Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 374 Fans Misunderstood Me
After careful consideration, Meng Bai felt that Gu Fei's proposal was indeed the most appropriate development direction at the moment.

The film and television industry is the foundation of all his industries and the field he is most familiar with. Starting from here, he can use Qiming Venture Partners' capital more efficiently.

What's more, compared with the vast capital market, the ceiling of the film and television industry is actually not that high.

按照年初发布的全国产业统计报告，国内泛娱乐行业的总值不过才6500亿。这其中，大众所熟知的电视剧行业年产值700亿、电影600亿、网剧300亿、艺人演出500亿，加起来一共才2100多亿。

The 200 billion-plus market is still shared by more than 20,000 film and television companies and millions of practitioners across the country. The real revenue share comes from channel platforms such as theaters, TV stations, and video websites.

There has always been a saying within the industry that major film and television companies work hard on projects, but in the end they are just working for the platform.

This is actually what Meng Bai said at the beginning. It is very difficult to break through the barriers within the industry because all you can get are leftovers.

If you want to break it, you must obtain "power outside the world".

Why do so many film and television companies become obsessed with capital operations once they become a little bigger? It’s all for the same reason.

Meng Bai naturally understood this principle. Fortunately, he started earlier than most people.

Even more fortunately, he actually succeeded.

With the strong financial resources brought by Pinduoduo and the influence accumulated by ArcLight over many years of development, it is not possible for ArcLight to do whatever it wants in this circle, but it can indeed be said to be a dominant force.

But this is not enough. If you are just a content producer, you will always be restricted by the platform.

If you really want to have the strength to be independent, having your own channels and platforms is an inevitable issue.

But it’s not that easy to build your own platform.

There's no need to talk about TV stations, that's not something you can get just by having money.

Cinema chains have been popular in recent years, but there are too many of them now, including China Film, Wanda, Hengdian, Dadi, Stellar... Tens of thousands of cinemas have been set up in even the small towns in the 18th tier, leaving basically no room for entry.

Moreover, anyone can see that the film and television industry is about to enter a cold winter. Doing a heavy asset business like cinemas at this time is basically the same as joining the Nationalist army in 1948 - you will die soon, but only for a short while.

The only possible option is the video website.

However, after several years of rapid growth, the video website market is now basically divided into three parts: Qiyi TV, Tencent Video and Youku.

Although there are the emerging Mango TV and the struggling Leshi.com, the remaining market space is only 10% to 20%.

Not only that, the biggest feature of video websites is that they burn money, and they burn money to the extreme.

The three giants seem to be in their heyday, but in fact they are still losing billions every year until now, and they rely entirely on capital transfusions from the capital giants behind them.

Behind Tencent Video is Tencent, behind Youku is Alibaba, and although Baidu, which is behind Qiyi TV, has been somewhat sluggish in recent years, it can burn money from market investors after a successful listing.

With this rate of burning money, ArcLight or Qiming Venture Partners cannot rely on themselves and will definitely need multiple rounds of financing.

However, the capital market has no interest in such an unimaginative track. Instead of supporting a new platform, it is better to directly join Tencent or Youku, which have not yet gone public. At least they can still get some benefits.

In fact, this is also an idea. If you can't do it yourself, then just join.

Just like Meng Bai's previous investment in Qiyi TV, the cooperation was on a smaller scale and he had no say in the website. Now with Qiming Venture Partners, he can increase the proportion and enhance the weight of Arclight.

However, there is no need to rush this matter in the short term, after all, Meng Bai's shares are still in the lock-up period. Even if he wants to negotiate with the website, he can't come up with the money for a while.

By the time you can cash out, the winter of the film and television market may have already arrived. If you buy at that time, the cost-effectiveness will be much greater than it is now.

The road must be taken step by step, and the meal must be eaten bite by bite. Arclight’s current task is to first improve its position in the industry, at least to have a certain voice in the upstream end of content production.

The world is full of people, all for profit. If you want others to recognize the influence of Arc Light, you have to let them see that it is profitable.

At this time of capital retreat, Arc Light, which holds a large amount of funds, undoubtedly has a huge advantage.

Of course, the prerequisite is that people must first know that ArcLight has the capital strength.

In this case, Meng Bai's previous strategy of keeping a low profile is no longer so appropriate.

At this time, he not only has to stand up, but also has to generate enough heat.

