Hundreds of stars participated in the performance of the disaster relief movie "Night Banquet", which is undoubtedly a prosperous event in the Hong Kong film industry. At the same time, there were three other major events.

First, the Anle Cinema Line, which has been in operation for 30 years by the Jiang family, officially joined the Oriental Cinema Line, which was merged into Kang Jianfei; second, Pan Disheng sold the Debao Cinema Line to the real estate developer Luo Jiecheng and renamed it Yonggao Cinema Line; the third was Huang Baiming After breaking up with the Golden Princess Cinema, they turned to cooperate with Luo Jiecheng, and Vientiane Pictures changed its name to Yonggao Film Company.

For Hong Kong filmmakers, Roger Cheng is a complete newcomer. Just like Pan Disheng, he suddenly came out and stepped into the film circle. This gentleman used to be an industrialist and set up factories in the Mainland. He has made a lot of money investing in the real estate industry in recent years. Seeing the prosperity of Hong Kong films, it happened that Pan Disheng was selling Debao Cinemas again, and Roger Cheng, who was not bad for money, bought Debao Cinemas with a cheque.

However, it is not enough to have cinemas without film sources. Today's Hong Kong film industry is no longer the era when cinemas were king 10 years ago. Due to too many theaters, Hong Kong cinemas are flooded with slaps, and there are only so many movies produced every year, so now all the theaters are rushing to buy good movies, and the film companies and the best-selling directors have become theater managers in turn. object of favor.

So Luo Jiecheng found his friend Huang Baiming, who happened to be unhappy with Huang Baiming and Princess Jin, so there was Yonggao Film Company and Yonggao Cinema.

For the disaster relief movie "Night Banquet", several other major theaters have a symbolic number of screenings, because the division is too low, only the Yonggao Cinema is the most active, taking "Night Banquet" as the opening line The film is screened online.

Today’s cinema chain pattern in Hong Kong is that the Oriental Cinema is the largest, with 26 cinemas and 82 screening halls, followed by the Golden Harvest Cinema. It has 21 cinemas and 66 screening halls; Xinbao Cinemas is the third with 16 cinemas. 52 screening halls; the fourth in the Yonggao Cinema Line, with 15 theaters. 50 screening halls; the size of the Golden Princess theater line has been shrinking, and now there are only 11 theaters and 32 screening halls.

In addition to these five large-scale theater chains, neither the left-wing Yindu Theater chain nor the newly restored Shaw Brothers theater chain has more than 10 theaters.

In the whole of Hong Kong, including those scattered small cinemas, the number of cinemas has exceeded 160, and the density is so high that it is explosive. In the past, it was the uncle who had the cinema chain in his hand, but now all of them have become grandchildren. The boss of a film company who can make a good movie is the ancestor.

Of course, Kang Jianfei and Zou Wenhuai will always be uncles, because they have their own company to provide a wealth of film sources, and there will be no embarrassing situation where there are no films to put on.

The real tragedy is Xinbao, Golden Princess, and Yonggao Cinemas. Although they also invest and support film companies, the production volume of those film companies is far from meeting the demand.

This situation has caused these theater companies to lower the quality requirements for the release of films. When there is a shortage of film sources, all the **** movies made by cats and dogs can be shown, and they do not charge any guarantees and cover fees. This has stimulated many film company owners and directors even more. Anyway, they don't have to worry about the movie not being released. They usually finish a movie in a week or two, and then continue to make shoddy movies after making money from the screening.

There are still many people of insight in the Hong Kong film industry. They have called for reducing the number of theaters and improving the overall level of Hong Kong films. But no one wants to listen to this kind of call. On the contrary, it turns out that the more people see the profit, they join the ranks of building theaters and shooting bad movies.

In another time and space, this trend continued until 1993, when the number of cinemas in Hong Kong peaked at 190.

This situation makes the Hong Kong film market look more prosperous, and even second-tier actors have continuous film appointments and can't start work, resulting in a rocket-like rise in actor pay. The increase in actor salaries has led to an increase in the cost of the film, and the producers have passed the cost on. One is more shoddy production; the other is to continuously increase the cost of purchasing films in overseas markets.

Such behavior by Hong Kong producers offends two groups of people, one is the moviegoers. After all, no one wants to spend money to watch bad movies in theaters; the second is to offend overseas filmmakers, and the high cost of purchasing films makes it difficult for filmmakers to make money.

When Taiwanese filmmakers united to boycott Hong Kong films. After asking it to control costs and reduce actors' remuneration to no avail, the tragedy of Hong Kong films began.

For big directors like Kang Jianfei, or big stars like Cheng Long and Zhou Runfa, there is absolutely no problem selling movies to Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. But for most small film companies, Taiwan is the biggest overseas market. When Taiwanese filmmakers began to boycott Hong Kong films, countless film companies had no way out in an instant, and almost lost one film for one film, because the local box office in Hong Kong could not afford the high production costs. countless.

The chain reaction caused by this is terrifying. Due to the closure of small and medium-sized film companies, a large number of cinemas in Hong Kong have no film to play, so they can only close their doors and go out of business. As a result, in just one year, the 190 cinemas in Hong Kong have dropped sharply to only 106.

Hong Kong films have gone into decline since then!

This is another time and space in 1994.

