Chapter 229 Director Wu, I Am the Little Brat You Want!

From Wu Zongxian's beaming smile, it can be seen that he must have sold it at a good price. But what he said shocked everyone in the company!

Everything was obviously normal before the Chinese New Year, right? Why did the boss sell the company just after a new year!

"Brother Xian, how could this happen? What happened?" Wen Lan's voice became shrill.

Wen Lan was also discovered by Wu Zongxian when she participated in a singing competition. Her parents did not agree at first, but Wu Zongxian personally visited her and promised to make her famous, so she signed Wen Lan to debut. Wu Zongxian has been really good to her in the past few years. Any good resources the company has are given to her first. But now that the company has been packaged and sold, her future fate is hard to say.

Jay Chou also hurriedly said: "Brother Xian, is the company short of money? If I don't have money, I can write songs for the company to make money. Don't sell the company, okay?"

Although life in the company has been difficult in the past few years, he has really made a few good friends in the company, and he has successfully made his debut, which makes him very attached to the company.

Wu Zongxian waved his hand directly: "What is your reaction? I said it is a good thing! My abilities are limited and my funds are insufficient, so I cannot provide you with more help, but your new owner is powerful Strong, as long as you perform well, your future will be bright!"

At this time, Liu Genghong asked a question that everyone was concerned about: "Brother Xian, who is the new owner?"

Wu Zongxian slapped his forehead: "Look, I never told you that the new owner is the Little White Bear Media Company that made F4 famous! It's super powerful!"

Jay Chou, Liu Genghong and Fang Wenshan were all stunned when they heard this. Jay Chou and Liu Genghong looked directly at Fang Wenshan. Is this guy's mouth open? Yesterday he said it would be great if the boss was Little White Bear, but today Wu Zongxian came over and announced that he had sold the company to Little White Bear!

No, when I think about it carefully, it seems that just after this guy finished speaking, Wu Zongxian called and said that he had something to announce. Wouldn't it be so effective?

Fang Wenshan also touched his mouth involuntarily and said blankly: "Oh my God! I should have known that I would win the grand prize in the Wishing Lottery!"

…

Wu Yuchen was answering Cai Yinong’s call at this time:

"Director Wu, the Alpha Company in Wanwan has been bought from Wu Zongxian for 12 million Hong Kong dollars, which is a slight premium."

"Not bad, Mr. Cai, the price is okay." Wu Yuchen smiled when he heard this. He was quite satisfied with the price.

Alpha is a company that actually only has about 10 people at full capacity. The ones who are of some value to the outside world now are actually Jay Chou and Wen Lan.

Wu Yuchen also remembered a few songs Wen Lan sang, such as "Summer Wind" and "Rooftop". How to put it this way, Wen Lan is pretty good as a rap artist, but he just can't be popular and has always been tepid. And because she and Jay Chou have known each other since Wei Mo and have a good relationship, Xiao Zhou wrote 16 songs for her, which is far more than the "single digits" of rumored girlfriend Jolin Tsai.

But Wen Lan is just a foil, and Alpha's real value lies with Jay Chou. Jay Chou's first album "Jay" was released in November last year and has sold more than 300,000 copies in more than three months. It is a good performance for a newcomer, but it can only be said to be a small hit among all singers.

At the current price of HK$12 million, buying Alpha Company is indeed a bit of a premium. But it doesn't matter if it's a little higher, it cuts through the mess quickly. How could Wu Zongxian sell it so happily without paying a premium?

After Jay Chou's second album "Fantasy" is released this year, the price of Alpha Company will not exceed this.

In his previous life, Wu Zongxian probably sold Alpha in 2002. At that time, Jay Chou had already released two albums, especially the song "Nunchaku" in "Fantasy", which made him completely popular. A company offered NT$200 million to recruit Jay Chou, but he stayed grateful to the company. As it turned out, it didn't take long for Wu Zongxian to change hands and sell the company to Holaday for NT$300 million, which made Xiao Zhou feel like he had been stabbed in the back.

Converting it according to the exchange rate, Alpha at that time was about 75 million Hong Kong dollars. Now it is naturally a great deal to buy it for 12 million Hong Kong dollars.

Then Cai Yinong asked again: "Director Wu, what about the development of Alpha Company?"

Wu Yuchen thought for a while and said: "Their current manager Yang Junrong has done a good job. From now on, the day-to-day management of the company will be left to him."

Yang Junrong was the one who really discovered Jay Chou. Only with his strong recommendation did Wu Zongxian agree to make a record for Jay Chou.

Then Wu Yuchen added: "Let me also mention the company's treatment. There are many talents inside, but the focus is still on Jay Chou. We will provide him with more publicity support after he releases his album."

