The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 16 Screen Movies?

Zhang Jingyan was already moved.

Especially after reading the script, there is no doubt that although there is no big scene, the scene of the movie is much more open, the story is also very interesting, and has very commercial characteristics. More than enough.

But a big-screen movie needs more than a script, and usually the script is not even the most important link.

The review of online movies is loose, there is no need to report in advance, and there is no need to get the dragon label, and the home of the release is the long video platform, so there is no pressure on Huanshi.com.

But for screen films, every link of project establishment, filing, investment, shooting, winning the dragon label, setting files, distribution, and film scheduling is a hurdle.

If it is a thrilling leap from production to sales of products, then screen movies need to go through many thrilling jumps from project approval to theater screening.

Among the ten film projects reported to the Film Bureau every year, there may be only one film that can finally meet the audience on the big screen.

And none of these movies that have been on the big screen can achieve profitability.

The film industry can be said to be a one-off success.

So for Huanshi.com, which is currently the top four long-form video platforms on the Internet in China, is it difficult to operate a screen movie?
The answer is not easy.

In 2013, Huaguo film production was still in the hands of the traditional five major film and television companies, namely Guoying, Jingying, Tianrun, Jianghe Culture, and United Cinemas. There are more than 50 cinema chain companies, and these theater chains are intricately connected with the Big Five, and even the United Cinema Chain, one of the Big Five, itself controls many theater companies.

In China today, the TV drama industry has basically realized the separation of production and broadcasting.

But in the film industry, the production and distribution theaters are not separated, like a pool of muddy water, it is difficult for you to distinguish each other.

Coupled with the handicraft characteristics of the film industry, this circle is very exclusive. Even if foreign capital spends money, it will take a long time to knock out a crack, and then happily take advantage of it. Only after paying enough tuition can we find out The doorway inside.

Huanshi.com has paid tuition fees. At the beginning of its listing, the rich and powerful Huanshi.com thought that it could equalize the film industry. He did have this capital. As an Internet company, the darling of capital, its market value exceeded the top five producers at the beginning of its listing. The sum of the factories.

Huanshi.com vigorously waved RMB to recruit a lot of "talents" from the Big Five, and then announced that it would make a mythical blockbuster with an investment of more than [-] million yuan. It hired a lot of big names. In the end, the [-] million yuan was used to enrich the big-budget director. , producer, star and special effects company, made a hot-eyed five-cent special effects blockbuster, which was crushed by a small-budget comedy film produced by Jianghe Culture and shot by a famous comedy director in the summer.

For this reason, Huanshi even issued an article angrily accusing certain theaters of deliberately lowering the film schedule and suppressing mythological giants, but it did not arouse the sympathy of the public.

To be honest, even if the theater schedule is fair and just, this [-] million blockbuster will still hit the street.

Huanshi.com suddenly discovered that burning money to occupy the market, a tried-and-tested tactic in the Internet industry, is completely useless in the film industry.

No matter how much money you spend, you may not be able to beat the low-budget movies made by others at 2000 million.

The key lies in the process from a seemingly reliable project to a reliable film. For foreign capital like Huanshi.com, it is basically a black box. All you can do is put money in the box. When you open the box, whether flowers come out or shit is something you have absolutely no control over. Even if flowers come out, whether it will be popular with the audience or whether the market will buy it is another metaphysics.

Is there a place where the success rate of turning money into flowers is higher?
Have.

That is a few circles formed with a few big directors as the core and a stable team that often cooperates with them. They almost monopolize the current high-quality creators in the film industry. Generally speaking, it is a film workshop with relatively stable production quality, even if it is poor, it is usually not too bad.

And these circles are tightly surrounded by the five major film studios. Today's Huaguo film market is monopolized by imported blockbusters for heavy industrial films, and domestic films are often not expensive to produce. Therefore, even if the five major studios are not as rich as the Internet upstarts, they are not short of money to make movies, and they will not give the opportunity to invest in high-quality creative resources to outsiders. Even if they share the risk, it is enough for the five to support each other. It will lure wolves into the house and cultivate other competitors to grab food.

Even if Internet platforms such as Huanshi.com open a gap and deliver the money to the door, they can only sign the minimum version of the investment agreement. Film production, distribution, fixed files, and film scheduling are none of their business. Let's share!
If it can be divided according to the investment share, it is not unacceptable for Internet upstarts such as Huanshi.

But when it comes to film production and distribution theaters, it's a mess.