Speaking of it afterwards, I couldn't figure out whose fault it was, because at that time the entire Hong Kong film industry was caught in a strange circle: Hong Kong films sold well and made money -- so a lot of hot money poured into the film circle -- resulting in a crazy increase in film production -- As a result, the number of cinemas has also increased - which in turn has led to an increase in the demand for film sources - then a large number of bad films are born, and the actors' remuneration has skyrocketed - resulting in the high cost of film production - the cost of overseas film purchases has increased year by year - and finally overseas Filmmakers are unable to buy films - A large number of film companies have lost overseas markets - The production of Hong Kong films has dropped sharply - Nearly half of the cinemas have closed their doors - Funds have withdrawn from the film industry - Film practitioners have dropped sharply - The trend of Hong Kong films decline.

In this whole process, investors, producers, directors, actors, local academies, and overseas filmmakers are all looking for profit. Who doesn’t want to make money? But it is everyone's profit-seeking behavior that has led to the collapse of the prosperous Hong Kong film market.

The simplest and most rude solution is to forcibly suppress the salary of Hong Kong actors from increasing, because when Hong Kong films develop into a deformity, most of the cost of a movie is actually the actor's salary. It is conceivable how ridiculously high the labor is. level.

Cheng Long received a salary of 10 million a few years ago, and now his minimum salary for each film is 8 million; Zhou Xingchi and Liang Jiahui are also about 8 million; Zhou Runfa, Xu Guanwen, Li Lianjie more than 5 million; Zhang Guorong, Hong Jinbao 400 Ten thousand. Liu Dehua, Liang Chaowei 2 million...

Just two or three years ago, an investment of 50 million yuan in a movie was a super big production, and now a single actor's salary is several million. It can't be blamed on the director's shoddy work. It cannot convince stars to reduce their own remuneration, and can only compress costs by sacrificing film quality.

And the most terrifying is. The remuneration of Hong Kong actors is still rising. According to this trend, the remuneration of Zhou Xingchi and Tony Leung may break the 10 million mark next year.

In the Peninsula Hotel, in a rental conference room, Hong Kong directors attending the meeting were discussing the issue of actors' remuneration.

Wu Siyuan said: "Many directors are complaining now, saying that actors' salaries are unbearable. A few years ago, a small cost of 5 million could be paid. Now 5 million is not enough to pay all actors' salaries."

Hong Jinbao said: "What can be done about this? The Hong Kong film market is getting more and more popular now. We can't just ask the producers and movie theaters to make money, the actors are all watching, right?"

Huang Baiming said: "The problem is that the salary increase is too outrageous. In the past, if you made a movie, you could make money at the local box office. Now you have to make money at the overseas box office."

At this moment, there is a temporary meeting of the Hong Kong Directors Association, and all directors are present.

Cheng Long sat next to him without saying a word. His identity was very embarrassing. He was both a film director and the highest paid actor in Hong Kong.

Xu Ke replied, "It's impossible to squeeze an actor's pay. Whoever speaks will offend others."

Wu Yusen said: "It is meaningless to discuss this matter. The market for Hong Kong films outside the city is enough to ensure the film's profitability. This is enough."

Zhang Tongzu asked, "What if we lose overseas markets?"

There is a disagreement between Gao Zhisen and Zhang Tongzu. He sneered: "How is that possible?"

Zhang Tongzu was too lazy to talk to Gao Zhisen, and snorted coldly, "Short-sighted!"

Zhang Jianting said: "The focus of our discussion today does not seem to be the issue of actors' remuneration."

Cen Jianxun said with a smile: "Yes, I invite everyone to come today, mainly to talk about filming and building a building for the Directors Guild to raise money."

Lin Lingdong said: "The story has been created by Xu Ke, Zhang Tongzu and Huang Bingyao. It is a tailor-made script for Cheng Long, and Xu Ke and I are the directors."

Teddy Robin said: "The heroine has not yet been determined, but the other actors are all the directors present here. I will distribute the script to everyone and discuss their choice of roles."

Zhang Aijia smiled and said, "How about some of our female directors pack the heroine's drama?"

Zhang Wanting and Xu Anhua waved their hands one after another. They are not good at acting.

Everyone laughed and read the script. Wu Siyuan asked Kang Jianfei, who had not spoken much, "Mr. Kang. Which character are you interested in?"

Kang Jianfei turned over the script and said, "I will play the hotel manager."

Kang Jianfei is now the number one director in Hong Kong, and there is nothing to grab for this kind of cameo. Wu Siyuan saw that no one in the audience objected. He said, "That's it, Mr. Kang will play the hotel manager."

Chen You raised his hand and joked: "Then I will play Mr. Kang's subordinate~lightnovelpub.net~hotel clerk."

Liu Jialiang said: "I acted as a doctor who knows kung fu. This was agreed when I wrote the script."

Wang Jingdao: "I play the role of a qigong master."

Both Liu Jialiang and Wang Jing participated in the creation of the script, and these two roles were tailor-made for them.

The directors quickly divided the roles. Kang Jianfei's role as the hotel manager was not much or not. There were about four or five scenes, and the lines were only a few sentences. Like Xu Ke, Lin Lingdong, and Cen Jianxun, there is only one scene. The three of them sit together and play poker, as long as they play poker hard.

Kang Jianfei has been very busy these days. He will soon go to the island of Brunei to design the shooting base of "Jurassic Park" with Cameron, and then he will come back to attend the Miss Oriental beauty pageant final, and then he will do "Tomb Notes 2" 's supervision.

Moreover, Guan Zhilin and Li Yanshan are about to give birth, and he still has to spend a lot of time to accompany him. It is not enough to break them in half alone. (To be continued)

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