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

Chapter 426 Have You Heard of Cycles?

After the wedding, Zhang Ruoyun and Tang Yixin were going on their honeymoon, while the rest of the group packed up and went back home. Meng Bai and Li Qin were not in a hurry to leave, and stayed in Ireland for two days.

The weather in Ireland in early summer is pretty good. It's a pity that Li Qin still has a movie to shoot, otherwise she could stay longer.

After returning to China, the two rested in Shanghai for a day before parting ways. Li Qin went to Chongqing to continue filming "The Silent Truth", while Meng Bai returned to Beijing.

Unexpectedly, before he even went to the company, he received good news.

"Mr. Meng, congratulations, hahahaha..."

As soon as the call was connected, I heard Dai Ying's beaming voice: "It's worthy of being produced by Arclight. We thought this drama would do well, but we never expected it to achieve such a great result!"

"Uh, Mr. Dai, you're too polite." Meng Bai responded first, then asked, "It sounds like a good thing, but could you first tell me what the details are?"

"Ah? Mr. Meng, haven't you been paying attention to the new dramas that have been aired recently?" Dai Ying asked in surprise.

"I have been abroad for a while and just returned home today."

"Oh, that's no wonder." Dai Ying suddenly realized, "I was thinking that you were so patient, Mr. Meng. You didn't make any noise even though your new drama was so successful."

Then, she explained it to Meng Bai.

It’s actually quite simple to say. Just the day before Meng Bai went to Ireland, The Hidden Corner, the first part of the “Zijin Chen Trilogy” jointly created by Arclight Pictures and Qiyi TV, was launched.

Because of the "Arc Light Production" label and the heavy promotion by Qiyi TV, it attracted a large number of viewers before it was even aired.

When they first watched it, many viewers didn't care much. At most, they felt that the production level of the whole show was very high and the acting skills of several young actors were also very good. However, for a series produced by "Arc Light", this is no longer a good point worth mentioning.

It is normal to have this quality, and it would feel strange if it didn't exist.

The first half of the first episode doesn't have many highlights. It just introduces the identities and backgrounds of the three protagonists and introduces the story of "Zhang Dongsheng" played by Qin Hao. However, due to the distinct rhythm and excellent performances of the actors, it doesn't feel boring.

It was not until the end of the first episode that Pupu, the youngest girl among the main characters, held up the DV recorded during the day. The picture on it showed that they had just captured the process of "Zhang Dongsheng pushing his father-in-law and mother-in-law down the mountain". The audience who saw this instantly felt a creepy feeling in their minds.

After the thriller, the audience immediately became excited about this new drama full of eerie atmosphere.

Qin Hao, who plays the male lead "Zhang Dongsheng", attracted many audiences with his contrasting acting skills. At the same time, the lines derived from this character, such as "Let's climb the mountain together" and "Do you think I still have a chance?", have become the material for many people to play with memes.

After only one week online, "The Bad Kids" has been on the hot search list for more than 11000 times, and the popularity value data of Qiyi TV has directly exceeded .

According to the consensus of the three major platforms, a popularity value of over 1000 is considered a "breakthrough masterpiece". Now that there is an additional data points on the standard, you can imagine how popular this drama is now.

In the second and third episodes, the plot and popularity continued to rise. Many viewers turned into "salesmen" and recommended this new drama to their friends.

In this way, relying on the suspenseful plot, super high production standards and the wonderful performances of the actors, "The Bad Kids" has become the first hit drama in the online drama field this year after more than a week of airing.

“Is this drama so popular?”

"Of course, Mr. Meng, you don't even know how much the amount of data on our website's backend has increased recently."

Meng Bai smiled and said, "That is indeed worthy of congratulations."

"Yes, I estimate that by the end of the show, the popularity will exceed 12000." Dai Ying sighed, "No matter if it's us or Tencent and Youku, there has never been a show with such high popularity."

The growth trend of the three major platforms has slowed down in recent years, and the competition among them has become very tight. Now that Qiyi TV has taken the lead, she, as the vice president, is naturally very excited.

After hanging up the phone, Meng Bai couldn't help but sigh twice.

Speaking of which, Meng Bai himself actually likes The Silent Truth the most among the "Zijin Chen Trilogy". Although he also thought The Hidden Corner was good when it was being prepared, he never expected it to be so popular.

After returning to the company, Meng Bai spent the next few days dealing with the documents that had accumulated over the past period of time, while also devoting some of his energy to paying attention to the developments of this drama.

In fact, there is no need to pay too much attention to it. As long as the quality of the whole drama remains unchanged, the popularity will naturally increase every day. By the way, the popularity of several leading actors has also increased significantly.

