Chapter 404 404. Competition Begins

Chapter 404 404. Competition Begins

Time passed unknowingly, and the premiere of "The Banquet" also arrived.

That night, Nie Wei walked the red carpet with Zhou Xun. As soon as the current top brother and sister of Huayi appeared, they immediately won the loudest cheers at the scene. The media reporters also cheered up, all of them seemed to have transformed into the world's strongest game players, their hand speed reached the peak of their lives, and they kept pressing the shutter.

In addition, there was another pair of stars who really attracted attention. The moment Shu Chang and Lin Yifei appeared in white dresses, it really made all the men present feel like they really saw angels descending to the earth. The two girls held hands, and the men's heartbeats accelerated involuntarily with every frown and smile. Regardless of whether they were twenty, thirty or over forty years old, they were immersed in the charm of this pair of girls and couldn't extricate themselves.

Of course, the real protagonist of the red carpet today still belonged to Feng Xiaogang.

After Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou have both shot blockbusters, Feng Xiaogang is the only one among the top three directors in China who has not yet made a blockbuster with an investment of over 100 million yuan. Now "Night Banquet" fills this gap. Everyone undoubtedly has great expectations for Feng Xiaogang's film.

This film is very attractive in terms of investment. Huayi invested 50 million yuan, which is only part of the film. In addition, companies including Huaying and Huanya also participated in it, and the total investment was as high as 120 million Chinese yuan.

In this era, a film with an investment of over 100 million Chinese yuan is enough to be called a masterpiece.

With a large investment, the cast is naturally strong. Feng Xiaogang's old partner Mr. Ge is needless to say, and the heroine is the currently popular international movie star Zhang Ziyi. This girl is also currently praised by domestic film and television media as the top actress with the greatest hope of surpassing Gong Li.

In addition, Zhou Xun, the top actress of Huayi who walked the red carpet with Nie Wei before, also appeared in the film. In addition, there is Wu Yanzu, a popular new star in Hong Kong. He was robbed of the role in "New Police Story" by Nie Wei, but he unexpectedly participated in this film, which can be regarded as an unexpected gain.

And Huang Xiaoming of Huayi and Xu Xiyan, a kind of popular stars, as supporting roles, also added a lot of appearance and box office guarantee to this film. From this lineup, it is enough to attract countless audiences to the cinema.

"Nie Wei, you must help me promote it well later." At the entrance of the cinema, Feng Xiaogang pulled Nie Wei and said enthusiastically.

"Of course." Nie Wei responded with a smile. At the beginning, Feng Xiaogang pulled him to shoot a lot of New Year films. Although they were all guest appearances, to be honest, they also helped Nie Wei. So this time Director Feng asked for something, he naturally had to repay this favor.

Seeing Nie Wei's straightforward agreement, Feng Xiaogang smiled happily and enthusiastically invited Nie Wei into the cinema.

Nie Wei was arranged to sit in the first row, next to Wang Zhonglei, and next to him were Zhou Xun and Ge You. As for Lin Yifei and Shu Chang, although they were also in the first row, they did not participate in the movie after all, so their seats were arranged a little to the side.

"Do you want me to change seats? But which one do you choose? After all, I only have one seat." After sitting down, Zhou Xun saw Nie Wei greeting Shu Chang and Lin Yifei not far away, and couldn't help but laugh and tease.

In the past, she would not joke with Nie Wei like this, but since attending Zhang Jizhong's wedding, the relationship between the two has become much closer, and now Zhou Xun and Nie Wei are much more casual when talking.

"Sister, if you put a mole on the corner of your mouth, I will treat you as a matchmaker." Nie Wei responded unwillingly, and Zhou Xun slapped him on the shoulder twice in anger. This kid's mouth is too poisonous, but Ge Da Ye on the side laughed.

Before the movie was released, several people chatted for a while. Nie Wei could hear Zhou Xun's expectation for the performance of the movie. After all, her current position was a bit awkward. She was a first-line actress, but she didn't have any achievements that could stand on their own feet.

Like Nie Wei, he was a first-line male star, and he also had the Golden Horse Best Supporting Actor trophy, which was a strong proof that he was firmly in the first-line.

