China Entertainment Mythology 2004

Chapter 255 Soul Ferry
In early September, the first trailer of "Huaxia Partners" was officially released.As soon as the trailer opened, a voice came: "What is the dream?" Then Huang Xiaoming, Tong Dawei, and Deng Chao walked into the crowded stadium. There were enthusiastic cheering crowds in all directions. It was obvious that the three were extremely popular.

Huang Xiaoming walked to the center of the stage, bowed deeply, and then the picture turned. Here, a montage technique was used. The two scenes of Huang Xiaoming bowing were merged together, but the former period was full of flowers, while the latter period was extremely simple.

An extremely simple and unfinished building with air leaks on all sides and snowflakes floating outside; a dim electric light, an extremely dilapidated blackboard, a group of students sitting on the ground, everything looks so old-fashioned.

Huang Xiaoming bowed deeply to the group of students, and said the same opening sentence: "What is the dream?" Unexpectedly, a sudden power outage interrupted his speech, which made the students in front of him burst into laughter.

Yenching University, Dream of Going Abroad, English Tutoring Classes, Listing—Although the protagonist of the film is named Cheng Dongqing, and the cram school opened by Cheng Dongqing is called New Dream, anyone with a discerning eye can tell that this is a film about Yu Minhong and New Oriental’s family history movie of.

"Fuck, visually judge Yu Minhong's New Oriental family history!"

"Upstairs +1, I must have not run away, it's too obvious."

"Yellow teaches Bishop English? It's not funny."

"Yu Minhong's family history, under the banner of dreams and youth, to be honest, goosebumps, not very interested."

"Did New Oriental pay the sponsorship fee? How many of the rich people in reality are really clean? Needless to say, it must be a whitewashed work with commercials, which is really not interesting."

"Too much trouble, new dream, help!!"

Most of the netizens' comments were complaints, some complained about New Oriental and Yu Minhong, some complained about Deng Chao and Tong Dawei's style, and some complained about director Chen Kexin.Of course, the most frequent complaints about the bishop's English in Huangjiao are the three words "troubleshooting" appearing very frequently.

There are also quite a few netizens who said that just watching the trailer, the entire movie content has been spoiled. Even if the trailer is not spoiled, if you open the encyclopedia information of Yu Minhong and New Oriental, you will know everything you need to know. There is really no suspense in the movie. .

Even if a small number of people occasionally express interest in the film, it is often for the sake of "produced by Huashang".

"Looking at the trailer and the subject matter of the movie, I don't think there should be any surprises, right? But after all, it's a movie produced by Huashang Media, so I still have to go to the cinema."

"It is said that Li Mu personally decided on the outline of the script. Even if there are no surprises, at least it is stable, and I won't feel like a waste of time after reading it."

"Let's talk about it when the time comes. If the word-of-mouth is okay, go see it."

There are also a lot of comments about Director Chen Kexin.

"To be honest, I don't understand why Li Mu asked Chen Kexin to shoot. Isn't he afraid of being ruined by Huashang Media's undefeated golden body? I don't know how much the film invested. The price of a straw hat is 6000 US dollars, and you also carry a safe to prevent it from being lost—isn’t this just playing investors like monkeys?”

"It's true. I've seen related reports. It seems that some of Director Chen's films are not bad. I like "Certificate of Fame" very much, but it seems that it is not cheap. "Certificate of Fame" costs 1.4 million yuan for the actors alone. Cost $4000 million, grossed $4500 million worldwide, bloodbath!"

""Voting Certificate" is really miserable, starring Li Lianlian, but the box office in North America is only 12 US dollars, which is a new level of misery!"

""Wu Xia" invested 1.4 million yuan, and the domestic box office is only 1.7 million yuan, which is a loss!"

"It is said that "Huaxia Partner" invested more than 5000 million yuan, so it shouldn't be a loss, right? Over the years, apart from the very first "Master of Hypnotism", has Huashang Media produced a movie with a box office of less than 2 million yuan?"

"In recent years, among the films invested by Huashang, the lowest box office should be "Search" directed by Xue Xiaolu. The final box office was 2.63 million. If the investment is more than 5000 million, it will definitely not lose money."

Huang Xiaoming himself still attaches great importance to the film "Huaxia Partner".

The male lead of the Huashang film is already the best resource he has obtained in recent years. The fly in the ointment is that Li Mu directed it himself, but Chen Kexin is also a major Chinese director, so he must have high hopes for the film.

In addition, since the incident of "Troubleshooting Too Much" in 08, he has been holding a breath in his heart, saying that wherever he falls, he must get up there.

