Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 465: Wanda Acquires MGM

The symposium lasted nearly three hours before it ended. The leader left in a hurry after making a summary speech.

People are usually concerned about national affairs, so it is not easy to spend three hours discussing movies with them.

After the leaders and others left, everyone present couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Although the leader acted very kindly, after all, his position was there and he couldn't let go completely no matter what.

Afterwards, several people left the meeting room one after another. After exiting the lake, Liu Zhou and Han Shanping also got into the same car and left.

As soon as he got on the bus, Han Shanping exclaimed:

"Liu Zhou, I realize that you care more about Chinese films than we do. Suddenly I feel ashamed."

"Mr. Han, are you praising me or insulting me?" Liu Zhou replied with a smile.

"Of course I am praising you. I am speaking from the bottom of my heart. We have seen what you have done for the industry over the years.

In fact, we would like to do more, but there is no way. As you know, there is too much resistance, which makes our official departments hesitate to do more. We are not as good as a private enterprise like you in doing more. "

"Actually, I'm not that noble. I'm doing this for myself. Only when Chinese films get better and the pie gets bigger can I make more money, haha."

"That being said, you are the only one with such a long-term vision and dedicated to the film industry, Golden Harvest. The others are only thinking about making money, and even when making a movie, they don't think about making it well."

Han Shanping turned around and continued with some joy:

"Forget about them. If the draft can be implemented, it will be absolutely good news for our Chinese film industry. You, Golden Harvest, must take the lead."

"Don't worry, if the censorship can be relaxed this time, it will be an encouragement not only to us at Golden Harvest, but also to the creations of others in the industry."

After separating from Han Shanping, Liu Zhou continued to be busy with his work.

Whether it is the "Film Industry Promotion Law" or the draft under discussion this time, it is impossible to implement and announce it in a short period of time. It will take at least a year.

So there is no need to rush this, and Liu Zhou no longer thinks about these two things. He has already done what he should do.

Time slowly comes to the National Day holiday, and the somewhat quiet movie market in theaters begins to become lively again.

With the prosperity of the domestic film market, the National Day period, which was previously not valued, has now become a battleground for major film companies.

There have been blockbuster movies released during the National Day holiday in the past two years, and the box office results have been getting better and better.

There are three blockbusters released in the original time and space during this year's National Day, with three major directors competing on the same stage.

One is Zhang Yimou's "Under the Hawthorn Tree", which is known as the cleanest love movie in history.

But because "The Three Shots Surprise" released the previous year really hurt the audience's hearts, the box office of "Under the Hawthorn Tree" on the first day of its release was less than 10 million, which stunned everyone.

You have to know that this is Zhang Yimou. Since "Hero", no other movie has had a first-day box office of less than 10 million.

In this era when daily box office revenues can easily reach 20 to 30 million, as the top domestic film director, the first-day box office revenue was less than 10 million.

This also shows how deeply Zhang Yimou's "Three Shots" hurt the audience last year. Even the most loyal fans dare not walk into the cinema easily, for fear of being hurt again.

But Zhang Yimou is Zhang Yimou after all, and "Under the Hawthorn Tree" is indeed a good movie, which finally earned 1.5 million yuan at the box office.

This high-quality love movie also helped Zhang Yimou restore a lot of his reputation.

The other two films are Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame directed by Xu Ke and Rain of Swords produced by Wu Baige.

The two movies were released on the same day, a true head-to-head showdown, but what disappointed everyone was that it was not tense at all and the winner was decided on the first day of release.

"Sword Rain" was the first film produced by Wu Baige after joining Xiaoma Pentium, but the box office was quite poor, with less than 500 million on the first day and just reaching 6000 million after one month of release.

"Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame", a martial arts film in which Xu Ke is good, performed very well, with a box office of nearly 20 million on the first day.

It earned 5 million yuan at the box office in the first five days of its release. The box office in the first week alone was much higher than that of "Seven Swords" he filmed five years ago.

Then it earned another 9000 million in the second week, 2.1 million in two weeks, and the box office reached 2.8 million after one month of release.

