Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 550: Chapter : "Ex-boyfriend Strategy" and "Tiny Times"

To be honest, Zhang Zhao really didn't expect Liu Zhou to attach so much importance to "Lost in Thailand".

He has asked about the film more than once, which has never happened before.

In the past, whenever the company invested in a movie, Zhang Zhao would report it to him and that would usually be the end of it. Even if he had any ideas, he would just mention them briefly at most.

It’s not like now, I seem to be always paying attention to the movie "Lost in Thailand", and I am not so concerned about "Mojin: The Last Dragon" and "Painted Skin 2".

At least the casts of these two films are much larger than that of "Lost in Thailand", and compared with these two special effects blockbusters, "Lost in Thailand", a comedy, really cannot attract much attention from him.

What's more, Zhang Zhao was a little disliked by Xu Zheng. He felt that this person was a bit slippery.

When the project of "Lost on Journey" was first being prepared, Xu Zheng was as respectful as possible in front of him, but after the success of the movie, he was still respectful to himself on the surface, but he did too many small things in private.

He was disdainful of his open contacts with people from other companies in order to raise his own value to Golden Harvest.

Xu Zheng certainly contributed to the success of "Lost on Journey", but Zhang Zhao, as a veteran in the industry and the person who personally directed this film, is more aware that Golden Harvest's channels and publicity and promotion play the most important role.

However, as the general manager of a large company, he certainly would not fight for this false reputation.

But Xu Zheng obviously felt that he was the most important one, and under the hype of the media and compliments from people in the industry, he became a little inflated and wanted to leave Golden Harvest.

Of course he didn't think Zhang Zhao was wrong to leave, he was not a contracted director of Golden Harvest, and the movie "Lost on Journey" did make money for the company.

He is very open-minded. The entertainment industry is all about profit after all. You can't let people work like your slaves all the time.

So even if Xu Zheng wanted to join another place, he wouldn't say anything. At most, he would just feel a little bad about it. As long as it didn't affect himself and Jiahe, he wouldn't make things difficult for others.

However, what made him a little uncomfortable was that he did not want to end his cooperation with Golden Harvest but used other companies to lower the price for himself.

If you tell him directly that you want better treatment, it doesn't mean he will not give it to you.

Golden Harvest is well-known for its generosity and is not a company that would be reluctant to give up even the slightest bit of profit.

But you don't come in an open and honest way, but always like to do some small actions. This not only makes him have a bad impression of Xu Zheng, but even makes him feel a little disgusted.

So he ignored him when he implicitly expressed that he wanted the same treatment as Ning Hao.

Not to mention that you are not qualified with just one movie like this, Zhang Zhao would not have recruited him into Golden Harvest just because of his slick appearance.

The current scale of Golden Harvest Group does not rely on any one person. Even without Ning Hao, Xu Ke and Zhang Yimou, Golden Harvest would not be affected much and would still be a giant.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao knew very well that Xu Zheng did not leave and continued to cooperate with Jiahe. He also understood that Jiahe was the thickest leg.

But it is also a fact that "Lost on Journey" made Golden Harvest a lot of money. Although Zhang Zhao doesn't like Xu Zheng, since he is still willing to continue to cooperate with Golden Harvest, he will not reject him because of personal likes and dislikes.

The later film "Modern Times" was not actually a failure. Although Golden Harvest did not make much money, at least it did not suffer any losses.

The reason why this movie has aroused such a strong public opinion is simply because Xu Zheng set the tone too high, and the audience's expectations of him and this movie were too high.

Obviously, the quality of "Modern Times" was not enough to meet the audience's expectations, so he was criticized by the audience and the media.

In Zhang Zhao's opinion, without the protection of Golden Harvest, Xu Zheng would be just so-so. The success of Lost on Journey might just be an accident. There are many such examples in the entertainment industry.

Therefore, Zhang Zhao also planned to give up Xu Zheng and end his cooperation with him.

But unexpectedly, at this time, Liu Zhou actually gave him a hand and took the initiative to hand over the "Lost in Thailand" project to him.

To be honest, he was a little surprised at the time. He thought Liu Zhou took a fancy to Xu Zheng, but after asking, he found that it was not the case at all.

He took the initiative to ask to sign Xu Zheng, but Liu Zhou rejected the proposal.

There is only one reason, that is, Liu Zhou thinks that "Lost in Thailand", as the sequel to "Lost on Journey", would be better handed over to the original crew.

