Huayu: Director started with art films

Chapter 326 337 [Time Warner is rich and powerful, and Akina Nakamori is blessed in disguise]

Time passes little by little.

About twenty minutes later, all the invited guests and reporters arrived.

Just as Li Yishu was about to return to the Grand Theater with Zou Wenhuai to officially start the premiere of "Rumble in the Bronx", James, the vice president of New Line Cinema, came over with a middle-aged bald man.

Seeing this scene, the two stopped.

James extended his hand and said, "Lee, how was today's premiere?"

"That's good, James. You're thoughtful."

Li Yishu smiled slightly. Although today's premiere was not as large as the premiere of "The Sixth Sense", many reporters and guests came. Overall, the effect was quite good and it should be reported in tomorrow's newspapers.

Although the film was shot in the United States and Canada, the main actors are all Chinese. It is a typical Chinese-language film, so it cannot compare with local films.

"Haha, this is what we at New Line should do."

James said with a smile: "By the way, Lee, let me introduce you, this is Owen Keith, the vice president of Time Warner!"

The middle-aged bald man who had been silent on the side now extended his hand: "Hello, Li, nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you, too, President Keith."

Li Yishu was a little surprised. He didn't expect that James would bring the vice president of Time Warner with him.

You should know that since the merger of Time Media and Warner Bros. Pictures in 1990, it has become the world's largest media group.

Ambitious to enter the global market.

After greeting Li Yishu, Owen Keith started chatting with Zou Wenhuai at the introduction of James: "Hello Zou, Golden Harvest is the most outstanding film company in Hong Kong..."

"You're welcome, President Keith. Time Warner is the world's largest media group..."

Zou Wenhuai replied with a smile.

After the two exchanged a few pleasantries, Owen Keith turned to look at Li Yishu:

"Li, I've always wanted to meet you earlier. Thank you for your help in getting our Time Warner-produced The Fugitive screened in mainland China."

Li Yishu raised her eyebrows, smiled and waved her hands: "This is not my credit. The Fugitive was able to be released because of the policies of our Chinese authorities."

"That being said, I don't think Time Warner would have been able to do so well without your help."

After Owen Keith complimented him a few times, he finally explained his purpose: "I heard that Columbia Pictures' President Morishima has returned to Japan, and the new president is Warren Ndom. I know him, and he's not an easy guy to get along with."

"I'm sorry, I haven't had any contact with him."

Li Yishu shook her head, but in her heart she agreed that the other person was difficult to get along with.

After Hisao Morishima resigned, he met with Lee Yi-su, and this meeting also extinguished Lee Yi-su's plan to continue cooperating with Columbia Pictures in the future.

Although Hisao Morishima is no longer in Columbia, he is still a member of the Sony Group. So after leaving, he thought about arranging a meeting between Li Yishu and the new president Warren Endom, and reporting back to Sony headquarters would be beneficial.

But the newly appointed Warren Ndom decisively rejected Hisao Morishima's proposal, and instead mocked Lee Yi-su in his words.

In his opinion, a large part of the box office success of Lee Yi-su's "The Sixth Sense" was attributed to Columbia Pictures' huge publicity and distribution channels.

Moreover, Warren Ndom is confident in his abilities and has already planned that Columbia Pictures will produce at least 30 films in the next three years in an effort to return to the top six.

"Haha, Li, you'll know after you get in touch with him."

Owen Keith smiled and did not mention this person again. Instead, he said seriously: "We at Time Warner have always admired your directing talent. I wonder if there is a chance for us to work together? If you are interested, we at Time Warner can offer the same conditions as Morishima did back then."

After saying this, Li Yishu looked at him in surprise.

When filming "The Sixth Sense", Hisao Morishima offered very favorable conditions. In addition to shares, the most important condition was the control of the crew.

Hollywood is a producer-centered system, and everything revolves around the producer. Of course, the top directors still have privileges.

Li Yishu's current achievements in the field of art films (independent productions) are considered to be full, but in the field of commercial films, although he has a movie with a global box office of over 4 million US dollars, it is still far behind Hollywood stars such as Spielberg who have a global box office of million or million US dollars.

Therefore, since he was unable to control the crew and set up his own company, Li Yishu chose to tinker with low-budget productions. He would only think about making a Hollywood commercial blockbuster when Future Arts Entertainment Group gradually gained control of some distribution channels in North America.

