The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 422 "Kung Fu Panda" Lands in North America

"Kung Fu Panda" held a grand premiere in Los Angeles, attracting the attention of dozens of well-known media, and the Hollywood stars who dubbed the film also added a lot of color to the premiere of this animated film.

Chen Jingxing, who had not been to the United States for several months, was also surrounded by media reporters.

"...I am not disappointed with the box office of "Operation Red Sea" in North America. At present, its box office in North America has surpassed that of "Spike II". I am very satisfied."

"Some people have accused that "Operation Red Sea" is full of ideological propaganda and is a red movie that promotes patriotism. What do you think?"

"People who say this have either never watched "Operation Red Sea" or watched it with colored glasses. What kind of work is "Between Life and Death" and what kind of work is "Operation Red Sea". Today is "Kung Fu Panda" " premiere, please ask questions related to this movie."

"When you compare "Operation Red Sea" with "Between Life and Death", do you mean that these two films are works of the same level? Are you suppressing "Between Life" and "The Martian" at the Oscars? What about alleviating the pressure of competition?"

Chen Jingxing took a deep breath: "I just said that these two works are excellent military action movies. Even though I am an Oscar judge, I only have one vote. The Oscar award was voted out by more than 7000 votes. I don't understand why I can suppress "Between Life and Death" with one sentence, the academy is beyond my control, and "The Martian" was not shortlisted for best picture, "Mars" and "Life and Death" are only competing for two technical awards .”

""The Martian" was shortlisted for five Oscars, are you right..."

Chen Jingxing finally finished dealing with the reporters, walked up to Jason Todd, the person in charge of Firefly Publishing Company, and complained angrily: "Your United States is really a land of conspiracy theories. If I can rule the academy, I will pay for the distribution fee of "Kung Fu Panda"." Why are you so aggressive?"

Jason Todd is an old friend of Chen Jingxing, recommended by Jeff Miller, the senior vice president of Universal Pictures, and he built the distribution network of Firefly.

Facing the complaint from the big boss of the parent company, Jason Todd shrugged his shoulders with a regretful expression: "I'm sorry boss, your achievements last year were really amazing. There is indeed a market for this conspiracy theory. I tried it when I found out. Tried PR, but to no avail."

The conspiracy theory that annoyed Chen Jingxing was that "Chen Jingxing, a native of China, is the second Harvey Weinstein who can manipulate the film academy to turn the world upside down."

It’s also my fault that last year’s Oscars, Chen Jingxing, was so beautiful. To be honest, both Chen Jingxing and Universal were surprised that their own public relations could have such a big effect, let alone outsiders. I really don’t blame this kind of conspiracy theory, although the industry dismisses it Gu, but some netizens in the United States are quite willing to believe it.

However, according to the news from Universal, this kind of conspiracy theory circulating on the Internet is not without its influence. Thousands of judges with voting rights will also be affected by this kind of Internet conspiracy theory. "The Martian" did not get the best award. Film nominations have everything to do with it.

However, Chen Jingxing didn't have much regret about it. Even if he was nominated, he wouldn't be able to get the best picture. It didn't mean much. What annoyed him was that these brainless conspiracy theories compared him to the yellow-skinned Harvey Weinstein.

This sex scandal shocked many pure Americans last year, and made many people pretend to be shocked for several months.

God is pitiful, since the time travel, he has kept himself very clean. Among all the time travel directors, he may be able to win the torii. If he is really like the LSP Harvey, it will be fine. It would be too wronged if he did nothing to bear the reputation .

Moreover, Chen Jingxing has long said that he has no plans to make movies in Hollywood, so Hollywood actresses did not come to try to "test" him. Of course, it also has something to do with the types of movies he makes. Basically, the protagonists of movies are all old men. Even some domestic media said that he filmed men's scenes.

""Operation Red Sea" has been difficult to expand, and the attendance rate in non-Chinese theaters is not very high."

Jason Todd continues to report on Firefly's latest release work.

The overseas subsidiary of DreamWorks has grown in size over the past few years. Originally, Chen Jingxing just wanted to put aside the method of buying out the copyright and release it directly in North America. Firefly is a channel to achieve this goal.

In recent years, all DreamWorks films have been distributed by Firefly, and the box office is getting higher and higher, especially because of the popularity of Chen Jingxing's films. Gradually, many domestic companies have also assigned their films to Firefly for distribution in North America.

Even film studios in some Asian countries have begun to distribute their films through Firefly. Although most of the box office is not high, most of them are hundreds of thousands of dollars or even less, and millions of dollars are considered top-notch, but they cannot stand up to large volumes, which were removed last year. Films from DreamWorks, other domestic and Asian films released by Firefly also grossed more than $2500 million.

This market is still huge and has potential for development.

