New Age Artists

Chapter 608 I’m sweating profusely

During this year's Spring Festival, the two movies "Zhao Zilong" and "Lost on Journey 4" were far ahead of other movies.

Both films are aiming for the upper limit of film history.

One is a historical action blockbuster, and the other is a sequel that has both good reputation and box office success. The two are chasing each other and rushing towards 20 billion. The highest-grossing movie of the same period, "Happy Year of the Dragon", was only more than million, and it is expected to reach million when it is released.

Various voices came out.

There are many who go crazy.

The dominance of Santong Entertainment, which prevents other industries from flourishing, is not good for the film industry.

They are complaining about the obviously irrational market, but there is nothing they can do about it, and they are saying that we should allow a hundred flowers to bloom.

Shen Santong almost wanted to laugh. What is needed for a hundred flowers to bloom is the quality of the flowers.

First of all, it should be a flower, rather than forcing the audience to give them all the box office.

In today’s film market, the only films that can be said to be popular are those produced by Santong Entertainment.

At least Shen Santong is not solely concerned with making money; Santong Entertainment is still very conscientious in this regard.

From the perspective of making money, "Lost on Journey 4" is the best movie ever and the fourth sequel. By raising ticket prices and doing a good job in pre-sales, it is possible to make an exaggerated profit on the first day.

Thanks to the extremely high reputation of the first three films, it is possible that the box office will reach 3 billion throughout the entire cycle.

But in the end, I still chose to watch "Zhao Zilong" together, and the ticket price was maintained in a reasonable range.

It's even a bit too much, "Zhao Zilong" has too much material.

"Zhao Zilong" can be split into three parts, but when made into one part and crammed into two and a half hours, there is actually too much content.

The director is not a professional. There was no such person in the film and television circles in the previous life. He switched to this career from an environmental major.

In his early years, he followed Shen Santong and worked his way up to become a group director. He then went to several projects to learn how to be an assistant producer. He then made a TV movie, which received good reviews, and a campus movie, which also had a good return on investment. Only then did he get the opportunity to direct a big production.

I am afraid of not getting recognition from the audience, and I also have sentimental feelings, so I try to be as sincere as possible.

From a positioning perspective, "Zhao Zilong" is groundbreaking, exploring a new action-type path at the level of military generals.

Li Shimin has too many extra points for being the greatest emperor in history. There are few greatest emperors in history, but there are too many military generals with a certain reputation. Being successful is one way for him.

Santong Entertainment as a whole is still in the start-up stage and has an entrepreneurial spirit.

Some of the cars released by BYD can only be understood from an engineer's perspective. It seems unfair and a pity not to provide such technology.

No, how do you know I have good skills?

From a purely business perspective, it is not a good choice.

"Lost on Journey 4" and "Zhao Zilong" were not able to support two good films because of the insufficient market and the construction of theaters was far from saturated. Neither of the two films achieved maximum profit.

But there are other gains, too.

One play may earn a higher return ratio, but it cannot achieve the same effect of expanding the market as two plays.

The audience has sharp eyes. If the film producers are sincere, the audience can feel it and the rewards given are also generous.

It directly brought the Spring Festival box office to nearly 5 billion level, and all peers benefited from Santong Entertainment.

Shen Santong believes that other friendly competitors should thank him because he has expanded the overall market and is working hard to make the pie bigger.

The box office of "Happy Dragon Year" in its previous life was just over 100 million, but it doubled in this life.

The same is true for "Inverse War" and "The Magician". The box office should be close to 200 million after the release, which is slightly higher than the previous life, and it can be considered a good deal.

2 month 10 day.

The 1300th anniversary of the birth of the great poet Du Fu is approaching, and netizens are making fun of him. As a permanent guest in Chinese textbooks, he has shouldered the excess imagination of too many naughty children.

Some are holding sniper rifles, some are wearing sunglasses and riding electric bikes, some are dunking basketballs, and some are dancing with hot girls.
On this day, Shen Santong boarded a plane to the United States.

Also traveling with them was Han Sanping, CEO of China Film Group Corporation. Their itineraries were different, but generally similar.

Spend a few days studying and investigating in Hollywood, and then attend the China-US Economic Forum.

It's far from being just eating meat and drinking soup, but it can be considered as being on the table.

