It's reasonable for me to be a three-time Golden Horse Award-winning director and an all-around

Chapter 134 All men are brothers under heaven; peace is precious amidst the upheaval of the five continents (Seeking monthly votes)
The comedy film "Crazy Stone" is scheduled for release on July 2nd.

"The Sino-foreign co-production action/suspense film 'Taken,' directed by Lü Rui and starring Jiang Wen, Liu Yifei, and Zhou Yun, is scheduled for release on July 30."

"Initial D: June 23rd, Seven Swords: July 29th..."

...

As June arrived, a whole host of movies announced their release dates, like mushrooms after rain.

Lu Rui spotted his opponent immediately.

Seven Swords!
This film, directed by the Hong Kong maverick director Tsui Hark and starring Lai Ming, Donnie Yen, Yang Cai Ni, Sun Hong Lei, and Lu Yi, is no ordinary production.

In the realm of martial arts films, Tsui Hark is undoubtedly a leading figure among Chinese-language film directors.

Especially after the release of "The Legend of Zu Mountain", although the box office results were mediocre, it gained him a lot of fans.

As a result, the popularity of "Seven Swords," adapted from Liang Yusheng's classic martial arts novel, is sure to be high.

With 15 more publishers following behind, the lineup is extremely impressive!
Lu Rui did not let his guard down and took his opponent very seriously, adjusting his publicity and promotional strategies accordingly.

On the other hand, Ning Hao also made ample preparations for "Initial D".

Jay Chou comes with a built-in fan base. While his upper limit is unclear, his lower limit is very stable, so he must be taken seriously.

On June 3rd, "Shanghai Dreams" was officially released.

Unfortunately, even though the film won an award at Cannes and starred Gao Yuanyuan and Li Bing, audiences still didn't buy it.

Realistic themes are too heavy, so only the judges like them.

Life is already so hard, who doesn't want something sweet?

Paying money to buy a ticket to the cinema to listen to others preach and experience suffering—isn't that just plain crazy?
At the same time, at the Beijing Film Academy, the post-production of "Remote Control" was successfully completed.

Shen Ao showed the completed paper to Lü Rui.

The title is: "<Click: Life Philosophy and Directorial Expression in the Comedy Genre"

The paper specifically included Lü Rui's name, emphasizing that it was a screenplay written by him, and praising him extensively throughout...

"Good, very good, excellent."

It was the first time Lü Rui had ever seen someone write a paper praising him, and he blushed a little.

This kid is too shrewd; he's truly put into practice the saying, "To repay the emperor's favor, I'll gladly die for him."

"Go ahead and defend your thesis. I'll arrange for the final film to be submitted for review, and then I'll find you a good release date and a good distribution company." Lu Rui patted him on the shoulder and offered a few words of encouragement.

"Thank you, Brother Rui." Shen Ao was deeply moved and quickly said he would treat everyone after he finished his work.

"No need for you to treat me, I'll treat you. Let's get together when we have some free time."

As he said this, Lü Rui couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

Back when the company was first established, we had plenty of free time.

But nowadays, everyone is so busy that they don't even have a chance to sit down and have a barbecue together.

Fortunately, everyone has grown, otherwise all that lost time would have been wasted...

The main work has come to a temporary end, but Lü Rui has not rested.

He also has to keep an eye on the company's operations, unlike Ning Hao and Shen Ao, who can still find time to relax before the movie's release.

The copyright fees and box office revenue from the previously released films have already been received. This money cannot just sit in the account; it needs to be spent.

So he first approached Hou Hongliang, and after discussing it, they decided to allocate some funds to buy the novel's copyright.

If Ruishijie wants to grow and expand, it must diversify its business.

Lu Rui can control the film projects himself, but he also needs to pay attention to the TV series business. He must have long-term, stable, and outstanding main projects.

Besides the soon-to-be-completed "Crossing the Guandong," other projects also need to keep up.

"Our immediate priority, besides buying the rights to novels and publications suitable for adaptation, is to assemble our own team of screenwriters."

Although Hou Hongliang is young, he has a very long-term vision.

There are many companies in the industry that work on TV drama projects, such as Tangren, Hairun, and Zhouyi, all of which have their own screenwriting teams.

The only exception is Ruishijie, which currently has almost no screenwriting team.

Lü Rui can write films, so he can certainly write TV series, but he simply doesn't have the time.

“Then let’s build it!” He decided on the spot. “I’ll approve the funding for you. You can decide how many to hire. I’ll come over and give you personal guidance when I have time.”

