Hollywood Tycoon [US Entertainment + Business War]

Jade and Lin Baixin signed a memorandum of understanding on behalf of Dongfeng TV and Asia Television respectively, hoping to establish Dongfeng Asia Film and Television Entertainment Company by the end of the year.After seeing off Lin Baixin and his group, Lansing asked, "Are we really going to set foot in the Chinese market?"

"Lansing, imagine what would happen if you had a viewing market of one billion viewers?" Jed asked excitedly, "Mainland China is still a virgin land that has yet to be tapped. The gold diggers who went in either starved to death or starved to death. I believe our Dongfeng is definitely the group that starved to death, not the group that starved to death!"

"Mr. Sherman, the information I have shows that Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation has completed the acquisition of Hong Kong Satellite TV Group. This is his first step in Asia." Lansing reminded, "His key markets are two, India and mainland China, the two most populous countries in the world. If we move too far, it will inevitably lead to a counterattack from News Corporation."

"Don't worry about them for the time being. We and News Corp. don't have the same strategy." Jed comforted, "We establish a cooperative relationship with the mainland through film and television production cooperation and marketing, and it doesn't involve broadcasting platforms. But News Corp.'s strategy is different. They are planning to make a TV channel to broadcast in mainland China, and I think they will fail."

It's not that Jade comforted Lansing, because News Corporation acquired Hong Kong Satellite TV Group twice in 1993 and 1995 respectively.For the first time, the holding was completed, and for the second time, the TV company was completely turned into a wholly-owned subsidiary of itself.However, due to the fact that the interval between the two acquisitions was as long as two years, there were many internal contradictions in the company.

Jed is very clear that the Hong Kong Satellite TV Group has closed many channels in the past two years, and has also built many channels, and at the same time split another TV company.Murdoch's management strategy is very clear, which is to split the entire satellite TV group into two camps, India and Greater China, and then subdivide the Greater China camp into the China-Hong Kong market and the Taiwan market.

However, in the process of this spin-off and reorganization, Redstone's MTV Network stabbed Murdoch in the back and announced that it would no longer authorize Satellite TV Group to broadcast MTV programs in Asia, forcing Murdoch to temporarily form a ChannelV to deal with.At the same time, the members of the Carnival Channel with the highest ratings of the Satellite TV Group collectively quit and formed the China Entertainment Satellite TV Group.

In order to make a presence in mainland China, Murdoch split the Chinese Channel, the flagship channel of the Satellite TV Group, into two, and introduced Liu Changle and CCTV capital into the mainland and Hong Kong channels, reorganizing them into the Chinese Channel of Phoenix Satellite TV; and the Taiwan channel. It is still called Satellite TV Chinese Channel.Therefore, it was not until 1996 that News Corporation clarified their layout for Greater China, and before that, Jade had at least three years of leadership.

What's more, Jed doesn't have the ambitions of Murdoch. To establish an overseas TV station in mainland China is simply an "impossible mission"!Instead, Redstone's Viacom Group was wise enough to abandon the idea of ​​a TV station and instead build a network.

MTV has formed a music network covering mainland China through cooperation with major city-level TV stations in mainland China.After forcing his opponent ChannelV to death, Murdoch had to give up ChannelV and use this channel to broadcast Fox Entertainment under his name.

In fact, Jade's strategy is similar to that of Lei Shidong, not to overly stimulate the policy of the mainland, but to enter the mainland by means of co-production of programs.To be honest, Jade is not interested in establishing a TV station at all. What he is interested in is selling his own programs to China and selling Chinese programs to Americans.

After talking with Lansing about his idea, Lansing said he could accept the cooperation plan.But Jed thought a lot. What he thought was to sell the classic reality shows of later generations to different TV stations in China for production, and then bring various historical and cultural programs produced in China to the United States for broadcast.When Jade chose to cooperate with ATV, he also took a fancy to Lin Jianyue's ability.

The East Asia Records established by Lin Jianyue is actually a new force in the Cantonese record market. Jade wants to use this record company to intervene in Taiwan's Rolling Stone Records, and then support the entire Chinese pop culture.The decline of Chinese pop culture is actually directly related to the lack of funds, and the culprit of the lack of funds is piracy.The daily stream is backed by the Japanese market, which has almost no piracy, while the Korean wave is fully supported by government funds. How can the Hualiu, which is not fond of piracy by the government, have the power to parry?In the end, only Cantonese records were still struggling in Hong Kong, while Mandarin records were completely lost money.