Needless to say, "Zhang Dongsheng" Qin Hao has now become the new generation of emoticon king, active in the chat boxes of various audiences and in the ghost videos of Bilibili.

Then there are the three young actors, who were also praised by the audience for their excellent acting skills. In particular, Wang Shengdi, who played "Pupu", was regarded as the new generation of "Internet daughter" by the audience for her "cute but dark" image.

As for other supporting roles, like Zhang Songwen, who has few roles but is very eye-catching, Wang Jingchun, a policeman who appears rough but is actually meticulous, and Li Meng, who makes people wonder if she is playing herself... In a hit drama, as long as the characters are outstanding, the supporting roles can also enjoy the benefits.

For the audience, the emergence of a hit drama has given everyone something new to talk about during this hot summer. But for video platforms and the capital market, such an unexpected hit also represents huge traffic and popularity.

Taking advantage of the popularity of "The Bad Kids", Qiyi TV also announced that the number of paid members on the website has officially exceeded 100 million, making it the first website among the three major platforms to "exceed 100 million".

As a listed company, such great news could not fail to be reflected in the stock price. With the release of the announcement of Qiyi TV, the US stock market surged. In just five trading days, Qiyi TV rose by 20%, and the total market value exceeded 200 billion, and the trend has not slowed down at all.

Since the film and television industry went cold last year, the stock price of Qiyi TV has also fallen, from a peak of 300 billion to around 165 billion in the first half of this year.

I thought it would continue to fall, but unexpectedly a hit new drama not only stopped the downward trend, but also turned around and rose.

Now the other two companies can't sit still. We were all in the same boat, but Qiyi TV made secret progress, which forced us to be scolded by the board of directors.

It’s just the hit new drama of the summer, everyone has it.

Just as "The Bad Kids" swept across major hot searches and communities, Tencent Video and Youku also announced their own new dramas that were about to be aired.

On Tencent Video, the show "The Untamed" has already aroused a lot of expectations since the project was launched, bringing together two new generation traffic stars, Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. Coupled with the most popular BL theme in the past two years, a large number of female viewers can't wait to watch it.

As for Youku, it brought out the historical political drama "The Longest Day in Chang'an", co-starred by the "old generation" traffic star Yi Yang Qianxi and Lei Jiayin, who has been popular with the public in recent years.

Just looking at this lineup, you can tell that both teams have brought out their trump cards this year.

At this point, the incremental momentum gradually disappeared, and it was time for everyone to start competing for the existing market. The three major platforms finally broke the "peaceful atmosphere" of the past few years and entered a new stage of traffic competition.

Under this situation, the status of content creators who can provide high-quality works has been further enhanced, and capital from major platforms has also begun to bet on the more outstanding film and television teams in recent years.

Arclight Films is naturally the first choice for all companies. Even if the main team cannot intervene, branches such as Apocalypse Entertainment, Arclight Films and various cooperative studios can always intervene.

The first to take action was Evergrande, which had been hesitating during this period.

"Mr. Meng, congratulations! Your new drama is a big hit." In the meeting room of Ruyi Pictures, Zhou Cheng congratulated Meng Bai with a hint of admiration on his face.

"Haha, thank you Mr. Zhou for your kind words." Meng Bai said politely: "Actually, I thought this project would perform well, but I didn't expect it to be so popular."

"Mr. Meng is too polite." Zhou Cheng sighed casually, "As expected, the popularity and influence of the film and television industry come faster. For those of us who build houses and sell things, I'm afraid we can only get such high attention when there is an accident."

"Haha, then we'd better hope that Mr. Zhou doesn't get any attention."

Upon hearing this, Ke Liming and Chen Zhixi, who were sitting next to them, also smiled.

Taking advantage of this topic, everyone finally started talking about business.

After seeing the benefits that "The Bad Kids" brought to Qiyi TV, especially the increase in stock prices, Evergrande immediately put the acquisition plan of "Ruyi Pictures" at the highest priority.

I used to think that the film business was just a cash cow, but I didn’t expect that the associated streaming media platform, once it was put into operation, would also be a treasure trove.

In addition, with the content provided by Arclight Pictures, a team that has created miracles, Evergrande, which originally felt that the offer made by Ruyi was a bit high, now feels it is very affordable.

So this time Zhou Cheng came here to determine the specific merger and acquisition plan and conditions.

The film business is relatively mature, and both sides are clear about each other's price range, so there is no dispute. The most discussed issue between the two sides is the establishment of a streaming platform.

