Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 559 Team Building
Huayi Brothers' stock price has been declining ever since the film "Mr. Six" was cancelled at the end of last year. Compared to its peak of 900 billion, it is now only a pitiful 300 billion, and only one year has passed.

The stock market crash certainly played a part, but it's also an undeniable fact that Huayi's business was in trouble. Otherwise, the Wang brothers wouldn't have gone to such lengths to poach Ye Ning to take charge of the film business.

Perhaps to make its first-quarter financial report look better, Huayi sold 30 million shares of Ourpalm in March, making a considerable profit.

The industry jokingly refers to Huayi Brothers as "the game company is Huayi's ATM" and "the company makes no money from movies and relies on reducing its holdings in game companies to make up for the shortfall."

Huayi's first-quarter financial report looked good, but the claim that it reduced its holdings in game companies to supplement profits is very damaging to the company.

Huayi initially invested in game companies with the idea of ​​film-game synergy, which did indeed bring Huayi considerable profits.

However, Huayi now needs to reduce its stake in game companies to make a profit, which will inevitably be interpreted by investors as "not focusing on its main business".

I bought your stock because I was interested in your film business. Now that you are making profits from investments, can I assume that your business focus is no longer on the film and television industry?
A good-looking financial report can be useful sometimes, but it's not always that useful.

Therefore, Huayi Brothers' desire for "The Meg" was stronger than that of other companies.

Unfortunately, Huayi simply wouldn't accept any offers in the autumn.

Ye Ning was willing to pay a 20% premium, but Qiu Tian wouldn't budge.

Fall has no shortage of money, so selling shares or not doesn't matter. Now that Warner Bros. has confirmed Jason Statham as the lead actor, the film's box office should be somewhat guaranteed. Fall is even considering not selling any shares.

Now, in the fall, they'd like to finalize the female lead's casting.

Warner Bros. is interested in Fan Bingbing and has entrusted Autumn Pictures to make contact and negotiations.

Fan Bingbing was very grateful that the film came to her, but she declined Warner Bros.' offer because she was unavailable this year.

In the autumn, she preferred Li Bingbing. The role of Zhang Suyin could not be played by a young actress, including Liu Yifei. Zhang Suyin had to be played by a middle-aged actress in her 30s or 40s.

In China, only Zhang Ziyi, Li Hongzhang, and Fan Bingbing are capable of going to Hollywood at this age, so casting in the fall will be easier; just focus on these three.

But Qiu Tian didn't know that Li Bingbing had received an invitation from Warner Bros. when he was filming "The Nest" last year—at that time, Warner Bros. wanted to make "The Meg" into a co-production and used this film to lure Li Bingbing.

But Li Bingbing was afraid of water and refused.

When autumn came knocking again, Li Bingbing told Warner Bros. about their previous contact with her, saying that she was indeed afraid of going into the water and would not consider "The Meg" for the time being.

This isn't to disrespect Autumn Pictures; the actor has these kinds of fears, and Autumn Pictures understands. They just asked Li Bingbing to think it over carefully, as it's a great opportunity.

Although the preparations for "The Butterfly Lovers" and "The Wandering Earth" have occupied most of Li Qiutang's time, he still tries to find some time to attend the Changchun Film Festival and the Golden Deer Forum.

This is a matter of great importance, and Li Qiutang cannot accomplish it by relying solely on Zhang Zhao and Chen Zhixi. In the past few days, he has been frequently traveling to other places, meeting with all sorts of people, and inviting elite troops to join his team.

Of course, he would run into obstacles. Li Qiutang might meet with ten people, but he might not be able to reach an agreement with one or two.

However, sincerity can move mountains, and Li Qiutang did manage to persuade quite a few elites to join him during this period.

First and foremost is Tang Lijun. If we're talking about who has the most experience organizing film festivals in China, Tang Lijun would definitely be in the top three. She previously served as the executive deputy secretary-general for both the Shanghai International Film Festival's Golden Goblet Award and the Shanghai TV Festival's Magnolia Award, taking full responsibility for the planning, organization, and operation of the two festivals and awards.

It's fair to say that Tang Lijun has made invaluable contributions to the Shanghai Film Festival's current scale, and she was the person Li Qiutang most wanted to invite when reforming the Changchun Film Festival. However, two years ago, Tang Lijun left the system and transitioned to television drama production.

One of her representative works is "The Journey of Flower".

Li Qiutang practically visited Tang Lijun five times, relentlessly pursuing her until he finally persuaded her to return to the public eye and help him plan the reform of the Changchun Film Festival.

The second is Chen Jifeng, a musician, professor at Jilin University of Arts, and vice dean. How can you get things done in Xidu without a local connections? Although Professor Chen isn't a film and television professional, he's quite skilled at curating. Li Qiutang went to great lengths to get Professor Chen to be her art consultant and curatorial director.

The addition of Tang and Chen has significantly lightened Li Qiutang's burden, giving him more time to focus on his primary job as a director.

Although the preparation work for "The Wandering Earth" is arduous, everything is proceeding in an orderly manner, overcoming obstacles and forging ahead, and the future looks bright.

The most troublesome project is actually "The Butterfly Lovers," which doesn't cost much. Li Qiang stood Li Qiutang up. He vowed that he would finish writing the script in the first half of the year, but now it's June and he still hasn't finished it.

He even tried to argue, "June isn't over yet, so I'm not in breach of contract."

Li Qiutang didn't rush him and let him write.

Li Qiang submitted a draft in early June, which was then ruthlessly rejected by Li Qiutang.

Unsatisfactory ending.

Li Qiang is currently stuck on the ending. She wants to cater to the audience by having the male and female leads not reconcile, but at least resolve their misunderstandings.

But unexpectedly, Li Qiutang was even more ruthless than him. Li Qiutang did not intend to let the male and female protagonists clear up the misunderstanding, and did not even intend to let the audience know the truth—which of the Liang Jiangong and Zhu Xiaoyan couple cheated? Or did they both cheat?
“Why are there so many right and wrong? There’s no right or wrong,” Li Qiutang said stubbornly in her first art film, even wanting to go against the audience. “I’m not responsible for giving the audience answers.”

Having written scripts for Li Qiutang for so long, Li Qiang has gradually come to understand his intentions.

Many commercial film directors make the same mistake when making art films: they still pursue strong stimulation and conflict while ignoring the ideological and auteur aspects of art films.

For example, when filming "The Warlords", Chen Kexin preferred to cut more profound dialogue scenes in order to keep the exciting action scenes.

But Li Qiutang didn't make that mistake. He even went to extremes, telling Li Qiang during the scriptwriting process for "The Butterfly Lovers": "Don't worry about the audience. It's none of our business if the audience doesn't understand." But no matter how willful Li Qiang was, she wouldn't write a story that the audience couldn't understand.

While this attitude is extreme, it also defends the independence of creative work to some extent.

Li Qiang believes that the biggest reason Li Qiutang can be so willful is that he is rich.

An art film might cost at most 30 million, which Li Qiutang could cover all by himself. He didn't need to, or perhaps never even thought about, being responsible to the investors.

This is why "The Wandering Earth," which was initiated later, is already preparing to seek partners, while "The Butterfly Lovers" has not made any moves in this regard.

This is probably one of Li Qiutang's ways of respecting investors. He just wanted to be reckless and do whatever he wanted with "The Butterfly Lovers," so he simply didn't involve the investors.

Writing scripts for Li Qiutang is painful because he has extremely high standards, but it is also joyful because his needs are clear, he pays generously, and once he has decided on a script, he rarely makes major changes and does not allow other key creators to make major changes.

(End of this chapter)