Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 318 329 [Columbia Pictures changes its leader, why can't I sell out the company? ]

Compared with the business in Hong Kong, the business in Japan is relatively much better.

Relying on his many years of relationship, Ichiro Tanaka has started a collaboration with Toho Co., Ltd. and is currently preparing to co-produce a special effects film "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah" with them.

Godzilla is Toho's signature product, and the reason why it chose to give up a share was because Ichiro Tanaka promised to help Toho obtain the screening rights in mainland China.

Toho, which has owned the copyright for decades, is well aware of how vast the Chinese mainland market is. Once Godzilla can successfully open up the market in mainland China, it will be in no way inferior to Tsuburaya Productions' Ultraman.

As a special effects film, the Ultraman series has brought huge profits to Tsuburaya Productions.

Since the birth of "Ultra Q" in the 60s, nearly three decades have passed, and Ultraman has long become a household name in Japan's special effects characters.

It is also very famous in many countries and regions in East Asia.

Compared to "Ultraman", Godzilla is very disappointing. So far, except for the market in Japan, basically no one outside Japan has any interest in Godzilla, which is a pure monster.

The success of Ultraman is due to the different Ultra characters, such as Ultra Father, Ultra Mother, Zero, Tiga and so on. There is always one that the audience likes.

But what about Godzilla?

Except Godzilla who is considered a good monster, all others are bad.

Moreover, they are all monster-like in shape, without a single human-like form, which makes it difficult for the audience to feel good about them.

The reason why the Godzilla series of movies have been doing well at the box office all over the world decades later is not so much because of the attractive setting of Godzilla, but rather because of the direct gigantic phobia brought to the audience by the movie's special effects.

"Godzilla..."

Li Yishu looked at Ichiro Tanaka who was full of expectation, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Tell the people from Toho Company that I can help, but if the movie wants to be shown in theaters, it must first have a foundation, otherwise the audience in mainland China will not be interested in such a movie."

Ichiro Tanaka asked in confusion: "What does the president mean?"

"Tell Toho to provide the Godzilla movies they shot previously and broadcast them on mainland TV stations for free to attract some viewers and build up a base, just like Ultraman in Japan."

"no problem."

Ichiro Tanaka used to be a Toho employee and was well aware of Toho's urgency. He simply took out the old Godzilla movies that had been shot in the past and broadcast them for free. This did not cause any loss to them, and instead allowed them to take the opportunity to cultivate Godzilla fans.

Li Yishu said, "Besides this, go talk to Toho about the global copyright of Godzilla."

"This one……"

Ichiro Tanaka frowned. “I’m afraid it’s difficult. Godzilla has always been Toho’s signature. They make a Godzilla movie almost every two years, which is very profitable. They may not be willing to give up their share of the copyright.”

“Only when the pie is bigger can we eat more.”

Li Yishu said calmly: "If Toho can't even understand this, then there is no need for this Godzilla movie collaboration."

Godzilla is different from Ultraman. He can adopt the form of special effects drama to attract audiences. If he wants to cultivate audiences, it is a long-term job. At the same time, he must be made into a big movie and accompanied by an animated movie.

If there wasn't a part of Godzilla's global copyright, there would naturally be no need for Lee Yi-su to help Toho cultivate Godzilla.

He remembered that all future "Godzilla" series of films would be promoted to the world by Sony, starting with Godzilla vs. King Kong, which completely ignited the Monster Movie Universe.

Each film has a higher box office than the last.

It is certainly impossible to produce something so shocking now, but it will definitely be fine in ten years or so. Acquiring part of the copyright now can be regarded as buying a guarantee in advance.

"Okay, President. I will have a good talk with the people from Toho."

Ichiro Tanaka felt that this seemed to be the case. With Li Yishu around, at least there would be no need to worry about promotion in mainland China.

Moreover, the Art Entertainment Group is now developing better and better in the United States, and in the future it may be able to promote Godzilla to North America.

By then, Godzilla, which was originally worth only one piece of cake, became three pieces. Not only did Toho not lose money, but it could eat more because the cake became bigger.

After talking about Hong Kong and Japan, Li Yishu talked to Yongmei about the situation of the mainland branch.

CCTV has already started broadcasting "Getting High", and the ratings are still very good. The rights for the second round of broadcasts have also been sold. Next month, Yanjing TV will also broadcast "Frosty Leaves Are Red Like February Flowers".

