Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 312 It's that time of year again when we're waiting for Twilight to give us our money back!

At its peak,
His cash holdings in North America and Europe once reached a staggering $2.7 million!
Mainly,

My World contributed one hundred million US dollars in net profit to him.
In addition, there were royalties from several best-selling books, which still amounted to $2000 million last year after taxes.
As for the movies, they haven't brought him any significant income since the revenue sharing with Twilight last August.

But even with so much cash, he spent it all last year.

The first expense was the production cost of Gravity.

After the Gravity Project was officially launched, Gu Bei had to have the World Foundation transfer $6000 million in production fees to the Gravity Project's account.

The second investment was in Netflix.

Last year, during a conversation with Liu Yifei, Gu Bei confronted his ambitions and gained Liu Yifei's approval.

That happened to be the time when the financial crisis broke out.
Netflix's stock price has hit a one-year low.

Gu Bei spent $6600 million to buy 350 million Netflix shares, representing 5.7% of Netflix's total share capital, which just exceeded the threshold for disclosure of shareholding.

He publicly stated that his investment was a financial investment.
He expressed his strong optimism about Netflix's business model.
I also met with Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

This money consumed all of Gu Bei's royalties from the past few years.

This money is temporarily unused in his account.

If you want to ship it back to China, you'll have to pay the departure tax.
Investing in movies also incurs personal income tax on investment returns.

This is a perfect opportunity to buy undervalued assets during the financial crisis. Netflix's stock price could reach as high as 299 yuan within the next three years, a 16-fold increase!
However, neither of these two expenditures were Gu Bei's largest expenses.

Film investments are typically recouped on an annual basis.

Want to challenge the six major ones,
Therefore, you must have a very healthy cash flow!
The third expense,
It was also the largest expense.
It was a Swedish game company that they acquired, called KING.

KING is a company that develops Flash games, similar to the 4399 mini-game website, except that their games are all original and they can earn tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year.

Besides the financial crisis,
This was also a pivotal period for KING's transformation into a company developing social games for Facebook.

Gu Beicai was able to acquire KING Company for 'only' one hundred million US dollars.

King's true glory came with the release of the match-3 game Candy Crush Saga, an IP that brought King over $20 billion in revenue.

In contrast,

My world is worth $40 billion.
The DCEU (DC Extended Universe) is worth $80 billion.
The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is worth $343 billion.

After spending these three large investments, Gu Bei really didn't have much money left in his pocket. At least, it was impossible for him to develop an A-level production like Inception.

They won't be able to recoup enough funds until at least after Twilight 2 is released.

It's that time of year again when we're waiting for Twilight to pay out!

However, Twilight 2 is scheduled for release in August during the summer holiday season.

The April slot was given to Liu Yifei's "The Fault in My Starry Night".

If we want to see the Twilight movie investment pay off, we'll have to wait until at least November this year!
Gu Bei remembered that after The Revenant won the Oscar,
Leonardo DiCaprio took a four-year break before being brought back into the spotlight by the brilliant director Quentin Tarantino and Sony Pictures, which he joined after Harvey Weasley went to prison.

He asked curiously, "How many years are you planning to take a break?"

"I'll just go with the flow; I guess I'll only be able to find a role I like!"

Leonard casually remarked, "By the way, did you read the article I sent you in your email?"

"I'll take a look later!"

After Gu Bei hung up the phone,

He brought the coffee to the table.
He opened his laptop and saw the article Leonardo had forwarded to him.

The title is quite sensational: "Why Can't Gu Bei Win an Oscar as an Artist?"

Actually,
This article comes from renowned film critic Roger Ebert.

He had previously written a film review for The Artist in the Chicago Sun-Times, giving it a perfect four-star rating.

Is this another comment I'm writing? Could it be that I've turned against them?
"After the Oscars, like many others, I went to the cinema again to watch the artists."

As I said before, The Artist is the best film of 2008 in my opinion, and I still stand by that opinion and applaud it for winning an Oscar.

However, I don't think it's a pity that Gu Bei missed out on the Oscar.

The Artist is a good film, but it doesn't showcase Gu Bei's auteurship.

