Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 776 Acquiring LeEco!

It's not surprising that Alita: Battle Angel was unlucky; it ran into The Wandering Earth, which was on the rise and breaking records. Audiences were already emotional and didn't recognize Alita at all.

But How to Train Your Dragon 3 was truly wronged. On March 1st, The Wandering Earth broke records, and audiences were excited. It was released on March 1st.

As a result, the box office failed to pick up in the first three days and was overtaken by "The Wandering Earth," with less than 1.5 million yuan in the first three days.

As for the Oscar-winning film "Green Book," which was released on the same day, it's doing quite well. Arthouse film audiences and "The Wandering Earth" don't clash, and it even grossed over 1 million yuan in its opening weekend.

The first week of March has passed, and the dominance of "The Wandering Earth" in the market has only just begun to wane. Marvel's blockbuster "Captain Marvel" raked in a whopping 600 million yuan in its opening weekend, perfectly taking over from "The Wandering Earth."

This is the kind of performance expected from such a hot market, with one blockbuster after another being released, generating a lot of buzz!
The Wandering Earth has surpassed 60 billion yuan in total box office revenue, fulfilling its mission in film history. Although it has obtained an extended key, that's about it; there won't be any further breakthroughs.

In the third week of March, a low-budget Taiwanese import, "More Than Blue," broke through the competition, grossing 19 million on its opening day, 53 million on its second day, and 120 million on Saturday! It's aiming for 1 billion at the box office.

The industry was stunned. What's the background of this film?
This film is a remake of the South Korean movie of the same name by the Taiwan Island team. It features the melodramatic plot of an old Korean drama. Twenty-two days ago, almost no one was optimistic about this movie that brought the old Korean drama to the theaters.

But as it turns out, melodrama, to a certain extent, represents classics and something that never gets old.

Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the film was imported to mainland China by Tangren Film & Television.

Tangren is quite a remarkable company. During the television era, it consistently produced hit shows, but the company was always strapped for cash, using the money from the previous show to finance the next, which prevented it from growing significantly. It couldn't even compare to Huace, let alone Lianrui.

After the advent of the internet age, they quickly fell behind and were thought to be dying, but they managed to turn things around with the hit drama "Wu Xin: The Monster Killer." As a result, only "Wu Xin: The Monster Killer" became a hit, and their artists either left or retired, leaving only Hu Ge to hold the fort. Every year, they would revive the story of Hu Ge's car accident from back then, with Cai Yinong halting all production to wait for his recovery, playing the emotional card to keep Hu Ge tied to the company.

His path to capital investment has also been a failure, not to mention his transformation. After so many years in Shanghai, he couldn't even get involved with Shanghai Film Group, let alone CMC Capital Partners or Aurora Group. None of the Shanghai-based entertainment circles would include him, and the bosses of Yanjing Entertainment wouldn't even give him a second glance.

As a result, this year they imported "More Than Blue," which looks like it's going to be a huge hit and give the film a much-needed boost.

It's not that there are no buyers who want to buy Tang Ren, but Boss Cai is unwilling to sell, so he has to make things difficult for himself.

It seems that Tang Ren, who is half-dead, is the better Tang Ren.

The day after "More Than Blue" grossed 3.3 million yuan in its opening weekend, a shocking news story rocked the entire entertainment capital circle.

A new company called Wanxiang Technology won the bid for three assets spun off from LeTV: the video platform, the copyright library, and the LeTV Building, for a record-breaking price of 146.26 billion yuan.

All funds were used to repay LeEco's debts.

The bankruptcy reorganization process of LeEco has temporarily come to an end.

Viewers are all asking, which unfortunate soul took over the company? LeEco is in such a terrible state, who would dare to take it over?

Sorry, Li Qiutang is that unfortunate child.

Keen observers quickly uncovered the background of Wanxiang Technology: established last year with a registered capital of 5000 million yuan. Its largest shareholder is an internet entertainment company called Mubu Culture, the producer of last year's hit show "Produce 101." Mubu Culture is a subsidiary of Autumn Pictures. The second largest shareholder is Tencent's investment company, and the third largest shareholder is a subsidiary of Sunac.

It's clear that Autumn, Tencent, and Sunac joined forces to swallow LeEco.

LeTV, the video platform, will be incorporated into this new company, and will have no further connection with the original company's historical debts. LeTV's situation is so dire that acquisition alone is not enough; Wanxiang Technology must make a grand and high-profile announcement to the outside world that the new company and new platform will start afresh and regain market recognition.

Even so, Chairman Li did not attend Wanxiang Technology's first press conference.

Zhang Zhao, CEO of Autumn Pictures, sat casually in the middle, explaining the acquisition to the media.

This certainly signifies Autumn Pictures' entry into the streaming business, and Zhang Zhao's explanation mainly revolves around this business.

At the press conference, Zhang Zhao promised that the new company and platform would retain all the original LeTV Video members and rights, and asked members to trust the new company's capabilities.

It will take some time for the full takeover to take place, but Zhang Zhao has already announced to the outside world that the new platform will start afresh, learn from industry leaders, and launch a new offensive.

"Relying on Autumn Pictures' strong production and management capabilities, we can provide audiences with the highest quality content and are confident that we can reach the top tier of the industry in terms of paid membership volume within three to four years."

“I think reaching 100 million members shouldn’t be a problem,” Zhang Zhao said with a smile.

Having bought Jia Yueting's assets, it's not good to speak ill of him anymore. Zhang Zhao also fully affirmed the achievements of the original LeTV in terms of copyright awareness and self-produced content.

This is no exaggeration. LeTV was one of the first companies in China to advocate against online piracy and also one of the first to buy legitimate copyrights. So it's not surprising that LeTV, Qiutian, and Huace formed a three-way balance of copyrights.

Before Kiwifruit proposed the concept of a super web series, LeTV had already been working hard on self-produced dramas. Although "Go Princess Go" was poorly made, it was indeed a hit.

The media's question is whether the vast copyright library will be injected into the new platform in the fall?
Zhang Zhao truthfully explained that sorting out the copyrights of the two companies was extremely troublesome, and even if it took three to five years, it might not be possible to complete the task. A complete merger was unrealistic, but the two companies would explore new forms of copyright cooperation.

However, there's no doubt that Qiu Tian's strong production capabilities will undoubtedly benefit the new platform. Zhang Zhao also welcomes collaborations with various companies, jokingly saying, "Our new platform urgently needs high-quality content, and we're willing to pay a higher price. In the initial stages, we'll have to be willing to be the ones to foot the bill."

Zhang Zhao boasted at the press conference that Li Qiutang plays video games with his wife at home. Liu Yifei had just mocked Li Qiutang for being childish a few days ago, but now she's playing more enthusiastically than anyone else.

"Such a big matter for the company, you don't seem to care at all."

"Big things are easier to handle. Everything has a fixed procedure, and following the procedure will always get things done fairly well. That's what I did when I went there. It's just a pity for Zhang Zhao; he'll have to go drinking and playing golf with investors again later."

"What?"

"You don't think our family alone can support a video platform, do you? They're throwing in tens of billions a year, I can't afford that." Which of iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video isn't backed by a behemoth far beyond what's expected?

"However, the new platform should attract investment easily, after all, our brand is effective."

"Isn't this what you call using other people's money to do your own thing?" Liu Yifei said.

"Smart. Oh dear, you're about to die." Li Qiutang pointed and said, "You're such a coward when playing mobile games, how come you're just as cowardly when playing console games?"

"Don't talk to me, you're disturbing me!"

…………

(End of this chapter)