First of all, if Evergrande really wants to become a streaming media platform after the merger, then all the "uncopyrighted dramas" on the website that skirt the rules will definitely be removed. But this will bring up a new problem, which is where the empty resource library will come from.

"Don't worry about this. We have discussed this with Tencent internally." Zhou Cheng already had a plan for this. "After the acquisition is completed, Tencent Video will open their copyright library to provide resources. The new platform will become one of the channels and pay a certain channel share for the shared resources."

It is indeed a good method for new platforms to make up for the shortage of underlying inventory by serving as a channel station and then produce top exclusive dramas to build the brand.

What's more, the new platform and Tencent Video have different operating models, which can also be regarded as a differentiated track.

Although several domestic video platforms currently exist in the form of "free + advertising + membership", no one can say whether paid platforms have any future for development.

It just so happens that there is a new platform available for experimentation, and Tencent is also willing to allocate a portion of the traffic to make a trial, not to mention that it is not free.

However, these copyright inventories only make up the foundation. To truly attract users, we still have to rely on high-quality new content.

"Mr. Meng said before that after the new platform is established, it can provide a new series of projects." Zhou Cheng looked at Meng Bai, "I wonder if Mr. Meng would be convenient to give us a brief introduction first."

"of course."

Meng Bai nodded and asked the staff nearby to bring over a few project documents.

"This is a new series that we are preparing for the latest arc, which I personally call the 'Retrospective Trilogy'."

"Going back to the trilogy?"

"It means 'going back in time'." Meng Bai explained, "These three projects are said to be a series, but in fact there is no connection between them in terms of content. The reason why they are put together is mainly because the subject matter is relatively similar, all of which are suspense themes involving time travel or cycles."

Meng Bai placed three project books on the table, and everyone looked over curiously. On each cover of the three project books, the name of a new drama was written:

"Want to See You", "Twinkle Twinkle Star", "The Beginning"

"Uh, Mr. Meng." Zhou Cheng looked at the project book in front of him, "I want to ask, are these stories all scripts you are responsible for?"

"of course."

Hearing this, Zhou Cheng, Chen Zhixi and Ke Liming's eyes lit up instantly.

Although ArcLight has produced many works over the years of good quality, they can ultimately be distinguished by their quality.

Nowadays, among the audience and fans, the works produced by "ArcLight" are divided into four levels.

The highest level is naturally the one with the label "Screenwriter Meng Bai". This part of the drama represents the top configuration that was personally produced by Mr. Meng and has the highest specifications in all aspects.

In the middle, Meng Bai only has a title like "producer" or "supervisor", but there are works by top directors such as Wu Bai and Wang Wei. The production level may be slightly lower, but the quality is still good.

The next level is that Meng Bai is listed as a director, but the director is a new director who has not worked with him before. The quality of this part of the works is also very good, but most of them are inferior to the top ones. However, there are occasionally some masterpieces, such as the recent "The Bad Kids".

At the bottom are projects that are not named in the series, but are simply produced or co-produced by Arclight. This type of drama is better than those outside, but overall it is just average and can only be considered an average masterpiece.

In the past two years, as the scale of Arclight has expanded, the number of "highest-end" works has gradually decreased, and most of them are still in the second and third tiers.

Now Meng Bai suddenly took out three "highest-end" projects that he personally took charge of, which shows how much he values the new platform.

Zhou Cheng, Chen Zhixi and others took the project book and passed it around to each other. Because it was not a complete script, there was only a rough outline of the story. But even so, everyone still praised the three projects.

In particular, the themes and settings of these three works are very novel compared to the dramas currently on the market.

"Mr. Meng," Zhou Cheng said, "Can these works achieve the same results as The Hidden Corner?"

"I can't say that. The performance of a drama is related to too many factors." Meng Bai spread his hands, "I can only say that Arclight will try its best to ensure that the production level and quality of each episode are above the standard."

"With President Meng's words, we feel relieved."

Zhou Cheng smiled, stood up and looked at Meng Bai and others opposite him: "Then, I wish us a happy cooperation."

"Pleasant to work with."

"I have another suggestion." Meng Bai said: "Since you are planning to create a new platform, it would be better to change the name of 'Pumpkin Movie' as well."

"Well, Mr. Meng's suggestion makes sense. The current name is indeed quite copycat. And after all, we have played some tricks before. Changing the name can also reduce the risk." Ke Liming also echoed.

Zhou Cheng thought about it and felt that it was indeed right: "Mr. Meng, do you have any good name ideas?"

"It depends on what everyone wants." Meng Bai said indifferently: "Even if you want to call it Arc Video or Arc TV, I have no objection."

(End of this chapter)