This is the 60-year-old Stephen Chow’s first personal social account, and the promise of “I will personally pick people” shows his enthusiasm for Web3.
Stephen Chow’s interest in Web3 is well-documented. In March of this year, Stephen Chow appeared on Discord and had a conversation with the founder of the NFT project FWENCLUB, expressing his views on NFT, blockchain, and the metaverse in a rare way.
According to Tiger Sniff, Zhou Xingchi has been preparing for Web3 for nearly a year, and has been preparing to enter the NFT industry since the second half of last year.
Zhou Xingchi’s entry is surprising at first glance, but it makes sense when you think about it carefully.
In the past year, celebrities have frequently jumped into Web3. Before Stephen Chow, Jay Chou, Wang Feng, Yi Nengjing and others have “opened the way”.
andThe stars who have publicly entered Web3 in China are almost all middle-aged——43-year-old Jay Chou, 51-year-old Wang Feng, 54-year-old Yi Nengjing… The addition of Zhou Xingchi has formed a “middle-aged and elderly star club” in Web3, which seems to go with the flow.
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At present, the news about Zhou Xingchi’s entry into Web3 is only the public recruitment information, and the outside world does not know much. Judging from Zhou Xingchi’s previous activity data and its own IP value, NFT is likely to be the first entry point.
“The films and plays I make are also the concept of the metaverse to a certain extent.” Zhou Xingchi said at the Discord event in March. At the same time, he asked FWENCLUB on the spot: If he sends NFT by himself, does the producer have any suggestions? Which character do you most want to play NFT?
Interestingly, FWENCLUB, who talked with Zhou Xingchi, has already worked for him. In one of its NFT projects, there are works that are highly similar to Zhou Xingchi’s role in the movie “Domestic Lingling Paint”.
Stephen Chow IP entered the Web3 world one step ahead of Stephen Chow himself.Zhou Xingchi talked to FWENCLUB the following month, and the latter apologized, saying that an NFT picture of the movie “Domestic Lingling Paint” was released without the permission of the film copyright owner, which has been produced but will not be used in any way in the future.
There are not many stars with their own IP attributes, and Zhou Xingchi is one of them.
Zhou Xingchi made his debut in 1980, starting from the first film “A Comics Goes to the End of the World”, and continued in the classic works of the 20th century. He seized the Hong Kong comedy market with his unique funny talent, and started with “Domestic Lingling Paint” in 1994. After embarking on the road of self-directing and self-acting, works such as “Journey to the West”, “The King of Comedy” and “God of Cookery” were all born directly in less than 20 years after that.
Across the millennium, Stephen Chow is still making good films, and his directorship is getting more and more attention. With the movie “Kung Fu”, Stephen Chow won the Best Actor Award, Best Director Award at the 21st Hong Kong Film Awards, and the Best Director Award at the 42nd Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards. In addition, Zhou Xingchi also appeared on the cover of the American “Time” magazine.
After “Changjiang No. 7” in 2008, Zhou Xingchi completely retreated behind the scenes, no longer acted in movies, but was active in the film market as a producer, director, and producer.
An obvious shift is that from this period onwards, “Zhou Xingchi IP” itself seems to have become the focus,Except for “The Mermaid” in 2016, other works are continuations of the past: “Yangtze River No. 7 Loves the Earth”, “Journey to the West to Conquer the Demons”, “Journey to the West to Conquer the Demons” and “The King of New Comedy”.
“Xing Ye’s feelings” has become a tacit understanding of Stephen Chow fans. This began with the box office fiasco of “Journey to the West”. At that time, “Journey to the West”, which was identified as a bad film, became popular in the mainland through VCD and became a generation of people. The classic in my heart, the saying “I owe Master Xing a movie ticket” also comes from this.
But “star lord feelings” are not always easy to use.
In 2013, “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” was a big hit. In 2017, “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” took 370 million yuan at the box office on the first day of its release, but word of mouth hit the streets. This may be the worst criticized since Zhou Xingchi’s debut. Today, “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” has a Douban score of 7.2, while “Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons” only has a score of 5.5.
The subsequent “King of New Comedy” did not create any box office miracles, and word of mouth once again hit the street. Now the Douban score is only 5.7 points, and Zhou Xingchi’s feelings seem to be unsold.
But Stephen Chow did not give up trying, and the unreleased “Kung Fu 2” is still on the way. James Gunn, the director of “Guardians of the Galaxy” in May this year, retweeted a suspected “Kung Fu 2” poster. Wen, let the fans fall into carnival again.
Continuing to dig gold around “Zhou Xingchi IP” and “Zhou Xingchi Feelings”, in the past, it seemed that it could only be achieved by launching sequels, but Web3 provides a new path: using the classic works of the past, those images imprinted in the hearts of a generation of audiences, Lines and even scenes can be reused, and the 60-year-old Stephen Chow started tossing again.
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In China, the high-profile stars who entered Web3 have a wonderful commonality – almost all of them have sold their middle-aged hurdles.
