The Best Entertainment Era

With the previous cooperation as a basis, the negotiations with the Mountain Foundation went very smoothly. Shahai Entertainment signed a director contract with Lun Wiseman before announcing the official launch of the Underworld project, and then introduced the Firefighter Fund as the first project. The three-party completion guarantee, thus solving the prerequisites for the investment of the Mountain Foundation.

Immediately, the Mountain Foundation signed an investment agreement with Sandsea Entertainment to invest US$16 million in the crew of Underworld. The conditions of the contract are almost the same as those for Bourne.

Ronan also solved the most critical funding problem of Underworld. Sandsea Entertainment will solve the remaining 4 million US dollars by borrowing from Relativity Entertainment.

After the two parties signed the agreement, Ronan held a special reception banquet.

At the banquet, after some observations, Rakesh Roshan asked Ronan, Why didn't you see Priyanka Chopra?

She's preparing for filming, Ronan replied casually.

Rakesh Ros Khan has a guess, and he should be like most people, and he will get tired of it after the novelty.

Sand Sea Entertainment and Ronan are the important investment lines that the Mountain Foundation managed to make in Hollywood. In order to show his sincerity, Rakesh Ross Khan whispered, Ronan, when will you go to Mumbai again?

Ronan didn't know what Rakesh Roshan was hiding, and said, I'll definitely visit again when I have time.

Rakesh Ross Khan would have misunderstood it, thinking that Ronan understood what he meant, and said with a smile: When you go to Mumbai again, I will arrange it and make sure you are satisfied.

Hearing this, Ronan instantly understood what he meant, and just smiled. You can't refuse the sincerity from your partner, right?

Last time, he did feel the full sincerity of Roshan's uncle and nephew. Given the low social status of Indian women, it is estimated that the sincerity this time will not be bad.

Sure enough, the Indians are still sincere.

Rakesh Roshan thought about it, who are the young and beautiful female stars in India? Since you want to give some sincerity, this sincerity must be sufficient.

Roshan's uncle and nephew then contacted PricewaterhouseCoopers and hired them to continue to serve as financial supervisors, and then left Los Angeles.

The preparatory work for Underworld at Shahai Entertainment is also progressing rapidly, and personnel from various professions are being recruited. After several projects, the production company has accumulated enough experience in this area and created a set of Effective mode of operation.

Commercial films operate according to the model that has achieved several successes, and the risks are relatively small.

Ronan also put people in touch with Angelina Jolie and Kate Beckinsale, the former is filming Tomb Raider and has no schedule for the time being, and the offer of $8 million is too high.

This offer can only allow Ronan to include Angelina Jolie as a backup candidate.

But Kate - Beckinsale's offer is also not low. Pearl Harbor has been filmed. Although it has not yet been released, the qualifications of the first-line big-budget heroine are enough to make Kate - Beckinsale's salary several times higher. ten times.

Kate Beckinsale's agent asked for $5 million, a hundred times more than what she paid for starring in Pearl Harbor.

In this top commercial production directed by Michael Bay, Kate Beckinsale's lead actress is only paid $50,000.

certainly,

This is also in line with Kate - Beckinsale's previous worth.

Not to mention the $50,000 salary, even if $50,000 is given to the crew, there are countless actresses vying to be the heroine.

Ronan asked to continue negotiations with Kate Beckinsale. As a producer and studio owner, for Ronan, Kate Beckinsale was not worth $5 million at all. The actress's The commercial appeal is limited, and most of the commercial films starred in the previous life ended up hitting the street.

According to Ronan's ideal plan, the heroine of this series should be paid less than 2 million US dollars, and can sign a trilogy at one time.

Pearl Harbor has not yet been released, and Kate Beckinsale, as the heroine, is in the limelight. If the negotiation fails, I have to replace it with someone else.

It could also be argued that Ronan would rather hire Angelina Jolie for $8 million than Kate Beckinsale for $5 million.

The latter is much worse than Angelina Jolie in terms of commercial value and topicality.

Ronan made three preparations, looking for other suitable actresses, continuing to negotiate with Kate Beckinsale, while maintaining contact with Angelina Jolie.

After Ross Khan’s uncle and nephew returned to Mumbai, the first sum of US$5 million arrived quickly, and Sandsea Entertainment borrowed US$4 million from Relativity Entertainment to ensure that the preparations for the project began immediately.

In fact, Shahai Entertainment’s investment is less than 4 million US dollars. Underworld is nominally based on the short story Monster Love by Nancy Collins, and the copyright fee for buying this novel is naturally included in the cost .

Nowadays, the number of projects produced by Shahai Entertainment is gradually increasing, and the amount of funds required is also increasing. Attracting investment has solved most of the production funding problems.

