Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3228 Borrowing chickens to lay eggs
Friends having dinner together.

After dinner, Xu Baihui made special arrangements to book a theater to watch one of the most popular films in China recently... an animated film "The Monkey King: Hero is Back".

This is the first domestic cartoon that is not for young children, but a true animated film that is very popular among young people.

On various social media platforms, many fans spontaneously promoted the film.

A new word was even invented for this purpose: "tap water".

It can be said that with the development of the Internet and the emergence of social media, young people are embracing the world and seizing the right to speak in society. In the past, the right to speak in society was in the hands of the middle-aged and elderly, and if young people invented some new words, they would be considered as a sign of decadence.

This is a good thing.

Even if they only have a little power to create Internet buzzwords, at least this generation of young people will have some space for self-expression and can leave some traces of young people in this era.

The popularity of "The Return of the Great Sage" also represents the voice of an era to a large extent.

The animation was very well done.

Because of Zhou Buqi's intervention, this animated film had more production funds, so it could produce more content, lengthen the plot, tell a fuller story, and make the special effects more gorgeous and attractive.

The film has been released for three weeks and its domestic box office has exceeded 7 million yuan.

According to the current momentum, the domestic box office is likely to exceed 10 billion yuan!

Zhou Buqi and Xu Baihui have both seen it.

The two sat together.

Xu Baihui said proudly: "Don't think that the current box office is only 7 million, but this is all real box office, without any water injection, it is different from other movies on the box office charts."

Zhou Buqi asked: "Are there many watered-down movies?"

"Uh……"

Xu Baihui looked helpless.

Zhou Buqi was slightly stunned, "What's with that expression?"

Xu Baihui said: "It is normal to inflate the box office. If you don't inflate the box office, the theaters won't schedule your film. Unless it is a high-quality film like "The Return of the Great Sage", it can make it through with its hard power. But if you look at the domestic films, there are only a few that are decent. They all rely on inflated box office."

Zhou Buqi frowned and said, "This trend is too bad. Is it caused by the Internet?"

"That's not the case. The Internet is just an outsider to the film industry. This is... mainly transmitted from Hong Kong Island. It's all hype marketing and capital operation routines. The so-called film industry in Hong Kong Island is all self-produced, self-sold, and self-filmed. After the film is finished, it is shown in its own cinema. Whether the box office is high or low, it's just a number. The extra tax is far from the cross-bank money laundering and capital gains."

Xu Baihui curled her lips.

Very disdainful.

But there was nothing we could do.

This is a big trend.

Inflated box office means that someone spent a lot of money to buy the box office, but in fact there was no one in the theater. On the one hand, it is a money laundering game, and the money from the box office share is clean money. On the other hand, it is a capital game, which is to increase the box office of the movie and make money from the capital market by relying on the growth of the stock price. Zhou Buqi said: "It may not be a bad thing. At least it can heat up the domestic film market and promote the domestic film culture."

Xu Baihui snorted, "I don't care what they do. Anyway, I won't get involved. No one should mess with my project. I still have to lead Jieyu Media to cooperate with Netflix, Peacock, Amazon, Hollywood and so on!"

"Ah? Amazon?" Zhou Buqi was very curious, "Amazon what?"

Xu Baihui said with a smile: "Amazon's streaming business!"

Zhou Buqi was quite surprised, "You are quite unconventional. You are in contact with them?"

"No, they approached me. Since The Return of the Great Sage became popular, Amazon's streaming platform wanted to cooperate with us to make an animated film together." Xu Baihui was obviously in a good mood. "But this is also partly due to you. The Return of the Great Sage was a project you were optimistic about. This can be said to be iconic. The success of this movie proves that the domestic animation industry can also produce animated films and TV series that are close to the level of Hollywood."

"You've become rich!"

"That's right. Cartoons are different from live-action movies. Many cartoon characters are universal, so they just need to be dubbed in different languages. The Monkey King: Hero is Back is set in Eastern culture, so foreigners may not understand it. But if it's a fictional background with only cartoon characters, like Alice in Wonderland, there won't be any cultural barriers between the East and the West."

"Well, this is a very good direction. The export of film and television products is not only a business, but also a cultural export. This is actually the route Japan has been taking."

Zhou Buqi understands this better.

The mainstream discourse power in the world is still in the hands of Europe and the United States, which has resulted in East Asian culture being confined to the status of a subculture. Even the "white, young and thin" aesthetic favored by East Asians is considered a pathological aesthetic.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Of course this won't work!
To this end, China, Japan and South Korea have made unremitting efforts to promote East Asian culture to the world and develop it from subculture to mainstream culture.

Japan has done it most successfully, and Japanese comics have long been popular all over the world.

South Korea is doing pretty well, and Korean pop culture is gradually building its influence as a popular entertainment around the world.

The solution adopted by China is to spend huge sums of money to build Confucius Institutes around the world, inviting foreign young people to take free classes, and if they do well, they can also get scholarships. After so many years, too much money has been spent, and the results are very small, many Confucius Institutes have begun to close down.

Cultural exports must still be Hollywood-style, requiring market-oriented means and relying on the entertainment industry to popularize them among the masses.

"The Return of the Great Sage" demonstrates the strength of domestic animation.

Domestic animation production is of high standard, low production cost and flexible project operation, which obviously makes it a good partner. Zhou Buqi has been promoting cooperation between Netflix, Peacock and Jieyu Media, but he did not expect that Amazon Streaming would also take the initiative to approach him.

Xu Baihui said: "The cost of animation production in the United States is too high, mainly because the cost of animators is too high. This is a high-end industry in the United States. Creative industries are all high-end industries in the United States. A very ordinary animator has an annual salary of three to five hundred thousand US dollars. It's different in China. Many animators only earn three to four thousand yuan a month. They are not considered creative people at all, but just screws. Those American streaming platforms can cooperate with domestic animation studios to reduce costs very well."

Zhou Buqi said sternly: "Screws are definitely not an option! Artificial intelligence is developing so fast nowadays, this kind of screw work in painting and production will definitely be gradually replaced by artificial intelligence in the future. All that will be left for animators is creativity."

Xu Baihui said "hmm".

Zhou Buqi said: "According to Amazon's style, when cooperating with Amazon, they are definitely the ones who take the lead. They are the ones who select the projects and then ask you to co-produce them."

"Yes, it seems they are going to make a fantasy cartoon, about 15 episodes."

"The purpose of the cooperation is not to make money, but to cultivate more outstanding animators for Jieyu Media through these projects. The domestic film market is so large, but there is still a gap in excellent animation talents. After "The Return of the Great Sage" opened up the market, more outstanding animators will be needed to participate."

"I know what you mean." Xu Baihui smiled. "Relying on American projects and spending American money, we can cultivate our own talents. Borrowing chickens to lay eggs."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "This is the long-term solution. I've seen that with the level of domestic live-action TV dramas, it's unlikely to export culture. The only possibility is animation. The style of Japanese animation is too single and too clumsy. South Korea has gone a long way in live-action TV dramas. If Jieyu Media wants to keep up, it must be animation. If Jieyu Media can produce a globally popular animation like Kung Fu Panda, then your social status can be raised to a higher level, and I won't need to protect you."