Hong Kong Entertainment: The King of Kung Fu

Chapter 353 It’s all cabbage price

In the 80s, the United States had just ended the Vietnam War. The reflection on the Vietnam War and the fear of the tropical jungle made action movies with such elements one of the most popular movie types at that time.

For example, "First Blood" added jungle elements, and "First Blood 2" started the war directly in Vietnam.

Yang Ye launched "Predator" at this time, also following this trend.

Although "Predator" moves the battlefield to the jungles of South America and is not a Vietnam War theme in the traditional sense, the corresponding genre elements are all available and not a single one is left behind.

In the setting, all the equipment worn by the actors is equipment from the Vietnam War. The pistols equipped by the commandos in the film are Desert Eagles.

Tropical primitive jungles, large-scale gun battles, field teams... these were all popular with the audience at the time, and they also set the claustrophobic tone for the overall temperament of the film.

The suspense setting is exactly the same as "Alien". All in all, "Predator" combines the characteristics of "Alien" and "First Blood".

As long as the film is shot according to the tone set by Yang Ye, it will be difficult for "Predator" to succeed.

In terms of actor selection, Yang Ye directly designated Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger has been making movies for more than ten years, and he has always been depressed.

In the early days, my German accent was too strong when I spoke English, so I had to do a side job.

It was not until two years ago that he gained a little fame with the Conan the Barbarian series, and now he is considered a second-tier actor.

Shay signed a three-movie deal with Schwarzenegger for a salary of half a million per film.

Then there is the choice of director. For this kind of assembly line horror film, if there is successful experience, the director is not actually important.

Because the director is just an executor. How to shoot and how it will look like are determined by the framework drawn in advance by Yang Ye and the review by Xie Yi, so the final product is almost the same.

Just like the Marvel series of movies in later generations, not many people actually know who the director is, and they don't care.

Unless the opponent is an outstanding person like Ridley Scott or James Cameron, Yang Ye will give him autonomy if he understands their abilities. Others do not have this treatment.

……

After signing Schwarzenegger's film contract, Yang Ye can implement his little plan.

In early October, Shay came to Marvel Comics, and CEO Stan Lee led the company's employees to warmly welcome him.

As early as 1978, DC produced "Superman", which exploded at the box office. Marvel was jealous and wanted to make a movie.

However, it is useless to be jealous. DC is backed by Warner, and its father is rich.

Marvel has no backer. If Marvel wants to make a movie, it can only discuss it with other film companies.

If a film company intends to make a movie, then the character must be licensed to the other party. This is the origin of Marvel's "selling heroes."

Since the release of "Superman", Mr. Stan Lee has been going around and contacting a large number of film companies, hoping that they can make Marvel movies.

However, "Superman" only made a splash. The second film received mediocre reviews, the third film was bloody, and the fourth film hit the center of the earth.

Warner can't even do it, and other companies don't have the ability to ask for it.

Stan Lee shaved his head and picked out his talent. He worked hard for several years but failed to sell many roles.

Although a few movies have been made, they were all developed by second-rate small companies. For example, "Captain America" ​​could not even enter theaters and was directly released on video tapes.

At this time, the arrival of Shay made Stan Lee feel like a savior, and he planned to package and sell all the characters under the company.

It's a pity that Shay is not a rag collector. He picked and picked and reluctantly bought a little spider. The asking price was two hundred thousand dollars, but there was not a penny more.

At this point, Stan Lee was as happy as if he was having a holiday.

Although United Artists is a weakling among the eight major companies, it still bears the name of the eight major companies, right?
A big company has taken over, and it seems that Marvel's movie dream is really about to come true.

……

Yang Ye did not directly acquire Marvel because he did not want to make United Artists Pictures too big.

In a few years, Sony will acquire Colombia, and he pointed out that Sony will be the first to fight lightning!

It's enough to just buy Spider-Man and hold the lifeblood of Sony Pictures... the bug in your hands in advance.

Although the MCU Marvel Universe has been booming since 2010, it has only been brilliant for ten years, and its revenue is not as good as a bug.

More importantly, computer technology is not yet mature, and many characters cannot be developed after being bought, so they are of no use.

For example, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk all require a lot of special effects, which are difficult to achieve.

Bugs is different. This thing can be shot as an action movie, and it only needs a small amount of special effects to assist.

