Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 541 Theft Prevention

Although "Lost in Thailand" is a comedy movie, its appearance has indeed changed the landscape of the domestic film industry to a certain extent.

Among them, the greatest impact was on Xu Zheng, who jumped from an actor and director to a film player.

It must be said that Xu Zheng is indeed very smart. He is very good at the "囧" series. Before the filming of "Hong Kong囧" started, he made a fortune by selling investment shares.

Before the later movies were released, he was able to pocket part of the profits in advance through guaranteed distribution. Finally, through this movie, the Huanxi Media, which he led to establish, recruited a group of well-known domestic directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kexin, and Ning Hao, which allowed him to take off completely after it was listed on the Hong Kong stock market.

Later, as the cinemas could not open due to the impact of masks on "Lost in Russia", he directly sold the copyright to ByteDance for a sky-high price of 6.3 million yuan.

You should know that he did not share any of the investment share in the movie "Lost in Russia", and he also directed and acted in the movie himself, so the cost was only 30 million.

While other big-budget movies were investing huge amounts of money in promotion and marketing in preparation for their release during the Spring Festival and had to consider themselves unlucky, Xu Zheng was making a fortune, earning 600 million yuan.

If Lost in Russia were released in theaters, the box office would have to reach at least 1.7 billion or 1.8 billion for Xu Zheng to get 600 million.

And to be honest, if "Lost in Russia" was released in theaters, it might not necessarily make that much money, because "Lost in Hong Kong" consumed a lot of word of mouth, so people's expectations for this movie are not that high, far less than "Detective Chinatown 3".

In the end, it turned out to be true. The quality and reputation of "Lost in Russia" were not even as good as "Lost in Hong Kong".

It can be said that the mask helped him for a while, because before the movie was released, Xu Zheng signed a guaranteed distribution agreement of 24 billion with the distribution company.

At that time, the pre-sale box office of this movie was only over 3 million yuan, far less than the more than million yuan of "Detective Chinatown ".

If Xu Zheng had not happened to meet ByteDance, which was trying to make a name for itself in the video field at the time, his fate might have been very difficult.

In fact, it can be seen from the fact that the "囧" series is getting worse and worse that although Xu Zheng is the soul of the series, he cannot support it alone and can only consume the previous reputation.

And just as everyone was tired of Feng's comedies, everyone was also a little tired of Xu Zheng's comedies.

Therefore, the囧 series is getting worse and worse. Unless he can invite Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang back and the iron triangle reunites, it is possible to save this series.

Of course, the quality of the final movie must also be good. Otherwise, even if the three of them reunite, the box office may not be bad, but it will completely exhaust the reputation and box office potential of the囧 series.

But Xu Zheng still has some stuff, and at that time he no longer relied on the "囧" series.

After the farewell dinner, Liu Ye, Huang Xiaoming and others left school and went home the next day.

Liu Zhou was not leaving so quickly. He needed to stay in the capital for another day.

Because today is the day when Liu Zhou is holding a book signing event in Beijing.

This was Liu Zhou's first book signing event in his two lives, and he was a little nervous.

At first, Liu Zhou felt a little ashamed about holding a book signing event after only publishing one book, but thinking that it would stimulate sales, he gritted his teeth and agreed.

"Junior brother, why weren't you so generous when you invested in my movie? If you had invested 500,000 yuan in me, maybe Xiao Wu could have been shortlisted for the main competition unit in Berlin."

Now this goal has been achieved. He has two to three million in his hands, and may receive another one or two million in the future. He is not too short of money.

Since he had no shortage of money, Liu Zhou also wanted to write a novel that was somewhat meaningful.

This is not to say that Liu Zhou is planning to become a literary youth; he has never had such an idea.

After returning from Berlin with the award, Jia Zhangke also tried to use his school connections to see if he could get a bid to have his film released in China, but he was unsuccessful and simply gave up.

“If you don’t want to, then you can be a help for this movie.

He had a hunch that the news of his investment in movies was only spread in a small circle, and after "Suzhou River" won awards overseas, more people would definitely come to him.

On the weekend, Liu Ye brought a middle-aged man to Liu Zhou's courtyard.

Liu Zhou also spared no effort for this publicity. He not only personally contacted the China Youth Daily, with which he had a good relationship, but also placed an advertisement in the Beijing News, a newspaper with which he was not on good terms.

