"Lovely Bones" has a sad and heavy story, but it is a touching, sincere, humorous and warm book.

When it was first published in June 2002, bookseller Little-Brown thought its plot and narrative structure were unusual and unconventional, and could only be a minor success, and it sold 20,000 copies. The result was an unexpectedly huge success, topping the New York Times hardcover bestseller list for a year, selling more than a million copies.

It is certainly an extraordinary book, 14-year-old girl Susie grew up in a happy family, her parents are loving, her sister and brother are smart and sensible, and she herself is eccentric, enjoying a wonderful youth, having good friends, having just started her first kiss with Ray Singh, who likes each other at school.

However, this beauty is suddenly completely shattered, and one day after school, Susie is raped and killed by Harvey, a neighbor man, in a cornfield and her body is mutilated. This drastic change has brought Susie's family to a devastation, and it has also plunged the community and the school into grief. But Harvey is at large.

It's just the background of the story, not the main story of the book, it doesn't go to the side of grief, grief, depression, "My surname is Salmon, and it sounds like 'Salmon', my name is Susie. I was 14 years old when I was killed on December 3, 1973. This is the first sentence at the beginning of the book.

Its humor and peace are everywhere, but its grievances and hatred are hard to find. Maybe "The Other World" was also inspired by something.

The article is based on Susie's first-person perspective, based on her narration of her observation of the world in heaven, for nearly ten years, she watched her father chase the murderer madly, guessed that Harvey was the murderer but had no evidence, watched her mother unable to accept the facts, alienated the family, cheated, and ran away from home in order to escape, watched her sister become strong and mature, and tried to stay on the right track in life, the only thing she could communicate with her young four-year-old brother, but he didn't understand what was happening, she watched her friend Ruth, How did her boyfriend Ray gradually come out of the shadows from grief and fall in love because of her, watching her grandmother heal the wounds of her family and let Shamon's family out of the haze.

The last part of the article gives the reader solace, Susie briefly returns to the world to possess Ruth, and Ray has an end to their love, Harvey stumbles and falls into the ravine and dies when he is about to commit another crime, and the family is united again, and all the good people are warm and happy.

As Susie realized, her death triggered changes in her family and friends, some of them uneventful, some of them costly.

"They can still live well without me. My death eventually created the harmony of the family, like the bones of the human body, which, despite its broken and missing, will eventually grow into a new backbone and become complete in the unknowable future. I now understand that I paid with my life for this miraculous cycle of life. ”

This is what "Lovely Bones" is about, not about a girl being sexually assaulted, not how to punish the murderer, not all solemn and awe-inspiring, but in the midst of great pain, the growth of a family, the growth of a group of people, and the growth of Susie's own soul.

It's about bravery, it's about warmth, but it's not about religion, although its paradise setting has been criticized in some way: each deceased has his own paradise, like a private domain, which can be personalized according to one's own heart, and people can come and go as guests with each other.

So it is also completely devoid of any obvious religious stance, leaning towards spiritualism, believing that the soul can continue to learn, communicate, and mature after death.

It's more political than "The Other World", and the correct thing is that it's still called heaven, but it's different from the traditional setting. Alice Sieberd, a 42-year-old author, said the book was not about religion and explained that "for me, heaven is about having to be happy." ”

Ye Wei likes "Lovely Bones", but he doesn't love it, because the beginning of this story is too cruel for him to love it.

He read this book recently, because his mother used to think it was not suitable for his age to read, and he read it to understand why, the plot of how Harvey raped and killed Susie at the beginning is too angry and sad, there is an indescribable disgusting, peaceful words like an innocent girl, which makes people's hearts collapse.

He couldn't bear to watch it a second time, he really wanted to beat Harvey to death and save Susie. He also admires the bravery of the author, Siebold, because the book is based on her personal experience of being raped as a freshman at Syracuse University in 1981 at the age of 18, and then she came forward to the police to identify the rapist, who ultimately deserved it.

With such a famous bestseller full of topics, its adaptation rights are certainly in high demand. But back in May 2000, when it was still halfway written in manuscript, producer Amy Perronet took a fancy to it, and then United Film4 acquired the rights to adapt it.

In February 2001, Lynne Ramsey (1969-12-5, talented female director, screenwriter) was invited to write an adapted screenplay. But in July 2002, parent company Channel4 shut down Film4, which gave Hollywood studios and producers the opportunity to work with Perronette.

At that time, "Lovely Bones" had already begun to sell well, with a film project budget of 15 million, and Ramsey had signed a screenwriter and director. In October of the same year, Ramsey and Liana Dognini continued to adapt the screenplay, with filming scheduled to begin in the summer of 2003.

But things change when Perronette invites the original author, Sieberd, to join the project, and the women have a creative disagreement, Ramsey has a key idea, and Susie's father becomes friends with Harvey, as he never suspects that Harvey is the murderer of his daughter.

Siebold disagreed, while Ramsey insisted. The director had not yet been filmed in July 2003, and DreamWorks and Perronette reached a preliminary agreement agreement, Spielberg expressed interest in the project, and the Ramsey team finally left the project, she lost, and the producers wanted a version that was more faithful to the original.

