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

Chapter 329 "Zijin Chen Trilogy"

"Boss Gong, this is the set of our movie."

On the set of Blue Island's "City Lights", Meng Bai looked at a middle-aged man with glasses and a gentle appearance beside him, pointing to the scene being filmed and introducing it.

"I've heard that Arclight's team is different from other companies and has a high degree of standardization. Seeing it today, I can see that it is indeed extraordinary."

The middle-aged man who was speaking was named Gong Yu. He is best known as the founder and current CEO of Qiyi TV.

"Day and Night" is the first project of Arclight Pictures and Qiyi TV's official cooperation. The website believed from the beginning that the performance of this drama would be good. But the final result was still far beyond their expectations.

“We actually didn’t expect that the show would be so popular.”

Sitting back in the lounge, Meng Bai poured a cup of tea for the other party. "Initially, we thought that this would be at most better than last year's "Forensic Qin Ming". We are also surprised to have the current results."

"Mr. Meng is too modest. Considering the quality shown by 'Day and Night Chase', this result is just right." Gong Yu took a sip of tea and said with a smile.

"Thank you for your compliment." Meng Bai smiled and said bluntly, "I wonder if Mr. Gong has any advice for you during your visit today?"

"It's not like I can give you any advice." Gong Yu laughed and waved his hand. "I came here today to meet Mr. Meng. After all, we have been working together for such a long time, it would be unreasonable if we haven't met. In addition, I also want to thank Hu Guang."

For ordinary audiences, the popularity of "Day and Night Chase" is at most just a topic of conversation and a "watch while eating", but for the platform, it is not that simple.

Thanks to the extremely high popularity and huge traffic brought by "Day and Night", the number of paid users of Qiyi TV has exceeded 5000 million in one fell swoop, and it has also successfully reached a strategic cooperation with Netflix.

At other times, although this would be a very impressive honor, it would not be something that Gong Yu, the "head", would take so seriously.

But it is different now. Qiyi TV has been planning to go public on Nasdaq since last year, and the $15 billion bond financing at the beginning of this year was also in preparation for the listing.

In this case, every improvement in the website will help boost the listing process.

The influence brought by the popularity of "Day and Night" has undoubtedly accelerated it a lot.

Since this is related to the listing of the entire platform, Gong Yu naturally attaches great importance to it, so he made a special trip to Landao to meet Meng Bai.

"Mr. Gong, you're too polite." Meng Bai said, "After all, Arclight still has shares in Qiyi TV. We all prosper together. There's no need to come and thank you specifically."

"Since President Meng said so, I have to come even more." Gong Yu said with a smile: "Being responsible for shareholders and investors is the most important job for me as the president."

The two of them chatted for a while, and Gong Yu turned the topic to the online drama. He actually came here for another reason.

"I wonder if Mr. Meng has ever seen the works of Mr. Chen from Zijin?"

Meng Bai nodded: "Teacher Chen is one of the representatives in the field of suspense in China, with many books to his name. We who work in suspense definitely cannot miss him."

When talking about suspense now, many people will think of Arclight Pictures and Meng Bai first.

However, in the field of suspense before the emergence of online dramas, Zijin Chen, Ma Boyong and others were also well-known creators.

Especially Zijin Chen, his main "social" style is very similar to the "Green Vine Series" of Arclight Film and Television today.

Gong Yu said: "We at Qiyi TV have bought the copyrights of several works before, but have never found a suitable team to complete the film and television adaptation. But now it is different. The level of Arclight's team is obvious to all. I believe that these projects can be done well. I wonder if you are interested in this series, Mr. Meng?"

"Which films do you have the copyright for now?" Meng Bai asked.

“Bad Kids, The Undocumented, The Long Night.”

Meng Bai nodded. He had seen all three of these works, which were considered to be the highest quality among all of Zijin Chen's works.

Ha, this is really like a sleepy head hitting the pillow, Meng Bai thought to himself.

He was still thinking about what project Arclight would take to form a new core after the first phase of the "Green Ivy Series" was completed. He didn't expect that Qiyi TV would deliver the project to him. According to Meng Bai's plan, the first phase of the "Green Ivy Detective Universe" was mainly to finish the first seasons of several independent projects.

Up to now, the entire universe has four independent series: "Criminal Minds", "Forensic Qin Ming", "Detective Chinatown" and "Day and Night Chase".

The remaining online drama projects are only the "Detective Chinatown" online drama and a brand new series called "Hunting Crime Picture Book".

Except for "Criminal Minds", which had its first season filmed too early, causing the entire series to progress too quickly, the remaining dramas have only completed the content of the first season.

In this way, five works and five characters constitute the entire content of the first stage.

As for why not end the stage with a group battle like Marvel did?

As I said, Marvel has decades of comic book heritage, and each superhero has a rich plot and popularity, so they can naturally be "assembled" directly.

The "Green Ivy Series" started from scratch, and the first task was to establish each independent series story and character, and then we could consider things like linkage and integration.

Otherwise, if we produce a bunch of mediocre works with little popularity, and the audience doesn't care about the characters, then who will care about the universe or not?

Except for "Forensic Qin Ming", the scripts in the first phase were basically polished by Meng Bai when he was still in college, so they could naturally be used directly.

But the second stage after that was not so perfect.

After all, he had never successfully pitched a script, and even the first stage was just words in his mind, so how could he have the energy to think about the second stage?

But it’s not too late to start now. Compared to the time when he was alone, Arc Light now has a complete screenwriter team.

He only needs to provide creativity and overall ideas, and the rest will naturally be completed by a group of screenwriters.

As the saying goes, if you are poor, you fight alone, but if you are rich, you fight in a group.

Everyone working together can achieve much better results than relying on Meng Bai alone.

But even so, it will still take some time. After all, starting from the second phase, more linkage content will be added, and we need to fully consider whether the audience can accept it.

ArcLight Pictures is now in a stage of rapid development, with the scale and resources to run two or three projects simultaneously.

At this time, it would be a waste of time to slow down and wait for the framework to be built. It would be better to choose some new series of projects to fill in.

Meng Bai had a few new story sketches that needed to be perfected, but Gong Yu came to him with a new project, which saved him a lot of energy.

Without rushing to agree, Meng Bai first asked, "Who will be in charge of the adaptation of these projects?"

Gong Yu had obviously discussed this issue with his internal team a long time ago, and said without hesitation: "The overall production of the project will be controlled by Arclight. We at Qiyi TV are only responsible for publicity, broadcasting, operations, etc."

Meng Bai nodded. Since the other party agreed to hand over the control to Arc Light, there would be no problem.

"I am actually very interested in these works, so I wish us a pleasant cooperation."

"Pleasant to work with."

After shaking hands, Meng Bai thought of another question: "Arc Light has several planned projects ahead, so we may not be able to start the project right away."

"It doesn't matter." Gong Yu said nonchalantly, "We originally planned to go the high-quality route, and each one will be produced according to the highest standards, so we are not in a hurry, even if we only produce one a year."

Meng Bai was relieved when he heard this: "Then there's no problem."

Arclight has two more projects coming up, and these works from Strange TV will have to wait until next year at the earliest.

(End of this chapter)