Shu Chang also had the same distress as Zhou Xun, but she also had a chance. Nie Wei was ready to apply for "Speeding Scandal" to this year's Golden Horse Awards. With the performance of this movie, it was hard to say whether Shu Chang, the heroine, could become the "Golden Horse Film Queen", but it should be no problem to get nominated.

The role of "Night Banquet" in front of Zhou Xun was the same as that of "Speeding Scandal" for Shu Chang. They both hoped to win awards with this work.

Ge Da Ye's mentality was much more normal, but he could also see a little nervousness. After all, this was different from his previous Lunar New Year films. In fact, Ge Da Ye had also made feature films, but after all, it was not as deep-rooted as the Lunar New Year comedies he played. At the same time, he was afraid that the audience would be too impressed by his image in the Lunar New Year comedies, which would cause the audience to be distracted when watching this movie.

The three people's casual chat ended after the arrival of Wang Zhonglei and Wang Zhongjun, and turned to the conversation between Nie Wei and the three Huayi bosses, the Wang brothers.

What they talked about was not trivial matters. They talked about some publicity after the release of the movie, the screening rate, the box office forecast and some revenue channels.

Nie Wei rarely spoke at this time, usually just listened. Only when the Wang brothers asked him, he would express his own views. Zhou Xun on the side was also listening attentively. This girl was undoubtedly very curious about this aspect. On the contrary, Ge Da Ye slightly closed his eyes at this time, looking like he was conserving his energy.

The movie started quickly during the casual chat.

This is a story about abnormal love and power struggle in the palace. It is adapted from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and has four tragedies as references for adaptation. It is conceivable that the ending of this movie must be a tragedy.

In Nie Wei's opinion, the biggest highlight of this movie is the styling of the characters in the play. When Zhang Ziyi came out in a red phoenix dress, even Nie Wei had to sigh that Zhang Ziyi at this age is really beautiful to the extreme.

Ge You also changed his unremarkable style in the previous New Year's film and played the emperor with great momentum. There are also Zhou Xun and Huang Xiaoming. The appearance and acting skills of this group of people alone add a lot of color to this movie.

The music and light and shadow of the movie are also done very well.

As for the plot, Nie Wei can only say that it is acceptable.

It's not bad, it can only be said that it is too Westernized. Although Director Feng has always emphasized that this play is Hamlet with oriental characteristics, the content described in it is still seriously Westernized, giving people the feeling that it is really a Western play performed in oriental clothes.

The most important thing is the direction of this drama. Although this drama claims to be orientalized, its essence is actually a westernized one. Unlike domestic tragedies, which are often implicated by some tragic things and make the audience resonate with the tragic characters and feel pity for them, this drama is more like the kind of Western movies where the protagonist is very capable and then kills himself.

This really makes it difficult for domestic audiences to resonate with that kind of feeling.

Moreover, the portrayal of the characters in this drama is also a bit thin. For example, the complex inner thoughts of Queen Wan and Emperor Li are not expressed in that kind of entanglement. Under the huge setting, such characters cannot perfectly support the plot, and naturally make the audience feel unsatisfied.

The whole movie is more than two hours long. Nie Wei watched it carefully. It is hard to say what the evaluation is. It is estimated that it will be mixed.

In fact, just as Nie Wei thought, this movie is really a mixed evaluation among film critics.

Some say that the production of this movie is gorgeous and the plot breaks through the inherent tragedy model in China.

Some people think that the content of this movie is distorted and empty, and the characters are not attractive. It is just a so-called blockbuster with a pile of stars, which is comparable to Director Chen's previous "The Promise".

When Nie Wei read such comments, he thought about Director Chen who was innocently shot. At this moment, his heart must be bleeding again.

Although it is said to be polarized, in fact, criticism accounts for the majority. This can be seen from the ratings of a certain movie website. After four days of release, more than 50,000 people have rated it, and the score is only a pitiful 5.3, ranking second from the bottom among domestic movies with an investment of over 100 million yuan. Fortunately, there is another "The Promise" at the bottom, which is even worse, with a score of only 4.7.

In this rating, three-star ratings account for 49%, while five-star ratings account for less than 3%. Compared with one-point ratings, which are as high as more than 7%, this data is obviously a bit embarrassing.

