peak paycheck in "Memoirs of a Geisha," where she sacrificed so much, her salary was only $400 million, which is significantly lower than Gong Li's.

Moreover, Gong Li played a supporting role in "Memoirs of a Geisha". As a supporting actor, her workload was much smaller than Zhang Ziyi's, but she received the same amount of pay.

So it's clear who gets paid more and who gets paid less. Zhang Ziyi still has a few more years of hard work to compete with Gong Li!

After all, when Gong Li took on the role in "Miami Vice" in 2005, her asking price had already reached $500 million, making her the undisputed top Chinese actress at the time.

Furthermore, even if Gong Li were to film a Chinese-language film with a discounted fee of only $200 million, that would still be far higher than Zhang Ziyi's current asking price of 1000 million RMB in China. And that was just Gong Li's asking price in 2005. So her market value will only continue to rise, and it wouldn't be a problem for her to be on par with Liu Yifei. However, her international fame would be much higher than Liu Yifei's.

Despite the high global box office success of Liu Yifei's "The Witch" and her leading role, Gong Li's numerous awards and decades-long acting career are something Liu Yifei, with her somewhat inflated status, can never match.

We'll have to wait until Inception and Wanted are released before we can have a proper comparison.

There are also several other actresses with higher salaries, such as kung fu actress Yang Ziqiong, who played the lead role in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" and was paid $2.5 million by the director.

Zhang Manshen won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1991 for her role in "Center Stage" and won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 2004 for her role in the Western film "What If We Missed It?". At that time, her asking price was $200 million.

Therefore, in terms of acting skills, popularity, and cost-effectiveness, Ms. Liu is not the first choice for domestic directors.

It's almost exactly the same situation as Miss Liu in her previous life. No directors wanted to cast her in movies, but in this life, it's because of her own net worth.

Moreover, most mainstream movies nowadays feature male actors, so—it's incredibly awkward!

While Lin Yu and Miss Liu were searching for filming locations, Han Sanping officially announced the release date for the second installment of "Twilight," which he had bought from Lin Yu: August 20th, nearly two weeks earlier than Li Lianjie's "The Mummy 3." Clearly, Han Sanping wasn't confident in directly competing with this film.

Meanwhile, the film "Ip Man," which is being prepared in Hong Kong, also announced that filming will officially begin on August 12.

The speed of the operation surprised Lin Yu. He had only been told a few days ago that the project was about to be approved, and now filming was already underway? The selection of actors and the preparation of the crew were too fast! Lin Yu would hardly believe it if it hadn't been arranged in advance.

On the 10th, Shu Chang also sent a message to Ms. Liu, saying that she was already in Hong Kong Island and that she would bring her some local specialties when she finished filming and went back.

It has to be said that this best friend relationship is really good; she thinks of Miss Liu no matter where she goes.

Aside from Lin Yu's recently approved film "Your Name" and North America's "Inception," the hottest news in the domestic film industry right now is the movie "Perfect Imperfection," which has been dubbed "the fighter jet among mobile phones," "a knock-off of domestic films," and "the king of 'Universe's Hilarious Bloopers."

Even the Twilight series, which Han Han recently announced is about to be released, has to be postponed, because this movie is truly a unique phenomenon in the film industry!

In this film, which has no screenwriter, no director, no actors, no cinematographer, and no lighting, set design, costumes, props, or any other aspects that were made entirely on a budget, there is absolutely no indication that it has the potential to gross 4600 million yuan at the box office.

However, "Perfect Imperfection" actually outperformed "Crazy Stone" in its previous life, and its box office was almost double that of the latter. Such a result, besides illustrating the unreliability of domestic film box office and serving as a wake-up call to those who take filmmaking seriously, should also have some lessons to be learned and grasped.

In fact, the fact that "Perfect Imperfection" was able to achieve a box office of 4600 million yuan should first be attributed to its release date, rather than to Li Chun, whom the film's director thanked profusely at its celebration party. Otherwise, low-budget films would only need to have her sing the theme song, and they wouldn't have to worry about box office performance.

With "Red Cliff" leading the way and the Olympics following, the release schedule of "Perfect Imperfection" was truly a stroke of luck. The last film to triumph amidst such competition was Li Shaohong's "The Door." Despite not even having a fully developed narrative, "The Door," relying solely on its thriller genre, garnered over ten million yuan at the box office, a testament to the film's success and a source of immense pride for its producer, Li Xiaowan.

However, for low-budget films, trying to gamble on a release date is less appealing than betting on the lottery, at least the lottery offers equal chances and avoids discrimination. Therefore, the release date strategy for "Perfect Imperfection" is essentially "unrepeatable."

It's just that—it looks a bit jarring.

Online reviews are overwhelmingly negative! It doesn't look like a movie that could have high box office returns at all.

However, none of this concerned Lin Yu and Miss Liu, because on August 18th, the young couple finally found a suitable filming location for "Your Name".

It is a remote mountain village in SX province. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and there is a small lake on the east side of the village. It is simply the perfect shooting location in Lin Yu's mind.

Just as Lin Yu and Miss Liu were happily deciding on this location for filming, they received an invitation to the Bazaar Charity Gala at almost the same time.

"Senior brother? What do you think? Are you going?"

Ms. Liu, who put down her phone around the same time as Lin Yu, stared blankly at Lin Yu and asked:

Lin Yu considered for a couple of seconds, then said, "Let's go! This isn't the first time she's invited me."

"Not the first time? Hehe—that makes sense, senior brother, you're so famous, she must invite you every time, right?" After thinking for a moment, Miss Liu smiled with a matter-of-fact expression, "Hehe—silly girl, this party isn't that simple." Lin Yu patted Miss Liu's head with a smile.

Miss Liu was full of questions. "Isn't that simple?"

"Don't overthink it, just treat it like a normal charity gala. Come on! Shall we go scout the location up the mountain?" Lin Yu grabbed Liu's small hand and laughed, "Hehe—okay! Let's go! Destination—the mountaintop!" Liu tightened her grip on Lin Yu's right hand, pointed with her left hand at the lush green mountains opposite them, and shouted loudly:

Luckily, there was no one at the foot of the mountain at the moment, otherwise the young couple might have been mistaken for patients who had escaped from that mental hospital.

"Hey! Slow down, don't fall!" Lin Yu said with concern, looking at Miss Liu who had suddenly become enthusiastic and ran ahead of him to lead the way. "Hehe—hurry up, senior brother!"

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