Contestants of "The Voice of America" ​​can sing songs from last year or the year before, but "The Voice of China" has to sing songs from ten or even 20 years ago.From this, it can be clearly found that a terrible fault has appeared in the entire Chinese pop culture.Cultural colonization is terrible, but the cultural colonizers are not only the United States on the other side of the ocean. South Korea and Japan, which are separated by a strip of water, will also be Chinese cultural colonists.Although Jed has become more and more identified with his American identity, deep down in his heart there is still a little bit of literary and patriotic youth emotions.He decided to try everything he could do in this life.

After seeing off Lansing, Jafei came in and chatted with Jed about the box office of "The Shawshank Redemption".Not surprisingly, "The Shawshank Redemption" was a complete failure at the box office.However, the film critics generally praised the film.At the same time, ordinary movie fans' comments on the film are also polarized.Most ordinary movie fans think the movie is "too boring" and at the same time say "somewhat incomprehensible".Another group of art film lovers regarded this film as a divine film, saying that they would watch it once a week.And some art theaters that specialize in showing literary films also said that even if "The Shawshank Redemption" is withdrawn, they will insist on showing "The Shawshank Redemption" every week.Faced with such a tragic box office revenue, "Variety Show" naturally did not forget to "make trouble", "It has to be said that Mr. Sherman has indeed created a classic, a classic that failed miserably at the box office."

"Never mind the movie." Jed tossed the briefing aside. "How's the release of Pulp Fiction going?"

"The film has already been distributed to major theater companies, and the rewards received so far are that everyone is very interested in this film. After all, October is a relatively unpopular schedule, and such films are needed to hit the market. In addition, MPAA has given The movie is rated 'R', which is basically in line with our expectations. I don't expect cult movies to get a PG-13 rating. Anyway, most college students still have a chance to see this movie, after all October is also a boring month for them." Jia Fei said, "In addition to the interest expressed by the mainstream theaters, since this film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, the art theaters are also interested in it. The movie is interesting."

"What about the commercials and posters?" Jed asked. "Is there any show that will provide an interview?"

"Because the scale is too large, the response from various companies is to either cut the scale or not broadcast it. Several wireless TV networks feel that even if we cut some bloody scenes in the end, the advertisement of this movie can only be used. Go to late-night broadcasts. Time Warner's HBOPLUS and Moremax channels said that they can air our commercials without restriction."

"Of course they can, they can even show R-rated movies during the day, what else can't they show?" Jed sneered.However, Jed admires Warner Brothers very much in his heart. They bought the HBO channel a long time ago, and then launched the MAX channel on this basis. Now HBO and MAX are the two largest movie channels in the United States. The film company is the best place to promote the film.It's a pity that it's too late for Jed to deploy movie channels, so he has to let these TV channels charge.

"Mr. Tarantino is quite repulsed by TV promotion, and he only wants to participate in some radio interviews or newspaper interviews." Jia Fei replied with some headaches, "The schedule of several leading actors has been finalized, and starting next week, there will be some in the United States. Key programs will appear. At the same time, the new version of the promotional video will also be broadcast on major TV networks, striving to gain a little popularity before the release."

"By the way, how is the establishment of our animation department? I remember that we have drawn some people from Industrial Light and Magic and Pioneer Film Technology. How is the completion now? We plan to release our first animation film next year .”

"I thought you forgot about it." Jia Fei said quite dissatisfied, "Using the hands of Industrial Light and Magic and pioneer film technology, we formed the team of Galaxy Animation, and then we found a computer company called Pixar in Silicon Valley. Their animation department is very good. It just so happens that this company has a lot of fate with us. Their predecessor is the design team under Industrial Light and Magic. The current boss is also familiar to you, Mr. Jobs. Because their computer department is suffering heavy losses, Mr. Jobs We were looking for new financing, so we provided some funding, and we are now the second largest shareholder in Pixar, and have a ten-year deal with their animation division. What do you think of the acquisition? "

"Pixar animation?" Jed was taken aback, "Jobs' Pixar animation?" Jed can't be blamed for being so surprised, after all, the heights achieved by later generations of Pixar animations are unattainable.The important thing is that Jed always thought that he would miss Pixar animation, and he has already prepared for the future acquisition of Blue Sky Studios.Unexpectedly, Jia Fei actually injected capital into Pixar Computer by mistake. In this case, Jed completely made a profit.Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and Blue Sky Studios, the three giants of animation in the future!Now that one family has been taken down by him, Jed feels that this year's luck is really good.

"Yes, it's that Pixar computer company!" Jia Fei didn't understand why his boss was so excited. "The animation production order we gave them said they could finish it next year. The only problem is that we need a lot of image authorization, which may require a fee from us."

"Need us to pay?" Jed sneered, "You go to contact all the toy companies, tell them that we have a movie that requires a lot of toys to act as actors, and ask them if they are willing to authorize it. If they are willing to pay an extra amount of sponsorship In terms of fees, we can properly arrange a line or a scene for their toys, of course, we have to pay for close-ups or how many seconds of close-ups we want.”

