Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 244: High-end business war is so plain and simple
The "dream collaboration" between Tide Culture and Shanghai Animation Studio has caused a double shock inside and outside the animation and film and television industries.

According to media reports, industry insiders keenly discovered that Zhang Chao seemed to have introduced an action production technology from Japan that does not rely on hand-painting and has a lower cost.

Originally, after watching the trailer, everyone estimated that the investment in this animation would be no less than 3000-4000 million yuan, after all, it was produced in Japan, where costs are high.

But in the end it was said that it only cost more than 2000 million, and both the Chinese and Japanese versions were produced, which aroused everyone's interest in this animation production technology.

In just two or three days, Zhang Chao received numerous invitations from various channels, hoping to watch the movie in advance.

But Zhang Chao rejected them all. The reason was very simple. The Chinese version of "Your Name" had entered the final production stage - advertising placement!
This time, Zhang Chao gave the opportunity to find embedded brands to the heads of several major theater chains who had watched the movie together in Japan last time. The animation itself had caused such a big sensation in China, so the progress was particularly smooth, and more than 20 brands were finalized for implantation.

Each brand paid advertising fees ranging from 20 to 50 yuan depending on the placement location, category, and duration, totaling more than 600 million yuan. This allowed Zhang Chao to recover more than 70% of his initial investment.

Some of the domestic colleagues who were eager to see "Your Name" in advance even flew to Japan to watch the whole film. However, they all said nothing after watching it, and then continued to contact Zhang Chao frantically through various channels, hoping to cooperate.

As for ordinary movie fans, the popularity of "Your Name" inadvertently led to a website entering everyone's attention: Time.com.

Such conversations quietly appeared in QQ groups and various chat rooms——

“Have you guys seen the trailer for Your Name?”

"Of course I watched it! But it's so short, only two minutes long. Zhang Chao is so stingy."

"Hey, there's actually more than one trailer. Copy this URL into the address bar of your browser..."

"Um!?"

"see it?"

"I see! Wow! It's on the homepage! This time network is awesome! Thank you, shrimp!"

“Thank you, Prawn!”

"Thank you GG!"

……

Founded in 2005, Mtime.com acquired Internet Film Library and Movie Blog this year, becoming the most professional Chinese film website in the web2.0 era. It has the most powerful and comprehensive film and television database on the entire network, with information on more than 20 films and 130 million filmmakers.

It is the second largest film and television database in the world after IMDb.

Mtime.com originally focused on publishing film reviews, film news and industry information, but the explosive popularity of Your Name gave the website's founder and CEO Hou Kai an idea, and he revamped the website overnight, placing the trailer for Your Name in the most prominent position on the homepage.

Of course, this was not enough. Time.com also translated the subtitles of the three trailers released before the Japanese version was released and placed them below the Chinese version trailer, which immediately triggered a viral craze.

After all, the film has already been released in Japan, and the three trailers contain more plots and pictures. The key is to allow the eager movie and book fans to see more of the magnificent and gorgeous visual effects of "Your Name".

In just two days, the number of visits to Time.com increased from 10 to one million, and the server was almost paralyzed.

After all, on most portals, "movies" is often just a small category under the entertainment section, not as good as celebrity gossip. To see the trailer for "Your Name," you have to click through at least four or five levels of menus, which is not as straightforward as the homepage of Mtime.com.

Time.com has also officially "broken its circle", from being a niche professional site for movie fans to gradually becoming a popular film information site, almost replicating the rise of Dongfangxing's "Blog China".

The "Qi Gongzi" account that "Chaoxi Culture" originally created for Xing Siyuan, which was a cool and rich persona, has once again added fuel to the fire:

In the huge theater, there was only a long-haired graceful woman sitting in the most prime position, revealing her well-proportioned back; and on the huge screen was playing a brilliant and exquisite animation scene, what else could it be but "Your Name"?
The accompanying text still has the cold Versailles flavor: Night, Tokyo, a warm story, which makes the cinema no colder.

This was not something Ma Boyong and the others had specially arranged, but Xing Siyuan had suddenly sent it back via email. Normally, she should have been taking classes in the United States at this time, but who knew that she suddenly went to Japan and even booked an entire screening room.

Ma Boyong and Shuang Xuetao could only respond to Miss Xing's action with an "ORZ" expression, and then immediately arranged for the art staff to draw the pictures and put them online.

As expected, as soon as this blog was updated, the message board of "Mr. Qi" was flooded with replies. Although her previous displays of wealth were more extravagant than booking a theater in Tokyo, none of them were so closely connected with the hot topics of public concern like this one.

