Any ambitious nation and group was eager to be recognized by the world's authorities.
Academics from all over the world wanted to win the Nobel Prize, and athletes from all over the world wanted to win the Olympic Games or the World Cup. It was the same in the literary and artistic industry.
It was not only Hua Xia's films that had yearned for the Oscars for many years. Countries around the world, including Hollywood itself, had a deep yearning for the Oscars. Filmmakers from all over the world wanted to win an Oscar, and it was the same for Hua Xia's filmmakers.
Li Mu was not an actor, director, or screenwriter, but he was the boss of a film company. If Hua Xia's film industry could not produce a film that could win an Oscar, then as the boss of Hua Xia's film company and a capitalist, he could invest in a film that could win an Oscar, right?
With the size of DreamWorks and its current intention to fully cooperate with him, it was easy for Li Mu to get DreamWorks to work for him. After all, a big director like Spielberg was the same as a third-rate director like Hua Xia, who specialized in low-budget digital films for the film channel. They were all workers in the industry. Since they were workers, in the eyes of a capitalist, the key difference was who had a higher value.
On the way to the site, Li Mu had already made up his mind. As soon as he got the copyright of the American version of "Infernal Affairs," he would immediately ask DreamWorks to work for him. Moreover, the Makino Image would need to invest more than 60% or even more in terms of capital, shares, and voting rights. At that time, although the film was a joint production between Hua Xia and the United States, in essence, the boss of Hua Xia would own the majority.
On the way to the Oscars, Li Mu had already made up his mind. As soon as he got the copyright of the American version of "Infernal Affairs," he would immediately ask DreamWorks to land the film with him. Moreover, the Makino Image would invest more than 60% or even more in terms of capital, shares, and voting rights. At that time, although the film was a joint production between Hua Xia and the United States, Hua Xia's boss would be the biggest shareholder.
Hua Xia's capital going for the Oscars was not just to gain fame. More importantly, it was the impact and replacement of the old Western capital. If Hua Xia's capital began to pour into Hollywood on a large scale, it would indicate that Hollywood had to bow down to Hua Xia's film market. This was also why, after 2008, a large number of Hollywood blockbusters began to incorporate elements of Hua Xia, Hua Xia actors, and Hua Xia's corporate advertising placement. In the end, it was all because of Hua Xia's capital.
As for "Flying Tigers," which was now cooperating with DreamWorks, Li Mu had pinned his hopes on it to have a high box office and high influence, so as to realize the worldwide popularization of the history of Hua Xia and the United States' joint resistance against Japan. He did not have any hopes of using it to fight for the Oscars.
After all, this film was a commercial war film, and it also had a certain mainstream values. The Oscars themselves did not like war themes, so they would definitely be very careful and cautious with such a film. Therefore, it was basically impossible to rely on it to make a big harvest at the Oscars. Not to mention "Flying Tigers", which reflected Hua Xia and the United States' joint resistance against Japan, even "Pearl Harbor", which depicted the Americans fighting against the Japanese, only won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing. This kind of award was considered quite weak in the Oscars.
However, the American version of "Infernal Affairs" was different. As long as this film was tied to Martin Scorsese, it was guaranteed to win an Oscar. After all, for a famous director like Old Ma, the Oscars had to give him an explanation no matter what. The American version of "Infernal Affairs" was Old Ma's most well-received film since "Goodfellas" in 1990. If the Oscars decided to give Old Ma the Best Director Award, there was no doubt that the American version of "Infernal Affairs" would be the most suitable carrier.
From this point of view, Li Mu needed the copyright of the American version of "Infernal Affairs" to help Hua Xia successfully enter the Oscars, and Martin Scorsese needed the American version of "Infernal Affairs" to achieve the highest honor as a director at the Oscars. If it was done properly, Li Mu could even achieve the highest honor as an actor with this film. Therefore, Li Mu was determined to win this project.
…
The site selection for the film and television base was not disclosed to the public. Li Mu, Wei Lan, Chen Ze, and Song Liang went to the intersection of Yan Jing, Jin City, and Lang Fang. The content of the inspection was mainly about the topography and the use of the land.
To build a large-scale film and television base, it would require an area of nearly a hundred square kilometers. Li Mu's goal was not to replicate Hengdian, but to build a "New Hengdian" that was much better than Hengdian. Not only did it have to combine the film and television base with tourism, but it also had to integrate various film and television production support, as well as post-production and other related industries. Therefore, it was necessary to first determine whether the target site had such a large area of flat land, and then examine the cost of the land.
The southeast of Yan Jing was actually a piece of land with good Feng Shui. It was different from Yan Jing, which was nearly three Baidu -shaped from the northeast anticlockwise to the southwest. There were very few hills in the East Pole, and it was a flat plain that stretched all the way to the Bohai Bay.