Now Owen Keith's words aroused Li Yishu's interest.

Time Warner is currently the largest media group in the world. From media to film production to film distribution, except for the fact that it does not have its own cinemas due to monopoly laws, Time Warner covers almost all the necessary conditions for film production and release.

"Time Warner is the world's largest media group. I believe no director would be unwilling to cooperate with your group."

Li Yishu smiled and said, "But today we are collaborating with New Line Cinema, why don't we talk about it later?"

Hearing this, Owen Keith laughed and said, "Lee, you may not know that last month Time Warner officially completed the acquisition of New Line Cinema. Strictly speaking, we are already partners."

Li Yishu and Zou Wenhuai looked at James in surprise.

"Yes."

James nodded. "Last month, we completed the handover of New Line Cinema. Now, New Line is a subsidiary of Time Warner. However, New Line still has the right to operate independently, and its film production business is not synchronized with Time Warner."

New Line Cinema is an old Hollywood film company. Although it is only medium-sized, it cannot be acquired casually. It will cost at least 100 million or 200 million US dollars.

Now that it has been acquired by Time Warner, it can still maintain its production independence. I can only say that it’s great to be rich!
Owen Keith showed off a little and said with a smile: "Lee, we at Time Warner value our cooperation with you. If you have any new production plans, please contact us at Time Warner. I can guarantee that you will get much better treatment than Columbia Pictures."

"Thanks to Time Warner's recognition, I think it won't be too long before we can start working together."

Li Yishu smiled. He did not have any plans to make a Hollywood movie in the short term, but now Time Warner's enthusiastic invitation made him a little tempted.

After coming to North America, Li Yishu truly realized how big the six major Hollywood groups were. If he wanted to make a commercial blockbuster with an investment of nearly 100 million US dollars, he really had to cooperate with the six major groups.

The reason is very simple. Apart from risk sharing, the most important thing is the six major global distribution channels.

After chatting for a while, they walked into the Los Angeles Theater to watch the premiere of "Rumble in the Bronx".

The movie "Rumble in the Bronx", after being enhanced by Li Yishu, not only showed Jackie Chan's advantages in action scenes, but also strengthened the visual sense of large scenes.

At the premiere, the audience was also very enthusiastic about the film. But for the specifics, we still have to wait for the results of the audience research company commissioned by New Line Cinema to be released, and then expand the publicity according to the situation.

At eleven o'clock that night.

The first batch of survey results are out. The audience research company randomly selected 2000 people from the audience who watched "Rumble in the Bronx" in ten major cities in North America to ask questions.

There are three evaluations in total, ABC, which are further divided into A+ and A-.

60% of the audience gave it a B, thinking it was a good popcorn commercial film, and 26% gave it a B+, thinking the film was very distinctive.

Taking into account the audience's skin color, educational background, etc., the research company gave an overall score of B+.

This result is quite good. B+ means that the movie has a high probability of breaking 100 million yuan at the North American box office!

Li Yishu and others who received the news breathed a sigh of relief.

The investment cost of "Rumble in the Bronx" is not high, but it is closely related to everyone's future. There is no need to say much about Jackie Chan. If he wants to break into Hollywood, this movie is very crucial.

The same goes for Zou Wenhuai. He wants to continue to develop in North America, and this movie really cannot fail again.

Lee Yi-su is relatively better. First of all, "Rumble in the Bronx" is a foreign language film for North American audiences. Even if the box office performance is average, it will hardly affect his performance in English films. But he still hopes that it will sell well at the box office.

Now that he has the B+ survey result, Lee Yi-su doesn't have to worry about the future of this movie. As long as the box office breaks 5000 million US dollars in the future, it will be a victory for him.

It has never happened before that a Chinese-language film has grossed over 5000 million U.S. dollars in North America.

The next morning.

Li Yishu was still sleeping when she was woken up by a phone call from Zou Wenhuai.

Zou Wenhuai was very happy. The box office results of the U.S. premiere of "Rumble in the Bronx" came out last night, which was about 230 million U.S. dollars.

This number may not sound very high, but you have to know that this is a Chinese-language film, and it was only shown in a few shows on Sunday night. It has not yet expanded its screens in North America, so a box office of 230 million US dollars is already quite good.