But this is actually simple. All we have to do is announce his identity as a Pinduoduo investor.

However, the form of the announcement should be more clever. After all, it is an investment, not a sales promotion. You can't ask people to go door to door to make the announcement.

……

In the next few days, Meng Bai did not rush back to northern Beijing, but stayed in Shanghai.

At the same time, he also broke his low-key style in the past and attended many of Pinduoduo's capital banquets as a shareholder and investor, and also chatted with the heads of several other investment institutions.

Although there were no unexpected surprises, I did hear a lot of news and trends, many of which were related to the film and television market.

The most surprising thing is that Tencent's China Literature Group offered 155 billion to acquire New Classics Media in full.

As the most important part of Tencent's big entertainment strategy, China Literature Group has owned a large number of IPs since it acquired Qidian. However, due to the lack of production teams, many IPs are in a waiting state.

Tencent had previously intended to acquire ArcLight, but was rejected by Meng Bai because he did not want to become the other party's "IP adaptation machine."

Although it was a bit regrettable, Tencent obviously would not stop there and turned to Xinli. The latter's business in recent years has not been smooth, so it naturally would not refuse the olive branch of Yuewen and agreed without hesitation.

In fact, if anyone has noticed, New Classics Media has been very close to China Literature Group since last year, and has adapted and produced many IP works of the other party.

However, this also confirmed that Meng Bai's previous worries were not groundless.

In addition to "showing up" everywhere, Qiming Venture Partners has also been busy and has been paying close attention to the subsequent trend of Pinduoduo's stock price.

On the first day of listing, Pinduoduo's stock price jumped 40% at the opening, but then immediately began to decline slightly.

Gu Fei and his team analyzed the situation and concluded that the main reason lies in Pinduoduo's corporate image.

In addition to consumers, brands also have complaints about rampant counterfeiting and piracy. As early as when Pinduoduo was about to go public, it had caused disputes over brand infringement in the United States.

Just like Huang Zheng said before, if it weren’t for those short videos of Hu Guang that helped improve his image, the current public opinion situation would be even worse.

This downward trend lasted for a week until the stock price dropped to $20.

Seeing that his assets had shrunk by a quarter without doing anything, Meng Bai was speechless. However, he also understood that this was a normal phenomenon in the capital market. Moreover, what the capital market values most about Pinduoduo is its performance and growth rate. As long as there are no problems with these two points, it will definitely rise again in the future, so he didn't take it too seriously.

After staying for another two days, seeing that Pinduoduo's stock price had stabilized and fluctuated slightly around US$20, Meng Bai led his people back to Beijing North.

As soon as I came back, I heard good news: the box office of "Psychological Crime: City of Lights" has exceeded 800 million!

After the excellent performance of 3.5 million box office in the first week, the film once again won 3 million box office in the second week.

However, in the third week, the data dropped significantly. This was not because of any problems with the quality of the movies, but mainly because the summer vacation was over and the students had returned to school.

Although it is a bit regrettable, the film company is quite content. After all, this situation was considered before the release. They are making the last wave of money in the summer season. The remaining week is just a gift.

What's more, the current results alone have already made the film company earn a lot of money.

The production cost plus the publicity and promotion costs of "Psychological Crime: City Lights" is about 1.6 million yuan, and it will not lose money if the box office exceeds million yuan.

Now the total box office has exceeded 800 million, which is far beyond the target. Even in the entire summer season, this result can be ranked fourth, only weaker than the "summer top three".

As for the revenue, it is even more impressive. Arc Light took one third of the 300 million yuan box office share, which is more than 100 million yuan. Compared with the cost, it is equivalent to doubling it.

In addition to the film crew, several leading actors also benefited greatly.

Qin Hao is definitely a great male protagonist. Although the main appeal of this film comes from the IP itself, it at least proves that he can also take on commercial films when he leaves art films.

Another beneficiary is Li Qin. Although the female lead does not have many roles in the movie, she is still a serious second role.

As for the resources of domestic entertainment, movies are basically controlled by Zhang Ziyi and her generation. As for TV dramas, big dramas are controlled by big stars like Sun Li and Ma Yili, while idol dramas are controlled by "85 flowers" like Tang Shixian.

In comparison, the lives of the “90 Flowers” and “95 Flowers” who debuted later were worse than the others.

