The director starts by learning from the abilities of renowned directors.

Chapter 154 Achievements, Strategic Victory

Shen Ying brought breakfast over in the morning. While eating, Shen Qing asked Mao Xiaotong, "Are you getting used to living in the dormitory?"

"The dormitory is great, it's spacious and clean, and it even has air conditioning. It's much better than the place I rented before."

After Mao Xiaotong finished speaking, she scooped up a spoonful of millet porridge and secretly observed Shen Qing's expression.

She had fantasized about meeting a man she liked who also liked her, and that they would date for a year or two before getting married. She had also fantasized about her boss taking a liking to her and making her one of his women. Until yesterday, her latter fantasy actually came true.

The situation is pretty good now. She will get more resources and better opportunities, and the boss will completely fulfill all her fantasies about her boyfriend, except for the fact that he has too many women.

Does choosing the first fantasy guarantee that you will meet the one who only loves you?

She dared not hope for anything either. Her mother chose her father, who abandoned her in a trash can when she was very young. After being released from prison, he learned that she was making money through acting, so he stormed into her company and demanded 1000 million to buy out their father-daughter relationship. He had never raised her, so how could there be any father-daughter relationship between them? Yet he dared to ask for 1000 million.

After asking, Shen Qing didn't say anything more, but he already had a plan in mind to give her a house. It had nothing to do with the company; it was a personal gift from Shen Qing. Besides the company that made money for him, Shen Qing's personal income was also extremely considerable. His director's fees, lead actor's fees, etc., all belonged to his personal income. Shen Qing used his personal income to buy many properties in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, totaling dozens of properties. From the beginning of purchasing these properties, he had the intention of giving them away as gifts in the future.

After breakfast, Shen Qing and Mao Xiaotong went downstairs and got into the waiting van in the underground parking garage. After receiving instructions, driver Shen Lei steadily drove the car out.

Mao Xiaotong got off the bus midway to return to the staff dormitory: Shen Qing arranged for her assistant Shen Ying to get off the bus with her to see her off, while Shen Qing herself took the bus to the company.

Upon arriving at the Magical Film Company, Shen Qing instructed his assistant to call Chen Zhixi to his office.

He has many assistants. Shen Ying is a relative from his hometown village and someone he trusts very much. She is also his personal assistant. Shen Ying also manages two other assistants.

In addition, Shen Qing also has a chairman's assistant at each of Shenqi Film and Television Media, Jumei Entertainment, and Maoyan Movies. The person who just went to call Chen Zhixi over as instructed by him was his chairman's assistant at Shenqi Film and Television Company.

Before long, Chen Zhixi knocked on the door and came in, closing the door behind her.

Shen Qing's hands and feet are often restless. If her subordinates see something, what authority will she, as the vice president, have left?

"Please sit down."

Chen Zhixi sat down at the desk as instructed.

"I've thought about it carefully, and our company's governance structure is a bit too informal, so there will be a series of adjustments going forward," Shen Qing said.

"How do we adjust it?" Chen Zhixi asked, looking somewhat surprised.

"Risk isolation and clear division of responsibilities," Shen Qing said.

The top layer of Shen Qing's current corporate governance structure is Shenqi Investment Group, which holds Shen Qing's core assets, including 0.1% of Apple stock, 3% of Tencent stock, 3% of Maotai stock, and some bank stocks. In the future, when Shen Qing tries to invest in potential startups, he will also put his equity here.

Magic Investment Group also owns 100% of Magic Film & Media, and has absolute control over Jumei Entertainment and Maoyan Movies.

The chairman and general manager of all three subsidiaries are Shen Qing, and the deputy general manager is Chen Zhixi—this is a very rudimentary team, and adjustments will have to be made sooner or later.

Shen Qing meant that Chen Zhixi would only be in charge of one of the three subsidiaries from now on.

"Shenqi Film & Media will not go public in the future, while Jumei Entertainment and Maoyan Movies will seek independent listings. Which CEO position would you rather take? There's no rush today, think about it carefully when you get back."

After Shen Qing finished speaking, the atmosphere in the office became somewhat heavy, and both of them fell silent.

