The preparations for the "Warcraft" movie, in fact, have been some clues within Activision Blizzard since the end of 06 and the beginning of 07. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 However, before the agency of Blizzard games in China completely fell into the hands of Hatsune Entertainment, those clues were just piecemeal groundless, and there was no real preparation at all.

For the movie adaptation of the super IP of Warcraft, Blizzard is still very cautious. Without a top-level director, a top-notch script, and special effects technical support, Blizzard is simply unwilling to release this IP to test the waters, lest it smash the company's most valuable signboard.

Game adaptations often hit the streets, and this strange circle has been circulating in Hollywood for many years, and there has always been a lack of a masterpiece to break it

Now, the foundation of Hatsune's originality has also been sharpened for two or three years in the top global film market. Whether it is "Avatar" with special effects, or "Inception", which is 100% produced by Hatsune throughout the whole process, all show the increasingly strong comprehensive strength of Hatsune.

In addition, the adaptation copyright of the IP has been bought out, and "Warcraft" can finally be taken out and slipped away.

On the fourth day after the release of "Inception", Gu Mojie picked up his rope and took Bao'er to have dinner with Thomas Tur and Christopher Nolan, and chatted about the preparations for the start-up by the way.

The place is very casual, and it is chosen in the restaurant of Legendary Pictures.

The menu is a mix of Southern California Spanish and French cuisine, with two large bottles of champagne.

"First of all, congratulations to Inception for surpassing $200 million at the global box office in 4 days. Come on, do one. Gu Mojie is very polite, and he has never been kind to the directors and producers who have helped him make a lot of money.

The four of them touched a glass, drank the golden champagne, and sighed heartily.

Nolan wiped his mouth, took out a picture album from his bag, and casually pushed it in front of Gu Mojie.

"This script was won after a long time of negotiation with Blizzard. Since you asked me to direct, I didn't bother with it - even though I didn't know much about games, I still felt that the script you chose was much better than Blizzard's original intention. ”

Gu Mojie took a cursory look at it and confirmed that it was the story of Prince Alsace, so he was relieved.

Rest assured, don't forget to complain viciously about Blizzard.

"Not bad, I didn't let Blizzard's old and old-fashioned emotional dogs lead them into the ditch - the Dolot brewed by him was established, and most Chinese don't know about this kind of side plot at all! I've never heard of it! If you really want to shoot according to Blizzard's original intention, it's strange not to pounce on a dog. ”

Bao'er has been following Nolan's various Inception propaganda activities for a while, and has made up for a few months of knowledge about Warcraft, and figured out the characters in the script. But for the game tradition of Warcraft, her instinct as a girl is destined to make her unable to understand the feelings.

So after listening to Gu Mojie's complaints, she was also a little confused and couldn't figure it out.

While sipping champagne, she asked in a low voice, "Is the script that Blizzard intended to use at the beginning really bad?" I read the story, and although it is not as 'relatively human' as the one of the Prince of Alsace, it is still a good little story. ”

"Men speak, women don't understand." Gu Mojie waved his hand aggressively,

"There are some feelings that women can't understand - Blizzard's initial script, planning to shoot the background of the first **** war, about the origin of the beast prince Thrall, about the war between his father Dolot and the human duke Anduinlosa, and about the first opening of the dark door - of course these stories are not bad, the problem is, it is the plot of Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2. Most computer gamers worldwide, who has played Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2? It's not from Warcraft 3 yet.

The most valuable and mass-based IP paragraphs are not filmed, and they have to take care of the 'feelings' of Blizzard's employees and the development team themselves. If it weren't for our Internet thinking to save him, relying on Blizzard to twist his own temperament, this film would have been ruined. ”

Internet thinking, the most afraid is the author's self-congratulatory. The author thinks it's a very cool thing, it's very emotional, but the song is high and low, Xiaobai doesn't buy it, the box office pounces like a dog, and in the end there is nowhere to say it.

Blizzard has always been screwed up when it comes to pretentiousness. The game "World of Warcraft" is also to be plotted in the order of the first, second and third generations of Warcraft stand-alone. Completely ignoring the vast majority of players around the world, the most familiar is actually only Warcraft 3.

