Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 424 Huayi's Conspiracy: The Great Earthquake Premieres

For Wang Zhongjun,
The thing he regrets most in his life
Back then, because of concerns about Han Sanpin's pursuit, they didn't completely crush Gu Bei when conflicts arose.

Later, Huayi tried to target Gu Bei several times, but all attempts failed.

Now, he finally saw a glimmer of hope!
After all, Gu Bei had only targeted Huayi Company before, so others could comfortably stand by and watch, and might even hope that Linlang Entertainment and Huayi would fight as fiercely as possible.

But cinema chains are a very large and profitable entity.

Even behemoths like China Film Group and Shanghai Film Group are just one example.
Other large film and television companies have also been involved to varying degrees. For example, Bona Film Group, which has been competing with Huayi Brothers to become the leading private film company, is also among them.
Even Huayi,
After obtaining stock market financing,
They also intend to get involved in the rapid development of the cinema industry.
Theaters are like the roots of a tree, deeply embedded in the film industry. They may not seem as glamorous as film companies, but anyone who tries to shake the foundation of theaters will only be asking for trouble!

Back then, Zhang Weiping, with the help of Zhang Yimou, forced cinemas to make concessions on revenue sharing, which benefited all film and television companies, removing any obstacles for them to increase their revenue sharing.

But the price is...
As long as Zhang Weiping and Zhang Yimou separate

Zhang Weiping will then be completely cut off from the film industry.

A smile appeared on Wang Zhongjun's face: "We need to have someone look into this matter carefully."

Wang Zhonglei understood immediately: "Don't worry, brother, this time I'm going to ruin Gu Bei's reputation!"

"There's no need to go to such lengths; too much of a good thing can be bad."

Wang Zhongjun shook his head, appearing completely unfazed. "We just need to let more people know about this."

Judging from Gu Bei's style of doing things, he is not the kind of person who will give up easily if he doesn't achieve his goal.

Let him push himself into the abyss!

"That's true."

Wang Zhonglei nodded.

To this day, he still doesn't understand which of his words that night offended Gu Bei, causing Gu Bei to chase after him and Hua Yi for more than three years.

Due to the increasing pressure on Linlang Entertainment in recent years

Even in the dead of night,

He even dreams that Huayi is losing money year after year and is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Even Wang Zhongjun had given up and left Huayi, and only he, who had wanted to make movies from the beginning, continued to struggle to keep Huayi afloat.

"This time... we absolutely have to succeed!"

Wang Zhongjun stood up, looked at the carefully maintained and precious green plants outside the Huayi Building, and thought firmly to himself.

this year,

This is a crucial year for Huayi Brothers and Linlang Entertainment in their battle for the top spot in the film industry.
Only now, with Huayi and Linlang Entertainment switching positions, do they have such a good opportunity to attack Linlang Entertainment's weaknesses.

What he needs to do this time is...

The idea is to portray Gu Bei as a combination of the two Zhangs.
He is both a talented director and a greedy capitalist.

Even if Linlang Entertainment's movies have high box office returns, people will only cooperate with Linlang Entertainment out of a sense of profit, holding their noses.

No company in the film and television industry lasts forever. If Linlang Entertainment's creative ability declines in the future, it will be ruthlessly abandoned by the industry.

With Huayi's instigation, the conflict between Linlang Entertainment and the cinema chain was exposed to the public.

Just as Wang Zhongjun had predicted,
Gu Bei and Linlang Entertainment indeed faced a wave of criticism.

Even before Huayi could intervene, experts jumped out to claim that Linlang Entertainment's practice of linking the Tang City earthquake with gravity constituted a form of commercial hegemony.

Even the general public, who had always been relatively supportive of Gu Bei, expressed their dissatisfaction.

"Gu Bei's behavior is disgusting! There's only one movie theater in our city. Surely we can't see gravity, right?"

"If you can't see it, then don't watch it. It's just a movie. What's the big deal? If it doesn't work, you can just watch a pirated DVD later."

"But... Gravity is said to have amazing special effects, and the 3D effects are almost on par with Avatar. I doubt my home DVD player can deliver the same movie theater experience, right?"

Amidst the outcry, Linlang Entertainment has remained silent.

but,

In this kind of atmosphere,
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, which escaped the National Day holiday release schedule, premiered on July 21, just a week earlier than Linlang Entertainment's "Aftershock".

It exceeded 2000 million yuan in just half a day on the first day.

