Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 329 Buying a Company

That night, Zhang Chen appeared on a flight to Los Angeles.

Beijing is 10059 kilometers away from Los Angeles, and the entire flight takes 12 hours. When Zhang Chen had nothing to do along the way, he was still thinking about what Cheng Long said.

How should "District 4" be filmed?
He definitely wants to incorporate this movie into the sequence of the agent universe, but he still needs to think carefully about how to connect them.

The plane took off from Beijing, flew over Tianjin, then the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, and arrived over South Korea.

It then flew over Japan, entered the Pacific Ocean, then the Bering Sea and Alaska, and finally entered American airspace from the west coast and landed at Los Angeles International Airport.

Los Angeles International Airport is one of the top five airports in the United States, with a constant flow of passengers all year round.

It was Diane who came to pick us up at the airport again.

"Boss, long time no see~"

"Diane, you are different every time I see you. This time you are much more beautiful than last time~"

"Haha, thank you for the compliment, but all this is thanks to the mani you brought. If you have money, women will be younger~"

"Then I wish you can earn more and more mani~"

"It depends on you, boss~"

In the past year, several of Zhang Chen's films have been big hits in the United States, which has greatly improved her status and made her a lot of money.

You know, she gets dividends.

Zhang Chen was even happier because the more Dai An earned, the more he earned.

"This way please~"

Diane led Zhang Chen to the side of the road, and then an extended Cadillac stopped in front of them.

While Zhang Chen was still wondering, the driver got out of the car, opened the door, and Diane smiled beside him.

"Is this...our car?"

Diane smiled and nodded, but still added, "Rented."

Well, it seems that Diane has given him quite the style.

Entering the Cadillac, the space inside was very large and the sofa was very comfortable. Diane sat next to him.

Zhang Chen saw a book on the table - "Twilight".

Dai An also noticed Zhang Chen's expression, "Boss, the sales of this book you asked me to pay attention to have increased significantly recently..."

"Twilight", a must-play copy of Meiyu, is a model of making a small investment for a big gain.

“Have you obtained the copyright?”

"Not yet~"

Diane hesitated for a moment and then said, "The first volume of Twilight was published in April, and it sold very well, selling millions of copies in a few weeks, and even ranked fifth on the New York Times bestseller list.

But what I want to say is that I do not recommend you to acquire the film and television rights to this novel. There are too many youth novels about vampires, with at least dozens of similar novels released every year.

And its author, Stephenie Meyer, is a very difficult person..."

"Oh, so difficult?"

All of Zhang Chen’s information about "Twilight" came from later generations, and he had never paid attention to the author of the original work.

“As I said before, this kind of vampire youth theme is not favored by film studios, and the Big Six has never taken a liking to it.

Then a small company under Paramount contacted Stephenie Meyer, wanting to get the film and television adaptation rights and adapt it into an action movie, but Stephenie Meyer refused. This woman demanded that the adaptation must follow the original work, that is, love, and nothing else can be mixed in..."

"So even if I get the rights to adapt the film, I can only shoot it the way she wants?"

"Yes."

Diane had a speechless expression: "Moreover, the track of best-selling book adaptation is not as good as you think. You only see that the Harry Potter series is a big hit, but in fact, many movies adapted from best-selling books lose money, the most famous of which is Dragon Rider. In my opinion, Twilight is not a good project in any aspect. I suggest you be cautious..."

Diane believes that Zhang Chen saw the success of "Harry Potter" and wanted to replicate the same type of "Twilight", but she thinks the possibility of success in adapting best-selling books is very low, otherwise why don't the Big Six do it?

Zhang Chen didn’t know how to convince the other party. From Diane’s point of view, it was indeed the case.

"Interview with the Vampire", Tom Cruise + Brad Pitt, cost $6000 million, global box office only exceeded $ million...

"Bram Stoker's Dracula," by Francis Ford Coppola, also failed at the box office...

"Van Helsing", Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, $1.6 million production cost, Hollywood A-level production, global box office less than $3 million...

Dragon Rider, produced by 7500th Century Fox at a cost of $ million, and its promotion and marketing cost another $ million. However, the total global box office was less than $ million, and only $ million in North America. It can be said that it lost a lot of money...

What Diane said seemed to be correct. In fact, Zhang Chen should be thankful for having such a good employee who knew how to stop the boss from squandering money.

But he has the memory of later generations and knows too well the money-making ability of "Twilight".

Yes, if it wasn’t a recognized bad project, how could it be Summit Entertainment’s turn to take over.

