Huayu: A Commercial Director

Chapter 367 Leading People to the Golden Sphere
Jiang Wen got completely drunk, and Zhou Yun couldn't lift him. After being persuaded by his master's wife, they ended up staying at the horse farm for the night. Anyway, there were so many rooms, their family would still have a place to stay.

The one-day New Year's Day holiday has passed, and Jiang Wen hasn't gotten up yet, but the internet is already buzzing.

Jiang Wen became a trending topic because of her condition, and many people left comments.

"You're really popular today," Chen Shou said with a smile to Jiang Wen, who had just gotten up and still looked tired, while eating breakfast.

Zhou Yun glanced at her husband with concern, feeling sorry for him.

"Say less." The master's wife glared at Chen Shouzhe. She had also seen the trending news early this morning. Jiang Wen had made it into the top ten and was now ranked sixth.

"Who cares about them? They made their own choice, it's none of my business," Jiang Wen said nonchalantly and carefree.

I heard that some senior executives at Alibaba criticized Jiang Wen at an internal meeting. Just yesterday, a reporter interviewed a senior executive at Alibaba Pictures, who said that they had been deceived by Jiang Wen, that Jiang Wen's movie was a mess, and that without Chen Shouzhe's script, Jiang Wen was nothing.

Stepping on Jiang Wen while praising Chen Shouzhe—this is just asking for trouble.

The interview was posted online by the reporter and quickly sparked heated discussions among netizens. Some viewers said that Jiang Wen's film was indeed not very good. She wanted to make a sequel to "Let the Bullets Fly," but ended up putting in a lot of her own ideas, making the movie incomprehensible to everyone.

Some people agree with Alibaba's statement, saying that Jiang Wenjiang has lost his creative spark, and that guaranteeing the film's budget has ruined Alibaba Pictures, which is unethical, etc.

The two sides had a good exchange of ideas for a whole morning, but they did agree on one thing.

That's Chen Shouzhe's real talent.

After all, Huang Bo's movie is a huge success this time, with box office revenue expected to exceed 20 billion yuan.

Taking the biggest slice of the pie in the competition among three blockbusters has startled many domestic film companies and surprised many foreign film companies as well.

They were surprised that their film was a flop in China. When they learned that it was Chen Shouzhe's film, they breathed a sigh of relief.

Chen Shouzhe's strength is recognized worldwide, so losing to him is not surprising. After all, he can only compete domestically. In the world, "Blue Star Man 2" will still crush the competition and is aiming for a box office of 20 billion US dollars.

That translates to 130 billion, which is unimaginable in China.

The highest-grossing domestic film in the world has only reached a little over one billion US dollars.

“It will still have an impact on you.” Chen Shou didn’t say anything. From the moment Jiang Wen showed him the script, he was not optimistic about this movie, but he didn’t expect it to still be approved for filming.

After all these years, they finally made back their investment thanks to a guaranteed minimum return. Otherwise, with a 400 million investment and being a sole proprietorship, who knows how much they would have lost.

Jiang Wen brought a large number of gifts to thank Chen Shouzhe. Starting from the third day after the movie's release, Jiang Wen had been running around promoting it. On New Year's Day, while resting, his virtuous wife Zhou Yun prepared gifts and brought the whole family to visit and express their gratitude.

"When are you leaving?"

Jiang Wen nodded without saying anything. For him, the next movie would definitely have an impact. It would be best to change his mind or become an actor instead of making movies.

"Let's wait a few days." Chen Shou calculated that the company's annual meeting would be held when he returned, the post-production of the movie was underway, and Wu Jing's movie was almost ready and needed to be submitted for review.

After returning to China, Huang Bo will hold a celebration banquet for his film, followed by preparations for the Spring Festival film release.

An animated feature film was released during the Spring Festival. It has been confirmed that Little Dream will release one animated film every year. In fact, the production time is generally two to three years, with two production teams working on the same project to ensure that there is one film every year.

Given the huge market during the Spring Festival, it would be a shame not to include any films.

There definitely won't be two movies competing for screen time in the future, but we need to ensure that one of them is produced by their company. After Jiang Wen's family finished breakfast, they left. Chen Shouzhe also drove to a meeting. There were a lot of meetings at the end of the year, and many more at the beginning of the year. Today was the second day of 2019, and also the first day back to work. Chen Shouzhe needed to finalize this year's work plan.

The conference room at Xiaoxiaomeng Company was packed with people; executives from both companies were present.

The meeting included a report on the previous year's income and projects, a summary, a confirmation of the annual meeting rewards and bonuses, a discussion of next year's plans, arrangements for the directors, and so on.

Huang Bo's film box office figures are being calculated for next year, since the money won't be seen until then. In 2018, the total box office revenue of the film market exceeded 50 billion yuan, with films produced by Shouwei Film Studio accounting for half of that, and the other half being domestic and foreign films.

This achievement naturally shocked the entire domestic film and television industry. In addition to other sources of income, Zhong Lifan received so much money, and with the film industry growing stronger, she also increased her investment in variety shows and TV series, as well as copyright cooperation, etc.

Fortunately, it's not a publicly listed company; otherwise, if they saw this income, countless people would be envious and jealous.

Chen Shouzhe ended the meeting after hearing only one number.

"What are your plans for this year? Are you going to wait until after the Spring Festival?" Zhong Lifan stayed behind to talk to Chen Shou alone.

"I've already planned to produce a science fiction film and a mainstream commercial film," Chen Shouzhe said.

Zhong Lifan's eyes lit up immediately. Chen Shouzhe's science fiction films are famous all over the world and should be released globally. As for mainstream commercial films, they have been performing very well in China in recent years. Chen Shouzhe had said before that he would try his best to make mainstream commercial films.

"Okay, where's the script?"

"Submitted before the end of the year."

What's the outlook for investment this year?

"We will take the lead, with priority given to Wanda and Penguin, and the three of them will form a triangular relationship in the future."

Zhong Lifan nodded, with Wangda Pictures handling upstream production, Wanda Pictures handling midstream cinema distribution, and Tencent handling downstream streaming platforms. The three companies were virtually invincible.

Moreover, Chen Shouzhe also owns shares in two other companies, which means he's essentially one of their own, so the situation like that of Guangdian won't happen.

What about Hong Kong?

Chen Shouzhe knew she was asking about Yang Shoucheng's side. Chen Shouzhe had already given Zhong Lifan a lot of Hong Kong drama scripts, asking him to liaise with Hong Kong.

"Keep 70% of it to us, and give the remaining 30% to them. If they don't listen, replace them," Chen Shou said.

“They are indeed excluding us over there,” Zhong Lifan said with a smile.

"Ignore them. They're just a bunch of old fogies living in a dream world. This isn't the last century anymore. If it weren't for Yang Shoucheng's good interpersonal skills, I wouldn't even bother looking at that little place. They're all frogs in a well." Chen Shou shook his head.

Many people there embrace the mainland, but just as many look down on the mainland.

Having finalized his plans, Chen Shou prepared to travel to the United States to attend the Golden Globe Awards ceremony.

This time, they brought along Dilraba again, and when the two appeared at the airport, it immediately became a trending topic on Weibo.

I wonder how many female celebrities felt envious and jealous after seeing this trending topic.

With the country's growing strength, it's become quite normal for domestic celebrities to go abroad, but only a few can truly go abroad with their heads held high, and Chen Shouzhe is one of them.

(End of this chapter)