Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

Zhou Ziheng's words were half true and half false.

He does plan to make a new film this year, in which he will star.

The film project is "The Man from Lone Star" which was previously planned to be filmed and released during the Spring Festival.

He has not yet determined the specific investment budget for this project, but with his current fame, his salary alone for playing the leading role would be a huge sum of money.

So he wasn't lying when he said he had a big project.

However, it is not an exaggeration to say that the company has no money to invest in "The Emperor's Ode" to be considered a lie.

The maximum investment for "The Man from Nowhere" was about 30 million. Taking away 30 million, it is obviously impossible to say that Hengyu has no money.

"Boss Zhou, can't you think of a solution?"

Zhou Xiaowen was obviously unwilling to give up and tried to persuade Zhou Ziheng.

Shaking his head, Zhou Ziheng refused again, "I really can't do anything about your project."

After thinking about it, he decided to tell him something more practical, "I still say that, actually, you don't need to invest too much in this project.

Forty million is already a lot.

As an investor, I need to consider whether the film can make a profit.

An investment of 40 million is already considered a big project, not to mention in the mainland, even in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

If I invest more, how can I make my money back on this film?"

Although his words were a bit rough, Zhou Ziheng was telling the truth.

To be honest, even if the project "Song of Qin" was not banned in the mainland, it would be difficult to make a profit.

With an investment of 40 million, the box office revenue must be at least 80 million to break even.

Indeed, this box office result is not difficult to achieve if all regions in Asia are combined.

Even if the box office doesn't reach that figure, with the addition of the video tape market, it's very likely that they'll get 80 million.

However, there is a prerequisite here, that is, the film must be attractive.

That means there must be a cast.

Don’t underestimate the fact that “Tazza” easily earned Hengyu over 40 million, the total revenue in Asia accumulated to over 100 million.

But in fact, "Tazza" is an exception.

The main reason for the success of this film is that Zhou Ziheng played the leading role.

To a certain extent, the reason why this movie sold well in other places is due to Zhou Ziheng's appeal.

But can he do it in "Song of Qin"?
Obviously it can't be done.

Let alone Qin Song, "The Conjuring" is amazing! This movie earned more than 36 million in Hong Kong, which is a big hit.

But in fact, apart from Hong Kong, this movie only performed well in Taiwan and Singapore.

Otherwise, the Japanese market has little interest in this drama.

Even South Korea has little interest in this drama.

To put it bluntly, no matter where it is, a good movie will not necessarily achieve good results.

If the starring cast is not attractive enough, no matter how good the movie is, it may not necessarily achieve good results.

The box office performance of the movie "The Conman" in Hong Kong was much better than that of "Tazza", but the result was that the profit brought to Hengyu by this movie was not as great as that of "Tazza".

This drama ultimately earned Hengyu around 24 million.

This is the case with "The Conjuring", not to mention "Eternal Love".

The protagonists of the movie are Jiang Wen and Ge You.

Do you think they are famous?
Indeed, they are indeed well-known in the mainland film industry.

However, outside of the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places, Zhou Ziheng is not belittling them, they really cannot attract box office revenue.

In this situation, investing 40 million is actually a risk.

If Zhou Ziheng makes additional investments, he would really be a fool and a victim of abuse.

Hong Kong and Taiwan have no appeal, so it is unknown whether this movie can get good box office results, not to mention that the movie will be taken off the shelves in mainland China after only four days of release.

In this situation, Zhou Ziheng would not be a fool.

Zhou Xiaowen failed to achieve his goal, and the atmosphere at the dinner began to become somewhat cold.

Zhou Ziheng didn't care. After finishing his meal and saying goodbye to everyone, he was the first to leave the restaurant.

He doesn’t know whether Zhou Xiaowen will look for other people to attract investment.

But Zhou Ziheng felt that no one would be foolish enough to invest again.

Forty million in the 1990s was already a high-risk project. No one would be foolish enough to invest more.

In the evening, Jiang Wen made a special call to Zhou Ziheng.

This time it was not to persuade Zhou Ziheng to invest in "The Qin Emperor", but to apologize.

"I am the protagonist of this project. Director Zhou knows that I have a good relationship with you, so he specially asked me to be a lobbyist.

You know, I tend to make mistakes when I'm drunk, so after he got me drunk, I agreed to do this.

