Chapter 2044 2046 [Warcraft Movie]
Xiang Nan then sent someone to talk to Blizzard about purchasing IP.
But Blizzard's appetite is much bigger than Xiang Nan thought. They do not agree to sell the IP, but hope to cooperate with Universal Pictures to jointly develop the Warcraft movie project.
Actually, Blizzard Entertainment started planning the Warcraft movie project as early as 2006, which happened to be the fantasy movie craze sparked by "Lord of the Rings".
Blizzard felt that the "Warcraft" in its hand was also a fantasy theme, and it was also very suitable for adaptation into a movie, so it started preparations.
Originally, it also planned that the movie could be filmed within one or two years, and it would film the first orc war. Gul'dan activated the Dark Portal and led the orc army to invade Azeroth.
Because Blizzard was already planning to launch the expansion pack "The Burning Crusade", the movie and the game just echoed each other and played a promotional role for each other.
But what Blizzard didn't expect was that adapting Warcraft into a movie was far more difficult than they thought. The script alone had been revised many times, and the director had changed again and again, and several changes were not satisfactory.
So procrastinating, until now, "World of Warcraft" has already released the third expansion piece "Fission of the Earth", and the movie "Warcraft" has not yet come out.
Therefore, Blizzard is also very anxious. It just so happened that Universal Pictures also wanted to make a Warcraft movie, so it wanted to hitch a ride and make its own movie with the help of Universal Pictures' production capabilities.
This trick is also called [Borrowing chickens to lay eggs].
…
Xiang Nan naturally disagreed with this.
The so-called chaos when there are too many people, drought when there are too many dragons, and too many hens will not lay eggs.
Universal Pictures and Blizzard Entertainment collaborated in the filming of multiple films. The final result can only be that the two parties restrain each other and compete for control, which will seriously slow down the production progress of the film.
Blizzard makes movies by itself, and hasn’t even finished writing the script in five years. If we really cooperate with it, I’m afraid we will have to wait another five years. Therefore, Xiang Nan rejected Blizzard's proposal of cooperation, but he also took a step back, allowing Blizzard to participate in film investment and share, but not to participate in production.
Blizzard rejected Xiang Nan's proposal.
Because of the purpose of their participation in the production, one is to prevent the film company from changing the plot and ruining the characters in the game. After all, almost none of those game-changing movies is not hip.
"Resident Evil" series, "Life and Death", "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li", etc., the plots and characters have all been modified, and some of them are completely irrelevant to the original work, so Blizzard does not want to let it go completely.
Secondly, Blizzard has long had the idea of adapting its IP into a film and television drama, but it lacks relevant production experience, so it hopes to cooperate with a film company to make a film, and learn film and television drama production skills from a teacher.
After learning the technology, kick the partner away and develop film and television dramas independently. Like the "Diablo" series and the "StarCraft" series, once the adaptation is successful, it may bring huge returns to it.
Therefore, Xiang Nan only let them invest money, and only let them participate in the sharing, which cannot satisfy its appetite.
Because the two parties could not reach a consensus, the plan to adapt "Warcraft" could only be declared a failure.
…
However, the news that Universal Pictures intends to adapt "Warcraft" and invited Peter Jackson to be the director has received the expectations of thousands of "World of Warcraft" fans.
First, Universal Pictures is the most powerful film company in Hollywood, with too many successful cases, which has also established the audience's confidence in it.
Secondly, Peter Jackson has also established a unique position in the field of fantasy themes with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the "Hobbit" trilogy.
Despite the decline in reputation of the "Hobbit" trilogy, he is still the most outstanding director in the fantasy field. Therefore, it is feasible for many game fans to adapt "Warcraft" by him.
Furthermore, Blizzard has been rumored to adapt the Warcraft movie. The news has been circulating for five years. Let alone the movie, there is no shadow of the script, so fans can't wait.
So everyone expects the cooperation to be successful.
But unexpectedly, in the end, the cooperation broke down.
This makes many game fans very sad.
…
Xiang Nan was also very depressed when he failed to get the right to adapt Warcraft.
After all, he was a loyal player of "World of Warcraft", and it is also a good thing for him to be able to adapt this movie.
It's a pity, it's useless to say anything now.
He then found some fantasy-themed novels for reference by Peter Jackson, such as the "Conan the Barbarian" series, the "Dungeon and Dragon" series, the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, and so on.
These fantasy-themed novels are all classics, and they all had a large number of fans. But after Peter Jackson watched it, he didn't have any urge to shoot.
So Xiang Nan had no choice but to give up. However, he knew that the "Warcraft" movie that Blizzard was working on later was not successful, so he didn't have no chance of adapting the Warcraft movie.
…
In November, the movie released is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".
This movie starred Megan Fox, and the other actors rarely showed up, so they basically used third- and fourth-tier small artists, so the cost was very low, only 60 million US dollars.
But because of the low pay, nearly 50 million US dollars was spent on film production, so it is actually equivalent to a 100 million US dollar investment and a star-studded commercial blockbuster.
The original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was released in 2014, with a total investment of 120 million U.S. dollars and a global box office of more than 400 million U.S. dollars. Therefore, Paramount Pictures released the sequel "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows".
The sequel invested 130 million U.S. dollars, but the global box office only left 230 million U.S. dollars, causing Paramount to lose at least 100 million U.S. dollars, so Paramount finally announced the cancellation of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3" project.
Xiangnan knows why Paramount's version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" failed.
On the one hand, it is because the story is old and too routine. Story routines are actually not a problem, but you must know how to put old wine in new bottles and repackage old stories.
For example, the story of Cinderella is very routine, but it is a brand-new experience for the audience when it is filmed as a domineering president falling in love with me; the story of Disney princesses is also very old, but after adding female inspirational elements, the princess becomes strong and independent all at once. , the female representative who no longer needs the prince to rescue, so she was welcomed by the audience again.
So the story is not afraid of being old, the key is to know how to adapt, and Paramount lost on this point.
On the one hand, the Paramount version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is too ugly, not as cute as the comic version, but looks very scary. This is also a persuasion item for the audience.
After all, this is a world that looks at faces. Even superheroes like the Hulk who don’t look at faces are actually quite handsome.
(end of this chapter)