Wen | Yi Qing
Editor | Chen Meixi
Halfway through the summer vacation, the national total box office has exceeded 8 billion.
The film industry has not been so lively for a long time. In the first half, "Disappeared She" constantly attracted the audience into the cinema in the marketing of marriage and love anxiety, creating a box office score of over 3.5 billion, breaking the cumulative box office record of China film history crime films; In the second half, Wu Ershan appeared in the cinema with the epic masterpiece Feng Shen, the pink world created by Barbie made efforts to break through in the summer file, and YiBo continued to expand his box office appeal with Passion.
In addition, "In an octagonal cage" and "Three Wan Li in Chang ‘an" are the objects of public discussion. Myths, women, dancing, crime, reality, animation, adventure and other stories are all gathered in this summer, and the topics, discussions and box office trends are snowballing.
Megalodon 2: Abyss, as a deep-sea adventure monster blockbuster controlled by China producers, will also become a unique existence, and is expected to drive the market in the second half of the summer file.
On the one hand, as a series, what kind of collision Meg 2 can bring after the actor’s upgrade makes the audience curious.
On the other hand, Jason Wu, the box office leader, undoubtedly raised the audience’s expectations for this film-what kind of box office miracle can Jason Wu bring to Meg 2 after Wolf Warriors 2 and Wandering Earth 2?
On the morning of July 28th, with these questions, Hedgehog Commune met two producers in Meg 2, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Belle Avery, and discussed with them their views on Jason Wu, the difficulties in co-producing projects at home and abroad, and the changes in genre films.
Bella output a lot of information at the scene, and sincerely said: "I believe that filmmakers in the world will pay more and more attention to the China market, and I have been working on other projects. If they can all perform well in the China market, it will be a very good thing for me."
Jason Wu, first choice.
In 2018, The Meg was released in the cinema, and Li Bingbing, a China actress, became one of the highlights of the film in the China market, and finally accumulated a box office of 1.053 billion.
After a lapse of five years, in order to realize the cast of tough guys, the focus shifted to Jason Wu. The producer chose Jason Wu without hesitation, even willing to wait for him for two years.
In the live conversation with the producer, "Jason Wu" was frequently mentioned, and it is not difficult to see that the production team attached importance to Jason Wu from the whole production process. Meg 2 always revolves around the role of "Nine styles" played by Jason Wu in the aspects of script, role creation and cultural differences.
Bella mentioned, "Scripts (in Hollywood) usually take eight months to a year, but the role played by Jason Wu is very crucial. As a new character, we need to consider what is the relationship between him and every character in the first film. In order to better present the role and integrate China culture, the script has been polished for a long time. "
Lorenzo already has the production experience of Bumblebee, Transformers: The Rise of the Super Warrior and other works. In a large number of reading films, he has also seen the Wolf Warriors series starring Jason Wu. Wolf Warriors 2’s box office achievement of 5.694 billion in China market is the first time to reach the top 100 box offices in the world, leaving a deep impression on the international market. "If any filmmaker doesn’t know about Jason Wu, they haven’t done their duty."
Since then, Lorenzo has been paying attention to Jason Wu’s career. His relaxed performance in front of the screen, sometimes humorous and sometimes tough, has also become the reason why Meg 2 chose him. After the first film, the second film needs a China role to lead the show, and it forms a sharp collision with another Hollywood starring Jason Statham. Jason Wu, who is good at action movies and always surprises the audience, is the only choice.
The producer knew that Jason Wu couldn’t make an appointment, so he took the script to fight for it first. Bella still remembers seeing Jason Wu for the first time in England. At that time, in a small room, they sat on the sofa with a script and exchanged roles with him. Jason Wu left a deep impression on her.
In front of the screen, his action plays always attract people’s attention. In reality, Jason Wu is cheerful and enthusiastic, treats everyone to eat hot pot in a very authentic China way, and easily handles this role invitation at the dinner table.
Even though it was difficult to make an appointment in Jason Wu, the team still waited for two years. The film has not been officially released, but what the two producers saw and heard during the filming made them feel that the wait was extremely worthwhile.
As a Chinese-foreign co-production project, Meg 2 has gathered actors from all continents, which is a unique cross-cultural communication exhibition. Recalling the first meeting scene, Bella strengthened her choice of Jason Wu-he can bring more elements that China audiences like.
Indeed, Meg 2’s Chinese, the crowning touch, has become a joke that is more acceptable to China audiences in the film. At the scene, as long as Jason Wu speaks Chinese, there will be laughter all around.
The lines such as "Shut your mouth" and "Dare you slow down a bit?" were improvisations by Jason Wu. Foreign staff couldn’t understand them, so he explained to everyone, "He said you have to believe me, and the China audience will understand this point." Bella finally respected Jason Wu’s decision, "because he knew the China audience."
On the occasion of the strike of foreign actors’ unions, China hosted the only world premiere of Meg 2, and "Jason Wu" became the biggest "killer" for the film to seek high box office.
China’s Narration in the Deep Sea Monster Film
As a series of films, if we want to continue to meet the audience’s expectations of the film, we should not only keep the wonderful part of the first film, but also give the second film a sense of freshness.
