Top of the Great Era

Chapter 2743 Legendary Pictures

This afternoon, there are two main things.

One is to discuss with Black Rock Capital to determine the price of the San Francisco 49ers football team, as well as the shareholding ratio of both parties, and whether it is necessary to introduce new investors to join.

This is quite simple.

It can be done relatively easily as long as you have money.

The second thing is more complicated, which is to cooperate with multiple parties to jointly establish a production company for TV series that mainly focuses on platter investment.

For Zhou Buqi, whether this company can make money is a trivial matter. The most important thing is to be able to participate in the production of excellent American dramas as much as possible and obtain certain streaming media distribution rights.

This will provide more content sources for Ziweixing Global’s streaming media products after they are launched in the future.

This matter is more important.

In addition to Zhou Buqi's participation, Black Rock Capital, Wanda Pictures, SoftBank Investment, and MSI Global will also participate. Ariana of the Rockefeller family, who successfully gained the favor of Boss Zhou because of a set of nude photos, can also participate Have a certain share.

All parties need to hold a meeting to determine the final investment share of each party.

Then invest.

Officially launch this big project.

Because this is a big project that Zhou Buqi is personally involved in, and it is also strategically considered for the future of Ziweixing Global, several core executives are here, including Jason Kilar, An Sarnoff, Michael Lees Lee, Michael Moore, and newcomer Chris Albrek.

Chris Albrek has only joined Ziweixing Global for half a month, but Zhou Buqi personally made the decision and invited him here.

His last job was as CEO of HBO.

Because Time Warner's stock price was sluggish, it needed to change its thinking. It fired content expert Chris Albrek and replaced it with financing expert Richard Plepler as CEO.

After Richard Plepler came to power, he immediately launched a content business financing plan. The first thing he wanted to do was to cooperate with Boss Zhou on a platter investment.

Zhou Buqi was not polite at all. In an era where content is king, he reacted immediately. He fired Brett Herrington, the vice president and president of the TV department of Ziweixing Global, whom he didn't like very much, and replaced Chris Al. Blake was invited over and asked to lead the TV production department of Ziweixing Global... as well as the future independent self-produced dramas on the streaming media platform.

This is a very important position and will have a very important position in the future.

The executives gathered together.

Zhou Buqi first asked Ann Sarnoff, "How has everyone reacted after Kevin became the new president of Lucasfilm?"

Ann Sarnoff smiled: "Very positive. He has made such outstanding achievements at Marvel Studios and hopes to lead Lucasfilm to a higher level."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "In any case, the success of "Star Wars 7" is all due to you."

This summer, the most shocking movie is of course "Star Wars 7".

Three months after its release, the global box office has exceeded 18.8 billion US dollars!

It is expected that the box office will reach 22 billion US dollars by the end!

It became the second highest-grossing movie of all time after "Avatar."

Preliminary estimates suggest that the film will bring in at least $28 billion in revenue for Lucasfilm in the next three years. The most important thing is that with the intervention of Boss Zhou, the story of this series is better, and it does not adopt the politically correct strategy of the ugly heroine. It slowly unfolds a huge interstellar war background around the handsome male protagonist. prelude.

Rotten Tomatoes has a freshness score of 87%, and the IMDB score has reached 8.4 points.

The reputation is better than that of "Avengers".

It can be said that it was both well-received and well-received.

Next, we can spread out a new "Star Wars story", shoot sequels, shoot spin-offs, and develop more resources for this top-notch IP.

An Sarnov used to maintain stability.

Now it can be considered as a success.

Zhou Buqi invited her to join this new American drama platter investment project. The newly established company was called "Tinghua Entertainment" and asked her to serve as the director and president of this new company.

This is a rare opportunity.

Moreover, it is truly a monopoly of power and one-man management.

Ann Sarnoff certainly had no reason to refuse.

Jason Kilar reported another thing, "We have contacted the copyright owner of Dune, but we have encountered some minor troubles."

"Huh? What's the trouble?"

"Someone is competing with us." "Who?"

"Legendary Pictures."

"Legendary Pictures..." Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Isn't Legendary Pictures splitting up with Warner Bros.?"