"We will be sued by the Consumers Union!" Jia Fei jumped up, "Although we are not like TV, there is no Federal Communications Regulatory Commission to accuse us of 'placement marketing', but the Consumers Union can sue on behalf of movie audiences .”

"Don't worry, first, we won't implant too much content, at most we will choose one or two companies to cooperate with; second, all implanted content will completely match the plot of the script. Sexual marketing. By the way, don’t let the toy company pay directly, find a way to pay indirectly through other channels. Anyway, the protagonist image we created will also be authorized to be produced by a toy company in the future, and see if we can reach a merger agreement.”

"Okay, I understand." Jia Fei nodded in agreement. "Introduction marketing" has never been a taboo topic in the Hollywood film circle. Almost all film companies are doing it, depending on whether you do it cleverly or not.Although it is very possible to get into a lawsuit, the chance of losing the lawsuit is quite small.But if it is too much, it will also be a loss to the reputation of the film company.Fortunately, Jia Fei believes that Jed is not the kind of person who "kills the chicken and takes the eggs", so he exposes this topic.

On October 10, Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction" finally opened in 14 theaters across the United States.Quentin's "Pulp Fiction" is a typical novel that lacks a complete storyline, but Quentin used his super high editing and directing skills to make all audiences selectively forget the shortcomings of this movie without a story.The whole movie is composed of several irrelevant and endless stories. The reason why there are storyline fragments is purely because the director needs to use these fragments to demonstrate the action scenes in the movie.

Quentin thoroughly entertains the violent scenes in action movies, and every content that shows the evil and dark side becomes pure entertainment under his direction.It not only has the shadow of early western robber movies, but also mixes elements of Hong Kong action movies. The best thing is that Quentin has not forgotten to put some musicals and magical realism into the movie.If it was directed by another director, such a movie would be completely over.But it is Quentin who is making this movie, so although the whole movie does not have a complete plot, there is a theme that runs through it.

Most importantly, Quentin used the title of the movie "Pulp Fiction" to blatantly mock some of the shortcomings of the movie.After the combination of this strong director's personal style and fierce criticism, the film critics couldn't help but applaud the director.And for the general audience, with exciting fights, great scenes, and hilarious plot, this movie fully qualifies and exceeds expectations as a popcorn movie that entertains the masses.Jedmin knew that Quentin was making fun of contemporary commercial films with such films, but he did not expect such films to become a particularly successful commercial film in the end.

But Quentin didn't care so much. In his opinion, the director had nothing to do with the film after it was shot.However, the film critics and the audience have their own actions. The film critics desperately recall the pictures in their minds, and then interpret the director's intention frame by frame; Missed such a wonderful movie.

In the praise of film critics and ordinary audiences, "Pulp Fiction" became the first weekend box office in the United States with 1000 million US dollars.You must know that the production cost of the entire movie is only 800 million yuan, plus the seventy-seven-eight-eight-eight publicity fee is 1000 million US dollars, which means that the entire cost was recovered within three days of the first week and weekend.And the box office in the first week of the whole week was 1500 million US dollars, which gave the newly established Galaxy International Film Company a good start.

The Hollywood Reporter, which had been silent for a long time, finally seized the opportunity to whitewash Jed, and highly praised Jed as a filmmaker with great vision.And "Variety Show" can only say sourly that Jed is more competent as a distributor than as a producer or director.After two consecutive weekend box office champions, "Pulp Fiction" was squeezed into second place by Emmerich's "Stargate."But Jed is not worried about this result. You must know that "Pulp Fiction" was released in North America for 27 weeks and finally won a box office of 1 million.

Compared with the production cost of the film, the distributor is completely profitable.Jed, who is in a good mood, naturally continues to plan his arrangements in the Internet and TV industries. At the same time, Jed also received a response from ATV, saying that Hunan TV is very interested in the cooperation between the three companies, and expressed his expectation to meet Jed face to face. talks.Jed took a look at his arrangements, and since he didn't have a movie to participate in this year's Christmas showdown, he was actually on vacation after November.

So he asked through ATV to see if he could meet again in mid-to-early December.Soon Jade received a reply from ATV, Hunan TV very sincerely invited Jade to go to Hunan on December 12rd.It didn't take long for Jed to get the invitation letter from the Consulate General in Los Angeles.Seeing this invitation letter, Jed felt that his first step had finally come to an end.

But when Jade was about to go to China, Hunan TV was at a loss for the news brought by ATV.Is there anything more absurd than that a new TV company in the United States intends to cooperate with a TV station in mainland China?