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

Chapter 349 The Bell of Nasdaq

It is still too early to consider whether Arc Light’s next drama should continue to be sold to CCTV, after all, there is no sign of their next drama yet.

In fact, before the broadcast of "Peace Hotel", Meng Bai already had plans for a new drama, which was the spy war drama he mentioned to Zhang Ruoyun some time ago.

Even the review and approval process has been completed.

It’s just that Meng Bai wanted to wait and see how the first drama performs before deciding whether to start preparations, so it has been delayed until now.

After all, the audiences of TV stations and video platforms are different, and he cannot guarantee that the style of Arc Light shooting will be accepted by the audience.

But looking at the current performance of "Peace Hotel", I realized that I was a little too cautious. The fragments of inspiration in my mind are still very trustworthy.

In this case, there is no need to wait until "Peace Hotel" is finished. Since he has already chosen Lao Zhang as the male lead, he can start preparations while his next schedule is suitable.

As for the director, Meng Bai actually used his own people from the Arclight Alliance this time.

Wu Bai is still doing the post-production of "City Lights", so the person who can take on this task is naturally Wang Wei.

After filming "Day and Night" last year, this guy tinkered with experimental short films for a while and just happened to come back a while ago.

"Have you rested enough?" Meng Bai asked.

Wang Wei was still dressed in his usual black suit. When he heard Meng Bai's question, he smiled and said, "Half a year of rest is enough. I was thinking about starting a new project some time ago, and it's a good opportunity for you to find me. I heard that the new project is about spy wars?"

"Yes, but it depends on your choice."

Meng Bai took out two scripts, one thick and one thin. "Next, we will run two projects at the same time. One is the fifth drama of the 'Green Ivy Series', 'Hunting Crime Picture Book', and the other is the spy drama I just mentioned. The tentative name is 'Secret and Great'."

"Secret and Great?" Wang Wei looked at the thicker script, picked it up and flipped through it. "It sounds familiar. I remember there was a movie with the same name."

"There was an action movie in South Korea before, and the protagonist was also a spy." Meng Bai said: "But it's just the name, there is no connection in the content."

[After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Gu Yaodong, a top student at the law school who grew up in a Shanghai alley, became a policeman as he wished, with the ideal of "upholding justice and protecting the people". However, Gu Yaodong, who had just entered the workplace, not only suffered from the exclusion and suppression of his colleagues in the police station, but also got involved in the fierce game between the police of our Party and the Kuomintang...]

Wang Wei flipped through the synopsis of the script and found that it was exactly as Meng Bai said, it had nothing to do with the movie.

"How about it? Do you want to experience the difference between filming a TV series and a web series?" Meng Bai asked.

"Now that you've said that, what else can I choose?" Wang Wei patted the script of "Secret and Great" in his hand and said, "This is it."

"Okay, now that you've made your choice, let's start preparing in the next few days. At present, except for the male lead, everything else has not been decided, so you have to grasp it."

Wang Wei asked curiously: "Who did you choose as the male lead?"

"Old Zhang, Zhang Ruoyun."

Wang Wei suddenly realized that he and Zhang Ruoyun had worked together many times and were quite familiar with his image style and acting skills.

Although I just took a quick look at the plot and character settings, but thinking back on his previous performance, he is quite a fit.

Another thing is that since the screenwriter Meng Bai has chosen him to play the role, he will surely not make any mistakes.

Thinking of this, Wang Wei nodded and said, "Okay, I'll check with Ruoyun later."

Wang Wei and Zhang Ruoyun are the same age, and they have worked together many times before, so they are quite familiar with each other.

"What about the female lead? Is there anyone in mind?"

"…It hasn't been confirmed yet. You can look for it first." Meng Bai hesitated and did not give any candidate.

The heroine of "Secret and Great" "Shen Qinghe" is set to be a lone broker on the surface, but in fact she is a comrade on the secret front of our party.

Because of her public identity, this character is quite different from the heroines in previous spy war dramas. She is not a lady from a noble family like Cheng Jinyun, nor a celebrity like Yu Xiaonan, nor a guerrilla fighter like Cuiping.

As a lone gangster, she has a strong gangster style. She seems carefree, greedy for money, and can get along with all kinds of people.

Generally speaking, this image appears more often in male protagonists, but rarely in female protagonists.

