Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 588 Breaking the Billion Golden Globe Award

During this year's Spring Festival holiday, the hottest thing is no longer the Spring Festival Gala.

A comedy film has become the focus of everyone's discussion.

"Lost in Thailand" grossed 6.68 million yuan in the first seven days of its release, stunning many viewers.

This movie has become a phenomenon and is being discussed by the whole nation.

Almost all the movies released at the same time as it became cannon fodder.

During the most golden seven-day holiday of the Spring Festival, "Reverse War", which was highly anticipated by the outside world, only earned 38 million.

However, it is not quite appropriate to release a gunfight movie during the Spring Festival.

On the other hand, another comedy film, "Eight Stars Reporting Good News", although it was a rehash of an old film, had a higher box office than "Reverse War". Compared to the fact that it was released one day less, its box office reached 46 million.

Hollywood movies "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Mission Impossible 4" were also slightly affected, but because they were released later, the impact was not obvious.

After the Spring Festival holiday, the film market inevitably began to cool down.

On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the box office of "Lost in Thailand" was halved, earning only 42 million yuan.

This result is actually quite good. Except for "Mission: Impossible 4", the box office of other movies did not exceed 4 million, and "Mission: Impossible " was only million.

However, compared with the performance of "Lost in Thailand" a few days ago, the box office is indeed much worse.

The current Spring Festival period has not yet formed the kind of movie-watching atmosphere of later generations. Before the Lantern Festival, it is the golden period for the film market.

Currently, the best box office period for the Spring Festival is the first seven days after the New Year.

This is the result of Golden Harvest's cultivation of high-quality blockbusters over the past few years, otherwise these seven days would not have existed.

In the past, people did not have the habit of watching movies during the Spring Festival. People preferred to visit relatives and friends.

Later, people generally had less interactions in this regard, and had more time, so they had more time to go to the movies during the Spring Festival holiday.

In addition, almost everyone in the country is on holiday during the Spring Festival and everyone is free, which gradually allowed the Spring Festival period to surpass the summer and New Year periods and become the largest period in the domestic film market.

As the ratings of CCTV Spring Festival Gala began to gradually become dismal, now there is a comedy like "Lost in Thailand" that has achieved super high box office during the Spring Festival.

I think the Spring Festival period will completely boom a year in advance.

The original Spring Festival period was highly valued by major domestic companies, but it had to wait until Stephen Chow's "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" grossed 1.3 billion yuan.

It is a foregone conclusion that this year's "Lost in Thailand" will break 1 billion at the box office.

In the following days of screening, "Lost in Thailand" did not disappoint.

After receiving 46 million on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, he received 43 million on the ninth day.

By the tenth day of the Lunar New Year, everyone might have settled down, and the box office rebounded again, reaching 56 million.

Until the Lantern Festival, the daily box office was no less than 50 million, and on the Lantern Festival it reached 67 million.

"Lost in Thailand" was released for half a month and the box office broke through the 10.8 billion mark, reaching billion.

It became the fourth domestic film to break the 1 billion box office mark, and its box office performance also surpassed Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War".

Although they had expected this, they still found it hard to believe when the data was placed before them.

This is a comedy, and the total cost including publicity and promotion will not exceed 1.5 million.

This was because Golden Harvest saw the explosive performance of Lost in Thailand and subsequently made additional promotional expenses.

The cost of this movie is only about 50 million.

Who would have thought that a comedy movie could become a billion-dollar hit.

Although "Lost in Thailand" lost the title of the first domestic film to break the 1 billion box office, this result is still very shocking.

However, what makes many people feel a little sad is that, upon closer inspection, "Lost in Thailand" is another movie invested and produced by Golden Harvest.

And because this is a small- to medium-budget comedy film, all the investment was covered by Golden Harvest.

In other words, all the profits from this movie will be taken up by Golden Harvest.

Taking the current box office of 1 billion as an example, the distributor is also Golden Harvest. Moreover, since Golden Harvest has a stable source of high-quality films, it is more powerful in facing the theater companies, and its share of the profits reaches 43%.

After deducting taxes and fees, the cinema chain’s share is less than 50 percent.

Golden Harvest will get 4.3 million yuan from the box office alone, and make a profit of 2.8 million yuan after deducting the publicity and promotion costs.

What's more, the outside world's box office estimate for "Lost in Thailand" reached 1.3 billion, which means that Golden Harvest's box office revenue was at least 400 million.

This movie may not make much overseas revenue, but with some other copyright income, it will be no problem to make another 100 million.

A movie can generate 500 million yuan in revenue, and it will take no more than one year from project initiation to the receipt of funds.

