Perfect Life

On December 22, 2003, one day before the official global release of "Hulu Baby", Morgan Stanley, on behalf of China's Minghu Culture Company, formally submitted an acquisition application to The Coca-Cola Company, quoting $2.44 billion. , the overall acquisition of Columbia Pictures and all its affiliated assets.

Of course, that also includes debt.

On the same day, Coca-Cola did not make any reply or response.

Even, looking at the trends of Columbia Pictures, they did not even notify the acquiree in time - Morgan Stanley analyzed that: This transaction is very sure to be finally reached!

On December 23, "Hulu Baby" was officially released simultaneously worldwide.

China, Japan, South Korea, six countries in Southeast Asia, eleven countries in Europe, two countries in North America, two countries in Latin America, and five other countries and regions in the world are in the film market of a total of 29 countries and regions around the world. , this cartoon landed in theaters for ticket sales on the same day.

This is China's first domestically produced animated film to appear on the big screen, and it is also the first time that a Chinese film work has been released globally simultaneously in the true sense. Many domestic films have done similar promotions before, but it is not really synchronized. show.

In the Chinese market, Minghu Culture, director Li Qian's work, Cao Zhan's art direction, is also the first big animation film carrying the "Chinese animation dream". It is conceivable that this film is in the promotion and distribution. , they will never suffer, and they are all done on a top-level scale.

However, the box office was only passable.

Released on December 23, plus the early stage, the box office was 17.38 million yuan that day.

Faced with this result, not only Cao Zhan was not satisfied, but even the domestic theater chains expressed some disappointment - as soon as they were disappointed, the film placement rate of course dropped.

Of course, there is a screening agreement, and after all, the box office is not low, and the drop is also within a certain range.

On December 24, the box office was 15.29 million yuan.

On December 25th, Christmas, although there is no holiday in China, young people have already started to celebrate this festival, so on this day, the box office of "Hulu Baby" soared to 18.11 million yuan in a single day.

On December 26, Friday, the box office was 20.04 million yuan.

On Saturday, December 27, the box office was 22.18 million yuan.

On December 28, Sunday, the box office was 17.53 million yuan.

It was released for six days, and the box office exceeded 100 million in the first week, and the cumulative total reached 101.053 million!

This box office is enough to make "Hulu Baby" firmly at the top of the domestic box office rankings this week, but for the six words "director Li Qian's work", many people in the industry have become accustomed to Minghu Culture's explosion at every turn. More than 100 million people feel a little disappointed.

If there is no accident, this basically means that the total box office of this movie is between 200 million and 300 million. It is possible to exceed 300 million, but it is impossible to exceed 400 million!

Although this is definitely the highest box office of animation works, it has given a boost to domestic animators and the market of animated films, but... this is not enough!

For "Director Li Qian's work", for "Minghu Culture Production", for the investment of more than 100 million yuan, no matter which one is concerned, it is far from enough!

Of course, in terms of global distribution capabilities, at present, Minghu Culture is definitely the best film company among all domestic film companies, so "Huluwa" can directly report to the global box office!

At 4:30 p.m. on December 29, many people noticed that a banner suddenly appeared on the official website of Minghu Culture, and then, within five minutes, the homepage of iFLYTEK and the homepage of iFLYTEK’s news and entertainment version also appeared one after another. Made a headline - "Huluwa" broke $100 million at the global box office in its first week!

Seeing this news, many people who originally only had a vague feeling in their hearts, but did not really understand what the global simultaneous release of "Hulu Baby" really means, they understood it all at once.

No wonder I always feel that the movie "Hulu Baby" is different from Li Qian's typical Chinese-style works in the past——

"Red Sorghum", "Once Upon a Time", and even "My Sassy Girl", which is about urban emotions, although the subject matter of his works has always been varied, the things at the root have always been rooted in China's social environment. , are telling the story of China.

When it came to "Hulu Baby", people in the sensitive industry felt that the story was not bad, but compared with Li Qian's past works, it seemed to have a sense of national, social and cultural substitution, and it did not Not as strong as in the past.

Now, everyone understands.

The movie "Hulu Baby" was originally intended to be screened around the world from the time it was originally intended to be filmed. It weakens China's unique social background to the greatest extent, even if it is a myth, it is more globalized. It belongs to the kind of thing that can be understood and liked by the audience without the nationality, culture and society- —Or to put it another way, it is simply a Hollywood work made by Chinese people!

Moreover, the global box office exceeded 100 million US dollars in the first week. Of course, it is not comparable to those Hollywood blockbusters that are super sold in the world, but for a Chinese movie, it is still successful enough for a Chinese animation work that is still in its infancy!