Although this was a project arranged by Liu Zhou himself, Zhang Zhao felt that as a comedy film, the box office of "Lost in Thailand" would not be very high.

The previous film had a box office of over 100 million yuan, and "Lost in Thailand" is of better quality, but it only made over 200 million yuan at most, and over 300 million yuan at best.

This result is certainly very good for other companies, but for Golden Harvest, it is just average.

Compared with Golden Harvest's key projects such as "Mojin: The Last Dragon" and "Painted Skin 2" which are expected to have box office revenues of million to million or even million to million, Zhang Zhao obviously does not attach much importance to "Lost in Thailand".

But now it seems that he made a clear mistake. Liu Zhou's attention to "Lost in Thailand" was beyond his imagination.

His vision is well-known to be accurate. Any project that Liu Zhou is optimistic about has never performed poorly. Now it seems that the performance of "Lost in Thailand" will not be too bad.

And judging by how much importance Liu Zhou attached to it, he might think that the box office of "Lost in Thailand" is even higher than that of "Painted Skin 2" and "Mojin: The Lost Legend".

Therefore, I couldn't help but attach much more importance to "Lost in Thailand".

Then he thought of "Lost on Journey". A script he had just received was also related to this movie, and he couldn't help but want to see what Liu Zhou thought.

Therefore, in response to Liu Zhou's questioning expression, Zhang Zhao smiled and said:

"This movie is a love movie. It was submitted by Sheng Tang Studio, the screenwriter of Lost on Journey. They asked us at Golden Harvest if we were interested in investing.

The other party has already received 300 million yuan of investment from Lehua Entertainment, and there is still a gap of 1200 million yuan. The crew has also completed preparations. "

The love film produced by Sheng Tang Studio is "Ex-Files".

As the industry leader, Golden Harvest is well-known for its support for newcomers in the industry, so every year a large number of people come to it with scripts and projects seeking investment.

“Has the production department done any estimation and costing?”

"We did it. They think it's a good project. With an investment of 15 million and a publicity of 5 million, it should be able to be done. If it is released on November 11 this year, it should be able to make a small profit.

Maybe it will become a box office dark horse like last year's Love Is Not Blind. "

Hearing this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but laugh:
"It seems like you guys want to replicate the box office miracle of Love Is Not Blind? That's a bit difficult, it's something you can only encounter by chance."

"We don't expect this movie to be as successful as Love Is Not Blind, but with the foundation, the box office should not be bad if it is released on Singles' Day."

"If that's the case, then invest. However, this movie has investment from Lehua Entertainment, but the copyright of this movie must be fully acquired."

"Okay, but there is another problem. Tian Yusheng from Sheng Tang Studio wants to be the director himself." "He can do it. The investment is not big anyway. Besides, there are more and more people who are not professionally trained to be directors and make movies, and their performance is pretty good.

We will take care of the fund supervision and the film's promotion, and leave the filming to Tian Yusheng."

"Okay Mr. Liu."

In fact, Zhang Zhao didn't intend to care too much about this low-budget romance movie.

As for the actors, Tian Yusheng has almost already negotiated with them, with only one female lead left.

He didn't intend to interfere with the already confirmed actors, but as for the choice of the female lead, since it had not been decided yet, he planned to recommend Yang Mi.

When the time comes, we will arrange someone to discuss the specific investment matters with them.

However, after hearing Liu Zhou's last words, he couldn't help but feel moved and continued:

"Mr. Liu, there is another project I want to discuss with you."

"Oh, what project?"

"Do you know that Guo Xiaosi?"

"Of course I know." Liu Zhou replied with a smile, "Doesn't he also write youth romance novels? Didn't he and Han Han often compare me for a long time before?"

"He and Han Han are indeed the most famous youth fiction writers in the country after you, Mr. Liu. They have even topped the annual richest writers list."

"Why do you suddenly mention this person?"

"Guo Xiaosi wanted to be a director and adapt his novel Tiny Times into a movie. He approached us and wanted to ask if we were interested in investing."

Liu Zhou didn't react at first, but as soon as the words came out, he immediately realized that Guo Xiaosi had deep ties with the entertainment industry.

Sure enough, the first thing Zhang Zhao said was that Guo Xiaosi was preparing to enter the film and television industry.

Originally, he had planned to adapt his novel into a movie next year, but now it seems that perhaps due to the stimulation of "Interstellar" or the currently booming film market, he decided to do it a year earlier.