However, since the IP adaptation rights were bought by Gu Mojie, he can't be pretentious by Blizzard's gang of cold and self-congratulatory dogs. Movies and games are inherently vulgar arts, and when it's time to kneel down towards the box office, you have to kneel decisively. Blizzard's own sense of historical accumulation, in fact, few consumers buy it.

"The World of Warcraft game is still in the stage of "3.0: Wrath of the Lich King", and next year there will be a shorter, less than a year of expansion "Cataclysm", and then at the beginning of 2012, it will be the Chinese version of the story "Mists of Pandaria".

Since we are rushing to make a lot of money to shoot Warcraft, we must grasp the general trend. Now that Wrath of the Lich King is on fire, strike while the iron is hot. At that time, it is estimated that it will be released at the end of 2011 to the beginning of 2012, and then the conscience of "The Mist of Pandaria" will be stirred, and I am not afraid that the Chinese and American markets will not sell well.

If it is really filmed well and the box office is good, it is not impossible for Blizzard to want to talk about feelings at that time, and it is a big deal to shoot a prequel again, and the story of Dolot's establishment will be good. ”

Gu Mojie made Bao'er clear after a commanding statement. Including Nolan and Tour, the subtleties of the series' business plan were suddenly enlightened.

Gu Mojie's thinking, to put it bluntly, is one sentence: which IP is the most popular at the moment will be filmed first, and it must be extracted, the first to grab people, and take out the best and most essence.

You must not follow the "feelings" of the Blizzards, you have to shoot according to the historical process of the past dynasties. Otherwise, the first one will be smashed, and the series will be too prison before it reaches the climax.

Blizzard people simply don't understand the Internet thinking of the new era.

Several people didn't have much appetite, so after a little symbolic eating, they withdrew the food, so that Gu Mojie could carefully review the script for a long time.

The story of this thing that Nolan took out basically copied the original battle of Warcraft 3, told the history of the fall of Prince Arthas, and finally ended with the killing of the king after the frost sorrow. The plot can last more than two hours, and it also eliminates the appearance of night elves or orcs, and the whole play is completely a drama of the human race vs. the undead.

Compared with the historical drama of the same name, there is also a flaw, that is, it can't get a group of tribal fans to shout slogans like "I'm sorry for the tribe" or "Orcs will never be slaves". But market researchers on Hatsune's side generally felt that the adjustment was worthwhile - at least it fit into the IP segment that most gamers are most familiar with.

After reading the synopsis of the script, Gu Mojie suddenly remembered a question: "By the way, who are you going to let play the Prince of Alsace?" ”

Nolan thought for a moment: "Judging from the styling, I think Brad Pitt is more suitable. He played Achilles in "Troy", which is very suitable for the kind of 'prince-type warrior' character. ”

Gu Mojie pondered: "Pete? At first glance, it looks quite similar, and the acting skills are absolutely fine. Will it be a little older? It's almost 40, right? ”

"Okay, 37. Besides, do you want to trust the level of makeup in Hollywood? If you want the prince to look young and energetic in the first half of the plot, are you afraid that you can't do it? Wait until you go to Northrend, Northland, in the middle, to endure hardships and take frost sorrow, and then create some embarrassing scum, and then directly return to Pete's current real shape, absolutely with feeling. ”

"Well, do whatever you say—and do you think this girl can do Gianna? I'm not reluctant this time, I know that Gianna's character is much more difficult to shape than a cold poker face. If she doesn't understand the script in the past two months and can't grasp the feeling, she will be replaced. ”

Gu Mojie's question was very frank, but it also made Nolan more stressed.

"Inception" was prepared by Nolan himself from beginning to end, and no one else could snatch that film, and if he didn't shoot it, no one would shoot it.

All the IP of "Warcraft" was bought by Hatsune and licensed to its subsidiary Legendary Pictures. If Nolan can't, it's not impossible to change directors.

Gu Mojie still valued Nolan's fantasy skills in the Batman series, so he continued to be brilliant. These factors must be weighed by Nolan.

"Anyway, Gianna's character has no role in the middle of the film. After Arthas slaughtered the infected in Stratholme, Gianna went into discouragement. When the time comes, it will not be difficult for her to go back to Dalaran and continue to pose with a dead face. That's it, look at the obvious improvement in acting skills in the past few months, let's make do with it. ”

Nolan thought about it like this, and he didn't die. In this piece of Warcraft, he is here to work, so he can't talk about any feelings.