Meng Bai actually thought of Jin Chen for this role at first. Her whole personality in real life is basically very similar to the image of "Shen Qinghe" in public.

However, this girl is currently in court with the company and is in a lot of trouble, so Meng Bai gave up.

Then, he thought of his own Zhou Yutong.

I don’t know why, but whenever keywords like “workplace” are mentioned, Meng Bai always thinks of this girl.

However, this girl looks a little young, and lacks the smooth temperament of "speaking differently to different people and different things to different people", so she can only be regarded as a backup candidate.

In this case, Meng Bai simply did not say anything, so as not to affect Wang Wei's feelings about the role, and directly handed the casting work over to him.

When the audition comes later, Zhou Yutong can also try. It depends on her luck whether she can be selected.

The two chatted for a while about the things that needed to be prepared. Meng Bai looked at the time. He had an appointment with someone else later, so he decided to call it a day for today.

After seeing Wang Wei off, Meng Bai waited in the room for a while before there was a knock on the office door.

Then, Gu Fei, dressed in a standard OL style, walked in.

She came to report to Meng Bai about several investments made by Qiming Venture Partners.

"Qiyi TV rang the bell on the Nasdaq the night before yesterday, and the opening price was $18.2, and then rose slightly. As of the close, the price per share was $19.65, and the current total market value is $116 billion."

Qiyi TV has been seeking to go public since the beginning of last year. Over the past year, it has reached a strategic cooperation with Netflix and announced a collaboration with ArcLight to create a new series of dramas. The purpose is to increase the platform's bargaining chips and successfully complete the listing.

Until the day before yesterday, this wish was finally fulfilled when Gong Yu and his team pressed the "bell button" at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Speaking of which, some time ago Gong Yu actually specially invited Meng Bai to go to New York with them to watch the ceremony.

However, he was busy with the launch of "Peace Hotel" at that time, so he declined the invitation.

Anyway, whether they go public or not has little to do with Arclight, and Meng Bai only has a few tenths of a share. According to the current market value, it is only about 2 to million US dollars, which is not as high as the box office share of "Wolf Warrior ".

What's more, his main purpose of investing in Qiyi TV was not to make money, but to have more say in the platform.

He won't cash out, so the high or low stock price has no practical effect except for the change in paper wealth.

On the contrary, Meng Bai would be happy to see the share price of Qiyi TV fall further. If it was cheap enough, he could consider increasing his holdings and maybe even become an independent director in the future.

But these are just thoughts at the moment. Even if the stock price drops to a lower price, he can't afford it now. There is a project that is even bigger than Qiyi TV and is going to be listed this year. Meng Bai has recently invested almost all the funds he can mobilize into it.

"Pinduoduo has basically completed its D round of financing." Gu Fei said: "According to Mr. Huang, this is Pinduoduo's last round of financing before its listing, so the respective equity interests will also be determined after the financing is completed."

At the beginning of this year, Pinduoduo, which had just been established for two and a half years, announced that it would submit an application for listing to Nasdaq this year.

As soon as this news came out, it immediately caused an uproar in the entire domestic capital market.

As the third largest e-commerce platform in China, Pinduoduo's development potential and speed have surprised everyone.

At the beginning of this year, the number of Pinduoduo's paying users exceeded 300 million, and the total transaction volume exceeded 100 billion yuan.

The "Pinduoduo" advertisement that Meng Bai saw at the end of the previous year, which said "100 million people are using it", was changed twice in just one year, and has become the current "300 million people are using it".

To achieve the same goal, JD.com took 10 years, Taobao took 5 years, and Pinduoduo took less than 3 years.

It is this incredible achievement that gave Pinduoduo the courage to go public, and the hope is not low.

The D round of financing after the new year is to prepare for the listing. Led by Tencent, in conjunction with Sequoia Capital and others, a total of US$13 billion of financing was launched.

As a "veteran" investor who has followed Pinduoduo since its angel round, Qiming Venture Partners' share has been diluted by more than half in previous rounds of financing.

Therefore, in order to ensure that there will be more chips to enter the future IPO market, Meng Bai also increased his investment again, raising US$7000 million to join this round of D financing.

Despite this, it can only be said that the degree of dilution has been reduced, and the shareholding ratio has still decreased a lot.

"The D round of financing will probably be completed in April. According to the share ratio after the financing, we will probably have a 4.2% share left, which has fallen below 5%." Gu Fei briefly explained the situation.