Han Sanping's face was rosy, and he was in high spirits. "You guys at Santong Entertainment are really fierce during the Spring Festival. Two movies have taken up 80% of the market. Do you know what they say now? A win-win situation means you win twice!"

Shen Santong naturally heard some rumors, but they were just out of helplessness and rage.

The ones that have objections are not "Happy New Year of the Dragon", as this team is not in the circle and their speeches are all about gratitude, but "Reverse War" and "The Magician".

Shen Santong was not polite: "If Huayi's grandsons had used the idea of ​​raising money from the IPO to make movies, they wouldn't have ended up like this. The money pile is thicker than the wall of Hengdian, but what the hell are they doing? Going to make a movie?"

"What's going on? Did Huayi Jingui get burned by making movies? It's so funny. Did they use all their money to feed real estate or buy bags for female stars? Their main business is so shabby, and they still have the nerve to call themselves a film and television company?"

After going public, it started playing around with real estate, the Internet, and bought Shanda Games.

In the short term, it is not bad. Shanda is preparing to list on the ChiNext. If successful, there will be rich returns.

But Huayi never thought about deepening its roots.

It was like this in the previous life, and it is the same in this life.

When the gaming industry hit a low point, Huayi also lost interest in the Internet. It sold all of its shares in Shanda Games, cashing in 25 billion yuan and stepping out of the Internet.

As for the main business, it was completely abandoned.

There was a breath of fresh air before the listing, but it completely fell apart after the successful listing.

The ecological industry and the like are not even considered at all.

Han Sanping couldn't hold it in anymore and said something really serious: "Don't say it publicly."

Shen Santong said: "That's not the case. We are not opponents of the same level. I am too lazy to talk about it."

Got on the plane.

After the plane flew across the sky and stabilized, Han Sanping reminded: "Things are one thing, but people can't stop being jealous. For example, for Hollywood distribution rights and the development of the film market, we have made contributions from China Film. Now that the situation is better, do you know how much you have reached out? The means are beyond your imagination."

Han Sanping would not say this to other people, and he told Shen Santong because he really wanted him to be more careful.

Hollywood's distribution rights must be used well, this is not just official talk.

If domestic films only rely on this to make money, they will be finished. Without any stimulation, domestic films will become stagnant.

China Film has been restraining the trend of making money, giving domestic films a certain living space, and ushering in the all-round rise of Santong Entertainment, which can be regarded as the fruit of maturity.

Once it is done, some people will want to get their hands on it.

Shen Santong sneered: "They were unwilling to do it during the construction, but they are salivating over the fruits of victory. How can these people be so embarrassed?"

This situation is not unfamiliar, and the same is true for high-speed rail.

Countless railway workers, over several generations, have devoted their lives to building this high-speed rail network.

He was so sarcastic back then, but in a blink of an eye he became extremely greedy and kept making noises, wanting to give points.

Han Sanping said: "There are many kinds of people in this world, just like the same kind of rice feeds a hundred kinds of people."

Shen Santong shook his head: "Always trying to grab what others have will only make you disabled and lose your ability to do things. It's better to expand the plate. Good works are very scarce. As long as you make them, you will get excess returns."

Han Sanping thought to himself that not everyone is you: "It's easy to say, but what if you can't do it?"

"It's not difficult to do." Shen Santong said: "We at Santong Entertainment are not hiding anything. We will publish a lot of research. Just don't go against the audience. Let's work together to expand the market."

Santong Entertainment has many research results.

Some documents will be released, both internally and externally.

Similar to the requirement of having national confidence in works, this is the requirement after 08.

We should respond objectively to foreign countries, especially larger ones.

Neither beautifying nor vilifying, this is the latest research result.

Internally, we also need to tap into the power of urban development and try to depict it.

This is based on reality.

Last year, the urbanization rate exceeded 50%. Coupled with the fact that the government has been consciously carrying out industrial layout, the population living in and entering cities is even larger than this figure.

This means that in another generation, the old rural China will fundamentally disappear.

What does it mean?
It shows that a new, unprecedented China will be born.

This will be an unprecedented industrial China, different from the agricultural society of the past thousands of years. This is not a fantasy, nor a creation, but a reality that has been built by generations of hard work and is more than halfway through.

A population of one billion can achieve a highly saturated urbanization level close to that of the old Western countries.

