This summer vacation! The movie is going crazy with "sharks"
Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Xiaofu Editor|Park Fang
After experiencing the Dragon Boat Festival of 910 million yuan at the box office, and seeing that this week's weekday market has successively hit new highs, now we can finally shout with confidence: the audience is really back!
As a continuation of the previous and lower stalls, this year's Dragon Boat stall won the "red flag" for the summer stall with the second highest performance in history. The unexpected response brought by high-quality projects has brought about a long-lost market carnival, and the entire industry has become more confident in this summer.
At the time of the active recovery of the film industry, whether the new summer films can continue to create a new high in the popularity of the Dragon Boat Festival has become the biggest suspense at present.
Among the many new films with head potential, the only marine monster-themed cool film "Megalodon 2" in the summer has become the work we pay the most attention to.
When "Megalodon 2" was just started more than a year ago, Rhino Jun expressed optimism about this film in the article (reviewing "Wu Jing joined, the previous work was 1 billion, another blockbuster is on the way"). Now that a year and a half has passed, from the start to the upcoming release, what new highlights are worth looking forward to in this film?
From behind the scenes of international blockbusters
How to do "1+1=3"
"I really wanted to understand the process of making a monster movie."
When mentioning the origin of participating in "Megalodon 2", Wu Jing seems to have never hidden the "selfishness" behind participating in this film.
Wu Jing, who has gradually turned to behind-the-scenes production, has been continuously exploring new domestic film genres in recent years, and this participation in "Megalodon 2" is giving him an opportunity to exchange and learn from international filmmakers. In many tidbits and clips, we can see Wu Jing seriously learning the world's advanced film technology on the set.
In addition to excavation and exploration, Wu Jing, the "host representative", also fulfilled the friendship of the landlord in the crew. During the filming, Wu Jing not only took the traditional Chinese goji berry sparkling wine as a gift for the photography team to give props, but also prepared 1,000 bags of dumplings for the whole crew to experience "dumplings on wine". Some time ago, the main creator of the crew came to Shanghai to promote, and Wu Jing also held a unique Chinese family banquet, leading foreign friends to taste Chinese specialties such as Zibo barbecue, hot pot, milk tea, etc., and also popularized the "finger salute" on the dinner table.
These comings and goings show the "1+1" that Chinese and foreign filmmakers are happy to go in both directions, but they also make people read the unique international style of this blockbuster.
To say that learning is the opportunity for Wu Jing to participate in "Megalodon 2", then the biggest gain this movie gave him may be that he has an additional "brother-in-law" - Jason Statham. At the beginning of the filming, we once felt that Jason Statham and Wu Jing were cooperation that broke the "dimensional wall" level.
In fact, from the perspective of actor experience, the two actors unexpectedly have a lot in common: they are both athletes, they have always shown themselves as tough guys on the screen, and they have friends who know each other and old-timers who have always wanted to play together... Now being able to fight the giant beast together in the same movie is somewhat fate.
Through this cooperation, we not only witnessed the "dimensional wall" being broken, but also saw a strong chemical reaction in these two actors.
In the trip to Shanghai some time ago and the material footage that has flowed out recently, we were deeply impressed by Jason Statham's and Wu Jing's mode of getting along. When Sheniu Wu Jing met Jason of Sheniu, the two IE's clear interesting mode of getting along made the "Jingsen Guy" CP popular before it was broadcast, and also made the "1+1" colliding between Chinese and British tough guys inside and outside the play more exciting.
The sitting of film director Ben Vitelli and Oscar-level visual effects director Peter Bebb has brought the world's top production level to "Megalodon 2".
In the Shanghai Film Festival Science Fiction Film Week Keynote Forum, Peter Beb shared many creative details in the film, giving the film the attribute of "perfect combination of cutting-edge technology and traditional technology" through traditional shooting and new technical means.
And director Ben Vitelli, who also came to this year's Shanghai Film Festival, always emphasized "communication" at the forum. It is understood that in the process of creating "Megalodon 2", the main creative team conducted a lot of communication on cultural exchanges. In his opinion, this creation is a very good way of international production cooperation, which can make good use of their respective advantages.
As director Ben Vetley puts it, "[Megalodon 2] is a creative process that allows audiences of different cultural backgrounds to 'have fun'. ”
Cultural exchanges and technological breakthroughs are both grasped, in our opinion, such a "1+1" is also only the unique advantage of international blockbusters.
