Chapter 442 Hot Discussion and Readiness

The drama "The Legend of Zhen Huan" had been widely circulated before, and it was not only known within the circle, but also heard of by the outside world.

Like the TV series and movies produced by Golden Harvest Group, they have also gained a very good reputation.

Just like the TV series produced by Tangren at that time and the TV series produced by Noon Sunshine in later generations, many fans bought into them after they were named after these two companies.

Film and television companies also have fans, but the reason why Tangren and Noon Sunshine have fans is also because of the reputation they have built through their high-quality dramas.

In fact, not only film and television companies, but also TV stations have fans.

They are fans of the TV station and pursue the influence and ratings of the popular variety shows and films produced and broadcast by their own TV station.

The most famous one is the fan of Shonan TV [Mango Spirit], who claims that he only cares about ratings and not word of mouth, and would rather "Mother's Way" with a Douban score of 2.8 than "The Rise of Phoenixes" with a score of 8.2.

Any TV show or actor with high ratings is their god, regardless of its reputation.

Many of Jin Dong and Liu Tao's works have received terrible reputations, but they don't care. Just because their TV series have high ratings, they deify the two and call them Queen Mother Mang and Duke Mang.

Similarly, Chen Kun's "The Rise of Phoenixes" has a very good reputation, but because the ratings fell below the historical low of Hunan TV stations, it attracted the siege of mango spirits. The nickname "Pukun" was first given by this group of people.

Of course, there are relatively few such extreme fans, and most of the TV station’s fans are regular viewers.

Long-term and stable hit variety shows and TV dramas can attract and consolidate a large number of regular audiences, which not only increases ratings but also enhances the influence of TV stations.

The same is true for Golden Harvest today. Like its film department, it has also built a very good reputation through a series of high-quality TV series in recent years and attracted many fans.

Therefore, "The Legend of Zhen Huan", a TV series that Jiahe attached great importance to and carefully crafted, also attracted fans who have been following the developments of Jiahe TV series during the preparation stage.

The rumor that Qin Hao and Fan Xiaopang would play the male and female protagonists of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" was first spread by these fans.

Don’t underestimate the influence of these fans. Some of them also have connections with Golden Harvest employees, so they often get first-hand information.

The cast of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" had not been confirmed before, so a lot of news about the actors were just hearsay, and there were all kinds of gossip candidates.

It was not until Liu Zhou confirmed some of the main characters that some news began to spread with some details.

The most eye-catching news is that Qin Hao and Fan Xiaopang will star in "The Legend of Zhen Huan".

However, although many people discussed this news, most people still felt that it couldn't be true.

After all, both of them are movie stars. Qin Hao has never acted in TV series since his debut and has always been acting in movies.

Although Fan Xiaopang became famous for TV dramas in the early days, he never acted in TV dramas after joining Golden Harvest and has always been in the film industry.

At this time, there is still a strong chain of contempt in the film and television industry, that is, the familiar chain of drama actors>movie actors>TV actors.

Drama actors are too niche and most ordinary audiences don’t care much about them.

However, most audiences know that movie actors are more high-end than TV actors.

Therefore, many TV actors are trying hard to get into the film industry, but most of the actors who have established a foothold in the film industry will no longer act in TV dramas.

Like the four most popular actresses in mainland China, the two Bings and the four young actors, except Zhou Gongzi, the others no longer take on TV dramas after entering the film industry.

Even Mr. Zhou rarely acts in TV dramas, and his main focus is still on movies.

Therefore, now that Qin Hao and Fan Xiaopang, who can be said to be the most popular male and female actors in the mainland, have suddenly taken on a TV drama, it has not only caused quite a stir in the circle, but also sparked huge heated discussions in the outside world.

Both of them have tens of millions of fans on Weibo. Weibo has just replaced blogs to become mainstream, and there are only a dozen or so artists who have tens of millions of fans on Weibo.

It is not very popular to buy fans now, so the number of Weibo fans is still quite real. The number of Weibo fans can be used to judge the popularity of an artist.

Two superstars with tens of millions of fans joined together in a TV series, which instantly made "The Legend of Zhen Huan" the focus of the media.

Not only are the audiences eagerly waiting for it, but even the major TV stations are also eyeing it covetously.

On Douban, "The Legend of Zhen Huan" also ranked first on the list of most anticipated TV series.

With Golden Harvest announcing Zhang Yimou's joining and the launch of three major projects, the focus of public opinion was on Golden Harvest for a week.

