Extracting skills from movies

Hearing Du Sheng's idea, Wang Yingxiang slapped the table excitedly:
"Great! Mr. Du, your idea is absolutely brilliant!"

He was very sure that as long as this film could be made, it would have no worries about influence and box office.

Although Boss Yang didn't say anything, his meaning was very clear.

As long as Du Sheng is willing to act in this play, he will invest any amount of money in it!
There is no way. Now that the mainland box office accounts for an increasingly higher proportion, entertainment capital that does not move inland will only be eliminated.

He Guohua also expressed great interest in Du Sheng's idea, but was still a little hesitant:
"'Seediq Bale' has been approved and the leaders have reviewed it. The film will most likely be launched next year."

Du Sheng said:

“‘Seediq Bale’ has an investment of 3 million, so it won’t be a problem to find a famous artist to film it.

The movie I just mentioned is called The Man from Nowhere, and the main theme is also very important. If we run two projects in parallel, wouldn’t the publicity effect be better? "

Boss Yang nodded in agreement:

"This is obvious. If you don't mind, I, Emperor Ying, would also like to participate."

Du Sheng knew that this kind of film could not be enjoyed alone, so he said:

“There will definitely be an investment share, estimated to be around 80 million, and we will strive to make a blockbuster with positive energy that belongs to Chinese culture.

If you really have an idea, the more joint investment the better."

In fact, the cooperation configuration among the parties present was quite ideal.

For example, Star Media provides artists + publicity + crew preparation.

China Film is responsible for official affairs and provides theaters and financial support.

Xiangjiang Yinghuang can mobilize Hong Kong's film talents, especially directors and designers who are good at war action films.

Of course, Du Sheng will personally lead the positive energy part, and many Hong Kong teams may lack sufficient passion in this regard.

Although Xianglong Pictures is almost dying, it still has enough influence and theater resources in Bay City, which is crucial to the promotion of movies in Bay City.

He Guohua became even more excited when he heard that they were going to shoot a positive energy blockbuster.

He is passionate about blockbuster filmmaking, believing it to be the backbone of the future of cinema and cinema, and a showcase for his work.

He was behind many blockbusters in his previous life, such as "Lost on Journey" and "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy".

After the food and wine were served, everyone ate and chatted, mainly a few men discussing film projects, while the two ladies kept them company.

Although Wang Yingxiang is over 60 years old, and Boss Yang and He Guohua are also five years older, it is Du Sheng, who is a generation younger, who dominates the conversation.

However, everyone thinks it is natural.

After all, in terms of wealth and influence, Du Sheng is undoubtedly the most outstanding among them.

After some discussion, all parties reached a consensus.

Miracle Studios invested 3000 million yuan, China Film invested 2000 million yuan, Yinghuang invested 2000 million yuan, and Xianglong Pictures invested 1000 million yuan.

A total investment of 80 million.

Although Miracle Studios only accounted for 37% of the investment, it enjoyed 50% of the investment returns.

This is mainly because Du Sheng’s salary and preparation costs accounted for a large proportion.

In this drama, Du Sheng only received a few million in salary, and the rest was converted into a dividend model.

Du Sheng's current pay is very high. For "Baby Project", he received a pay of 800 million yuan plus 6% dividends.

But all investors had no objection because he was indeed worth the price.

"The Man from Nowhere" is expected to start filming next summer, and will be released shortly after "Wanted" is completed.

The script was already drawn up before, and it can be used just by changing the background and main plot.

The focus is on fighting scenes and special effects.

After talking about the film project, Wang Yingxiang said:
"Mr. Du, Wen Ruo will officially enter the mainland market this year. We are producing her first Mandarin album and would like to ask you to write a song for her."

Seeing that the topic finally turned to music, Wen Ruo looked at Du Sheng with anticipation.

Nowadays, female singers in the Chinese pop music circle are quite envious of Girls' Generation, Pamela Chow, Cecilia Cheung and others.

Because they have songs tailored for them by Du Sheng, and each song is a popular classic.

This time, Wen Ruo followed Boss Wang to the dinner party in order to find an opportunity to ask Du Sheng to write a song.

Wen Ruo just raised his glass to toast Du Sheng, but Du Sheng waved his hand and said with a smile:
"Mr. Wang, I'm really sorry, I've been very busy recently and I'm concentrating on preparing for the album.

This album is intended for the global Chinese market, and I really don’t have the time to write songs for others for now.

I haven’t even figured out the theme song for Girls’ Generation to sing for “Legend of the Ghost Mirror.”

Upon hearing this, the smile on Wen Ruo's face disappeared in an instant, and he was filled with disappointment.

Wang Yingxiang could only wave his hands helplessly and swallow his words.

In fact, even if Du Sheng has time, he will not write songs for just anyone.

