China Entertainment Mythology 2004

Chapter 27 The Eve of the Screening
After returning to Xijing from Chengdu, Li Mu once again devoted himself to the post-editing of the film.

He has the original movie of his previous life as a reference in his mind, and both himself and Liu Xiaowu are old people who have worked in the film industry for nearly 20 years, and their professional level is absolutely solid. Overall very smooth.

At the end of February 2005, "Taken" completed all the post-production and submitted it for review. At this time, "Myth", which was finished earlier, was still a long way from the completion of post-production.

After the post-production of the film was completed, the investors—Xiying, Cheng Long, and Yinghuang—sat together to discuss the release details, and finally set the release time of the film in June.

Before the official release of the movie, the large-scale promotional work kicked off.

In May, Cheng Long took the two films "Myth" and "Taken" to Cannes. Xiying, Cheng Long and Yinghuang each contributed 300 million for publicity.

Of course, the purpose of going here is not to win awards. The post-production of "Myth" has not yet been completed, and it is not even qualified for the competition; although "Taken" has completed the post-production, this type of film has never been the main force to win awards.

Cheng Long's purpose of going to Cannes is very clear: one is to promote the film, and the other is to sell copyrights and discuss cooperation.

The Cannes Film Festival is not only about the red carpet and the winners and actresses, it is also the world's largest film trading market.

Li Mu did not go to Cannes to join in the fun. In the process of film production, Li Mu and Liu Xiaowu jointly had considerable influence, but in the stage of film promotion and sales, Li Mu basically had no influence.

When will the film be released, which foreign company will it cooperate with, and whether it will be a one-time buyout or a guaranteed share. Xiying and Cheng Longyinghuang each invested nearly 3000 million yuan. Where is Li Mu, a screenwriter with an investment of 50 yuan? To speak?

Since talking is insignificant, he is too lazy to join in the fun.

The crew of "Taken" went to Cannes including Liu Yifei, Liu Xiaoli, Song Jia, Xiying Film Director Yan Yiyun and others.

Jin Xishan and Liang Jiahui from the "Mythology" crew departed from South Korea and Xiangjiang respectively, while Cheng Long himself flew to Cannes by private plane from other places.

After the reconciliation of the two major crews, Cheng Long held a grand press conference on May 5 to meet media from all over the world. That night, Cheng Long held a beach party in Cannes to entertain filmmakers from all over the world. The rent for one night exceeded one million Hong Kong dollars. .

Because the post-production of "Mythology" has not been completed at this time, when meeting with the film company, the crew of "Mythology" played a 3-minute promotional video.

The movie "Taken" was invited to participate in the Cannes Film Festival's out-of-competition screening.

2005年5月11日，第58届戛纳电影节正式开幕，来自13个国家的20部电影参加奖项的角逐。

Among them, there are two Chinese-language films shortlisted: one is "Green Red" directed by Wang Xiaoshuai and starring Gao Yuanyuan, and the other is "The Best Time" by Baodao director Hou Xiaoxian.

In fact, Li Mu did not pay much attention to the news of the Cannes Film Festival. Instead of paying attention to these, it is better to pay attention to the benefits of the sales of "The Hunger Games" in the United States. 1 to 2 dollars into the account, this is a real benefit.

《饥饿游戏》英文版小说继去年12月份在美售出48万册后，今年1月份小说销量继续增长，达到57万册，然后是2月份的65万册，3月份的70万册，到4月份时月销量已经达到80万册。

The figure of monthly sales of 80 copies alone is already amazing enough, but what is even more frightening is that the current sales curve of the novel is still climbing rapidly. Monthly sales suddenly exceeded 100 million.

In 4 months, the total sales volume exceeded 300 million copies, and the total income exceeded 500 million US dollars, which is more than 05 million RMB when converted at the US dollar exchange rate in 4000. With this money, Li Mu can freely shoot his favorite movies.

When Li Mu was at home thinking about which movie to choose for his first movie entirely directed by himself, he unexpectedly received a call from Brother Cheng Long in Cannes.

It turned out that after "Taken" participated in the screening in Cannes, it received a strong response far beyond the imagination of the crew. The world's major film companies waved a lot of money to acquire all the overseas copyrights of the film.

Among them, Columbia Pictures has made the most generous purchases.

Columbia Pictures intends to buy all overseas copyrights of "Taken" in North America and Europe, including DVD and home video products, and the price is 2500 million US dollars!
The total production cost of the film is only over 6000 million RMB. Now the film has not been released yet, and only 2500 million US dollars has been recovered from the sale of overseas copyrights. Converted into RMB, it is 2 million yuan. Such a huge success has made everyone involved in "Taken" All excited.

In contrast, the market response of "Mythology", which Cheng Long reported with higher expectations, was very mediocre, and the foreign bid was even less than half of that of "Taken".

But overall Cheng Long is still very excited, after all "Taken" is also his movie.

The reason why Cheng Long called Li Mu today was not only to inform him of the good news, but also another intention.

It is this time that he does not want to follow the previous practice of selling overseas copyrights at one time, but wants to follow the current internationally accepted "revenue sharing" model for the distribution of cultural products, that is, the producer and the distributor follow the pre-determined ratio. The actual box office revenue is divided into and extracted from the respective proceeds.

But the problem is that this time the foreign businessmen offered so much that no one could easily refuse them.

With the sharing model, the income may be very high, but at the same time, there are huge risks. No one can say exactly how much the film will sell at the box office after it is released.

And if you choose the one-time sellout model, then 2500 million US dollars will be in your pocket directly.

Rationally speaking, of course, 2500 million US dollars should be chosen, but Cheng Long still wanted to hear Li Mu's opinion.

After thinking for a while, Li Mu said: "It is very appropriate to buy all the copyrights in the North American and some European markets for US$2500 million. The foreign company's bid this time is very generous. The copyright rights and interests within the same scope, Zhang Yimou's "Heroes" is also the same It sold for around $2000 million, which I think is acceptable."

Li Mu has confidence in the "Taken" movie, but he has no confidence in foreign companies.

In this world, if you sign a contract, people will definitely come according to the contract. Li Mu has every reason to believe that foreign companies can definitely make a big hit at the box office on the one hand, and on the other hand make you lose money.

So it is indeed a good choice to sell the copyrights in North America and part of Europe for US$2500 million.

Cheng Long was a little disappointed after hearing this, but he also agreed with Li Mu's words.Rationally speaking, 2500 million should indeed be chosen, but...

But in the end Cheng Long couldn't help but asked another question.

"If "Taken" was your own movie, and you could make the decision by yourself, how would you choose?"

Li Mu thought for a while and said: "If this is my own movie, I think I will choose the share."

After hearing this, Cheng Long said, "I see."

(End of this chapter)