How will the trilogy of gods be filmed？ The screenwriter gave us an exclusive. It was terrible.
Special feature of 1905 film network Our interview with screenwriter Jia-nan Ran was about the second day after the film was released. At that time, there were a lot of comments on the Internet, and the box office results were even more straightforward.
"I have been watching the box office last night and brushed it to 12 o’clock. My school sister (Li Huiyan, another screenwriter of the movie "Red Fox Scholar") is also brushing watercress comments and telling me that the more I watch, the more I can’t sleep. " There was some helplessness and disappointment in her tone, and finally she confided, "Just do what you can."
This sentence seems to be her comfort to herself, and it also seems to have laid a certain conclusion for our interview that day.
Jia-nan Ran is the first screenwriter of the film "The Scholar of the Red Fox", and took over this project in 2015, before Jiang Zhiqiang, the owner of Anle Film.
After the manuscript was finished, there was no following for this project. As a result, it came to Boss Jiang in 2018. At that time, the two were engaged in the creation of the project "Hulu Brothers", so the other party asked the screenwriter Yang Weiwei to retouch this script many years ago in order to make her concentrate more on it.
"The general things haven’t changed, just some minor changes. The main thing is to change the setting of the black fox. Originally, I wrote about a river god, and the final battle was in the river, with a lot of ice, snow and water. I think it may have been changed because of the cost of special effects. "
Anyway, after the film "The Scholar of the Red Fox" was made, it was a thing of the past for the screenwriter.
At present, she also needs to face a film in the post-production stage, a live-action film "Hulu Brothers" in preparation, and at the same time, she is incubating a fantasy-themed online drama.
From the beginning to the present, Jia-nan Ran has been tied to fantasy movies.
However, often after the release of such films, it is easy to be spit out, "the script is thin and the network is large." At the same time, some people will jump out and ask why China’s screenwriters can’t make their own "Lord of the Rings" and "Game of Thrones".
All the spit and questions, we talked about in detail in the chat with Jia-nan Ran, and even about whether the universe of "Feng Shen" can meet the expectations of netizens, the answers are solved here.
"Five years ago, the setting was very new. I was afraid to write about love."
Some people say that movies are made for people in the future. The current creation is to cater to the audience when the film is released. If it is not entertaining enough, it will be difficult for the audience to pay the bill.
So is the movie The Scholar of the Red Fox.
Throughout the conversation, Jia-nan Ran talked about it countless times. "Many things in the movie are now, which is really too old."
In 2015, there were many fantasy movies, series,, and so on. In these works, in the end, most men and women set out with a mission and finally felt the world with love.
And the "Red Fox Scholar" is a double male-dominated model, and the fox in it is still male. At that time, such a setting should be eye-catching. "And there is no love in it, and the type is a road film."
But nowadays, with the increasing number of film and television works of the two male masters, all kinds of online texts of the same type have swept through various forums, which has already made some viewers less interested in the setting.
As a screenwriter, what Jia-nan Ran can accomplish is the creation at that time. When she got The Red Fox Scholar, what she thought most was how to convince the audience that people and demons can coexist in this world.
She chose the point of "examination" to solve the problem. "This point will resonate with the audience in China, because China itself is a big country in examination."
"How did these monsters come from? Monsters in China are not like vampires in the west, they can take a bite, or werewolves are prolific. Our monsters are cultivated by themselves. In a sense, cultivation is also an examination system. " Therefore, grasping this point, Jia-nan Ran extended the fox demon in the original work, which simply returned to earth to repay his kindness, to a new setting.
In addition, she also made some clever thoughts on the setting of villains.
In the original version, the villain is a river god. He was enslaved by the fox spirits and wanted to get rid of them, so he always wanted to steal Bai Dan from the fox family. "This kind of relationship is like between Bai Shisan and toad essence, and the other party is under his command." At present, these settings have been slightly modified in terms of production cost.
Of course, we can still spy out the relationship between the original characters through the relationship between black fox and lotus essence, and between Bai Shisan and toad essence.
She didn’t go back to the past details of The Red Fox Scholar. Looking at the comments on the Internet, she seemed to understand everything, especially the love drama between Wang Zijin and Lotus Essence. "I also agree that the emotions of the characters here are turning too fast."
"A person who suddenly gives unconditionally to his other half can make the other person moved and fall in love with him. This emotional transformation is indeed a bit unacceptable to the current audience. " Jia-nan Ran even admitted that he was afraid to write love plays, especially when people of different times had different attitudes towards love, so there would be a generation gap.
After the film "Red Fox Scholar" was released, she and the original author were scolded by many people in private letters, but she was fearless. "It’s good, I told her that if someone scolded them, it would prove that they saw it, and the biggest fear was that no one cared."
Indeed, in this industry, black and red are also red. If you create with such a mentality, you may not be bound by the negative of the past.
"Feng Shen" is not the first story about father-son relationship in China’s "Quan You".
Among Jia-nan Ran’s future works, Feng Shen is definitely the most anticipated one by the audience.
Three films have been written for four years. In her words, the whole process is "vomiting blood production". Compared with "Red Fox Scholar" for addition, "Fengshen" for subtraction.