After all, since the other party is planning to enter the mainland, they can be considered a competitor of the artists under Miracle Records.

Even if Girls' Generation, Chi Hui Shuang Quan, G.E.T., Zhang Jie, Zhang Jingying and others are extremely popular now, he doesn't need to cultivate potential rivals.

After all, "Voice of the East" is preparing for its second season.

After the meal, Boss Yang, Wang Yingxiang and He Guohua did not intend to leave their seats, and it seemed that they wanted to move on to the next activity.

Du Sheng just smiled, stood up and said goodbye.

Boss Yang chuckled and said jokingly:
"Ah Sheng, there are so many fun things to do here, don't you really want to stay and play?"

Du Sheng shook his head slightly and told the truth:

"I have a few people waiting to be hired. We are not short of people."

Wang Yingxiang thought Du Sheng was worried about moral issues, so he quickly explained:
"It's very formal here, the girl is just helping with foot washing and massage.

Our place is called 'Yiyunju'. Mr. Du, you are so educated, you must understand the meaning of this name."

Du Sheng smiled. No one could tell whether it was a real foot washing or not.

He didn't want to give others any chance to use it, so he said:
"I promised someone tonight, you guys have fun."

Boss Yang knew that Zhou Huimin and Zhang Baizhi had come to the mainland, and his twins would probably make do with them. There was really no shortage of beauties around them, so he smiled and said:
"Okay then. When we shoot The Man from Nowhere, I'll have Lao Wang prepare a surprise for you."

Du Sheng guessed that this "surprise" was probably related to Xu Ruoxuan, but he was too lazy to explain.

He would not touch such artists who have some stains in the mainland.

After politely rejecting Wen Ruo who came to chat with him, Du Sheng said hello to He Guohua and Boss Yang and left the club.

As soon as he got in the car, Wang Yaoyang laughed and joked:

"Brother Sheng, I thought you weren't leaving tonight. The girls here are so colorful."

Du Sheng said calmly:
“Although I have many scandals, I am not so hungry that I will not be picky about food.

And I came here to promote the preparation of a positive energy movie.

In order to promote Chinese-language films internationally, I have to go to these kinds of places of entertainment, which is indeed a big sacrifice.”

Wang Yaoyang knew very well whether the rumors about Du Sheng were true or not, and laughed:
"Then I'll wait and see. What's the name of the movie we're talking about tonight? I'll definitely go to see it when it's released."

"The investment in The Man from Nowhere was not that much, less than 100 million."

Du Sheng said it lightly.

Wang Yaoyang: “…”

I was almost speechless after hearing Du Sheng's "Versailles" words.

Back then, you even had to snatch from me a 5-dollar lunch box from the crew, but now you don’t even look at million.

"Brother Sheng, where are we going next?" Du Sheng recalled that Twins had encouraged Zhang Baizhi to form the 'Seven Fairies Front' before, and he felt a little headache:

"Go home first, there are several people waiting."

The next morning, someone who had been fighting for most of the night got up and did some boxing as if nothing had happened.

As for the Seven Fairies Front, most of it collapsed shortly after it was formed.

It is still unknown whether Twins, Tong Liya and Yang Yi can go out today.

If Vivian Chow and Box Cheung didn't have a rehearsal tomorrow, they probably wouldn't be up right now.

With Du Sheng's help, they were able to get on a plane to Beijing.

Next, the New Year’s Eve Party, “Happy Tonight” and other schedules are waiting.

In addition, Du Sheng also had to negotiate some investment matters.

Recently, thanks to the strong publicity of Hearst and Samsung channels, all sectors of society, especially businesses and investors, have a deeper understanding of the advertising capabilities of the TVING platform.

Especially at the critical moment when TVING platform is about to raise funds, these promotional activities have played a great role in promoting it.

Not long ago, the number of active users exceeded 10 million, and the platform is also preparing to launch a membership system for drama broadcasting, which has led to more and more businesses choosing to place advertisements on the TVING platform.

They found that placing advertisements on this platform not only allows them to more accurately target customer groups, but also the advertising formats are more novel and interesting, with significant effects.

Some investment banks also saw the huge potential of the TVING platform. After some inquiries, they learned that the biggest financial backer behind Miracle Pictures was actually Miracle Studios in the East, so they came to the door one after another.

Therefore, Zhang Fan and Shen Nanpeng became anxious and came to the Yangshi rehearsal site early tonight to wait.

The two men were dressed in formal attire and looked very formal, but they waited patiently for Du Sheng to finish rehearsal before inviting him, Zhou Huimin and Zhang Baizhi to dinner.

Seeing that Du Sheng wanted to discuss important matters, the two girls tactfully left on their own initiative to promote their new single.

Du Sheng had no objection and followed the two to a private room in a nearby high-end hotel and sat down.

