The script of "Crazy Stone" is the first script written by Ning Hao, originally titled "Diamond". Since Ning Hao just graduated from Nortel, no one was willing to invest, so Ning Hao first made 2 literary and art films "Incense" and "Green Grass".
Ning Hao's first film "Incense" was shortlisted for the Locarno International Film Festival, and began to be a little famous in the circle, he sorted out his previous script "Diamond" and decided to use this as his commercial film debut. At that time, Andy Lau was working on a project called the "Asian New Star Director Program", looking for 7 young Asian directors to direct 6 feature films, and the only one selected by the mainland was Ning Hao. At Andy Lau's suggestion, Ning Hao revised the script, localized it, chose Chongqing as the background, and changed all the dialogue to Chongqing dialect, enhancing the sense of locality and comedy.
Ning Hao originally planned to invest 6 million yuan, but Andy Lau did not have so much, and finally could only give 3 million.
Due to the lack of funds, the whole film was shot digitally in high definition, and then the glue was transferred later. The scene of the BMW collision at the beginning of the movie is filmed in real time, so the crew went to the Chongqing car repair factory to buy two old cars, repainted and repainted like the new, a total of less than 10,000 yuan.
In "Crazy Stone", Yue Xiaojun is both a screenwriter and an assistant director, or one of the main actors, that is, xiaojun in the three-person theft gang. He graduated from the Department of Chinese Opera Literature, his initial ideal was to be a journalist, did not mix, and then someone introduced him to write a script, and finally mixed into a professional screenwriter. He and Ning Hao are good friends, and "Heart Flower Road Release" is actually Yue Xiaojun's personal experience - midlife crisis, marriage failure. In order to enlighten Yue Xiaojun, Ning Hao took him all the way from Beijing to Dali. It is said that in Dali, Yue Xiaojun smoked the last cigarette, and Ning Hao asked, "Have you figured it out?" Yue Xiaojun nodded. So the two returned to Beijing, wrote what they saw on the road as "Heart Flower Road Release", and invited Huang Bo and Xu Zheng to play the roles of Ning Hao and Yue Xiaojun.
The executive producer of "Crazy Stone" is called Zhou Lin, who is also a life producer and actor management. He is Nortel's teacher and a good friend of Ning Hao, and it is said that the character of Bao Shihong was created based on him.
Du Jie, the cinematographer of "Crazy Stone", is Ning Hao's royal photographer, and they began to cooperate from "Green Grass", and later cooperated in "Miracle World", "Crazy Racing" and "No Man's Land".
Initially, Bao Shihong's role was intended to be played by Guo Tao, and later Sun Honglei read the script. "Crazy Stone" has a budget of 3 million yuan, a standard small cost production, and Sun Honglei likes this script very much, saying that he does not need to talk about money, he can help. At that time, Sun Honglei starred in several fire TV series, the size is a wrist, Ning Hao more hope to let Sun Honglei to play. The problem is that Guo Tao was also a well-known actor at that time, he debuted in the film of Feng Xiaogang, and his seniority was definitely deeper than Sun Honglei, and Ning Hao could only let the producer say it. The producer told Guo Tao that Guo Tao was not angry, only said "Then forget it, there is a chance to cooperate again." Then, Sun Honglei's side went out again, and it took two months to have a schedule. In the end, it was Huang Bo who came forward to communicate with Guo Tao again, allowing him to finally play the role of Bao Shihong.
It is said that Liu Hua, who plays Dao Ge, was tricked. Ning Hao said to Liu Hua: Our crew is all young people, especially need you such an experienced old senior, without you, we have a small group, there is no main backbone. So Liu Hua was coaxed. In fact, Liu Hua also saw the script and felt that it was excellent, preferring to cut his salary and join the group.
Ning Hao originally planned to invite Xu Zheng's wife Xiao TaoHong to play Bao Shihong's wife, so he sent her an email with a script attached. I don't know why Xu Zheng saw the script and took the initiative to ask for a cameo with zero remuneration. As a result, Xiao TaoHong failed to participate, but Xu Zheng played the role of Feng Dong.
Wang Xun, the actor of Four Eyes, is a local, very famous in Chongqing, is one of the "Top Ten Laughing Stars of Bashu", often starred in some local column dramas in Chongqing and Sichuan, and just took over a 100-episode column drama, "Crazy Stone" was taken out of his time to act. Most of the other supporting casts are actors from local repertory theatres.
The role of the international thief Mike was originally reserved for Andy Lau, but at that time he was busy shooting "Ink Attack" and had no schedule. So Andy Lau recommended his friend Lian Jin to star. At that time, the remuneration of Hong Kong actors was very high, because he was a friend of Liu Dehua, so the friendship price was 80,000 yuan.
In this way, Lian Jin's 80,000 yuan is already the highest paid in the crew. Then there is Guo Tao's 50,000 yuan, then Liu Hua and Wang Xun's 20,000 pieces, Hou Shu, who plays Jingjing, is paid 12,000 yuan, Huang Bo is 10,000, and Xu Zheng is paid zero.
In the end, "Crazy Stone", which invested 3 million yuan, earned 20 million at the Chinese market that year.