Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1646 Copyright Buyback
Regarding the copyrights of these six Star Wars movies, Zhou Buqi had already been eyeing them, and sent someone to contact [-]th Century Fox, but they ignored them at all.

Hollywood film companies are all controlled by filmmakers. Apart from making money, these people have more or less film feelings, so they will not sell the copyright in a daze.

In the past few years, there have been Hollywood giants who have made profits by selling copyrights.However, it is not filmmakers who do such things, but capitalists.

For example, Kerkorian, who tossed MGM to death, such as Redstone of Viacom, the parent company of Paramount, including Zhou Buqi's process of recovering the copyright of the "Spider-Man" series.

To buy back the copyright of "Spider-Man", you can't connect with Sony Entertainment, they will never sell it, you have to connect with Sony Group, the parent company of Sony Entertainment.

The copyright of Star Wars is the same this time. There is no chance to find [-]th Century Fox, so go directly to the parent company, News Corporation, and find Murdoch!
Sure enough, Murdoch responded positively.

As long as the price is right, there is nothing that cannot be sold.

The third transaction, this is helping, Zhou Buqi mentioned Star TV, and expressed his willingness to help make connections between News Corporation and the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund.The two parties put aside their prejudices, talked with each other in an equal and fair manner, and reached a satisfactory and reasonable transaction price.

This matter is very complicated, and it may be reflected from individual cases to the macro.

The reason why Zhou Buqi was asked to help was actually to have an extra layer of relationship to explore Murdoch's background.See what his psychological price is.

If it is too low, the old man will not be happy. Once trouble is caused, it may affect the confidence of foreign investors in China.It is not good if it is too high, it will make foreigners cheaper in vain.

Zhou Buqi told him very clearly that he would not be allowed to lose money in the Star TV project.But it is impossible to make a lot of money, and the total rate of return will not exceed 25%.

Murdoch sighed and said that even if these three deals were completed, they would not be able to satisfy News Corporation's $10 billion financial hole.

Zhou Buqi smiled and asked, "Do you have any other good ideas?"

Murdoch said: "I have a deal, maybe you will be interested."

"Oh? What is it?"

"MySpace."

"what?"

Zhou Buqi showed a surprised look.

Murdoch was not ambiguous at all, simply and neatly, "1 million dollars, MySpace is yours."

Zhou Buqi didn't want that mess, he was very embarrassed, "I'm sorry, this is not in my plan. I am an early investor in Facebook, and Ziweixing and Facebook also have many business cooperations. If I buy MySpace, will affect the strategic cooperation."

Of course, this is a perfunctory word. In the final analysis, he is not optimistic about MySpace.

Zhou Buqi had paid attention to MySpace for a long time when he was on Friends.com.

The early MySpace was a blog-type social platform, which was very popular and directly led to the rise of the blog industry.

At its peak, MySpace surpassed Yahoo and became the most trafficked website in the world.

However, News Corporation changed all that.

In 2005, News Corporation spent $5.8 million to acquire MySpace, and then transformed the website with the thinking of traditional media, adding a lot of content such as "music", "video", "game", "sports," " News", "Fashion" and other channels.

Then put News Corp.'s content on this channel.

In other words, the positioning of MySpace has changed from a social platform to a content platform.

Even in order to increase advertising revenue, MySpace canceled the login system, and visitors can freely visit this website, which further reduces the social attributes.

More and more people use MySpace without registering or logging in. How much user stickiness can this have?
If you don't log in, it means that the bond of community relationship is invalid.

Loyalty is greatly reduced.

If you just want to read news and content, why not go to Yahoo?
Coincidentally, at this time Facebook is doing it again.

In just a few years, MySpace, once the largest website in the world, has been reduced to a fringe website under the wise leadership of Mr. Murdoch.

$1 billion?
Zhou Buqi sneered in his heart.

Even if he bid 1000 million US dollars for this broken website, he would not buy it.

In the previous life, Murdoch peddled MySpace for a year, but no one cared about it.He had no choice but to lower the price again and again, and finally found a receiver in 2011, and sold it at a price of 3500 million U.S. dollars.

Then, the receiver of the pan became a victim, and it was completely over in the era of mobile Internet.

……

Zhou Buqi chatted with Murdoch for more than an hour, mainly because the old man was too old to keep sitting for too long.

Although the time is short, the basic intention has been achieved.

Especially the copyright of Star Wars, the old man said, as long as the price is right, it can be sold!As for the price, it needs to go through a financial evaluation, so let Ziwei Star Global and Twentieth Century Fox get in touch.

Zhou Buqi returned home in New York and made two phone calls.

The first call was to Andy Hopkins, who was in charge of copyright acquisition, and told him to contact Twentieth Century Fox to discuss copyright.Not only the streaming copyright of Fox Searchlight's film and television content, but also the copyright of the six films of "Star Wars"!
Andy was very happy, and asked: "Star Wars film copyright? Is it limited to streaming media copyright?"

Zhou Buqi said: "No, Star Wars is a product of Lucasfilm. After living abroad for so many years, it can't be justified. Go talk to them and get all the six Star Wars movies owned by Twentieth Century Fox. Both copyright and income are bought back!"

"It's a lot of money!" Andy has long been eyeing Star Wars, but this matter is very difficult, "These six movies can bring at least 2500 million US dollars in profits to [-]th Century Fox every year."

"so much?"

Zhou Buqi was somewhat surprised.

Andy explained: "This is "Star Wars", the most popular movie brand in the United States. These six movies are replayed once or twice a year on cable TV, and the revenue alone is more than 3000 million US dollars. There are overseas TV copyrights, as well as collector's editions, collector's editions, Blu-ray editions and many other DVD sales, all of which are a lot of money."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about Lucasfilm? How much revenue can these six films bring to Lucasfilm every year?"

"Around $1500 million."

"Less than Fox?"

"In the early trilogy, the main investment cost came from 20th Century Fox, so they got a higher income, and 45th Century Fox only got [-]% of the income. Fortunately, when the later trilogy was filmed, Lu Cass Films is rich, with a [-]% return on investment."

"This business is really ugly!"

Zhou Buqi expressed doubts about George Lucas's business methods.Forget about the first trilogy in the 80s. At that time, he was very poor and could only rely on 90th Century Fox.But in the last trilogy in the [-]s, he was a rich man at that time, and he still gave up most of the profits.

45% investment income, that is to say, when George Lucas produced the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, Lucasfilm only invested 45% of the total production cost, and the other investment shares were shared equally The risk or maintaining the relationship in the industry is transferred out.

Andy smiled and said: "The logic is different. Lucasfilm's income from the 'Star Wars' brand mainly comes from the derivatives market, not from the film's peripheral market. The film itself earns more and less, which is second. The proceeds from the derivative products belong to Lucasfilm, and they value this right."

Zhou Buqi said decisively: "No matter what, take it back! You go talk to them! Murdoch has already agreed, as long as the price is right, [-]th Century Fox will definitely release it."

Andy said weakly: "If you want to buy back all the rights and interests, I'm afraid it will not be less than 5 million US dollars."

"Well, let's do it!"

Zhou Buqi has psychological expectations.

It is precisely because the price can be raised and the financial difficulties can be alleviated that Murdoch is willing to personally order the release of the copyright of the Star Wars six-part series by the headquarters.Opportunity is rare and must be seized.

For the second call, Zhou Buqi wanted to contact Mr. Li of the China Media Industry Investment Fund to discuss the strategy of acquiring Star TV.

(End of this chapter)