But DreamWorks didn't immediately win the adaptation rights, and Spielberg was just interested in it, and didn't really want to shoot it.

In April 2004, Peter Jackson, Fran Wales, and Philippa Bones, the golden team behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, joined the project for negotiation. In January 2005, the Jackson team planned to acquire the rights to the adaptation and seek financing to develop the script after independence.

Jackson said he liked the novel "because of the author's humor, which is strangely optimistic and uplifting," and said he would adapt and direct it himself. He was very popular with the original author, except that he was Peter Jackson, and he did not move the story like Ramsey, but focused on describing how he wanted to shoot heaven: "When Susie is happy, her paradise will be sunny and fragrant, and when Susie is not very happy, she will be in the middle of the rainy sea." ”

To do this, you need to raise your budget and make enough special effects, whether it's sweet words or sincere words, which is very happy.

But until now, the project is still in this state, and the Jackson team has not done any substantive work, and is busy with "King Kong", which will be released at the end of the year.

Ye Wei's addition is recent, mainly stemming from Julia Roberts' expectations.

Roberts is quite eye-catching for "Lovely Bones", one, this is a popular bestseller, and the box office is guaranteed, two, it has the qualifications to impact the awards season, Spielberg and Jackson agree with it, and third, Susie can never be annoying, not at all, it can only be pitiful, she is the kind of character who will succeed even if the movie is bad.

In fact, no matter who comes to shoot, she will let Emma compete for Susie, but if she competes, it doesn't have to be Emma, unless this is Ye Wei's project.

If a superstar who you owe a huge debt to others tells you in a very earnest tone, "Let's try the competition?" "How can you refuse?

And Ye Wei himself is also interested, he likes "Susie", only less than "Rui".

Roberts even had an idea that Ye Weilai would play "Ray Singh", Susie's lover before her death, because in the book Ray is an Indian boy, that is, Asian, and it's okay for Indian to change to Chinese. She has two considerations, first, when LMS is successful, VIY will play Thunder, and the topicality and attention of the project will explode, and second, Emma will definitely not make awkward decisions.

Ye Wei felt that Roberts didn't understand the situation, why was Ramsey kicked out? Because she didn't respect the original book.

It can be said that Ramsey did not understand or care about Sieberd's mind at all, and the writing was peaceful, and how much Siebor hated "Mr. Harvey"? The criminal who had raped her? It can be seen from the end that Harvey fell into the ravine and died. Friends? Siebold was polite if he didn't kick her.

Respect the original. This is the main reason why the Jackson team has a head start in this race, and their experience of successfully adapting The Lord of the Rings is confident.

More than five years have passed, and now what Siebold thinks can play a decisive role, and it is up to her to decide who the adaptation rights will be.

So if you want to win, you must respect the original. But there is a clear saying in the film industry: "Either destroy the original book and make a good movie, or respect the original book and make a bad movie." ”

It is very, very difficult to make a good movie while being faithful to the original book, because there are too many differences between the narrative mode and story structure of the novel and the script, and the novel can have a large section of the character's inner monologue, but the script is not, the script has no inner drama, only specific scenes.

Only those novels with a strong sense of scenes and few words at the level of consciousness are easy to adapt into good scripts.

But "Lovely Bones" is a stream-of-consciousness novel, with a complex narrative, a large number of inner monologues, a large time span, and many characters, and it has been listed by the media as "one of the novels that are least likely to be adapted into a movie".

In this case, you have to be faithful to the original book, and you know why you haven't even had a decent script for so long.

It's too difficult to adapt, much harder than "The Other World". How do you tell this story well, organize the timeline and scenes and shoot them along? Make a lot of flashbacks and other techniques to make a stream-of-consciousness movie? How do you start well, Susie is killed in heaven at the beginning? How do you explain the complex background of the story? Susie's murder as the first turning point? How long does the whole story look like?

150 minutes, 120 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes is definitely not enough, and I can't finish it.

The length of the film also involves another issue, audience positioning, who is it for, mature adult audiences, young audiences, family audiences, and couple audiences?

We also need to consider the specific form, how to use the lens to express Susie looking at the world in heaven, dividing the picture, dividing the left and right or dividing up and down? Can't always be divided, she looks down on the clouds? She uses a crystal ball? Hologram? Close her eyes and be telepathic?......

Ye Wei knew that this was like a project bidding, and only by coming up with a better adaptation and production plan that could impress Siebold would he have a chance to win.

The good news is that the arch-rival Jackson team has been quiet for a long time, but the message he got was that "they still have a lot of interest."

The bad news is that DreamWorks also prefers Jackson, and Jackson will be competing for cooperation if he wants to shoot. And if he can get rid of Sieberd and LMS and be very successful, DreamWorks will support it, and he can't succeed in a small way, otherwise he can be practical, "Home of Stray Dogs".

