Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 392 Gu Bei Sharpens His Knife in the Xiangdu Entertainment Circle
While everyone present found it absurd, they also felt that Jiang Zhiqiang's reasoning was quite reasonable.

If an actor needs to do voice acting, they are at the very bottom of the Hollywood actor hierarchy, and will basically be excluded from nominations for all major awards.

This situation arises partly because the integration of sound and image is extremely important in modern films.
Actors who cannot use their own voices will have a disconnect between their emotional expression and the visuals, and are essentially incompetent actors.

on the other hand,

This stems from the era of transition between silent and sound films.
Many stars of the silent film era faded away because they didn't live up to audience expectations, contributing to the rapid decline of the sound film era.
The stars of the sound film era naturally do not want these people to become popular again. Discrimination against actors for dubbing is actually discrimination by sound films against silent films.

Given these two factors, the label of "dubbing equals amateur" has long been firmly established in Hollywood, so it's perfectly understandable that Gu Bei is unwilling to use Xiangdu actors due to dubbing issues.

Wu Shiyuan, president of the Xiangdu Film Association, looked at Emperor Entertainment Group boss Yang Shoucheng: "You collaborated with Gu Bei on Let the Bullets Fly. Do you really think he is like that?"

"After all, he's a director by trade, and he was even willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make Gravity. He must have some pursuit of the film's content."

Yang Shoucheng still has a lingering attachment to the idea of ​​gravity. "Just think about it," he said, "if you replaced the actors in 'The Message' with the original voices of our Xiangdu actors, would it still be the same movie?"

"I will let the president of the Xiangdu Performing Artists Association know about this."

Wu Shiyuan sighed, but he knew the effect might be minimal.

It was still somewhat disheartening to watch Xiangdu gradually decline along with its local market, following in the footsteps of the Taiwanese entertainment industry.

After a pause, he said to Jiang Zhiqiang, "Linlang Entertainment is clearly trending towards replacing Huayi as the leading entertainment company in mainland China. I hope you can persuade Gu Bei to cooperate more with Xiangdu."

"I'll talk to Mr. Gu more about it later."

Jiang Zhiqiang glanced around at everyone in the room and became somewhat wary.

It's only been three years since he went from liking Gu Bei and wanting to promote him to now just hanging around at Linlang Entertainment.

The Xiangdu market is too small, and Linlang Entertainment will not venture into this area for many years to come. However, many people are eyeing the position of Linlang Entertainment's Xiangdu agent.

Therefore, he also needs to continue to strengthen his ties with Linlang Entertainment, and it would be best to have more close cooperation like that of "Bodyguards and Assassins".

……

"Is the Hong Kong entertainment circle surrendering to me like this?"

When Gu Bei received Jiang Zhiqiang's call, he was also a little confused. These days, the Hong Kong entertainment circle is still quite powerful, and there are movies like "The Legend of Macau," which feature a hodgepodge of Hong Kong stars, that have been playing in the Spring Festival season for many years.

But if you think about it carefully, those who will still have a voice in the next few years are actually people who have been living in Beijing for many years.

In the future, the younger generation in Xiangdu will either come to the mainland when they are still unknown, or they will come to the mainland to delete their accounts and start over, climbing up from scratch.

As for those who are heading north now...
The younger generation selected through Xiangdu's local resources.
Almost none of them became high-ranking officials directly in mainland China.

So this time, those who bowed to Gu Bei were not the same group of people who went north before, but rather those who had not yet gone north, but had already felt that the local market in Xiangdu was getting more and more mired in difficulties.

After talking with Jiang Zhiqiang, Gu Bei neither agreed nor refused: "I'll think about it later. I'm going back to North America in a couple of days, so I can't worry about these things for now."

Jiang Zhiqiang didn't force Gu Bei: "The Hollywood matter is more important. Gu Sheng, you don't need to worry. Hong Kong won't collapse anytime soon."

Sure enough, the people of Xiangdu have now realized that Xiangdu Cinema has long been teetering on the brink of collapse.

After hanging up the phone,

Gu Bei thought about it carefully for a moment: "It doesn't seem like it's impossible."

Despite the fact that the Hong Kong film industry wants Gu Bei to make more films like "Bodyguards and Assassins" to give Hong Kong filmmakers more job opportunities.

But Gu Bei's ideas were different from theirs.

He wants to dismantle the Korean entertainment industry like Netflix did.
While the Xiangdu film industry is still hot, let's dismantle it!

