China Entertainment 1997.

Chapter 553 Twitter Netflix Tesla and Caomen's Disciple Taylor

When Cao Xuan came to the United States again, the cover of the political news in this land had changed.

The unprecedented skin color ushered in a new wave of American society.

But this has nothing to do with Cao Xuan, he wants to worry about it, but he can't reach that level, and he won't be allowed to write at that level, otherwise the wedding of a real estate agent's daughter this year is not going to be held...

At the headquarters of New Line Cinema, Cao Xuan met his old friend Camila Galano.

The latter is now the acting president of New Line Pictures. Although he has an agent, he is also one of the core executives of Warner Bros. Pictures, a super boss who ordinary Hollywood stars beg for but can't see.

However, this big guy smiled brightly when he saw Cao Xuan: "Chris, I watched your performance in the Olympics. The performance was impeccable. My two sons and I are all fans of yours."

"Thank you, if you don't mind, I have a few autographed albums that I can give to you father and son."

"Awesome, the absolute best gift ever."

After the warm and tacit exchange of greetings, the sly bald Jew took out a tea set from his office wine cabinet and looked at the surprised Cao Xuan.

"Tea Product."

After uttering the name awkwardly, Galano smiled amusedly: "The tea you served me back then was not easy to buy in the United States."

"Okay, I'll try your tea."

Cao Xuan laughed. Although Galano did not do this out of sincerity, it was considered intentional to change such a set of things to entertain Cao Xuan, and it also revealed the importance he attaches to Cao Xuan.

The equipment is complete, but Galano is obviously half-baked at the tea ceremony, and his technique is rough. Cao Xuan doesn't dislike it, and he has a drink for the face, and then praises him.

“Tea is good.”

These words are not entirely perfunctory, Galano's tea is indeed good, far inferior to the top quality of Cao Xuan's family, but it can be sold, it is said that this small pot cost Galano thousands of dollars.

There is also this set of tea sets. Galano boasted that it was made of celadon from the Qianlong official kiln, and he had spent a long time buying it from an antique shop in Chinatown with a lot of money.

Cao Xuan pursed his lips upon hearing this.

He really doesn't know the market price of tea in the United States, and it's hard to say whether it's a loss or a gain.

But for this Qianlong official kiln tea set, although Cao Xuan doesn't know much about antique porcelain, he also knows that the base price of similar porcelain is "Qianlong Year System" instead of simplified "Qianlong Year System".

From the perspective of workmanship, it is not a street stall, but for the price that Galano paid, at least one truck can be pulled to JDZ, and the quality is even better. At least there is no simplified characters...

After hesitating for a while, Cao Xuan decided to cover up his fellow villagers, ignored the tea set, and chatted with Galano about serious matters.

After a year, New Line Films, which was acquired by Warner, gradually came out of the initial turbulent period. However, this does not mean that Gallano's position as president is secure.

It can also be seen from his position that he has been in office for almost a year, and the word "agent" has not been removed.

More importantly, after New Line was acquired, although it is still a subsidiary in name and has a certain degree of freedom, compared with the previous independent subsidiary, the power of New Line's top management has been weakened a lot.

Not to mention, in the whole year of 2008, New Line participated in the investment and production of only five films, including "Taken 2", and two of them were not the main control.

Of course, there are many reasons why the new company has just been reorganized, coupled with the economic crisis, the capital chain is tight, and the project investment is deliberately reduced.

But in any case, the decline of Xinxian is visible to the naked eye. The boss and shareholders will not worry about your plight, they will only look at your achievements.

Gallano's first year in office, the best results were actually the first "Taken" a year ago and the romantic comedy movie "He Actually Doesn't Like You That Much" starring many Hollywood stars in early 2009.

In addition, all other produced and distributed films performed mediocrely, and even the data of individual films were in a mess.

Of course, many of these films were projects that Galano had decided on before he took office, and he was taking the blame for his predecessor.

But still the same sentence, the boss and shareholders will not think so much, if your tenure project does not make money, this responsibility cannot escape his share.

The bad luck of the year made it difficult for him to live. If Galano hadn't been bald, his hair would have been grey...

