Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 22 Copyright Cooperation
The next morning, Cao Yang wanted to get up, but Li Xiaoran held him and wouldn't let him get up. She was still mumbling in a daze, saying that this was a foreign country, don't be afraid, your guy at home won't find out.

Found a hammer!
Which her?
Cao Yang was a little confused for a moment, and was immersed in the play again? It was not until he found that Li Xiaoran was holding back her laughter that he realized he had been deceived.

What else is there to say? Why are you hugging and rubbing against each other so early in the morning?
Girl, do you know how big of a mistake you made? Have you ever heard that you should never mess with boys in the morning?

It still looked like the body of a man in his twenties. Forty minutes later, Cao Yang got up refreshed, while Li Xiaoran half-closed her eyes weakly.

Although everyone in China who should know about the award knows about it, you still have to make the call. This is the attitude you should have when dealing with people.

Cao Yang first called his parents, just to tell them the good news and make them happy.

What is the biggest hope of parents for their children? First of all, they want them to be safe and sound. If they can achieve a little success on this basis, that is the biggest wish of parents.

The second call was made to Old Situ. He must have known the news a long time ago, but saying it in person would appear more sincere.

The third call was made to the school's vice president, Hou Keming, who was also the director of Qingying Studio. He might have known about Cao Yang's award earlier and might have been happier.

The fourth call was to Mr. Xie Fei. It was nothing special, just to express gratitude.

The fifth call was made to Xie Xiaojing, the director of the Directing Department. Xie Xiaojing was a member of the Directing Department's Class of 78 and a student of Teacher Situ. In private, he could also be called "senior brother".

Cao Yang did not call the coal boss, because all the contacts in between were handled by Lao Tian, ​​so he let Lao Tian make a phone call to inform him.

Today I made an appointment with several powerful and sincere distributors to discuss the overseas distribution of the film.

Cao Yang can make the decision on his own in this regard. The contracts he signed with the school and the coal boss are all for domestic copyright and profit-sharing, and do not involve any foreign copyright.

In other words, the overseas copyright of the film is entirely in the hands of Cao Yang.

The school probably couldn't have imagined that a twenty-something-year-old student, making his first film, could win an award in Berlin, right? So the school didn't even ask about foreign copyrights, and only asked for domestic shared copyrights.

I have to sigh again at the goodness of the coal bosses. They are happy to pay but rarely do anything. They neither interfere in the movies nor give orders recklessly. If possible, Cao Yang still hopes that the domestic box office can be better so that the coal bosses can make more money.

It is not the case that the more foreign copyrights are sold, the better. It mainly depends on the distributor. A powerful distributor has connections with many film festivals, and these can be regarded as intangible assets.

If the conditions offered are similar, the copyright should definitely be sold to a publisher with better connections.

Currently, four film distributors have been listed as candidates by Cao Yang.

One was the German UFA Film Company, which was the first to contact Cao Yang.

After the movie premiered, UFA contacted us. Maybe they thought the movie was good and had a great chance of winning an award, after all, it was the finale screening. So they directly offered a package price of $100 million and wanted all the copyrights except for mainland China.

To be honest, if the movie didn’t win any awards, this price would be considered very reasonable.

But the reason why they dare to pay so much money is that they bet that the movie can win an award.

Cao Yang didn't agree.

After the film won two Silver Bears, UFA contacted me again last night and said we could talk again. When we met today, we directly raised the price to $290 million, and we still wanted to package it for global distribution except in China.

This German film company is quite powerful. It is a cartel organization that brings together all the major producers.

If Cao Yang only plans to stay in Berlin, selling the copyright to UFA is the best option.

Another company that caught Cao Yang's attention was Europa Films, which was established only last year. One of their owners is the famous French director Luc Besson.

As far as Cao Yang knows, this company mainly produces and distributes commercial films. For some reason, they took a fancy to this art film. Could it be that they want to enter the domestic market?

They also wanted to package the film for global distribution except for the mainland, and offered a high price of 320 million US dollars. However, although their offer was higher than that of UFA, Cao Yang thought carefully and felt that it would be better to sell it to UFA than to them.

Luc Besson is very famous internationally and has great influence among ordinary French people, but in the field of art films, even at the Cannes Film Festival in France, his influence is only average and his connections do not play a big role.

In Europe, it’s similar to China. Art film directors generally look down on commercial film directors. There’s an invisible chain of contempt.

The third is MK2, a company that mainly distributes art films. Although their sphere of influence is limited to Europe, they have a great influence in the field of art films, especially in Cannes.

MK2 only wanted the European rights and asked for $160 million.

The last one is Sony Classics.

This is an old American company founded in 1992 by M. Buck, T. Bernard and M. Blum, the former owners of Orion Classic Pictures. It is affiliated with Sony Pictures Entertainment and operates independently.

It mainly distributes or produces art films, documentaries and independent films, and acts as an agent for the distribution of overseas films not produced in the United States.

The films "Qiu Ju Goes to Court" by Guo Shi Yi and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" by Li An were all released by it.

This company is very powerful and the films it has released have won many Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film.

Films such as the 93 Best Foreign Language Film "Indochina", the 94 Best Foreign Language Film "A Love So Beautiful", and the 95 Best Foreign Language Film "Burned by the Sun" were all operated by Sony Classics.

This year, the company is mainly promoting Li An's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". This movie received so many Oscar nominations, and this company was the driving force behind it.

Lao Tian said that Sony Classics has a very large influence in Venice and has cooperated with the Venice Film Festival.

Then he said mysteriously that several members of the Venice Film Festival Organizing Committee had some shares in Sony Classics. If they wanted to win an award at the Venice Film Festival, they could achieve twice the result with half the effort with the help of this company.

This made Cao Yang feel a little moved. What is one's own people? Only those who have common interests are one's own people.

Sony Classics initially wanted to package global copyrights outside the mainland.

Cao Yang feels that he has now established himself at the Berlin Film Festival. If he has a vested interest in MK2, coupled with his connections at school, he may also be able to make a try at the Cannes Film Festival.

If I have a business relationship with Sony Classics and combine my school connections, I might be able to participate in the Venice Film Festival.

So the decision was made.

After negotiations with Sony Classics, they finally gave up the European and Greater China copyrights, and finally offered a price of $150 million.

That's it.

Cao Yang finally chose to sell the European copyright to MK2 for US$160 million, and the copyright outside Europe and Greater China to Sony Classics for US$150 million. The total amount of foreign copyrights sold was US$310 million.

At this time, the exchange rate against the US dollar was around 8.27, which means that the film sold 2563.7 million yuan, not including the box office in Greater China.

Don’t think that this amount of money is insignificant. Last year, in 00, the box office of the film "Never Ending", which ranked second on the annual box office list, was only 3000 million.

If we deduct business tax, film special fund and share of the profits given to cinema chains, about 6% will be deducted.

In other words, the money that the producers of "Never Ending" received was just over 1000 million.

Nowadays, if you want to win the three major European awards and gain both fame and fortune, you have to watch art films.

　Thank you brothers for your monthly tickets and recommendation votes, thank you everyone.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)