There are large sections of his own speeches in English in the film, and he just pointed at them and turned around.As for the complaints from netizens below the trailer?It doesn't matter, he knows the quality of the movie well, and he believes that he will be able to reverse the audience's prejudice and inherent impression of him this time.

Needless to say, Deng Chao and Tong Dawei are also very confident in the film.Especially Deng Chao, he felt that he had performed well this time, and if the response to the film was good after it was released, maybe he would have the chance to star in a Hua Shang film next time.

Deng Chao felt that Li Mu's impression of the couple should be pretty good, otherwise he would not have arranged for his wife Sun Li to star in "The Legend of Zhen Huan" under such great pressure.

He is very clear about the doubts about the casting of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", which put Sun Li under a lot of pressure.

As for director Chen Kexin, after losing a lot of money in a few films, even if he doesn't believe in evil anymore, he still feels somewhat guilty. Under such circumstances, Hua Shang's invitation to direct a film undoubtedly gave him a chance to recover.

Almost all of Hua Shang's films are huge profits, so he can't make money on his own, can he?The probability of this is too small!

If "Huaxia Partner" hits the box office, it can be regarded as sweeping away his previous decline.

The theater managers are still very optimistic about "Huaxia Partner". Firstly, it must be because the film is produced by Huashang. Secondly, actors such as Huang Xiaoming, Deng Chao, and Tong Dawei joined in. The lineup is not weak. Thirdly, although director Chen Kexin has no upper limit Zhang Yimou and Chen Kai are great directors, but his lower limit seems to be higher than the above two, so the new film is still worthy of trust.

Of course, theater managers have another set of criteria for judging, which is to study Li Mu's evaluation of the film in public.

When Li Mu attends various public occasions, he will inevitably face the siege and interception of reporters from all walks of life, and the reporters will often ask about Huashang Media's production or waiting for the release of the film. At this time, Li Mu Although Mu is always boasting, there is still a difference between boasting and boasting.

For example, if Li Mu commented: "It's a very good movie."

Most of the word-of-mouth is okay, but the box office performance may not be too impressive.

If Li Mu commented: "The company attaches great importance to this film."

Most of the box office is not bad.

If Li Mu said: "This is one of Hua Shang's most important films this year."

That row of films can be ranked as high as possible, because according to experience, almost all of Li Mu's words have broken records at the box office.

Li Mu's evaluation in public, cast lineup, investment scale, and publicity, the last three are the main basis for theater managers to refer to when arranging other films, and the first is the most important when arranging Huashang films. in accordance with.

According to Li Mu's comments on "Huaxia Partners" in public, combined with the situation of other films in the schedule, the final premiere schedule of "Huaxia Partners" was set at about 77%.

……

Before the national release of "Huaxia Partner", during the filming of "Send You A Little Red Flower", the person in charge of Tencent Video contacted Li Mu. It is related to the drama "Princess Concubine's Promotion".

At a price of 9000 million yuan, iQiyi customized a web drama from Huashang Media that exclusively bought out the copyright, that is, "Princess Concubine's Promotion"!
Although it is rumored that almost all the actors used in this show are newcomers, and it seems that the investment is very small, and it is said that it is less than 2000 million yuan.

With such a small investment, it was sold for 9000 million. Many people in the circle were making fun of iQiyi for being cheated by Huashang this time, including many high-level executives inside Tencent Video who also said the same in private.

But after talking about it, few people in their hearts dare to really despise this online drama that seems to have no big selling point.

As one of the main players of video sites, the executives of Tencent Video are too aware of the power of high-quality exclusive content.It is now a critical period for various video sites to compete for incremental users. Making money is not so important to each of them. As long as they can occupy a favorable position in the competition for users, it is worthwhile to burn money.

Besides, everyone bought Huashang's drama before and really didn't lose money.

So now that iQiyi has customized high-quality exclusive content here in Huashang, how will Tencent Video respond next?
Of course we have to follow!
This is the purpose of the person in charge of Tencent Video contacting Li Mu this time. They want to use the exclusive content provided by Huashang Media for Tencent Video to compete with the exclusive content provided by Huashang Media for iQiyi!
Isn't it more than 9000 million?It loves Qiyi and we can't afford Tencent Video?

"Mr. Li, you must not favor one person over another this time! Money is not a problem, but we have what iQiyi has."

After several phone conversations, the other party directly found the set of "Send You A Little Red Flower" and rented a hotel for the crew. Li Mu took the time to chat with the other party here.

"No problem, no problem, I'll arrange this as soon as I'm done with the new movie."