To put it bluntly, this summer vacation is Gallano's last chance.

He also has three films in his hand, an independent production "Ghosts of Ex-Girlfriends", a co-production "Taken 2", and a co-production "17 Back".

These three movies are his last gamble. If he can achieve results, he will be able to continue his life and even hope to become a regular.

If the game goes wrong, the position of president of the new line will definitely disappear. If you are lucky, you can stay as a high-level executive. In the worst case, you may be sent to the cold yamen. In the worst case, you will be kicked out of the house and unemployed in middle age.

Among the three films, there is no doubt that "Taken 2" has the greatest potential and is also Gallano's life-saving straw.

That's why he attached so much importance to Cao Xuan.

Another point is that he heard that Boss Cao has a lot of connections. He not only has a good personal relationship with media tycoon Edgar Jr., but also has rumors that he has become a shareholder of the hot Marvel and has connections with the Hollywood giant Disney. He is also a bigwig in the Asian entertainment industry.

If he really loses his job in the future, he might still be able to hug Cao Xuan's thigh.

Hollywood, the Vanity Fair, has never been short of superstars. They may have great fame, but it is the bosses who hold the capital who really stir up the situation.

Cao Xuan's superstar signboard is valuable, but in the eyes of those who are interested, what is more important is the capital in Cao Xuan's hands.

Offending a superstar, the big deal is to be scolded by their fans and the media, but offending or befriending a big boss with a net worth of tens or tens of billions of dollars is completely different.

Two years ago when Cao Xuan first came to the United States, he could not feel it. In the past few years, he has more and more capital, and he has also started to invest in some companies.

Especially this year's big news in the industry, Disney's acquisition of Marvel, the astonishing price of up to 40 billion US dollars shocked the entire Hollywood.

And those who are interested also learned that after the acquisition, Marvel has a shareholder named [Sunshine Venture Capital].

And this company is actually well-known in the United States. It is a rising star in the investment world. It is not only a shareholder of Warner Music Group, but also holds a large number of stocks in many well-known companies such as Apple, Google, and Amazon.

One of the most famous things is that it intends to unite with multiple investment institutions to acquire Facebook, which is in the limelight nowadays, but it is a pity that Yahoo stepped in and finally gave up.

But soon [Sunshine Venture Capital] appeared at the round A financing meeting of the emerging website Twitter.

Under the premise that Twitter’s external valuation is less than US$1 million, it jointly invested US$2500 million with another company to acquire a 30% stake.

At present, [Sunshine Venture Capital] has taken a fancy to Netflix, sold the shares of Warner Music Group, and at the same time mortgaged the assets in hand to collect scattered funds. Sla...

Although [Sunshine Venture Capital] acts relatively low-key, and basically only conducts venture capital, and rarely participates in specific businesses.

But the size of the organization is here, no matter the assets or contacts it represents, it is difficult for people to ignore its existence, and as long as you are willing, it is not difficult to find out the connection between [Sunshine Venture Capital] and Cao Xuan.

Perhaps those business giants would not take these assets with a total price of several billion dollars in their eyes, but for 99.99% of people, Cao Xuan is already an existence that they can't help hugging their thighs.

At least for Galano, Cao Xuan's weight in his heart is not much worse than that of his immediate boss.

Of course, if he survives the crisis and becomes the justifiable president of the new line + senior management of Warner, with great power in his hands, he doesn't have to worry about losing his job, then there are two other things to say...

The new line of "Taken 2" is responsible for the distribution in North America. Galano tried his best to negotiate with 3862 theaters in North America in one go. During the period from April to May, the number of theaters released is second only to "The Wolverine" at 4 theaters. .

In addition to the astonishing number of theaters, the screening rate is also quite good. It can be seen that the performance of the previous film made the theaters particularly optimistic about "Taken 2".

Of course, "Taken 4" is considered the best among them because there are not many movies that will be launched in late April.

Many people think that "Taken 2" will be released 10 days earlier, avoiding "Wolverine", and can reap almost two weeks' box office. However, in Cao Xuan's view, this is not the accumulation of influence for more than a week.