Unfortunately, Gu Bei's thoughts and interests differed from those of the people of Xiangdu. He had neither the ability nor the idea to save the Xiangdu film industry, but he did have the idea of ​​letting them live in another way.

The main problem is that Linlang Video's development has been really weak.

Even though Gu Bei had anticipated that in an environment where copyright laws were not perfect and user payments were insufficient, it would be almost impossible for Linlang Video to become an instant hit upon release.

But as it stands now, with only four figures in membership after several months, it's truly disappointing.

No wonder LeTV, under Jia Yueting's leadership, is rushing headlong down the path of ecological transformation; seriously pursuing streaming media is a dead end!
Gu Bei doesn't need Linlang Videos; he's fallen into the path of ecological transformation.

All he needs to do each year is produce a few long-tail dramas and buy enough hit drama copyrights. In the future, it will be a piece of cake for him to make Linlang Video replace iQiyi as the number one streaming media platform.

But if Gu Bei did that...

Therefore, Linlang Video is destined to follow the same path as Kiwi.

It has become a garbage generator for all kinds of historical dramas and variety shows.

Actually, historical dramas aren't without their merits. Like Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters, they may not be very informative, but they're definitely good enough for everyday entertainment.

In the future, historical romance dramas will be a magic weapon for major video platforms to export to Southeast Asia.

After all, this kind of thing can only be filmed in mainland China. Even in places like Hong Kong and Taiwan, which are also part of Chinese civilization, the places are too small to capture the grandeur of the scene.

But if video platforms only have historical romance dramas left, then there's a problem.

In the future, most of the S+ dramas produced by the three major video platforms each year will be ancient costume dramas, and hundreds of billions of yuan will be spent annually to support the costume, prop, and publicity teams of major production companies that are squandering their budgets.

The reason this situation is unsolvable is that, apart from historical romance dramas, mainland China has almost no way to produce good crime and professional dramas that can become hits due to censorship.

This is a vicious cycle!
After all, when web series first came out, the censorship wasn't so strict, which led the three major video platforms to excitedly enter the market, thinking they had found a new growth point.

As a result, after joining the system, the review process became stricter, and everyone had no choice but to engage in a battle of wills to see who would give up first.

Gu Bei was still racking his brains about how to break out of this vicious cycle, but the Hong Kong entertainment circle's initiative to approach him reminded him of how Netflix dismantled the Korean entertainment industry.

Netflix is ​​using a very typical internet tactic: first, spend money; then, monopolize the market; and finally, close the net.

Netflix's entry into the South Korean entertainment industry began with a massive spending spree, using money to soften the previously somewhat xenophobic attitude of the South Korean entertainment industry, which then began producing content for Netflix.

There used to be a clear distinction between film and television actors in the South Korean entertainment industry, but Netflix broke down that barrier with money, making web series a better option for film actors.

After breaking into the South Korean entertainment industry
Netflix's next step is to revamp the style of its South Korean content.
Originally, South Korean films were responsible for condemning chaebols and venting anger, while television focused on romance and emotional soothing. Korean dramas were arguably unparalleled in Asia. However, Korean dramas could only earn money in Asia, while Netflix aimed to earn money worldwide. As a result, its content shifted towards a darker, more violent style reminiscent of North American dramas, where gore and violence were far more universally appealing than in romantic comedies.

A squid game suddenly appeared.
It was both accidental and inevitable.
Because the cultural industry follows the law of large numbers.

The more you do, the more likely you are to produce high-quality work.

At that time, the Korean entertainment industry had not yet noticed anything unusual. They even thought that the global popularity of the squid game was a symbol of their cultural export, something to be proud of.

Then, Kingdom, Dark Glory, and a series of dark-themed dramas became new symbols of Korean television dramas.

At this point, Netflix achieved a monopoly.

Because the three major public broadcasters that used to monopolize the Korean entertainment industry have been brought down.

After all, public television stations can't follow the same dark path as them, but they have many elderly people and children watching them.

After achieving a monopoly,

Netflix then started cutting salaries.
At this point, the Korean entertainment industry was powerless to resist.
After all, public television has few viewers, advertising revenue has been declining year by year, and streaming services like Netflix dominate the market. If you don't produce shows for Netflix, you'll starve; if you do, you can continue to survive.