This surpasses Feng Xiaogang's record of 1750 million in half a day last year (1942).

This also marks the highest opening day box office record for a Chinese-language film this year.
Judging from the box office figures for the first half day, Detective Dee definitely has the potential to break 300 million yuan at the box office!
"Good good!"

When Wang Zhonglei walked around the Huayi office, he had a lot more smiles on his face than before.

People are in high spirits when they have good news.

This time, it wasn't just Huayi Brothers' film that was a success.

At the same time, Gu Bei also suffers misfortune, which is one of the few times Hua Yi has the upper hand in the struggle between him and Gu Bei.

Most importantly, Huayi's stock finally saw a surge today, breaking through the 10 billion mark.

This time, the price once again reached the highest price on the first day of Huayi's listing, providing an opportunity for those who bought at the peak to break even, and also causing the wealth of CEO Wang and a series of people in the Huayi Group to skyrocket.

"Brother, we've turned the tables this time!"

Wang Zhonglei arrived at Wang Zhongjun's office and said with a smile, "Di Renjie broke 100 million in three and a half days in the first week, which is only slightly worse than the 1.25 million in three and a half days of The Founding of a Republic, and even slightly better than the 100 million in four days of The Message."

Moreover, the box office figures for the first weekend in Taiwan have also been released: NT$1600 million, which is already Tsui Hark's best box office performance since the beginning of the new century.

This time, Di Renjie should have no problem breaking 300 million!

"We'll have to wait and see what happens in Tang City this week, thanks to Linlang Entertainment."

Wang Zhongjun frowned and emphasized.

"Gu Bei is already having conflicts with the cinemas, so why should he be afraid of a major earthquake in Tang City?"

Wang Zhonglei said dismissively.

"That's the problem!"

Wang Zhongjun frowned and said, "Have you noticed that, besides media reports and our own efforts to fuel the flames,..."

Almost no one in theaters is discussing Linlang Entertainment's domineering behavior this time.

Do you think this is reasonable?

"what?"

Wang Zhonglei was slightly taken aback upon hearing this. Given the usual temperament of cinema chains, they would probably have already exploded. After all, cinema chains are a capital-intensive industry, backed by various powerful entities; they are not easily bullied.
But just days later, the movie "The Great Earthquake of Tang City" was about to be released, and the main actors in this story, the movie theaters, didn't even show up.

That's really strange!

Wang Zhongjun said with some concern, "The premiere of the Tang City earthquake film is coming up soon, I want to watch the live broadcast."

……

Tang City.

The premiere, co-hosted by the local organizers and Linlang Entertainment, has already begun.

Gu Bei, as the founder of Linlang Entertainment, walked the red carpet.
At the end of the red carpet,
Media outlets approved by the organizers
I conducted a brief interview with Gu Bei.

"Director Gu, everyone is very curious about why Linlang Entertainment would make a movie that connects two major earthquakes. Could you explain it to us?"

These were very standard questions; in fact, they were all pre-arranged, after all, this was the premiere, which was being broadcast live on the local TV station.

"Actually, it was all a coincidence!"

With a faint smile on his face, Gu Bei began to tell a story, "Back then, in 2007, after returning to China from Cannes, I saw Professor Zhang Ling's aftershocks published in a magazine while waiting at the airport."

I was deeply moved after watching it, so I bought the rights and prepared to make it into a movie.

Then I contacted the local government in Tang City, and they were very supportive of the project, which led to this wonderful film!

The story goes like this:

In fact, Tang City was already planning to film a movie about the earthquake and had begun looking for well-known domestic directors, including Feng Xiaogang from Huayi Brothers.

When Linlang Entertainment came to them,
The two sides hit it off immediately.
The local government was even willing to provide most of the film's production funding.
The original film, "The Great Tang Dynasty Earthquake," was funded primarily by local funding, with Huayi Brothers contributing only a small portion. This resulted in a film reportedly costing 200 million yuan. As a result, Feng Xiaogang even sourced props from old items collected from all over the country.

Gu Bei naturally refused the investment, but only used the venue and non-core resources such as the premiere that were provided free of charge.

"Then, Director Gu, do you have any response to the recent conflict between Linlang Entertainment and the cinemas?"

The second question surprised the media present.

Who is this?

Wow, that's fierce!
I'm afraid I'll get fired when I get back.

result,

They turned around and looked.
It's all messed up.
It turned out to be a reporter from Tangshi Labor Daily.
Isn't this obviously a question asked and answered by myself?
but,

The media still looked at Gu Bei with expectant eyes.

