Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

As one of the most popular stars in the Chinese-speaking world, Zhou Ziheng's work has attracted a lot of attention.

Especially records.

As soon as Zhou Ziheng had started producing English albums, the outside world received the news.

This time, no one doubted whether his English album could succeed in Europe and the United States.

It’s true that many people were slapped in the face last time.

Even Jacky Cheung paid two million for this.

Therefore, the focus of discussion this time is on how much sales Zhou Ziheng's second English album can achieve.

The sales of over 10 million copies of the first album scared a lot of people.

Some people are jealous of this, while others think that Zhou Ziheng has brought honor to the Chinese people.

Whether you like him or not, everyone is curious about whether his new album will do well.

To this end, in order to take advantage of the popularity, Hong Kong Asia Television even launched a special program and invited several commentators to discuss and analyze what kind of data Zhou Ziheng's new English album can achieve.

A reporter even found Zhou Ziheng himself and asked him what his expectations were for the new album.

“The quality of the new album is actually not inferior to the previous one.

However, sales volume is sometimes out of control.

I myself certainly hope that the record sales can exceed those of the previous album.

But it still depends on whether the fans will support it.”

Zhou Ziheng did not make an estimate.

He never estimates his own record numbers.

This is not easy to estimate.

There are countless classic albums that have failed to sell well in the Chinese music scene and even around the world, and no one can guarantee that they can predict them.

Therefore, he never makes predictions.

It took more than half a month to record the songs. After finishing most of the songs, Zhou Ziheng rushed to Hong Kong on January 24th.

At Hengyu Film Company, as soon as Zhou Ziheng arrived, he saw Zhang Yimou standing in the corridor outside the editing room smoking.

"Director Zhang is in a bad mood?"

Zhou Ziheng walked over.

"It's just a small matter, don't worry, Mr. Zhou!"

Perhaps due to the recent rush to finish his work, Zhang Yimou looked a little unkempt, his face was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Director Zhang has worked hard on this movie. I ask Director Zhang to relax after the movie is released."

Zhou Ziheng probably knows how Zhang Yimou feels recently.

I heard that he broke up with Gong Li recently.

Anyone would be in a bad mood when a relationship that lasted for more than ten years suddenly becomes a thing of the past.

Zhou Ziheng was not very good at comforting people, so he could only use other methods to help him divert his attention.

He suggested going to see the finished edit of the film right now.

Zhang Yimou immediately threw away his cigarette butt and followed him into the editing room.

They found a projector and started watching it in the editing room.

how to say!

The plot of the movie is still the same as that of "The Yellow Sea", but there are big differences.

It's like watching a new movie.

In fact, this is normal.

The same story presented by different directors will be completely different.

Let’s not talk about anything else, just take Jin Yong’s novels as an example. Someone makes a movie about them every few years, but each director makes a different movie.

The same story, when filmed by different people, will present completely different things.

"The Conjuring" is definitely a good script.

The previous version has already proven it.

Originally, Zhou Ziheng was actually very worried that Zhang Yimou would mess up this project that he attached great importance to.

But after watching the movie, he put his worries aside.

Zhang Yimou is indeed one of the few great directors in China today.

Although he has never made a crime film, his control over film shooting is unmatched by ordinary people.

Watching the whole play, the pictures are smooth, and the plot conflicts and twists are handled very well.

Of course, there are flaws.

The overall style of the film is a bit literary, and Zhou Ziheng is a little worried whether the audience will accept it.

"What do you think, Mr. Zhou?"

After watching the movie, Zhang Yimou looked at Zhou Ziheng.

Zhou Ziheng is the producer of the film, and whether the film can be released depends on him.

If he thinks the quality of the film is not up to standard and needs to be re-edited, or if he feels that additional shots need to be taken, then Zhang Yimou has no choice but to do it.

Although he personally thought the movie was perfect, he had to do the same if Zhou Ziheng was not optimistic.

“It’s very good, the images are very suitable for the style of the movie, and the several big scenes in it are also shot very passionately.

I think this play has a chance to win awards.”

Although he noticed some flaws, Zhou Ziheng was generally satisfied.

"Thank you for your hard work, Director Zhang. Let others do the follow-up work! You should have a good rest."

The two men walked out, and Zhou Ziheng saw that Zhang Yimou looked tired, so he gave him a day off.

"Okay, then I'll take a few days off. President Zhou will let me know when he has arranged the show time."

