Chapter 961: Uninvited Guest

The salary Wan Qingqing set for herself was in a relatively average position in the Hollywood system relative to her current qualifications and position.

In fact, as the absolute initiator of this project, she could have taken a higher salary.

But she probably also wanted to avoid the suspicion of "being under a plum tree," so she didn't set a higher salary for herself.

After deciding on Julieta and Jason Potter, Wan Qingqing began to think, since the funds were still so abundant, where should they be used?

Should she invite two more well-known actors to play supporting roles with more scenes, or use it to make the film's art itself more high-end?

After thinking again and again, Wan Qingqing judged and felt that the selling point of this film to the audience decided to spend the money on showing an "upper-class society."

Although, with so much production budget, wanting to show an "upper-class society" was a drop in the bucket.

However, if it was only used to show a partial "upper-class society," it could actually be done.

Don't pursue the luxury of details in *The Great Gatsby*, and don't pursue the extravagant big scenes in *Babylon*.

The audience for this film must be mainly women.

"I want to put more effort into the female lead's styling." When Wan Qingqing communicated with Lu Yanhe about the production of this film, she mentioned her thoughts. "It must be beautiful, the styling must be varied, and it must make many female audiences feel that they can identify with the female lead in their hearts, whether it is beauty, revenge, or falling in love with a young and handsome boy, including discovering the deception at the end and taking revenge, etc. The selling point of this film lies in the empathy of female audiences for the female lead."

Lu Yanhe listened and highly approved of Wan Qingqing's idea.

"This is OK, this is very good." He said, "Your selling point is very precise, and the market positioning is also very clear. Just do it this way. It is a film with a production budget of only 20 million USD. This is not a big production in Hollywood either. What is your expected goal for this film?"

"Global box office of 100 million USD." Wan Qingqing said bluntly, "Of course, this includes the Chinese market."

"This film may not necessarily sell much box office in China. Whether it is the subject matter or the form, it is not particularly popular in the current domestic market." Lu Yanhe said, "In the domestic market, if a film wants to sell well, especially a foreign language film, it either has a huge fan base IP, or it has formed a huge social topic discussion, or it has particularly good word-of-mouth, making some audiences interested and wanting to go to the cinema to see if it is good or bad. This film, I guess it doesn't touch any of them. Even if you use me as the producer for promotion, I guess it will only be a few tens of millions in box office."

Lu Yanhe's implication was that your goal is a global box office of 100 million USD, which is not small, but you probably have to rely on overseas box office to achieve the goal.

Wan Qingqing said: "I have measured it. As long as this film's North American box office can break 40 million USD, the global box office still has hope of breaking 100 million USD. The box office performance of films starring Julieta in Spain is basically quite good. Whether it is a blockbuster or a serious film, the worst has a result of three or four million USD. Jason Potter is also a British actor who is highly regarded by the media and is venturing into Hollywood in the UK. His projects often get some tilted promotional resources in the UK. Therefore, with the drive of the two markets of the UK and Spain, I think plus the topic of the subject matter itself, as long as the film is filmed well, its story and commerciality determine that the results will not be bad, it just depends on where the upper limit is."

Lu Yanhe: "As long as you have this confidence."

Wan Qingqing: "Mr. Lu, do you think I am overconfident?"

Lu Yanhe: "That's not it, I don't think so. As long as you have precise positioning, commercial films are most afraid of wanting to do the style of art films, wanting both ends, and touching neither end. What I worry about is that you want to use this story to explore some so-called human nature and philosophical things. This kind of film, especially this kind of Hollywood film, likes to do this set. You also know that this story can actually be filmed in the direction of art films and award-chasing films, especially the female lead's character, which is a character very suitable for chasing awards."

Wan Qingqing: "Actually, I have considered it. Julieta herself has very good acting skills. If she plays this film well, it is possible that she might get the favor of the critics."

"It can be a result, but don't make it a goal." Lu Yanhe said, "We haven't operated the awards season ourselves. If there is no resource for this line, you can't use the operation of the awards season to make money for this film."

