Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 578 Double Eleven War
The production of "Joker" was completed, and Liu Zhou also put his mind at ease.

It is only October now, and there are still more than two months until New Year's Day 2012.

If "Joker" wants to be included in next year's Oscar nominations, the film must be released in theaters within the next two months.

Of course, there is no need for a large-scale release, a preview will be enough.

Many movies that are competing for awards are released on a small scale first, and then they are released nationwide the following year after winning an Oscar.

This was the operating mode used by Li An’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”.

However, this method is more common among art films. For those films that are confident about the box office, they don't have to wait to use the influence of the Oscars to reap the box office.

Liu Zhou is certainly confident about the box office of "Joker", but if the film is released in such a hurry, it may not be promoted enough and the box office potential of the film cannot be fully released.

Moreover, if the film is released on a large scale and the box office is high and it becomes very popular, the Oscar may not be awarded to "Joker".

They do this kind of thing all the time. Generally, Oscar-winning movies don't have very high box office.

Unless you can be like James Cameron and make movies that have high enough box office that even the Oscar judges dare not ignore them.

The box office of "Joker" obviously cannot reach the heights of "Titanic", and Liu Zhou is also Chinese, so it is better to preview it first.

Build up word of mouth through small-scale screenings.

If the film can win an Oscar next year, it can save some publicity costs, and the box office may be higher than the original time and space.

After all, the original version of "Joker" missed the Oscar.

Finally, after communication between Liu Zhou and Kevin Channer, "Joker" will be screened in Los Angeles in mid-November, and then slowly spread from west to east to New York.

This time lasts until the end of the Oscar Awards ceremony.

After discussing this matter, Liu Zhou no longer needs to worry about the follow-up matters.

Warner is professional in this area, and Summit Entertainment will also be involved in this project later.

Liu Zhou can return to China first. He has been in North America for more than two months and it is time for him to go back.

As time enters November, the annual Lunar New Year movie season is about to begin.

Although there will be no Liu Zhou films released during the Lunar New Year period this year, two blockbusters from Golden Harvest Group will be released during the period.

Even Liu Zhou attaches great importance to the two movies "The Flowers of War" and "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate".

Not only because the directors of these two films are Zhang Yimou and Xu Ke, but also because these two films may be the key to Golden Harvest Group's market value breaking through the 100 billion mark.

Last year, Golden Harvest’s outstanding performance brought the market value of Golden Harvest Group to over 900 million.

Golden Harvest’s performance this year may not be as impressive as last year, but its performance is still far ahead of its peers in the industry.

Especially Liu Zhou's "Aftershock", the box office once again broke the 1 billion mark and had a huge impact.

Then the Golden Harvest Group’s business in TV dramas and variety shows is also extremely outstanding.

Stimulated by these positive news, Golden Harvest's stock price has been growing.

But the hurdle of 100 billion yuan was something that he just couldn’t get past.

This year will soon be over. Whether Golden Harvest Group can hold itself together in the final moments depends on the two films in this year's Lunar New Year holiday.

This is not just about two movies, it also concerns the honor of Golden Harvest Group.

If Jiahe can break through the 100 billion market value, it will make history, so Liu Zhou cannot help but pay attention to it.

In fact, not only Liu Zhou, but the entire Golden Harvest Group now attaches great importance to the two films. Since mid-October, they have been slowly launching the film promotion plan.

Although it is still early for the movie to be released, Liu Zhou has nothing to do in Hollywood anyway, so he might as well go back first.

What's more, he still has the affairs of three companies to deal with, and Jiahe may soon break through 100 billion, so he needs to be in charge personally.

On the afternoon of October 28, Liu Zhou's private plane landed at the airport in Beijing.

Returning to the capital, Liu Zhou suddenly felt much more at ease.

After resting at home for two days, Liu Zhou came to Jiahe Group.

Golden Harvest is also very busy now, but not with the two movies released during the Lunar New Year, but with "Ex-Files" which was released on Double Eleven.

Ever since "Love Is Not Blind" became a huge hit at the Double Eleven box office last year, this year's Double Eleven period will certainly not be ignored.

However, there are two main movies competing for Double Eleven this year. One is "Waiting for the Wind" produced by Huayi and directed by Teng Huatao, and the other is "Ex-Files" produced by Golden Harvest.

Moreover, because "Ex-Files" was launched and filmed in April and May, it caused some public opinion controversy at the time.

