Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 127 Can this drama reach one billion?

Ever since the controversy caused by "Red Ling", the name "Soul Ferry" has made a small breakthrough in this period of time. In addition to the original drama fans, it has also attracted many passers-by.

As soon as the second episode of the "Chi Ling" unit was updated, the opening screen was immediately flooded with rows of comments saying "I came here because of its reputation".

Looking at the astonishing broadcast data and number of new users on Leshi.com's backend, Meng Bai would have postponed the broadcast of this episode for a week if the plot had not allowed it.

However, there are gains and losses, and it also attracted a large wave of traffic when put at the opening.

These passers-by who came to watch the fun had basically not watched the first season. They just knew from the subject matter and trailer that this was a supernatural horror drama, so they were prepared to face the horror plot.

But what no one expected was that it was indeed scary, but it made people cry while watching it.

[Who would have thought that I could burst into tears while watching a horror drama! ]

[MD I watched two episodes, I didn’t feel the horror atmosphere, but my determination to resist the Japanese has become stronger! ]

[There is no mention of patriotism in the whole article, but every sentence is talking about patriotism! ]

[When the melody of "Red Ling" sounded, I burst into tears. I was still wondering how this song would be connected to the plot, but after watching it, I realized that it was so perfect.]

[I cried so hard in this episode. "Magnolia" represents the simple emotions of most Chinese people at that time. They may not have read much or received much education, but they knew that this was their own country.]

【…】

Whether it was the original "Pendulum" audience or the passers-by who came for fun, after watching this episode, almost everyone couldn't help but express their feelings.

Along with the good reviews came spontaneous recommendations from many viewers, especially offline, where many people began to recommend the show to their friends and colleagues.

When it comes to chasing dramas, although there are many discussion groups spontaneously formed by drama fans online, most people still focus on their real circle of friends and colleagues.

In the past, many viewers were actually reluctant to talk about online drama topics in real life, as they always felt it was too low.

Especially some dramas that skirt the line or take the "parody" route, they are quite enjoyable to watch, but if you talk about them with others, there will always be a bit of shame.

But this time "Soul Ferry 2" is different. First, a song "Chi Ling" became a popular song recently, and then the "Chi Ling Chapter" that was broadcast immediately afterwards raised the style of the entire drama.

Even some viewers who are fond of niche themes have gradually begun to develop a "reverse contempt chain" -

Those TV dramas are all about men and women and love affairs every day, how can they compare to our feelings for family and country!

The key point is that there are still many people who think this way. Recently, a new view has gradually become popular in many film and television news and groups: "TV series are watched by people of our parents' generation. Who among the young people nowadays doesn't watch online dramas?"

Let’s not talk about it. Regardless of whether this statement is logical or not, there are indeed many viewers who vaguely agree with this argument.

It is precisely with the popularity of this view that the data of "Soul Ferry 2" has skyrocketed.

In the first four days of the show, the number of views exceeded 100 million, directly doubling the record for the speed at which self-produced web dramas reach 100 million views.

After the second week of updates, the number of views directly reached 300 million, causing amazement in the industry.

There is still one month left in the broadcast period. According to this growth rate, this drama is likely to become the first online drama to have over one billion views.

One billion views! This is a result that many popular TV series with big casts and big investments have never achieved.

The key is that the website has to spend a lot of money to buy those TV series. Although these self-made dramas also require investment, they are much more cost-effective than directly purchasing the films.

More importantly, as a listed company, the appearance of a hit drama can have a significant impact on the company's stock price. For several consecutive trading days, Leshi.com's stock opened high and rose, and it was about to rise to 80 yuan.

Now life is difficult for the heads of several other video platforms, because even the investors behind each company have begun to pay attention to the trends in the online drama market, and have asked whether their companies have any projects that can boost their stock prices.

These executives and CEOs really want to complain that the stock price of Leshi.com has risen because it is a video website. We are all unlisted subsidiaries, and no matter how great the projects are, they cannot raise the stock price of your parent group.

But there is no way around it. Shareholders and investors only care about profit growth, so the presidents of each company can only continue to put pressure on the executives of their own self-produced drama departments, asking them to come up with popular projects.

If we talk about who these executives envy the most, it is Liu Jun of Leshi.com. He did nothing but took over the online drama department and directly faced Arclight Films, which was like a KPI picked up for free.

Of course, Liu Jun also has something to say. What does "did nothing" mean? If he had not negotiated the plans of "Green Ivy Series" and "Super Web Series" with the board of directors under pressure, how could he have such close cooperation with Arclight Films?

In addition to Leshi.com, the most popular company in the industry today is naturally Arclight Pictures, which has been creating miracles.

In other words, it’s Arc Light’s boss, Meng Bai.

Several platforms couldn't help but start thinking about whether they could pull him to their own platforms.

Anyway, the cooperation between ArcLight Films and Leshi.com is just on the film and television project itself, and there is no other connection.

When Meng Bai submitted the script for "Soul Ferry 1", he basically went to every platform, so each one had his contact information.

So during this period of time, he received many calls from video platforms, all of which implicitly asked him whether he had considered changing a partner.

What, you're worried about investment? Any script with a budget of less than 50 million yuan can be approved.

If the “Green Vine Series” can’t be filmed? Then the entire “Red Vine Series” can be filmed.

Want to use celebrities in the cast? No problem, as long as they are not the big names in the movie industry, we can invite the rest for you.

Eventually, even Leshi.com couldn't sit still. Boss Jia, who had been working on the "Leshi Mobile Phone" since the end of last year, talked to Meng Bai for a long time and directly expressed his desire to invest in Arclight Films at the price of "10 million US dollars for % of the shares".

Ten million US dollars in exchange for 10% of the shares is equivalent to a valuation of up to million US dollars given to ArcLight Films by Leshi.com.

Considering the actual value of ArcLight Pictures in the film and television industry, this price is somewhat overestimated.

But if we take into account the increase in market value that ArcLight's several projects have brought to Leshi.com over the past year or so, this number is not much at all.

However, whether it was other platforms' attempts to "poach" people or Boss Jia's attempts to "retain people", Meng Bai laughed it off with the excuse of "wait and see the reform of online drama censorship after the new year".

It's a pretty powerful excuse. After all, for Arclight Films, which is mainly based on "suspense themes", changes in the "censorship system" will really affect the capital's evaluation of it.

What if the cooperation was reached with favorable terms just now, and Arc Light was forced to transform the next moment? That would feel like a "big grudge".

Of course, if it is discovered that the "censorship mechanism" has little impact, then Arc Light Films, freed from its constraints, will naturally rise in popularity.

If we look at it from a capital perspective, at this time it is definitely time to lock in profits in advance. At worst, you can just run away when the time comes.

Meng Bai's choice is equivalent to taking the direction of the wind on himself.

However, it also fully demonstrates that he is not the kind of "honest man" who runs away after getting the money.

Although "honest people" are easily taken advantage of, everyone likes them.

(End of this chapter)