Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 580 Future film companies will all be working for BAT (44)

Ahri's Entertainment Treasure...

The first phase of Yulebao's four projects are the movies "Tiny Times 4", "Wolf Totem", "Illegal Operation", and "Model Academy", with a total investment of 7300 million yuan.

Among them, "Wolf Totem" will be released for an extended period of one year.

"Illegal Operation" and "Model Academy" (the former renamed "Unbelievable"), starring Wang Baoqiang, Xiao Shenyang, and Da Peng, only grossed over 100 million yuan at the box office.

Model Academy... is not a movie, it's a social game...

"I have two questions. First, how do you guarantee a return? Second, how do you guarantee that the movie you invest in will be a box office success?"

"We are an Alibaba platform..."

"Don't give me that nonsense. I don't care which platform you're from. Lehman Brothers was the fourth largest investment bank in the US back then, and it failed too!"

"Alibaba platform...and we are legal!"

Shen Yan shook his head: "Do you really think it's legal? Isn't it suspected of being illegal fundraising or disguised crowdfunding?"

"This...we are acting in accordance with the Insurance Act..."

"...Stop reciting the text. Internet + finance + movies, in my opinion, is just a complete fraud scheme...Why would such a big company do something like this?" Shen Yan glanced at him and then said, "I will report this to the relevant departments immediately. I can't control your usury, but P2P + movies, that touches on my interests!"

"We are not a P2P platform..."

"It's not that... I really can't be bothered with you guys. Don't brag in front of me, Buddha, I'm really going to curse you out!"

Shen Yan showed no mercy and directly berated Mi Yufeng, the deputy director of Alibaba Entertainment Treasure project…

The latter is very frustrated!

Then they explained, 'The maximum investment per person for Yu'ebao is 200 yuan... Rather than a financial product, I think it's more of a marketing strategy!'

"But once Alibaba sets the precedent, many will follow suit, and they may not set a limit!"

Shen Yan wouldn't let it go...

Peng Li, General Manager of Tianyu Pictures, interjected: "Not long ago, Tianyu Pictures used the internet to crowdfund its upcoming 'Super Boy' spin-off film, 'I Am Me.' Although it's called crowdfunding, it's more like an interactive format. Because the amount of money we raised was very small, we just hoped to increase the film's selling points through this method, and based on the market response, it could also boost our confidence."

"It's all about fleecing fans!" Shen Yan continued, "Since we're going to fleece them, why not build a market for idol and celebrity merchandise? Or, a market for officially licensed movie merchandise..."

Yu Dong bluntly stated, "Anyway, future film companies will all be working for BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent)!"

……

This year, BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) has ventured into the film industry and accomplished a number of significant feats.

Alibaba made the biggest moves, first by spending a whopping HK$62.44 billion to acquire a 60% stake in ChinaVision Media, which was then renamed Alibaba Pictures.

除了吸引到李连结担任董事外，王嘉卫、陈可辛、周星驰这些大牌也被阿里收入囊中。按照计划，在未来两年内，阿里巴巴影业计划每年投资或制作8至10部电影、3至5部大中型电视连续剧以及3至5部网络连续剧。

Alibaba's Yu'ebao also caused a stir in the industry. With just a few hundred yuan, one could invest in movies, not only allowing film producers to quickly raise funds, but more importantly, bringing them a large number of fans and exposure. On June 13th, Alibaba launched its second round of fundraising on Yu'ebao, and in less than 24 hours, 160,000 buyers purchased all $14.6 million worth of funding for five movies.

Tencent Video announced the launch of the "Adding Wings to Tigers" film plan, investing in films such as "Black & White: The Dawn of Justice" and "I Am Queen".

According to its plan, Tencent will invest in at least six blockbuster films this year, and may launch other projects in the second half of the year. Baidu founder Robin Li invested in a Los Angeles-based film production company in February and participated in a reality show called "Everybody's a Movie" on June 23rd, aiming to provide in-depth data planning and strategic support for the entire process of a film, from topic selection, financing, and team formation to distribution and screening.

Even Sina is extending its commercialization strategy to the film and television industry. On June 19, Sina revealed that it will leverage user behavior and data mining from Sina.com and Weibo to provide marketing solutions for the film industry from project initiation to release through capital cooperation.

In the future, Sina Entertainment also plans to collaborate with film distributors, cinemas, and ticketing companies to jointly streamline the entire Weibo ticketing system.

It's going to revolutionize the film industry!
It's already disrupting things—involving multiple aspects such as film financing, sales, publicity and distribution, and production.

It's normal for Yu Dong to have this kind of thought...

……

"Promotion, production, distribution, and even the ability to solve funding problems through crowdfunding—Mr. Yu, are you familiar with this type of company?"

"familiar?"

“If you study the history of the North American film market, you will find that whenever the box office is booming and capital is pouring in, this anti-auteur, anti-creative studioism will rise.”

Shen Yan, oblivious to everyone else, started talking to Yu Dong about studio politics.

Also known as the studio system.

After chatting for a while, Yu Dong asked, "I heard that Spark Studio has rejected a lot of investment from investors?"

"Our cash flow is very healthy, and we don't need external funding... I'm making movies now, movies with a budget of 500 million yuan, I can grit my teeth and make them myself!"

"You're going to do a project that costs 500 million?"

"We have science fiction film projects in the works. After filming for 'The Martian' wrapped, we simultaneously produced a low-budget film called 'Landing on the Moon.' Following that, we'll be working on 'The Wandering Earth Prequel,' 'Full-Spectrum Jamming,' and 'The Lone Ranger on the Moon,' all of which are large-scale investment projects..."

The topic ended there, and Yu Dong took the stage to state his view: "In the future, film companies will all be working for BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent)!"

"The future development of film companies is to meet the needs of BAT (Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba). We will do whatever BAT wants! Cinemas are our basic base, and we can sell tickets online and offline. The rest are TV series and web series."

"The film industry is content-driven. It is a creative industry that needs more creative talent, but it also needs to form a large-scale, platform-based product line. BAT has already identified the platform audience for us—we call them 'viewers,' and they call them 'users.' If we can connect the two, BAT is the ultimate destination for the future."

"They leverage big data, audience interests, and their vast IP pool..."

Shen Yan had originally planned to listen to Yu Dong's outrageous remarks, but later he changed his mind...

It even touched on big data and IP...

After a year or two of media brainwashing, many traditional filmmakers genuinely believe that IP-based films are the way forward for cinema.

Because of the traditional film production process: after the director finds a good script, they seek investors and producers, then assemble a team and actors to film, and finally release the film directly to the audience, with almost no interaction between the director and the audience. The film's effect often differs from audience expectations. The success or failure of a film is like a gamble, very difficult to predict.

However, the process of making movies is different for internet companies: First, the producer will choose a suitable IP from the "IP pool" because stars and high-quality IPs often come with their own fans, and the fans have high stickiness and strong cohesion. During the filming, they will also use social networks to interact with fans and provide decision-making assistance for film creation through user behavior insights from online businesses such as online literature and animation - this is the legendary big data movie making.

It's a complete scam...

If Shen Yan didn't have memories of his future life, he would most likely have been fooled too...

But he knew that those so-called big-IP movies had suffered poor reviews and box office performance...

(End of this chapter)