Chapter 107 Blessed people don’t have to be busy
After the initial excitement, Xu Kun began to feel troubled again.
This book and he are a perfect match, but the problem is that this is a martial arts drama, a magical martial arts drama that requires a lot of special effects.
I'm afraid that an investment of 12 million may not be enough.
But he didn't want to miss this book no matter what.
He gritted his teeth and decided to get the notebook first and find another way to deal with the money later.
So he said to the two of them, "I like this script very much, but this is the name... That computer game has a big influence among young people, so it's better to change the name to avoid being criticized."
"change name?"
Chen Luoping and Xu Yiling looked at each other and said, "How about changing the Immortal Sword to the Heavenly Sword and the Hero to the Group of Heroes?"
"'Heavenly Sword Heroes'."
Xu Kun repeated the name and nodded, "This is a good name."
Next, the two sides discussed the right to authorship, script price, intention to make revisions, etc. The two were more insistent on the right to authorship and script price, but were not so concerned about the second revision. They were probably used to the crew making temporary changes to the script and had become numb to it.
In the end, Xu Kun bought out the script for 40,000 yuan.
The two screenwriters promised to help split the script into character parts and modify some details according to Xu Kun's opinions.
For example, the protagonist's nickname is 'Scholar of Literature, Sword and Martial Arts', but he claims that he cannot read. Isn't it ridiculous that he is a blind and illiterate scholar?
Besides, Xu Kun's temperament is more like a hero rather than a Confucian hero.
In addition to these two people, Xu Kun also plans to invite Du Liang to join the crew. He likes everything else about this drama, except that the protagonist lacks some heroic spirit, which is exactly what Du Liang is good at.
Du Liang naturally had no objection to this. He had made promises twice, but in the end things were not done. This time he had to help for free no matter what.
Three screenwriters plus Xu Kun worked hard for more than 20 days and finally finalized the second version of the script.
The revised version mainly added some lines that show the protagonist's spirit, refined some clips, and straightened out the previous and subsequent plots.
Xiao Ting's nickname was also changed from "Scholar of Literature and Martial Arts" to "Sword-wielding and Soaring into the Clouds". "Sword-wielding" means using a sword as a cane, implying that he is a blind man.
As for Lingyun, it not only praises his excellent Qinggong skills, but also refers to his iconic white hair, and secretly means "lofty ambitions".
By the way, the male protagonist can control his hair to switch back and forth between black and white. The white-haired one is the hero Xiao Ting, and the black-haired one is King Abila.
Xu Kun showed the revised script to people he trusted, and the reviews were generally good, with the younger the people, the better the feedback.
Considering that this kind of martial arts drama with a bit of magical elements is mainly aimed at young people, the effect should be quite good.
Xu Kun was about to give the script to Jia Yueting for review to see if he could trick him into making more money, or help bring in other coal bosses.
As a result, just after I made an appointment with Jia Yueting, I received another call from my hometown, asking if I had enough funds.
After careful questioning, it turned out that it was not the county that wanted to make additional investment, but the news was passed to the city. The city leaders suddenly had an idea and decided to directly advertise that our Laobai Gan could not beat Moutai and Wuliangye, so would it be more profitable to invest in a TV series?
The counties below have the courage to build vegetable greenhouses, so the city can't be so lacking in courage.
So Xu Kun temporarily postponed his date with Jia Yueting and went to the city with the county leaders. When he came back, he had another investment agreement of 5 million in his hand.
There was no gambling agreement signed this time.
Major wineries have always been willing to spend money on publicity, but Lao Bai Gan is considered stingy. However, in 07, it also spent a lot of money on Hu Jun, and the advertisements with the slogan "Drink to be Manly" were everywhere.
Nowadays, it is not a big deal to invest in potential stocks in your hometown in advance. As a result, Jia Yueting became a little anxious in the past few days, especially when he heard that Xu Kun was going to negotiate a sponsorship contract with the winery, fearing that he would get bigger and bigger and leave him behind.
