Film festivals, big stars, red carpets, flash.

As the main venue of the Palme d'Or, the name Palais du Cinémath sounds like it has its own holy light.

It contains 25 cinemas and screening rooms, with the six-storey Palace of the Film Festival at its center, including a large auditorium with a capacity of 1,000 and 14 smaller auditoriums with 300 seats.

"Farewell My Concubine", as the opening film, was of course screened in the Central Cinema, and its name was Debussy Hall.

The name comes from the French Impressionist composer Arsil de Bessey, with its lavish studios, exquisite design, textured building materials, and even a view of the Harbour of Cannes.

Only when there are film screenings, there will always be a crowd outside the Debussy Hall!

When Zhang Chu walked in, he found that the pillars of the hall were hung with posters and stills of "Farewell My Concubine", different scenes, different characters, which made people already interested in this film before they watched it.

At this time, there were already many spectators entering, and they were more or less dressed up.

The films of the festival are divided into "premiere venues", "media venues", "market venues" and so on, and registered media and filmmakers can watch them with their certificates.

And if ordinary audiences want to watch a movie, they need an invitation, which is actually a movie ticket!

With a movie ticket for the premiere, you can walk the red carpet of the premiere, and the so-called invitation of many Internet celebrities to Cannes means that they have spent money to buy movie tickets.

Ordinary people who watch a movie are more expensive for thirty or forty yuan, and cheaper than ten or twenty yuan, but the red carpet price list circulating on the Internet is usually worth tens of thousands of euros, which is actually just spending money to buy a movie ticket.

Cannes requires the audience to wear formal attire, so many people dressed up in front of the red carpet are actually ordinary viewers who love movies.

The small city has a permanent population of only 70,000 people, but it triples as many visitors during the festival.

For example, although the opening premiere of "Farewell My Concubine" is in a thousand-person hall, only half of the space can be reserved for ordinary audiences!

Festival registrants can apply on the official website with their badges, and then wait for a response, and only then can they pick up their tickets after being promised. Not all people who make an appointment can get it, in addition to first-come, first-served, it depends on the qualifications of the applicant's institution.

The queue for ordinary audiences is not the same road as the red carpet taken by the crew and judges, so Zhang Chu has not encountered such a crowded situation.

Xu Ji already knows Cannes very well, and he said with a smile, "This is Cannes, using film art as a package to make money." ”

Although it is known as the three major film festivals in Europe along with Berlin and Venice, Cannes is very high, and does not sell movie tickets to the public. The other two festivals will openly sell tickets to the public.

Cannes is not bad for money, the French government gives money, the Cannes government gives money, and there are six major sponsors such as Chopin, L'Oreal, Hewlett-Packard, Kering, Renault, and Mastercard.

In addition, there is also the cost of the sale of broadcast rights, and the live broadcast rights are sold at the opening and closing ceremonies every year, which is close to tens of millions of euros, so it can be so cold!

"I've heard for a long time that Cannes maintains a balance between commercial blockbusters and independent art productions, and uses commercial masterpieces to cultivate small art films, and they really have the ability to do that. ”

Zhang Chu is like a tourist who has come to visit, he has quietly taken several photos with his mobile phone, planning to post pictures in the circle of friends to show off.

The red carpet is nothing to see, but the interior of the movie palace is still particularly mysterious to the majority of netizens.

In fact, in his opinion, this movie palace looks no different from a large domestic cinema, but it is just a halo because it is the main venue of the film festival!

Zhou Kang and other crew members have already entered the venue with the ordinary audience, but they can't see where they are.

Zhang Chu followed Xu Ji to the front row, and after the movie was over, they had to stand on the stage to accept questions and interviews from reporters and audiences.

The people who can sit in the front rows are all invitations sent by the official, Xu Ji greeted the chairman of the film festival at this time, and the two gray-haired old men communicated in English, although they were not particularly fluent, but they could finally understand.

Zhang Chu adheres to the principle of talking less and watching more, and the position next to Xu Ji is the position of the two male protagonists and the supporting actress Gong Li, he didn't want to attract attention, so he sat in the corner next to him, wanting to cover with shadows.

"Hey, are you an actor?"

A foreign actress in a pale yellow dress asked, "I heard that this story is very touching, what role do you play in it?"

Zhang Chu turned his head and smiled, "I'm not an actor, I'm in charge of the screenwriting." ”

"You should try acting, and of course the screenwriter is very good, and without you, there would be no great movie. Can you tell me what the hell this is?"