Chen Zhixi lowered her head, feeling somewhat disappointed. The company's governance structure was indeed somewhat haphazard, but the more it was like that, the more special her identity seemed.

Shen Qing is the chairman and general manager of three subsidiaries, but he spends most of his time on film sets. Chen Zhixi, the vice president, is in charge of the specific operations of the three subsidiaries. While Shen Qing is filming outside, she stays in Beijing to manage almost all of Shen Qing's businesses, giving the impression of a man working outside and a woman working inside.

Even when Shen Qing wanted to sleep with that woman at night, it was Chen Zhixi who was in charge of coordinating. Jumei Entertainment's artists, such as Zhao Liying, Wan Qian, Li Yitong, and Nazha, and Mao Xiaotong to be added in the future, were all arranged by Chen Zhixi. She arranged who would go to commercial performances, who should join the film crew, and who could spend the night with Shen Qing. This even gave Shen Qing the illusion that she was a member of the Shen family, similar to the role of the head wife in ancient times.

If she were to become the CEO of either Jumei or Maoyan in the future, her promotion from vice president to CEO would certainly be more legitimate. However, her fantasy of being the head of the household would be shattered, and she might just become an ordinary subordinate in the future.

"I choose Jumei Entertainment."

After adjusting her mindset, Chen Zhixi said.

Jumei Entertainment is a company that manages artists, which involves selecting more suitable projects for its artists, something Chen Zhixi is better at doing.

Maoyan Movies employs a typical internet platform strategy, requiring rapid market expansion, connection with cinemas, and equipment installation. According to Shen Qing's assessment, it will also engage in a ticket subsidy war with internet giants in the future, something Chen Zhixi is not good at.

Furthermore, Chen Zhixi holds 8% of Jumei Entertainment's four-year vesting incentive shares. If she successfully takes Jumei public, including performance incentives and listing incentives, she could potentially acquire up to 12% of Jumei Entertainment's equity.

Shen Qing nodded and said, "You will retain your position as vice president of Maoyan until the end of your one-year term. I will then recruit another vice president for Maoyan. He will work with you until the end of his term. After the end of his term, you will resign as vice president of Maoyan, and the new vice president will be promoted to CEO of Maoyan."

Chen Zhixi nodded.

She understood what Shen Qing meant. Her current employment contract with Maoyan Movies included a one-year cliff and four-year maturity equity incentive agreement. The so-called one-year cliff meant that if she left the company within one year of becoming the vice president of Maoyan, she would not receive any equity incentives.

After one year, Chen Zhixi will hold 1% of Maoyan Movies' equity.

"Oh, right, find a headhunting firm—"

10月8日，《缝纫机乐队》票房突破3亿元大关，13日破3.4亿，媒体预测票房随之从3.5亿上涨到4亿。

On the 14th, the crew of "Sewing Machine Band" held a celebration in Beijing, where Shen Qing personally presented Da Peng with a 100 million yuan red envelope.

Da Peng is a contracted artist with Sohu. His director's fee and lead actor's fee are split with Sohu, but his bonuses are not.

After the celebration banquet, Shen Qing took Nazha home. The next day, Nazha went back to Beijing Film Academy for classes, while Shen Qing went to Maoyan Film Company.

After the official release of "City of Rock", Maoyan platform lost its exclusive advantage of advance screening tickets, and a significant drop in sales was foreseeable.

Chen Zhixi reported the ticket sales data from the previous day to Shen Qing. On the 13th, Maoyan's website and app sold a total of 10.7 movie tickets, generating 360 million yuan in sales.

From a peak of 21 movie tickets sold per day to the current 10.7 per day, and from a peak of 700 million yuan in daily sales to the current 360 million yuan, the platform's performance has undoubtedly been halved. But even this halved figure has shocked cinemas, theater chains, and distribution companies of all sizes in China.

If Maoyan platform can maintain a stable daily sales volume of 3.6 million yuan, the annual sales volume will exceed 13 billion yuan. This is the result after only about 300 cinemas have connected to Maoyan platform. Now Maoyan platform is frantically signing contracts with cinemas, connecting to ticketing systems, and installing ticket collection machines. No cinema wants to be left out of the large-scale preview screenings when "The Great Wall" is released at the end of the year.