So without waiting for Xu Kun to speak, he raised the investment from 1000 million to 1300 million. This time he raised a total of million, which was enough to catch up with the total investment of "The Young Emperor".
With the connections Chen Xuebin has accumulated over the years, he can easily put together a rough framework with the money.
Now everything is ready, all we need is a qualified director.
Xu Kun was thinking about how to post a notice to recruit talents when screenwriter Chen Luoping took the initiative to recommend a person named Liu Haibo, a young director who was less than 30 years old.
Although he is young, he has already directed three TV series. The first two were co-produced with others, but this year's "The Four Famous Detectives Meet in the Capital" was completed independently by him.
On behalf of the investors, Xu Kun and Chen Xuebin met with the young director who was born in 75. After a candid conversation and a preview of "The Four", which had not yet been officially released, they preliminarily decided that Liu Haibo would direct the drama.
Liu Haibo is quite knowledgeable about special effects, and the three dramas he has filmed are all martial arts dramas, so he is quite familiar with it.
The most important thing is that although he is young, he is not impatient. He said that if he encounters problems during the filming process, he will pay attention to communicating with the producer and discuss a win-win solution.
The nominal producer of this drama is none other than Xu Kun [Note: in the original history of this drama, the male lead also served as the producer because his girlfriend was the representative of the capital].
Therefore, "Heroes of the Heavenly Sword" was officially launched with a total investment of 2000 million yuan, and it was known as a large-scale fantasy costume martial arts drama.
Next, Chen Xuebin was responsible for reporting and completing formalities, while Xu Kun and Liu Haibo started to select the cast for the crew - Xu Kun was the main person in charge, since he was the producer who brought in money.
Originally, this drama had a high rating of on Douban, and both the characters and the plot were worthy of praise.
Because the original name was also "The Legend of Sword and Fairy", it was compared with "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" by some gamers back then.
I think that Heavenly Sword is superior to the unrecognizable TV version of The Legend of Sword and Fairy, that King Abila, who goes all the way to the end for his career, is a real man, that the lustful and cowardly Li Xiaoyao is not the real Li Xiaoyao at all, and that the crappy Tang Yu Xiaobao should be smooth and rough.
However, the performance of "Heavenly Sword" is far inferior to the TV version of "Legend of Sword and Fairy".
The biggest reason for this is the poor casting. Although the appearance of the male lead Shao Feng has some problems, it can still cater to the preferences of some audiences.
And the heroine...
Many viewers commented on this drama: I endured such an ugly heroine to the end, and you actually sent me a knife? !
The heroine is a former Joan girl. She was indeed very beautiful when she was young, but her appearance had already collapsed when she filmed this drama. Coupled with some weird styling, she often looked like a middle-aged aunt, or even an androgynous aunt.
In fact, the fact that we can see the end with such a heroine is enough to show the charm of this drama.
But the problem is that when "Heroes of the Heavenly Sword" was broadcast on satellite TV in 05, it collided head-on with the TV series "The Legend of Sword and Fairy".
On one side is an androgynous old lady, and on the other side is the young and beautiful Liu Yifei. The gap is so big that it is unbearable to look at. Even though the plot and characters of "Tianjian" are more novel and the special effects are not much inferior, it is still powerless to save the situation in the end.
But now that Xu Kun has been appointed to play the role, he will naturally not make this kind of mistake.
He plans to let Huo Siyan play the female lead. Although she was overshadowed by Fan Bingbing on the set of "Cell Phone", she is still considered quite capable among many young actresses.
Especially in the play, Tang Ruoxuan has many pitiful crying scenes because she carries a blood feud, which is exactly what Huo Siyan is good at.
As for the perseverance part...
When she was acting in "Burning 2", she specifically practiced this aspect of her acting skills. Although the effect was average, it was barely good enough after some refinement.
But just when Xu Kun was about to tell Huo Siyan the good news, Li Yixiang suddenly came to his door.
He hesitated for a long time before he finally squeezed out a sentence under Xu Kun's urging: "Can Zeng Lai play the leading role of this play?"
(End of this chapter)
