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

Chapter 764 High Salaries? (13)

This summer's movie season... can't compare to last year's!
So far, only one film, "Zhou Chu Eliminates the Three Evils," has sparked a viewing frenzy...

If there isn't a single movie to carry the summer season, the entire season is ruined.

The highly anticipated Warcraft failed to support the market!
It really didn't hold up.

According to theater predictions, Warcraft's final box office is expected to reach 30 billion!
The result was that it stopped at 14.6 billion;
Originally, there were hopes that "Big Fish & Begonia" and "Rock Dog" would replicate the box office dominance of last year's "Monkey King: Hero Is Back," but they failed to do so. Even "So Young 2" failed to break 500 million yuan...

It's worth noting that last year's "Tiny Times 4" and "Forever Young" received terrible reviews, but they were both box office hits!
The recent film "Skiptrace" hasn't even reached 4 million at the box office;
"League of Gods" is even worse, earning only 7000 million on its opening day, and its reputation has plummeted—comparable to "The Treasure Hunter" and "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains"...

It's obvious that the box office is unlikely to be a big hit!
So far, only Shen Yan's "Zhou Chu Eliminates the Three Evils" has performed as expected. Judging from the trend, it should be able to gross around 25 billion...

But one movie can't sustain the entire release period!
Why are there so many bad movies?
The reason is simple—a few years ago, big IPs and big data were all the rage…and many movies were launched based on this logic!
If you initiate a project based on this logic, then you're just thinking about making quick money!

Treating the audience purely as韭菜 (a metaphor for easily exploited people) to be harvested...

The audience definitely won't buy it!
Not only the film market, but the TV dramas released during the summer season were also terrible...

The ratings and discussion volume of shows such as "The Legend of Chusen", "Ice Fantasy", "Novoland: The Castle in the Sky", "Sparrow", and "Decipher" were all poor.

The previously popular concepts of "winning over young people and winning over women for high ratings," "big IP and young heartthrobs," and "fantasy and martial arts themes" are no longer effective!

Even if the production company inflated the online viewership, it wouldn't make a difference...

"Ice Fantasy" claims to have garnered 6.5 million views across the internet within 10 minutes of its premiere and 164 billion online views...

However, it has a Douban rating of 3.9, and fewer than 3 people have rated it…

This is clearly not the number of reviews for a popular TV series!
Douban ratings might be deceiving, but the number of ratings... can't be lied about at this stage.

Moreover, this is accompanied by widespread ridicule of young male celebrities, with headlines always featuring topics like "sky-high salaries," "expressionless face," and "body doubles and body doubles"...

That's right, in just one year, young male celebrities have gone from being adored by everyone to being universally disliked...

……

"Exorbitant actor salaries... I've never encountered that. In the films I've made, actor salaries at most accounted for 50% of the total production cost..."

"Take that movie 'Fame and Fortune,' for example. It was a film carried entirely by the actors; in most cases, their salaries only accounted for 30%..."

"You can reduce the upfront salary and then take a share of the profits! That's what I did!"

"Since young idols and big stars believe in their own appeal, they can simply choose to let them receive a share of the profits!"

Shen Yan then chatted with the reporters...

"So, you think actors should get a share of the profits? Like in Hollywood!"

Shen Yan shook his head: "No, the pay is remuneration, you get paid for your work. Profit sharing is an investment, you get a share of the profits."

These are two different concepts. Actors are not obligated to pay for a film's box office. In principle, actors are only responsible for performing well and fulfilling the promotional obligations stipulated in their contracts.

Box office success has absolutely nothing to do with actor salaries. Even if you lose money, you still have to pay every penny of your salary... In fact, in Hollywood, only big stars get to share in the profits... For those obviously blockbuster movies with good release dates, investors are scrambling to put in the money, so there's no chance for actors to get a share of the profits.

"What about in China?"

"I'm not clear about the situation in China."

"But you've always been receiving dividends!"

"I wrote the script myself, I'm the producer, I organized the production... so what's wrong with me taking a cut?"

"I heard that the lead actors in 'Ex Machina' and 'Moon' also signed box office revenue sharing agreements?"

"Those two projects are considered high-risk investments in film and television. Take a movie like 'Moon,' for example—could you predict it would ultimately gross 8 million?"

Moon ultimately grossed 8.64 million...

According to Andy Lau's investment agreement and personal box office revenue sharing, his box office revenue exceeds 1.8 million!
There will be subsequent copyright revenue sharing, with total revenue conservatively estimated at over 2.2 million…

This is probably the most lucrative job Andy Lau has ever made in his career!
Then I took on "Finch" and "Say Goodbye"...

Finch is a road movie with a simple story: the apocalypse has arrived, and Finch must leave the place he knows best, taking his dog and a robot with him...

According to the script, Andy Lau was cast as the robot, while Tom Hanks was cast as Fincher.

Yes, it's him again!

In "Say Goodbye," Andy Lau continues to play an artificial intelligence robot...

It belongs to the companion type.

The function malfunctioned due to issues such as aging parts.

The male owner wanted to find someone to repair him, but because Liu Dehua was a "second-hand" robot, there was naturally no after-sales guarantee.

The male homeowner obtained a memory stick containing all of Andy Lau's memories since he was born through special means. While playing these images, the homeowner discovered some previously unknown memories…

It finds a small but beautiful angle in the well-worn subject of robots: instead of talking about the threats or oppression brought about by artificial intelligence, it slowly deconstructs the meaning of family and life, and tells the story of the preciousness of memory and emotion.

These two projects represent investments of $6000 million and 5000 million RMB respectively…

The former is a collaborative project between Spark Studio and A24, while the latter is a pioneering sci-fi experimental work independently produced by Spark Studio…

The investment in "Say Goodbye" was also 40% from Andy Lau's company, with him personally signing a profit-sharing agreement...

After all, Moon made that much money...

……

"I think the high salaries are a result of many production companies' indulgence... We also produce web dramas, such as 'The Chef in the Flower Garden' starring Chen Yao and Liu Duanduan, and 'Suddenly This Summer' starring Zhu Yilong and Jin Chen. The salaries of the actors did not exceed 40% of the production budget..."

"Do you think this is reasonable?"

Shen Yan hesitated for a moment, then said, "It's hard to say, but I definitely won't use it!"

Celebrity exorbitant salaries…

Shen Yan had also thought it was unreasonable before!

Why do you earn so much?

Later on, quite a few influencers on Douyin and Kuaishou earned tens of millions of yuan a year...

I gradually accepted it...

208 is just a minority. There are millions of people in the entire entertainment industry, but only a few can earn the so-called "sky-high salaries"!

Moreover, this salary isn't paid by the government; it's paid by the production company. Even if they didn't offer an exorbitant salary, they wouldn't give it to you...

As for the policies set by the government, then we should follow those policies and pay the taxes due.

Okay, the main thing is that Shen Yan also gets a high salary...

Based on the box office of 25 billion yuan for "Zhou Chu Eliminates the Three Evils", the profit sharing ratio is 22%. He will receive 2.1 million yuan from the first box office revenue!
Have you read the article "Undercover in Hengdian"?

(End of this chapter)