The share ratio of domestic cinema chains is very high. In 2013, the share ratio between Huaguo cinema chains and production and distribution was 41:59, that is to say, in addition to [-]% of the movie box office being turned over to the film fund and tax, the remaining [-]% will be divided into some theaters, and the remaining [-]% will be divided into production and distribution.

And what about the Blue Eagle Federation on the other side of the ocean?Producers can usually take more than [-]% of the accounts, and for blockbusters that the audience is looking forward to, the producers can even take [-]%.

How could the Big Five always accept Huaguo Studio's such a low ratio?That's because the five major studios themselves integrate production and distribution, so they can get the share of the production and distribution. At the same time, they are entangled with the theaters, holding each other's shares, or even the joint theaters. This kind of film production and distribution theater chain is one-stop, no matter how the accounts are divided, the meat will rot in the pot.

The Big Five can accept it, but it is difficult for a pure investor like Huanshi.com to accept it. However, for Huanshi.com, this is only the first pitfall.

The second pitfall is that the account distribution is too slow. The domestic theaters in Huaguo are currently expanding at a high speed. Not only is the national level supporting a high proportion of theater chains in order to expand the number of screens as soon as possible, but the theaters themselves are also due to high-speed Expansion has repeatedly delayed the distribution of accounts to the producers and distributors, and even the film has been released for more than a year. Therefore, it is more tolerant of theaters delaying the distribution of accounts for a year and a half.

This is the second big pit faced by pure film investment.

The last pit is what really makes lay investors like Huanshi.com want to cry.

The mess of production and distribution theaters has turned the movie's profit itself into a huge black box. Not only can it falsely report costs to deceive investors, it can also falsely report ticket subsidies, and even falsify the box office itself. The box office has shrunk, the supervision mechanism is not perfect, and the distribution and theaters are colluding with each other. These things are actually very common.

Often people sit around and have already eaten all the butter in the middle, and then tell you that this movie has earned a piece of bread through hard work, and I will share some breadcrumbs with you according to your investment ratio.

Chen Jingxing's proposal to co-produce a screen movie was not a whim. He knew the current situation of Internet platforms such as Huanshi.com, and there were also previous planes for reference.

The Internet upstarts in the previous life plane really gained a foothold in the film industry and even became an industry giant after paying a lot of tuition fees and going through many detours.

Chen Jingxing had heard film practitioners complaining that Internet investors were not like coal bosses in the past, that they should not be the shopkeepers and intervene everywhere, but to be honest, film practitioners are not white lotuses. One thing after another has been done, and it can only be said that this is the inevitable result of the mixed industry, the chaos of demons, the lack of supervision, and the serious lack of industrialization.

This plane is similar. In Huaguo in 2013, if any capital wants to truly gain a foothold in the film industry and earn money, then you must personally participate in every link of production and distribution theaters, otherwise others will shut the door and eat nothing. Wipe it clean, go out and share some bread crumbs with you is unavoidable, in the plane of the previous life, it will take several years before all kinds of chaos will get better.

Huanshi has finally learned to be good after suffering a lot of trouble, and the company's senior management has also realized the depth of the film industry.

In the past two years, what Internet platforms such as Huanshi have done is to be a money-spreading boy, knocking on doors everywhere to invest, not asking for anything else, getting familiar with temple doors everywhere, and then let the audience get acquainted with Huanshi when they watch movies The logo and title of the website.

But the dormancy of Internet capital is to stir up the situation in the future.

Huanshi has also participated in the investment of many film and television dramas in recent years. Although he didn't eat meat, he drank some soup and cultivated a group of more professional talents. The production and distribution process of screen movies is in terms of ability There is no big problem with Fantasy World.

What is missing now is a reliable project.

It's not that there are no directors and screenwriters begging Huanshi for investment, but Huanshi is no longer Wuxia Amon, and there are many talents under him, and projects that cheat money and make money are not so easy to cheat.

Moreover, Huanshi already knows how deep the film industry is. The Big Five have been in the film industry for many years and are deeply intertwined. There is no filmmaker who has nothing to do with them. Reliable projects will be filtered by the Big Five immediately. Here are all the residues that the five major despises slipped through the net. If you want to sift out gold and jade from the residues that slip through the screen, it is tantamount to picking up the leaks in Liulichang in the capital.

Failure to pick up leaks in Liulichang is nothing more than a loss of hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Failure to pick up leaks in film projects is a loss of tens of millions. It's okay to get a status in the world, but although Huanshi has been listed, there are still pursuers behind it. The Internet is the main battlefield, but there is not much money to pay for tuition.

(End of this chapter)