Many media outlets believe that Golden Harvest deliberately targeted Teng Huatao's "Waiting for the Wind".

After all, Teng Huatao directed the hit "Love Is Not Blind" at Golden Harvest last year, and then turned around and went to Huayi.

Not only the media thought so, but Huayi and Teng Huatao also thought so, and felt that Jiahe was deliberately sniping at them.

But Golden Harvest really didn't do it on purpose. They just happened to invest in the project "Ex-Files", and it just so happened that this subject matter was more suitable for the Double Eleven period.

Faced with outside public opinion, Jiahe was too lazy to explain.

As Double Eleven approaches, the promotion of the two movies is in full swing.

However, it seems that the promotion of "Ex-Files" has encountered some troubles this time.

"What's going on? I heard that Golden Harvest's promotion of 'Ex-Files' was overshadowed by Huayi's 'Waiting for the Wind'?" Liu Zhou asked with a smile.

Zhang Zhao smiled bitterly:
"It is true that Huayi took advantage of them, but it is not a big problem. It is just the loss of some channels. Now the publicity and promotion department of Golden Harvest is not just one-legged."

The impact was indeed not that big, it was just a bit embarrassing to be suppressed by Huayi. This also made Liu Zhou ask about the matter. Even though he was joking, Zhang Zhao still felt a little embarrassed.

"What's the specific situation? Maybe I can provide some help."

"When Love Is Not Blind was released last year, we had a very good collaboration with Ali. This time we approached Ali for collaboration again, but they refused. Faner is collaborating with Huayi instead."

"Isn't this quite normal? You know, Jack Ma is a shareholder of Huayi, so he must be thinking about Huayi."

"I understand. Not only that, two days ago, Focus Media increased the price of our promotional materials by 15 percent."

"Is Focus Media raising prices for us or for everyone?"

"Only for us."

Hearing this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but laugh:

“I didn’t expect Jack Ma to be so supportive of Huayi.”

If Golden Harvest is still a little short of breaking through the 100 billion market value, then Focus Media is a true advertising giant with a market value of 100 billion.

They almost monopolize the domestic indoor LCD billboard business, which has always been an indispensable part of movie promotion. The entrepreneurial history of its founder Jiang Nanchun is also legendary. He started from scratch and listed Focus Media on NASDAQ in just 11 years. Now the market value is billion.

The anecdotes about his obscure period are also very interesting. When he was in college, Jiang Nanchun was very talented in writing and served as the president of a poetry society.

As a result, when he invited a girl to dance at a dance party, she said, "What's the difference between a poet and a poor man?", which deeply hurt him.

After graduating from university, he went to work in an advertising company and took over 40% of the company's business with his outstanding business skills.

While allowing him to exercise his abilities, he also gained a certain amount of wealth.

He was also very awesome. At his most, he dated fourteen girlfriends at the same time.

From then on, he ran business during the day and went to dance halls at night, flirting with various girlfriends.

Later, when sending flowers on Valentine's Day, he bought the flowers from the same flower shop and distributed them separately because there was a 50% discount for bulk purchases.

Unexpectedly, the courier took the list and delivered it to each person one by one, which exposed Jiang Nanchun's mistake.

This tragic "accident" made him realize a truth: when running a business, one cannot control operating costs too strictly, otherwise accidents are likely to occur.

Later, he started his own company, specializing in indoor advertising and installing LCD displays in major office buildings.

Through continuous mergers and acquisitions with peers, Focus Media quickly became the leader in the building advertising industry.

Then Focus Media was listed on NASDAQ. Jiang Nanchun was only 32 years old that year.

However, no matter how awesome Jiang Nanchun was, he was still recruited by Ali, and Focus Media accepted a cash investment of 15 billion yuan from Ali.

Focus Media played a vital role in the rise of Huayi to become the number one private film and television company.

Because Focus Media is the third largest shareholder of Huayi, second only to the Wang brothers.

Therefore, Huayi can use Focus Media's publicity channels very easily and preferentially, which is in no way inferior to the cooperation between Guangguang and various domestic TV stations.

In this life, due to the suppression of Jiahe, Huayi has not developed as well as in the previous life.

Perhaps because Huayi is too weak, Focus Media looked down on it and did not invest in Huayi.

Therefore, the reason why Huayi has developed so slowly in this life is largely due to the lack of support from Focus Media.

