Chapter 196: Luxury Lineup Project Launched, Yang Mi Plays the Empty-Handed Wolf

On August 28, in the large conference room of Shanhe Media, the startup press conference for the science fiction film *Lucy* was about to be held.

This was the first time Wei Jin had held a film press conference with such great fanfare, and the media reporters were quite supportive.

The conference room was already packed with reporters; these reporters came from Hong Kong, as well as South Korea and Japan, though naturally, the majority were entertainment reporters from Mainland China, all chatting in small groups.

In the center of the huge stage in the conference hall, there was a giant poster with the two golden characters for *Lucy* written on it. Below the text were the faint black silhouettes of four men and one woman; one could not tell who the actors were, but this certainly aroused everyone's curiosity.

In the lounge, Wei Jin smiled and chatted in Korean and Japanese with Cui Minzhi and Abe Hiroshi; they had already held a script reading session two days prior, so he was relatively familiar with these two.

Both of their English skills were mediocre, but fortunately, Wei Jin had a strong ability to learn; he had already mastered Korean beforehand, and he had also learned quite a bit of Japanese during this period, so simple communication was absolutely no problem.

The reason for choosing these two was mainly to target the Japanese and South Korean markets.

Abe Hiroshi's status in Japan is equivalent to that of Liu Tianwang in the country. Since his debut twenty-five years ago, he could be called a scandal-proof entity. Although he had just married a non-celebrity from outside the industry earlier this year, it still could not change the fans' pursuit of him, and his popularity was extremely high.

Cui Minzhi was the same; in 2003, he won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the thriller *Oldboy*, and he swept the Best Actor awards at the three major award ceremonies: the Grand Bell Awards, the Blue Dragon Film Awards, and the Baeksang Arts Awards, holding an extraordinary status in South Korea.

Besides the beginning of the story taking place in Japan, the subsequent story mainly unfolds in Hong Kong, so for the supporting roles, Wei Jin chose the skilled and affordable Liang Jiahui to play the role of the police officer.

For the role of the professor, Wei Jin chose his old acquaintance, Teacher Chen Baoguo. They had cooperated very happily on *The Martian* before, and plus, his acting skills were truly excellent, and his temperament also fit the role.

Many of the other supporting roles were also old faces, such as the gangster thug played by Sun Honglei.

This role did not have much screen time, and when Chen Xi sent the invitation at the time, he was worried about being rejected. After all, Sun Honglei was considered a first-tier male star in the country now, but as soon as Sun Honglei heard it was Wei Jin's film, he agreed without a word for zero pay.

This film's main expenses were on special effects. Shanhe Ink had already provided a quote of 25 million, and with Wei Jin's 20 million salary converted into investment, the production cost was only 35 million, with actor salaries alone approaching 10 million.

Among them, Cui Minzhi received 1.5 million, and Abe Hiroshi, whose screen time was less, received 1 million; the income of artists in the Japan and South Korea regions was indeed not high, so this was already considered a good offer.

Chen Baoguo's salary was 1 million, Liang Jiahui's was 2 million, and Jing Tian's was 3 million.

Since *Now You See Me*, Jing Tian had already ascended to the ranks of first-tier actresses; perhaps she could not compare to the Four Dan Double Bing, but she was only slightly inferior, so this salary was not excessive.

Moreover, she was the only female lead. Although the young lady had no concept of money, the entertainment industry had to pay attention to these things, as it represented one's status, which must never be underestimated. —— At two o'clock in the afternoon, the startup press conference officially began.

Shanhe Media's lead hostess, Liu Yan, walked onto the stage wearing a proper evening gown: "Respected guests and media friends, good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the media press conference for the science fiction film *Lucy*. I am Liu Yan. Next, let us invite the director and creative team of *Lucy* to the stage."

Wei Jin led the five people onto the stage, triggering exclamations from the media.

The Mainland reporters were very familiar with Jing Tian, Chen Baoguo, and Liang Jiahui, but seeing the tall and handsome Abe Hiroshi appear, many who recognized him began to whisper; they had not expected Wei Jin to have actually invited this popular Japanese star.

Cui Minzhi's appearance was much worse, but many people recognized him as well; after all, *Oldboy* had swept a large number of awards back in the day.

Looking at the lead actors on stage, the reporters probably understood the positioning of this film: it was aimed at the Asian market, and for the Europe and America regions, they would likely just sell the copyrights or distribute it jointly.

Soon it was the reporter Q&A session. Everyone asked many questions related to the film, and Wei Jin answered them one by one, until this reporter asked: "Director Wei, may I ask why this script was not made into a Hollywood film?"

Many people pricked up their ears, prepared to hear Wei Jin's explanation. They were indeed very confused; with Wei Jin's status in Hollywood, taking the path of global distribution for an English-language film would result in higher box office, so why go the long way around? "This reporter, according to your logic, I should have gone to Hollywood to film *The Martian* as well; it only cost 50 million USD anyway."

How could Wei Jin not understand this logic? But at his status, there were some things he had to do. Moreover, in a few years, Hollywood would not be easy to navigate either; in the future, with the rise of Marvel, it would be the world of superheroes, and independent IPs would never be able to break into Hollywood again.