This is a recent hot news topic, after all. They don't dare to ask, but Gu Bei made the arrangements himself, so why don't they dare to listen?

"Although this is just a very simple misunderstanding, I would also like to apologize to some cinemas that have been troubled by the personal behavior of Linlang Entertainment employees."

When Gu Bei uttered his first words,
The media didn't take it seriously; it was just the behavior of temporary workers, and they were all too familiar with this kind of thing.

But Gu Bei's next sentence,

But it exceeded everyone's expectations.
Facing the media, Gu Bei continued, "We did reject some theaters' applications for copies of Gravity, but that's because we believe their screening conditions do not meet Gravity's minimum standards."

This has nothing to do with scheduling issues as some media outlets have reported; it's simply a misunderstanding caused by the fact that both are handled by the same person.

After a pause,

Gu Bei continued, "As a director, I really hope that my works can be shown on the big screen and seen by as many people as possible."

However, if the footage shown differs too much from the original film, I still don't want viewers to pay the same price to see a different version of the film.

Especially this year,
China added 600 screens in the first six months of the year, exceeding the total number added in the entire year of 2009.

By the end of June, the number of movie screens across the country should have reached 5319. The rapid development of the cinema industry has attracted some people who do not know much about movie screens to enter the industry.

They only wanted the projector bulbs to be dimmer, to use less electricity, and to run longer, ignoring the fatal damage this practice would do to the film's projection quality.

What Linlang Entertainment has been doing lately is actually checking the screening schedules of cinemas across the country; it's just that people have misunderstood.

After listening to Gu Bei, the media present felt that there was nothing wrong with what he said.

If the screening quality is poor, the audience won't know it's the cinema's fault, and will definitely blame director Gu Bei.

Previously, no one in film and television companies paid attention to this issue because their bosses were not directors. It is quite reasonable for Gu Bei, as both a director and the owner of a film and television company, to pay more attention to this problem.

After all, Gravity was a creation Gu Bei poured his heart and soul into, just like his child, and it was never too much to value it.

Actually,
The conflict between Linlang Entertainment and the cinema chain was initially exposed by the cinema chain itself.

However, Gu Bei put extreme pressure on the cinemas in order to reach an agreement, not because he was really planning to fall out with them, so things were handled quite quickly.

For behemoths like China Film Group and Yida Group, a symbolic minimum number of screenings is sufficient, since these are blockbusters produced by Linlang Entertainment and Chen Kaige.

As for the small county-level cinema, there's only one in the area, and Linlang Entertainment won't make things difficult for them.

The real unlucky ones are those cinemas in first- and second-tier cities that, despite fierce competition from other cinemas, still managed to remain resilient. Linlang Entertainment used them as the unlucky ones this time.

As for the screening conditions Gu Bei mentioned, domestic cinemas are quick to catch up, and nowadays there are very few that actually screen films according to the standards.

After seeing the media's reaction, Gu Bei nodded in satisfaction and walked into the premiere venue.

After he sat down,

He greeted the local leaders and Mr. and Mrs. Chen Kaige, saying, "Director Chen, it's been a long time!"

When Chen Kaige saw Gu Bei, his expression was somewhat complicated.

The film "Tang City Earthquake" was the one that left him with the least freedom of movement during his many years of filming, to the point that he felt Gu Bei had tricked him into accepting the project.

But by then, his whole family had already joined the project, so he couldn't just quit. He could only make a fuss about it against Gu Bei.

But some time ago,
Gu Bei and Linlang Entertainment went so far as to fall out with the theaters to secure screenings for him, which made Chen Kaige feel that Gu Bei still valued him quite a bit.
This was very helpful to Chen Kaige, who was very concerned about his image.

In the end, all these complex emotions boiled down to just one sentence: "It really has been a long time!"

Chen Kaige thought to himself, "I'd like to see if this script, which you so highly regard and won't let me change, can be more moving than my artistic approach."

After the formalities were completed, Chen Kaige and Gong Li took to the stage, marking the end of the premiere.

It wasn't until three days later, on July 28th,

Linlang Entertainment's summer blockbuster, *Aftershock*, has finally been released nationwide.

The first day's box office results sent shockwaves through the entire entertainment industry.

The box office for the Tang City earthquake film exceeded 50 million on its opening day!
(End of this chapter)