Not only does it make the majority of the population live and work in cities, but it also makes the majority of the population transform psychologically, spiritually and cognitively from villagers in the rural culture of pre-modern agricultural society to citizens in modern/post-modern industrialized cities.

What kind of power is this, and what kind of culture will be born to match it?
In the agricultural age, a large number of art forms emerged. Tang poetry, Song lyrics, Yuan opera, and Ming and Qing novels are just a few of them. What kind of brilliant spirit will be born in a fully industrialized society?

If we draw a little strength from reality and feed it back into our literary and artistic works, the overall effect will be different.

The government has done a good job in this regard and has proposed industrial output per mu.

The cultural industry is not even a little bit off.

Han Sanping is not as optimistic as Shen Santong. There are always people who want to take shortcuts, and the cultural industry is too backward.

Having produced something as shameful as "The Flowers of War", not only did it not make it into the final nomination, the Oscars even notified the Film Bureau not to submit such films for the competition.

Thinking of "The Flowers of War", Han Sanping didn't want to talk about the industry anymore. It was disgusting.

Someone asked him to ask Shen Santong for his opinion: "What do you think of the Spring Festival Gala? Are you interested in being the chief director?"

"Yes." Shen Santong was quite interested.

The Spring Festival Gala is a big stage, not only for artists but also for directors.

Moreover, his production will gradually decrease as the system is built up. In the future, he will play a more overall role and have plenty of time to do other things.

Shen Santong described his vision for the Spring Festival Gala.

"First of all, if I were to be the chief director, I would be given full authority and would make drastic changes."

Shen Santong had his own thoughts and gave Han Sanping a detailed analysis.

There are all kinds of voices during the Spring Festival Gala every year. It is related to the Spring Festival Gala program team, but it is also unrelated.

The fundamental reason is the strengthening of national strength.

According to ancient history, the current situation is just the beginning of the glory of a unified dynasty.

After the first generation of monarchs unified the country and the second generation of monarchs rested and recuperated, the third generation of monarchs was working hard to govern the country.

The era in which this happened was the beginning of the reign of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing, and only a corner of the magnificent scroll had been opened.

Without talking about transcending the historical cycle, let me first say a bottom line: in the next fifty years, mankind will witness the most glorious rise of a nation in history.

Starting in 10, China's industrial output value ranked first in the world and its GDP surpassed Japan. Coincidentally, starting from that year, criticism of the Spring Festival Gala became increasingly louder.

It is related to the development of the Internet and the fact that ordinary people have gained the right to speak, but it is also because the country’s national strength has reached a point where everyone has a sense of it.

Due to propaganda reasons, Chinese people have always underestimated themselves.

Even in later generations, when development has reached an exaggerated degree, there is still a voice saying that the world has not experienced "industrial upgrading" for a long time.

First, we define "industrial upgrading". It is not Germany's Industry 4.0, nor China's high-end manufacturing 2025 plan, nor the United States's move from manufacturing to finance.
Rather, since the physical industry entered the information Internet, the entire world has no longer created a software ecosystem like the Internet that can spawn: submarine optical cable production and construction, computer host industry, display industry, server industry, chip manufacturing industry, social game video, etc., the so-called "new industry employment reservoir" with a large-scale industrial cluster.

To put it bluntly, there are many layers of skin, but to sum up in one sentence, what the United States is doing can be considered industrial upgrading, and what others do not count.

According to this definition, the Internet represents “industrial upgrading”.

As for organizing industrial production at the level of one billion people, it does not count as industrial upgrading, and it does not even count as high-end manufacturing 2025.

The reason why 2025 is not counted is probably because Germany’s 4.0 has not been realized, so that the United States’ pricing power in high-end manufacturing has collapsed.

Behind all this is the right to define.

The core of definition power is pricing power.

Is it the “technology” that has not been transformed into productivity that is valuable, or is it the “technology” that can produce actual products that is valuable?

Or what is high-tech? What is technology?
The same artificial intelligence is generative AI, are chat assistants and drawing assistants technology, or are unmanned mines and unmanned ports high-tech?

Who represents the future of mankind?
According to the definition of the United States, even if unmanned mines and unmanned ports can produce massive amounts of materials and improve logistics and transportation efficiency, their pricing value is not as good as the fur of chat AI or text AI.

However, the world is ultimately a material one, so in the battlefield between the Big Mao and the Second Mao, the West has to rely on the Koreans.