Zhang Yimou did not refuse. His recent condition was indeed not very good and he needed a good rest.

After parting with Zhang Yimou, Zhou Ziheng went to his office, where Florence Hui was already waiting for him.

Every once in a while, Florence Hui would show him Hengyu's income and expenditure statements so that he could understand the company's finances.

"not bad!"

After reading Hengyu's income statements since its establishment, Zhou Ziheng couldn't help but laugh.

Braveheart earned eight million.

Die Hard 3 grossed $ million.

The box office revenue of "The Untold Story" and the profit from the distribution of video tapes was 17 million.

"Tazza" made a profit of 43 million.

Stormtroopers made a profit of seven million.

Last year, Hengyu's revenue was around 120 million.

This result has surpassed most Hong Kong film companies last year, second only to Golden Harvest and Yongsheng, and surpassing Oriental Films.

However, this is the total revenue from production, distribution and theaters.

If we only talk about the film companies, their revenues would definitely be cut in half.

“Please contact Fox and try to import a few more films.

It has to be said that Hollywood movies really make money.”

Zhou Ziheng explained.

Even though the revenue from "Brave Heart" and "Die Hard 3" doesn't seem to be much.

But in fact, the revenue of these two films is even more exciting.

The contract he signed with Fox was a distribution and introduction contract, which meant that the film was introduced through the cinema chain. Apart from a certain amount of investment in publicity and distribution, no money was required in other aspects.

The films he introduced were all big sellers in Europe and the United States, so they were inherently less likely to fail at the box office.

Therefore, the chances of making money are often greater.

In comparison, making a movie yourself is much riskier.

It is no wonder that Golden Harvest has gradually reduced the number of films it shoots in recent years and focused its attention on theaters.

As a cinema chain, as long as the market does not shrink, it is obviously easier to make money than to make movies.

"How was the screening of The Dark Knight Rises? Was the attendance good?"

After instructing the company to continue introducing Hollywood movies, Zhou Ziheng asked about the company's new project "The Trouble with You 2" which was about to be released. In November, "The Trouble with You" was released and earned more than million yuan at the box office.

A movie with an investment of less than two million yuan has achieved box office revenue of about five times, which is already a huge profit.

Therefore, before "The Trouble" was released, the company immediately planned to shoot "The Trouble 2" with the original crew.

The investment in "The Untold Story 2" is larger than the first one, mainly because the actors' salaries have increased a lot because of the first one.

But the investment is not that large, totaling about 3.5 million.

This is a low-budget movie with a very short shooting period. Huang Wei finished filming in less than a month. After "Stormtroopers" was released, "Underworld 2" immediately took over and began to be released.

Speaking of "The Untold Story 2", Mani Fok smiled and said, "It has grossed million in three days. I think we can make a small profit after we recover the cost."

"This project is good and can be further developed, but let's put it aside for now and let Huang Wei shoot the movie 'The Ring'. Give this movie a little more investment, five million or so! This amount should be enough..."

Zhou Ziheng nodded and picked up the newspaper next to him.

[Hengyu Films was established less than a year ago, and its revenue ranked third among many film companies in Hong Kong in 1995]

[Ni Zhen cheated on his wife, Vivian Chow went out to catch the adulterer]

[Best Partner Company's new film "Young and Dangerous" is scheduled to be released on January 26, with Wong Jing and Liu Zhenwei joining forces]

……

There have been a lot of hot news recently, including Zhou Ziheng’s own.

There was also the hot news that Ni Zhen was caught cheating with Vivian Chow.

But Zhou Ziheng's eyes fell on the news about "Young and Dangerous" and he frowned.

"What's wrong? Is there something wrong with this drama?" Florence Hui asked puzzledly.

After a pause, she said, “There are no big names in this play, so it shouldn’t have any impact on Yin Yang Road!
"

"Young and Dangerous" is indeed not a big name at the moment.

The protagonists of this drama, Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan, are not very famous.

Although Ekin Cheng has acted in many movies, most of them were supporting roles, and he is still a minor star now.

Although Jordan Chan has won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Academy Awards before, he is still almost unpopular.

The most famous actor in the whole drama of Young and Dangerous is probably Simon Yam who played Jiang Tiansheng.

Oh! And there is also Zhou Ziheng’s ex-girlfriend Gigi Lai.

When Gigi Lai was dating Zhou Ziheng, she starred in "New Hard Times", which was a good box office hit.