In the Double Eleven competition between Golden Harvest and Huayi over "Ex-Files" and "Waiting for the Wind", Focus Media stood on Huayi's side without any reservation. Liu Zhou would never believe it if it wasn't for Ali's instructions.

Compared to Ali's refusal to cooperate, Focus Media's actions made Golden Harvest feel a little uncomfortable. Even a strong company like Golden Harvest still needed to rely on Focus Media's building advertising when promoting its movies.

"Mr. Liu, maybe Huayi has already reached an investment agreement with Ali, but it has not been made public yet. Otherwise, Ali would not support Huayi so wholeheartedly."

"You're right. It could really be like this. With the entry of Penguin, Ali has been eyeing the film and television industry for a long time. Huayi happens to be a very suitable investment target."

"With the support of Ali, Huayi may be about to take off."

“Even if Huayi takes off, it won’t go very far. It’s impossible for Ali to invest in only Huayi, and they will definitely get involved themselves.

But this is all for the future, and we should be able to cope with Focus Media’s sudden price increase.”

Hearing Liu Zhou's words, Zhang Zhao said confidently:

"Of course! Since Focus Media is targeting us so deliberately, Golden Harvest is not without temper. We will just refuse to cooperate.

Want to increase the price by 15%? Impossible!

I have arranged for people from the publicity department to contact advertisers such as China Television, Air Media, and Bright Corner Media, which recently installed a display screen in the bathroom.

Although it cannot completely make up for the lack of Focus Media channels, it has made up for some disadvantages.

Besides, the publicity channels that we at Jiahe rely on have never been building advertisements or TV advertisements, but the Internet.

Because of your relationship, Mr. Liu, we at Jiahe have very close cooperative relationships with the four major portals. Together with Sina Weibo, no other company can compare with us at Jiahe in terms of online publicity.

In addition, our company has nearly fifty self-media studios, and the scale of the water army that can be influenced is one of the largest in the country.

So even without Focus Media’s channels, it won’t have a big impact on Golden Harvest, and it can still split the revenue with Huayi equally.”

"Yes, this is very thoughtful. We should continue to maintain our advantage in online promotion. This will be the main force in film promotion in the future.

Building advertising is already a bit of a mess, and the authorities may remove indoor and outdoor advertising screens on a large scale. Focus Media’s good days won’t last long.”

"Mr. Liu, have you heard any rumors?" Zhang Zhao asked curiously.

"No, I'm just guessing."

But Zhang Zhao believed it. After all, Liu Zhou's many guesses before had finally come true.

However, the life or death of Focus Media has little to do with Golden Harvest.

"Mr. Zhang, since Ali is unwilling to cooperate with us, we can find Jingdong for cooperation. I am also a shareholder of Jingdong. When the time comes, I will give Liu Qiangdong a call, and you can arrange someone to go over and talk.

And I believe they are also very happy to cooperate. The huge sales of Taobao on Double Eleven last year also stimulated other e-commerce platforms.”

"Okay Mr. Liu."

As the release date approaches, the publicity campaigns for the two movies "Ex-Files" and "Waiting for the Wind" become more intense.

The showdown between the two low-budget films sparked a publicity campaign comparable to that of a commercial blockbuster.

This is no longer just a dispute over a movie, it also involves a bit of a dispute over personal feelings.

Some people in the circle may understand some of the situations, but most people don’t know.

They were all a little puzzled. They didn't know why Huayi suddenly went crazy and promoted the product so vigorously.

What shocked them even more was that this time in the film promotion, Huayi and Golden Harvest were actually on equal terms.

I have never seen Huayi be so powerful before.

At the same time, Huayi certainly did not give up the hype tactics they are good at.

Suddenly, a lot of internet trolls appeared on the Internet to spread the scandal between Jing Boran and Yang Ying. It was obviously the work of Huayi.

Golden Harvest has never bothered to hype up scandals for publicity.

In addition to promotion, distribution also affects the box office.

In this regard, Huayi is far inferior to Golden Harvest.

As the release date of the movies approaches, Golden Harvest has already negotiated 42% of the screening schedule for "Ex-Files", while "Waiting for the Wind" only has 36%.

This is the gap between the two sides. If the promotion of "Waiting for the Wind" was not so enthusiastic and there were not many movies released at the same time, perhaps the 36% screening share could not have been negotiated.

As time approached Double Eleven, the two movies officially started their showdown.

(End of this chapter)