Some companies specifically produce some films for the awards season. They are not for winning awards, but by operating in the awards season, they can make a lot of money with these projects. First is the box office performance during the awards season, and second, under the escort of the awards season, the sales of overseas copyrights will continue to be popular. To some extent, the awards season has also been operated by some companies to have direct economic value.

It might even end up not winning an award, nor getting any substantive nominations, but its topic degree during the awards season is large enough, which brings attention, and thus makes the copyright value rise sharply.

Linghe currently really doesn't have such ability.

As far as the North American awards season is concerned, Lu Yanhe's own influence among academy members is one point, and Green Valley's public relations network and resources are one point, but they have nothing to do with Linghe itself.

It is also impossible for Lu Yanhe to use his influence to stand for some films, especially films produced by his own company.

In fact, up to now, he has only seriously done public relations for *Storm Calmer No. 1* once, and the result was that the most important Best Foreign Language Film nomination was lost, and it didn't succeed.

No one can say for sure that they can definitely publicize someone or some film to an award or nomination.

Every year is a matter of time and situation, depending on the specific situation.

There is no character with obvious Asian characteristics in the script of *Uninvited Guest*.

But Wan Qingqing finally left the second female lead to a Chinese actor.

She found Liu Zi.

Liu Zi is a big star in China. After several works like *My Own Swordsman* and *Dragon Inn*, plus her exquisite acting skills, she has become a representative of powerful middle-aged actresses who became famous.

However, Wan Qingqing was able to find Liu Zi because Liu Zi's film salary is not high. For a powerful actor like her, appearing in a film, the RMB definitely won't exceed 10 million, so converted into USD, it definitely won't exceed 1.5 million USD. And the second female lead played by Liu Zi, which is the female lead's best friend, doesn't have many scenes. If filming is concentrated, it can actually be finished in about two weeks. In this way, the salary can be negotiated even more.

Liu Zi and her team have never been picky about salary.

It's about the same, not letting her suffer a loss, and that's about it.

The reason for finding a Chinese actor to participate in one of the roles is Wan Qingqing's own idea.

Linghe is a Chinese film company. Even if the North American branch is set up in the United States, it is Chinese capital behind it.

Then the films produced by Linghe, except for special subject matters like *Get Out* where the theme itself focuses on race and skin color, should have a relatively important character who is a Chinese or Chinese-American image—Wan Qingqing feels that she has probably followed Lu Yanhe for a long time, and in this regard, she highly agrees with Lu Yanhe's philosophy.

What kind of company are you? You must have your own characteristics. This includes both invisible characteristics and visible characteristics. For Linghe, Lu Yanhe has always hoped that more Chinese actors will appear in Hollywood projects, and then through them to play some positive, three-dimensional, and rich Chinese or Chinese-American images, and through films, let more people deepen their understanding. Wan Qingqing, as a Chinese herself, of course hopes so too.

Many prejudices and discriminations come from the smearing of Chinese and Chinese-Americans by the whole environment. Now that there is a window facing the whole world where one can control the discourse power, finding a suitable opportunity to rectify the name, or in other words, to tell others what a normal Chinese person who is not smeared looks like, is very important to any Chinese person.

For this decision of Wan Qingqing, after Lu Yanhe knew about it, he appreciated it in his heart.

October 25th.

The day everyone read the script together for the first time before the new season of *Friends* started filming.

Bai Jin was still filming *Horror at Ancient Island*, she would wrap up next month, and return before *Friends* officially started filming.

This time reading the script, she participated online.

Besides her, Li Zhibai, who was returning to guest star this season, also participated online.

His *The Hundred Dollar Coffee Shop* was currently filming, and would also wrap up next month.

This season, Lu Yanhe also wrote quite a few scenes for Li Zhibai's character. His guest appearance in *Friends* before had a very enthusiastic response.

Li Zhibai happened to have nothing to do during this time, so he took the initiative to propose that he could come to guest star.

As soon as they met, Zhan Yun jokingly asked Yin Xincheng: "Do you have the latest emotional situation to tell us?"

As soon as Zhan Yun asked, everyone else looked up, looking at Yin Xincheng with gossip eyes, curious about his answer.