Huashang Media has already created quite a few TV drama scripts, but most of the scripts that Li Mu arranges and hoards in advance are works of high value.Of course, this kind of high-value work will not give up the TV platform. At this stage, the influence of video websites is far from being comparable to that of TV stations. For real high-quality works, it is definitely not worth the loss to directly give up broadcasting on TV stations.

If what Tencent Video wants today is only the online copyright of a TV series, then OK, there is no problem, Huashang Media can start a brand new TV series at any time.

But if Tencent Video also requires that the new drama can only be broadcast on one platform of his home, it will be a bit troublesome, because Li Mu has to prepare a suitable script first.

However, it is clear that Tencent is not satisfied with Li Muxin's statement that it will be scheduled after the completion of the film. If possible, it is best to release it at the same time as iQiyi's "Princess Concubine's Promotion".

In fact, Tencent Video should have come to find Li Mu a long time ago, but some time ago, the high-level adjustment of the website delayed this matter.

"I heard that iQiyi paid 9000 million yuan to buy "Princess Concubine's Promotion". This time, Tencent Video is going to spend 1 million yuan, so I ask Mr. Li to be more concerned. The sooner the project can be formally launched, the better."

Liu Yifei sat quietly next to Li Mu, and occasionally played the role of a waiter, refilling the teacup of the person in charge of Tencent Video opposite.The other party nodded slightly to express his gratitude, but his eyes remained fixed, and he basically didn't look at her.

Li Mu sniffed the unique fragrance of Liu Yifei's body, and his mind began to run at high speed.

Although big companies are willing to spend money when they enter the long-form video field, at best they will buy your work at an appropriate premium on the basis of the market price, and it is impossible to spend money blindly out of the market price.

However, at the current stage, the market price for purchasing works on video websites is not at all high enough to make the producers of the works willing to give up the income from the TV platform.

Take Huashang drama as an example. At this stage, the first round of quotations is basically between 200 million and 300 million per episode. If you add the income from the second and third rounds and continuous replays, it will be 300 million or even more. 400 million episodes went.

And after getting an episode of 400 million yuan from the TV platform, it is sold to a video website for another 300 million yuan an episode. The total revenue of such a drama is often around 700 million yuan an episode.

Let Huashang Media voluntarily give up the 400 million an episode that can be obtained on the TV station, then the video website will at least offer an offer of 700 million an episode. The question is is this possible?

Normally, it is impossible for Huashang to customize exclusive content for video sites, unless the content itself is completely impossible to broadcast on the TV station platform.

For example, "Ghost Blowing Out the Lamp" or "Inception Notes".

In short, if you must produce exclusive content for the other party, you can basically only choose those restricted themes.

By the way, the film and television copyright of "Ghost Blowing the Lantern" is also in Li Mu's hands. In fact, based on the time he traveled, he had time to copy this classic tomb-robbing work, but in the end, due to various reasons, he had to be busy with movies , but also to write science fiction, in the end did not copy.

The most important thing is that even if he doesn't copy "Ghost Blowing the Lantern", as long as he holds the relevant copyright in his hands in advance, he can also grasp most of the value of this IP.

Of course, Li Mu didn't want to customize the online drama "Ghost Blowing the Lantern" for Tencent Video this time. It's not the time yet, at least not in such a hurry.

What he thought of was actually another web drama related to ghosts, and this web drama had the same investment scale as "Princess Concubine's Promotion", and even in the previous life, the crew had written the word "poor" directly on their foreheads.

Speaking of which, this web drama is really good-looking, and the Douban score is also very good, as high as 8.7 points.

However, using this drama requires Tencent Video to spend 1 million yuan, which seems to be too dark to start.

By the way, the web drama that Li Mu thought of was "Soul Ferry".

This crew is really poor. When "Princess Concubine's Promotion" was released in the previous life, it was said that "poor". It is the selling point of "Princess Concubine's Promotion", but it may not be the truth, and the crew of this "Soul Ferry" is really poor.

"1 million is too much, or 6000 million!" Li Mu said.

"Soul Ferry 1" only has 20 episodes, and if the total price is 6000 million, 300 million per episode is already quite low. You must know that "Princess Concubine's Promotion" has as many as 36 episodes, so don't watch it The total price was sold for 9000 million yuan. In fact, the unit price of each episode is only 250 million yuan, while the price of "Soul Ferry 1" has already reached 300 million yuan per episode.

Unexpectedly, after Li Mu said that the number dropped from 1 million to 6000 million, the people from Tencent Video quit.

(End of this chapter)