What will it be like when 1,000 cinemas connect to the Maoyan platform, 2,000 cinemas connect to Maoyan, and 3,000 cinemas connect to Maoyan?

"After the official release of 'The Great Wall,' we will stop the large-scale preview screenings."

In the chairman's office, Shen Qing sat on the sofa and looked at Chen Zhixi across the coffee table.

Chen Zhixi looked puzzled upon hearing this.

The large-scale preview screenings are such a powerful tactic. Although all cinemas are extremely wary of their cash flow being controlled by the platform, almost all cinemas are now vying to have Maoyan Movies install ticket machines and connect to their ticketing system.

The logic is simple: large-scale preview screenings are essentially a form of selectively granting early release rights. Shen Qing's films routinely gross 1 billion or 1.5 billion yuan at the box office; which cinema would accept not being qualified to show such a film? What makes Zhang Weiping think he can force the eight major cinema chains to concede? It's because Zhang Yimou's films are known for their blockbuster potential! Cinemas only make money by showing blockbuster films, but in terms of the ability to produce blockbusters, Zhang Yimou is far inferior to Shen Qing.

"With three movies, 'City of Rock,' 'Breakup Buddies,' and 'The Great Wall,' having large-scale preview screenings in a row, and tickets for all three movies being exclusively available on the Maoyan platform, I estimate that Maoyan has already achieved a precipitous lead in the online ticketing industry. As long as it doesn't encounter a ticket subsidy war launched by major internet companies, no one can threaten Maoyan's monopoly position."

Chen Zhixi nodded. Shen Qing had previously discussed with her the inevitable entry of major internet companies into the market and the inevitable start of a ticket subsidy war. Chen Zhixi was skeptical about this, but she largely agreed with Shen Qing's assessment that as long as no one started a ticket subsidy war, Maoyan's monopoly in the online ticketing field was an unstoppable trend. Although Gewara had received venture capital, it was still no match for Maoyan Movies.

"While the scale of preview screenings and the choice of cinemas are certainly the inherent rights of the film producers, consistently doing so will inevitably attract criticism. Some are already criticizing me for lacking ethical conduct." Continuing to do this after establishing Maoyan's absolute dominant position will not only fail to increase revenue significantly, but will also lead to increasing criticism and potentially even a meeting with higher authorities, ultimately resulting in more harm than good.

Chen Zhixi nodded and said, "That makes sense, but it would be a real shame to abandon such a useful trick from now on."

"Who says we'll abandon this strategy?" Shen Qing laughed upon hearing this. "When the internet giants come to compete with us for market share, we'll unleash our strategy of large-scale preview screenings plus exclusive preview tickets on the Maoyan platform. At the same time, we'll match their ticket subsidies in terms of both. While they only have one trick—large-scale ticket subsidies—we have two tricks: exclusive preview tickets for top-tier blockbusters and ticket subsidies. This puts us in an invincible position."

Chen Zhixi said, "At that time, our rival platforms will even have to spend money to subsidize our movies."

Shen Qing smiled and nodded.

Take "The Great Wall" as an example.

If Shen Qing were to spend 200 million yuan on ticket subsidies on his own Maoyan platform when "The Great Wall" is released, and the ticket price for "The Great Wall" on Maoyan platform were reduced to 9.9 yuan, would your competitors, no matter how big your company is or how much money you have, also spend 200 million yuan on ticket subsidies for Shen Qing's movie "The Great Wall"?

Theoretically, it shouldn't be done, because it's a competitor's movie, and doing so would be like giving Shen Qing money. But what if this movie is the most popular?

Viewers want to watch "The Great Wall," but it's only 9.9 yuan on Maoyan. On any platform, no matter how big the company is, whether it's Alibaba's Taobao Tickets or Tencent's Yupiao, it's selling for 38 yuan. Do viewers even need to ask which platform they want to choose?