According to Wu Yuchen's idea, Alpha on the Wanwan side will naturally be retained as a branch on the Wanwan side, mainly serving Jay Chou personally. Of course, there are a lot of good music creators in Wanwan at this time, and if you come across any talents, you can recruit them.

But he doesn't have to worry about these little things, just leave them to the people below to take care of them.

Cai Yinong also understood what Wu Yuchen meant, and he also raised his attention to Jay Chou to a higher level.

Then Wu Yuchen turned to ask: "Mr. Cai, how is the discussion with Xiantao Digital going?"

"Their boss Zhu Jiaxin went abroad for the New Year. When he comes back in two days, we have made an appointment for an interview."

Wu Yuchen said to Cai Yinong: "Mr. Cai, get it as soon as possible. The movie I will shoot this year will use them and let them prepare early."

"Don't worry, Director Wu, I will definitely get this done!"

"Okay, thank you for your hard work, Mr. Cai!"

"Director Wu, this is all my responsibility~"

After hanging up the phone, Wu Yuchen smiled and bought Alpha. With F4 and Jay Chou, a top group and a top individual were enough to support Little White Bear in the Chinese music scene for more than 10 years.

As for the special effects company, on the one hand, they really want to use it themselves, but on the other hand, they also want to get it done as soon as possible, and then integrate their efforts to catch up with the level of special effects in Hollywood.

Domestic special effects, let alone the current situation, are based on the past life of "The Wandering Earth", the first domestic science fiction movie that was generally recognized by everyone. According to its director Guo Fan, its special effects level is at least 15 years behind Hollywood and its production level. The gap between Hollywood and Hollywood is 25-30 years.

This so-called production level is a gap in the level of the entire film industry, and cannot be changed by Wu Yuchen alone. As for special effects, there is a relatively simple comparison, which is to refer to Hollywood blockbusters. The special effects of "The Wandering Earth" are not as good as those of 2007's "Transformers" and are almost the same as those of 2004's "The Day After Tomorrow", so there is a gap of about 15 years.

Wu Yuchen does not expect that the special effects company he runs can catch up with the top level of Hollywood. This is unrealistic. If he can shorten the gap to less than 10 years, he has made a considerable contribution to Chinese films.

Wu Yuchen didn't tell lies about Han Sanwen. He is indeed preparing for his next Chinese movie, and he is also writing and drawing in this section.

As for what kind of movie it is, it’s actually very simple. It’s naturally martial arts, which will be popular in the Chinese film industry in the next few years!

The revival of the martial arts trend can be regarded as being brought about by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". After "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars and sold US$200 million globally, martial arts craze has surged in China.

Investors are betting on the overseas market's love for martial arts themes, while directors are betting on Oscars and box office results. Therefore, in the next few years, Lao Mouzi, Chen Kaizi, Feng Xiaogang and others have all invested in the craze of costumed martial arts. Moreover, Lao Mouzi made three movies at once, "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers" and "The City of Golden Armor".

With this market here, Wu Yuchen would definitely want to take a shot. After all, one good thing about martial arts movies is that they are suitable for big scenes. In fact, Chinese martial arts themes are similar to Hollywood fantasy movies.

Old American audiences don’t understand martial arts at all. It’s useless to explain internal strength and lightness skills to them. All kinds of flying over walls and violating physical rules only exist in fantasy, so people have always regarded them as Chinese martial arts movies are viewed as fantasy movies.

The popularity of martial arts films in the next few years is indeed an outlet for the development and growth of domestic special effects, so he needs to integrate the special effects companies as soon as possible.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the breakup with Disney last year, which forced him to spend more than half a year filming "The Pirate King", then Wu Yuchen's Chinese film would have started filming last year and would have been released this summer.

And now that it has been delayed for a whole year, he can only take advantage of this time at home to prepare all aspects of the script and storyboards, and then look for actors and let them prepare first. After all, he still has "A Beautiful Mind" waiting for him to film, and this new Chinese film can only be launched in the second half of the year.

Later, he called the person in charge at Xiangshan Film and Television City: "Has the part of Mingchao Street that I requested last year been built?"

"Director Wu, it was all completed last year, and we have prepared the matching costumes and props you mentioned. The Qin Palace will be completed in two months after the Spring Festival..."

Listening to the other party's report, Wu Yuchen also nodded. The Qin Palace was naturally preparing for "Hero" that Lao Mouzi would shoot later.

As for himself, since he had specially asked people to build the Ming Dynasty Street in advance and all the supporting facilities, he naturally filmed the martial arts story with the Ming Dynasty background, "Xiu Chun Dao".

Looking at the history of Chinese martial arts movies, if we take the year 2000 as the dividing line, before 2000, everyone recognized that the pinnacle of martial arts movies was "New Dragon Gate Inn".