Especially since "Mr. Qi" opened his blog, he responded to fans' questions for the first time -

"Sister, did you book the entire theater?"

"Well, ticket checking is too troublesome."

This short sentence once again refreshed everyone's understanding of the concept of "being rich", and the number of comments below quickly exceeded 3000.

On the one hand, it is "it turns out that the young lady has the same hobbies as ordinary people", and on the other hand, "the hobbies of ordinary people that the young lady loves are really extraordinary."

With the interweaving of two strange psychological factors, this blog post by "Mr. Qi" became completely popular, and the number of reposts soon exceeded one million.

Zhang Chao had not expected this situation. After being stunned for a long time, he asked, "Old Ma, has Miss Xing finished writing her book?"

Upon hearing this question, Ma Boyong's face twisted slightly. As Xing Siyuan's "literary mentor", he would grimace for a long time every time he revised her novel.

However, he still answered honestly: "I have finished writing it and am making the final revisions. I have also contacted the publishing house and will submit it to Changjiang Press."

Zhang Chao nodded with satisfaction and said, "Keep going, and try to get the book out in October. Lao Ma, work hard, this is a big business worth over 10 million!"

Ma Boyong wondered why Zhang Chao had made such a dirty joke at the end. However, he did not think much about it and continued to help his "apprentice" revise the manuscript.

Zhang Chao did not notice Ma Boyong's expression, and asked Shuang Xuetao about the situation of "The Banquet" in the past week. Zhang Chao only told Shuang Xuetao about the conflict with Huayi internally, after all, Shuang Xuetao had a legal background and could provide more constructive suggestions.

Shuang Xuetao said: "The box office of "The Banquet" on the first day was 700 million, and the box office of the first week was 3300 million, which was nearly 30% lower than the market estimate. According to estimates, by the end of the month, when it fades out of theaters, the box office of "The Banquet" will be around 1.5 million.

This is much lower than the 2.3 million box office estimate before the release. Even if the long-tail revenue is taken into account, according to the 1.2 million cost announced by Huayi itself, they will lose 3000 million to 5000 million on the project of "The Banquet".

Zhang Chao couldn't help but sigh after hearing this. Huayi must be really hurting. Even if the 1.2 million yuan cost of "The Banquet" was overstated, the loss was over million yuan, which was a foregone conclusion.

The feud between him and the "big and small kings" was over. After his rebirth, he always followed the principle of "judging things based on what happened" and not making any moral judgments based on his memories of his previous life. For example, Huayi Film Company, at least in the first few years of its establishment, made positive contributions to the development of the domestic film market. As for the bad things that happened seven or eight years or even more than ten years later, they had nothing to do with the current Huayi Film Company.

So Zhang Chao was willing to cooperate with them at the beginning. But now that the other party has started to act like a jerk, Zhang Chao doesn't mind completely tearing his face against them. But facing the next competition, Zhang Chao is not completely sure.

After all, the opponent is Brother Cheng Long's "Baby Project", co-starring Louis Koo, which is considered to have strong box office appeal.

After thinking for a long time, Zhang Chao said to Shuang Xuetao: "Compared to Huayi, we are still very weak. Business war is cruel. If they start to make a fuss about film promotion, public opinion, and even theater relations, we must make plans in advance.

Well, you call everyone in and we'll have a meeting together. ..."

Naturally, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei have a more accurate version of the data reported by Shuang Xuetao.

Looking at the "disastrous" box office of "Night Banquet", Wang Zhongjun's face turned as black as ink. Wang Zhonglei smashed the mirror cabinet in the office where the wine glasses were stored. Drinking could not relieve his inner rage anyway.

Now, The Banquet has completely lost the spotlight in the media, and everyone is discussing Your Name. In order to turn the situation around and become the focus of public opinion again, Huayi has calculated that it will have to spend at least another 1000 million yuan on publicity - but the question is, after spending 1000 million yuan, will people really pay attention to The Banquet again and buy tickets to watch it?
No one can guarantee that. This is how publicity works. Once the turning point is passed, the marginal effect will raise the cost of achieving the same effect in the early stage to an unbearable level.

Don't let the situation occur where you spend 1000 million but the box office revenue is less than 1000 million - this is very likely to happen.

But if they don’t destroy it, it will be like letting The Banquet enter a “slow death”. It is expected that in another week, it will disappear quietly from the film market. This is emotionally unacceptable to the Wang brothers.

After all, this movie carries too much of their ambition.

Wang Zhongjun thought for a long time, and finally made up his mind: "Night Banquet can no longer be saved. We must now focus all our energy on the Baby Project!"