Summit Entertainment is a company that cannot be any smaller. It was founded in 93 and has only produced two successful works in its life, one is the Twilight series and the other is The Hurt Locker.

"Listen to me, Diane, Twilight will definitely become one of the most profitable film series in history." "But..."

"I know, and I also know that the manuscript of Twilight appeared on Paramount's desk a long time ago, but it was not taken up. The whole company thought it was a bad project and no one was willing to take it over."

"Then why do you still insist? What makes you think that Twilight will be a success?"

"intuition."

The moment Zhang Chen said "intuition", Diane knew she had to shut up.

After all, Zhang Chen is the boss and she is just an employee.

Zhang Chen How Zhang Chen wants to spend his money is his business, but she still said stubbornly: "I insist on my opinion, but you are the boss, you have the final say, I reserve my opinion."

"Haha, Diane, one day, I will convince you wholeheartedly."

"Well, I hope I can see that day. I will go to Stephenie Meyer to discuss copyright issues tomorrow~"

"Very good, I hope you can bring me good news."

"Of course I will. No one will compete with me for this crappy project."

Diane shrugged, looking very confident.

Then she took out an envelope from her briefcase and said, “This is another thing you asked me to do, to collect information about the special effects company.

After screening according to the conditions you set, there are three companies that can meet your requirements. All of them are small in scale but have certain technical strength. "

While Zhang Chen took it out and looked through it, Diane introduced it to him.

"The owner of this Red Dragon Studio is a Jew. He did well in the past few years, but has been running poorly in the past one or two years and has been operating at a loss...

In addition, the shareholders of this Activision special effects company are relatively scattered. They are a group of young people with great ideas. They have some patents of their own. At present, they are mainly short of funds...

The last one is a small film production company that has made a few films, but none of them are well-known. The owner’s son lost a lot of money investing in a farm, and the company was bought to help his son.”

Dai An told all of this in detail, and Zhang Chen finished reading it almost at the same time.

He had long wanted to have his own company in Hollywood, especially one with a special effects production department.

Everything else is fine, but when it comes to special effects, I always feel like I’m being held back.

The general special effects are okay, and they can be passed off as a sloppy trick in China.

But if you have a slightly higher requirement for the picture quality, you can only ask Hollywood to do it, but here, making special effects really costs money by the minute.

But the effect is indeed good, Hollywood special effects are really the best in the world.

Otherwise it is called the film industry.

"Let's go to this movie company first~"

Although Zhang Chen urgently needs special effects personnel, it would certainly be better to have a complete company.

Many of the ideas in his head are not suitable in China, but are more convenient in the United States.

Like Fifty Shades of Grey.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a very strange novel.

This book was first published in the fan section of "Twilight". Yes, it is a fan fiction of "Twilight".

The author E. L. James was a fan of "Twilight". He was not satisfied with it, so he simply used the male and female protagonists Edward and Bella in "Twilight" as prototypes and serialized his works on a fan fiction website. The original name of the work was "Master of the Universe".

"Master of the Universe" is actually a slightly H-novel, similar to an enhanced version of "Twilight".

Sounds familiar?

There were similar works in Jinjiang before, and there were also in SouShuBa, such as the enhanced version of "The Deer and the Cauldron".

"Masters of the Universe" attracted people's attention as soon as it was published, but it also aroused dissatisfaction among fans of the original work. Then the author simply started a new work, changed the name of the book and the names of the characters, and it became "Fifty Shades of Grey".

The key is that this novel has sold over 100 million copies!

Later, it was made into a trilogy, "Fifty Shades of Grey", "Fifty Shades Darker" and "Fifty Shades Freed", which raked in more than $10 billion at the global box office.

On the way, Diane couldn't help asking again: "Boss, I can't resist my curiosity. I want to know, if you really get Twilight, what are you going to do? Will you direct it yourself?"

Zhang Chen smiled: "Of course not, I will find a suitable director and start filming next year at the latest, and try to release it in 07~"

"But we are just a small studio. We don't have the qualifications to produce anything. I don't think any company would be willing to make such a movie with you..."

Diane wanted to stop it as much as possible.

"No, we may have a company soon. Didn't you organize these materials?"

Zhang Chen said this and patted the file bag in his hand.

Diane finally stopped talking. She felt that this was simply a disaster. In fact, what she was most worried about was that the "Twilight" movie would flop, and then her job would most likely be over.

She tried her best to stop it, but Zhang Chen seemed determined to shoot it and no amount of persuasion could stop him.

(End of this chapter)