If nothing unexpected happens, it is basically a foregone conclusion that "Rumble in the Bronx" will break 5000 million US dollars in the North American box office.

As for how high the final box office will be, Li Yishu is not sure. He only remembers that in the previous life, the North American box office of "Rumble in the Bronx" seemed to be only 30 to 40 million US dollars, but it was definitely the best result of contemporary Chinese-language films in North America.

It can be said that this movie completely brought Jackie Chan into Hollywood.

"Haha, no problem Mr. Zou, we can hold a celebration party together when Jiahe goes public."

Li Yishu chatted with Zou Wenhuai for a few more sentences. After hanging up the phone, he was in a good mood. He glanced at Cindy Crawford who was still sleeping beside him, and immediately got on the horse.

Amidst a burst of exclamations, the horses galloped forward, vividly and vividly.

That afternoon, after Li Yishu asked Amy to help him arrange a charter flight back to Taiwan, he returned to Japan from Los Angeles and continued filming "Fireworks".

Takeshi Kitano is directing these days and the results are pretty good.

The producer and crew members all spoke highly of Takeshi Kitano.

Moreover, Kitano Takeshi was very sensible and had the shots he had taken in the past few days developed in advance. Li Yishu took a rough look at them and found them to be very good. The most important thing was that they were consistent with the previous shots and there was no difference in style.

After praising Takeshi Kitano for a few words, Lee Yi-su threw herself into the film-making process.

Kitano Takeshi's acting became more and more smooth, and most of the time he didn't need Li Yishu to explain the scenes to him, and he could immediately perform the effect that Li Yishu wanted.

The crew is progressing faster and faster.

It was not until early December that Izumi Sakai and Akina Nakamori came to Hokkaido to visit the set.

"Aligadokozaimas."

As soon as they met, Akina Nakamori bowed solemnly, and couldn't stop thanking Li Yishu.

At first, Li Yishu was a little confused, until Izumi Sakai mentioned Kondo Masahiko, then he suddenly realized.

Looking at Akina Nakamori not far away, Li Yishu asked, "Has Kondo Masahiko been dealt with?"

"Yes, thanks to Mr. Li and President Tanaka, Akina has been much more cheerful recently."

Izumi Sakai smiled brightly; she knew how to be happy for her good friends.

Ever since Lee Yi-su left Japan in July, Ichiro Tanaka has been reporting Kondo Masahiko's past scumbag behavior through major media outlets according to the plan he gave.

At the same time, Ichiro Tanaka privately arranged for people to contact Japan's emerging feminist organizations.

Today's feminist organizations in Japan are much stronger in terms of combat effectiveness than the fairies of the future.

In the future, the fairies in China will at most make videos and post them on Xiaohongshu to express their online violence, but Japanese feminists will actually take to the streets to protest, and even run to the downstairs of Kondo Masahiko's house and shout abusive words such as "Go to hell" and "Go to hell".

After the Golden Screen incident, Kondo Masahiko's reputation plummeted, and at one point he almost had no performing activities.

Fortunately, the Johnny's office behind the scenes is not a name for nothing. After operating for more than half a year, it successfully helped Kondo Masahiko make a comeback.

However, following this feminist protest, Kondo Masahiko's career once again faced challenges. Major TV stations also cancelled their cooperation with him, and the album that had been agreed upon was also shelved indefinitely.

The public relations department of Johnny & Associates is now in a state of panic and has no idea how to respond.

You should know that a large portion of Kondo Masahiko's fans are women. Men think Kondo Masahiko is a scumbag, but women don't think so. After all, there will be people speaking up for him when he is forced to work in a kiln, let alone the fact that he is just a scumbag.

But now the large-scale boycott by feminist organizations has made Kondo Masahiko feel completely desperate. Not only is the album not selling well, but the reputation has also extended from him personally to the entire Johnny & Associates. The company's president is already considering sacrificing pawns to save the chariot.

Taking advantage of the news of the boycott of Kondo Masahiko, Akina Nakamori released her first album after joining the music era under the arrangement of the company.

Relying on sad songs combined with his own experiences, his first album sold well and he became popular again.

He has received numerous endorsements and commercial performances.

After Li Yishu learned about this, he thought to himself: This can be considered a blessing in disguise.

Akina Nakamori has resolved her emotional knot, and his musical era now has the second singer who can hold the stage after Izumi Sakai.

(End of this chapter)