Chapter 301: Shooting

After Depp's apology, the efficiency of the entire crew improved.

On the one hand, the male lead committed a crime and was cleaned up by Wu Yuchen, so who would dare to be careless? On the other hand, Depp's apology indeed made the atmosphere of the entire crew much better, becoming more like a whole, and everyone was convinced by Wu Yuchen from the bottom of their hearts, because he achieved equality, and everyone felt that they were respected.

Before Hugh Jackman left for the premiere of *X2*, the *Pirates of the Caribbean* crew finally completed the shooting of the interior scenes in Los Angeles, and then the crew transferred to the Dominican Republic, where there was the sense of remoteness that Wu Yuchen wanted.

The local area was very welcoming to the arrival of the *Pirates of the Caribbean* crew, because the crew would bring a lot of revenue to the local area. The most direct thing was that the crew hired more than 400 local people, bringing a sum of income. Coupled with the crew's own 600 people, it immediately made the crew a super-large crew of over a thousand people, which also brought a large amount of consumption income to the local area.

The island was mainly based on agriculture before and was one of the poorest areas in the Caribbean. *Pirates of the Caribbean* came here as a location, which is very beneficial to its tourism industry in the long run. As long as they shoot it beautifully enough, it will bring a large number of tourists.

However, when the crew first arrived here to start shooting, they also encountered some trouble. More than 400 people, and they were local people with low education levels, flooded into the crew, which brought a lot of management chaos to the crew.

Chen Er and Ning Hao usually watched more and said less when following Wu Yuchen, especially this guy Ning Hao. Although his English had improved a little, it was still not very good, so communication was indeed a problem. But now, even the two of them went on the field to help the crew with command.

"You, you, you, go there!" Ning Hao didn't speak English this time, but shouted in Chinese while gesturing.

Because English was useless at this time. The official language of the Dominican Republic is Spanish, but this island with a history of more than 200 years has its own indigenous language, so many people don't know Spanish, and there are not enough translators. In this way, it really relied on hand gestures to communicate with these people. Then Ning Hao, who doesn't know English, doesn't matter.

"Stop, don't move, follow me to learn, yes, keep this posture!" Ning Hao was teaching several indigenous group actors how to do movements at this time, letting them know what to do later.

After stopping work at night, Ning Hao went back and lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, and said to Chen Er in his mouth: "Old Chen, I feel that I have come here for a trip, and I haven't learned English yet, but I have learned sign language first. If I go back now, I can definitely communicate with deaf-mutes without barriers!"

Chen Er was writing his work diary. He didn't look back and said to Ning Hao: "That's great, you can shoot a play with a deaf-mute as the protagonist when you go back!"

"Don't say that, I really have empathy for deaf-mutes now, and I can especially understand their mood!"

Afterwards, Ning Hao sighed again: "Wu Dao is really amazing!"

"Do you still need to say that?" Chen Er smiled.

"No, I mean, the more I follow Wu Dao, the more I can experience it! It's really not an easy thing to manage a large crew of thousands of people, and to make a group of foreigners obey him! If it were me, let alone thousands of people, I couldn't manage 100 people!"

Then Ning Hao smiled again: "And the matter of Wu Dao taking Depp to apologize to us, when there are media interviews with me in the future, I must talk about it~"

Chen Er turned his head when he heard this: "Don't mess around, the crew has issued a gag order, and no one is allowed to talk about it!"

Ning Hao waved his hand: "Can't say it here in the US, can't I say it when I go back to the country? Besides, you underestimate those reporters too much. I guess there should already be rumors outside."

"You, don't think about these messy things. Tomorrow we have to shoot the forest chase scene. Think about how to lead your team of indigenous people not to run around!"

Ning Hao sighed when he heard this. He still had to continue to deepen his feelings with the local villagers!

"Welcome back! Our big star!" Wu Yuchen hugged Hugh Jackman.

"Thank you! Wu, I hope the crew was not affected by me~"

"There is a little bit, so you have to enter the state quickly next!" Wu Yuchen said with a smile.

Hugh Jackman left the crew for a week this time because of the release of *X2*, but his results were gratifying.