However, despite the unsatisfactory reviews, this movie, like "The Promise", has achieved great box office results.

In the first four days of the premiere, the box office revenue was 55 million, breaking Director Feng's own first-week box office record. This also made Nie Wei and other Huayi executives look much better. At least from this momentum, this investment should not lose money. The next question is how much profit can be made.

"The movie channel has raised the price to 5 million. I think it's time to sell it."

"The DVD is also selling well. The final revenue is expected to be between 15 million and 18 million."

"Overseas film distributors are also contacting us and the price they offer is very good."

"The domestic theater scheduling rate has increased by another three percentage points. They are still very optimistic about our box office in the next three days."

After taking out the income reports one by one, Nie Wei was also calculating how much he could earn this time, but in the end he was a little disappointed. For such a big production, he actually didn't earn much in the end. Even if all the profits were distributed to individuals, the dividends he could get from his shares would only be a few million. What's more, the company still needs to operate, so it is definitely impossible to distribute all the profits, so this amount of money will be even less.

After calculating his own income, Nie Wei was not interested in what would happen to the movie next. In addition to investing in the new movie, he also had to allocate some of his energy to the newly acquired commercial center.

Although he spent a lot of money to acquire this commercial center and caused a sensation in the real estate industry, there were not many reports from the outside world. The real estate industry at that time was not the era that would be known to the whole country ten years later. Moreover, the transfer contract between Nie Wei and the original company was also very low-key.

After acquiring the commercial center, Nie Wei handed over the task of completing this golden city to Zhou Aiguo. After all, Uncle Zhou was in the real estate business, and Nie Wei was relieved to hand it over to him. As for the business ideas, it was better to wait until the construction was almost finished before implementing them.

In addition, the financing of Fanxing Blog must also be put on the agenda.

At this time, Fanxing Blog was quite prosperous, and the number of daily online users made other social platforms jealous.

In addition to Star Farm, Nie Wei subsequently released a series of fun social games including Star Parking, Star Cards, Star Supermarket, Star Ranch, etc. These games not only brought considerable profits to the company, but also allowed Fanxing to firmly sit in the top position in the field of social games, unshakable.

The other websites are still following the trend. Even if the games they make are more sophisticated than Fanxing, they are the first to eat the cake. In addition, Nie Wei also hired a group of water army to promote, giving netizens a feeling that only Fanxing is the genuine social game, and the rest are pirated. This undoubtedly greatly increases the user stickiness of the Fanxing social platform.

Fanxing Blog has achieved such good results, which naturally greatly increases the valuation of this website. At present, the valuation of this website has exceeded 5 billion US dollars. Yes, it is US dollars. Converted into Chinese currency, it will be more than 40 billion.

This social platform that Nie Wei has cultivated for many years has finally begun to show its considerable value.

After Nie Wei had the intention of financing, network giants from all walks of life also responded immediately. First of all, iFlytek Group, which Nie Wei holds shares in, hopes to take this part of the shares. At the same time, Xinlang, Sohu, Qianbaidu, etc. have also expressed their intentions. There are also many foreign companies, including Alibaba’s main investor Hard Silver Group.

Nie Wei did not refuse any letters of intent from these people. The more the better. After all, the more competition there is, the higher the value of the part he throws out.

However, this kind of thing cannot be rushed. Anyway, Nie Wei still has enough funds. He will let go when the competition between the parties becomes fierce. That is when Nie Wei can get the fattest meat.

Just when Nie Wei was still strategizing, he received a notice from the company.

Hearing the notice from the staff on the phone, Nie Wei slapped his forehead and remembered that the male lead of his new movie has not been finalized.

Huang Xiaoming and Cheng Kun, the interview time for these two people has come unknowingly.

The two prospective male leads arrived at the company very early that morning.

In a conference room, Nie Wei, Wang Zhonglei and the heroine of this movie, Lin Yifei, are the three interviewers today.

Looking at the time, it was only 8:50, and there were still ten minutes before the 9 o'clock notified. However, because there were only two people for the interview, when Nie Wei learned that both of them had arrived, he directly asked the staff to call them.

Thanks to "Fu" Linmen, 0773, Haohan De Mianyang, Aohun Ziyun Xifeng, Tan Shen Binhai for their generous rewards.