Reboot the heyday

How much money can you make from the idol business?

They seem to have great influence and seem to be able to make a lot of money, but in fact, if you compare them with other chaebols, they are not on the same level at all.

Wang Taika didn't understand these things at first, so he made it seem like playing house, which was a mess. Later, when Duck King took over XB Entertainment, although it was on the right track, it actually failed to expand its influence beyond the idol circle.

Don't forget that the company's own girl group NMSL and boy group db are still struggling to survive and have considered disbanding. The only semi-original one is Pandora's second generation group. In fact, it is also living off others' capital.

It was not until Deng Niuzi entered the company's management team and began to contact American capital that XB Entertainment's business was greatly expanded.

If you often pay attention to Korean movies, you will know that the focus of Korean movies is not the box office, but the movie-watching talents.

The reason for this is that the box office of Korean films in their home country is really not good enough. Even if they are the box office champions, they are still pitiful when compared with the international market.

So when we talk about the number of moviegoers, it seems very impressive in the millions or tens of millions.

The limit for the Korean film industry is about 20 million people. If a movie has 20 million viewers, it is basically the annual box office champion.

With a population of 50 million, 20 million moviegoers is already the limit; this is the full potential of the Korean film industry.

For a long time, this has been a closed-loop ecosystem. Others who want to play in it are not qualified.

The emergence of Netflix is ​​a win-win for Wang Taika because it has achieved a breakthrough. First of all, Netflix is ​​rich and powerful, and it can completely rely on capital to squeeze the film industry chain, which eventually caused the imbalance of the Korean film industry.

The current cooperation has actually just begun, but two online short dramas have been filmed to test the waters, and the response has been good.

A web drama called "A Wild Girl's Ambition" tells the story of the quarrels in the fashion circle. It has a low-key Tiny Times style, and the main actors are basically idol artists under XB Entertainment. You can't even guess who the female lead is, she is Choa from the former AOA group.

There is also a web drama called "All Night Modern Men and Women" which is similar to various urban love, hate and vengeance. The female lead is even more unexpected. There are many female leads in the drama, and the three main actors are Park Cho Seol, Jung Geum-mok and Bomi from A-Fan.

Although the three main female characters are all fans of Ah Fan, this is not a fan-oriented drama. Although the acting skills of Po Chu Xiang and Pu Mei are worrying, the plot is still quite exciting.

For a low-budget web drama, XB Entertainment would not allow a group like Crown to appear. Ah Fen's popularity is uneven, but they can be brought out for a spin.

As for Choa, she has been in XB Entertainment for a while, but she has almost nothing to do because the contract issues of all AOA members have not been settled. It just so happens that she has something to do now, so she can just act as the lead actress to make her presence known.

I never expected it to work so well.

This incident had a chain reaction. AOA's contract was with FNC, and they didn't want to let go of their first girl group. But they didn't expect AOA to have more and more troubles, so they gradually gave up.

But they gave up AOA, and they could give up the others, but they had to keep Seolhyun. She was the company's ace artist, and they were reluctant to let her go.

Therefore, the contracts of other AOA members are all there, except Seolhyun. They can't come back because if these members come back without Seolhyun, the public opinion will definitely backfire on XB Entertainment.

Seolhyun was determined to stay in FNC Company. She looked down on XB Entertainment and thought it was not formal.

But after losing the group activities, Seolhyun's acting career has not been smooth. At most, she plays the leading role in web dramas and the supporting role in TV dramas. She is popular, but she can't hold up the ratings.

As a result, Choa came here and filmed a web drama, which was surprisingly popular. If you compare yourself to others, you will die; if you compare things to others, you will throw them away! Seolhyun is a proud person, so this made her feel even worse.

Although XB Entertainment is a mess in terms of management, and there are problems such as cliques, nepotism, unequal distribution, corruption, etc., all these problems will be covered up in the face of rapid development. XB Entertainment, which is supported by American capital, has a strong initiative, resulting in a lot of resources and exposure.

Wang Taika also relied on this to maintain the stability of his "harem". If there were not so many resources, everyone would have nothing to do when they were idle, and Shura Field would definitely appear every day.

Although FNC is stable, there is nothing to do. Although XB Entertainment is chaotic, there are many opportunities!

After realizing this, Seolhyun regretted it very much. However, at this time, XB Entertainment no longer contacted her, which made her even more anxious.

He refused to come at the beginning no matter what conditions were offered, and now he wants to leave, but no one wants to hire him.

Especially when I see that my teammates who were not as popular as me in the past have higher exposure than me, I feel extremely sad.

In fact, Seolhyun is just a microcosm. There are many people who regret the changes in XB Entertainment.

Actresses like Park Bo-young and Lee Sung-kyung actually have similar feelings. Because when "Mystery of the Mountain and the Sea" and "Legend of the King" were first filmed, these actresses were invited, but basically declined.

At that time, XB Entertainment was just a piece of rubbish and no one really looked down on it.

Now, I can finally hold my head high.

Simply put, Netflix and XB Entertainment can now use their strong capital to attract top Korean creators with "unlimited investment", making it difficult for local TV stations and small and medium-sized production companies to compete.

For example, some excellent TV series turned to Netflix and XB Entertainment because local platforms refused to invest, and ultimately achieved higher returns.

Because Wang Taika was very accommodating at the beginning and didn't think about making money at all. It can be said that he entered into a business cooperation with Netflix with the mentality of "not making money but to destroy the Korean entertainment industry", so he made a lot of concessions in interests.

In the short term, XB Entertainment is like a slave working for Netflix and makes almost no money.

But in the long run, because there is a very worry-free and obedient "comprador agency" company in South Korea, Netflix has handed over all of its current Korean business to XB Entertainment for agency, and has never thought about changing people or taking action personally, resulting in XB Entertainment's influence growing with the help of American capital.

This may be the only correct decision Wang Taika has made in recent years. He tried his best to make money before, but he kept losing money. This time he didn't do it for the sake of making money, but he actually made money.

In the conference room, Deng Niuzi brought Netflix’s latest plan.

"In the next four years, Netflix plans to continue to invest 25 billion US dollars. The US still has great trust in our XB Entertainment. They decided to open a Korean branch next to XB Entertainment. In addition to the content review business, the rest of the specific filming business will be handed over to XB Entertainment." Deng Niuzi said excitedly: "This is good news!"

Wang Taika is now gradually understanding the situation. If Netflix continues to invest in this way, it will disrupt the local ecology of South Korea and indirectly lead to a shortage of funds for local film production.

I guess the Korean film and television industry must be hating XB Entertainment right now, but they dare not speak out because XB Entertainment is backed by Netflix, which is American capital.

Only Wang Taika is not Korean, otherwise he would be called an American traitor.

No matter what you say, I just want to see if I can kill you. (End of this chapter)