“Okay.” Hou Hongliang nodded. “When I worked at Shandong Film Studio, I met a lot of talented people. We can hire them at a high price.”

Lü Rui: "..."

Still taking advantage?

Are they really going to keep plundering the mountain shadow area until it's completely bare?

Of course, he would never ask that question.

Since Hou Hongliang has the confidence to do so, let him take advantage of it.

The Vision World was created through hard work and innovation, which can be seen as a kind of inheritance.

If something really happens, or if Shanying comes knocking on our door...

Who cares? There's always a way out.

After discussing the screenwriting team, Hou Hongliang suddenly remembered something else: "There's a routine meeting tomorrow morning about the '4*X' regulations, held at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Chairman Lü, would you like to go with us?"

The “4+X” rule means that a TV series can be broadcast simultaneously on a maximum of four satellite TV channels and several local channels.

This regulation was issued last year and has been in trial operation for over a year. The bureau wants to hear feedback from its subordinates.

In the past, Hou Hongliang was the one who usually attended these kinds of meetings.

After all, Lü Rui was too busy and simply didn't have the time.

However, he has been handling work at the company these past few days, which is why Hou Hongliang brought it up on his own initiative.

"Tomorrow morning?" Lu Rui thought for a moment. He was free tomorrow morning, so he nodded. "Okay, then I'll go with you."

To be honest, since deciding to get involved in the TV drama business last year, he hasn't even bothered to learn about the TV industry.

Since this is a rare opportunity, I might as well do a quick survey to get a general idea of ​​the situation.

After chatting with Hou Hongliang in the morning, Lü Rui went to Ruiyue Animation next door in the afternoon.

As Ruishijie needs to acquire various copyrights and assemble a team of screenwriters, this side naturally has to follow suit.

With his foresight and abundant wealth, Lü Rui inevitably became somewhat "greedy"!
He made a list and gave it to Tian Xiaopeng, asking him to buy it.

"If we're going to do something, we'll aim to be industry leaders, like Disney, and build a comprehensive entertainment industry chain centered on IP, integrating animation, toys, children's products, licensing, media, film and television, games, and more..."

In the conference room, Lü Rui's words left Tian Xiaopeng completely bewildered.

A flood of plans and arrangements was coming at him, making his head feel like it was about to explode!

Fortunately, there was a recorder nearby who wrote down everything Lü Rui said, allowing him to process it later.

More than two hours passed in a flash.

Lu Rui turned and left, while Tian Xiaopeng stared at the list with a troubled expression.

He took the time to organize his thoughts, and it wasn't until after 9 p.m. that he finally figured out his plans.

The next morning, as soon as he arrived at work, he set up a separate project team and assigned an important task:
"Go investigate a company called 'Blue Arc' and try your best to buy it. At the same time, bring back all of its technology, copyrights, and cooperation channels!"

Although Tian Xiaopeng didn't know why Lü Rui had made this arrangement, he was quite interested in Blue Arc's "rendering engine" system.

He also strongly agrees with the slogan "Science and technology are the primary productive forces".

Collaborating with this company's team would indeed be a great help to Ruiyue Animation.

However, he was still somewhat puzzled.

Isn't Blue Arc a record company?

"Mice Love Rice," "The Pig Song"... Tian Xiaopeng had heard these songs before.

But why did they suddenly decide to switch their focus and enter the large-scale animation market? And why did Lü Rui take a liking to them?
Little did he know that Lü Rui's ambitions went far beyond that!
In the previous era, there were five "god-like" characters in early Chinese animation:
"GG ​​Bond", "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", "Boonie Bears", "Qin's Moon", and "Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit Seven Heroes".

These anime series belong to different companies, and because they were released around the same time, they are competing fiercely!

In this life, Lü Rui had already secured "Qin's Moon" in advance. If he didn't have the money, it wouldn't matter, but now that he had ample funds, he naturally wouldn't give up other high-quality projects.

If we can acquire it, we will; if we can't, we will invest. Let's get involved first and see what happens.

As the saying goes, "All men are brothers under heaven, and harmony is the most precious thing in times of turmoil." If everyone can unite as one and work together, we can definitely deliver a heavy blow to the "outsiders"!
Although there were many domestic animations in the previous era, internal strife allowed Hollywood to seize a large share of the domestic market.

So in this life, Lü Rui wanted to try to avoid this situation by having everyone cooperate, work together, and complement each other's strengths to see if they could recreate the grand occasion of hundreds of companies supporting "Ne Zha 2" to the top of the charts in his previous life.