"1+1=3", "Megalodon 2" did it.
The film's deep-sea exploration
A true industrial giant
Upgrading is a keyword that is inseparable from the sequel movie.
Through the trailer released a few days ago, we feel that the visual effects of "Megalodon 2" have been upgraded in an all-round way compared to the first part.
In the trailer, Jason Statham and Wu Jing's deep submarine was attacked by a group of megalodons at a depth of 7,000 meters, and they had to make the decision to move forward on foot in the face of a sudden series of explosions on the bottom of the sea. The exciting deep-sea adventure and the refreshing monster fight make the temperament of the film unobstructed.
It can be seen that in "Megalodon 2", in addition to upgrading the chased megalodon group, there are new deep-sea monsters such as amphibious dragon hunters and giant octopuses joining the battle. Coupled with new elements such as treacherous deep-sea scenes and deep-sea hiking, the spectacle is filled early in the preview stage alone.
The underwater drama of 7000 meters + in the deep sea can be said to be the most eye-catching part of the current trailer. The difficulty of underwater special effects is recognized by the industry, and even Cameron, who is at the forefront of global film production technology exploration, once said: "The difficulty of underwater special effects is exponentially increasing, no matter what problem encounters water, it is ten times more difficult than before."
"Megalodon 2" chose to face the difficulties.
In the trailer, the clip of Jason Statham and Wu Jing leading their teammates to hike in the deep sea has made many netizens remember deeply. According to visual effects supervisor Peter Bebb, in order to create a more realistic and immersive shooting environment for the director and actors, which can interact with each other, and achieve more realistic shooting effects, the crew abandoned more mature full-CG shooting and adopted the "wet film dry shooting" real-life CG combined shooting method.
Specifically, in the actual shooting part, the actors first wear exoskeleton diving suits that can limit their movements, enhance the weight of the wetsuits through high-frame photography, and then build a universal scene so that all actors can realistically play in the same environment. The CG part uses VFX special effects to create a realistic deep-sea environment, restoring details such as the shaking of plants in the water, various fish, underwater particles, bubbles, and sand kicked up as you go, so as to increase the concept of "going underwater" in the scene.
The two superimpose synergy to finally build an overall visual effect of deep-sea hiking with high fidelity and strong immersion. Using waterless scenes to create underwater effects, once a fantasy, was written into reality on the filming site of "Megalodon 2".
Objectively speaking, as a heavy industry marine theme work, genre scarcity has determined the high expectations of "Megalodon 2". Looking back now, this film is a breakthrough in production technology and has solid industry significance, which is destined to have a significant impact on future domestic film creation in terms of technological exploration and application.
In a way, it is not an exaggeration to see "Megalodon 2" as a new milestone for co-production.
The second half of this summer
"Shark" killing moment
This year's summer season is destined to be extraordinary.
Before there was an unpromising Dragon Boat stall to win a bright start, after a number of large-scale projects are ready to go, the market heating up is unstoppable, at this time the summer stall has the only goal left - to break records.
Looking at the new films to be released this summer, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is dazzling. Sci-fi comedies, fantasy epics, suspense, animation, realistic emotional films, Hollywood action films and other diverse genres have gathered together, and there are already more than three new films in the head camp alone. Relying on these strong projects, leading the summer market back to the 10 billion market has become a sure thing.
Among many high-quality projects, schedule suitability may become the key to whether the project can stand out. And that's why we're optimistic about Megalodon 2.
The previous work sat on 535 million US dollars and the mainland box office 1.053 billion brilliant results, Jason Tansen and Wu Jing double tough guy lineup, the trailer revealed the head visual effects blockbuster texture, so that "Megalodon 2" tasted the taste of popularity before it was released on the occasion of the official announcement.
Behind this, it is not only the cool film with the marine monster theme that comes with the temperament of the old and young, but also the best-selling attributes of the genre in the mainland market.
Summer elements such as the deep sea and sharks are the best partners for the summer season. Coupled with the middle and late stages of the summer file on August 4, it can also meet the scarcity of the schedule while creating more sufficient market fermentation time for the film.
As a typical commercial blockbuster, "Megalodon 2" allows us to see the high compatibility of this work with the summer file, and also allows us to see its broad market prospects.
In 2023, when the film market is on the fast track of recovery, this dose of "giant shark" will surely help the second half of the summer file continue to create extraordinary.