Among them, Lin Junjie was the first to attract people’s attention. In November 2021, the concept of the Metaverse became popular. Lin Junjie spent 123,000 US dollars (about 783,000 yuan) to purchase three pieces of virtual real estate on Decentraland.This is also the year Lin Junjie turned 40 years old.
Since then, JJ Lin has purchased NFT products many times, including announcing that he owns NFTiff from Boring Ape and Tiffany. Recently, Forbes reported that JJ Lin is cooperating with others to build a private community based on NFT, showing a strong interest in the Web3 world.
On the first day of 2022, Jay Chou started the Web3 journey with the “Fantasy Bear” NFT, which is a limited NFT project released by the metaverse platform Ezek and Jay Chou’s trendy brand PHANTACi. Jay Chou has undoubtedly brought a good head to the stars: 3,000 were sold within 5 minutes of going online, sold out within about 40 minutes, and the receivables were about 62 million yuan.
18 days later, on January 18, Jay Chou celebrated his 43rd birthday, and the “Fantasy Bear” NFT transaction volume has exceeded 500 million.On the birthday, fans supported the idol in the form of Web3 and gave Jay Chou 9999 NFT digital roses as a birthday present. This NFT is jointly created by well-known French designers and institutions, and each rose is unique.
Jay Chou has become more and more in-depth in Web3. In September this year, Jay Chou rarely brought out the mysterious work “New York Subway” that was not released 18 years ago. In particular, this song is related to “Sunny Day”, “Blue and White Porcelain”, “Stranded” and “Love in Western Yuan”. “Before” together with the four classic works, sent to the blockchain. Jewell Music and Thin Box App jointly launched the “Jay Chou Limited Collection DEMO Space”, which indicates that Jay Chou has brought his own “professional” music to Web3.
Just one month before Jay Chou’s move, in August of this year, “the godfather of Chinese rock (please make up for a dog’s head here)” Wang Feng also released his first Web3 music album, choosing the Wom platform.And Wang Feng just crossed 50 years old last year, and is already over 500 years old.
Another high-profile entry, Yi Nengjing, is 54 years old this year. The NFT project Theirsverse she supports focuses on transgender culture, and her son Yu Enli is the art director. Yi Nengjing’s participation is very high, not only directly participating in the activities of Theirsverse to announce new trends, according to Shen Ran’s report, in Web3coffeeThe museum can also see Yi Nengjing appearing to communicate.
Web3’s “middle-aged and elderly star club” in China has begun to take shape.
In contrast, Lu Han used NFT avatar, FILA spokesperson Cai Xukun became the trend leader of FILA FUSION, and the latter released NFT at the same time… the younger generation (let’s relax to under 40 years old) stars, and the relationship with Web3 is more Most of them buy NFTs by themselves or become partners in brand promotion, and have not yet formed a “young star club” that “enters the game” and has a small scale.
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Web3 attracts middle-aged and elderly stars. In addition to having more “emotional assets”, another important reason may be that they are more able to bear the risks involved.
Web3 is undoubtedly an exciting new field and the future in the eyes of many people, but at the same time, it also has hidden risks – economic risks, reputation risks.
On April Fool’s Day, Jay Chou posted a high-profile “Fantasy Bear” before a full season, and posted on Ins that he received a call from a friend, saying that the “monkey” NFT that Huang Licheng had given him before was phishing. stolen. After Jay Chou checked it, he found that this was really not a holiday joke made by his friends.
“Monkey” refers to the boring ape NFT. According to reports, Jay Chou’s stolen NFT is worth more than 500,000 US dollars, equivalent to 3.2 million yuan.
On the other hand, JJ Lin’s “Metaverse Real Estate” also interprets another possibility of monetary loss. The price of three properties purchased in Decentraland for $123,000 plunged in less than a year. In August this year, the price dropped to $16,000, with a floating loss of 86%. “.
But Yi Nengjing experienced another kind of risk.
After the price of the strongly supported NFT project “Theirsverse” plummeted, Yi Nengjing was involved in the storm. Someone posted a screenshot of the group chat on social media. In the picture, Yi Nengjing said that he was just a project ambassador. “The price and operation of the project are not within my ability. Changing the avatar is a private matter, hoping that everyone likes you, but it is not an obligation.”
Dissatisfied voices are everywhere, and there are even rumors that the project “runs away”. Afterwards, Yi Nengjing published a document on the Instant App, which can be called a Web3 manifesto: “Riding the wind and waves for a lifetime, traffic management, IP creation, resource integration, media promotion, and networking, I have one of these in Web3. It turns out that I have worked all my life, and what I have learned can be Dedicated to Web3.”
And star status seems to have good and bad: “It’s the base camp of Web3. But the problem is, I’m a public figure, and as long as I speak publicly there, I’m at risk.”
Whether it is loss of money, or platform and self-defense, such trouble is obviously not suitable for young stars in the post-traffic era.