It's important to understand that in the 90s, even in Europe, the home of the New Wave, Hollywood had been relentlessly conquering the region.
South Korea and Japan are the only two countries that managed to resist Hollywood.
Even regions like Xiangdu and Taiwan, whose entertainment industries are on par with those of the two countries, have been repeatedly conquered by Hollywood!

The Koreans relied on the "shaving heads" campaign, which was a forced regulation of the screening time ratio between Hollywood movies and domestic films.

It's the domestic product protection month in mainland China.

South Korea provides full-year domestic protection.

This was what pulled Korean films back from the brink of collapse, but they still succumbed to the streaming era.

As for cherry blossoms, they are rather peculiar.

The live-action film about cherry blossoms has actually already fallen into [a trap/crisis].
Like in Europe, they can only make art films.

However, Sakura relied on inexpensive artists and anime culture to make animation a genre film that could compete with Hollywood.

So don't be surprised that Conan has become a spy show.
This is because cherry blossoms have a unique way of resisting Hollywood.

Other countries that want to make spy movies can only match Hollywood's spending of hundreds of millions of dollars. They can't recoup their costs domestically, and nobody watches them overseas.

Only Japanese animated films can be made with tens of millions of US dollars, and they make huge profits from the domestic Japanese market, while also being able to continue to be exported overseas.

Gu Bei decided to take the same approach as Netflix and directly target the entertainment industry in Xiangdu.

Netflix relies on revamping the style of Korean dramas and supplying them directly to the North American and European markets, using these high-priced markets to entice the Korean entertainment industry to change its style along with it.

Gu Bei's idea was to use Xiangdu's entertainment industry to film some TV dramas with strict censorship, such as crime dramas and professional dramas.

These dramas, which would normally be very easy to become hits, are difficult for platforms to profit from due to the requirement in China to jointly review scripts and film them with certain units. As a result, they can only continue to focus on historical romance dramas.

But just like the Southeast Asian crime universe in future movies...
If the story didn't take place in the country, but rather in Xiangdu (the city of incense) or other Southeast Asian countries,

Then there's no need to follow so many review rules; we can completely forge a new path.

The same applies to professional dramas. If a doctor drama is made in China, the script and filming must be supervised by the health department, so in the end, the characters can only use the identity of a doctor to fall in love.

But if this story happened in Xiangdu or other Southeast Asian countries, then there wouldn't be as many places that need regulation.

Most importantly, TVB's crime dramas and professional dramas were all popular in China, and this path has been proven, but they didn't continue down that path later.

and,

Gu Bei's goal is not simply to produce another batch of TVB-style crime dramas and professional dramas.

What he wants to create is a Southeast Asian crime universe similar to Detective Chinatown, with the main characters all from mainland China and speaking Mandarin, but set in a non-sensitive region.

Even if the locals in Hong Kong don't like watching it, it doesn't matter. As long as mainland audiences can support this level of spending power, eventually everyone will make dramas like this for the money, and then the younger generation in Hong Kong will naturally start to like watching them.

However, this plan is rather ambitious.

Gu Bei decided to first collaborate with Xiangdu Entertainment.
First, fleece the remaining glimmer of Hong Kong's entertainment industry, sharpen your skills, and once the mainland market has been further developed, you can begin this plan to dismantle Hong Kong's entertainment circle.

……

Kyoto, China Film Group.

Gu Bei could clearly feel that
This time, after visiting China Film Group, even more people are paying attention to me.

It's worth noting that Gu Beilai's most attention-grabbing moment at China Film Group wasn't after he won the Oscar for Best Picture, but rather when he was just rising to prominence after winning the Palme d'Or.

After he came to China Film Group more often, people got used to it and basically didn't pay any special attention to him.

until today,

Gu Bei once again enjoyed the attention of everyone.
After entering Han Sanpin's office, he sat down opposite Han Sanpin and asked curiously, "Chairman Han, what happened at China Film Group? Why is everyone paying so much attention to me today?"

"Don't try to act innocent after getting the benefit!"

Han Sanpin joked with a smile.

"what?"

Gu Bei was slightly taken aback upon hearing this, indicating that he was still quite puzzled.

You really don't know?

Han Sanpin then realized that Gu Bei genuinely didn't know why; he had thought Gu Bei was just pretending to come and claim credit again.

After a pause,

He then smiled and explained to Gu Bei, "That must be because of the news of the film's success during the Spring Festival!"

You probably don't realize how important a new film release period is to China Film Group, let alone the Spring Festival period, which has immense potential!

(End of this chapter)