Another reason is that Yang Ye knew a plan that had gone bankrupt.

In 1985, Marvel sold Spidey to a company called Cannon Pictures for $22.5.

Horror movies were popular in the 1980s and were very profitable, so Cannon Pictures planned to make Spider-Man into a horror movie.

The director is Tobe Hopper, who made "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and Tom Cruise plays Spidey.

In the script, after Peter Parker is bitten by an alien spider, he will transform into a giant spider...

Stan Lee couldn't stand this and got mad on the spot.

After a lot of trying and failing, Cannon Pictures made a huge splash when they made "Superman 4", losing all their pants and going bankrupt.

The rights were then transferred to a company called Carloco Pictures, and Cameron took over the project.

Cameron also wrote the script, in which Schwarzenegger plays Doctor Octopus...

But it didn't work out, and Carloco Films went bankrupt.

Now, Tom Cruise, James Cameron, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are all following Yang Ye.

This... Yang Ye thought it seemed a bit messy, so he bought the little spider back and pried away Sony Pictures' cash cow in advance.

After Cameron finishes shooting "First Blood 2", he will launch "Spider-Man".

As for what kind of "Spider-Man" these three people will come up with when they come together, Yang Ye said he is looking forward to it!
……

In the console war of 1983, Atari was defeated miserably and was defeated.

Almost instantly, Atari lost almost all of its family property in the war. The company had a large backlog of unsold game consoles and cartridges, and had no choice but to take them to New Mexico for destruction.

In 1984, Warner also gave up, announcing that it would no longer support Atari and began to sell Atari.

And this gave Yang Ye the opportunity to take over Atari.

Yang Ye and Shea made a decisive move and bought Atari for only five million US dollars, becoming the game department of United Artists Pictures.

In mid-October, Atari, which changed hands and was reorganized, held its first high-level meeting. The four major shareholders of United Artists, Yang Ye, Shay, White and Adjani, all attended the meeting.

At the meeting, Shea announced: In addition to recalling Atari's former general manager Nolan Kyle, he will continue to serve as general manager.

It's business as usual at Atari and there will be no other personnel changes.

Subsequently, Shay gave Atari two tasks:

The first is to improve the home game console Atari 7800.

Atari's home console has a total of three iterations, namely Atari2600, Atari5200, and Atari7800.

The 2600 was the king of home consoles for a generation. The 5200 was a hit after it was launched in 1983 because it was not only expensive but also not compatible with 2600 games.

The developers were really smart and went crazy in order to make more money. In the end, they didn’t make any money and even killed themselves.

Atari originally planned to release the 1984 after Christmas of 7800, but Warner sold it.

Buyers of the original space-time did not look at the home console market and believed that home consoles were dead.

Because the home console market collapsed at this time, Atari's host project was cut off, so the 7200 could only sit in the warehouse gathering dust.

Although Yang Ye was optimistic about home consoles, after trying out the 7800, he felt that it had many flaws and could not beat Nintendo, so he put forward some suggestions for improvement.

The boss opened his mouth and the employees ran away. Although Yang Ye just said it casually, it was not easy for Atari's R&D personnel to realize the functions he said.

The final launch of the Atari 7800 may have to be delayed for more than a year, but Yang Ye is not in a hurry and can afford to wait.

The second is to develop new games.

Yang Ye's secretary Hu Yinmeng placed a game plan in front of the senior executives present.

In 1988, a meteorite crashed near a Mayan temple in Central America, bringing with it a strange alien creature... the Xenomorph.

An armed organization called the "Kestrel" plans to build this place into a base for launching alien invasion wars.

A member of an organization called "Contra" sent two heroes, Bill and Lance, to destroy the other party's plan...

"Contra" is Spanish and is the general name of a Central American militia and resistance organization. It means "resisters". After being translated into pseudonyms and then converted into Chinese characters, it is... Contra!

Nolan Kyle, Atari's new general manager, looked at the two male protagonists in the planning project and felt they looked familiar.

He couldn't help but look up at Yang Ye, and then looked down at the plan. After repeating it twice, he said, "Mr. Yang, who is this Bill..."

Yang Ye smiled and said: "Yes, it's me. As for the other one..."

"Mr. Sylvester Stallone?"

"You have good eyesight!"

