Huayu: Hard fight against Zhang Weiping at the beginning

Chapter 519 Let Lust, Caution Die

There are advantages to self-distribution. You don’t have to accept exploitation from the Big Six, and you can also develop your own international distribution network, which is very important.

But there are also many disadvantages. In terms of derivative product development, there is a huge gap between independent film companies and the Big Six, and their revenue in this area may be less than one-third of the latter.

It can be predicted that box office revenue will be the bulk of the "Twilight" project. If "Twilight" fails, the company will have no other channels to recover its costs.

But could it fail?

impossible.

"Twilight" is a gold mine, one of the few gold mines that has not been noticed by the Big Six.

Thanks to "Twilight", Summit Entertainment is thriving.

The main reason is that the Big Six are too good at cheating people out of money. If we really let them develop the project, they will have to pay us whatever they want.

"Twilight" has already gained a certain degree of popularity due to the novel, so Diane thought it would be better to do it herself.

Although it is a bit hard, it is worth it.

"By the way, when you called me here, you said something good was going to happen. What was it?"

"Haha, Boss, we developed a TV series called Gossip Girl before, do you remember?"

Zhang Chen had an impression of this incident, but it was not a deep one.

At that time, he was busy preparing for "2012". Diane said he wanted to develop "Gossip Girl", so Zhang Chen let him do it on his own.

Diane really did it, and the heroine is still Blake Lively.

Zhang Chen nodded: "The good news is about this drama? Let me guess, it has been filmed?"

Dai An's expression changed instantly: "Boss, you really don't care about our company..."

"Haha, haha, don't you have me? I'm 100% assured that you can manage the company~"

At this moment, Zhang Chen felt that the other party was the boss.

Diane did not continue the topic, but said: "We only did six episodes of the pilot, and CW TV station aired it. The ratings were very good, so they decided to officially sign a contract with us and buy the entire first season, a total of 18 episodes..."

"Oh, that's great, you always bring surprises, congratulations~" Zhang Chen gave a hug.

"Don't congratulate me, congratulate us, my dear Boss..."

Diane smiled and hugged him, then continued, "The CW TV station's target customer group is 16-35 year old teenagers, which is highly compatible with our works. Not only "Gossip Girl", I also want to put "The Vampire Diaries" on their TV station. Of course, that will have to wait until "Twilight" is successful..."

Diane obviously had plans for all of this. Although it was Zhang Chen who suggested buying these dramas, after Diane studied them carefully after buying them, she felt more and more that there was a market for them.

Especially for "The Vampire Diaries", she has the confidence to win.

"The Vampire Diaries" is not successful from a novel perspective, but it doesn't matter. After "Twilight" became popular, "The Vampire Diaries" will definitely reap the benefits of the subject matter.

Zhang Chen would not have any doubt about it, as this drama has been filmed for 11 seasons, making it longer than "Gossip Girl".

At the signing ceremony the next day, Zhang Chen met Dawn Ostrov from CW TV.

He was the chairman of UPN and took over as chairman after the establishment of CW TV station, responsible for leading the overall operation and development direction of the TV station. This time, "Gossip Girl" was introduced by him.

Also present was Chief Operating Officer John Matta.

The trend these days is to separate production and broadcasting, with Cube responsible for production and CW TV station responsible for broadcasting.

The production cost of "Gossip Girl" is about 250 million per episode. Because it tells the life of rich people in New York's Upper East Side, the overspending sometimes reaches 300 million, but no more.

CW TV bought the first six episodes for a pilot, which was very good, with a viewership rating of 2.2.

2.2 is already pretty good. CW is not one of the four major channels and cannot achieve as high coverage as theirs.

When Fox TV signed "Prison Break", it stipulated that if the ratings did not reach 4, it would be suspended or cancelled.

But that's because they're Fox.

The CW is just a TV station targeting teenagers, and having a rating of 2.2 is already a very good result.

Both parties signed, shook hands and took photos.

The American film and television industry is well developed, and the contracts are very detailed.

According to the contract, for the first season of "Gossip Girl", CW will pay a copyright fee of US$210 million per episode. The first-round broadcast rights belong to CW, and the global copyright belongs to Cube.

This pattern is very common.

The copyright fees paid by the TV station can cover 80% of the production costs, and the producer can obtain the rest through pre-sale of copyrights, which is enough to recover the costs and possibly make some profit.

The subsequent rebroadcasts and multimedia copyrights are pure profit for the producers.

Don't underestimate this aspect. The producers of "Friends" earned a total profit of 10 billion US dollars from "Friends".

On the TV side, they can usually make some money from exclusive advertising revenue, and coupled with the invisible benefits of expanding the number of membership, it is ultimately a win-win result.

Of course, the contract also stipulates that if the ratings of the series are lower than 2, CW has the right to suspend or cancel the series. On the contrary, if it exceeds 4, an additional copyright fee of $50 will be added for each episode.

The reason why American TV series are filmed and broadcast at the same time is because of such clauses.

Once the ratings are low, the producers will immediately make corresponding changes, focusing on filming whatever the audience likes.

Unfortunately, this cannot be done in China because there is something called the film and television censorship system.

……

On November 11, "Lust, Caution" was released.

Li Anke is an internationally renowned director, winner of the Oscar for Best Director, and recently won the Venice Golden Bear.

The movie has already gained super high popularity before it was released, and it can be said that it has been stacked with buffs.