At that time, Xu Keke was not as glorious as he is in this life. He had been silent for several years after the failure of "Seven Swords". "The Mystery of the Phantom Flame" can be said to have wiped out the decline of that year.

Although the box office of "Sword Rain" was not as good as "The Mystery of the Phantom Flame", its reputation was still good, and it was later called a hidden gem in the ocean of martial arts movies on the Internet.

However, in this life, none of these three movies are available in this year's National Day holiday.

"Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame" and "Sword Rain" were both released ahead of schedule, and their box office results were better than their original versions, and both were created by Xu Ke.

"Sword Rain" also achieved a box office of more than 200 million yuan. I think no one will call it a buried martial arts movie anymore.

However, "Under the Hawthorn Tree" was blown away by the butterfly's wings because Zhang Yimou did not shoot "Three Guns" after the Olympics but "Moon" instead.

Zhang Yimou did not consider filming "Under the Hawthorn Tree", but went straight to filming "The Flowers of War" after finishing "Moon".

Therefore, Zhang Yimou's reputation is still very good, and he and Liu Zhou are the two people with the strongest box office appeal in China.

Although this year's National Day movie season did not include three blockbusters, there was also a blockbuster that attracted much attention, and that was "Ip Man 2" produced by Golden Harvest.

The film officially hit theaters nationwide at the end of September. Thanks to the huge popularity accumulated from the first film and Golden Harvest's strong promotion and marketing, it grossed 35 million on the first day of its release.

Then, with no rivals during the seven-day National Day holiday, it raked in 2.1 million yuan at the box office, and earned nearly 2.5 million yuan in just eight days.

Although the outside world knew that the box office performance of "Ip Man 2" would be very good, this result still shocked them a little.

Although the National Day holiday consumed most of the film's box office potential, there is a high possibility that the final box office of this film will exceed 400 million, which will rank among the top ten Chinese-language film box office charts.

It can also be seen that "Ip Man" can become a series, and it can be said that Golden Harvest already has a treasure trove in its hands.

Just when Golden Harvest was delighted with the outstanding box office performance of Ip Man 2, a piece of news instantly swept the entire Internet. Wanda Group issued an announcement, announcing that it would spend $65 billion to acquire MGM, one of the seven major Hollywood studios.

Subsequently, major domestic media began to report the news frantically, and "Ip Man 2" suddenly became unpopular.

You know, MGM is the most famous film company in Hollywood. The Oscars, which now have influence all over the world, were created by them, and "Tom and Jerry", which has been the memory of several generations, was also created by them.

Although MGM fell into the hands of casino tycoons in the 1970s and declined due to repeated turmoil, it is still one of the seven major Hollywood companies and a world-renowned film company.

Now this film company has been quietly acquired by a domestic company, which cannot but shock the domestic media and the public.

This is the first time that a domestic company has acquired one of the seven major Hollywood studios. Although Golden Harvest also acquired Summit Entertainment before, Summit Entertainment is only a second-tier film company in Hollywood after all.

Before this, most people in China may not have heard of this company.

Therefore, the impact of Wanda's acquisition of MGM is much greater than that of Golden Harvest's acquisition of Summit Entertainment.

Moreover, right now is a time when the country is lacking in national self-confidence. It is very rare for domestic companies to acquire overseas companies, and even fewer examples of domestic companies acquiring well-known overseas companies.

What's more, the acquisition amount is so high that it can be said that Wanda Group became famous all over the country.

Wanda today is not the same as it was ten years later. Most people in China don’t know Wanda Group. This acquisition has also greatly enhanced Wanda’s brand power.

After discussing some publicity and promotional matters of "Interstellar", Liu Zhou and Han Shanping couldn't help but talk about Wanda's acquisition of MGM.

"Liu Zhou, this time the wolf is really coming. It seems that Wanda has huge ambitions for the film and television industry and is so generous." Han Shanping said with a smile.

“Big Lao Wang’s move was indeed very sharp. It can be said that he directly opened up the situation. Although the acquisition was of a Hollywood company, I think there will definitely be many people in China who will approach Wanda.

Add to that the Wanda Cinema Line, which is about to take the top spot, and there will be a film and television giant in China.”

"Now that Internet capital has come, real estate capital has also come, and the entertainment industry will become more and more lively in the future."