If it succeeds, great; if it doesn't, no harm done. There's no harm in trying; consider it a long-term investment.

Meanwhile, while Tian Xiaopeng was busy, Lü Rui and Hou Hongliang had already embarked on their journey to the broadcasting station.

“In the past, it was common for a TV series to be sold to multiple TV stations, and malicious competition often occurred. As a result, the ‘4*X’ rule, which is one TV series on four channels, has become an ironclad rule in the industry, and no one dares to violate it…”

Inside the van, the driver was driving while Hou Hongliang was explaining science to Lü Rui from the back seat.

"Wouldn't that cause the price per episode to skyrocket?"

Lü Rui remembers clearly that more than a decade later, "one drama on four channels" would become "one drama on two channels".

This directly accelerated the decline of the TV drama market, turning it from a seller's market that prioritized quality into a buyer's market where viewership ratings needed to be bought.

With fewer platforms broadcasting TV dramas first, production companies are experiencing reduced initial revenue and longer payback periods, naturally leading them to cut costs.

By then, high-quality scripts and production teams will become scarce resources, and second- and third-tier satellite TV stations will be greatly impacted, while video websites will not be affected by this policy.

"Huh? Video websites? I almost forgot about that!"

Lu Rui's heart stirred, and he fell into deep thought.

Hou Hongliang was explaining the pros and cons of this policy to him, as well as the situation where some TV stations linked the price of purchasing dramas to the ratings.

This mainly originated from CCTV.

The downfall of the producer of "Yongzheng Dynasty," who was also the head of CCTV's film purchasing department, directly led to a surge in CCTV's vigilance regarding film purchasing, resulting in the introduction of the "price based on points" approach.

The general procedure is as follows:

If the viewership rating is 1% or below, the payout is 30 per episode; if the rating is 3%, the payout is 40 per episode; and once a certain percentage is reached, the payout is 50 per episode.

This approach can protect the interests of television stations to the greatest extent possible, while also improving the quality of prime-time programming.

However, the TV series production company ran into trouble.

Because no one can guarantee that their show will be a hit, and there are many examples of good shows having poor ratings while bad shows have booming viewership, and shows becoming popular through reruns. This approach is too risky.

For example, the TV series "Long Piao" which aired in November last year, suffered heavy losses because its average viewership ratings did not meet expectations after it was broadcast on CCTV-8's prime time slot. The producer said that this "point-based pricing" method caused the company to suffer heavy losses.

This practice essentially involves television stations leveraging their platform monopoly to shift some of the risks onto the drama production companies.

Because viewership ratings are affected by various factors such as the broadcast channel and time slot, the production company has no say in these matters, but it has to bear the risk of reduced prices due to poor viewership ratings.

This led to the practice of "buying viewership ratings".

It's not that no one has resisted, but it's a buyer's market now. TV stations, especially CCTV, are extremely powerful. If you don't sell, there are plenty of others who will.

Dramas produced by big companies are generally better; at least they're more reliable.

But those small companies suffered huge losses and went bankrupt one after another.

Of course, everything has its advantages and disadvantages.

Because of the competition among television stations, some stations took advantage of this opportunity to siphon off CCTV's resources.

Those production companies, adopting a "if I can't beat them, I'll avoid them" attitude, flocked to satellite TV stations that didn't implement a "point-based pricing" policy to discuss cooperation.

This has indirectly led to the current situation: large companies are buying viewership ratings, while small companies are cooperating with local TV stations.

Fortunately, everyone maintained basic moral standards and didn't fool the audience; otherwise, the quality of the TV series would have collapsed long ago.

These TV drama production companies still have a conscience, unlike later internet investors who are completely focused on making money!
……

Similar to his last visit to the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, Lü Rui met mostly familiar faces at the Broadcasting Station this time.

The only difference is that last time I met mostly directors, but this time it was the bigwigs and investors behind the directors.

Zhouyi's boss's wife Jiang Xuerou, Hairun's boss Liu Yanming, Tangren's boss Cai Yinong, Jin Yingma's boss Teng Zhan, as well as Huayi's Wang Zhonglei, Rongxinda's Li Shaohong...

Besides these people, Lü Rui also saw many top-notch producers, such as Zhang Jizhong, Ren Dahui, Yu Shengli, Zheng Xiaolong...

He was somewhat surprised by the scene, while the others were equally astonished to see him arrive.

