Chapter 545

At the celebration banquet for Don't panic, Your Majesty, Jiang Heng gave Ning Hao a sixty-million "big red envelope" affair, quickly spread throughout the Chinese-language entertainment circle, truly stimulating many directors.

Because even in the entire Chinese-language entertainment circle, besides Jiang Heng, no director could get such a high dividend.

Sixty million—even someone like Zhang Yimou or Feng Xiaogang never got that much from a single film.

The former, in his early years making artistic films, didn't earn much money.

Later he made commercial films such as Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower; although the box office wasn't low at the time, in fact he didn't earn much over the past decade or so.

The reason is simple: profit sharing.

At that time, Zhang Yimou and Zhang Weihua had no contract between them; they cooperated purely based on friendship.

Whether to give, how to give, how much—all were decided by Zhang Weihua; Zhang Yimou had no say.

Otherwise, later the two would not have ended up in court over the profits from "Three Guns".

How much? Fifteen million.

Compared to Ning Hao's sixty million, that's really too little! Meanwhile, Feng Xiaogang's cooperation with Huayi was relatively formal.

Besides a fixed director's salary, he also received a share of around 15% of the producer's net box-office income.

Although the ratio is relatively high, Feng's films in recent years haven't had especially high box office, so the total income per film can't compare to Ning Hao's.

And the incomes of the remaining directors that can match Zhang's or Feng's are few, let alone Ning Hao's.

Now, under the stimulation of that sixty-million red envelope, the directors in the circle have all become restless.

Zhang Yimou originally felt apprehensive about the upcoming Lunar New Year release of The Great Wall, but now he has also gained a bit of excitement and anticipation.

Because his profit-sharing ratio is a bit higher than Ning Hao's, reaching 15%.

If The Great Wall's box office can also exceed two billion, he stands to earn more this time than the total income he made over the past ten-plus years!

For several days in a row, Zhang Yimou appeared energetic and vigorous; when discussing the film's promotion and distribution with Du Huan and Yu Dong, he also showed great enthusiasm.

By contrast, Xu Ke was much more composed.

Mainly because he also didn't know whether Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy would be accepted by the audience and become a hit.

But no matter how the film performs, in Xu Ke's view, grossing over one billion is already remarkable.

Given the subject matter, it's destined to be hard to become a big hit.

Huairou, China Film Digital Base.

Guo Fan drove a Toyota Land Cruiser to the set entrance, parked, got out and waited a moment before seeing Liu Cixin slowly alight from the passenger seat.

Guo Fan laughed: "You really need to exercise more—just getting out of the car is a struggle!"

Liu Cixin said unhurriedly: "It's mainly because your car is too high; I'm not used to sitting in it!"

"This is still considered high; wait until we build a heavy transport vehicle—then you'll see what's truly shocking!"

The two came this time for the preparations of a new film.

After joining Outstanding Rising Film Company, Guo Fan first served as assistant director to Jiang Heng, then directed Jiang Heng and Liu Yifei in The New Legend of the Condor Heroes, which did okay at the box office but received only average reviews, after which he went on to make low-budget films.

But deep down he has always dreamed of making a big-budget sci-fi film.

With the promotion of Three Body 2 imminent, Outstanding Rising Film Company had already invited Liu Cixin and his wife, putting them up in a five-star hotel—a kind of preferential treatment, right?

Upon hearing the news, Guo Fan ran over to chat with Liu Cixin, pondering which work would be suitable for film/TV adaptation.

It was originally just a tentative idea, but when the news of Ning Hao's sixty-million big red envelope spread, Guo Fan found himself unable to sit still.

In this fame-and-fortune world of the entertainment circle, who doesn't want both fame and fortune? Guo Fan also wanted to make a name for himself in one fell swoop and earn more dividends!

However, when he made The New Legend of the Condor Heroes, he was a novice director just starting out; the film's profitability relied on Jiang Heng and Liu Yifei's star power, plus the flashy special effects.

His relationship with Guo Fan wasn't nonexistent, but it truly wasn't that important.

So at that time he could only take a relatively low director's fee, let alone any profit sharing.

In the following years he made several mid- to low-budget films, but the fees he received weren't much either.

Compared to ordinary people, he counts as a high-income earner.

But in the entertainment industry, he's somewhat poor.

To change his situation, the only way is to make a shocking special-effects blockbuster.

As for the subject matter, Liu Cixin's sci-fi novels are undoubtedly the most suitable.

Outstanding Rising Film Company had once purchased the film/TV adaptation rights to several of Liu Cixin's novels, and Jiang Heng had also promised that, when the "time is ripe," he would let him direct The Wandering Earth.

In a one-to-one look, there is not a single wrong version!

But in the blink of an eye many years have passed, and Jiang Heng never brought it up again, and Guo Fan doesn't know when the "time" will be ripe.

Otherwise, if he told Director Jiang about filming Liu Cixin's other works, he might have remembered? But after chatting with Liu Cixin for half a day, both felt that The Wandering Earth was the most suitable for film/TV adaptation.

Speaking of this, Liu Cixin showed even more eagerness than Guo Fan.

Mainly because Jiang Heng has too many projects; there was a gap of several years between Three Body 1 and Three Body 2.

Hoping for Jiang Heng to direct The Wandering Earth—how many years would that take? Anyway, Guo Fan's level is also decent, the investment comes from Outstanding Rising Film Company, and Jiang Heng will help oversee it, so the box office shouldn't be far off.

And if Three Body 2 and The Wandering Earth were released back-to-back, then in these few years his works could sell very well again.

Scholars may have a lofty side, but they also need money! The two hit it off immediately and talked for several days, first revising a draft script, then drawing many concept sketches.

However, the novel is written too broadly; to move its story onto the big screen requires solving too many things.

For example, whether ten thousand planetary engines can push the Earth, what they roughly look like, how tall they need to be built...

There are too many world-building elements that need to be supplemented and perfected, and relying solely on Guo Fan and Liu Cixin definitely won't suffice.

Even if they seek help from some academicians, they still need Jiang Heng or Du Huan and the like to step forward.

So the two drove to the set of The Monkey King: Hero Is Back and said they wanted to film The Wandering Earth.

"This is simple; I'll call the Chinese Academy of Sciences later and ask them to help perfect the film's worldview!"

Guo Fan, overjoyed at the words, said: "So does that mean I can direct The Wandering Earth?"

"Of course you can!"

Jiang Heng actually always remembered this; he didn't let Guo Fan go shoot too early, fearing the film market scale hadn't developed yet, which would waste a good film.

Nowadays, Neidi's all-time box-office record has already surpassed four billion, so naturally there's no problem filming "The Wandering Earth".

Guo Fan didn't know what Jiang Heng was thinking, and still thought it was because he had been honest and diligent these past few years, shooting films and making money for the company, thereby earning recognition.

He stammered, "What about the investment?"

"About a hundred million US dollars!"

In original history, the total investment for "The Wandering Earth" was only three hundred million, so they saved wherever they could.

In order to use the limited funds for special effects, they somehow managed to coax a male lead over from Hengdian! (End of chapter)