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

Chapter 431: Guarding Blue Mountain West

The fragrance hits your face and the soft jade touches your arms.

Meng Bai was stunned for a second by her sudden action.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to express my sincere gratitude." Meng Ziyi raised his head and blinked.

"Just say thank you, don't make any moves."

Meng Bai grabbed Meng Ziyi's collar and pulled her away from him: "You are such a grown-up girl, yet you still throw yourself at me."

"Wow, little uncle, it's a rare opportunity to have such a cute and beautiful niece like me to cuddle with you, and you actually despise me!"

"Haha, since it's so rare, keep it well."

"Tsk, rare."

Meng Ziyi muttered something, pouting and sitting back sulking.

But this girl has one good thing, that is, she gets angry quickly and forgets quickly. Not long after, she happily pulled Meng Bai to ask about the script and the role.

Both scripts were carefully selected by Meng Bai, so he naturally knows them well. Although he has never studied acting, he has been a screenwriter and producer for so many years, and his understanding and analysis of roles is much deeper than most actors, so it is no problem for him to guide Meng Ziyi.

After chatting for most of the day with questions and answers, Meng Bai saw that he had said almost everything and decided not to stay any longer.

Before leaving, he specifically reminded them: "Those fans are busy with their verbal battles and don't have the energy to continue to smear you, but that doesn't mean they have forgotten about it. There will definitely be a lot of small-scale attacks in the coming period, so just keep a calm mind."

"Don't worry, uncle, I'll be fine!" Meng Ziyi said confidently.

The main reason why she collapsed before was actually because of the feeling of being abandoned. But now it is different. No matter what happens outside, she knows that her uncle will definitely stand behind her.

This alone is enough to support her to move forward even if she is still criticized by her black fans.

Meng Bai didn't know what she was thinking, but seeing that the girl was in an optimistic mood, he didn't worry about anything: "The variety show we talked about before will take a little longer to prepare, maybe until next year. It's just right for me to finish filming the two dramas in the second half of the year."

"As I said before, as an actor, as long as it is not against the law or discipline, other problems or black spots can be solved through works and roles."
-
Thanks to the fan circle wars between fans, Meng Ziyi's problems have been initially solved. The remaining sporadic bad reviews team no longer cares about them, because which artist doesn't have a few black fans?

Meng Bai put his energy back into the company. The first thing he did was to hold a celebration party for the crew of "The Bad Kids" together with Qiyi TV.

"Director Xin, congratulations."

Meng Bai held the wine glass and said to Director Xin Shuang with a smile: "I saw that many viewers online have called this drama the best drama of the year, all thanks to your directing."

"No, no, you're too polite, Mr. Meng."

Xin Shuang, who had long hair and looked quite artistic, quickly picked up the wine glass and toasted back: "To be able to achieve such results, it is mainly due to the script adapted by you, Mr. Meng. I was just filming according to the plot."

Meng Bai waved his hand: "Well, this is not the first time we have cooperated, so there is no need to say these polite words."

Although it is said that "a movie depends on the director, and a TV series depends on the screenwriter", in fact, both are indispensable to produce a good work.

Just like the drama "The Bad Kids", if Xin Shang hadn't led the team to work on the details bit by bit to restore the story's sense of time, and hadn't lowered the shooting standards even in the typhoon weather, even if Meng Bai's adapted script was brilliant, it would at most be just a good web drama, and it would not have been of the current high quality.

Audiences look at the leading actors, and the industry looks at the main creators. With just the drama "The Bad Kids," Xin Shuang, a new director, is enough to gain a foothold in the industry.

Taking a sip of the red wine in the glass, Meng Bai asked, "What are your plans next?"

"I haven't thought about it yet. I want to take a break for a while. I happened to have a few stories that interested me, so I plan to study them." Xin Shuang did not hide anything and said sincerely.

"Okay, then you study it first. If you have plans for a new project, just come to me directly." Meng Bai smiled and said, "Don't worry, whether it's the funding budget or the team members, we will prepare them for you according to the best configuration."

"Thank you, Mr. Meng! I have a new idea and will definitely tell you." Xin Shuang thanked excitedly.

Only directors who have worked with ArcLight know how blessed it is to have an investor who has enough money and people and will not forcibly suppress the expression of creators.

Anyway, after Xin Shuang finished filming "The Bad Kids", he never wanted to cooperate with those makeshift companies again.

On the other hand, Meng Bai was also very satisfied with Xin Shuang's promise. Although Arc Light already has many outstanding co-directors, there is no such thing as too many talents.