After all, before this, Hou Hongliang, an "unknown figure," had been the only one who attended the meetings.

But today, I didn't expect that Lu Rui, the big boss behind the scenes, would also be here!
"Hey? Director Lü, what brings you here too?"

Wang Zhonglei was the first to react, quickly stepping forward to greet him warmly.

At the same time, he didn't forget to introduce a chubby man following him: "This is Teng Huatao. Like you, he graduated from the Beijing Film Academy. He's a director signed with Huayi Brothers, specializing in film and television dramas, and has directed many classic works..."

"Director Teng, hello." Lü Rui smiled slightly and extended his hand to this well-known "second-generation" in the industry.

Speaking of Teng Huatao, one cannot help but mention his father, Teng Wenji, one of the four most notorious lechers in the industry.

The old man was not only highly skilled, but also had a very rich romantic history.

The most famous of these is his past affair with the poet Chen's current wife.

Back then, Madam Chen was a beauty in Beijing's social circles, with unparalleled beauty in her time. Her portrayal of Diao Chan was hailed by many as "the real Diao Chan."

However, because she interfered in the relationship between Chen Kaige and Ni Ping, she was also classified as a typical "knowingly becoming a mistress".

It's the same pattern as Zhang Jingchu interfering in Gu Changwei and Jiang Wenli's marriage.

However, at the time, Madam Chen was not as foolish as Zhang Jingchu. Her stated purpose was not to destroy the relationship, but to join it.

However, Ni Ping was not happy about it, so in the end she was allowed to take the lead.

Of course, this is not the point.

The real point is that before dating Chen Kaige, Mrs. Chen had lived with an old man named Teng Wenji for six years, but they never got married.

At that time, she was 24 years older than Teng Wenji and only 4 years older than Teng Huatao.

This is not the most explosive thing.

What truly astonished everyone was that Teng Wenji appeared as the officiant at the wedding of Madam Chen and the great poet Chen, leaving all the wedding guests dumbfounded!
At the wedding, Chen Kaige's performance was even more surprising!

After drinking too much, he grabbed Teng Wenji's hand, addressed him as a brother in front of everyone, and even gave him a thumbs up, praising him: "Actually, we directors are nothing, you're the best director in this industry!"

This is the Beijing entertainment circle!
The main theme is "generosity"!
In contrast, the Northwest Film Circle lacked such magnanimity; the two directors completely broke off relations, leading to numerous farcical situations.

"Director Lü, I've heard so much about you."

Seeing Lü Rui reach out his hand, Teng Huatao didn't dare to delay. He stepped forward, reached out his hands, and grasped Lü Rui's hand, bending slightly at the waist.

Strictly speaking, Lü Rui can be considered half a member of the Beijing social circle.

Although he didn't have any powerful connections in the industry, he managed to rise to a position that no one dared to underestimate through his own abilities.

Especially second-generation rich kids like Teng Huatao, although they have status and background, their personal abilities are average. When facing truly capable people, they don't dare to show off at all and are very obedient.

However, when facing minor characters, their arrogant and domineering nature cannot be hidden, a typical example being Lu Chuan.

At the same time, as Wang Zhonglei and Teng Huatao stepped forward, the others also reacted and quickly came forward to greet them.

Especially companies like Tangren, Rongxinda, and Hairun, which want to get involved in the film industry and also have artist management businesses, are naturally at a disadvantage compared to Lü Rui.

No matter how senior you are, you still have to be humble in front of him, even to the point of being obsequious.

Even Hou Hongliang, who was standing next to Lü Rui, received treatment that was completely different from before.

This made him think to himself: If a person wants to advance in life, he needs a powerful backer!

In the past, when he attended meetings alone, because of his lack of seniority, people, although not deliberately targeting or criticizing him, inevitably looked down on him to some extent.

But today, as soon as Lü Rui arrived, everyone greeted him with smiles, and their address changed from "Little Hou" to "Vice President Hou".

While the feeling of "borrowing the tiger's power" was wonderful, it also made him more determined to rely on Lü Rui and Rui Vision.

After all, if this were in Shandong Film Studio, he probably wouldn't even be qualified to stand here today.

Even if they come, they're just standing at the door with their briefcases; they don't even get a chance to come in and serve tea or water.

Thinking about it this way, Lü Rui was truly his benefactor!

If he hadn't followed Lü Rui out to make his way in the world back then, how would he have had the opportunity to be looked up to by others today?

This kindness and recognition must be deeply engraved in my heart!
(End of this chapter)