The Fleeting Years of Chinese Entertainment

After attending the premiere of "A World Without Thieves", the first thing Andy Lau did upon returning to Hong Kong Island was to tell his team that he would need to make time for the film.

The reasons given are also very convincing…

"Director Lin Mo wants me to act in a movie."

After learning the reason, Andy Lau's team acted with exceptional decisiveness, completely rejecting any subsequent invitations he received.

After all, for Lin Mo now, apart from lacking a bit in terms of background, he is indeed no less capable than commercial directors like Feng Xiaogang in other aspects.

Moreover, the current cultural center in China is shifting towards the inland areas, which is an inevitable trend that anyone with eyes can see.

Otherwise, Andy Lau's team wouldn't keep getting him projects from mainland directors.

While Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang's films are quite appealing to Hong Kong residents, this is only one of the reasons.

The real reason why Andy Lau's team has been continuously arranging mainland films for him is to move closer to the mainland market in advance.

Meanwhile, Lin Mo...

After asking Tian Zhuangzhuang for leave, he returned to his studio immediately.

As his studio gradually improved, Lin Mo no longer needed to personally handle the pre-production preparations for his new film.

While submitting the script for filing, Lin Mo also began planning the selection of several main actors for his script.

The movie Lin Mo is preparing to shoot this time is a Japanese film called "The Method of Stealing Keys," which was remade in China in his previous life.

However, Lin Mo still felt that the domestic remake was better and more in line with the tastes of Chinese people.

Therefore, the screenplay he wrote this time was based on the screenplay of "Endgame" from his previous life in China.

Although this movie only grossed over 7 million in its previous life, we still have to consider what kind of competitors it faced at the same time.

Detective Chinatown 3 grossed 45.24 billion yuan, Mom and Dave Lee 54.13 billion yuan, A Writer's Odyssey 10.35 billion yuan…

Judging solely from box office figures, many netizens believe that "Endgame" is a terrible movie, which is why it's so unpopular. However, based on actual viewing experience, "Detective Chinatown 3" is indeed somewhat inferior to "Endgame".

After all, at the time... on professional film review platforms, "Endgame" had a score of 9.1, while "Detective Chinatown 3" only had a score of 9.0.

If you have any doubts, then rating it on Douban would be fair, right?

"Endgame" has a rating of 7.4 on Douban, while "Detective Chinatown 3" only has a rating of 6.0.

Moreover, regardless of the platform, "Endgame" has a higher rating and better word-of-mouth than "Detective Chinatown 3".

Viewers who have seen this film should know that although it follows some absurdist comedy formulas, its core is extremely serious. It is an excellent work that combines many elements.

Although it's a remake, it's 99% original, which shows that director Rao Xiaozhi put a lot of effort into making this film, and is one of the reasons for its excellent reputation.

Good films and good works cannot be judged solely by box office revenue; they must also be judged by word of mouth.

Therefore, this caused many netizens to speak out in support of the film "Endgame," starring Andy Lau, Xiao Yang, and Wan Qian.

"This is clearly bullying..."

As for why "Endgame" was so "miserable" at the time, the reason is quite simple...

Besides the fact that its competitors were formidable, "Endgame" only had a 3.5% screen share at the time, while "Detective Chinatown 3" had a 45.9% screen share.

The number of screenings was more than thirteen times higher... and most of the screenings were at midnight, with some cinemas not even having any screenings at all.

This led many netizens to complain that the film "Endgame" had too few screenings and tickets were impossible to buy.

"It's really hard to find a good movie..."

"How come such a good movie has so few screenings? Are the theaters blind?"

"I'm speechless. I've wanted to see this movie for a week, and I still haven't been able to buy tickets!"

……

Such remarks were common at the time.

Fortunately, the film is of high quality and has received rave reviews online. Many netizens couldn't hide their praise for the film after watching it.

"Being down-to-earth and connecting with ordinary people is what touches people's hearts."

"The film features diverse elements, making it both funny and thought-provoking."

"The actors' performances were all superb; it's a movie definitely worth watching..."

……

But such a wonderful film has unfortunately been buried.

Despite this, the film still managed to gross tens of millions of yuan at the box office, even though it wasn't showing in theaters at the time or was being filmed late into the night. That was quite impressive.

If Endgame had the same screening rate as Detective Chinatown 3 at the time, its box office might have surpassed that of Detective Chinatown 3!

Therefore, it was for these reasons that Lin Mo chose to bring this movie directly to the present.

Firstly, to avoid this film being tarnished again.

Secondly... of course, it's a cheap thing to grab if you can't afford it.

Moreover, since there was no original novel published for this movie, it was easy to film, and the investment in this movie was not high.

The initial investment cost was approximately 1.6 million yuan, including 5000 million yuan in production costs, 5000 million yuan in actor salaries (total of Andy Lau, Xiao Yang, Wan Qian, etc.), 5000 million yuan in scheduling fees, and 1000 million yuan in publicity and distribution expenses.

If these expenses were paid for now, Lin Mo could easily cover them at a heavily discounted price.

Moreover, Andy Lau has been cast as one of the two male leads in this drama, and his salary is much lower than it was in the previous life, at only 350 million.

Moreover, this price was quoted by Andy Lau to Lin Mo himself. Although it was a bit low, it wasn't too far off.

After all, in his previous life in 2005, Andy Lau used the salary from three movies, totaling HK$1250 million, to launch the "Asian New Director Project". Based on this, it can be estimated that Andy Lau's current average salary per movie is about HK$450 million.

The total is only a little over four million RMB...

Besides Andy Lau, the original male lead, the original leads Xiao Yang and Wan Qian are obviously not suitable candidates.

Putting aside acting skills, there's a significant age gap between them.

Makeup alone can't make up for this, so Lin Mo could only apologize to them.

Leaving the female lead aside for now, Lin Mo is starting to have some ideas about the male lead, "Xiao Meng."

Moreover, this person is from the Beijing Film Academy. Although he is not a student majoring in acting, he is definitely Lin Mo's first choice in terms of acting skills, age, and dedication.