Wang Zhonglei said, "But we are not the major shareholder of Baby Project! The bulk of the profits belong to Boss Yang. Do we have to invest unilaterally?"

Wang Zhongjun squinted at his brother, feeling a sense of "disappointment for a man who has failed to live up to his potential", but he still patiently explained: "It is precisely because the bulk of the revenue from Baby Project comes from Boss Yang's Yinghuang that we want to drag him down with us."

Wang Zhonglei: "Hmm? Drag him into the water?"

Wang Zhongjun said viciously: "Who is Boss Yang? We just need to tell him that Zhang Chao's animation film was selected during the National Day holiday just to snipe "Baby Project", and he will naturally do something.

He is a tough guy who has been doing business with pirates since he was 12 years old. He can do many things that are inconvenient for us to do. "

Wang Zhonglei said doubtfully: "No matter how cruel he is, he is still in Hong Kong. This is Yanjing..."

Wang Zhongjun sneered: "Let's just talk to him. I don't believe he will just sit there and watch his money go down the drain."

Wang Zhonglei pounded the table and said, "Brother, tell me what you want me to do!"

Wang Zhongjun asked, "Before you started your company, didn't you know a few big troublemakers in the city? Can you still contact them?"

Wang Zhonglei was stunned and asked, "...Yes, I can. But this is a business war, what's the point of looking for them?"

Wang Zhongjun snorted twice, but did not answer. Instead, he looked out the window. It was already night in Yanjing City, and the clouds in the sky were so thick that not even a single star could be seen, let alone the moon.

Yinghuang's boss Yang received a call from Wang Zhongjun the next day. Facing this cunning boss Yang, who was involved in both black and white, Wang Zhongjun did not hide the reason why his brother and Zhang Chao had a grudge.

After listening to this, although Boss Yang cursed countless times in his heart, he was over 60 years old after all, and the temper he had in his youth had almost disappeared. What he was thinking about at the moment was how to avoid losses.

At the same time, he took the opportunity to blackmail the Wang brothers. Wang Zhongjun had no other choice but to grit his teeth and agree to give up another 5% of the mainland box office revenue to Yinghuang before Boss Yang agreed to make the move.

After hanging up the phone, Boss Yang also fell into deep thought. Although he was quite powerful in Hong Kong, as long as he passed the Huanggang Port, he had to behave himself.

Zhang Chao is a literary star and media darling in mainland China. The official authorities also "extremely protect" him. He is also a graduate of two top universities, Yenching University and Yenching Normal University, and his teachers are all famous.

If I use "physical" methods to deal with Zhang Chao, I'm afraid I'll get myself involved.

After thinking for a long time, Boss Yang finally made up his mind. He made a call using the landline on his desk. Half an hour later, a man with an outdated bowl cut and wearing sunglasses appeared in his office.

As soon as the man saw Boss Yang, he took off his sunglasses, opened his arms enthusiastically, and said generously: "Long time no see, Mr. Yang, do you have any good business to recommend?"

Of course, Boss Yang would not hug him. He just smiled and said, "You have such a big business in Shanghai, why do you need me to introduce you?"

The man called "Shanghai Boy" did not feel embarrassed. He naturally put down his hands and smiled politely: "My business is not worthy of Mr. Yang's attention."

Boss Yang didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "I remember that you were selling pirated VCDs in the 90s. Your discs were sold in more than 1 stalls across Hong Kong."

The Shanghai guy laughed and said, "That was more than a decade ago. Nowadays, young people use the Internet to download pirated movies. This business is long gone."

Boss Yang said with a smile: "If I ask you to pirate a movie now, can you find a way to do it?"

The Shanghai boy's eyes spun around, but he quickly said, "Piracy is nothing more than secretly filming in a movie theater. The more sophisticated ones go to the film company to copy the film... As long as you, Mr. Yang, ask, there is no movie in Hong Kong that I can't handle."

Boss Yang stood up, leaned forward, stared into the eyes of "Shanghai Boy" and asked, "If it's not a Hong Kong movie, do you have any solution?"

"Shanghai Boy" asked: "What movie? Where is it showing?"

Boss Yang replied: "It's a cartoon in Japan."

"Shanghai Boy" smiled and said, "Japan? I'm very familiar with Japanese pirated recordings. As long as it's in theaters, I can help you get it done within a week."

Boss Yang then sat back in his seat and said easily, "Okay. How much do you want for compensation?"

"Shanghai Boy" put his hands on Boss Yang's desk and said with a smile: "I don't want a penny, I just want a chance to cooperate with Mr. Yang!"

(Two chapters in one)

(End of this chapter)