Because Korea really has industry.

The amount of artillery shells produced by the United States at full capacity in a year is less than the output of a top 100 county in a large Eastern country in a month.

For the same AI, Deepseek is not that powerful.

In fact, before deepseek, there were already more powerful ones, namely industrial-based artificial intelligence.

After all, virtual things, even if they are infinite, are made up of countless zeros.

Even if there is only one "1" in a real thing, it actually exists.

In other words, the emergence of Deepseek in Southeast University is inevitable, because Southeast University's logic is to build a country through hard work, which is based on productivity and has fundamentals. It is something that actually exists, not an empty concept.

To put it bluntly, the countless emotions on the Internet are not as good as two grains of rice in the real world.

People can live without online emotions, but they will die without food.

Public opinion has been trying to suppress Todai’s pricing power in various ways, but its actual productivity is there.

This is also the current contradiction of the Spring Festival Gala, and it will also be a contradiction in the future.

On the surface, it seems to be a great enrichment of cultural and entertainment life, but the Spring Festival Gala cannot do anything good.

It is basically a billion-level industrial country. After thirty years and two eras of adjustment, this country has exploded with unparalleled vitality and practical capabilities.

Even if there is all kinds of suppression in public opinion, an extremely powerful force will be generated in the subconscious mind.

To put it more bluntly, as Tokyo University becomes stronger and stronger, the Spring Festival Gala should not be good to watch, or it should not be funny.

In the past, laughter was a sign of lack of strength and entertainment. However, with the increase in entertainment options, especially as time goes by, the Spring Festival Gala no longer needs to be funny just for the sake of being funny.

What's more, they can't even be funny, so it's better not to be funny and cancel the language category.

The Spring Festival Gala should be regarded as a gift.

Every year during the Spring Festival, Chinese people start the year by offering sacrifices to the dead, showing their achievements in the past year and praying for the coming year. Ancient etiquette had strict restrictions, with the emperor being the first to receive the nine tripods and the princes being second. Modern etiquette, however, should be something that everyone can appreciate.

Dayu made the Nine Cauldrons, which later became the symbol of the regime of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, which just happened to cater to the fact that the source of the culture was the high technology at that time.

Asking Jiuzhou to contribute bronze and casting nine tripods was not for the sake of beauty or fun, but to demonstrate strength.

It represented the most advanced exploration and smelting technology at the time and was a blatant show of muscle.

Those who are dissatisfied will feel disheartened after watching this.

If you can forge a tripod, you can also forge swords.

It was like a missile flying thousands of kilometers and landing where it was supposed to land, or like a sixth-generation aircraft flapping its wings.

The function of the Spring Festival Gala needs to change. Shen Santong came from the future and knew that this change would happen, but it is obviously a bit difficult for cultural and artistic workers to understand industrial society.

Our understanding of culture is still stuck in the past era, with only the choice of words and sentences and lip service.

As for existing things, you can take a picture of a tall building.

However, it is very difficult to imagine the industrial age, such as the space elevator, planetary engine, lunar engine, quantum computer, digital life plan, digital plan, drone swarm, etc. in "The Wandering Earth".

However, Shen Santong believes that it is a general trend for the Spring Festival Gala to become a new year's sacrificial ceremony, as the country's most important affairs are sacrifices and wars.

This is determined by the material.

An industrial country with a population of billions, an unprecedented industrial country in human history, even if its power is unintentionally projected onto the New Year's Eve party, it will be a huge force.

Shen Santong described the scene to Han Sanping in detail, which made his blood boil and inspired him to create. This is the Spring Festival Gala, a program that directly and indirectly affects everyone.

The Spring Festival Gala should be transformed into a "modern sacrifice" to showcase national strength and industrial achievements, use grand imagination, weaken entertainment, and strengthen the sense of ritual and cultural confidence.

"Of course, to depict and display a corner of the industrial age requires more exploration. If I were to do it, I would be more of a pioneer and explore a new form."

Shen Santong also told Han Sanping not to have too high expectations, as even if he did it, it might not be perfect.

"No, why are you sweating?" Shen Santong saw that Han Sanping's forehead was sweating.

Han Sanping laughed. It was really funny. Shen Santong, who makes movies, was too conservative.

"I just want to ask your opinion on the Spring Festival Gala. We haven't even started yet."

(End of this chapter)