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Chapter 103 The Miracle Continues

Fountain Source Hollywood Studios made a net profit of over $100 million on this project.

After Ellie finished signing the final producer revenue-sharing settlement documents in Los Angeles, she sent a message to Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan replied with two words: "Received."

In 2003, a film critic wrote in a retrospective of the film industry in 2001:

The greatest significance of "Happy Death Day" is not how much money it made, although the $250 million is certainly worth mentioning.

Its success made Hollywood seriously consider a question for the first time:

Why can't we make more co-productions like this?

With a low budget, manageable risks, and a global audience, the product is a hit.

Prior to this, Hollywood's imagination of Chinese filmmakers was limited to two things: acting in martial arts films and Ang Lee.

Fang Yuan's appearance opened a third door—a 22-year-old Chinese man who could write, direct, act, and turn a $8 million investment into a $250 million global box office hit.

He is not Jackie Chan, not Jet Li, not Ang Lee. He is a completely new type.

When China Film Group, Huayi Brothers, and Bona Film Group began searching for their own "co-production" projects, they repeatedly mentioned only one case in their internal reports—"Happy Death Day".

This is the most important footnote left by Fang Yuan in 2001.

But for Fang Yuan, the miracle of 2001 was far from over.

"Lurking" had a production cost of $1.5 million and grossed over $100 million at the box office, with a Douban rating of 8.0.

Released during the 2002 Spring Festival, "Crazy Racer" grossed 110 million yuan at the box office with a budget of less than 10 million yuan, making Ning Hao the fourth mainland director to enter the "100 Million Yuan Club" after Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Feng Xiaogang.

This achievement was quite remarkable at the time, and its success was largely due to the support of its predecessor, "Crazy Stone".

The film also received positive reviews, with a Douban rating of 8.4 (45.4 reviews), and over 77% of the reviews being four or five stars.

Its IMDb rating of 7.4 also indicates that its unique style has been recognized by some overseas audiences.

Chen Xia's stock portfolio is performing well. After the sharp decline in the months leading up to the Lunar New Year, many stock prices have plummeted or even halved.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Fang Yuan arranged for Chen Xia to start buying at the bottom and increasing her holdings. By the first quarter of the year, compared with the original investment plan, the overall cost of stock investment had decreased by 20%, the net value of stocks reached $2.3 million, and the number of shares held increased by 20%.

The publishing plan for 2002 has already begun.

Including the Maze Runner trilogy, Interstellar, The Wool Chronicles, and The Day After Tomorrow, the basic utopian concept series has basically come to an end, and the science fiction concept has also begun to be gradually laid out.

Interstellar is a science fiction epic that explores the grand themes of the universe and human nature.

"The Day After Tomorrow" is a classic disaster film that sparked people's awareness of the climate crisis;

"Wool Chronicles" takes a dystopian perspective, depicting a repressive and suspenseful survival allegory within a cramped space.

The Maze Runner trilogy, consisting of The Maze Runner, The Scorched Earth, and The Death Cure, is the core of the entire series.

Part 1: The Maze Runner

This is the opening chapter of the entire series, and also the one with the most suspense and intriguing premise.

The boy Thomas wakes up in a dark elevator with a blank mind; the only thing he remembers is his own name.

The elevator took him to a place called "Wood Clearing," where a group of boys who had also lost their memories had developed their own complete system of living and working.

This place is surrounded by a huge and mysterious megalithic labyrinth, inhabited by terrifying half-mechanical, half-biological monsters called "Ghost Fire Beasts," and the labyrinth's gates close precisely at dusk.

For months, the "Walkers" explored the maze every day, but all their efforts were in vain, until Thomas's arrival broke the balance.

Soon after, a girl named Teresa arrived at the forest clearing with a mysterious note that read, "She is the last one."

From then on, the maze began to change rapidly, errors occurred frequently, and the order of the entire forest clearing began to crumble.

To save his friend from trouble, Thomas defied the ban and rushed into the maze, embarking on a path of no return—a path of breaking conventions and pursuing the truth.

Part Two: The Scorched Earth Trial

After successfully escaping the maze, Thomas and his group wake up in a seemingly safe secret base, but they soon discover that they have just entered another phase of the experiment set up by the "Disaster Headquarters".

The real outside world has been reduced to "scorched earth"—a shocking apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by the "Flame Syndrome" virus.

Now, they face a new hunt and must traverse a wasteland infested with infected people to find a legendary refuge.

In this installment, Teresa "betrays" the team, and "Disaster Headquarters" gradually reveals the cruel truth about Flare—an infectious and incurable disease caused by a virus mutation that went out of control after a solar flare.

Part Three: The Death Cure

At the end of the second movie, their partner Mino was captured by the "Disaster Headquarters".

In order to rescue his friend and end it all, Thomas leads the survivors in a final counterattack and decides to fight his way back to the "Disaster Headquarters" headquarters.

Here, Thomas learns that his body naturally possesses antibodies against "flare." Therefore, his own brain is key to developing a vaccine.

Ultimately, Thomas must make a crucial choice between personal redemption and sacrificing himself to save all of humanity.

A sense of powerlessness pervades the entire Maze Runner.

The protagonists discover that the maze they fought so hard to escape is just a small part of a larger conspiracy.

This narrative of "escaping one's life only to enter another, even bigger trap" profoundly explores the essence of trust, betrayal, sacrifice, and hope in extreme circumstances.

A dystopian "runaway" out of nowhere:

The series successfully combines parkour elements with survival, creating a breathless and tense rhythm.

The frantic run through the maze, the escape through the scorched earth, the chase between cities, and the ever-present surveillance of the "Disaster Headquarters" all combine to create a depressing picture of teenagers struggling to survive in dire circumstances, filled with a profound allegorical sense of "dystopia".

In all of his published books, Fang Yuan has incorporated Chinese or Eastern elements to varying degrees. Some of these elements were already present in the original works, while others were added by Fang Yuan during his rewriting.

Random House has communicated with them about these situations and expressed their understanding, as Fang Yuan's identity dictates that this is a normal behavior.

At the same time, he also arranged for Ellie to look for suitable special effects and animation companies in Hollywood in preparation for an acquisition plan.