Anyway, ArcLight has sufficient projects and funds, so there is no need to worry about these people having no room to display their talents.

After talking with Xin Shuang, Meng Bai turned around and saw Dai Ying. As the vice president of Qiyi TV, her main purpose of coming here today was to find out from Meng Bai about the "Return Series" that Arclight and Evergrande cooperated on and the situation of their new platform.

"Don't worry, Mr. Dai. It's just an ordinary project cooperation, just like what we have." Meng Bai said: "Although I am a shareholder of Ruyi, Arclight Films is still an independent production company and will not be tied to any platform. If there is any new cooperation with Qiyi TV, we at Arclight also welcome it."

"We are relieved now that President Meng said that," Dai Ying said with a smile, "When we first heard the news, we were really worried whether President Meng would cooperate with Evergrande's new platform in the future."

"Haha, Mr. Dai's worry is a bit unnecessary. Qiyi TV has hundreds of millions of paying users and ranks first among the three major platforms. What should a newly established small platform worry about?"

“Well, if it was someone else we wouldn’t worry, but since it’s related to President Meng, then we have to think more about it.” Dai Ying said with a wry smile.

Video platforms attract users by relying on high-quality works. The emergence of a hit new drama can directly drive changes in traffic for the entire website.

A new platform only needs to produce two or three dramas of the same level as "The Bad Kids" to gain a foothold. If it can produce two or three works like this every year, it may be able to replace the current "Big Three" in a few years.

This requirement may be difficult for other teams, but for ArcLight, it is completely achievable.

Therefore, when Qiyi TV heard that ArcLight was going to cooperate with Evergrande’s new platform, they immediately became nervous.

However, the situation is not as bad as they imagined. Arclight Films still maintains an independent cooperation model. Dai Ying has no doubts about this, mainly because she thinks that President Meng has no need to lie to them.

Having solved a problem, Dai Ying's purpose of coming here tonight was also achieved. She heaved a sigh of relief and started chatting. As they talked, they talked about the recent summer movie season.

This summer, the three major online drama platforms each produced a hit work, which was so popular that it was hard to tell who was the best, and most viewers were very satisfied. In contrast, the movie market, which is also in the summer, seems a bit weak. Several movies that were released in succession since last month were mediocre in terms of both word of mouth and box office, and did not have the momentum of this year's Spring Festival.

Especially "The Fortress of Shanghai", which was released at the beginning of this month, used the hottest label in the film industry this year, "domestic science fiction", in its trailer, obviously trying to take advantage of the popularity of "The Wandering Earth".

However, after years of hype and promotion in the domestic film market, today's audiences are no longer the "silly and innocent" ones they once were. No matter how cool your trailer is, it's useless. As soon as many people see the lead actor Lu Han, they have already blacklisted this drama in their hearts.

The reviews after the movie was released were consistent with the expectations of many viewers. It was indeed a bad movie that was disguised as a "science fiction" movie, but was actually still about an urban romance.

However, Lu Han is not alone this time. After watching the movie, the audience scolded him, director Teng Huatao, and screenwriter and original author Jiang Nan, and they all became hot topics.

Facts have proved that not every director who makes youth films can jump directly to the science fiction track like Guo Fan.

The sentence with the most likes in the movie review is, "The door to domestic science fiction that had just been opened by "The Wandering Earth" has been closed again by "The Fortress of Shanghai"."

In addition to "Shanghai Fortress", another movie that flopped in the summer season is "Galaxy Tutorial" starring Deng Chao. Before its release, this movie tried to match the hit "Dying to Survive" in last summer's season, but the combination of "Deng Chao + Yu Baimei" really couldn't hold up.

Of course, not all movies failed. Movies like Bona's "The Bravest", the Hong Kong film "Drug War 2" and the imported film "Spider-Man: Far From Home" performed well.

However, the box office of these movies are all in the range of tens of billions, far from the popularity of the summer season.

What no one expected was that the movie that really held up the summer season this year was actually an animated film called "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World." The box office on the first day of its release was 1.4 million yuan, and it rose sharply in the following two days.

By the end of the first weekend, the cumulative box office had exceeded 5 million yuan. And despite the large increase in the number of screenings, the attendance rate did not decline at all.

This trend reminds people of "The Wandering Earth" at the beginning of the year.

In fact, the box office trend of "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" is indeed very similar to that of "The Wandering Earth". More than half a month has passed since its release, and the box office has broken through the 1 billion, 2 billion, 3 billion and 4 billion levels all the way, heading straight for the 5 billion box office record.