After all, this drama was put together by students from the Central Academy of Drama. Young people's competitive spirit will naturally make them look at the drama with a critical eye to see if it is exaggerated.

Especially the group of people from Beijing Film Academy, they were the most dissatisfied and wanted to come and find fault.

There were more than ten people in the crew, including Yuan Quan and Dang Hao who had returned from filming. Liu Zhou generously ordered five ducks and some other side dishes.

The performance was a huge success and everyone was filled with happy smiles.

First of all, the behind-the-scenes staff. The short film is not too complicated, so we can just invite the people who have worked with us on the drama before to do the costumes, makeup, props and lighting.

As for the photographer, Liu Zhou didn't want to find a student, but someone with experience.

A figure immediately emerged in Liu Zhou's mind, Yu Liwei, the only experienced photographer he knew, but he didn't know if he was free now.

What Liu Zhou didn't know was that while he was lying in bed sleeping, not only was the Central Academy of Drama abuzz with his triumphant return, but the media outside were also reporting on it in a series of articles.

The media reported it earlier. As soon as the Cannes closing ceremony ended, domestic media received the news.

If Lost in Russia was shown in theaters, it might not make that much money, and it might even lose money, because the film had signed a 24 billion box office guarantee agreement.

The two are clearly distinguished, and both have many supporters.

Therefore, students of the Central Academy of Drama are often diligent and rigorous, and they pursue the artistic path unremittingly to achieve the glory of actors, while students of the Beijing Film Academy usually emerge out of nowhere, and they pursue more glory and become stars, and achieve the glory of big-name stars.

Later, people jokingly said that actors come from the Central Academy of Drama and stars come from the Beijing Film Academy, which is not without reason.

Although both schools are based on the comedy performance system, with the same core and similar theories, they have different focuses in academic research. The pre-sale box office of the film and the audience's expectations are average, so it is too difficult to achieve this box office goal. Now that "Byte" pays the bill, both parties will achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

Xu Zheng and Toutiao broke the traditional operating model by quickly making a profit and successfully attracting users to build their brand.

If the film cannot be released, then all the huge investment in publicity and promotion will be wasted. However, there is one exception, and that is Xu Zheng's "Lost in Russia". The film went from facing huge box office pressure to making a huge profit overnight. This wave of operations by the film company can be regarded as the most successful model in the industry.

The joint condemnation of the film "Lost in Russia" by the cinema chain for its unilateral breach of contract in selling the rights to the network has caused a lot of discussion. But strangely, some voices always manage to deviate from the topic and avoid the real discussion and focus of the matter.

Many netizens were led astray, not knowing what everyone was discussing, and just followed suit. Of course, this is probably exactly what those who deliberately deviated from the topic wanted to see! So what is the real issue of this incident?

Many reporters wanted to find Liu Zhou, but they couldn't find him. Since returning from Cannes, Liu Zhou has been very low-key, and no one knew that he was staying at home writing scripts.

Only reporter Yu from Southern Weekend knew that Liu Zhou was at home, but seeing that Liu Zhou had no intention of being interviewed, he did not disturb him.

For this new movie, he was busy before the New Year:

He appeared on two variety shows, "13 Invitations" and "Tucao Conference"; shot videos with internet celebrities on Douyin; took selfies with popular traffic stars, and even invited him to sing the theme song of a movie... As a result, the pre-sale results were not ideal.

Although there are some flaws in the first half of the story, it still touched some viewers overall. Especially in the fight against viral pneumonia, many young people and their elders quarreled over the issue of wearing masks.

In "Lost in Russia", Xu's mother's "confusing behaviors of middle-aged and elderly people that young people cannot understand" are more likely to make the audience empathize.

There lives an imaginary son in your heart. You have planned how many pieces of braised pork he should eat, whether the fat on his face should grow horizontally or vertically, when to have a child, and what time his bladder should drain.

Why do you insist on changing me? After so many years, don't you realize that I am not the son you thought I was. "

Liu Zhou also knew that his teacher said this to him out of concern for him, but he was very clear about the changes in the mainland film industry in the next few years.

It was not until 2002 that private film and television companies in the mainland would be fully revitalized.

"In fact, my dream has always been to be a director. Now that I am confident, I have started to shoot my first feature film. My biggest dream is to be able to work with you."