In fact, in the melting pot of races in North America, foreign-language films are based on all ethnicities. For example, the overall box office of Latin-language films is larger than that of Asian films, mainly because there are more Latin-language films.

Moreover, films from Western European countries, Southern Europe, Latin America and other countries actually have relatively fixed cooperative distributors in North America. Usually, a company or a country’s films cannot support a distribution company with strong distribution capabilities in North America. of.

Asia is a bit more complicated. Dongying animation IP is relatively strong, and its base in North America is larger. Therefore, there are distribution companies such as Funimation Animation that specialize in the distribution of Dongying animation films.

Bollywood also has relatively stable distribution companies such as Reliance Big Pictures, and the Sange ethnic group has a large base.

Other countries do not have fixed distribution partners in the United States, nor have the ability to stably export to the North American market, and the ethnic base in North America is not large.

The problem caused by this is that it is easier to be cheated. After all, big Hollywood companies don’t like your movies and are not interested in cooperating with you. Small and medium-sized distributors have unreliable reputations. Call out a liar to vent your anger.

And now Firefly has established a fairly good distribution capacity through Chen Jingxing's movies and cooperation with Universal. Firefly is also a subsidiary of DreamWorks. If DreamWorks cheats people, it will ruin its reputation. After all, DreamWorks' basic Just in China, right in East Asia.

Therefore, although everyone is a competitor in China, other companies are more and more inclined to hand over their own films to Firefly for distribution in North America.

If Firefly can become the main cooperative distribution partner of the film industry in East Asia and South Asia in the North American market in the future, the future will be quite bright. It will definitely become another high-quality asset of DreamWorks besides ink. After all, mature channels cannot be developed in a day or two. built up.

The growth of Firefly is also a win-win situation for China's film industry.

Since the ebb of the kung fu craze, Master Xing and Brother Cheng Long's appeal has weakened, and Huaguo movies are getting worse day by day in North America, and have even fallen to the point where only a dozen or twenty Chinese theaters in the Bay Area can buy them.

And the growth of Firefly allows it to pull out triple-digit theater openings even if it releases it independently without Universal.

For example, "Operation Red Sea", which is still in theaters, is currently being shown in more than 700 theaters on the east and west coasts. Although there is no potential for expansion, the final box office is expected to reach [-] million US dollars.

Last year's "Wolf Fang II" also got a score of 469 million US dollars.

Although Americans have watched too many such military action movies, and the box office of their own military-themed movies is getting worse and worse, but if they have strong distribution capabilities, movies like "Operation Red Sea" will not only cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. box office.

Compared with "Red Sea", which was released by Firefly alone, the scene of "Kung Fu Panda" is much bigger.

Different from the cold response to military-themed movies, high-level 3D animation movies, especially animation movies that combine the elements of pandas and kung fu, are definitely promising in the European and American markets.

After seeing the finished film, Universal decided to release it on a large scale. Although DreamWorks and Universal are partners, not all of DreamWorks' films will be distributed or even promoted by Universal.

Except for Chen Jingxing's sci-fi blockbuster, other films have to be released on a large scale only after Universal's producers have seen them and think they have market potential.

In a sense, there is also an element of gambling. The last animated film "The Return of the Great Sage" only earned 700 million US dollars at the box office. DreamWorks' brand image in animation is still relatively weak. The North American people's impression of DreamWorks has always been Science fiction specialists.

Therefore, the money scene in "Kung Fu Panda" is still risky. After discussing with DreamWorks, Universal decided to invite some well-known movie stars to dub it, and then use Chen Jingxing to promote it, making North American audiences think that this is an animated film directed by Chen Jingxing. To arouse everyone's interest to the greatest extent.

Another one is to focus on the images of the leading male protagonist, the giant panda Po and the little panda master, and add elements of Huaguo Kung Fu for promotion. Pandas always have traffic in Europe and the United States.

With Universal's strong promotion, it finally gathered 2400 theaters to start the production. Of course, the reason why Universal was willing to bet heavily on this animated film was because Chen Jingxing gave Universal some of the peripheral development interests of "Panda" in North America.

Universal is a century-old Hollywood company, and has also produced animated films. It knows how much a successful animated film can earn from peripherals, especially "Kung Fu Panda", which is suitable for peripheral development.

"Oscar best director, sci-fi master Chen Jingxing brings his new work "Kung Fu Panda" to the United States, to see how a panda becomes Bruce Lee!"

"... Universal has really worked hard..." Chen Jingxing looked at the news headlines, a little dumbfounded.

Xiang Xuan, the actual director of "Kung Fu Panda", didn't mind too much: "No matter how it is marketed, it is good for the box office."

It's not that Xiang Xuan doesn't like to enjoy fame and fortune, but he knows that the bigger the box office and influence of "Kung Fu Panda", the more fame and fortune he can get.

(End of this chapter)