This really amazed all the audience and film practitioners. Everyone thought that the 5 billion box office record of "The Wandering Earth" would be maintained for at least one or two years. Unexpectedly, only half a year later, a new movie was about to challenge this number.

As if sensing the public's curiosity, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued an announcement two days ago, also extending the release period of "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World" by two months.

In this way, the two films are truly on the same starting line. Who will be the champion of the year will depend on the final results in two months.

However, despite the hit "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World", it is still difficult to cover up the poor performance of this year's summer box office. Compared with last year, the total box office of this summer box office only increased by 2%, and the box office growth rate slowed down again.

If the increase in movie ticket prices is taken into account, the number of moviegoers this year has actually decreased.

Obviously, the cold winter of the film and television industry has not yet passed, and it has spread from the production end of the film and television industry to the consumption end of the audience.

Faced with this situation, different film and television companies have chosen different countermeasures.

Some people think that at this time we should start more small and medium-cost projects, "small profits but quick turnover" and win by quantity.

Some also believe that the number of film projects should be reduced to avoid financial pressure and risk of losses.

……

"This won't have much impact on us, right?"

In the meeting room of Ruyi Pictures, Zhou Cheng looked at Meng Bai and Chen Zhixi and asked, "I have seen our projects, the quality is good, and the box office results should not be too bad."

Although the merger and acquisition has not officially started, Evergrande has already begun cooperation with Ruyi Pictures.

Currently, in addition to "The Accidental Detective" and "Famous", which Ruyi collaborated with Huguang, Ruyi has also participated in Lu Yang's "Assassination of Novelist", Jia Ling's first directorial debut "Hello, Li Huanying", and director Han Yan's new project "Send You a Little Red Flower", etc.

Evergrande has just entered the film and television industry and is thinking about showing off its skills. It doesn't care about the film and television winter at all. So Zhou Cheng's idea is to add some new projects.

However, his proposal was blocked by Meng Bai and Chen Zhixi. Ruyi already has many projects, and continuing to develop projects will only increase financial pressure.

"No one can predict what the market will do next, so we still need to retain some funds to cope with changes," Meng Bai suggested.

Chen Zhixi also nodded in agreement: "Besides, there haven't been any suitable projects recently. Instead of trying to find gold in the sh*t among those low-budget productions, it's better to wait and see if there are any suitable big projects."

According to the agreement between Ruyi and Evergrande, the decision-making on film and television after the merger will still be the responsibility of the original Ruyi management. So although Zhou Cheng felt a little regretful, he still respected the proposal of the two industry insiders and put the new project on hold.

Since there was nothing to discuss about the film business for the time being, the group changed the topic and continued to discuss the situation regarding the streaming media platform.

After several rounds of discussions between the two sides, the name of the new platform derived from the original "Pumpkin Movie" is tentatively named "Horizontal Video".

Firstly, it is homophonic with Evergrande’s own name, which strengthens the brand effect; secondly, it is also compared with short videos mainly in vertical screen format such as Douyin and Kuaishou, highlighting the platform’s positioning as mainly focusing on traditional horizontal screen TV dramas and movies.

The new "Horizontal Video" logo is a blue and white variant of the capital "H". The overall structure is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The top is shaped like a screen, and the bottom is the triangular play button commonly seen in videos. The overall look is a trendy cyberpunk style.

Although the new platform has not officially started operation, the reform measures set before are already in progress. All foreign dramas that the website did not have the copyright for have been removed from the shelves, and replaced with Ruyi's own previous projects and Tencent Video's film library.

The overall atmosphere and style of the platform has also been completely changed. It is no longer a one-to-one copy of Netflix, but a redesigned UI interface based on this.

The website's operating strategy has also changed. It is no longer all "horror suspense films", but is divided into three brands with different styles:

The "Misty Theater" focuses on suspense, criminal investigation, reasoning, and thriller;
"Love Theater" focuses on urban, youth and romance;
There is also the "Liuguang Theater" which focuses on fairy tales and ancient puppet shows.

Of course, because of the unique conditions of Arclight Films, and the fact that suspense themes are also popular in online dramas, the platform will mainly promote "Misty Theater" in the initial stage.

The opening new work is Arc Light’s “Retrospective Trilogy”.

However, what they are going to discuss today is not the web drama project, but the variety show and reality show planning mentioned before.

"We recently studied the variety show market and contacted several variety show teams, and screened out several good proposals."

Chen Zhixi said as he opened a document on the projection screen in the conference room: "The first project was proposed by President Meng. It is a documentary police observation reality show. The plan is called "Protecting Blue Mountain West."

(End of this chapter)