Jason Kilar nodded, "There is indeed a big conflict. Last month, Legendary Pictures raised US$5 million and completed the acquisition of Dune Entertainment, another movie platter investment giant. Now Legendary Pictures With more copyrights comes greater strength.”

"Strength?" Zhou Buqi felt that he was being alarmist, "What strength can an independent film company have?"

Michael Moore said from the side: "Legendary Pictures is returning new movies in the "Superman" series and hopes to get Nolan's new movie "Interstellar."

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi became concerned, "Did you get it?"

Michael Moore said solemnly: "I don't think Legendary Pictures really wants to break away from Warner Bros. The two parties have cooperated for so many years and have been deeply tied. It's just that Time Warner has recently completed its strategic transformation and has imposed conditions on its partner Legendary Pictures. It’s even more harsh. Legendary Pictures is just trying to get better conditions.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "Universal Pictures really can't win over it?"

Michael Moore said: "Yes, but if we offer such conditions, it will be too much. Warner has cooperated with Legendary Pictures, including "Batman", "Superman", "Inception" and "Interstellar". The revenue rights of major masterpieces must be shared. If we cooperate with Legendary Pictures, we can provide the copyrights of series of masterpieces such as "Star Wars", "Fast and Furious", "007", "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games" ? Especially they may have already set their sights on Marvel Studios.”

"impossible!"

It is impossible for Zhou Buqi to share such a cash cow with an insignificant independent film company.

Michael Moore continued: "For this type of blockbuster cooperation, Warner will control and invest 75%, Legendary Pictures will invest 25%, and then the distribution rights will be owned by Warner. If it is Legendary Pictures' main investment, Legendary Pictures will invest 75% %, Warner invested 25%, and the distribution rights returned to Warner.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "In the final analysis, it's still the distribution rights!"

In fact, Michael Moore had everything right.

This time Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. split up, but it was only a big deal but not a rain. Later, the two companies negotiated terms, reconciled, and launched a long-term cooperation.

Also because of the big tree of Warner, Legendary Pictures has a very strong foundation.

Wanda was attracted by it.

This really puts Wanda, a layman, into a trap.

The most important thing about film and television works is not the right to income, but the right to distribute.

The distribution rights are in the hands of Warner.

Later, streaming media became popular, and Warner also launched its own streaming media. But how to advertise and gain visibility for your own streaming media?

The strategy adopted by Warner is to make movies available in theaters and streaming platforms at the same time.

In this way, movie fans no longer need to go to the cinema to watch the movie, but can watch it directly on Warner's streaming media, and the advertising effect will be surprisingly good.

However, this will cause the movie's box office to severely shrink.

The one that suffered was Legendary Pictures.

For example, the two Hollywood blockbusters "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Dune" controlled by Legendary Pictures have Legendary Pictures' investment accounting for 75%, but the distribution rights are with Warner.

Then, Warner released both movies in theaters and streaming media at the same time.

Warner's streaming media was very successful, and it quickly gained millions of new users thanks to the two movies; however, the box office of the movies suffered huge losses, with both movies only taking in more than 4 million US dollars, and Legendary Pictures borne 75% of this box office loss.

This is the absolute power advantage that Hollywood giants have over independent film companies when they hold distribution rights. At that time, Legendary Pictures was already a subsidiary of Wanda and had become a burden that could not be shaken off, losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Jason Kilar said: "What I mean is that Universal Pictures can cooperate with Legendary Pictures, but only for new movies. If they don't agree, don't cooperate! They have a lot of copyrights, and many of them are It’s a big, famous production that looks amazing, but they don’t even have the slightest distribution rights.”

The distribution rights are in the hands of Warner, so they will definitely distribute the film to their own streaming media platform in the future.

This has no real benefit to Ziweixing Global.

Zhou Buqi nodded, "If the conditions are really harsh, it's okay not to cooperate. Ziweixing Global's biggest strategy at the moment is still content, content copyright, and distribution rights within content copyright!"

Michael Moore laughed and said: "What about Dune?"

"Of course we have to win it. Can we still not compete with Legendary Pictures?" Zhou Buqi snorted, "Not only do we have to win the film and television rights, we also have to win the game rights as well!"

As for Legendary Pictures…

I hope Lao Wang can listen to his advice and stop going to Hollywood and being fooled.