It will be released at the same time as "The Wolverine", and it will definitely die. If it accumulates a certain popularity in advance, it may not be impossible to win the stutter from the wolf's mouth.

And Gallano’s view is even more radical than Cao Xuan: “The “X-Men” series is good enough, but it doesn’t mean that a single hero movie can be popular. Not everyone can copy the success of “Iron Man”. Superhero movies suck. There are many."

Gallano's statement is not without reason, let alone last year's "Invincible Hulk" can hardly be called a success.

A little further away, there are "Daredevil" and "Catwoman", both of which were particularly miserable.

Especially the latter, with an investment of more than 8000 million US dollars, the global box office is less than [-] million, which almost made Warner give up making "Batman".

But Cao Xuan knew that the "X-Men" series should not be underestimated.

Breaking away from Marvel's mother universe, he still has his own world view, with constant explosions, and it is the cornucopia of 20th Century Fox, one of the six Hollywood giants.

Although Cao Xuan's Golden Finger does not have the specific box office data of the "Wolverine" movie, but as a super-popular character in the "X-Men" series, Wolverine is very impressive, otherwise there will not be several films in succession.

Compared to Galano who is more willing to think about the good, Cao Xuan himself considers things more realistically.

The two chatted a lot about the release plan, and Cao Xuan also felt that Galano and New Line attached great importance to "Taken 2".

However, the two talked more about the publicity plan, and Cao Xuan couldn't get involved in the release, so he could only do his own responsibility, vigorously promote the movie, and cooperate with the publicity.

This is not the first time Cao Xuan has come to North America to promote a movie. He and Hu Jing who came a day later joined Anne Hathaway and Dwayne Johnson to start the promotion.

There is actually no big difference between the United States and the domestic propaganda, but the nature of the interviews here is stronger. Except for a few talk shows, large and small print media, TV, and even Internet media have never stopped.

The difference is that the domestic media will set the topic, and the host or reporter in the United States will ask everything.

The problems are all kinds of weird and strange, and they like to play tricks, which is very insidious.

However, this is not the first time Cao Xuan has dealt with this group of American media.

It was Hu Jing who was a bit unfamiliar, but fortunately, she had a good understanding with Cao Xuan. At the critical moment, Cao Xuan gave her a look, and the empress of Donggong felt ashamed that her English was not good enough and she couldn't understand what you were talking about.

At first, the American media believed it was true, but later when "Taken 2" was launched, they saw Hu Jing's fluent English soundtrack in the movie and shouted that they had been fooled.

Afterwards, Hu Jing got another nickname in foreign countries called [Sly Hu]. One refers to Hu Jing's surname, and the other is that they learned that the Chinese Hu and fox have the same pronunciation. ridicule.

Hu Jing is not used to them either, it is indeed impolite to pretend to be stupid, but whoever let the media dig a hole first, and didn't go back directly is taking care of the overall situation.

Donggong Niangniang has no obsession with breaking into Hollywood, she doesn't care and doesn't need to please the American media.

Therefore, when she met the American media who mocked her later, she deliberately treated it differently, which was regarded as a response.

Not to mention, such a tough posture is not only unique among Asian actresses, but many European and American actresses are not as good as her.

Many people are dissatisfied with her dominance, but many people appreciate her personality, and by mistake, Hu Jing has attracted a lot of fans.

But Hu Jing doesn't care too much, Fanxing's life is very comfortable, and it's fine to film occasionally, the ups and downs of Hollywood have nothing to do with her...

In addition to Hu Jing's battle of wits and courage with the media, there is another person who has become the key point for many reporters to ask Cao Xuan——

Taylor Swift
Since the release of the first album in 2006, Taylor has made rapid progress. Although only one new album has been released in the following two years, an average of 1 to 3 singles per year has achieved good results, often at the top of the Billboard singles chart. Twenty swings.

Especially last year's new album "Fearless", which won the Billboard album chart in the first week.

In the follow-up, with the support of Mars and Warner Music Group channels, in less than half a year, the total sales volume is approaching 500 million copies, and it is expected to reach tens of millions.