If the shareholding ratio exceeds 5%, even if it is a "major shareholder" of the company, it is usually necessary to have a seat on the board of directors. And any increase or decrease in holdings must be announced to the market in advance before any action can be taken, and it must also be reviewed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Although Pinduoduo has brought in sky-high profits, Meng Bai has no intention of abandoning film and television to go into e-commerce, so he doesn't want to get involved in development decisions.

From this perspective, a lower share ratio is better. At least it will be easier for him to cash out in the future.

However, these are all based on Pinduoduo's successful listing.

"Any problems lately?" Meng Bai asked.

"There's no problem..." Gu Fei thought for a moment, "But Pinduoduo's reputation has not been very good recently. Many sellers have posted online, calling for a joint boycott."

Different from the operating logic of Taobao and JD.com, Pinduoduo, in actual usage, is almost infinitely biased towards users, that is, buyers.

Whenever a conflict arises between a user and a merchant, the user will generally side with the buyer unless there is irrefutable evidence.

As for merchants, there are many means such as forced refunds, deposit deductions, and limited promotions.

It is also for this reason that many merchants have great resentment towards Pinduoduo.

Coupled with the pyramid scheme-like "cut a price" and the scam-like "collect 500 yuan red envelope to withdraw cash", Pinduoduo's reputation has deteriorated.

Not to mention complaining online, if these people weren't worried about breaking the law, they would probably have caused trouble offline long ago.

"Did Huang Zheng say anything?" Meng Bai asked curiously.

Gu Fei shook her head: "He said there's no need to care, just let them scold, it'll just bring more heat."

Meng Bai burst out laughing.

It has to be said that in terms of marketing, Huang Zheng has really perfectly inherited the essence of his teacher Duan Yongping, and has a deep understanding of what "being scolded is also popularity" means.

Even if it is placed in the entertainment industry, it is estimated that it will be able to produce many top stars who follow the "black and red route".

"Since he said so, let him do what he wants." Meng Bai instructed, "We are just going to share the money and not participate in their internal strategic planning. Go back and tell Huang Zheng that if a board of directors is formed, all of our voting rights at Qiming Venture Partners will be given to him as an agent."

"Okay, boss, I understand."

After seeing Gu Fei off, Meng Bai sat back in his seat and began to ponder.

Compared with the A-share market, the listing review standards for US stocks are much more relaxed, not to mention the Nasdaq. So if nothing unexpected happens, Pinduoduo's listing this year is almost certain.

This is different from Qiyi TV. His only purpose of investing in Pinduoduo is to make money.

Wait until the lock-up period is over and see how the stock price trends before deciding whether to cash out part of it.

He also believes that with Pinduoduo's growth rate, its market value will grow even faster after its listing.

Perhaps in a few years, his "4.2%" will surpass ArcLight.

Moreover, ArcLight's side is all valuation, while the other side is actual cash that can be obtained. The two have different meanings.

Meng Bai let out a long breath, hoping that everything would go well for Huang Zheng.
-
As April came, "Peace Hotel" finally came to its finale.

The ratings for the following episodes did not continue to rise, but fortunately they did not fall either, and remained in a high range.

In the end, the show's highest single-episode playback volume reached 2.35, and its average viewership rating was as high as 1.7.

For CCTV, this achievement is already a high-quality drama that can be ranked among the top five among the prime-time TV dramas in recent years.

On the other hand, the online broadcast volume of "Peace Hotel" has exceeded 50 billion.

Although the online playback statistics of major video platforms are becoming less and less accurate nowadays, they still represent the popularity of this drama.

The film and television department of Arclight has already begun discussing with other second- and third-tier local satellite TV stations the cost of purchasing films for the second round of rebroadcasts.

It can be said that Arclight Films has completely embarked on the path of TV dramas.

However, if we really want to talk about the hottest project in the entertainment industry after the New Year, it is not the hit TV series "Peace Hotel".

"Idol Producer", which was launched on Qiyi TV in January and ended last week, accounted for more than 70% of the hot searches and attention in the entire first quarter.

The entire program, as well as the members of the "limited boy group" NINE PERCENT who withdrew after the program ended, instantly became popular idols in the domestic entertainment industry.

Especially Cai Xukun, who debuted as a niche idol before, became the top star in the domestic entertainment industry in just three months.

A new "big draft era" is coming.

(End of this chapter)