Among them, the counterattack from Zhang Weiping, which the outside world most expected, never came. He remained silent and did not criticize Zhang Yimou's departure.

Although everyone felt a little disappointed, they could understand it. After all, this time Zhang Yimou turned to Liu Zhou, the new richest man in mainland China.

Not to mention his powerful influence in the entertainment industry, he also possesses tremendous power outside of it.

Although Zhang Weiping seems to have no scruples in the entertainment industry and dares to criticize anyone, it is normal for him to back off when facing Liu Zhou, who is not in the same league and level.

At this moment, Zhang Weiping was really scared.

He does have some background, but it is totally incomparable with Liu Zhou of today.

Although the persona he has created for the outside world is that he is unscrupulous, but how can he be a fool if he has achieved such success in business? He knows clearly who he can and cannot offend.

Although he felt aggrieved that Zhang Yimou was poached, and was also aggrieved by the outside world mocking him for not daring to say a word, when he thought of the pressure from Liu Zhou, he had to endure it no matter how aggrieved he was.

After all, Zhang Yimou's departure was a foregone conclusion. He knew that Golden Harvest was not a forced poaching, and both parties were heading for it in a two-way direction.

As for him and Zhang Yimou, the conflict between the two has been getting deeper and deeper since someone told them when it started.

Ever since Liu Zhou started trying to get close to Zhang Yimou, Zhang Weiping had a premonition that Zhang Yimou would leave him sooner or later.

Now that Yu Zhang Yimou has really left and joined Golden Harvest, although Zhang Weiping is unhappy and angry, he is not as furious as the outside world imagines.

Moreover, Zhang Weiping was also aware that Liu Zhou and Jiahe had made sufficient preparations for his possible counterattack, and even the issue of Zhang Yimou's child had been resolved.

Zhang Yimou is a relatively pure person. After working with him for more than ten years, Zhang Weiping has not found any other problems with him except the problem of having more children than allowed.

So even if he wanted to deal with Zhang Yimou, he wouldn't know where to start, and Golden Harvest's media resources were much stronger than his own.

If it is directed at Jiahe or Liu Zhou, then it is even more meaningless. No matter how harshly you criticize, it cannot change the fact that Zhang Yimou has left, and it will also seriously offend Liu Zhou.

Zhang Weiping also has self-awareness. Without Zhang Yimou, New Painting would be almost an empty shell and would not be able to continue operating.

In addition, he had offended so many people in the circle before, so it was difficult for him to make a living in the entertainment industry.

Zhang Weiping started out as an airline food chef, and later turned his career to the film and television industry after meeting Zhang Yimou by chance. Previously, because he had Zhang Yimou as his trump card, which allowed him to walk sideways in the film and television industry, he never thought about running New Picture well, so that the entire company revolved around Zhang Yimou.

Now that Zhang Yimou is gone, his career in the film and television industry collapsed in an instant.

Fortunately, Zhang Weiping has made a lot of money through Zhang Yimou in recent years, and he is also ready to withdraw from the film and television industry and enter other industries to pursue a career.

In this case, Zhang Weiping was even more afraid to offend Liu Zhou. After all, he was the richest man. If he really wanted to target him, then all the money he had worked so hard to earn in the film and television industry might be taken away by him.

So instead of getting into these emotional disputes, it is better to withdraw as soon as possible.

While the outside world was in an uproar over Golden Harvest's actions, Liu Zhou paid no attention to it and devoted all his attention to the project of "Aftershock".

Zhang Yimou’s joining was confirmed last year, but it was not made public until now.

No matter how unhappy Zhang Weiping was, he should have been mentally prepared after so much time had passed.

Liu Zhou didn't care about his reaction, and he didn't even take him seriously. He left the responsibility of dealing with him to Zhang Zhao.

To be honest, if it wasn't for the sake of not going against Zhang Yimou's wishes, Liu Zhou would have wanted to poach him a long time ago. It would be such a waste to let Zhang Yimou stay with Zhang Weiping.

When Zhang Yimou joined Golden Harvest, he definitely did not become a contracted director. Like Xu Ke and Ning Hao, he set up a studio.

In fact, he already had a studio, and this time he signed a contract with Zhang Yimou Studio.

Of course, in addition to the studio, Liu Zhou also specially arranged stock rewards. If the performance reaches certain requirements, a certain number of stocks will be rewarded.

