The king of ghost horse comedy

Chapter 315 Film and Television Priority Adaptation Right

Huang Ying couldn't help being stunned, and then smiled, "Mr. Xu is joking, how can my work be so good that it can make people look at it and adapt it to a film and television drama?"

Gu Long can be regarded as the Taishan Beidou in the world of martial arts authors, and his novels have only recently been adapted to the screen by Xu.Not to mention lesser-known authors like Huang Ying.

In fact, apart from Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Wen Ruian, very few martial arts novels by other authors have been adapted into film and television dramas.

Except that the novels written by those authors are not popular enough, even under the sign of adapting novels.In addition to not necessarily attracting the audience, another point is that the storyline may not be stronger than the script written by the screenwriter.You must know that even in the martial arts novels written by many famous authors, the stories are very routine.Whether it's revenge or aspiring to be the leader of the martial arts, it's the same, and there is no uniqueness.

And these routines can be written by just a few screenwriters, and there is no need to pay copyright fees. For investors, it is a matter of worry and effort.And even if sometimes some works of famous artists are borrowed, they can be changed without paying copyright fees.

For example, the TV series "Lotus Fighting Hegemony" produced in Singapore combines Jin Yong's "Swordsman" and Gu Long's "Meteor Butterfly Sword". People with a discerning eye can see it at a glance. become even more difficult.

Those famous martial arts novels are treated like this, let alone Huang Ying, who is not very energetic.

Xu Guanwu smiled after hearing Huang Ying's words, "In this case, are you willing to sell the film and television adaptation rights to our company?"

Huang Ying couldn't help but widen his eyes when he heard this, "Mr. Xu, are you serious, or are you joking?" He couldn't believe his ears, and couldn't help but stammered.

"Of course it's true, I'm not joking." Xu Guanwu nodded.

"Hey, you're well developed today." Lian Mosheng patted Huang Ying's shoulder excitedly and said, "Since Mr. Xu has already opened his mouth, why don't you hurry up and agree?"

Huang Ying was stunned by the sudden good news. When he was at a loss, fortunately Lian Mosheng reminded him, so he nodded and agreed.

"How many copies of Mr. Huang's "Heroes Shen Shengyi" are there?" Xu Guanwu asked again.

In the past, writers of martial arts novels only wrote stories in one book, such as "The Legend of Condor Heroes" and "Liancheng Jue" by Jin Yong.

But it probably started because of Gu Long. Now the novel is a chapter. One protagonist and one book are divided into many stories. Although the stories do not have much overlap, the main characters are consistent, such as "Chu Liuxiang" and "Lu Xiaofeng". etc.

Huang Ying's "Hero Shen Shengyi" series, Wen Rui'an's "Four Famous Catchers" series, etc., are all such writing modes.One advantage of this writing mode is that it is convenient for booksellers to package books into volumes without affecting readers' reading.But the disadvantage is that the copyright is too scattered, and it is inconvenient to be adapted into a TV series.

For example, Wen Rui'an's "Four Famous Detectives" had three works within two years, "Four Famous Detectives in Kanto", "Four Famous Detectives Fighting Generals", and "Four Famous Detectives Meeting the Capital" competed for beauty.Judging from the momentum, it seems that the upsurge of Wen Rui'an's novel adaptation has arrived, and he will become another famous writer who has adapted a large number of works after Jin Yong and Gu Long.

But it is a pity that this grand occasion only lasted for two short years before it died down. Of course there are many reasons, but one of the reasons is that his copyright is too scattered.Sign a few books to this publishing house, and sign a few books to that publishing house. After everyone has the copyright, the film and television companies are unwilling to invest in adaptation.

It's like the filming of "Famous Catchers in Kanto" became popular here, and other film and television companies saw Lie Xinxie, and immediately bought the right to adapt another novel from other channels, and filmed "Four Famous Catchers".With the name of the Four Famous Detectives, it can also get good ratings with the help of the previous hit.But in this way, it is obviously taking advantage of the previous company, but even if he knows it is so, the lawsuit cannot be fought.

You have the copyright and I also have the copyright. You filmed "Famous Catchers Shocking Kanto" and I filmed "Four Famous Catchers". Although the protagonists are all four famous hunters, the stories are different, so it is not a true story. plagiarize your work.This will naturally damage the interests of the film and television company, and over time, no one is willing to adapt such trivial martial arts novels.

It's like Gu Long's novels, which were popular for a while in the 80s and [-]s, although many of them were successfully adapted.But after Gu Long passed away, the adaptation of his novels fell into a stagnant stage, and only occasionally TV dramas were adapted.It's not like Jin Yong's old man's novels at all, TVB version, Taiwan version, Singapore version, Zhang Jizhong version... One version and another version are constantly being filmed.

The big reason is that the copyrights of Gu Long's novels are in chaos. They are also novels with Chu Liuxiang as the protagonist, and they were sold to several companies.As a result, this one also claimed that he had the copyright, and that one also claimed that he had the copyright. The result was that no film and television company was willing to step into the muddy water, and he had good works for nothing, but no one was willing to invest.

"Hero Shen Shengyi has now written No.12, as long as readers like it, I will continue to write it." Huang Ying replied with a smile.

When he mentioned his work, the young man seemed much more at ease, and a smile appeared on his face.

Xu Guanwu couldn't help smiling, "Okay, I want all the twelve books of yours, and if you publish the "Heroes Shen Shengyi" series in the future, they will also be sold to me first."