If you don’t want to vote, then don’t vote. I hope this won’t cause any rift between us.”

“I didn’t take it seriously, but next time someone really wants to seek investment, don’t get involved and let them submit their resumes directly to my company.

If it is a good project, our company will not turn a blind eye to it.

As for the bad projects…”

……

The next day Zhou Ziheng still failed to leave.

Zhang Yimou came to the door early in the morning.

"Mr. Zhou, I have thought about what you told me last time. We can cooperate."

In the hotel room, Zhang Yimou came in and sat down and started speaking directly.

"Haha! I knew you would agree. Then, happy cooperation!"

Hearing this, Zhou Ziheng smiled.

After the release of "The Conjuring", Zhou Ziheng specifically talked to Zhang Yimou.

He said that he could invest in Zhang Yimou to set up a film and television company.

Zhang Yimou was a little hesitant about this matter at the time, and only now has he thought it through.

Zhou Ziheng actually gave careful consideration to the matter of investing in Zhang Yimou.

He didn't do much research on Zhang Yimou in his previous life.

The main reason is that he doesn't like watching Zhang Yimou's movies very much.

However, this did not affect his investment in Zhang Yimou.

Zhang Yimou was later crowned with the title of "National Master". He had a movie to shoot almost every year, and many of his movies won foreign awards.

This fully demonstrates that there is still a market for Zhang Yimou.

Without the market, he would not be able to become one of the great directors in China. Without making money, no one would invest in him to make movies.

In the film industry, commercial films are not necessarily the only ones that can make money!

Look at Wong Kar-wai. His movie box office seems to be booming, but there are still people paying him money to make movies.

Of course, some of them are laundering money.

But it is also true that his plays have a market.

Moreover, Zhang Yimou is not a purely literary director.

He is capable of directing commercial films, and "The Conjuring" is proof of that.

Therefore, Zhou Ziheng decided to hold the Zhang Yimou card in his hand.

If he doesn't hold it in his hand, I think there will be a lot of people who are willing to do so.

That’s Zhang Weiping.

Zhou Ziheng heard Zhang Yimou say more than once that he had a good relationship with Zhang Weiping.

Zhou Ziheng remembered that Zhang Yimou's new picture was jointly invested and established by Zhang Weiping and him. If he didn't seize the time to grab Zhang Yimou first, it might not be long before Zhang Yimou was fooled away by Zhang Weiping.

Therefore, he deliberately offered very good conditions to support Zhang Yimou in starting a company.

Some people may ask, why not just recruit Zhang Yimou into the company.

To be honest, this is not realistic.

It is impossible to ask a great director like Zhang Yimou to condescend to join other companies.

Big directors like them are extremely arrogant.

It is said that when people go to higher places, water flows to lower places.

How could they, who have already become big directors, be willing to go downhill and work for others?

Therefore, Zhou Ziheng did not even mention asking him to work for him, but directly invested in him to start a company.

Just like Tsui Hark's [Film Studio], I give you power, give you creative freedom, and give you the status of a boss.

All you have to do is that the only investor in your movie is me.

"Since you have made up your mind, build the company as soon as possible!"

Zhou Ziheng was happy that he had recruited another great general from the East.

The two began to talk in detail about the new company.

It took a few hours to finalize the details of establishing this film company.

The name of the new company was given by Zhang Yimou.

It’s very interesting, it has the same name as Zhang Yimou’s film company in his previous life, which was called New Picture Film Company.

The founding capital of New Picture Film Company was 5 million, all of which was provided by Hengyu Investment under Zhou Ziheng's name.

In terms of the company's shareholding, Hengyu Investment holds 51% and Zhang Yimou holds 40%.

The remaining 9% will be reserved as rewards for key personnel who will join the company in the future.

In terms of division of functions, Zhou Ziheng assigned people to be responsible for planning and distribution, while Zhang Yimou was fully responsible for filming the film.

Of course, there won’t be much left of the five million in funds after hiring employees, purchasing equipment, etc. during the company’s establishment period.

Therefore, if the company wants to make a movie, it must attract investment.

These investments were provided by Hengyu Films, owned by Zhou Ziheng.

In other words, Zhou Ziheng will earn money twice.

New Picture Films is a production company, and he owns 51% of the shares, so he wants to get a share of the production profits.

Hengyu Films is the investor. If the movie makes money, the investor must also get money.