What a glorious achievement for a singer who is less than 20 years old.

However, compared to the popular rookie singer, another super gimmick on Taylor's body at this time attracted more attention, that is Cao Xuan's apprentice.

That's right, not a student, but an apprentice.

Taylor himself was interviewed, telling the American media the difference between a science apprentice and a student, emphasizing the particularity of his apprentice.

In addition, she also vividly told about her experience of worshiping coffee as a teacher, and took out the engraved jade token that Cao Xuan gave her. She didn't even know where she picked it up. Everyone knows the allusions of Ma Daixiao.

Not to mention, Americans are particularly good at this. Listening to Taylor's talk, I feel full of oriental mystery and sense of ritual.

Mars Records simply follow the good trend and deliberately create publicity. Taylor has the momentum he has now, and he must have contributed to the popularity of Master Cao Xuan.

But now that Taylor has become popular, Cao Xuan has also tasted the sweetness of "Famous Teachers Produce Excellent Apprentices".

The reporters were very curious about how Cao Xuan taught a popular singer of the new generation, and also wanted to know the inside story of this pair of master and apprentice.

Cao Xuan did not take credit for this, and told the media: "Taylor is a very talented singer, can sing and write, she has come to where she is today, and her own conditions accounted for 70% of the credit.

All I can do is give advice and support, so that she can avoid detours in music and career.

Rather than saying that I am her master, it is better to say that I am her bole, who found this unglamorous jade in the vast sea of ​​people. "

Cao Xuan felt that he was telling the truth. His existence did make Taylor's journey smoother, more stable and better, but even without him, Taylor would still be successful.

But in the eyes of the outside world and Taylor himself, Cao Xuan was too modest.

Taylor may be extremely talented, but in the world, there are always Maxima, but Bole doesn't often have it.

Cao Xuan discovered Taylor's talent, received advice from his family, and trained her to become a new star in the music industry through his company and connections. Later, he used his fame to help her build momentum, and old friends and old friends could also take care of Taylor, who is still a newcomer.

Such a variety of things can be called the grace of regeneration, and Taylor, the master, is simply too worthwhile.

Even Avril Lavigne called and expressed regret half-seriously and half-jokingly. At the beginning, she should have been a teacher instead of a brother.

The younger sister is of the same generation and has a high degree of independence, so the elder brother can take care of it or not.

Apprentices are juniors, relying on the master, if something happens, the master should come forward, and vice versa.

Looking at it this way, the so-called being a brother and a sister is not as close as a master and apprentice.

Of course, there is also Cao Xuan deliberately avoiding Avril Lavigne, and Taylor's appearance is not in line with Cao Xuan's aesthetics, and the two of them don't call at all. Taylor regards Cao Xuan as an elder or teacher, and gets along normally and harmoniously.

Taylor's new album is on fire right now, and the media is chasing hot spots, which invisibly helped "Taken".

Seeing this, Cao Xuan simply called Taylor to sing and perform at the North American premiere of "Taken 2", seeking some exposure, and at the same time let her meet his wife.

Hu Jing had known for a long time that Cao Xuan had accepted an American female apprentice, and had watched the video of the two of them, so she was no stranger to Taylor.

More importantly, knowing Cao Xuan's taste, she knew that Taylor was no threat.

She had heard from Cao Xuan that this Taylor has great business potential, and Empress Donggong likes this kind of person who can make money for the family without threatening.

Without further ado, send the prepared meeting gift.

An exquisite and stylish Cartier platinum watch with diamonds, bought in New York for publicity, the value is about 12 US dollars, or more than 80 RMB.

Taylor happily took it, put it on and asked others to take pictures for her, and planned to post it on social media. Cao Xuan reminded her not to reveal the name of Hu Jing, and then let her go.

You know, according to the data released by the Forbes Global Celebrity List in later generations.

In the ten years from 2010 to 2019, Taylor's personal income was as high as 8.25 million U.S. dollars, ranking second among global singers during the same period.

Note that this 8.25 million is only Taylor's personal income, and the total income it creates is more, and it may even be more than doubled. Even if Mars eats only a part, such watches can be wholesaled to fill several drawers.