"Han Palace Storm" has been completed and is currently in post-production.

There are four TV series in preparation:
They are "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo" written by screenwriter Shi Ling, "The Mansion Gate" written by Guo Baochang, "Sunrise in the East, Rain in the West" written by Zhao Baogang, and "Seahorse Ballroom 2" co-written by the Seahorse Film and Television Creation Group.

There is also a movie, that is "Forever Lost My Love", which was co-produced by Wang Shuo's Good Dream Film and Television Company. This movie is adapted from Wang Shuo's novel, and the director's name became very famous in the future, that is Feng Pants Feng Xiaogang!

"Feng Xiaogang?"

Li Yishu's eyes flickered. He didn't expect that Wang Shuo and Feng Xiaogang would get together so early.

Before this, he had thought of asking someone to find Feng Xiaogang and persuade him to sign a contract with the company.

After all, Feng Xiaogang is very capable in directing commercial films. Around the millennium, he was almost the only director of commercial blockbusters, and was once as famous as Zhang Yimou.

Now that the other party is in cahoots with Wang Shuo, there is no need to look for him. Just wait for him to come to you.

Li Yishu looked at Yongmei and said, "In the mainland, we mainly focus on TV dramas. We won't consider movies for now, but if it's Wang Shuo's script, we can still try to invest in it."

He remembered that almost all the scripts Wang Shuo wrote in recent years were profitable. Among them, "Party A and Party B" co-produced with Feng Xiaogang grossed 400 million yuan at the box office with a cost of 3600 million yuan, starting the era of "Feng's New Year Comedy".

"I know the boss."

Yongmei has been the general manager of a mainland art company for such a long time that she naturally knows how serious the sluggish mainland film market has been in the past two years, and that the box office has been getting worse and worse.

Unlike in the past when young people liked to go to the cinema to watch movies, young people nowadays prefer to go to places like nightclubs and bars.

Li Yishu glanced at the heads of various branches sitting at the long table and said, "This is the first time we have met, but the group will organize such executive meetings every year in the future."

"Starting from next year, we will organize a group meeting in the middle and end of each year. I hope everyone will work hard, and our art and entertainment group will develop better and better..."

He gave some encouragement and talked about the strategies of each branch company for next year.

North America is still dominated by low-cost movies, Japan is mainly focused on animation and special effects dramas, Hong Kong Island still needs to continue to expand its distribution channels in Southeast Asia, and the mainland is mainly focused on TV dramas.

"Okay, let's stop here for today." Seeing that the time was almost up, Li Yishu dismissed the meeting and asked Amy to arrange someone to take Yongmei and other general managers of the branch companies to visit the North American Arts and Entertainment Group branch.

After everyone left, Li Yishu said to Amy, "As for the matter in Shanghai, you can go there first to get a head start. If the policy in Shanghai is good, you can consider investing in building a photography base there."

Last week, Director Zhang sent a fax saying that the leaders of the Shanghai Investment Promotion Office welcomed them to visit the local situation. Li Yishu has been busy recently and he is not very proficient in business negotiations, so he simply handed it over to Amy.

"Good boss."

Amy nodded. She had been looking up relevant information about the photography base during this period, and had also communicated with the person in charge of the Columbia Photography Base.

Having learned a lot about the photography base, she will be able to more accurately put forward her own policy demands when she returns to Shanghai.

"Jingle Bell……"

Just then, Li Yishu's cell phone rang. He took it out and saw that it was a call from Hisao Morishima. He looked up and said, "Amy, you go out first."

"Yes!" Amy nodded and then turned and walked out of the meeting room.

After she left, Li Yishu answered the phone. Before he could say anything, Hisao Morishima on the other end of the phone said tiredly, "Mr. Li, is it convenient for us to meet now?"

He frowned, hearing the decadence in Morishima Hisao's words, and agreed without hesitation: "Of course."

"Then let's meet at the Red Sun Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard."

After half an hour.

Red Sun Cafe.

"I'm really sorry Lee-kun."

Hisao Morishima said apologetically, "I'm sorry for your help. I'm afraid I'll have to go back to Japan next week."

"What's going on? Why are you going back to Japan to take up a post?"