This is higher than the annual profit of 90 percent of listed companies.

But this is just a small part for Golden Harvest; the greater benefit lies in the increase in the share price of Golden Harvest Group.

Before the Spring Festival, the market value of Golden Harvest Group just exceeded 100 billion yuan, attracting national attention.

The stock price is still volatile. If there is any bad news, the market value may fall below 100 billion.

But the sudden success of "Lost in Thailand" undoubtedly gave a shot in the arm to Golden Harvest's stock price.

This caused the share price of Golden Harvest, which had been volatile, to rise again.

With the current size of Golden Harvest, its market value can increase by hundreds of millions if the stock price rises by even a single percentage point.

The stock price increase brought about by "Lost in Thailand" has increased Golden Harvest's market value by at least 1 billion yuan.

This also completely stabilized the market value of Golden Harvest Group of hundreds of billions.

After the Lantern Festival, on February 18th, Golden Harvest held a grand celebration banquet for "Lost in Thailand".

Although the movie has not been released yet, it does not prevent the movie from holding a celebration party.

In the past, some movies would hold a celebration banquet every time the box office increased by 100 million.

Now that the box office of "Lost in Thailand" has exceeded 1 billion, it is the right time to hold a celebration banquet.

At this time, Golden Harvest no longer invested resources in publicity and promotion, and the movie box office began to enter a period of weakness.

In fact, this movie is already very famous now, and there is not much point in continuing to promote it, which would be more trouble than gain.

Relying on the film's own fame, the film's box office potential can be released.

The protagonists of this celebration party are undoubtedly the three leading actors of the movie.

During this period, they are arguably the three hottest male actors in the country.

The male protagonists of billion-dollar box office movies, these three people will inevitably be mentioned when people discuss movies.

It can be said that after this movie, the status of the three of them in the film industry will take a big step forward.

Especially Xu Zheng, who is not only the leading actor but also the director of the film, and has gained even more.

The movie "Lost in Thailand" made him a great director on par with Liu Zhou and Zhang Yimou.

After all, in this era where box office success is the most important factor in determining one’s success, whoever makes a movie with high box office success is considered to be the most powerful.

In the past, people would comment on which directors made box office success. Now, it is not uncommon for a movie to make over 100 million yuan, but it is rare for a movie to make over 1 billion yuan.

At present, there are only three at most.

Therefore, Xu Zheng also became the focus of the celebration banquet, and even Liu Zhou could not steal his limelight. Looking at the people surrounding Xu Zheng, Liu Zhou said to Zhang Zhao next to him:

"Faced with such enthusiastic support once again, do you think Xu Zheng has become arrogant again?"

"It's certain that he will be arrogant. This is human nature. After all, the performance of Lost in Thailand is really outstanding. He has the capital to be arrogant. I'm just afraid that he will be so arrogant that he will lose his way."

"Don't worry, Xu Zheng is a very smart person. Besides, he has made a mistake last time, so he won't fall in the same place twice."

"Do we need to sign a contract with him?"

Zhang Zhao has always felt a little strange. In his opinion, Xu Zheng was an extremely talented person, but Liu Zhou did not recruit him.

Even Tian Yusheng, a little-known new director, signed a director contract with Golden Harvest before "Ex-Files" was released.

Although Xu Zheng's "Lost on Journey" had lower box office than "Ex-Files", its influence was much greater.

What's more, as an actor, he has also collaborated with Golden Harvest in several dramas.

But Liu Zhou never thought about signing Xu Zheng, even though other people were interested in him.

Now that "Lost in Thailand" has directly exceeded 1 billion, if Golden Harvest doesn't sign, others will definitely rush to sign no matter what.

"Do you think Xu Zheng will be satisfied with just a director contract now?"

"Then open a studio for him like we did for Ning Hao. He has the qualifications to do so now."

"I'm afraid that even if I open a studio for him, it won't satisfy him."

"That's impossible. The conditions we gave Ning Hao and his team were not bad. For example, Zhang Yimou and Xu Ke could earn at least 100 million yuan from The Flowers of War and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate."

"You can talk to Xu Zheng after the celebration banquet." Liu Zhou said with a smile, "But I'm not optimistic."

At this time, Han Shanping and several other film and television company bosses also came to Liu Zhou, looking at him with envy in their eyes.

Obviously, he is very envious of the achievements of "Lost in Thailand".

The most popular company during this period is Jiahe.

Two films were huge hits during the Lunar New Year holiday, one grossing 1 billion and the other 800 million, which already made them jealous.

Subsequently, the market value of Jiahe Group broke through the 100 billion mark. This is something that one cannot feel jealous of, but can only envy.