In order not to discourage old employees, Liu Zhouye, Xu Ke and Ning Hao also added supplementary terms to the stock reward.

It doesn't matter if the star Liu Zhou is let go, but as for the director, he still hopes that he can stay as much as possible.

But without real money, empty words will not keep them. Giving them stocks is the best way.

Although it is not possible to distribute stocks in large amounts like before the listing, Jiahe’s market value now exceeds 80 billion yuan, and the value of a small amount of stocks is already not low.

However, Liu Zhou felt that even if he tried to win them over, with hot money pouring into the unprecedented prosperity of the entertainment industry, he felt that he might not be able to keep all three of them.

Zhang Yimou may be okay, but the other two are not pure film directors.

But when that time really comes, Jiahe will not necessarily rely entirely on them. It will definitely be able to discover new people to replace them.

Moreover, for a film and television group company of the size of Golden Harvest, production is no longer the most important business, but channels are.

Even now, the most profitable and influential sources for Golden Harvest Group are its distribution channels and increasingly larger cinema chains.

However, the future is still too far away, and Liu Zhou is doing his best and leaving the rest to fate. Even if they leave later, they can still cooperate with each other.

On March 3, after Liu Zhou made sure that there was no problem with the special effects, he prepared to go to Tangshan.

The physical special effects model has been prepared, and Liu Zhou also went to check it before the New Year to make sure there were no problems.

However, the CG special effects have some minor problems because they are rather complicated.

The most important thing is the special effect of house collapse when an earthquake comes. The collapse of houses caused by earthquakes is different from the collapse of ordinary buildings. It is not a simple collapse process.

Therefore, special effects are more difficult to produce, otherwise they will look a bit fake.

Even if he didn't notice it at the time because he was concentrating on the plot or shocking scenes while watching the movie, someone would definitely complain about it later. Liu Zhou didn't want that to happen.

For this purpose, Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio specifically studied the characteristics of earthquakes.

The collapse of houses caused by an earthquake is related to the movement of seismic waves. When houses sway from side to side, not many houses collapse. The real large-scale collapse occurs when the ground shakes up and down.

To this end, the special effects studio collected a large amount of information from earthquake research institutes at home and abroad, including data on simulated seismic waves, and then input this data into the computer.

Another troublesome part of earthquake effects is that buildings of different materials and sizes will collapse at different times and in different ways;

Some houses collapsed completely, some collapsed in large sections, some collapsed from top to bottom, and some slowly tilted before collapsing. Special effects must show these differences.

Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio has been working for several months, but the situation is not ideal and the effects produced seem somewhat fake.

To this end, the special effects team proposed to Liu Zhou that a special plug-in must be developed, otherwise it would be difficult to achieve the desired effect.

It may take months or even years to develop an excellent plug-in.

If the plug-in cannot be developed in time, the release of the movie will be delayed, and "Aftershock" must be released on the 2011th anniversary of the earthquake in 35 and cannot be delayed.

After weighing the pros and cons, Liu Zhou finally decided to go ahead with the research and development. He hoped that the film's effect would be the best possible.

In order to ensure that everything goes well, Liu Zhou also arranged for the studio to cooperate with overseas special effects companies to develop the plug-in as soon as possible.

After returning from the Spring Festival, Liu Zhou has been dealing with this matter.

Fortunately, apart from the plug-in issue, all other preparations for "Aftershock" have been completed successfully.

On March 3, Liu Zhou went to Tangshan. The rest of the crew had already rushed there, except for him, the director.

Liu Zhou arrived at the filming base and found that it was already quite lively here and the buildings inside had also completed the final finishing touches.

When he came over, he found that the crew was recruiting extras. There were several thousand people who signed up, and it was a huge crowd.

Liu Zhou didn't expect so many people to come. It seems that he underestimated everyone's enthusiasm for the movie "Aftershock".

At this time, Liu Zhou saw an old man with his four or five-year-old granddaughter coming to register, and couldn't help asking:
"Uncle, do you think this place has the same feeling as it did back then?"

The old man pointed to the platform across the street with some excitement and said:

"Do you see the bus stop for bus No. 10? I used to take this bus a lot. It started at Tangshan Railway Station and ended at Guye Station. The fare was 4 cents."

Hearing the old man say this, Liu Zhou nodded with satisfaction. Tangshan had done a solid job.

Liu Zhou did not disturb the crew from recruiting extras. He went back after taking a look around. He had to prepare for the launch conference the day after tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)