Rebirth of the Great Entertainment Empire

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Currently, the ranking of the world film market is as follows:

First, the United States.

Second, Japan.

Third, the United Kingdom.

Fourth, France.

Fifth, India.

Sixth, Germany.

As far as the film market alone is concerned, the United States is far ahead of other countries, about four to five times that of Japan, which ranks second. With the support of Xu Cun's abundant funds for three years, He Chaoqiong, Jiang Zhiqiang and others have acquired or established more than 400 theaters and five theaters in California, Tennessee, San Francisco and other 39 states in the United States and the District of Columbia. With more than a thousand screens, it has become one of the top three theater chains in the United States. Currently, Emperor Cinemas is still expanding in the United States.

Although the Japanese economy has begun to weaken, the Japanese film market is still strong and will continue to be strong. Last year, Xu Cun acquired Nikkatsu Cinemas, rebuilt all of its theaters into the world's most advanced 3D cinemas, and renamed them It is the Emperor Theater Line (Japanese branch line), making it one of the top three theater lines in Japan. Currently, the Japanese branch theaters are waiting for an opportunity to expand.

In the UK, the negotiation between Xu Cun's acquisition team and Odeon is still at a stalemate, which is similar to what Xu Cun expected in advance - Odeon offered Xu Cun a sky-high price of 1.2 billion pounds, and after several rounds of negotiations, it was only reduced to 1 billion 700 million pounds. Tens of millions of pounds, black as hell!

Indian side.

How should I put it, the Indian film market is huge and has great potential, but it is really difficult to break into—in the last life, except for a very few phenomenal films such as Avatar and Titanic, other films were in India. It is difficult to shake the status of Indian Bollywood movies. Most of the time, the top ten movies in the Indian movie market are all Indian Bollywood movies.

Some people in the previous life summed up the reasons for this, and they boiled it down to the following:

One is because of the language - most viewers in India don't like to watch subtitles, and even a large part of Indian viewers are simply illiterate;

The second is because there are some scenes in foreign movies that expose the body, while Indian audiences are more conservative, and their fragile hearts cannot accept this;

The third reason is because of cultural differences - Vietnamese movies with airplanes and cannons, Indian movies with singing and dancing. Many Indian audiences watch movies just to watch the singing and dancing in movies, and most foreign movies do not have such content.

Therefore, despite some reluctance, Xu Cun still had to abandon the Indian film market—at most Xu Cun would cooperate with some local forces in India, and he would never establish a theater chain in India anyway.

Needless to say, Germany, the Hanseatic theater chain has already come to Xu Cun's hands.

Back to France.

France is known as the European box office. Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration. In fact, the French film market is comparable to the British film market. Taking into account the unique tastes of French audiences, the French film market is actually not as good as the British film market.

but--

In any case, the French film market can also be firmly ranked among the top five in the world. Even in the last century, China became the second largest film market in the world, the Indian film market continued to explode, and the two film markets of East and West Germany merged into one. It also failed to squeeze it out of the top five.

Therefore, it is impossible for Xu Cun to let go of the French film market!

After choosing among a large number of French academies, Xu Cun chose a company - EMI.

This EMI is not Electronics and Music Industry (EMI, commonly known as EMI), one of the five international record giants, but a French film company.

EMI, a French film company, may not be well-known in China, but if you inquire about it in North Africa or Europe, you will know that this old film company, established a century ago, lives up to its slogan of making first-class movies - the The company's production style and concept were once the mainstream of the world, and even influenced the Japanese and Indian film industries.

In the heyday of EMI Films, its branches spread all over the countries, overwhelming the competing film companies in these countries, and the film territory it ruled was larger than that of Hollywood in the previous life—of course, the films at that time The industry was much smaller than the movie industry today.

The reason why Xu Cun chose EMI Film Company was not because it had a glorious history, but because its EMI Associated Company is still one of the most important cinema operators in France, and its number of cinemas not only surpassed that of the four major theaters in France. One-third of the geographical locations are all the best in France.

However--

Since the end of World War I, EMI Films has fallen into a low ebb—although EMI Films produces films every year and is constantly trying to integrate film artistry and commerce, but looking back at its development in the half century after World War II , no doubt the path it took was not successful.

If it weren't for EMI's sideline business, which provided a lot of surviving funds to help it survive crisis after crisis, it would have been submerged in the long river of history.

Therefore, it is not difficult to persuade its owner to sell such a company.

pity--

How could things go so smoothly?

Originally, Xu Cun only wanted to buy the EMI affiliated company of EMI Film Company, that is, only buy EMI theater chains, but EMI's board of directors refused to do so, and insisted on selling EMI Film Company to Xu Cun, and the price was not high. Low, taking Xu Cun as a complete bully.

EMI's practice of strong buying and strong selling made Xu Cun so unhappy that Xu Cun wanted to buy Gaomeng Film Company instead.

Later, Xu Cun learned from the acquisition team that EMI Films actually owns 1.6% of the shares of the British Sky Broadcasting Company formed by the merger of Sky TV and the British Satellite Broadcasting Company, and 7.7% of the shares of the French live satellite TV station alSat. Three's shares are one of the shareholders of the two TV companies, and they immediately changed their minds-even though the British Sky Broadcasting Company is just now preparing to set sail with the capital injection of News Corporation, even though alSat is still losing money in France. Yelling does not have the domineering power of the world's largest French TV station in the future. Although the shares of the two TV companies held by EMI Films are not large, it is undoubtedly a very good ticket, one that allows Xu Cun to join the European Tickets to the Pay TV Marketplace!

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At the beginning of May, after nearly two months, Xu Cun's acquisition team finally succeeded in acquiring Odeon and EMI, plus the previously acquired Hansa and some fragmented theaters that Emperor Cinemas established and acquired in European countries. Cun finally owns the largest theater chain in Europe - Emperor Cinemas (European Branch).

The European branch theater line is good-whether it is geographical location or scale, it is good.

In addition, Xu Cun ordered to renovate and upgrade them—to upgrade them all into 3D theaters that can play 3D movies.

It is no exaggeration to say that before long, the European branch theater circuit will not only be the best theater circuit in Europe, but also the best theater circuit in the world.

Of course, correspondingly, the money for the European branch theaters is also good-the European branch theaters are completely funded by Xu Cun, not to mention Odeon and EMI, even the Hansa made Xu Cun really spend money. Good money!

Spending such a large amount of money to build a theater chain, even if he has money like Xu Cun, he will feel pain! So much so that when he left Europe, Xu Cun said bitterly: It won't be long before I will let you Europeans spit out all this money for me!

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