Lorenzo thought about this problem from the beginning. If we continue to use the interaction of "male and female collocation", it will be difficult to distinguish it from the first film and give the audience a refreshing feeling. Therefore, telling stories from a different perspective, increasing the number of megalodon sharks and developing monster species seem to be the simplest and straightforward choices.
Based on the first film, Meg 2 is more complete in deep-sea thriller, character relationship and story line, and is close to China culture.
Megalodon 1 has the cool feeling of a monster film, but the character line is relatively simple, and human exploration of the underwater world is limited, which has been improved in the second part. "The relationship between the positive protagonist teams is closer than before." Lorenzo said.
Taking the character "Jiuao" as an example, Yu Baimei revealed during the road show that Jiuao’s original name was "Zhang Jian", but it was changed to "Jiuao" because of his father’s dream and based on China culture. The relationship between Jiuao and his father and his family was fully explained in the second part.
In western films, the creators usually ignore the oriental proposition of "Where do the characters come from?", while Meg 2 makes full connections according to the thinking logic of China people.
In the film, Jonas Taylor, played by Jason Statham, is a western father, while Jiuao, played by Jason Wu, is a typical uncle from the East. The relationship between them and their younger generation Mei Ying is ostensibly due to their personality, but in fact it is a collision between the East and the West in intergenerational relations.
"Jonas, Jiuao and Meiying get along very subtly. All foreign masters can understand the interaction between Jonas and Meiying, but not everyone can understand the interaction between Jiuao and Meiying. If we don’t have a partner from China, there is no way to express this subtlety accurately." Lorenzo said.
Bella told Hedgehog Commune with some excitement that the visual effects department had produced more special effects of creatures and sharks. This international cooperation has also made her know more about China culture. "With this relationship, we can understand Jiuao. For me, this is an attempt in the relationship between people. People in different cultural backgrounds have different reactions to death and dreams, which is more touching to me. “
The creative team tried to start with the relationship between the characters, which not only made the team more capable of fighting, but also made the audience in the cinema more empathetic with the characters in the monster film, and even increased the appeal to the female audience. "I think women should be excited when they see the interesting scene of two men with babies!" Bella said with emotion.
Lorenzo hopes that in this deep-sea monster film, the roles of different countries can establish different ways of connection, but it can also convey the unified emotional value and heroic narrative of human beings. "This is the preference of the global audience."
Although cultural differences always exist, which once became a challenge in the filming process, Meg 2 prefers to find commonalities in the differences, just like Lorenzo’s original intention of making a film: we want to emphasize in this film how people from different cultures and ethnic groups can establish better ties.
How to go further with genre films?
Lorenzo and Bella prefer to call the "difficulties" they encounter "challenges". Therefore, in the filming process of Meg 2, the difficulties are not mentioned, but the challenges are always there.
The number of teams is huge, and different teams in different countries have different understandings of the same problem. In the process of discussion, Lorenzo found that everyone’s contradiction lies in the degree of application of film elements. "For example, how many times do octopus appear in the film, how to present their appearance, is it the tip of the iceberg or unveiling the mysterious veil? Everyone’s starting point is good. This is not so much a difficulty as a challenge of teamwork. "
Bella was more worried about the scene when shooting. Meg 2’s underwater shooting is almost composed of special effects. The actors wear heavy costumes to perform without real scenes. She is worried about the state of the actors and the effect of filming. "We want to create a new species of octopus and make different productions for each Megalodon shark to distinguish it. These details are complicated."
But in the end, when all the elements were added, Bella did get what she wanted: the megalodon shark of the top predator was bigger, each shark had its own personality, some were ferocious, and some could coexist with human beings; Jason Wu, an actress, did stunts on the helicopter again, which shocked the staff at the scene. She described the scene as "crazy".
The crew often encounters the problem of cultural barriers, and the solution is simple and direct. If the thinking mode of foreigners in the play is concerned, the creators will mainly listen to the opinions of Warner Bros., the producer. If the thinking mode of China people is involved, the opinions of the Chinese culture of the other producer will become crucial.
As a filmmaker, Bella’s understanding of China culture mostly comes from movies. Facing the question "Which China movies do you like", she got up and took out a printed list from a side table, which recorded her favorite China directors and works. She put on her glasses and read the director’s name in unskilled Chinese. The list includes internationally renowned directors and rookie directors.
Bella appreciates Zhang Yimou and Jiang Wen the most, and also looks for the success logic of China’s commercial films in Dying to Survive’s Lost Her.
For Bella, only when she has seen enough movies can she appreciate the charm of culture. As a producer of a Chinese-foreign co-production, she should not only look for ways from past studies and make judgments on the production process, but also continue to learn from experience in the existing environment.
In her view, there is still a lot of room for improvement in monster films, and the audience’s highlights continue to be explored: "The visual effects of monster films are getting better and better, but in terms of story content, we can look at these deep-sea monsters in different ways. Just like everyone is different, there are differences between monsters, and it is not necessary to confront humans. There are various possibilities between monsters and monsters, monsters and people. "
Like any type of film, the progress of monster films requires the main creator to bring different content every time. Fortunately, there are still many possibilities to be created for the genre of deep-sea monsters in this track unfamiliar to China audiences.