It's more like a love letter from Gu Bei to the film!
In this film, Gu Bei skillfully manipulates the story, the performance, and the characteristics of black-and-white silent films, and you can see Gu Bei's homage to various classic films almost everywhere.

However, if you look at Gu Bei's first two films, you will find that he is very good at character creation. He can often create a character that is very worth exploring, even outside of the large amount of personal perspective.

Mr. Fletcher in Whiplash and the summer in 500 Days of Summer

These characters are often more profound than those who occupy a larger portion of the story, making Gu Bei's story worth revisiting multiple times.

However, among the artists, Leonardo DiCaprio performed exceptionally well. His mastery of comedic moments and physical comedy was like that of a silent film star, but it made the artist seem more like his stage than Gu Bei's.

However, the artist did not bring Gu Bei an Oscar.
But this only makes me more excited for his new film, La La Land.

If Gu Bei can make black-and-white silent films to this extent, how much more powerful can he bring to musicals?

Gu Bei was somewhat surprised after reading it. He had originally thought it was an article about betraying his country, but it turned out to be a self-praise piece.

In fact, there have been quite a few similar articles recently.

Analyzing Gu Bei's narrative, storyboarding, and character development may seem like finding flaws, but most of the article actually praises Gu Bei's other strengths.

In contrast, Danny Boyle, who won the Oscar, hasn't received as much analysis in the articles.

Under such public opinion,
Gu Bei is like a tragic hero who works incredibly hard.

They charged toward the golden statuette time and time again.

They've brought us two excellent films in two consecutive years.
But every year they fell short of the Oscars.
Isn't that...

"broken!"

Gu Bei suddenly realized, "I've become Little Li!"

He said, "Why does this routine seem so familiar?"
Previously, Leonardo DiCaprio took the lead in this discussion, working incredibly hard to gain the Academy's approval, each attempt more arduous than the last, but failing each time.

Now it's Gu Bei, a talented director who has been a runner-up for two consecutive years and desperately wants the academy's recognition.

Gu Bei didn't care.
In the internet age, attention equals traffic, and traffic equals money.

Even for directors, more attention is not necessarily a bad thing.

Exactly next month,
The movie "The Fault in Our Stars" is about to be released.

However, Liu Yifei will need more than half a month to finish her astronaut training experience. Gu Bei plans to pick her up then and take her back to North America to participate in the film's promotion.

And now...

Gu Bei received the news that the car to pick him up had arrived.
He stepped out of the house and opened the car door: "Excuse me!"

Yang Yu moved further inside the car, giving Gu Bei more space.

After Gu Bei sat down,

Yang Yu took out a certificate of merit: "Should this be given to the company, or can I keep it myself?"

Gu Bei took the certificate and looked at it carefully. This was the International Short Film Jury Award that Gu Bei won this year for recommending Yang Yu's "Hit, Hit a Big Watermelon" to the Sundance International Film Festival.

However, he was attending the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony that day and didn't have time to pay attention to Sundance.

This certificate is almost identical to his.
It just has the word 'international' added.

It's slightly less valuable in terms of gold content.

"A great start! That's fantastic!"

Gu Bei praised him and handed the certificate back, saying, "I'll have the company make a copy later. You can take the original home yourself!"

Then he asked Yang Yu, "How was your trip to Sundance?"

"A little boring."

When Yang Yu brought this up, she couldn't help but complain, "The organizing committee basically doesn't care about the participants in the short film section, and even the screenings have to be done together with other short films."

Even after several screenings, no one will remember a short film.

The key is,

Even if you win an award, you won't even get a chance to give an acceptance speech.
There wasn't even a trophy, just a certificate!

Gu Bei couldn't help but smile upon hearing this.

This is exactly the same experience he had back then.

The only difference is that Gu Bei, as the actor who plays the sound engineer, actually receives a lot of attention from the audience.

Two years have passed in the blink of an eye!
After a pause, Gu Bei asked again, "So, what did you think of your recent trip to Hollywood, visiting the animation studios of Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks?"

"Amazing, incredibly amazing, absolutely amazing!"

When Yang Yu mentioned the field of animation, his eyes immediately lit up.

"Do you want to stay?" Gu Bei asked curiously.

"In no mood!"