"Thank you, Mr. Xu, thank you, Mr. Xu." After hearing this, Huang Ying happily bowed to Xu Guanwu.But after talking carefully, Huang Ying realized that what he thought was too beautiful.

What Xu Guanwu wanted to sign with him was only the priority of film and television adaptation rights, that is, after paying a small sum of money, Xu would have the priority of film and television adaptation rights of the "Heroes Shen Shengyi" series, and this right was preliminarily set for a five-year period.Within five years, if Xu does not adapt the "Heroes Shen Shengyi" series, then Huang Ying can take back the right to adapt the film and television.

If Xu's adapts "Heroes Shen Shengyi" within five years, then Huang Ying will have to pay another copyright fee.This copyright fee is a lot of money.

Xu Guanwu also learned this method from Hollywood. The American publishing industry is very developed, and many books are published every year, and the sales volume is generally very high.As for books that have received good feedback from readers, or books that are considered worthy of adaptation, the film and television company will pay for the priority rights to adapt the film and television, and then the book will be stored in the script library.

Because film and television priority adaptation rights do not cost much, many film and television companies or producers will stockpile a batch of books and wait for the right time to adapt them into film and television dramas.The author will be paid another fee when the adaptation is made, and part of the share will be given after the film is released.

The copyright fee given during the adaptation is not too high, and the author's loss is made up for by the box office share.But if investors are really optimistic about this work, they don't want to give the author a share after the box office hits, and they want to buy out the author's copyright, then they need to pay a lot of money.It is much higher than the priority of film and television adaptation rights and the cost of film and television adaptation rights. Even novels of average quality will be sold at a high price, which is also to protect the rights and interests of authors.

Huang Ying sold Xu Guanwu the priority rights to film and television adaptation of 1000 "Shen Shengyi" series novels at a fee of 1 Hong Kong dollars each.

The reason why Xu Guanwu didn't buy the copyright of "Heroes Shen Shengyi" in one go is that besides the fact that the company does not lack stories and scripts recently, there is also a more important point that he wants to introduce some advanced mechanisms for Hong Kong movies.For example, the priority rights for film and television adaptation, the film and television company only paid a small amount of money to buy this right, it seems that the interests of the authors are damaged.

In fact, in the long run, this is beneficial to the author, because if the film and television companies use this trick to buy all the film and television adaptation rights of best-selling books, the author will first have a share of income.Although this income seems a little small, it is better than nothing.And this also gives the author the opportunity to adapt his works. Although the chance is a little slim, it is a great incentive for those lesser-known authors.

With both material and spiritual incentives, the author's willingness to write books is naturally stronger.And in order to have the possibility of adapting the book that he bought, the author will naturally put more effort into writing the book.Because if the author releases good books continuously, the chances of his works being adapted will be greatly increased.It's like Stephen King, the king of American horror fiction.

The steady stream of best-selling novels has not only greatly increased his own fame, but also greatly increased the fame of his novels.In this way, the chances of the work being adapted will be greatly increased.It's a very virtuous cycle.

However, authors in Hong Kong rarely enjoy this kind of treatment. Almost all of their works are adapted and put on the screen after they become famous.At this time, for those authors, this kind of behavior is purely icing on the cake, and the Hollywood kind is called timely help.

Xu Guanwu just hoped to use this method to dig out more talented young talents like Huang Ying who are not valued by others, and increase their chances of success.

Today, after the priority rights to adapt the twelve films of the "Shen Shengyi" series are sold, I believe that Huang Ying will be more careful when writing "Shen Shengyi" in order to make the adaptation of these twelve novels successful as soon as possible. become more beautiful.

……

At first, Lian Mosheng was also a little confused about Xu Guanwu's acquisition of the priority of film and television adaptation rights instead of film and television adaptation rights, but when he later found out that the quality of the subsequent chapters of the "Shen Shengyi" series of novels sent by Huang Ying had greatly improved, he couldn't help but suddenly realized I lament that the boss's wisdom is really high.

……

After Huang Ying took over the task of Romance of Hong Kong Film History, he read the relevant materials of Hong Kong Film History.However, because Hong Kong film history materials have not been paid much attention to, the materials are relatively scattered, and no one has compiled them in a unified way, which also brings a certain degree of difficulty to Huang Ying's writing.

Fortunately, Lian Mosheng knew that this was the first time he had written such a highly realistic work, so he specially sent two seniors to help him answer questions, saving him a lot of time searching for information.This allowed his writing speed to increase a lot, and he was able to deliver the manuscript before the final typesetting.

After all the manuscripts were complete, Lian Mosheng immediately arranged for art layout, and after the last review, after confirming that there were no omissions, he took them to the printing factory for printing.

In order to reflect the high quality of "Oriental Phantom", Xu Guanwu specially used relatively expensive coated paper for printing, which brought greater cost pressure.

In the same period, other magazines in Hong Kong used offset paper for the cover and inside pages, and all the rest used newsprint.After all, newsprint is cheaper, and the price of coated paper is four to five times that of newsprint.

The first issue of "Oriental Phantom" was printed with a total of [-] copies, which is also the sales volume of ordinary magazines in Hong Kong.The sales volume of each issue of "Ming Pao Weekly", "Fire Unicorn" and "Zanghua Pavilion" is more than [-] copies, which is not weaker than that of the best-selling newspapers.

In terms of selling price, Xu Guanwu set the price at ten Hong Kong dollars, which was two yuan more expensive than "Ming Pao Weekly", "Southland Movies", and "Golden Harvest Movies".However, one is printed on coated paper, and the other is printed on newsprint. The cost is different, so the price is also different.

(End of this chapter)