As long as "The Great Wall" is popular enough, and as long as Shen Qing can continue to make blockbuster movies, even his competitors will have no choice but to subsidize his movies with ticket sales. The ticket subsidies that competitors give to Shen Qing's movies will eventually flow into Shen Qing's hands as box office revenue. Once Shen Qing has received the ticket subsidies from his competitors, he will have the ammunition to continue subsidizing his own movies with ticket sales, and his competitors will have no choice but to continue subsidizing Shen Qing's movies.

"If we continue to hold large-scale preview screenings like this, and keep increasing the number of preview screenings to 15%, 20%, or even 30%, theaters that haven't obtained preview screening qualifications will definitely report this to higher authorities, and we will most likely be summoned for talks."

Instead of waiting to be summoned for talks, it would be better to proactively stop large-scale exclusive screenings after Maoyan establishes an advantage, and then use this tactic after major internet companies have entered the fray and started large-scale ticket subsidies.

Even if we are summoned for talks, we can confidently say that large-scale exclusive screenings are unfair. But are the massive ticket subsidies from major internet companies fair? Our large-scale screenings can stop, but the massive ticket subsidies from major internet companies must also stop.

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhixi nodded. On one hand, she admired Shen Qing's foresight, not only foreseeing the biggest strategic risk in the future but also for planning countermeasures, ensuring the company's strategic invincibility. On the other hand, she was somewhat skeptical: would giants like Alibaba and Tencent really get involved in movie ticketing? Would they really offer large-scale ticket subsidies?

Then Shen Qing continued, "The future belongs to mobile internet. One of Maoyan's key tasks will be to drive users from the web to the mobile app. I mean, we'll start from two aspects. First, the content on the mobile app needs to be richer. In the future, my movies will have a lot of exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, and all of this will be put on the Maoyan app, not on the web. Also, the latest news about the company's artists will all be on the app. In short, the principle is that the app needs to have things that viewers are more interested in. And then—"

Shen Qing paused for a moment before continuing, "We'll provide a certain subsidy for the mobile app. If the ticket price is 35, the website will sell it at the original price, while the mobile app will receive a subsidy of 5.01 yuan per ticket, selling it for 29.99. If the ticket price is 38, the website will also sell it at the original price, while the mobile app will receive a subsidy of 8.01 yuan, also selling it for 29.99. Once users get used to using mobile phones, Maoyan can stop the subsidy. It won't cost much, but it might attract major internet companies to enter the market early and offer large-scale ticket subsidies, so we need to be cautious before using this approach and can't use it lightly."

A few days later, Shen Qing began interviewing several senior management candidates recommended by the headhunting firm.

One of them is Ms. Dai Ying, who is 26 years old this year. Her cousin graduated from the Directing Department of Beijing Film Academy and works as the chief director of large-scale galas at CCTV. Dai Ying started her internship at CCTV with her cousin before graduating from university, working as an assistant director and doing everything. Later, she went to...

She learned on film sets and gained solid experience in the film and television production field at a very early age.

Later, Dai Ying wanted to venture out on her own, but her cousin disagreed and wanted to keep her by her side. She insisted on leaving. In Dai Ying's own words, she didn't know if she could do well without her cousin's shadow, so she went to Yahoo! China to work in marketing, where she stayed for several years.

It wasn't until her cousin contacted her again and told her that Shen Qing was recruiting senior executives for the company.

Shen Qing talked with the other party for almost two hours and confirmed that the other party really understood film and television production, so he decided to hire the other party as the CEO of Magical Film and Television Media.

Another candidate that Shen Qing was quite satisfied with was Shen Li, who was the same age as Shen Qing, both born in 1980. She graduated from the School of Economics at Peking University in 2002 with a bachelor's degree, and was recommended for postgraduate studies in the School of Economics. She graduated early in 04 and joined Baidu, where she is now the deputy director of Baidu's commercial product marketing department.

Shen Qing was curious why she would want to switch from a big company like Baidu to a small company like Maoyan. She said she saw Maoyan's potential and was confident that she could take Maoyan public.

Shen Qing decided to keep her on the job. After she finished her resignation, she would serve as the vice president of Maoyan for a period of time. After Chen Zhixi stepped down from Maoyan, she would be promoted to CEO of Maoyan Movies. She also agreed to Shen Qing's arrangement.