Zhang Fan said straight to the point:
“Mr. Du, we hope to acquire 18% of the shares of the TVING platform.

We hired a professional evaluation agency to conduct a comprehensive valuation of the TVING platform from multiple aspects.

The approximate valuation they gave was 50 billion, but in order to show our sincerity, we are willing to increase the valuation to 60 billion..."

A valuation of 60 billion is indeed good for an emerging streaming platform.

After all, this is only the first round of financing. As long as high-quality resources are maintained in the future, it will easily reach tens of billions.

However, Du Sheng just smiled and did not give any explanation immediately.

He personally finds this valuation acceptable.

After all, the original intention of establishing this platform was to make money from overseas stocks and then subsidize the development of its own industries.

But this involves the interests of the Hearst sisters and Li Yixin, and also involves the resource returns given by their family.

Therefore, bargaining is inevitable.

Du Sheng smiled softly and said:

“I had originally planned to discuss financing with you later, but I didn’t expect you to be so anxious.

In this case, let's exchange our ideas today."

His words cleverly pointed out the other party's eagerness and secured a more advantageous position for himself at the negotiating table.

He went on to say:
“As far as I know, Yahoo is in talks with Taobao about financing, and the two sides have almost reached an agreement.

Yahoo plans to invest one billion US dollars to purchase approximately 40% of Alibaba's shares. This alone will make Alibaba's valuation exceed 250 billion RMB.

Moreover, Yahoo will also include some businesses in the scope of cooperation.

This means that Ali Baba’s overall valuation may be close to 300 billion..."

There are several crucial turning points in the growth process of Taobao.com.

First, the epidemic forced people to stay at home in isolation, which indirectly cultivated users' online shopping habits and accumulated the first batch of loyal users for Taobao.

The second is Yahoo’s strategic investment, which has built a high-quality platform.

It not only brought much-needed capital flow to Taobao, but also provided it with an important traffic entrance and indirectly generated a lot of positive publicity.

The reason why Du Sheng mentioned Ali Baba’s high valuation was naturally to raise the value of his own company:
“Although Taobao’s transaction volume in the first three quarters of this year reached 30 billion, its number of registered users just exceeded 600 million, and there is still water in the mix.

In addition, in the domestic e-commerce market, Taobao accounts for 30% of the market share.

In contrast, after half a year of development, the number of registered members of the TVING platform has exceeded 1000 million, including 28 paying members, and its advertising business is also booming.

In the Asian video website market, TVING platform occupies a leading position, with a market share of more than 22%...

With such achievements, the valuation you gave is less than half of Ali Baba's?"

There are still some things Du Sheng hasn’t said yet.

For example, the TVING platform also provides different levels of membership services.

Ordinary members only need to pay 29 yuan per year to enjoy ad-free service and various exclusive privileges.

Coupled with convenient payment methods, the number of paying members is growing steadily and currently has reached 28.

Although this revenue is not high, it does explore a profit path for the company.

The annual fee for premium membership is 99 yuan, but due to the high price, fewer people choose to activate it.

This is also a common problem faced by major streaming sites in Asia.

Due to the limited spending power of online users, it is difficult to significantly increase fees for the time being.

of course there are exceptions.

For example, the LME platform, which is used to profit from North American transactions, has an annual membership fee of US$49, which is several times higher than that of TVING, which is positioned in Asia.

In Li Yixin's teasing tone:
"This is how developed countries treat you. If you price it so low, people will think you despise it."

But joking aside, as a project that Du Sheng focuses on, its development momentum is much stronger than TVING.

Especially thanks to the animation series provided by Star Media and Hearst Television, as well as the newly opened live broadcast track, the revenue of the Lianzhong platform from paid membership has exceeded 3000 million US dollars.

And this number continues to rise.

Unfortunately for all the major venture capitalists, this company, backed by the deep-pocketed Hearst, has no plans to raise funds at the moment.

Therefore, those who are interested will turn their attention to TVING.

Hearing Du Sheng's words, Zhang Fan smiled helplessly and said:

"Mr. Du, Taobao and TVING are not on the same track at all.

Taobao's goal is to become a giant like Wal-Mart.

The TVING platform is more like Netflix.

The potential and market prospects of the two are also completely different.

Besides, Taobao has already completed several rounds of financing, while you have just started fundraising.”

As one of the world's top 500 companies, Walmart has an annual turnover of hundreds of billions of dollars and profits of over tens of billions of dollars.

One of Taobao’s visions is to become an online Walmart, so its valuation is naturally higher.

In comparison, the TVING platform is more like Netflix in the Beacon Country, and its audience is also different.

The difference between the two industries can be seen from the gap between the market value of streaming companies listed overseas and Walmart.

Even if a few years pass, there will be no comparison between the two.

………(End of chapter)