Yang Yu shook her head decisively, "Even as a visiting guest, I could feel the arrogance and rejection of those people."

When they heard that I was an animator from China,
Or you can talk to me about ink-wash animation from the last century.
They either expressed great surprise, seemingly unable to believe that an animation industry existed in China.
I like the stories they create and admire their talent, but I don't want to work in this kind of environment!

Gu Bei was somewhat surprised by what he heard, but at the same time, he felt that it made perfect sense.

After all, Yang Yu is capable of making films like Nezha 2 with a rebellious core theme in the future.
This shows that he is not the kind of person who would think that everything in North America and Hollywood is good just because he likes Disney.

After a burst of output
Yang Yu thought of Gu Bei again:

"Director Gu, how exactly did you manage to persevere?"

"Persistence? Does this thing even require persistence?"

Gu Bei looked puzzled. "I've been kept by a rich woman from the very beginning!"

As for now... haven't you seen the recent news?

Yang Yu: ...

He didn't really want to talk to Gu Bei anymore!
This entire trip to North America was arranged by Rose Pictures, which is how Yang Yu learned some details about the relationship between Rose Pictures, Gu Bei, and Liu Yifei.

In his view, Gu Bei's life was like that of a protagonist with cheat codes.

He was kept by a rich woman at the beginning, and quickly jumped from short films to feature films, shortening the time by at least three to five years.

His first feature film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and also garnered significant awards at the Oscars.

The third feature film won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Regardless of whether they are Chinese or not

Gu Bei has now become one of the key figures in Hollywood.

Jealousy envy hate ah!

After a while,
Yang Yu sighed: "Director Gu, when are we going back to China? I want to go back to making animation."

This trip to North America was very rewarding; I need to go back and reflect on it!

"By the end of the month!"

Gu Bei thought of the time when Liu Yifei would finish her astronaut training experience, "Since you've come all the way to Hollywood, I'll take you to experience a top-notch creative discussion meeting."

"How top-tier?" Yang Yu was somewhat skeptical.

"Is Mission: Impossible 4 top-tier enough?"

Gu Bei said with a smile.

"That can't be right, didn't Paramount and Tom Cruise have a falling out?"

Yang Yu was slightly startled upon hearing this.

"Nothing is impossible!"

Gu Bei said calmly, "This is Hollywood, so profit is the main focus here."

The Mission: Impossible series still has value. Even if the two sides don't reach an agreement today, they will likely continue to cooperate in the future!

Ultimately, the conflict between Paramount and Tom Cruise is a battle for interests.

Tom Cruise was brought in by Viacom shortly after they acquired Paramount, in order to gain control of the company.

Under their agreement, Paramount would pay Tom Cruise's production company $1000 million annually, plus $600 million in discretionary funds for project development.

This fee is merely a cooperation fee, a fixed cost each year.

In specific projects...

Tom Cruise doesn't receive a salary; instead, he receives 30% of the net box office revenue plus 40% of the DVD royalties.

In contrast, Leonardo DiCaprio receives $20 million plus 2000% of the net box office revenue for projects of similar production value.

Paramount is practically reduced to being Tom Cruise's employee; it's no wonder they've fallen out!

Before the filming of Mission: Impossible III even began, the two sides had already started to grapple with each other.

Tom Cruise reduced his share of net box office revenue from 30% to 22.5%, while his share of DVD royalties remained unchanged.

The box office failure of Mission: Impossible III led Paramount to continue its internal struggle, seeking to further reduce DVD royalty revenue sharing.

Finally, Tom Cruise and Paramount had a falling out.

Tom Cruise joins United Artists, distributing his own films.
Then, in the first movie, after being thoroughly beaten up by Gu Bei and Summer's 500 Days, he finally woke up.

After a while,
Gu Bei and his group arrived at Paramount.

Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Gray personally received Gu Bei: "Bruce, shall we take a look at Paramount's project portfolio first?"

Brad plans to use Paramount's relinquished right of first refusal in exchange for Gu Bei directing Mission: Impossible 4.

However, Gu Bei still doesn't have a high opinion of Paramount's project portfolio.

He shook his head: "No need, let's first determine the development strategy for the Mission: Impossible sequel!"

(End of this chapter)