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

Chapter 56 New Project

Although the broadcast period has ended, the popularity of "Soul Ferry" has not dissipated. Every day, fans are asking under the official Weibo when the second season will start filming.

The official Weibo account of "Pendulum" is still in operation, but unfortunately even the producers themselves don't know when the next season will start, so they can't answer fans' questions. They can only say that "the screenwriter is working hard to prepare the script" and occasionally release some behind-the-scenes footage and background setting collections to maintain the popularity.

However, taking advantage of this trend, Penguin Video seized the opportunity to launch a web drama called "Ghost Hunting Files", which is also a supernatural suspense theme, in order to take advantage of the popularity of the "pendulum".

Needless to say, many viewers are still very fond of this. Especially since the leading actor of this drama is the "famous" Edison Chen, this is undoubtedly an extremely attractive gimmick. Many people thought it was his comeback work and rushed to watch it.

With this wave of popularity, "The Ghost Files" received over 30 million hits within three days of its release, and over 50 million hits within a week. Its momentum is much stronger than that of "Pendulum".

Unfortunately, the plot of this drama is really average and the production level is also relatively rough. After the first few episodes were broadcast, the negative reviews from the audience gradually increased, and the Douban score also hovered around the passing line, which made the growth of the performance slow down significantly. By the end of the whole series, it had only been played for 70 million times.

Many viewers who have watched the show online have said that if the drama had been broadcast last year, it would have been rated higher. After all, as a supernatural drama with real ghosts and self-consistent plot logic, it is already pretty good among domestic works of this type.

But the problem is, if you broadcast it after "Soul Ferry", it has the same subject matter, is also a web drama, and the cost is similar, but the quality is very different, so the contrast is too strong.

However, Penguin Video doesn’t care too much, as the 80 million views have exceeded their expectations. Moreover, the purpose of this drama at the beginning was just to take advantage of the popularity of “Pendulum” and Edison Chen. Their real main work is “The Darker Side” which will be launched next.

Similar to "Soul Ferry", "The Darker Side" is also a high-quality web drama with "professional actors + professional production team + sensitive subject matter + low-cost investment". Although the 3.6 million views of the first season are slightly lower than "Pendulum", it also crushes the "TV series" broadcast online during the same period.

LeTV and Penguin's three consecutive online dramas achieved results beyond expectations, which immediately stimulated several other video platforms to start releasing their own online drama plans.

Sohu has acquired the copyright of the online drama "Fleeting Time", which will most likely be released simultaneously with the previous movie remake;

Youku continues to increase its investment in its own trump card "Wanhe Tianyi", announcing the second season of "Never Expected" and the new series "Report to the Boss";
Even Qiyi TV has come up with a self-made sitcom "The Useless Brothers" that imitates "Never Expected That", which can be regarded as catching up with the trend of "online dramas".

All of a sudden, all video platforms began to enter the market of "self-made web dramas", which made many people in the industry wonder, is the era of web dramas really coming?

Entertainment and film media also began to follow suit, discussing the platform competition between "online dramas" and "TV series". Some entertainment media and self-media even directly shouted the slogan "2014, the first year of online dramas".
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"The first year of online drama?"

Meng Bai looked at the slogans shouted by major entertainment media and nodded, "Very good. In this way, our 'Pendulum' can be regarded as the 'Pure Yuan Queen' in the online drama industry."

"Oh, Mr. Meng also watches "The Legend of Zhen Huan"? " Liu Jun at the side said with a smile, his increasingly sparse hair creating a faint halo in the sunlight.

Meng Bai said: "It's OK for the audience not to watch this kind of 'station-building drama', but it would be unreasonable for those of us who create content not to watch it."

Liu Jun also smiled when he heard this, knowing that Meng Bai's so-called "station-stabilizing drama" was a joke about the fact that Leshi.com had always been lacking in content and had to rely on "The Legend of Zhen Huan" to keep it going.

But this is also a fact. Excluding LeTV Sports, even with the release of "Soul Ferry", "The Legend of Zhen Huan" is still the first "traffic code" of Leshi.com.

Therefore, Liu Jun did not refute Meng Bai, but just said politely: "We believe that with the help of Mr. Meng, Leshi.com will definitely be able to find the next 'new town drama' that will surpass 'The Legend of Zhen Huan'."

"This is what I hope to see in the future." Meng Bai said.

After that, the two smiled in tacit understanding, and both understood that the other wanted to continue the cooperation. This was also the reason why the two met today.

Previously, due to the popularity of "Soul Ferry", several other video platforms contacted Meng Bai and expressed their "hope to cooperate".

Among them, Qiyi TV and Penguin Video are particularly sincere.

The former said that they were only responsible for investment, promotion and broadcasting, and the content was entirely decided by Meng Bai; the latter said that they were not short of money, as long as Meng Bai had a suitable script, the investment amount could be comparable to the scale of a TV series.

Meng Bai was very tempted by both conditions: absolute voice and sufficient financial budget, which are the two conditions that every content creator dreams of.

But after careful consideration, Meng Bai decided to continue to give priority to cooperation with Leshi.com.

There are many considerations here, but they can be summarized into three points:

First of all, his first drama was produced by Leshi.com, and although it was mostly based on personal relationships, he was still willing to read this.

Furthermore, even from a business perspective, the conditions offered by Leshi.com are not much worse than those of the other two companies, and they have already had a relatively pleasant cooperation and are relatively more tacit in their understanding.

In addition, Meng Bai, who has a "dark heart", has another security consideration. He is worried that Qiyi TV and Penguin Video may contact him for cooperation for the purpose of "protective acquisition".

"Protective acquisition", also known as "defensive acquisition", refers to a company acquiring and freezing a competitor's related business system on the premise of protecting its own business development in order to achieve the goal of industry monopoly.

For example, a large company has a leading market advantage in a certain field, and at this time another small company has developed a more advanced technology through breakthrough innovation. This technology may have an impact on the market of the large company, so the large company will spend money and other means to poach the technical team of the small company and then directly put it in cold storage, so that it can continue to maintain its industry advantage.

Meng Bai was also worried that if he brought a project to the company, they would block him and he would have to spend a year on the project. Even if the work was of high quality, he would have missed many market bonus periods.

It's no wonder he's worried, as Penguin Video's parent company has a "prominent reputation and a long list of bad reputations" in this regard.

However, although we have decided to continue cooperating with Leshi.com, we can also take this opportunity to improve our own treatment and demands.

"The second season of "Soul Ferry" will not start filming until at least the second half of the year due to the schedule of the leading actors. Before that, I plan to prepare a new drama." Meng Bai said.

Liu Jun nodded without hesitation and said, "No problem. We at Leshi.com are very willing to continue cooperating with President Meng. We can offer conditions that suit the interests of both parties, including the investment, production, and profit sharing of the new drama."

Meng Bai smiled: "In this regard, I naturally have great confidence in our Leshi.com, but... my plan for the next drama may be different from the traditional single drama."

Liu Jun was stunned: "What do you mean? Do you want to make a series?"

"It can be considered a series." Meng Bai said: "Mr. Liu should have watched 'Avengers'."

Liu Jun frowned and looked at Meng Bai solemnly: "You want to create a film and television universe?"

(End of this chapter)