Thanks to this drama, Gigi Lai's career in the next two years has been much better than in her previous life, and she currently has several movies that have hit the charts.

But in a sense, they are actually just second-tier and below.

With just these few people, in this era when big stars are needed to boost box office sales, this movie is indeed not worthy of attention.

If Zhou Ziheng was not a time traveler, he would definitely think so.

But he is a time traveler.

"Young and Dangerous", even Zhou Ziheng, who was born in the 2000s, knows this drama.

Ekin Cheng became an instant hit with this series and became a figure comparable to the Four Heavenly Kings.

Zhou Ziheng is not quite sure about the box office performance of this movie.

But given the popularity of this drama, he guessed that the box office would definitely not be low.

"What's the scale of publicity for this drama?" Zhou Ziheng asked.

"I haven't paid much attention to it, but it should be average!"

As Florence Hui spoke, she picked up the phone and made a call, asking someone to check the scale of publicity for this drama.

After a while, someone replied to her.

After hanging up the phone, she frowned and said, “The movie was released by Golden Harvest, and it was said that it was invested by Golden Harvest.

Golden Harvest's cinema chain is promoting this drama, and the resources for the previously promoted "Wild 3,000 Rings" have been released. "

Zhou Ziheng was not surprised.

The finished film of Young and Dangerous has been released, and Golden Harvest must have seen it.

Whether a play will become popular can be seen from the finished product.

Just like Nie Anda thought that Zhou Ziheng's album would be a big hit after watching his English songs, the same is true for movies.

After watching a movie, the film distributor will infer whether the movie will be a hit based on the plot and market research.

We may not be able to infer the specific box office, but we can still tell whether it will be popular.

Golden Harvest hasn't produced any good movies recently, so only the top executives who are not fools would strongly recommend this movie.

After thinking about it, Zhou Ziheng's brows suddenly relaxed.

"Don't worry about it, but change the promotional strategy for "Troublemaker 2". Don't promote celebrities anymore, just promote it as Hong Kong's own horror film."

"Young and Dangerous" will definitely be a big hit. It was a big hit in the previous life.

However, after Zhou Ziheng thought about it carefully, he felt that he actually didn't need to pay any attention to it.

"The Trouble with You 2" is a horror film.

It and "Young and Dangerous" are completely two different types of movies.

Perhaps the Hong Kong film market in the next two weeks will be dominated by "Young and Dangerous".

But horror movies are obviously not on this list.

Therefore, I don’t have to worry about the box office of "The Untold Story 2" being affected.

Besides, what if there is an impact?
This is just a low-budget movie after all.

The worst that can happen is that Hengyu will earn less.

However, you should be careful about the best partner company.

Zhou Ziheng remembered that three Young and Dangerous movies seemed to be released in the same year.

It should be this year.

This movie will be the hottest series of movies this year.

I have to be careful not to let the company's film collide with his.

Otherwise, there might really be a car accident.

……

Zhou Ziheng stayed in Hong Kong for the next two days.

In the past two days, Golden Harvest has been promoting "Young and Dangerous" heavily.

It would not even be an exaggeration to say that it is overwhelming.

January is actually not a good period, as students haven’t had their holidays yet and many film companies are reluctant to release their films during this period.

Under such circumstances, Golden Harvest still promoted "Young and Dangerous" extensively, which shows how much confidence this movie gave Golden Harvest.

And in fact, their confidence was not misplaced.

On the 26th, "Young and Dangerous" was officially released in Hong Kong.

After the movie was released, a Young and Dangerous craze immediately swept Hong Kong.

Young people love this movie very much.

It is obvious to the naked eye that the character played by Ekin Cheng has begun to become the object of imitation for young people.

The spread of this craze is very fast.

By mid-February, the popularity even began to spread to the mainland.

Especially Guangdong, which is very close to Hong Kong.

The pirated VCD copy of this drama had already appeared in mainland China before the movie in Hong Kong was even taken off the screen.

"These guys in Hong Kong are so brave! If this film was made in mainland China, I'm afraid it wouldn't even pass the censorship."

On the 13th, an employee of Hengdong Records got a VCD of "Young and Dangerous" and played it in the company's lounge.

Chen Xiaoqi happened to be in the company that day.

After watching the movie, he couldn't help but exclaim that Hong Kong films were brave enough to even shoot such a movie.

"There's nothing strange about that. Category III films have a market in Hong Kong and can be made, let alone this kind of film."

Zhou Ziheng smiled.

(End of this chapter)