"I promise you, I'll try. Ye Wei's promise to Roberts was exactly what he promised Emma later, "I can't promise anything, but I will try my best to do a good job." ”

Although he didn't start it himself, he loved the big challenge, the harder it was, the stronger the enemy, the greater the interest! He wasn't afraid of it, and it was no more difficult than a 15-year-old no-name kid with no money to find a superstar to make a movie. Along the way, fearless!

That's it, the competition for "Lovely Bones" has become one of the candidate projects, and Roberts wants to succeed the project the most, looking forward to Ye Wei's good news.

Now Ye Wei has not openly joined the competition, and no one knows what will happen when he is public, and a group of hobbits rushed out to beat him?

Oh yes, I'm yes, let the horses come!

Roberts didn't just have a Plan A, he also had a Plan B, Hotel-for-Dogs. If "Cute Bones" is to buy a Powerball, winning the jackpot is "Damn, it's developed now", and "Stray Dog Home" is a guaranteed consolation prize "no matter how bad it is, at least there is this".

It is also a novel adaptation project, a classic children's novel published in 1971 by renowned children's book authoress Lois Duncan (April 25, 1934).

In June 2005, DreamWorks obtained its adaptation rights and listed it as a key development project, it is not so complicated, there is nothing yet, there is no producer, no screenwriter, no director, just waiting for Ye Wei to take over. Yes, DreamWorks has put on a posture: "Genius, you're going to have to shoot this for us." "The premise is that the LMS is successful.

But Ye Wei's interest in it is only average, not as good as "The Other World", of course he likes those dogs, but it is just a relaxed and warm children's story, which can only be made into a standard commercial family film, which is the positioning of "It's All Daisy's Fault".

It's not that it's bad, the audience needs such a story, think about such a movie, watch it together as a family, and laugh a lot, and you must be very happy.

It's just that making a movie is not watching a movie, you have to have a creative desire, and now he wants to shoot something more interesting. He doesn't even have any feelings for the heroine of the novel, because it's too thin, and the interesting thing is that the heroine is also called Liz, nothing special, youthful, sweet, healthy and cute, but it is the most suitable for Emma's image positioning.

The story is also very simple, Liz is a girl who doesn't want to move in with her aunt Alice, who has animal allergies, because that means she has to say goodbye to her dog, Bebe. But she was forced to move with her family. Shortly after she moved, she met a stray dog who was pitifully looking forward to following her.

But Liz's mother objected, and her aunt couldn't stand it, so Liz and her brother Bruce had to keep the dog in an abandoned house across the street and name it Sadie. Soon after, the duo had three more partners, Tim, Debbie and Annabelle, and eight more dogs.

Expenses were increasingly overwhelming the dog hotel, and their parents and family found out. In the end, the bad guys are revealed (Jerry, the original owner of one of the dogs, Red Tiger, and Bruce's sworn enemy, his bad deeds are known to his father, who is unaware of him, and punishment is indispensable), and the dogs have a new home, and Liz's article is published.

Cute and interesting story, a story that is a little boring and thin.

The good news is that this project doesn't need to respect the original book, you can destroy it as much as you want, Bruce becomes Liz's younger brother, Liz is not called Liz anymore, it's okay, as long as it's still a story for children and family audiences.

The bad news is that the project is so Hollywood, there is nothing but money to make fame, and it can't make much money at any time, so there is no competition at all. If Ye Wei is willing to take over, he can immediately go to the DreamWorks headquarters to sign a contract, anyway, if the LMS grades are not good, it is okay to replace people and directly shelve the project.

Looking at the guarantee of DreamWorks and Roberts, Ye Wei was a little angry, and a little funny, why is it such a project? Because he is young? No, it is because this is the kind of project that is adapted, and it makes no difference who is the director, even if the LMS score is average, he can be allowed to direct, and of course the producer and screenwriter are gone.

This is not so much about his talent as it is about telling the truth, and squeezing out the fame value that he can have.

Therefore, Ye Wei's interest in "Stray Dog Home" is very low, the current lowest, if his new project shoots this, it means that he is a failure.

"Lovely Bones" is paradise, "Home of Stray Dogs" is stray dogs, and "Soul Surfer", a live-action biography project, is the surf of the soul.

The story of Bethany Hamilton, the unfortunate girl with a broken arm, bravely redeems herself, and is strong to chase her dreams. That is, you can go to the DreamWorks headquarters to sign a contract, anyway, if the LMS grades are not good, you can replace people or directly shelve the project.

Looking at the guarantee of DreamWorks and Roberts, Ye Wei was a little angry, and a little funny, why is it such a project? Because he is young? No, it is because this is the kind of project that is adapted, and it makes no difference who is the director, even if the LMS score is average, he can be allowed to direct, and of course the producer and screenwriter are gone.

This is not so much about his talent as it is about telling the truth, and squeezing out the fame value that he can have.

Therefore, Ye Wei's interest in "Stray Dog Home" is very low, the current lowest, if his new project shoots this, it means that he is a failure.

"Lovely Bones" is paradise, "Home of Stray Dogs" is stray dogs, and "Soul Surfer", a live-action biography project, is the surf of the soul.

The story of Bethany Hamilton, the unfortunate girl with a broken arm, bravely redeems herself, and is strong to chase her dreams.