In fact, even in the 21st century, "New Dragon Inn" is still the best martial arts movie in most people's minds. But because "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, another wave of people put the title of Best Martial Arts on "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and the two groups of people were quarreling. It is a coincidence or a very unfortunate thing that in both movies, Jet Li was originally scheduled to be the leading actor, but then he resigned...

After 2000, to be honest, there are very few martial arts movies that people can remember. In addition to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", there are also Lao Mouzi's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", and Wu Baige's "Sword Rain" , and then there is "Xiu Chun Dao".

Chen Kaizi's "The Promise" is a bloody fairy tale covered in fantasy. Neither "The City of Golden Armor" nor Feng Xiaogang's "The Night Banquet" can be considered martial arts. They are complete palace battles, a copy of "Thunderstorm", a copy of "Hamlet", and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" is "New Dragon Gate". "Inn" was remade, which shows that a group of great directors are also at their wits end when it comes to scripts.

As for the "Detective Detective" series and "Four Famous Catchers", they can be regarded as suspense and crime-solving themes in ancient costumes that have inherited the mantle of martial arts.

The movie "Xiu Chun Dao" is still very good. It takes the opposite path from the traditional martial arts in the past. The perspective is not on the so-called big figures such as knights and heroes, but on the small people who are affected by the big environment. The helpless choices and powerless resistance of the little man who controlled it showed the struggle of the Ming Dynasty in the precarious situation.

The advantage of Lao Mouzi's "Hero" is that the pictures are beautiful enough, the use of colors is top-notch, the scenes are grand, and the concept is also high. As for the shortcomings, apart from what some experts say about flattering the ruling class, the most criticized thing about the movie "Hero" is the script. To be more specific, the plot is too weak. The whole movie is about the two characters Wuming and Qin Shihuang. People tell the truth and lie, guess what, there is a lack of ups and downs, and everyone's character image is relatively thin.

In fact, after so many years, everyone already knows the characteristics of Lao Mouzi. His shooting skills are definitely good and absolutely top-notch, but scripts have always been his weakness. This can be seen from "Heroes", "House of Flying Daggers", "The Golden Armor" and subsequent movies.

The movie "Xiu Chun Knife" is just the opposite. Due to limited funds, only 30 million yuan, there are no grand scenes at all, but its script and story are very exciting, the plot has ups and downs, and each character is also three-dimensional and rich. , not symbolic.

However, if it were Wu Yuchen to shoot "Xiu Chun Knife" this time, he would not be short of the money, but he could make a fuss about the scenes and pictures. After all, it would still be sold overseas, and a group of foreigners would love to watch it. big occasion.

Therefore, he has been busy working on the script and storyboards of "Xiu Chun Dao" during this period.

This year's Spring Festival is relatively early. January 23rd is New Year's Eve, so people have already started working on January 31st. In previous years, most people in the film and television industry would come out of their homes after the Lantern Festival to start this year's activities.

But this year is different. Many actors are running to the capital. They don’t want to take the train. They have to fly. They are afraid of missing a rare opportunity. Because just two days ago, the great director Wu Yuchen announced that starting from February 1st, he would start a two-week audition for the new movie "Xiu Chun Dao" to be shot this year.

As soon as the news came out, it naturally shocked everyone. Many newspapers reported the matter, and "Xiu Chun Knife" also posted the requirements for each role online for all the actors to watch and compare. Whether it meets the conditions.

"Chao'er, what are you doing?"

The middle-aged woman looked at her son's packed luggage and asked in surprise.

"Go back to school!"

"Why are you back so early? Isn't it early for school to start?" The middle-aged woman was shocked when she heard this.

"Oh, Mom, you don't know. Now director Wu Yuchen's new play is open for auditions. It's too late for me to know this. I have to rush back to the capital, otherwise I won't be able to catch up if it's too late!"

After Deng Chao briefly explained to his parents, he hurriedly grabbed his luggage and walked out. He only found out about it this time when his classmates mentioned it. He hurriedly checked the conditions online and found that he met the registration requirements for the role of Jin Yichuan in "Xiu Chun Dao". He immediately bought a ticket, packed his luggage and rushed back to the capital.

After a tiring journey all the way, when Deng Chao arrived at the dormitory, he found that his roommates had also arrived, so he smiled and said: "Hey, brothers are all rushing back to participate in the audition!"

"No, this is Wu Yuchen's new play!"

"Hey, which role are you guys going to audition for?"

"Which one can we sign up for? The most important role that meets the requirements is Jin Yichuan. If I can't do it anymore, I'm willing to play a small supporting role!"

As Zhu Yuchen spoke, he said to Deng Chao: "Chao'er, hurry up and sign up, we have already signed up!"

Deng Chao dropped his luggage and hurriedly took his resume and ran to apply.