As a result, many people in the industry will sigh subconsciously, thinking: It turns out that people have begun to not mix with China, at least they are no longer only focusing on the domestic film market!

However, for the first time it was released worldwide, the box office exceeded 100 million US dollars in the first week!

This is definitely a success!

So everyone thinks that Li Qian is Li Qian after all, and Minghu culture is Minghu culture after all!

In fact, what they don't know, and what they don't know for the time being, is that the film's global box office exceeded 100 million US dollars in its first week of simultaneous release. Of course, it is considered a success. To Li Qian's heart, this achievement has already been considered a standard. Yes, but in fact, in terms of the producer's Minghu animation, it is not too satisfied with this box office.

Not to mention China. In the North American film market, the $15 million publicity budget, Columbia Pictures as the main distributor, and the sudden wave of Chinese culture before the film was released, all made this film popular. The North American market has received some attention.

However, the box office was mediocre.

The opening scale of up to 2,039 theaters is certainly not small, and a schedule like Christmas is also extremely wonderful, but an animated film from China is inherently disadvantaged in a market like North America. What's more, there is also a Big Mac with an opening scale of nearly 4,000 theaters in the same period!

"Little Pooh" is not the best among the works produced by Disney Animation over the years, but it must be above the pass line. In addition, Disney has accumulated many years of experience in animation and in the promotion and distribution of family-friendly films. As soon as the film was released, it was a huge hit in North America.

Released on December 22, plus the advance screening, the film received $23.61 million at the box office on its first day of release, and it was a weekday box office!

The next day, although "Hulu Baby" was released, plus the advance screening of more than 900,000 US dollars, this Chinese animation film with an opening scale of 2,039 theaters only received a single-day box office of 6.38 million US dollars. On this day, "Vigger the Pooh" continued to take a box office of up to 17.36 million on weekdays!

As a result, on the second day, the release scale of "Hulu Baby" suddenly dropped to less than 2,000, and on the eve of Christmas Eve, "Little Pooh" got the release scale of 4,133 theaters at the anti-sky level!

The people of North America have ushered in their own Christmas holidays. If you add the following Saturdays and Sundays, they even have a five-day vacation starting on December 24.

During these five days, most people choose to spend it with their families.

So there is no doubt that "Vigger the Pooh" ushered in its super explosion.

22.49 million US dollars on the 24th, 24.51 million on the 25th, 20.38 million on the 26th, 18.22 million on the 27th, and 16.3 million on the 28th. After seven days of release, the North American box office of "Wigger the Pooh" was as high as 142.87 million US dollars!

Even if it is conservatively estimated, many box office forecasting agencies have also given that the film's North American box office will be as high as 280 to 300 million US dollars, and the global box office may reach 600 million US dollars.

There is no doubt that even for a developed film market in North America, even for a rich man like Disney, this movie is a big hit.

At the same time, also in the North American market, "Hulu Baby", which has been continuously reduced in size since the second day of its release, has successively harvested $8.42 million, 5.77 million, 4.21 million, 4 million and 3.68 million box office results.

In the six days of its release, the total box office in North America totaled $32.46 million.

The five-day Christmas holiday in North America has ended, but the screening scale of "Hulu Baby" has remained at more than 1,000 theaters, and this oriental animation film whose box office was completely crushed by "Vigger the Pooh" has won quite a good reputation from the audience. , Many North American parents commented after watching the movie, thinking that this is a movie with a certain exotic style but a good story.

And its scores on some professional movie rating websites and audience rating websites are not low.

To a large extent, this means that the follow-up box office of the film will be relatively stable.

Therefore, many professional box office forecasting agencies, as well as professionals in Colombia, have given the film a North American box office estimate of $65 million.

For Li Qian, not to mention $65 million, even if it is only $60 million, he is basically satisfied, and for the distributor Columbia Pictures, according to the sharing agreement between the two parties, they can not only properly recover the $10 million There is even a lot of money to be made in terms of the cost of publicity. During the initial negotiations, they were mentally prepared to lose money for the release of Minghu Culture's film works in North America.

They just hoped that they could make money by distributing Colombian films in China by Minghu Culture, but the surprise is that they have started to make money now.

Of course, things weren't so great for Oriental Dream Films. Because they tried their best to squeeze into the ranks of the distributors, the Oriental Dream Film Company suffered a lot in splitting the accounts. Even if the film sold for 65 million US dollars, they would still lose money. Only if the North American box office exceeds $70 million will they be able to break even and even make a bit of money from this release.

Of course, because Oriental Dream Film Company has acted as the agent for the distribution rights of this film in many countries in Europe and Latin America, in general, this film must still be profitable.