Han Shanping is happy to see various sources of capital entering the film and television industry.

Only with more funds coming in can the film and television industry become more prosperous, and this has always been his goal.

"Didn't they say Wanda was going to acquire AMC Cinemas in North America? How come it suddenly became an acquisition of MGM?"

Liu Zhou was indeed a little surprised about Wanda's acquisition of MGM. This had never happened in his previous life, and it was instigated by himself, the butterfly.

Moreover, the time for overseas expansion was advanced by one or two years, and the scale of funds was much larger.

“I don’t know. Who cares? Maybe it’s just a smokescreen. But for Jiahe, it has welcomed a strong competitor.

MGM not only has the ability to distribute films in North America, but also has certain distribution capabilities overseas. In the future, overseas distribution will not only be done by Golden Harvest.”

Liu Zhou was not worried about this and said calmly:
"Golden Harvest has never been afraid of competition, and I think Wanda should sort out MGM first before competing with Golden Harvest."

Wanda said it spent $65 billion to acquire MGM, but in fact it acquired MGM Group for $20 billion, while assuming MGM's debt of up to $40 billion, and then invested $5 million in filming. The entire transaction was as high as $65 billion.

Wanda actually only spent US$25 billion, which is of course a very high price that most domestic companies cannot afford.

But Wang is indeed very courageous. In 05, Sony spent 48 billion to acquire MGM, but it failed to change the downward trend of MGM.

Under such circumstances, Wanda dared to spend $65 billion to accept the hot potato of MGM, which is something that not everyone can do.

They dared to spend 65 billion to acquire MGM, so they must have seen the key point for MGM to turn its predicament around.

Facing the media, Da Lao Wang gave three reasons for the acquisition:

First, MGM's most valuable assets are its library of more than 4000 film and television works, as well as ownership of the "007" series of films and half of the ownership of the "Hobbit" series of films.

These can bring great synergy to Wanda’s tourism industry and children’s entertainment industry;
Second, this acquisition will increase Wanda's voice in the global film market;

Third, Wanda’s film production company can also learn from the experience of major Hollywood studios up close.

However, Liu Zhou felt that in addition to these three points, Big Wang must have the same idea as when he acquired AMC in the original time and space.

That is to buy MGM, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, turn the company around in a short period of time, and then repackage MGM and list it on the stock market.

At that time, not only will the invested funds be recovered, but also a giant Hollywood company will be obtained.

This is how he operated AMC in the original time and space. After acquiring AMC, Wanda turned AMC from loss to profit in just one year despite the outside world's pessimism, and then repackaged AMC and listed it.

And this is not just a delusion. MGM owns the rights to the "007" film series and half of the ownership of "The Hobbit".

As long as Wanda plays the two cards of "007" and "The Hobbit" well, it is possible for MGM to turn losses into profits and repackage it for listing.

I don’t know whether Sony’s luck is bad or Wanda’s luck is good. At this time, MGM has already launched two blockbuster movies, "Skyfall" and "The Hobbit".

The former grossed $11 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing 007 film in history, and the latter also grossed $10.2 billion.

Driven by the two films, MGM generated $2012 billion in revenue and $14 million in profit in 1.28. In 2013, MGM's profit increased further to $1.56 million.

Due to the company's good performance, MGM's market value had reached US$80 billion before Liu Zhou was reborn.

Therefore, Wanda's acquisition team obviously saw the potential of "007" and "The Hobbit", saw the possibility of MGM turning losses into profits, and saw the possibility of packaging MGM and listing it. Otherwise, they would not have spent $65 billion to acquire MGM.

However, the original MGM went bankrupt and reorganized, and then was managed better and better because the management team of the reorganized MGM were all veterans in the industry.

Wanda's acquisition of MGM is a cross-border acquisition. They are a real estate company and know nothing about movies, especially Hollywood movies.

Moreover, although Big Wang is decisive and resolute, he is also a little eager for quick success and instant benefits. He may blindly launch film projects. There are precedents for this.

Therefore, if Wanda wants to turn MGM from loss to profit, it still has a hurdle to overcome.

(End of this chapter)