What's interesting is that the person he was looking for was also Zhang Zhao. Judging from Zhang Zhao's expression, he might also be quite interested in Guo Xiaosi's project.

"What do you think?"

"I think we can give it a try and invest. I have arranged for someone to investigate. Guo Xiaosi is a very flamboyant person who has had disputes with many people, so his fans are very loyal.

Moreover, his novel Tiny Times is quite popular among young people and has many fans. If it is adapted into a movie, the box office should be good.”

"But you have to know that Guo Xiaosi has nothing to do with being a director. He probably doesn't even know how to read a monitor. Even if he and his novels have a lot of fans, if the movie is bad, will the fans buy it?"

"Yes, I never thought he could make such a good movie. Besides, the most important thing is to reap the box office revenue contributed by his fans. I think even if he makes a mess of the movie, his fans will still eat it up."

Liu Zhou was speechless when he heard Zhang Zhao's words, but his judgment was quite accurate and the facts were indeed as he said.

The box office revenue of "Tiny Times" was almost entirely contributed by his fans and fans of his books, and the box office revenue was mainly concentrated in the first week. After the fans had spent their money, the box office revenue fell precipitously.

However, despite this, the total box office of the four "Tiny Times" films reached 1.8 billion, an average of more than 400 million per film.

You can imagine how crazy his fans and book fans are.

The production cost of the "Tiny Times" movie can be seen to be not high by watching the movie, so no matter how others criticize it, the "Tiny Times" series of movies are making a lot of money.

This series of events contributed greatly to the fact that LeTV Pictures was able to become one of the top five private film and television companies in just one year.

The movie "Tiny Times" is indeed bad. The whole movie feels like a not-so-empty commercial. It makes sense for the audience to criticize it, after all, they have spent money on it.

However, some people in the circle have been criticizing "Tiny Times". Perhaps some of them really think that this series of movies is a case of bad money driving out good money and are worried that it will have a negative impact on the film market.

But I feel more envy and jealousy. No one expected that this movie would make so much money.

It was after "Tiny Times" that more and more people from other industries crossed over to become directors, including not only novelists and actors, but also hosts and film critics.

However, most of these people have failed, and most of the bad movies are created by people like them.

So no matter whether those people were sincere or jealous, they were not wrong to criticize. "Tiny Times" did have a significant negative impact on Chinese films.

It was also from "Tiny Times" that the film and television industry saw what fan economy is.

Since it is profitable, capital in the circle will of course follow suit on a large scale, and with the rapid development of mobile Internet, traffic and fan circles are also beginning to rise gradually.

But no matter what, since the piece of meat of "Tiny Times" has fallen in front of him, there is no reason not to eat it. However, he has to put on a vest before eating it. After all, the public opinion about this series of novels is too huge.

Golden Harvest is a brand that they have built up with great difficulty. If they invest directly in the name of Golden Harvest, they will be destroying its reputation.

When public opinion comes together, there will definitely be viewers who will criticize Golden Harvest as well. Even if they don’t notice it for the time being, there will definitely be peers who will add fuel to the fire.

In the original time and space, LeTV was also criticized badly, but at that time LeTV was just a newcomer in the industry and did not care about being criticized as long as it made money.

But Golden Harvest can’t do that. Golden Harvest’s brand value is now worth hundreds of millions.

"Okay, since you think it's a good idea, then invest, but not in the name of Jiahe."

Zhang Zhao also understood Liu Zhou's concerns and said:
"Mr. Liu, didn't you say before that Golden Harvest could set up one or two new labels, and invest in some low-budget or other more niche movies with the new labels? Why not use Tiny Times as the opening work of the new label?"

"It seems like you have already made preparations. Then let's do as you wish. However, it is a bit abstract for Guo Xiaosi to be the director. But his fans only recognize him, so let's assign him an assistant director with more experience."

"I understand, Mr. Liu. I will not only arrange an experienced assistant director for him, but also an experienced production team." Zhang Zhao also replied with a smile.

After talking about the movie, the two chatted briefly about other topics and then Zhang Zhao left.

Liu Zhou didn't take "Ex-Files" or "Tiny Times" seriously, and continued to handle other affairs of Golden Harvest after Zhang Zhao left.

After arranging his work the next day, Liu Zhou flew to Los Angeles that evening. The "Joker" crew had completed all preparations and was waiting to start filming.

(End of this chapter)