Year: I had a good time when I was young

Chapter 540 Cinema starts construction

After selling 4 bottles of tiger bone wine, Chu Xiangqian received another HK$1200 million, feeling extremely happy.

After opening up the markets in Thailand, Oman and Kuwait, the consumption of tiger bone wine in Southeast Asia and other desert countries may double or triple in the future.

If that were the case, hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars worth of tiger bone wine could be sold every year in Southeast Asia and desert areas alone.

This is faster than printing money.

And this business can always be done as long as Chu Qianqian is alive. Prices can also rise little by little in the future.

Maybe one day in the future, a bottle of tiger bone wine from the 60s will be auctioned for hundreds of thousands.

If that's the case, then the tiger bone wine will truly rival the four major red wines.
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With sufficient funds in hand, Chu Xiangqian set his sights on the construction of Universal Studios, the racecourse street store, and two buildings.

The public bidding for design drawings attracted more than a dozen Chinese and foreign companies.

The store and two buildings facing the racecourse were easy to handle. We selected a local design team and started construction directly.

Maybe the foundations of the two buildings have not yet been laid, but the store facing the street has already been built.

Moreover, these two buildings were used to increase their value from the beginning, so there was no need to build buildings with such weird design styles.

There are too many real-life examples for reference in office buildings with more than ten floors.

As for Universal Studios, just the design of the drawings will basically not come to fruition within three to five months.

And once Chu Xiangqian was dissatisfied with the design, he would send it back and revise it, and it would take another month or two to go back and forth.

It will be considered fast to start construction next summer.

We can only decide on the design team first.

After Chu Xiangqian bought the operating rights of Universal Studios in Asia, his first thought was to build a complex of antique palaces such as the Qin Palace and the Tang Dynasty City on the set.

In the 1970s, a Song Dynasty City was built in Hong Kong Island. It was not large in scale, but theater crews moved in all year round.

And there are many tourists.

The boss of Songcheng wanted to expand several times, but unfortunately the surrounding land could not be bought.

However, with the decline of Hong Kong Film and Television and the failure of the boss's investment, Songcheng only operated for 20 years and was demolished and sold in the late 90s.

Chu Xiangqian is naturally not worried that the Universal Studios he built will go bankrupt. After the TV station is established in the future, he will definitely bid for it.

Even if the price is two or three times higher, I still have to buy the TV station’s photos.

By then, with the demand for movies and TV series, the cinema will be able to prosper for at least thirty or forty years.

In the new millennium, if the tourist group is targeted at mainland guests, the movie theater's business will not only gradually improve, but it may also prosper here for another decade or two due to the increase in mainland guests.

Besides, in the decades that Universal Pictures has been operating, there will definitely be many classic movie characters or cartoon characters.

Adding these characters to the studio can always maintain a sense of freshness.

After publishing his plans and expectations for the movie theater in a newspaper, he didn't expect that someone from China would actually contact him.

They plan to send a team of ancient architectural experts to Hong Kong Island to participate in the design tender.

Chu Xiangqian naturally welcomed this with both hands and feet.

Anyway, the prices of labor and raw materials are low these days, and with the participation of domestic big players, it won’t cost much to keep improving.

After the specially formed team of twelve people in China learned about Chu Xiangqian's request, it only took a week to come up with the drawings of the Qin Palace.

Chu looked forward and felt that it was not much different from the Qin Palace he had seen in his previous life.

And the budget is only 1200 million Hong Kong dollars, so I have basically decided to start construction.

However, agreeing too quickly is not necessarily a good thing.

Chu Xiangqian found five or six senior figures from the history department in Hong Kong to find problems with hundreds of design drawings.

Not to mention, there were so many problems. In the end, Chu simply paid for it and invited the mainland team to Hong Kong Island, so that people from both sides could discuss and study together.

After confirmation, construction of the Qin Palace began.

Later, Tang City, Song City, and even the Forbidden City imitated the Qingming River Scene.

Fortunately, after Chu Qianqian calmed down, he realized that there were too many ancient cities and they were all gathered together, basically duplicating resources.

Not many people will visit all four ancient cities.

After Chu Xiangqian temporarily handed over the design of Qin Palace to the two teams of Hong Kong Island and the default team, Margaret from London also called.

Talking about several luxury goods companies, the acquisition of trolley bag OEMs, and the purchase of patents.

During this period, after Margaret and her team contacted more than a dozen luxury goods companies, basically no one was willing to give up the patent for trolley bags.

Even if some people are unwilling to give Chu Xiangqian, Standard Chartered Bank, Hader, and Ge Bai shares in their own companies for the purpose of acquiring a luggage factory.