Now, just one month later, a comedy movie unexpectedly broke the billion box office record again.

This is Golden Harvest Group’s third consecutive hit movie.

Including China Film Group, it would have been great if they had just one such hit movie, but now Golden Harvest has produced three in a row.

This year, Golden Harvest is also busy. The big hits it has scheduled include Xu Ke's "Mojin: The Lost Legend", "Painted Skin 2", and "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" co-produced with Stephen Chow.

Now they really don't want to fight against Jiahe, even if they join forces.

What makes them even more desperate is that Golden Harvest not only produces great blockbusters, but also small and medium-budget films that also have excellent box office performance.

So instead of going against Golden Harvest, it is better to cooperate with Golden Harvest like China Film and Shanghai Film.

Liu Zhou is not a person who always works alone. Jiahe has collaborated with many peers before.

Later, because he was jealous of Golden Harvest's achievements, he gradually became opposed to Golden Harvest.

I also heard that Golden Harvest is preparing a big plan to make several blockbusters, and Ning Hao has already reached a cooperation agreement with Shanghai Film Group for one of their films.

They also want to see if they can participate in Jiahe’s big plan.

Even if they cannot participate, they now hope to establish a good relationship with Golden Harvest so that they can cooperate in the future.

This time even the Wang brothers from Huayi came, and they were very humble.

Although Huayi is now listed, its market value is not low.

But they found that apart from Feng Kuazi, the performance of other films invested by Huayi was not that good.

For them, they certainly don't want to rely solely on Feng Kuzi, as this would be dangerous for the company.

Their cooperation with Evergrande to invest in the film town may not be without the intention of finding an additional way out for Huayi.

After chatting with a few people for a while, Liu Zhou, as the boss of the company, also went to have a drink with Xu Zheng in person.

After all, no matter what, the employees have made such outstanding achievements and earned a lot of money for the company, so the boss must express his gratitude.

Of course, the specific statement will be made by Zhang Zhao.

Golden Harvest will certainly not be stingy with the money it has made, and Xu Zheng and the other three main creators will all receive a big red envelope.

Looking at Xu Zheng who was in high spirits, Liu Zhou didn't say much.

He knew from the beginning that Xu Zheng had always been very ambitious and it would be impossible to win him over.

Therefore, there was no plan to bring it under Golden Harvest from the beginning, but rather to cooperate in the form of a film project.

This time, "Lost in Thailand" was a big hit, and it was not a conventional hit like "Lost on Journey". Xu Zheng has already qualified to eat at the table.

Therefore, they will definitely not accept Zhang Zhao's attempt to win them over this time.

However, Liu Zhou didn't care. Having Xu Zheng more or less wouldn't make much difference to Jiahe, and it wouldn't have any impact.

Moreover, the copyright of the "Lost" series is firmly in the hands of Golden Harvest. If he wants to restart the series in the future, he has to beg Golden Harvest, rather than Golden Harvest begging him.

Golden Harvest has many projects, and it does not necessarily need the "Lost" series to support it.

After the celebration banquet, Liu Zhou was about to leave by car but was stopped by Zhang Zhao.

"Boss Liu, you are still right."

"He directly rejected your offer?"

“No, I mentioned the idea of ​​opening a studio to him, but his attitude was a bit ambiguous, saying we can talk about it after Lost in Thailand is released.

I think he must have other ideas.”

"There's nothing to be angry about. It's human nature for people to move up. Maybe he has better options. Maybe he is the boss himself?
We at Golden Harvest will not be affected by the departure of anyone, not even Director Zhang.

If they really want to leave, don’t stop them. Maybe we will continue to cooperate in the future.”

"I understand." Zhang Zhao smiled bitterly, "It's just a pity. Mr. Liu, do you think he will start his own company?"

“It is becoming more and more common for artists to start their own companies. Huang Xiaoming, Huang Bo, and Zhou Gongzi are leaving because they want to start their own companies.

What’s more, Xu Zheng is a big director who is already capable of organizing a group show.”

"I understand."

“Since Xu Zheng is leaving, let’s put the “Lost” series on hold for now. I think this movie has also brought up the atmosphere in Thailand, and people can write a script about solving a detective crime in Thailand’s Chinatown.

There are no good scripts in the company, so we have to collect them from outside.

The main task next year is to complete the Golden Harvest Film and Television Industry Base, which will be officially put into use next year.

I may spend more time in Hollywood this year, so you need to pay more attention to China.”

"Mr. Liu, when are you going to Hollywood?"

"In the next two days, the Golden Globe Awards will start soon."

(End of this chapter)