Anyway, being idle is idle, and it is of course a good thing to have someone to chat, saving Zhang Chu from using his mobile phone to relieve his embarrassment.

Just as he was about to speak, a white man in a blue suit appeared in front of him, and everyone around him was slightly surprised.

"Hey, is that Mr. Zhang Chu? I'm Mark Johnson, a producer at Paramount. Can I sit next to you?"

Léa is really curious about this movie, the French films she starred in have not been able to snatch the opening film position in the case of dominance in the local area, a film that is said to tell the story of the same sex in the Far East has this treatment, and the content must be exciting enough.

happened to need a star for the opening, so she dressed up to attend, but this is the home of other people's movies, and she consciously did not seize the starlight.

Otherwise, as one of the most popular actresses in French cinema, many audiences here can call her name.

chose to sit in the corner and enjoy the movie seriously, but met a producer who claimed to be Paramount!

Léa is a jewel of French cinema and then repeatedly failed to make an impact on Hollywood, and now she is a little curious about what the producer has in mind when he looks for a young screenwriter.

Zhang Chu pointed to the position next to him and said, "Please." ”

Mark Johnson unbuttoned his suit before sitting down, or the belly would have made the buttons fly out.

"I've heard about this morning, your new work, The Lord of the Rings, was a success in Cannes, congratulations. ”

"Thanks for the compliment. I didn't expect so many readers here to enjoy it. The smile on Zhang Chu's face was not fake, this is indeed something to be happy about.

"It's a fantasy genre, and we at Paramount are going to buy it and adapt it, what do you think of that proposal?"

At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Paramount did not have any films shortlisted.

Mark Johnson simply came here to find the right project, and then was assigned by his own EO, Brad Gray, to reach out to the rightfully popular writer.

He originally thought that a foreign writer would be sincerely frightened after hearing Paramount's name, and even agreed directly without hesitation, he has seen more such authors.

However, Zhang Chu's reaction was somewhat unexpected, "I'm sorry. "The Lord of the Rings" has not been finished for the time being, and I plan to wait until it is finished before considering the film and television adaptation. ”

Refused?

Both of them, Leia in the back row of their seats, couldn't help but cover their mouths with their hands.

Doesn't that young screenwriter know how great Paramount is?

Even if it is already declining, it is still a behemoth!

Mark is also a little difficult to accept, he usually talks to industry leaders, if it were not for the president's orders, he would not deign to talk to a writer about a project.

"Young man, don't be in a hurry to refuse. Brad loves your story so much that if you say yes, you can even go down his personal green lane and get a nine-figure budget. There aren't many original stories in Hollywood that can get such a high investment. If I were you, I'd have to think about it again. ”

Brad Gray has the highest authority in Paramount, and can even directly avoid the audit committee's review.

The nine-digit numbers here are not in renminbi, at least in dollars.

Hundreds of millions of dollars is already a big production!

But Zhang Chu was not carried away by this amount, "I'm sorry, I have no intention of doing this for the time being." If I decide to adapt, Paramount will definitely be on my radar. ”

That's all he can promise.

What about hundreds of millions of dollars, that's not for him!

What's more, "Life of Pi" or "The Da Vinci Code" is not a production cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

He's really treated as a nobody.

Now that "The Lord of the Rings" has only been released, the overall plot has not yet unfolded, and the magnificent world view has only revealed the tip of the iceberg.

Zhang Chu is sure that no big company can see the hidden value behind this work, and now Paramount is just looking at his previous work and wants to pocket it in advance!

"The Lord of the Rings," which is not taken seriously by the production company, is likely to lie in the ashes for years to come.

What he has to do is to show the value of this film to the fullest, and now is not the time.

Obviously a work worth 100, some people treat it as a work worth 1 and give a premium of 10, which seems to be a premium, but in fact it is already discounted.

It's not the first time Mark Johnson has worked with writers, and he knows very well that it's hard to impress a writer, especially a writer who is a screenwriter himself, with just one or two sentences.

So he began to increase his persuasiveness again, "We value cooperation with you, and if we can, we are even willing to hire you as the chief screenwriter of the "Lord of the Rings" movie to co-create this movie, after all, who can refuse the original author." In addition, in terms of the copyright transfer fee of the work, you can also choose a one-time copyright transfer fee of up to eight figures or a profit dividend in the later stage, Paramount has always been very generous to the partners it works with. ”