In fact, there is another way to attract funds that Ronan has not used, and that is the pre-sale of movies.

To put it simply, before a film is shot and produced, it sells the corresponding film screening rights to overseas agency companies, obtains copyright funds from them, and invests them in preparation, shooting and production.

This is also passing on risks, using other people's money to make movies.

The existence of a third-party completion guarantee is a guarantee for pre-sales.

Pre-sales require overseas distribution channels. The pre-sales of films by some independent film companies are all pre-sold through the channels of distribution companies.

, but for general film projects, it is difficult to attract overseas agents.

If you want overseas agents to pay in advance, you must let them see that it is profitable.

Big companies, big productions, well-known directors, and star actors are all necessary conditions for pre-sales to be achieved.

Embassy Pictures has just opened up overseas distribution channels, and Shahai Entertainment is also in its infancy. Except for The Bourne, there are no other mainstream commercial film projects, and there are investors investing, so Ronan has not considered using pre-sale for the time being. way of financing.

When investing in big productions in the future, pre-sale is a necessary means of financing.

On the other hand, after Ronan and Katzenberg had been in contact for a long time, DreamWorks Animation Studio was finally ready to cooperate with Embassy Pictures.

The continuous success of Human Clear Project 2 overseas has dispelled the doubts of the management of DreamWorks Animation Studio a little bit.

One month after its release, this horror movie has a cumulative box office of 95.5 million US dollars in North America, 61.38 million US dollars in overseas box office, and more than 150 million US dollars in the global box office.

In particular, the overseas box office of 61.38 million US dollars is enough to prove the ability of Embassy Pictures' overseas distribution network.

In addition, the overseas offices of the Embassy Pictures distributed all over the world also sent a copy of the offline distribution contract back to the Los Angeles headquarters, including DVDs, video tapes, TV networks, new media copyrights, and other venue distribution copyrights. down the channel.

In just one month, the overseas distribution network of Embassy Pictures won offline distribution contracts with a total value of more than 25 million US dollars.

Luo Nan sent personnel from the Eastern Office to Wenzhou and Wu to inspect some local manufacturers and reached a preliminary cooperation intention. In the same situation as the DreamWorks Animation Studio, he presented a history Related samples for Lake, Fiona, Donkey, and Charizard.

This also dispelled the last doubts of Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation Studio.

In terms of the distribution of animated feature films alone, Embassy Pictures cannot compare with Walt Disney, but it is not necessarily inferior to the other five companies that are also in the initial stage of animated feature films.

And Embassy Pictures has a smaller distribution cut, and the cooperation with DreamWorks Animation Studio is more equal.

Not long after Thanksgiving, Embassy Pictures organized a negotiating team and started formal distribution negotiations with DreamWorks Animation.

Of course, DreamWorks Animation Studio will not rush forward, just discuss the overseas distribution of Shrek with Embassy Pictures, and will not involve other animated feature films for the time being.

Katzenberg's attitude is very clear, first to see the release effect of Shrek, and then decide whether to cooperate for a long time.

The last time Ronan went to DreamWorks Animation Studio, he heard Katzenberg mention that the creative team of DreamWorks Animation Studio was planning a story about African animals.

This also caught Ronan's attention, but there was not enough time.

The negotiations generally went well. García Rodriguez, who was in charge of the negotiations, said: But I heard one thing. Katzenberg and Spielberg had a problem because of their cooperation with us. Some disputes.

Ronan nodded: Don't worry, with Katzenberg, Spielberg can't change the decision to go to DreamWorks Animation Studio.

The split power structure of DreamWorks Group also gave Ronan and Embassy Pictures an opportunity.

Garcia-Rodriguez said at this time: People from the live-action film department of DreamWorks have contacted me and want to dig me to their side. Ronan, we must pay attention, they must have contacted other people , can’t buy our overseas distribution channels, and want to poach our people.”

Ronan said: Keep an eye on it. If personnel from non-critical departments leave, they don't have to stop them as long as they pay liquidated damages.

The embassy film industry has signed contracts with the employees and managers of key departments, and they are not allowed to engage in related industries within three years after resigning.

This kind of poaching is inevitable, as long as the entire department does not change jobs, Ronan is not worried about individual personnel switching to other companies now.

After nearly a year of preparation and adjustment of the overseas distribution network, it is no longer impossible to operate without a certain person.

Dreamworks didn’t get nothing. When Embassy Pictures signed a contract with DreamWorks Animation Studio, four people from Embassy Pictures switched to DreamWorks’ live-action film department after the other party paid the full liquidated damages.

But this manpower is not enough to establish an overseas distribution network for DreamWorks.