But no one would be foolish enough to give up the patent for trolley bags. At the very least, they must obtain the production authorization for trolley bags.

Otherwise, within a few years, travel bags will be taken over by companies that have patented them and occupy the vast majority of the market share.

Others expanded aggressively and obtained high profits from the monopoly, but they could only watch helplessly as their luggage business slowly shrank, even affecting the sales of other bags under the company.

Everyone knows how to choose.

The trolley bag factory and company are priced at 500 million pounds, and the patent is priced at 500 million pounds.

In the end, five companies, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel, and Armani, joined forces to buy the foundry and patents.

Chu Xiangqian originally thought about getting OEM contracts from these luxury goods companies, but he was not stupid and knew that the profits of OEM did not seem to be high. But as long as the number of OEMs reaches a certain level, you can earn a lot of money.

And to be honest, labor in Europe and the United States in the 60s was actually not expensive, at least not as outrageous as it would be a few decades later.

Chu Xiangqian saw that Standard Chartered Bank, Hader and other ghosts had no objections. He simply did not want to waste energy on foundries and could just be a shareholder with peace of mind.

And he is a shareholder of 5 luxury goods companies.

After obtaining 5% to 4% of the shares of five companies, Chu Xiangqian paid no attention to anything and injected all the shares of these companies into the M&S fund under his and Margaret's initials.

In addition, attending shareholder meetings and other matters from now on will be left to Margaret.

Once the news breaks that Margaret is the shareholder representative of these five companies, it will instantly detonate the European and American fashion circles.

This made Margaret so excited that she wanted to run to Hong Kong Island and find Chu Qianqian to have a good intimacy with her.

Fortunately, Chu Xiangqian made an excuse and said that the post-production of the movie "The Honey Girl" co-produced by him, Magnesium Music and Decca Records was about to be completed.

Let’s get together at the Los Angeles ranch in a few days to avoid the hassle of flying back and forth.

Margaret knew Chu Xiangqian's scruples, so she could only agree to meet in Los Angeles a few days later. Before I knew it, it was the end of January, and it was only half a month since I left for the Chinese New Year.

Chu Xiangqian had already told Xiao Lan'er and Hong Kong Sheng that he would go to Hollywood to watch the finished film of "Pear Girl" in person.

Xue Jinglan and Hong Kong Sheng didn't think much about it. They just begged Chu Xiangqian to return to the capital to accompany them as soon as possible. Otherwise, neither of them would dare to live in the big house with three entrances at the front door.

There are only two solutions now.

Either take Sister Tao and Zhao Di to the capital together, or Xue Jinglan and Gang Sheng live in the east wing of the front yard of the courtyard in Luogu Lane.

Hong Kong Sheng and Xue Jinglan were willing to live in a courtyard, but Feifei decided not to do so.

Linda and Alyssa have no interest in the Chinese New Year, but this girl Feifei has hinted more than once recently, and finally said directly that she wanted to celebrate the New Year with Chu Xiangqian.

As for Feifei's biological mother, she now has a new family, so she and her husband will naturally spend the New Year in the New Territories.

Seeing that Chu Xiangqian planned to return to the capital for the New Year, but did not say whether he would take her back, Feifei felt anxious.

First, I asked Ewon to be my helper and asked Xue Jinglan what she meant.

Now Xue Jinglan was also in a dilemma.

Feifei had been to the capital and had some money, so she had no problem with food and accommodation. However, Xue Jinglan took Hong Kong Sheng to live in a big house, leaving Feifei to stay alone in a hotel during the Chinese New Year.

Xue Jinglan really couldn't do this kind of thing.

In the end, I had no choice but to call myself and call Feifei to the mansion on the top of the mountain.

The car had just entered the big house. Ehime, who was on good terms with Feifei and got along well with her, pulled Feifei, who had just gotten off the car, outside the main house and muttered for a while before the two entered the big house.

After some polite greetings and lunch, the card game began.

This time Feifei tried her best to please Xue Jinglan. Eyuan and Hong Kong students on the side saw Feifei's pleading expression and simply listened to the cards. Unless it was a big beard, they would just ignore it.

Instead, split the cards and become a big beard.

Now Xue Jinglan felt that her luck in the afternoon was ridiculously strong, and she felt happy. In the evening, she not only kept Feifei at the mansion on the top of the mountain for dinner, but also asked Chu Qianqian, who had gone home for dinner, if she wanted to take Feifei back to the capital for the New Year. ?

Feifei was immediately ecstatic and looked at Chu Qianqian with a face full of supplication.

Unexpectedly, Chu Qianqian shook his head, just when Xue Jinglan, Hong Kong Sheng, and Eyuan looked puzzled, and Feifei looked miserable.