Yang Ye only said that Kyle had good eyesight, but did not admit that it was Stallone and admitted that he wanted to pay.

The prototypes of the two protagonists in "Contra" are Stallone and Schwarzenegger, and Yang Ye shamelessly tampered with one of them to look like himself.

Kyle was convinced. Yang Ye actually used his own image to make a game character, and even paired it with Stallone.

Next, let’s look at the specific content. The novel design made Kyle’s eyes brighter:
In "Contra", players start with an ordinary single-shot rifle that can be fired in eight directions. After obtaining other weapons, they will switch to the obtained weapons.

"Weapon capsules" will appear from time to time in the game. Shooting them down will reveal more powerful weapons.

Direct contact between the player and the enemy and the fired ammunition will lead to the player's direct death, so skilled avoidance skills are required.

Players can jump and use the direction keys to control the direction of movement and shooting when jumping, and the direction control when jumping is very important in the game...

The people in charge of Atari actually don't like the new bosses to interfere in the company's affairs as soon as they arrive, but they have bankrupted the company, so they can only do what others say.

Then after seeing Yang Ye's game plan, they were convinced.

These settings that seemed ordinary in later generations now seem to be creative and groundbreaking, which opened the eyes of a group of people at Atari.

Kyle said: "It seems that Mr. Yang is also a video game enthusiast?"

"Yeah, I have nothing to do and I like to play a few games!"

Only one game is obviously not enough. Yang Ye has many "creative ideas", but he is not interested in teaching these people how to do things step by step. Coming up with a "Contra" is already outrageous.

Yang Ye also needs more game companies to produce games for Atari's consoles.

Yang Ye said: "I heard that many people have left Atari in recent years, and some have even founded their own game companies?"

Kyle's expression was a little sad. There were many great people who worked at Atari, but they all left later, such as Steve Jobs.

After Atari launched the 2600 home console, it became the king of the industry and became even more crazy. It stuck to its laurels in the company's development, and more people couldn't stand it and left.

After these people left, many founded their own game companies, some of which had great influence in later generations, such as Activision.

Atari's initial approach was to suppress these game companies, such as banning the games they produced from being available on its own consoles.

The two sides fought back and forth, causing serious internal friction and wasting a lot of energy. This was one of the reasons for Atari's collapse.

The plan given by Yang Ye is... to turn hostility into friendship, everyone cooperates and makes money together.

Yang Ye said to Kyle: "I need you to accept these game companies, gather them all, and become Atari's suppliers. If they have good projects but have financial problems, then invest in them and help them." Make an investment!”

"In terms of profit distribution, it should be changed to the form of sharing. If a game company makes a popular game, then it should receive more income."

Atari's previous model was: when a game company makes a game, it pays a sum of money to buy it. After that, however many cartridges the game sells and how much profit it makes, it all belongs to Atari and has nothing to do with the game production company.

Therefore, when game companies make games, they often make them shoddily, just to sell them. If they are done well, it is not cost-effective.

Usually after players buy it back, they get tired of playing it after a few plays.

As for Atari, in order to keep players fresh, they can only continue to launch new games.

As a result, the games got worse and worse, and players got bored faster and faster. Atari released more and more games, falling into an infinite loop, which finally led to a collapse!
Yang Ye finally said: "We want to build a complete ecosystem so that those third-party game companies can rely on us to survive. Only when they make more money can we make more money.

Only in this way can we form a virtuous cycle, stimulate the enthusiasm of these game companies, produce more excellent games, and let us make more money. "

People here may not understand what Yang Ye said, but it's just like this these days, just be the big boss and make a lot of money alone.

The other people are all wage earners, and they are not even qualified to drink soup, let alone eat meat!
This is the case with Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. If you pick a group of people, their employees will earn an extra ten cents, which is like cutting off their flesh.

Shaw Brothers heroes like Zhang Che and Hu Jinquan had no idea how much money they made for Shaw Brothers before.

As a result, after retirement, they were all in poverty, with no food to eat, and they had to rely on the support of their former disciples to support them in their old age!
Yangye's business strategy is to increase revenue without cutting costs, and does not rely on squeezing employees to make money.

This truth is worthless in later generations, and everyone understands it.

It's just that truth is truth and understanding is understanding. Not many people in future generations can do it, let alone in this day and age. This requires a lot of courage!
(End of this chapter)