Take Li Qin and her group of "90s Flowers" for example, except for Zhou Dongyu, almost no one has any good film resources. At most, they can rely on their popularity to shoot those IP projects that cut fans' leeks and make a box office of million or million.

Under such circumstances, one can imagine the importance of the achievement of "the leading actress with an 800 million box office".

For a long time, because of her personal character and acting style, Li Qin's popularity has not been high among the "90s flowers", and her fans have become accustomed to this feeling of being neither up nor down.

What they didn't expect was that their sister quietly got a role as the female lead in a movie with good resources, and her box office performance directly crushed all the actors of the same period.

So since the movie was released, Li Qin's fans were celebrating like it was Chinese New Year. When the box office results of the movie came out, they were even more excited.

Fans' pursuit of stars is actually no different from buying stocks. They all hope that the stock they have is as valuable as possible.

Now that the movie has achieved a box office of 90 million yuan, it is also ranked among the top two in the entire "s Flowers" circle, and the fans are feeling as if the movie has hit three daily limit increases in a row.

Naturally, there are also many fans of other movies who are jealous and say sourly that your sister was able to play the female lead only because she got close to the financial sponsors behind the movie.

Li Qin's fans were naturally not to be outdone, and they responded one after another, saying that you are just jealous and don't spread rumors here without any evidence.

[We are spreading rumors? Anyone who has been in the Chinese entertainment industry for a while knows that behind Li Qin is Meng Bai, the boss of Arclight Films. She was able to act in "Psychological Crime" because the producer of this movie is Arclight, and they are just promoting their own woman. ]

[It's so funny, who doesn't know about the entertainment industry? If you really know a little bit about it, you wouldn't say such a thing. Our Qinqin has cooperated with Meng Bai many years ago, and there was no Arclight at that time. They are good friends who have cooperated for many years and grown together. It's not okay for them to help each other. ]

[Haha, only you fans would believe in something like "long-time friends".]

[Tsk, take care of your own family first? Even if our Qinqin is really related to Master Meng Bai, she is better than those old men in their forties or fifties in your family! ]

[Haha, you don't really think that a big movie star like Meng Bai would be the male lead in an idol drama, right? Look at Chen Sicheng who is with him, and then think about Wang Sicong. He may like her for a while, but who knows, he might just turn around and throw her away one day! ]

[Yes, yes, yes, your pure and innocent girl must have passed through so many hands! ]

【stupid*!】

【group**!】

【…】

After closing the comment section, Meng Bai silently cursed in his heart, "A bunch of idiots."

You guys can just scold yourselves honestly. Why do you have to drag me into this when you have nothing to do? You are just pushing me into trouble.

Sighing, Meng Bai was somewhat glad that he was right not to go to the front. Chen Sicheng was the most typical case, and his own reputation was also lowered by him.

I hope Mr. Li hasn’t seen these “silly comments”, but if you think about it, you know that’s impossible.

He knew that the young assistant Jia Jia would search his name on the Internet whenever she had nothing to do, and then she would show it to Li Qin in a flattering manner.

Fortunately, most of these fan arguments are just empty talk, without any substance. If you really ask, just insist that it is slander.

Just as he was thinking about how to deal with the situation, Liu Jun suddenly came to him and told him a piece of news.

"Hurun? Interview?"

Meng Bai thought for a moment and asked, "Is it the Hurun report that is similar to Forbes?"

"Yes, them."

"What do you want to interview about? Pinduoduo's investment?"

"Probably not." Liu Jun explained: "This interview invitation came when you just went to Shanghai. They said they wanted to select this year's young influential figures, and you were selected as a representative of entrepreneurs under 30 years old."

"Tsk tsk, I didn't expect that Hu Run's people are really good at judging."

"Haha, that's alright. Do we agree to that?"

Meng Bai raised his hand to adjust his nonexistent tie, looking nonchalant, "I don't really care about interviews, but I have to set a good example for young people, so I'll accept it with reluctance."

"..."

Liu Jun endured for a long time and suppressed his complaints: "Okay, then I'll ask someone to make an appointment with them. By the way, didn't you say you wanted to promote Qiming Venture Partners? This is a good opportunity to mention it."

"Hey, don't mention it, this is indeed a good opportunity."

Meng Bai thought for a moment and said, "Just in the next few days. It just so happens that I have nothing to do during this period. Otherwise, I will have to be busy with the release of Detective Chinatown 2 in a few days."

(End of this chapter)