What's more, the most important thing is that the boss is very satisfied.

For John Dyess, that was enough.

He knows that what is more important to him now is the right to speak in front of the boss. As for creating profits, it is something that can be done slowly.

Of course, if you can not pay, you should try not to pay.

However, with the end of the Christmas holiday, the North American movie box office market fell sharply, which is inevitable. The box office performance of "Hulu Baby" will definitely drop rapidly, even far more than the drop of ordinary movies in other schedules, and the drop rate is even faster!

And at this time, in an interview, a VP of Disney Studios was asked about the fact that "Huluwa" had sought Disney's distribution. The VP first admitted it and then dismissed it. Tun Tao: "I haven't seen that movie, and we are one of the competitors now, so I can't comment on it, but they did come to us at the beginning. After our professionals have seen China Li's directorial works, Finally submitted their professional opinion to me and they advised the company not to accept the distribution job for that film! You know, I have a lot of confidence in the competence and vision of our professionals, so, I turned down Lee even though I liked him a lot And Liao's music!"

The implication is that "Hulu Baby" is a terrible movie. Disney felt that if it was released and released, it might smash the signboard and lose money, so they refused.

It happened on the morning of December 29, the first day after the Christmas holiday.

Last week's North American box office charts have been released, and "Wigger the Pooh", produced by Disney Animation and distributed by Disney Movies, topped the box office with $1042.87 million without any suspense.

As the most direct competitor, "Hulu Baby", with a box office of 32.46 million US dollars, is not even a fraction of "Little Pooh", ranking fourth in the box office list.

Therefore, suppressing and belittling opponents is completely a trivial matter for Disney, who is now complacent.

After learning the news, John Dyce thought about fighting back, but after hesitating, he held back.

He felt it was not the right time.

However, on the afternoon of the same day, a source suddenly broke out a communication, saying that Minghu Culture Company from China is entrusting Morgan Stanley to initiate the acquisition of Columbia Pictures!

And it is said that Morgan Stanley has made an offer to Coca-Cola, the holder of Columbia Pictures - according to reports, the offer is not low!

In the afternoon, a vice president of Coca-Cola was interviewed and personally admitted the news and claimed that Coca-Cola was seriously discussing the feasibility of the acquisition.

As soon as the news came out, it shocked Wall Street and Hollywood in an instant!

You must know that although Columbia Pictures has been on the verge of being acquired for the past 20 or 30 years, there have been constant rumors that it is about to be acquired and is in acquisition negotiations. This thing is immune, but it's still one of the Big Seven Hollywood studios after all!

It remains one of the most famous giants in the global movie market!

And the one who wants to buy it is actually a film company from China—whether Hollywood or Wall Street, the vast majority of Americans have never even heard of its name before!

Minghu Culture!

Of course, the media and news industry in the United States are quite developed. In addition, there was a performance in Times Square not long ago, and now "Huluwa" is still being shown, so, in Less than an hour after the incident was confirmed, many online media who responded quickly began to cut the matter! And after a few hours, the evening daily newspapers that night started to follow up, and even many TV programs that night—including entertainment programs, talk shows, and of course, many current political, economic and financial programs also began to follow. Knife off.

Li Qian, Liao Liao, Four Beauties, "Hulu Baby", performances in Times Square, oriental culture!

These names that Americans know better at the moment were pulled together by them and began to analyze and dissect them in detail to all the American people who paid attention to this matter.

Then, Minghu culture completely surfaced!

What kind of company is it, who does it belong to, what is its main performance, what is its revenue in general, does it have sufficient financial resources to acquire Colombia, and after the acquisition, under the control of Li Qian, Colombia will move towards Where... wait wait!

Some media believe that once the two powerful companies in the two largest film markets in the world are based in their respective countries, once they join forces~www.wuxiaspot.com~, it will be a perfect match, which will play an inestimable huge role in the development of the two companies. To promote, some media believe that: we in the United States must start to be vigilant. The Chinese who are getting richer, just like the Japanese ten years ago, are trying to invade the United States!

On the other hand, the United States was very excited about this sudden acquisition. On the evening of December 29, all the media, the Internet, newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, etc. had various discussions. In these discussions, whether for or against, when the name of "Huluwa" was constantly being mentioned, on the far side of the Pacific Ocean, the local time in China was already the morning of December 30, 2003.

Waking up early in the morning, countless Chinese people were instantly stunned and stunned by news from various news channels such as the Internet, newspapers, and TV morning news.

News from the United States has been confirmed: Minghu Culture is launching the acquisition of Columbia Pictures, one of the seven major Hollywood film companies!

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