"Okay, then it's decided. This is the last time, and it won't bother you later. Miss Kwon will leave Hollywood next year. ”

Hearing Gu Mojie say this, Nolan was also relieved. Think of it as sending the Buddha to the West.

Then we discussed the various scenes, the special effects technology to be used, the set investment, and the personnel list.

Gu Mojie just took a rough look at the main distribution of investment, and felt that there was no problem, so he patted the budget.

It is estimated that after the filming of this Warcraft, the cost will not be lower than that of Inception, and it will cost $200 million in production costs.

……

finalized the investment in "Warcraft", and Gu Mojie flew back to China.

This summer is relatively leisurely, and many real economy industrial parks in Jiangdong Industrial Development Zone have entered the actual construction link in August. As the boss, Gu Mojie had to take a few days to inspect the work on the spot, outline the progress.

The company's various software businesses and mobile phone sales and research and development have not happened much. Ma Huateng and China Unicom didn't make any mistakes, and what they should do was to follow suit, and the two sides were safe.

If you really want to say something, it is nothing more than that the online game of "World of Warcraft" has begun to warm up the 4.0 expansion "Cataclysm", which is ready to be updated after the second anniversary of the launch of "Wrath of the Lich King", so as not to reduce the popularity of World of Warcraft too quickly.

This expansion was only released in 2011 in the original history, but that was undoubtedly a chain reaction caused by NetEase's too slow to take the agency. Nowadays, Chinese players have been playing Wrath of the Lich King for longer than the same period in history, and they can't catch the continuous consumer without ordering fresh dry goods.

In Gu Mojie's understanding, the life cycle of Warcraft games will end in 5.0's "Mist of Pandaria". What he can do is speed up the game's development lifecycle and make it a complete hit for 8 years. As for what happened after 2013, he didn't count on it either.

At that time, China's mobile phone market has entered the 4G era, and the decline of PC large-scale terminal games will always come. The world is full of feasts, and the model of Warcraft is destined to be the fire of the times when netizens can generally sit in front of the computer for three or five hours, and it is also destined to decline after the era of mobile fragmented entertainment time. At that time, Hatsune will inevitably need other products that are relatively suitable for fragmented entertainment to continue the legacy of Warcraft's huge user base.

There's nothing to regret about that.

Before the decline of Warcraft, the cross-release of two game movies to condense the feelings of players can be regarded as worthy of those people.

August passed so uneventfully.

As of the first day of school, the total box office of "Inception" in China has reached a staggering 260 million US dollars, equivalent to 1.8 billion yuan. According to the prediction of the publisher Hatsune Entertainment, by the end of the 11th long holiday, the "long tail" in the following month or so will still make at least $50 million at the box office.

In other words, the final total box office in China will exceed 2 billion yuan, or 300 million US dollars. In one fell swoop, it has won the position of the highest-grossing film in China so far, even surpassing "Avatar".

This result is actually not surprising. Although Ocception has only made $60 million or $70 million in China, it is based on a relatively poor technology. Nowadays, relying on the 3D premium alone, as well as other advantages and good news, even if there is no other communication and marketing plug-in, the total box office of Inception in China can be supported by more than 100 million US dollars.

What's more, it's still the crazy bombardment of Hatsune big data after the World Cup.

What's more, compared with the tragic treatment of the summer vacation release in history, Stolen Dream has now directly won the world premiere at the same time, and has exclusively occupied the 40-day summer prime time, and other Hollywood counterparts have not been killed.

These marketing factors have forcibly raised the results to three times that of the same period in history!

When the final results came out, all the peers were stunned.

Director Feng, who had just won the best domestic box office of the year for himself ten days ago, sighed that he was not born at the right time, and then he was relieved.

There are some things that there is no need to compare at all.

Of course, there are also sours, for example, many people who stand on the moral high ground spray Gu Mo Jie used entertainment films to impact the disaster realistic films released more than 20 days ago, for the mouth cannon Feng Ming, for the banner of Hua-Yi.

For these sours, Gu Mojie can only smile and take it seriously.

Letter the first sound, get a big hair. Go with Mr. Gu, there is meat to eat.

This sentence, for the Chinese film circle, believe it or not. (To be continued.) )