It is said that when the actors for Lust, Caution were being selected, a bunch of film and television company bosses and agents tried their best to get people in. Almost all the famous actresses in the Chinese-speaking world auditioned, but in the end, it was Miss Tang who won...

Facts have proved that great directors really have appeal.

The popularity of Amine Girls is even higher than that of Mou Girls. Miss Tang, who was chosen to star in Lust, Caution, became famous overnight and became a popular female star in China.

She really became famous the moment she took off her clothes, and the price-performance ratio is ridiculously high.

Although Miss Tang broke up with her boyfriend because of this, she got more.

Directly achieve the golden body!

I heard that his advertising value increased directly from 50,000 to 2 million, which is the same level as Zhao Yanzi and others.

Her status has also improved, winning the Golden Lion Award for Best Actress in a movie.

'Four Dans and Two Ices' also became 'Four Dans and Two Ices Shu Tangyuan'.

It really soared to the sky!
…On November 11, the day the movie was released, many theaters had 1% attendance.

Because I have learned from many channels that there are passionate scenes in "Lust, Caution", very explicit ones.

The movie has not been officially released in mainland China yet, but Tang Wei has already been given the title of "goddess".

The movie is also advertised like this - a half-hour passionate scene~
So everyone bought their tickets long ago and agreed to appreciate art together with a critical eye.

Then, instead of appreciating the art, I got really angry.

Where is the half-hour passionate scene that was promised?
There are only a few minutes left to cut.

Isn't this a lie?

How excited they were when they went in, how cursing they were when they came out.

What the hell?
Li Amin also feels very wronged. The movie was released in Hong Kong at the end of September. Since you are so devoted to art, why don’t you take a plane to Hong Kong to watch it?

There were actually people who flew to Hong Kong to watch it. A lot of the domestic public opinion was spread by them.

What are those six sex scenes? They are so real.

In short, it gives people endless imagination.

But is it really that beautiful?

It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.

Isn't it just a paper clip?
I wrongly blamed everyone.

The reason for this high level of attention is mainly because everyone is curious. I heard that real guns and knives were used during the filming, and we are here to find evidence...

Similar topics continued to ferment, which made Feng Xiaogang very angry.

Don't get me wrong, Director Feng is a gentleman.

He doesn’t care whether there are those artistic shots or not, what he cares about is the box office of "Assembly".

"Assembly" and "Lust, Caution" were released at the same time. I thought that relying on their fame, the two films could compete with each other.

But I didn’t expect that “Lust, Caution” would be so popular that it completely overshadowed the publicity of “Assembly”.

How does this work?
It is impossible for the Wang brothers to allow "Lust, Caution" to continue to dominate the public opinion, as Huayi still has a loan for "Assembly".

The actions of the internet trolls did cause the reputation of the film to decline, but it also made it even more talked about.

Baidu Tieba, blogs, major forums, and the three major bases have seen a surge in the number of topics regarding the uncut version of Lust, Caution.

After all, even Li Amin admitted it. His original words were: I won’t deliberately show off sexiness, but if I don’t do well in this aspect, I will be sorry for the audience and the subject matter. If I shoot too much, it seems like I am exploiting the actors…

Damn, are we just short of that little money for movie tickets?
No.

We want to enjoy art.

There are a lot of critical voices on the Internet, but there are more voices of support.

Art films still have a large number of fans.

These people firmly believe that "Lust, Caution" is definitely a good movie.

"Lust, Caution" is remarkable in terms of directing techniques, the progression of emotions, and the actors' performances.

Some people even spoke out from their own experience, saying that the domestic audience's cognition is too narrow, and what you think is what you see.

He said, "One passionate scene after another represents the progression of the characters' emotions, otherwise the characters' growth would appear fragmented."

Yes, you are all right.

Even though Zhang Chen is in the United States, he always pays attention to what is happening in China.

The Wang brothers are hopeless and the little cannon is even more useless.

Aren’t you usually quite loud and aggressive?

Why did it stall at this time?

That’s all…

Zhang Chen sighed!
It seems I have to do it myself.

Zhang Chen immediately took out his cell phone and gave instructions to Chen Xiaowei on the other end of the line.

Talking: This is how it is, this is how it is~
It's not that he is harming others and not benefiting himself, it's just that the movie has a distorted outlook on life.

You can't just film whatever the author writes, right?

Zhang Chen thinks that such a movie should not be made.

This caused a huge public outcry, most of which occurred in December.

His "Pacific Rim" will also be released in December.

How is this possible?

How can I let your Category III film ruin such an important schedule?
"Pacific Rim" carries the hopes of many people, and its purpose is to break the record of large ships.

In other words, it is a work that restores the reputation of Chinese films.

For the release of Pacific Rim, everything must be done to perfection.

China Film Corporation even advanced the release dates of all its other blockbusters for this purpose. How could Zhang Chen allow "Lust, Caution" to steal his limelight?

Since it will be closed sooner or later, let it die in November.

The Lunar New Year movie season in December must belong to Pacific Rim, and can only belong to Pacific Rim.

Of course, he would not do such an offensive thing himself.

That's why I hid in the United States.

It is also impossible to let Star Entertainment or Golden Harvest take action.

After all, the producers of "Lust, Caution" are Yindu Entertainment and Shanghai Film Studio, and Zhang Chen doesn't want to offend these two state-owned companies.

The best scapegoat is of course Huayi.

They are competitors, and they have already used some tricks. What Zhang Chen has to do is to add fuel to the fire.

When the relevant people saw this, they knew there was trouble.

(End of this chapter)