Chapter 3: Dark Invasion

Chapter 3: Dark Invasion

Chapter 3: Dark Invasion

In the next few days, Zhang's mother found that her son seemed to have changed suddenly.

In the past, when he came back from vacation, he would either play games on the computer or go out for a run with his former classmates. But this time, he seemed to have suddenly changed his personality. He locked himself in the room every day and did not go out.

Zhang's mother went in several times under the pretext of delivering fruit and discovered that her son was constantly writing and drawing.

At first, he was writing words on manuscript paper. Zhang Chen said he was writing a script.

Well, even though she was just a railway worker, she knew that scripts were related to movies. Her son was studying directing, so it seemed normal for him to write scripts.

But after a few days, Zhang Chen started painting again. Now Zhang's mother became curious. Could this have something to do with being a director?

Her son told her that this is called a storyboard and a script.

She didn't understand what storyboards and storyboards were, but she could see that they were a way of describing the plot of a movie in the form of drawings.

Zhang's mother was shocked. After just a few glances at the storyboard, she already had the picture in her mind.

Her son is so capable. Zhang's mother showed a motherly smile on her face and happily brought another fruit plate. Which mother doesn't want to see her child making progress?

"What are you so happy about?" Seeing the smile on his wife's face, Zhang's father couldn't help but be curious.

"Our son..."

"Hmm? What happened to my son?"

"Our son is amazing."

Zhang's mother found it difficult to describe it in words, so she simply stopped talking. She just left with a vague sentence and left Zhang's father completely confused.

Not long after, Zhang's father pretended to bring the third fruit plate into Zhang Chen's room, left after a while, and when he came out, he got together with Zhang's mother, and the two began to whisper.

"Is Wawa going to make a movie?"

"Ah."

"So how much money do we have now?"

"One hundred thousand, but this is for his senior year graduation project."

"Give it to him first, and I'll ask someone about it later."

His son didn't want to work in the railway industry and insisted on going to Beijing Film Academy to be a director, so Zhang's father naturally made inquiries about it.

Directors need money to make movies, and he heard that he must make a movie in his senior year, otherwise he would not be able to graduate.

For this purpose, Zhang's father made preparations and has been saving money over the past few years.

Although he was a small leader, his income was just that. Fortunately, the tertiary industry department he worked in was related to railway wagons.

The economy of the coal-producing province is heavily dependent on coal mines, and coal mines are heavily dependent on railway transportation. Therefore, Zhang's father's position provides him with many opportunities to come into contact with people from all walks of life.

Father Zhang remembered that a friend of his worked for a company that had invested in movies, and he planned to ask him about it in detail after the Spring Festival holiday.

……

Inside the room, Zhang Chen was unaware of his parents' thoughts outside, and was completely immersed in his own creation. With the memory of later life, he had a better understanding of the development of the film industry in the past decade.

During this period, costume blockbusters were considered an exclusive genre of Chinese films. Throughout the 00s, all major directors were making costume blockbusters.

Zhang Yimou made "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", Chen Kaige made "The Promise", Feng Xiaogang made "The Banquet", Jackie Chan made "The Myth", and Tsui Hark followed with "Seven Swords".

This is a movie, and the TV series are: "The Legend of Sword and Fairy", "The Return of the Condor Heroes", "The Judge Advocate of the Song Dynasty", "Seven Swordsmen", "The Long Song of Zhenguan", "The Yang Family Generals"...

Then there are a bunch of comedy films: "Crazy Stone", "Stubborn Radish", "Lost on Journey", "Nightclub"...

Feng Kuzi became famous through comedy films. He made a name for himself as a commercial film director with "Party A and Party B". The same is true for Ning Hao. He made his mark with "Crazy Stone" and entered the billion-dollar club directly with his second film "Crazy Racing".

Of course, Zhang Chen also thought about copying this road, but after thinking about it for a long time, he found that he couldn't follow this path.

In his previous life, he achieved success through online movies, and he was most familiar with online movies. So what are the characteristics of online movies?
Look at the themes of online movies. They are either about tomb robbery, folk tales and legends, or low-profile monster movies with giant snakes, giant spiders, giant scorpions, and water monkeys. They are new and unique, and the main focus is on creating a thriller atmosphere and a little bit of eroticism.

These things have nothing to do with comedy. What will be the consequences if he is forced to shoot them?
Don’t think that comedies are easy to make. To be successful, a comedy must have suitable actors. Ge You in Feng’s comedies and Wang Baoqiang in Lost on Journey cannot be played by anyone else.

Think about Uncle Benshan’s skits. Would they still be as funny if Gong Hanlin performed them instead?

He is a web movie director. The easiest way is of course to find a successful web movie in later generations, but web movies are highly dependent on special effects.

Those giant snakes, giant spiders, and giant scorpions would have been absolutely astronomical in price to produce with the level of special effects production in 04.

Of course, the investment in special effects can also be reduced appropriately.

But when it comes to special effects, you get what you pay for. Monsters made with 50-cent special effects look fake at first glance and are doomed to fail.

Knowledgeable people in later generations have summarized that there are only three types of films that are recognized worldwide as small-scale films that can achieve great results: comedies, erotic films, and horror films.

The comedy film route is not feasible, and the erotic film route is even less possible. There is no room for him to survive in China.

Then the only option left is horror movies, and Zhang Chen followed this line of thought.

There are many examples of low-cost and high-return horror films around the world:

Unfriended cost $100 million and grossed $6200 million.
"Open Water" cost $105 million and eventually earned $5200 million at the box office;
Get Out cost $450 million and grossed $2.55 million.
"Darkness" cost $350 million and grossed $5700 million worldwide.
The movie that had celebrities joining was "The Sixth Sense", which had an investment of 4000 million US dollars and grossed 6.73 million US dollars worldwide, with 2.9 million US dollars in North America alone. It was a huge profit, after all, that was a movie made in 99.

With so many real-life examples in front of him, Zhang Chen decisively chose "Dark Invasion", which was the easiest to localize.

This movie was originally produced and distributed by a British film company with a cost of only 250 million US dollars, with another 100 million being advertising costs. However, it earned 5700 million US dollars at the global box office. In today's China, Zhang Chen is confident that he can produce it with only 200 million US dollars.

This film has few scenes and the entire story basically takes place in a cave, which can save a lot of budget. Moreover, horror films are famous for not relying on the fame of the actors. As long as the acting skills are good, ordinary actors can perform perfectly.

This can save a lot of budget.

The only trouble is probably the monsters, but that can be handled with special effects makeup, which Zhang Chen can do.

As for the issue of passing the review, Zhang Chen also thought that if he filmed it like the original "The Darkness", it would definitely not pass the review because it was too bloody and violent.

But there are ways to deal with it.

The reason for the success of this film lies in the creation of a tense atmosphere. He could have completely avoided those bloody scenes and focused on creating the atmosphere. To put it bluntly, he changed a horror film into a thriller, which should have passed the censorship.

(End of this chapter)