When *X-Men* was first released, his Wolverine was only one of the protagonists, and by the time of *X2*, his Wolverine's scenes were greatly increased, undoubtedly the male lead. Moreover, *X2* achieved a box office of 85.56 million in the first three days of its opening weekend, a very eye-catching result, which would also allow Hugh Jackman to completely stabilize his position as a first-line actor.

Wu Yuchen smiled. The impact of the good results of *X2* was that Hollywood increasingly realized the potential of IP comic adaptation films. Warner was a little unable to hold back again and wanted to come to him again to discuss the *Batman* trilogy.

Wu Yuchen didn't feel any surprise about this, but to be honest, he was now fully devoted to *Pirates of the Caribbean* and had no time and energy to pull with Warner. He directly told Warner on the phone that his conditions would not change. If they agreed, both sides would talk; if they didn't agree, they didn't need to come to waste both sides' time.

This also made Warner fall into a tangle again. They planned to wait and see what *Hulk*, which will be released next month, will be like.

Wu Yuchen didn't care what Warner thought. He didn't care whether Ang Lee's *Hulk* would bring him a reverse assist. People ultimately have to rely on themselves. Anyway, when *Pirates of the Caribbean 2* is released next year, the box office results will prove everything.

The crew shot in the Dominican Republic for 5 weeks, and then went to an island in the Bahamas to shoot the melee at the end of the film.

Time slowly came to August. At this time, *Pirates of the Caribbean* went to Grand Bahama Island to shoot scenes of ships and sea battles. There were also some newcomers in the crew, such as Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai!

In *Pirates of the Caribbean 3*, there are nine pirate leaders in the world, one of whom is Chinese, the Singapore pirate king Sao Feng. His scenes among the nine pirate leaders are also the heaviest.

In the original *Pirates of the Caribbean 3*, Chow Yun-fat was invited to play this role, but Wu Yuchen didn't plan to use him again, but directly found Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai. Now Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai has also gained considerable fame in Hollywood by virtue of *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*. In the past two years, Hollywood will think of him first if there are Chinese roles.

"The bright moon rises from the Tianshan Mountains, in the vast sea of clouds, the long wind is thousands of miles, blowing across the Yumen Pass."

At this time, Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai is chanting Li Bai's poem *Guanshan Moon*, using Chinese chanting to express his pirate life of being displaced and drifting on the sea all year round.

"Cut! This performance is very good, especially this poem, the emotion is very in place!" Wu Yuchen praised Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai.

Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai smiled at Wu Yuchen: "This is a rare opportunity to chant our Chinese ancient poems to foreigners. I definitely can't drop the chain!"

At this time, Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai shaved a bald head, and the makeup artist carved a green dragon tattoo on his head, and left several knife marks on the other side of his neck. The whole person looked like he had a fierce temperament, and even when he smiled, it was a bit scary.

However, it was still different from Chow Yun-fat's image in his past life, for example, there were no long and sharp nails, which would make people feel like an old monster.

In his past life, *Pirates of the Caribbean 3* was actually deleted by 20 minutes when it was released in the mainland, half of which was Chow Yun-fat's appearance scenes, resulting in the inconsistency of the plot, including this part of the poem *Guanshan Moon* by Li Bai that the audience looked forward to most.

The reason given by the "big scissors" was that Chow Yun-fat's appearance was suspected of uglifying the Chinese image.

To be honest, this reason is a bit untenable, because if it is uglified, you just delete it all, or don't introduce it. You deleted half and kept half, so this explanation is very far-fetched.

Just like *Pirates of the Caribbean 2*, it was not introduced to the country for release at all. The rumored reason was that the crew on the Flying Dutchman was too ferocious, fearing to scare the children. But this thing also appeared in the third part, and it was not deleted at all...

Moreover, most of the people in *Pirates of the Caribbean* have strange costumes, and the pirate leaders in other regions are not much better than Sao Feng, and there is no deliberate uglification of the Chinese.

In short, sometimes you just listen to the explanation of the "big scissors." Compared with this explanation, Wu Yuchen actually believes in another message that everyone passed privately, that is, someone wanted to deliberately mess with Chow Yun-fat.

As for the reason, that is to talk about Chow Yun-fat's sudden resignation on the eve of the shooting of *Red Cliff* in April 2007. His move caught the entire *Red Cliff* crew off guard, and the public opinion at that time was also in an uproar, scolding him for not keeping his word.