In addition, as the distributor, Hengyu Cinemas will also make a profit.

Zhou Ziheng's model was not the first of its kind. Currently, most film companies around the world use this model.

This was the case with the then famous Cinema City in Hong Kong.

Princess Jin played even more extravagantly at that time.

Princess Jin first established a shell company with Mai Jia, in which Princess Jin held 51% of the shares and Mai Jia held 49% of the shares.

Then, Princess Jin and Michael Mai used this shell company to acquire a 72% stake in Cinema City.

The remaining 28% was given to Shek Tien and Wong Jing.

Well, the reason why Wong Jing was dissatisfied with the share distribution of Cinema City was that he only had 8%, making him a typical high-level employee.

The collaboration between Zhou Ziheng and Zhang Yimou is actually similar to that between Princess Golden and Mai Jia.

After the company is established, as long as it develops well, Zhang Yimou will be one of the big bosses.

It's impossible for him not to work hard.

After all, he is one of the bosses. If he wants to make money, he has to work hard to make movies.

After roughly determining some basic regulations of the company, the next step is the issue of the company's entrepreneurship.

Zhang Yimou was obviously well prepared and directly took out a script called "If You Are the One", please Let Me Talk It Out.

This is a comedy film adapted from Shu Ping's short story "Evening News". It tells the story of a young man named Zhao Xiaoshuai who fanatically pursues a beautiful girl named An Hong in a peculiar way, thus triggering a story of humor and social implications.

Zhou Ziheng took a quick look at the script and found the story structure to be good, so he did not refuse and asked Zhang Yimou how much investment he needed.

"I roughly calculated that it might cost no less than 25 million."

Zhang Yimou felt a little embarrassed when he said this.

He even felt a little ashamed of himself for asking for 25 million right away.

This figure is already a very large investment in the mainland.

Zhou Ziheng was silent for a moment.

Twenty-five million is indeed an amount that needs to be considered.

However, after considering it, Zhou Ziheng nodded.

"I will notify Hengyu Films and ask them to review the project as soon as possible and then transfer the money."

In fact, Zhou Ziheng was still a little worried about the failure of this project.

But what’s the saying?

I can't bear to let the child catch the wolf.

It is impossible to tie down Zhang Yimou without paying something.

At worst, if this movie fails, he can provide the script for the next one.

However, it doesn't necessarily mean failure.

"If You Are the One", although Zhou Ziheng has not seen this movie, he has some impression of it, and it seems to be one of Zhang Yimou's works.

He didn't know whether he made any money or not.

Anyway, movie investment itself is risky, and it is unlikely to make money safely.

So, it’s better to let Zhang Yimou give it a try.

If it fails, the worst that can happen is a loss of more than 20 million.

But if they can tie down Zhang Yimou, they will definitely make more money in the future.

Zhou Ziheng was not involved in the project of "If You Are the One", he just gave it the title of producer, and all other work was handled by Zhang Yimou himself.

However, it will probably take some time for this project to start filming. The establishment of the New Picture Company will take some time. Coupled with other miscellaneous matters, the filming of the movie will not start until at least the second half of the year.

After finishing his business in Beijing, Zhou Ziheng was finally able to rush back to Guangzhou.

However, he didn't stay there for more than two days before leaving for another trip abroad.

I first went to Singapore to attend this year's Singapore Golden Melody Awards.

He won the Best Male Vocalist and Best Album awards at this award ceremony.

After attending the Singapore Golden Melody Awards, he did not return to China, but flew directly to the United States to shoot MVs for several hit songs of his English album.

"My Love" is the name of this album, and the title song has the same name.

The album's several main music videos were invested by emi Records.

EMI did not do it half-heartedly just because it was not their job, but invested a lot of money.

There are three MVs in total, and they invested US$400,000 in each MV, totaling US$1.2 million.

Although the investment in this MV cannot compare to the several million dollars invested in Michael Jackson's MV.

But it is a relatively large investment.

With a large investment budget, shooting a MV naturally seems luxurious.

This time, the heroine of Zhou Ziheng’s MV is finally not just a supporting role casually pulled in by the film guild.

One of them is Cameron Diaz, who became famous in Hollywood with "The Mask" two years ago and is known for her sexiness.

Zhou Ziheng didn't know how EMI invited her.

The fact is, this popular actress became the heroine of his MV "My Love".

(End of this chapter)