"For a film, from the perspective of profit alone, Hollywood is indeed the optimal choice, but I am a Huaxia director. My films are more for the service of the Huaxia people. If all the big directors go to Hollywood to film, does the domestic film market still need to develop? When will Huaxia films be able to step out of the country?"

Wei Jin's words left the reporters on the scene in silence, followed by warm applause. Regardless of whether Wei Jin was posturing, he was already doing it. —— The day after the press conference, Wei Jin's remarks appeared in major newspapers and portal websites.

Most netizens and media gave very positive evaluations and expressed support and approval for Wei Jin's actions.

Currently, all top directors were eager to break into Hollywood—Zhang Yimou, Chen Shiren, Zhou Xingxing, and so on—but they could not film blockbuster Hollywood movies and could not enter the North American film circle.

But Wei Jin was different; he had already proven himself in Hollywood. Whether it was horror films, suspense films, or magic crime films, he had already achieved eye-catching results. As long as he went to Hollywood and shouted that he had a project, a large number of investors would flock to him waving cash.

Yet he had abandoned the idea of filming Hollywood blockbusters and focused his center of gravity on Huaxia, looking forward to leading Huaxia films to step out of the country.

For a time, Wei Jin actually gained quite a few patriotic fans online.

Just as things were making a huge stir online, Wei Jin had already taken the crew and started filming.

The main locations for this film were Tokyo and Hong Kong; the rest were scenes of two drug smugglers being arrested at a foreign airport, as well as some fragmented footage of the natural world interspersed throughout.

For the foreign airport scenes, they could just arrange for an assistant director to lead a team to film it. As for the footage of the natural world, there were many documentaries in the CCTV material library that could be directly utilized.

Therefore, apart from the necessary location shooting in Tokyo and Hong Kong, the interior scenes were basically all completed at the China Film Digital Production Base this time. The China Film Digital Production Base is located in the HR District, covering an area of 800 mu. It was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in July 2005, and the base has a building area of 150,000 square meters.

This base had only officially been completed and opened for business last month, and *Lucy* was the first crew to choose to start work here. For this reason, Han Dong had even specifically given a discount on the fees.

There were a total of 16 fully functional studios in the Digital Base, designed and built according to international film photography standards, with a total area of over 40,000 square meters, including one super-large 5,000-square-meter studio that ranked first in the world in size.

The *Lucy* project naturally did not need such a large studio, so they rented one of a moderate size this time.

The current filming was mainly the scenes involving the South Korean gangster boss and the female lead, so the other actors had not yet joined the crew.

Chen Baoguo was the same; in the early stages, he was mainly doing academic exchanges, and later there would be scenes of him talking on the phone with the female lead and meeting in the laboratory at the end.

The filming location for the lecture in the film was arranged at Peking University, but the timing still needed to be coordinated. With Wei Jin's status, these were not problems at all. —— Today's filming was the shot of the female lead being grabbed from the hotel front desk by the gangster boss's subordinates and taken into a hotel suite.

"Cut, stop for a second."

Wei Jin looked at the image on the monitor and called for a stop.

"Brother Honglei, Tian Tian, come over here for a moment."

Hearing this, the two were a bit confused, but they still walked up to Wei Jin to listen to his direction.

"Brother Honglei, your character is not just about having a fierce expression; you need to be cold to the bone. Your emotion just now was a bit lacking."

"Tian Tian, your emotion just now was not full enough. Fear, helplessness, anxiety—these are not just expressions; the voice, breathing, and subtle movements of the body, these all need to be carefully pondered."

"Let's take a half-hour break first, everyone find your state."

"Okay, Director." —— Hengdian, *Chinese Paladin 3* crew.

After finishing the day's filming, Yang Mi was planning to return to her room to rest, but she was called over by Miss Cai's secretary.

"Miss Yang, President Cai is waiting for you in her room."

"Okay, I'll tidy up and go over, wait a moment."

Yang Mi closed the door, went to the washroom, and dialed a phone number.

She knew full well what Miss Cai was looking for her for; at this moment, she needed to find a strategist to help her devise a plan.

"Hello, Jia Jie, President Cai is looking for me again."

"Mm, Mimi, you should do this..."

Hanging up the phone, Yang Mi felt confident.

Soon, Yang Mi followed the secretary and met Miss Cai.

"Mimi, have you thought it over?"

This was not the first time they had talked, and Miss Cai's patience was nearly exhausted.

"President Cai, I am honored that Tangren thinks highly of me; of course, I would be very happy for us to work together."

Yang Mi appeared very grateful, but she was sneering in her heart; did she think she could buy people's hearts with just one female lead role? She was thinking too much.

"It's just that, as you know, the roles for *Red Chamber* have already been set. If I were to terminate my contract with Rongxing now, for one, there is the loss of the role, and for another, I'm afraid it would bring negative influence to the production crew."

Miss Cai had to admit that Yang Mi's words were very reasonable, and just as she intended to say something, the latter provided a suggestion:

"President Cai, once the filming of *Red Chamber* concludes, my contract will be nearing its end as well. By then, I can pay less in breach of contract fees. What do you think?"

"Alright then, is it a deal?"

"Mm."

The third update for today. I humbly request all readers to provide subscriptions, follow-up reads, bookmarks, monthly tickets, and recommendation votes. Thank you, everyone! (End of chapter)