Three days later, both Deng Chao and Zhu Yuchen received a call. They passed the audition and asked them to prepare for the retest in two days. The two couldn't help but high-five each other in the dormitory.

The day after the re-examination, some were happy and some were worried. Deng Chao entered the final round and would be directly selected by Wu Yuchen, while Zhu Yuchen had no choice but to be rejected.

In this situation, Deng Chao originally wanted to comfort his roommate, but he felt it was difficult to speak up because he had advanced to the next round. On the contrary, Zhu Yuchen patted Deng Chao and said:

"Chao'er, I'm fine. Being eliminated was expected, but you have to work hard and bring glory to us!"

Deng Chao then showed a wry smile: "This is not just what I think. Didn't you also see that the role of Jin Yichuan alone has many big names, including Senior Brother Liu Ye, Senior Brother Huang Haibing, and Chen Kun from Beijing Film Academy , I heard that even Huang Xiaoming came to sign up, but I am just a little transparent in front of them!"

Zhu Yuchen also sighed after hearing this: "We are really unlucky. We were born two years late. If we could have entered school a few years earlier, we might have been able to get a role in Director Wu's movies a few years ago!"

Seniors from previous generations, whether it is Liu Ye, Sun Honglei, Duan Long of Yangzhou Opera, or Chen Kun and Fu Dalong of Beijing Film Academy, all relied on Wu Yuchen's works to get ahead, and they are also famous in today's Chinese film and television circles. .

Then Zhu Yuchen said to Deng Chao: "Just try your best. This time is just a training. If you can meet Director Wu, it's a victory! My goal now is to get a role in the crew of Miracle Films before graduation!"

Deng Chao also laughed when he heard this. What Zhu Yuchen said was indeed reality and a feasible plan for them. However, Deng Chao also had a trace of fantasy in his heart, if he could really be selected...

On the other side, Jiang Qinqin was holding the script in her hand, and then she gave Wu Yuchen a smack on her face with a smile like a flower: "Husband, you are so kind!"

This time Wu Yuchen did not hold any auditions for the role of the heroine Zhou Miaotong, and directly gave it to Jiang Qinqin. Although the role of Zhou Miaotong is also important, it is not the protagonist after all, and Wu Yuchen also has confidence in Jiang Qinqin.

Besides, this time he made "Xiu Chun Dao" not for awards, but for a commercial film, so Jiang Qinqin met the requirements both in terms of image and acting skills.

Wu Yuchen hugged Jiang Qinqin and said: "Qinqin, think about the role carefully, especially the temperament and eyes, so that you can get it right when the time comes."

In the previous life, the role of Zhou Miaotong was played by Liu Shishi. The character was an innocent official lady who fell into prostitution. In fact, her figure, appearance, and demeanor were not out of place, but her pair of eyes were almost completely unchanged. With her eyes, she could neither see the struggling love and hate nor the impurities of the world. She forced herself to perform the role of Fu Jing Mubo in a lively and vivid manner, which caused her "eye skills" to be criticized a lot, and she was called a "blind sister". "The title is well-deserved.

Therefore, Wu Yuchen also reminded her specially.

"Honey, don't worry, I won't hold you back!" Jiang Qinqin assured confidently.

Wu Yuchen felt relieved about her. Jiang Qinqin's acting skills were still good, which had been proven in his "If Love Has God's Will".

At this time, Wu Yuchen's cell phone rang. He picked it up and saw that it was Jiang Wen's, and pressed the answer button:

"Hey, Director Jiang..."

Jiang Wen, who was on the opposite side, interrupted directly: "Hey, don't call me Director Jiang. I'm banned now. What kind of director am I? Just call me Jiang Wen'er! Director Wu, I have to ask you, I Why did I fail to meet the requirements? Why did I fail your re-examination and didn't even make it to the final round of auditions?"

Jiang Wen is now banned and cannot be a director, so he has no choice but to become an actor again to satisfy his cravings. But this time for the selection of "Xiu Chun Dao", he directly signed up, and he also signed up for the male lead Shen Lian.

Wu Yuchen immediately sighed:

"Hey, my Brother Jiang, your temperament and your image are not in line with me as a leading actor! My leading actor is the kind of boring, unknown, and unable to decide his fate. I am a little person, and if I ask you to play the role of where to go, who will believe it?"

Jiang Wen on the opposite side immediately retorted:

"No, Director Wu, why do you think I can't play such a small character? I'm already a little person who can't do anything!

Look at me, my films have been banned, and now I’m banned as a person. I have to keep everything in my heart. Doesn’t that mean I’m going to be such a boring little person? Isn't that the little loser who is being held hostage and unable to decide his own destiny? It’s just right for me to act! "

Wu Yuchen couldn't help but put his hand on his forehead when he heard this. Jiang Wen was really good at messing around. He could make sense of anything!