Shadow of Chinese Entertainment

Chapter 304 Brief Discussion
On May 1, 2007, filming for the first season of Homecoming officially began at the Atlanta studio in Georgia, USA.

Because it was a collaboration with a long-established company like Disney, and several months of preparation had been underway beforehand.

Therefore, the filming proceeded smoothly with almost no obstacles.

Hu Xiaobei is extremely efficient at filming, and his overall planning and coordination abilities are also outstanding.

Even the most difficult group scenes were no challenge for Hu Xiaobei, who had already experienced large-scale war scenes.

In addition, the early episodes of the series mainly revolved around the female lead, An Xiaoqian, so the filming progress was astonishing, steadily advancing at a rate of almost one episode per day.

The first season only had twelve episodes, and even though Hu Xiaobei slowed down the filming pace, the filming was completed in half a month.

Generally speaking, the filming of American TV series usually follows a certain work system, with a one-day-off-week schedule.

However, this is only in general; during the actual filming process, Hu Xiaobei did not encounter these troubles.

It is clear that rules are never meant to be followed, but rather to be broken depending on whether capital needs to.

When the pressure of survival weighs on ordinary people, the so-called "institutional guarantee" is nothing more than a fragile paper shackle.

When capital is no longer profitable, it is likely that ordinary people will face great difficulties even if they want to find a job that allows them to work overtime.

After all, many ordinary Americans either live paycheck to paycheck or rely on credit cards to make ends meet.

In this society where you stop working and you stop eating, people can only run around in the rules of the game of capital in order to survive.

You need a job to eat. In this world where profit is everything, how many people would complain about having too much money?

Hu Xiaobei and his friends spent another half a month in the United States, completing post-production work such as editing and dubbing, and finalizing the aesthetic style of blood and gore and the narrative basis of superpower battles before returning to China together.

The first season of "Homecoming" will officially premiere on ABC in early July, airing one episode per week, and is expected to conclude by the end of September.

The movie "Mulan" is expected to be released in late August, just in time for the end of the summer movie season.

In the past two months, thanks to the global broadcast of the first season of "Homecoming", An Xiaoxi's popularity will surely increase significantly.

When "Mulan" is released, those familiar with An Xiaoqian, as well as fans of "Homecoming" and the character Cici, will undoubtedly contribute to the film's box office success.

In June, the three returned to Beijing, the capital of China.

It's worth mentioning that "The Forbidden Kingdom" officially started filming on May 2nd, and it's currently generating a lot of buzz in the news.

This time, An Xiaoxi did not participate in the audition for "The Forbidden Kingdom" because she was filming "Mulan" and "Homecoming", which can be considered as successfully avoiding this dirty pit.

Hu Xiaobei had no idea who was playing the Golden Swallow now, and he wasn't interested in it at all.

After all, given An Xiaoxi's current status, there's really no need for her to play a supporting role to Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai, especially since the real protagonist is an unknown white boy.

To be honest, even if he were offered a higher salary, Hu Xiaobei wouldn't want An Xiaoqian to take the role in this movie.

Actually, in the original timeline, the American side originally intended for the role of the White-Haired Witch to be played by "Mrs. Hua" Peggy.

However, because the American side negotiated with the florist company in China and sold the mainland copyright, and after an interview, the role was finally given to the florist company.

So, who actually secured the role through a floristry company—those who know, know; I won't elaborate further.

There's really no need to bring up Sissi; I'm tired of explaining.

Furthermore, the copyright for "The Forbidden Kingdom" sold for a total of over three million US dollars in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the copyright fee in mainland China should be similar.

(PS: This contains interview materials with Wang Moumou; those interested can look it up themselves.)

In China at that time, the copyrights to obscure foreign films generally cost only tens of thousands of US dollars.

For American films with a certain level of brand recognition and market potential, the copyright fees can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. For well-known blockbusters, the copyright fees will be higher, but still within reasonable limits and won't be outrageous.

After all, even if they bought it, they would still be subject to the overall box office environment of China Film Group at the time, and it was impossible to do a losing deal.

According to industry insiders, before 2010, the average copyright fee for a film in the wholesale market was only a little over 100,000 US dollars, which gives an idea of ​​the situation.

Before 2007, very few films in mainland China grossed over 100 million yuan, even Hollywood blockbusters. A few tens of millions of yuan was enough to rank in the top ten at the mainland box office.

For example, Hendrik Willem Van Loon's "The Myth" grossed 9700 million RMB, and Li Lianjie's "The Warlords" grossed 2.02 million RMB; both were basically money-losing cases.

单以投资而论，假设花300万、400万、500万美元购买内地版权的话，内地电影票房则最低需要达到8000万、1.1亿、1.34亿软妹币，才能勉强保本。

(PS: For details, please refer to other movies or Hu Xiaobei's mainland film box office revenue mentioned in this article.)

It's worth noting that the floristry company spent a considerable amount of money during its 2005 fundraising round, leaving it with very little by 2006. (PS: See Chapter 215 for details)
第三轮私募投资还要到2007年6月26日-11月19日，江南椿、虞峰、鲁喂鼎等向花艺公司注资2000万美元，认购花艺公司24.9%的股份。

Therefore, in early 2006-2007, the floral design company simply couldn't afford to buy mainland copyrights.

Based on this analysis, the mainland copyright fee for "The Forbidden Kingdom" was at least US$200 million and at most US$500 million, but given the circumstances at the time, it was clearly impossible for it to be too high.

In fact, after its release, the film grossed 1.7-1.88 million RMB in mainland China.

Don't believe the news that the florist invested tens of millions of dollars in the movie, held a dominant position, and had the right to cast the actors; it's all a bit of a joke.

Even if they sold the company to raise that much money, they wouldn't do such a losing business.

After returning to China, Liu Xiaoli was busy handling various complicated matters for the company.

An Xiaoqian has a packed schedule, attending scheduled interviews and shooting cover photos for several magazines.

Although she no longer accepts any endorsements...

In contrast, Hu Xiaobei seemed to have more free time.

However, he wasn't really idle; instead, he devoted a lot of energy to the renovation of those two large villas in Shunyi District.

He planned to turn the villa into a private post-apocalyptic survival base, so he paid special attention to defensive features and self-sufficiency in its design and construction.

In addition to installing sturdy bulletproof doors and windows and an intelligent monitoring system, a large storage room was also built underground.

It is used to store ample food, drinking water, medical supplies, and is even equipped with professional water purification equipment and various types of generators.

In addition, he also cleared out a large agricultural area within the previously prepared fence and built automated greenhouses to grow various fruits and vegetables, so as to achieve food self-sufficiency.

Although the construction process was time-consuming, the final result basically met Hu Xiaobei's expectations.

Since we have money anyway, it's always good to be prepared, regardless of whether we actually face an apocalyptic crisis in the future.

Even without the apocalypse, this base can be of great use in special periods like the pandemic.

In fact, it's not just Hu Xiaobei who has this idea; most wealthy people with some assets have similar contingency plans.

For these people, spending money to buy a backup plan and build a safe base is perfectly normal, no different from buying insurance in advance.

Even ordinary Chinese people have a certain sense of crisis.

Especially the older generation of Chinese people, who have all experienced hardship and hunger.

They often like to hoard all kinds of supplies at home, such as rice, salt, and vinegar.

Having experienced this special period, we should all have some feelings about it.

(End of this chapter)