Huang Weiruo was previously the deputy director of the Drama Department of the Central Academy of Drama. This year, the former dean Xu Xiaozhong retired and stepped down as the dean of the Central Academy of Drama. As someone who was favored by the former dean, Huang was pushed by the former dean and became the full director.

Uh, this Director Huang is not the same Director Huang from the Performance Department.

Of course, we know what Lost in Russia will face in the "strongest Spring Festival period". Since the quality of the movie itself is average, it has to rely on off-screen operations to "change fate".

But his journey was full of controversy. After all, he broke two industry rules in five days:

The first was to announce the advance release date. Cinema workers who could not go home for the New Year scolded him severely, and even if he apologized afterwards and sent red envelopes to everyone in the cinema group, it was of no use.

However, if the box office of "Lost in Russia" does not reach 24 billion yuan, Xu and Huanxi Media will be in an awkward situation. The "golden signboard" that has been hard to erect may be destroyed.
It may be more difficult to attract investment in the future. So seeing that the pre-sale box office is not ideal, even if he is criticized, Xu Zheng has to advance the release date.

The third work in the "囧 series" tells the story of a six-day and six-night trip to Moscow, which allowed Xu Yiwan and Lu Xiaohua, mother and son, to return to the purest way of getting along.

This movie is different from the previous two. This time the film focuses on the family, and both the plot and the details of the movie are very down-to-earth and touching.

Moreover, at this special time, this can also win the favor of the national audience. The Hong Kong stocks of Huanxi Media, the producer, have soared, with the increase exceeding 43% at one point. Why not gain both fame and fortune?

Of course, Xu also paid a certain price. At least he will definitely lose some theater resources later.

However, for him, the choice was the lesser of two evils, and he had made what he thought was the right choice.

Lost in Russia still has a luxurious star lineup, but the entertainment value has been reduced this time and the film has returned to reality. Before the release, its various data were not the highest, and the sequel was released many years later, so the popularity and audience expectations were not as high as the blockbuster Chinatown 3 of the same period.

Entertainment reporters from print media, television stations, and even online media were all here.

Today is the day of the launch conference for Liu Zhou’s new film, “My Sassy Girl”.

In this day and age, even Zhang Yimou won’t hold a press conference for a new film, so this is Liu Zhou’s first in the industry.

In later generations, press conferences for the launch of filming became very common, as this was also part of the promotion of the film.

In later generations, there is already a very complete system for film promotion, starting from the start of filming, to some behind-the-scenes news during the filming process, to the wrap-up, to large-scale material promotion before the release, and finally to the roadshow, everything is planned in an orderly manner.

But Xu, who considered himself a "vanguard artist" at the time, was not very successful because the audiences did not understand the two plays he directed. At first, he argued with many scholars and tried to explain.
But I soon figured it out: the most important thing is how to use your work to influence those who don’t understand you.

Since there is a threshold for avant-garde art, let's start with comedy, which is the most easily accepted. Although the road ahead is long, we can't fall at the starting point directly because of some meaningless twists.

Take Lost in Thailand for example. Fan, who was not yet "unfashionable" at the time, briefly played himself at the end.
According to the conventional marketing method, the model should be printed on posters and then widely promoted.

Liu Zhou didn't feel sad about this. It seemed that it would be difficult for Wang Qingshan to keep up with him in the future. Since they couldn't maintain this friendship, it would be better not to start at all and just be ordinary classmates.

After one semester of study and life, Liu Zhou found that he had changed quite a lot.

I changed my lazy character from my previous life, developed a habit of self-discipline, and now I have a goal in mind and have regained the long-lost passion for struggle.

But he didn't do that, so when the audience saw the real Fan Bingbing appear on the big screen, the surprise reached its peak.

In the end, with the right time, right place and right people, "Lost in Thailand" grossed 6000 billion yuan with a cost of 12 million yuan, and Xu became famous in the director circle.

From a drama actor to a nationally popular comedian, from a billionaire director to an investment tycoon in the film industry, Xu Zheng has cleverly changed his identity time and time again to complete his upgrades.

As for whether the various disturbances caused by "Lost in Russia" are opportunities or challenges, perhaps only Brother Shan Zheng himself can tell.

(End of this chapter)