Chu Xiangqian continued, "The movie "Miss Millie" involves my overall plan for Universal Pictures. This time when I go to Hollywood, I have to bring the elite of the newspaper company with me.

It’s not a movie to hype up before it’s released.

So not only Feifei will follow me to Hollywood first, but more than 20 people from newspapers and film companies will also fly there together.

After the movie is released, around the time of my childhood, I will take Feifei to fly back to the capital. "

This time it was Xue Jinglan and Hong Kong Sheng's turn to pout. Although Feifei was ecstatic, she did not dare to show too many smiles on her face.

He could only tell Xue Jinglan that he would take good care of Chu Xiangqian's food and daily life, and also hinted that he would prevent him from misbehaving outside.

As soon as these words came out, Xue Jinglan and Hong Kong Sheng smiled.

The two little daughters-in-law have long realized that their men are just like cattle. If they hadn't occasionally spent the night outside, both Xue Jinglan and Hong Kong Sheng felt that even if they joined forces, they would be torn apart by Chu Xiangqian.

So it doesn't seem like a bad thing to have Feifei following.

Ehime curled her lips, knowing at a glance that her eldest brother must be looking for an excuse, maybe to go to Hollywood to have a private meeting with the princess in London.

Ehime lived at the ranch for more than a month and became so close to Sophia.

After one of them learned some English and the other could speak some Mandarin, Ehime naturally knew a lot about Chu Xiangqian.

Margaret did not keep her identity secret while she was at the ranch.

Sophia not only mentioned Margaret to Ehime, but also told Chu Xiangqian that he was attacked by Los Angeles gangs at the ranch.

Two days later, Chu Xiangqian put Xue Jinglan, Hong Kong Sheng, Aiyuan and the three sisters Zhaodi on the plane back to the capital together, who were willing to follow.

Then he took Feifei, Zhang Tianzhi, Tony Jia, Yuan Hua, Zhou Billy, Kumiko, Olivia, and 20 people from newspapers and film companies, and chartered a direct flight to Los Angeles.

Wrinkle Huai and He Guanchang who picked him up at the airport originally planned to send Chu Qianqian back to the ranch to rest for a day or two.

But it's already February 2rd, less than two weeks before the Chinese New Year, and the movie "Pear Girl" is only released in five days.

I took people directly to the office building of Universal Studios first.

While he was accompanied by several senior executives from Universal to watch the finished film, people from Decca Records and Magnesium Music also hurried to Universal Pictures.

After the movie was played, Chu Xiangqian was actually a little disappointed, but in the eyes of people from Universal, Decca and Magnesium Music, the box office of this movie was expected to be at least over 10 million US dollars.

In other words, the box office alone should be enough to break even.

Chu Xiangqian knew in his heart that if nothing unexpected happened, the box office of this movie would be less than 1700 million.

But if there is some news before the release and more people know about the movie, it will easily exceed 2 million at the box office.

Maybe 25 million US dollars, we can also look forward to it.

If this is the case, after investing US$400 million, only US$240 million was actually spent on the film, and then a full US$160 million was embezzled from the film.

In the end, profits may double.

Let's not talk about the music of Magnesia at that time, at least Decca Records will definitely favor Chu Xiangqiang in future film projects.

He would even take the initiative to let Chu Xiangqian take charge of the film business to counter Magnesium Music's offensive on controlling Universal Pictures.

After the lights in the theater came on, Universal General Manager Mike Hellman asked Chu Qianqian bluntly, "Chu, what do you think the final box office will be?"

Chu Xiangqian thought for a while and finally said, "It should be more than 1500 million US dollars."

As soon as these words came out, not only the people from Decca Records and Magnesium Music showed smiles on their faces, but the leading actors and directors on the crew were also overjoyed.

On the contrary, it was the people from Universal Pictures who had an ugly expression on their faces.

Chu Xiangqian knew that he regretted not investing in this movie.

However, the three investors in this project are all major shareholders of Universal Pictures. They asked Universal to be responsible for distribution, not to mention that the management was not optimistic at the beginning.

Even if the management is optimistic, if the three shares are added together and more than 9 layers of shareholders are united, the whole company will have no choice but to obey its orders.

Chu Xiangqian could roughly guess the calculations of Universal's management. Only when the company's profitable movies appear, they, the management, can get bonuses.

He smiled and patted Mike Hellman on the shoulder and said, "If the box office really reaches 1500 million US dollars, I will suggest that the board of directors give the management and crew a bonus.

If the box office can exceed 2 million, I guarantee that Decca Records, Magnesium Music and I will give you due rewards for your efforts. "

(End of this chapter)