After the overall inspection, the first thing that could be determined was the topography. The land of more than ten thousand square kilometers was basically flat, so it completely met the requirements of building a large film and television base. The remaining problem was where to choose the lowest land cost.
When calculating the land cost, the main consideration was the land price quoted by the local government, as well as the compensation standards for the cultivated land, residential housing, and industrial land. The more densely populated the area, the less suitable it was to develop non-residential projects. That was because the relocation costs were too high, and the relocation fees alone were a huge cost.
Wei Lan was much more sensitive and professional about land. In this regard, she was even more authoritative than Song Liang. When Song Liang was still staring at the map of Haizhou and studying the land, Wei Lan was already in charge of large-scale real estate projects in Shanghai. Therefore, in this regard, everyone completely trusted Wei Lan's ideas and suggestions.
After a rough inspection, Wei Lan put forward her own suggestions on the spot. First, she took out a budget and hired a professional aerial survey company to take aerial surveys of the area. Then, she drew a detailed topographic map that clearly showed the distribution and density of cultivated land, wasteland, residential housing, and industrial land. In this way, when planning the film and television city, Wan Ying Entertainment could avoid the important and dwell on the trivial.
Even if they needed a land of 100 square kilometers, there was no need to design it in a square shape or in a neat and concentrated form. In order to reduce the cost, it could be designed as a block distribution, ensuring that the whole area was connected, and avoiding the areas with high land costs to the greatest extent. In the planning of such a large-scale real estate project, aerial surveys were the best solution. The only drawback was that the cost was too high. Such a large area for aerial surveys would cost at least millions, and it might even cost more. But compared to such a huge project, Wei Lan felt that the cost was worth it.
In 2003, many people might not have heard of the term aerial photography, but Wei Lan's horizons were already ahead of the vast majority of people.
Although Chen Ze and Song Liang supported the use of aerial surveys to support the site selection, neither of them suggested starting the project first. Both of them felt that they should talk to the governments of the three regions first. After the discussion, they could formulate a rough area based on the attitude of the local governments. At that time, they could ask the aerial survey company to carry out the survey. This way, they could have a clear target.
But Li Mu was not willing to wait.
He agreed with Wei Lan's suggestion very much and immediately said, "Our film and television base project wants to borrow the influence of Yan Jing's capital and huge tourism resources, so it is destined to not be too far from Yan Jing. So no matter how we talk to the governments of the three regions, we can't leave this area. In that case, we don't need to wait for the local governments to finish the aerial survey. Why don't we hurry up and start the project first? After all, with such a large area, aerial surveys and mapping will take some time. If we start the project later, we will have to wait for the map. I'd rather spend more money and let the map wait."
Li Mu's words hit the nail on the head. Since they were going to work on this project, they couldn't leave this place no matter what. What else was there to worry about? They had to quickly figure out the entire terrain and land use situation and make a map. When the time came, they could clearly see which land was the most cost-effective on the map.
The so-called patch distribution, to put it bluntly, was like the greening of a city. They had to take every opportunity to avoid roads, buildings, and large buildings. Therefore, most of the green areas in the aerial maps of the city were basically like psoriasis, patches here and there. However, Li Mu's film and television base could not be completely isolated from each other. Even if they wanted to divide it into many "patches" of different shapes and sizes, they still had to have connecting lines to ensure that all the patches looked like a whole from a spatial point of view.
To achieve the lowest land cost on this basis, aerial surveys were the most scientific and accurate solution.
After a general survey of the area's terrain and deciding on the rhythm of taking aerial surveys first, everyone returned to Yan Jing by car at night.
When the car entered downtown Yan Jing, Li Ziwei received a phone call. Then she immediately relayed it to Li Mu with joy, saying, "Li Zong, Warner Bros. has accepted your offer and is willing to resell the English remake copyright of 'Infernal Affairs' to Makino Image for 3.5 million US dollars!"
"That's great." Li Mu snapped his fingers and said excitedly, "Immediately arrange for someone to contact us and complete the contract process as soon as possible!"
Li Mu's guess was right. Warner Bros. was in a terrible situation, as if they had just experienced a full-scale bombing. Now all their energy was focused on disaster relief. They couldn't even enter the post-war reconstruction stage in a short period of time, let alone post-war development.
Therefore, the English remake copyright of "Infernal Affairs" was useless to them. It was difficult for them to have the energy to launch a project. Moreover, several Hollywood companies were interested in this copyright. In the end, Warner Bros. took it away because the price of 1.75 million US dollars was relatively high. If Warner Bros. wanted to sell it to other Hollywood companies now, no one would give it a price of 1.75 million US dollars.
Moreover, the copyright of a movie script had a time limit. Buying the film adaptation rights of a popular novel usually only lasted for a few years. Suppose that Warner Bros. bought the exclusive English remake rights from Huanya for the next five years. If Warner Bros. did not make the film after five years, the license would expire. At that time, all their efforts would be in vain.
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