Producer Chang made an emergency interview with Sina.com last night, to provide his explanation of why Chow Yun-Fat left The Battle of Red Cliff. He said both John Woo and him were very upset about Chow’s quitting. Woo has said many times that he wanted to work with Chow Yun-Fat again and several years back Chow had agreed to play the role of General Zhou Yu, which was tailored for him. Chang said some of the financial backers and distributors did raised the issue of how could Chow play a young general but Woo and him insisted that Chow was the right choice. Chang said the real reason for letting Chow go was some conditions demanded by Chow and his lawyer could not be accepted by the production and the US-based issuance company. Many of these conditions were against the usual industrial practice, both in China and in Hollywood. Chang said Chow was given the screenplay last year and the one he received last week was actually a version revised based on Chow’s comments. Chow’s pay, more than he earned from his last four projects, includes US$500 millions plus a percentage of worldwide box-office revenue, according to Chang. Chow asked the 500 mills to be paid as down payment, according to his rule for taking any independent project (project produced by non-Hollywood studios.) Only after Chang’s begging, Chow later agreed to drop the down payment to 50% and the other 50% to be paid when the production was halfway through. Original text: www.monkeypeaches.com omfg...$500 million? I thought Chow and John Woo were friends?!? O-o greedy bastard! -nono I don't think this movies is even going to make $500 million lol Not even Hero made that much.
