The promotion for The Return of the King continued until the end of April, and The Mystery of the Talisman was about to wrap up.
Gilbert once again visited the set of Jack Cheng Adventures: The Mystery of the Talisman.
Although the filming encountered many difficulties, the crew overcame them all.
Nolan was very meticulous with the shoot, and it had taken nearly four months just for the filming.
Including the preparation, this project had been going on for more than half a year and was now about to enter the post-production phase.
"The promotion for The Return of the King is quite lively. My wife and daughter both want to go to the theater to see the movie," Nolan said as he walked around the set with Gilbert.
"No problem," Gilbert smiled. "There'll be a premiere for the film. You should all come together then."
"Sure," Nolan didn't decline either.
This was actually a prearranged plan.
Nolan would bring the main cast and crew of The Mystery of the Talisman to attend the premiere of The Return of the King, creating a crossover event between the two films.
After greeting Dwayne Johnson, Gilbert continued speaking with Nolan:
"Insomnia performed well. The investors are very pleased with you.
This also secured substantial resources for The Mystery of the Talisman. The film will get significant promotional investment.
I just want to ask now about the post-production timeline. Can we make it in time for this summer's release window?"
Nolan thought about the work progress and nodded:
"Don't worry. May is out of the question, but a release at the end of July or early August is completely doable."
Gilbert considered the release dates for this year's films:
"The Return of the King is in early May, George's Star Wars: Episode I comes out at the end of May.
Sony's Spider-Man hits theaters in late June.
The Matrix Revolutions is scheduled for early July, so a late July release would be just right."
"Not worried about any other films?" Nolan asked.
"The only real competitors are those few. The rest like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets are set for the Halloween season, no conflict," said Gilbert.
Although The Mystery of the Talisman had a solid budget, it was still a mainstream commercial film led by a Chinese star, so they had to avoid going head-to-head with major competitors as much as possible.
Since its release in March, Insomnia had grossed $74.55 million in North America. Including international revenue, the total box office reached $139 million.
For a new director, this was quite an impressive result.
So far, Nolan had only two feature films under his belt Memento and Insomnia.
If it weren't for Gilbert strongly advocating for him to direct The Mystery of the Talisman, Nolan might still be far from helming an A-list commercial film.
After speaking with Nolan, Gilbert also had a chat with Jackie Chen.
"How did it feel filming The Mystery of the Talisman this time?" Gilbert asked.
Chen raised his eyebrows, looking very excited:
"This is actually quite similar in subject matter to my Armour of God, but this film has a much grander scale, with many incredible and fantastical scenes."
"And how was working with Director Nolan?"
"Amazing! He's an incredibly talented director. We had a lot of ideas, and together we brought those wild visions to life."
Chen was visibly animated.
Indeed, Nolan was known for his preference for practical effects.
This didn't mean he avoided visual effects entirely, but for many scenes, the results of practical shooting were superior and sometimes more cost-effective.
Such practical shooting required the lead actor to be able to handle it.
Especially for The Mystery of the Talisman, where Jackie had to perform rooftop chases and wall-walking stunts.
If the actor couldn't handle that, then shooting practically would be a huge challenge.
But fortunately, when it came to real action scenes, Jackie was second to none.
Even Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had to tip their hats to him.
Even Tom Cruise, who was prepping for Mission: Impossible 3, once told Gilbert that he had drawn inspiration from Jackie practical action style in his own stunt work.
By the end of April, The Mystery of the Talisman officially announced the completion of filming. Nolan didn't even attend the wrap party he immediately threw himself into the demanding post-production work.
Back when filming first started on The Mystery of the Talisman, Gilbert had hand-sketched a number of concept drawings for Nolan many of which were based on iconic scenes from the Uncharted video game series.
Of course, at this time, the Uncharted series hadn't come out yet.
As for another adventure game, Tomb Raider, its early installments weren't quite up to cinematic standards.
When Gilbert had handed those sketches to Nolan, he asked him to make good use of them.
When Nolan saw these wildly imaginative scene designs, he even joked with Gilbert, "Why don't you join the crew as our scene designer? Your designs are amazing."
Gilbert was speechless. "Does the crew have the budget to hire me?"
"It's your project, so maybe take a pay cut," Nolan teased.
Although it was a joke, Nolan did incorporate those scene designs reasonably into The Mystery of the Talisman.
Gilbert had seen several rough cuts of the film, and they looked quite impressive.
According to Nolan's idea, these scenes wouldn't be shown all at once.
If a sequel were to be made, some of the ideas would be added in the follow-ups.
After filming wrapped,Bing Li and Shu Chang didn't immediately return home but stayed in North America for a while, waiting to attend the premiere of King's Return.
This experience was very special for both Li and Shu Chang.
It was their first time participating in the shooting of a Hollywood blockbuster, and the feeling was completely different from working on domestic film and television productions.
Bing Li handled it well, but for Shu Chang, the experience left a huge impact on her young heart.
However, at her young age, she still didn't quite understand what it all meant.
She was the female lead if the film succeeded, it was bound to become a series.
And if the series took off ven if it only achieved half the success of The Lord of the Rings it would be enough to make Shu Chang a legendary Chinese actress.
After The Mystery of the Talisman wrapped, Gilbert asked Nolan to first cut together a trailer to build hype among moviegoers.
The Mystery of the Talisman wasn't like The Lord of the Rings, even though it borrowed heavily from treasure-hunting adventure films.
But the story was original and had no source material to rely on.
So the film would require a lot of promotion to have any chance of success.
If the film achieved a certain level of success, then related IP development could begin.
For instance, since they borrowed elements from Uncharted, they could go ahead and make a Jackie Chan Adventures game.
There could also be an animated series, TV dramas, and more tons of ways to generate profit.
However, commercial promotion was never smooth sailing. Gilbert would need to promote Jackie Chan, Shu Chang, and Bing Li, and the opposition certainly wouldn't make that easy for him.
Let's put aside The Mystery of the Talisman for now. The most important task at hand remained King's Return.
Unlike previous occasions, this time there were no advance screenings for King's Return, so theaters, hardcore movie fans, and critics wouldn't get an early look.
But on the day of the premiere, there would be 2,200 preview screenings happening simultaneously with the red carpet event.
And King's Return would open in a staggering 4,350 theaters across North America a record-breaking scale.
Disney and Warner Bros. were both working overtime. This summer was bound to be a wild one.
But just before the premiere, some bad news came Orlando Bloom had been in a car accident.
To be precise, someone had deliberately hit him.
.....
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