Li Yishu frowned. Although he had not cooperated with Columbia in film production in the past two years, several of his company's films were distributed through Columbia's channels.

Hisao Morishima provided a lot of conveniences, even the distribution fee was lower than other films.

Lee Yi-su also plans to continue sucking the blood of Columbia Pictures for a while, especially during the Halloween and Christmas periods, so that "Scream" and "Saw" can get more theaters and screens.

Now that Hisao Morishima is leaving, his new successor may not be so easy to deal with.

"Ugh!"

Hisao Morishima sighed and said, "It's mainly because Columbia Pictures had problems with its business this year. The box office of several movies in a row was not ideal. In terms of distribution business, except for Li Jun's Final Destination, the others were not very ideal, especially The Shawshank Redemption, which the company focused on distributing, which was even more terrible."

Hearing this, Li Yishu shook his head slightly. He has been staying in the United States for the past two months, so he is well aware of how bad Columbia Pictures has been this year.

Movies such as "Girls at Home" and "Latin Affair" released at the beginning of the year performed poorly at the box office.

The highly anticipated "Big Ten" in June was intended to be Columbia Pictures' "Home Alone", but who would have thought that with a cost of more than 6 million US dollars, it only made more than million at the North American box office.

The box office could have been better, but who knew that the world was dominated by "The Lion King" and "Forrest Gump" at that time!

The direct trigger for Hisao Morishima's complete departure was not these movies, but "The Shawshank Redemption". They watched this movie internally and thought it was a very, very classic and good movie.

For this reason, Columbia Pictures decided to vigorously distribute this film, and even sent the film's creative team to participate in the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, and then officially released it in North America on September 10.

"The Shawshank Redemption," produced by Castle Rock Films and distributed by Columbia Pictures, grossed only $1000 million after two weeks of release.

Moreover, the box office performance is getting worse and worse. The single-day box office has fallen below 50 US dollars. If nothing unexpected happens, the final box office will be around 1500 million US dollars.

Not only did the total investment in the film exceed 2500 million U.S. dollars, but Columbia Pictures also spent more than 400 million U.S. dollars in distribution fees.

It was precisely because Hisao Morishima promoted the film so vigorously and the box office was so poor that he was criticized by other presidential candidates.

This also made the parent company Sony Entertainment Group see the city situation clearly, and completely gave up the idea of ​​letting the Japanese be in charge of Columbia Pictures, and instead handed the position of president to Vice President Petri Philip.

The reason for the change of generals at the last minute was not because Hisao Morishima was too bad, nor because Petri Philip was so powerful, but purely due to the internal struggle within Columbia Pictures.

When Sony acquired Columbia Pictures, they did not carry out a major purge of Columbia's internal executives. Instead, they treated them adequately, hoping to continue Columbia's glory.

But everyone knows the nature of Americans. They deliberately use some small tricks to make the company suffer losses every year.

Not long after taking office, Hisao Morishima was immersed in the halo of Hollywood directors and invested in the filming of Spielberg's "Hook".

The original budget was $4800 million, but because the shooting period was extended by 40 days, the production cost increased to $7000 million.

This led to a significant increase in box office risks, and ultimately the North American box office was only $1.19 million, causing Columbia Pictures to suffer heavy losses.

The shooting period was extended by 40 days and the cost was an additional $2200 million, partly due to the efforts of the former Columbia executives.

Hisao Morishima also found out about it much later.

After all, there are so many tricks in Hollywood that even those on Wall Street would be ashamed of themselves.

After listening to Hisao Morishima's words, Li Yishu didn't know what to say, but she also confirmed one thing, that is, the film budget of the Art Entertainment Group must be firmly controlled in the future.

"President Morishima, I believe that Sony will still value you when you return to Japan."

"Hopefully."

Hisao Morishima was dejected. He didn't think that he would be valued by the parent company if he returned to Japan.

Thinking of this, he looked up at Li Yishu and said, "Li Jun, while I'm still here, is there anything I can help you with?"

Hisao Morishima wants to use his last bit of ability to add some insurance for his future.

Anyway, these American executives have been selling out the company's interests in private, so why can't he, a pure Japanese president, do the same?
Hearing this, Li Yishu pondered for a moment, then looked up and said, "President Morishima, can you help me acquire Castle Rock Films?"

(End of this chapter)