Yin Xincheng: "..."

He showed a speechless expression.

Yan Liang didn't let him go, but pursued: "You won't send us another round of wedding invitations, will you?"

Yin Xincheng: "... You guys have had enough."

Seeing this, Lu Yanhe also laughed.

"This can't blame us, Yin Xincheng, this is entirely your own fault." Zhan Yun said, "We will never let go of this matter, we will always be like demons, mentioning this matter in front of you again and again, teasing you, laughing at you."

Yin Xincheng: "Please, although we broke up, let us continue to be friends, okay? Don't be too mean to me."

Zhan Yun: "We can continue to be friends, but let me not be too mean to you? I can't do it."

Wen Minglan stood firmly by Zhan Yun's side and said bluntly: "Instead of hoping we let you go, you might as well thicken your own skin. When we lose interest in teasing you, this matter will have a day to end."

Yin Xincheng turned his head to look at Lu Yanhe in disbelief.

"Yan He, won't even you be like this?"

Lu Yanhe: "You still haven't answered Zhan Yun's question until now, what is your current emotional state?"

Everyone's eyes looked at Yin Xincheng in unison.

"Single, single." Yin Xincheng sighed very irritably.

Lu Yanhe: "Since you are single, I won't say anything."

Yin Xincheng: "Sigh, wise men don't fall into the river of love, this sentence is indeed not wrong."

"Don't give me that, true wise men are not afraid of falling into the river of love. Isn't the relationship between Yan He and Siqi very good?" Zhan Yun said, "It's true that fools like you shouldn't fall into the river of love, either pitting others or being pitted by others."

Yin Xincheng: "..."

Wen Minglan also nodded, indicating that she highly approved of Zhan Yun's statement.

Lu Yanhe said with a smile: "It can't be compared like this, but, hmm, I also don't agree that wise men don't fall into the river of love."

Yin Xincheng: "I have really suffered huge damage today."

After Bai Jin and Li Zhibai went online, everyone started reading the script.

Everyone was too familiar with their own characters.

Therefore, the script written by Lu Yanhe, in other crews, is basically a "Bible"-like existence, not allowing any changes in words or sentences. However, in the *Friends* crew, everyone occasionally puts forward some modification opinions. Some are based on their character's speaking habits, making some adjustments in word order, and some are sudden good ideas that pop up when reading the script, proposing to add them in, to change them. Everyone discusses it, feels it's OK, and then changes it.

Therefore, besides them, there was also director Bai Jingnian on the scene, and a text editor—

Specifically responsible for recording relevant modification opinions, and then making modifications on the basis of Lu Yanhe's script.

This is a very time-consuming process, especially the first meeting, which is often to set the tone.

Everyone expresses their own opinions.

But this is also a link particularly worth recording.

Why do Linghe's screenwriters grow fast?

In the second row of the conference room, many of Linghe's signed screenwriters and intern screenwriters sit, listening to the main creators discuss on the spot, and can directly see how a script gets better and better as it is changed, which is also very inspiring for their creation.

Moreover, Linghe will also specifically arrange two cameras to shoot and record on the scene, do a good job of archiving, as a material for them to cultivate screenwriters and let screenwriters learn and observe.

Besides Linghe, basically no second company will do this.

After all, this is a long-term construction.

And film and television, to put it bluntly, there are very few that can survive for more than fifteen years.

Who would really do this kind of long-term planning?

Anyway, screenwriters, if your own company doesn't have them, there are some outside, burning money, buy them.

More often, you work hard to cultivate a screenwriter, and then they are dug away by others, making wedding clothes for others.

Many such things happen.

However, because Linghe's positioning from the beginning was biased towards production.

Opening so many projects every year, every screenwriter can see their own development space, if they want opportunities, there are opportunities, if they want resources, there are resources, and in terms of production, it can be considered one of the best in the industry. Even if they are signed screenwriters, the company doesn't restrict them from taking projects outside.

Therefore, the turnover rate of Linghe's screenwriters is very low. ===== CHAPTER 962 =====