*Red Cliff* was a project strongly supported by Han Sanping. You doing this makes the "Sitting Mountain Sculpture" very, very unhappy!

So 2 months later, *Pirates of the Caribbean 3* was deleted, and the reason lies in this. If it weren't for the fact that this movie had already determined the introduction quota at the beginning of the year, it is estimated that whether it could be seen would be another matter.

However, Wu Yuchen didn't use Chow Yun-fat at all now, so there wouldn't be so many broken things. Now his design for this role, the appearance has been preserved for the most part, and the fierce characteristics must be reflected, that is, the long nails and the like were removed by him. On the whole, it does not affect it, and it will definitely not be said to uglify the Chinese.

"Wu Dao, you don't know, a few months ago, Hong Kong was really panicked by SARS, the economy declined, and the property market, which had already fallen, fell through. Everyone hid at home and didn't enter the cinema. The entire Hong Kong film industry stopped, and there was no work to do at all!"

During the break, Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai chatted with Wu Yuchen about what happened a while ago.

Wu Yuchen smiled and comforted: "Fortunately, it has passed now."

Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai shook his head: "Can't go back. Everyone understands that Hong Kong films are going to be finished. Many people are asking me about the way to go north. I see that Hong Kong films can't restore their previous appearance at all!"

After Wu Yuchen finished listening, he smiled lightly and then said: "Don't want talent loss, but Hong Kong films can't provide enough job opportunities for people in the industry. How can there be good things in the world that are occupied by all? What do Hong Kong filmmakers value most?"

"Of course it's making money!" Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai answered without hesitation. Although everyone shouted to revitalize Hong Kong films, who didn't take making money as the first priority?

Wu Yuchen smiled: "Isn't that the truth? The development of the film industry itself is based on the economic foundation. The better the mainland economy develops and the more prosperous the market is, it will definitely attract more Hong Kong filmmakers to go north. This is simply an irreversible trend."

Brother Tony, there is one point I admire you for: you are honest enough, unlike many Hong Kong people who go north, who are hypocritical."

"Hypocritical?" Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai didn't understand.

"It means that people have already run to the mainland to make money, but they still dislike this and that in their mouths. The arrogant attitude is not desirable!"

Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai immediately flattered when he heard this: "Wu Dao, with you and Miracle Film and Television, who dares to put on airs!"

Saying so, but he also understood in his heart what kind of mentality his Hong Kong compatriots had, feeling that the mainland was backward and easy to make money, and inevitably had to put on a high-above posture.

Then Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai asked a topic that everyone has been very concerned about and is also hotly discussing recently: "Wu Dao, what do you think of CEPA?"

CEPA, the full name is *Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement between the Mainland and Hong Kong*, two of which are related to the film industry: co-productions between the mainland and Hong Kong can be regarded as domestic films for distribution in the mainland; Chinese-language films shot in Hong Kong can be distributed in the mainland without import quotas after being reviewed and passed by the mainland competent authorities.

That is to say, the mainland market that Hong Kong films have wanted for many years is finally open to them without restrictions!

This is also regarded by many Hong Kong filmmakers as the biggest market rescue policy. With such a large mainland market, it will definitely be able to support Hong Kong films to move towards brilliance again!

"It can guarantee that Hong Kong films will not starve to death, but don't think about reproducing the grand occasion of more than ten years ago!"

Wu Yuchen further said to Liang Zhang Jiahui Ka-fai: "Films are ultimately things that contain cultural attributes. Hong Kong culture is destined not to become the mainstream of mainland culture, and the mainstream of the mainland market will only be local films in the future."

In his past life, many people scolded this policy, saying that it let Hong Kong stars come in and ride on the heads of the mainland, grabbing various resources.

In Wu Yuchen's view, the above decision is not a clever move. This will not only bring more talent and technology to the mainland film and television industry, but also play a powerful catfish effect.

The environment of a group of people in the mainland film industry is a bit comfortable, and they have always been protected by policies, and competition is insufficient. Putting Hong Kong films in fully drives competitiveness, forcing mainland filmmakers to learn to shoot commercial films, learn how to better market, and how to better do the market. ===== CHAPTER 302 =====