Like The Journey to the West, The Romance of the Gods is a classical mythological novel known to most audiences, but unlike the latter, the film and television works of The Romance of the Gods in recent years mostly focus on da ji, Nezha and Jiang Ziya.
So, how to adapt it without "offending" the audience?
In the original world view, it has two sects, but they are integrated into the living environment of human beings, and at the same time, they are based on human beings. Human beings drive the gods to sacrifice to the emperor through power, and at the same time they are subordinate to the imperial power.
"It’s not like the fantasy stories in the west, with fairy tribes, dwarves and so on, because from the perspective of European history, they used to be divided. However, Chinese dynasties have lived together, and people from any nation-state can live together. Therefore, on this basis, it also determines the uniqueness of China’s fantasy story. "
This uniqueness makes the trilogy of deities not a "right tour" of China, but a fantastic masterpiece that can better reflect China culture.
Re-creating a world view suitable for film and television is one of the most difficult parts of this work. "Fantasy movies must let the audience understand your world view in the first 15 minutes, and no new settings can be made at the end of the movie."
Besides, hundreds of characters are involved in The Romance of the Gods. How to make it easier for the audience to understand the characters in a concise world view has become the most tormenting place for Jia-nan Ran and her partner.
"We did some simple mergers and deletions from the beginning, and then wrote a basic manuscript for them to do market research. As a result, the survey gave us feedback. Many post-90 s people couldn’t stand it and asked why there were so many people and what they were doing. "
The results of this survey have made the whole screenwriter team awake a lot. It turns out that many people don’t know the Romance of the Gods, but only know a few key figures.
"We have spent the effort and workload of completely rewriting a story and adapting it in details and events. We want to re-refine the familiarity of the audience and embed it in the film" Feng Shen "." Jia-nan Ran told us that after getting the feedback from the survey, they drastically cut the original work.
The trilogy of deities will be three films with independent cores and interlocking links. "But it’s definitely not about power. Now the audience doesn’t like watching such movies. Director Wu Ershan has a strong appeal. He wants to be a mythical heroic epic of China and tell a story about the theme of good and evil in China that no one has ever told. "
According to her, the first part of "Feng Shen" will be the story of two men, "their emotional entanglement with their father."
She just finished watching a version in Wu Ershan’s studio a while ago, and this is the second version she has seen. "Now the time is still a little long, and we all think we can delete it again. The director understands, but he may still be a little entangled." She also told us that compared with the previous edition, many wonderful plays have been cut off this time. "But there is no way, and finally we have to consider the film arrangement for the market."
"Hulu Brothers is hard to refuse."
In director Wu Ershan’s current work, in addition to the trilogy of deities, Under One Man has also entered the preparatory stage.
"I refused." Jia-nan Ran said to us, "There happened to be something at home, so I recommended two school sisters to him."
Although she refused the adaptation of the fantasy IP "Under One Man", she still watched all the animated series of "Under One Man". "It’s too difficult, and it has many characters, but unlike the Romance of the Gods, many people don’t understand it. Every character in it has its own fans, and the audience of this IP is highly coincident with the current consumer groups of movies, so many characters can’t move. "
Jia-nan Ran sighed with emotion at Wu Ershan’s courage, because the creation of the live-action movie Hulu Brothers made her understand how difficult this "pit" was.
This is also a work that needs to be added, but its addition is different from the Red Fox Scholar.
"This animation is familiar to everyone, but it doesn’t have enough worldview to support him to become a movie. For example, why won’t grandpa be afraid of the seven dolls coming out of the gourd? How did the gourd baby come from? " At present, the screenwriter immediately analyzed the vacancy of film and television for us very professionally.
In fact, she also thought about rejecting Jiang Zhiqiang, but never expected that Boss Jiang took out a thick stack of research reports. "This is the thickest research report I have ever seen. He found several people to write different versions of Hulu Brothers, including comedy version, blackened version and normal version … …”
Seeing such a result, the "impossible" in Jia-nan Ran’s heart was slowly blotted out.
Although it is a fantasy movie, every time she writes it, she still has to find the corresponding age and geographical location for the whole story, so that the story itself can be more grounded. "I checked a lot of books, and I also saw everyone’s brain holes in Hulu Brothers on the Internet, and finally set the story in Yunnan-Guizhou area."
In the adaptation, she absorbed many netizens’ interpretations of the original story and put all the characters into reality as much as possible, so that the audience can better understand the emotional motives inside.
Of course, when will this project be officially started? "I don’t know. The other day, Boss Jiang said that he wanted to talk to me. I hope he can tell me that this film is going to be organized."
The market has been changing, and fantasy movies have poured out from the past, and now they have entered a cooling-off period.
Themes range from the colorful The Journey to the West in the past to the colorful "Feng Shen" today. As for what the next theme will be, it is difficult for us to predict.
In Jia-nan Ran’s view, those mature IP works or folk stories on the Internet will become the "treasures" excavated by film companies. "Otherwise, many things will be difficult to solve".
After the interview, she talked to us about the trailer of The Monkey King that she saw in the cinema, and planned to take a look at it sometime. "After we finished" Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon "with director Zheng Baorui, he also planned to do this project, but we all felt that it was difficult to do it. I want to see how the movies here are broken. "