Thinking about it this way, Cao Xuan felt that he was too black-hearted, and wondered whether he should wait for Taylor's 20th birthday at the end of the year to give him a big gift.

Anne Hathaway next to her looked enviously at Taylor who was chatting and laughing with Hu Jing, and couldn't help saying to Cao Xuan.

"You and Hu are really nice to your students."

"How about it, how about you also worship me as a teacher, how about I ask Hu to give you a piece of Bulgari?"

"Too stingy."

Anne Hathaway shook her head in disdain. Although she was criticized by many people for "pretending to be fake", it can be seen in front of the media and the camera that she did say it intentionally, and some of her words were occasionally too hypocritical.

But in private, Anne Hathaway's character is actually quite lively, at least she can joke around when she gets acquainted, and she is a bit competitive, even if she jokes and bickers, she is not weak.

"If you are willing to worship me, I will give you 20 yuan Patek Philippe or whatever you choose."

Dwayne Johnson next to him scratched his long hair and said with a big face, "Can I pray?"

"NO!"

Anne Hathaway cut it off altogether, and then asked seemingly casually, "Has the script for the third part been written yet?"

"The outline mode is set."

"Who is the hostess?"

Anne Hathaway is looking forward to it. The popularity of "Taken 2" is quite good. The movie has not yet been released, and the exposure during this period has also benefited her a lot.

Except for "Alice in Wonderland", her follow-up films are not much better than the "Taken" series. If the film is successful at the box office, she is willing to act in the third one.

"The third part may be the last part of the series. We plan to rescue the girlfriend and sister together, and the location will be in the United States, but it's hard to say now. We may make another movie first."

Cao Xuan actually made a double plan, Anne Hathaway can act the best, and if she doesn't act, let the hero change his girlfriend.

At the same time, the setting may add a teammate, just like the Interpol played by Hu Jing in the second movie, but the character design will be more comedic, forming distinctions and conflicts with men.

But now there is a problem, Cao Xuan feels that he will act in three films of the same series at one go, and he will set his acting path too fixedly.

So I intend to make a film of other types to synthesize it, and then make "Taken 3".

Although he made his way into Hollywood through action movies, and will even focus on shooting action movies in the future, it doesn't mean that Cao Xuan intends to only make action movies. He wants to try some different themes, so as not to circle his way of acting.

But there is no need to say these things, I just chatted with Anne Cathaway about the third plot. The script is not sure, it is just an outline, and it needs to be filled in later.

The two chatted lively, and Johnson next to him was a little envious.

If the third part is filmed, Anne Hathaway, as the heroine, is likely to play the role. He will live and fly with the male lead, and he will be different. He died completely in the second part and has no chance of resurrection.

Even matryoshka is not acceptable, because the third part is likely to have Lao Bai, who played the villain in the second part, be "reborn" as his younger brother.

One has been "forcibly" revived, but the plot can be justified, but if Johnson is revived again, it will not be an ordinary insult to the audience's IQ.

With this depressed mood, Johnson finished watching the premiere of the movie, and seeing Cao Xuan tortured himself to death on the screen, his mood became even worse.

It wasn't until the next morning that Johnson, who got up in the morning, saw the newspaper delivered in the morning, and a smile appeared on his face.

["Taken 2" made $3120 million on the first day, leading the same period of the movie]

Movies are released on Saturdays, which is the peak weekend season. In North America, the box office of the first week of the weekend is the most important thing. Although it does not determine the box office of a movie, it also has a strong reference value.

The box office on the first day was 3000 million+, and the North American box office may not be able to pass just breaking [-] million.

As an important starring role, what Johnson can know is that his resume will add to his brilliance, and his fame and salary will also increase a lot.

The depression in his heart was swept away in an instant, and the happy Johnson had a big appetite. He usually pays attention to his diet and rewarded himself with some favorite food.

A large piece of toast wrapped with maple syrup and jam took a big bite, and Johnson recalled Cao Xuan teaching himself the tricks of cheating meals.

"Whole wheat bread, meringue, erythritol, so skinny, so skinny..."

(End of this chapter)