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

Chapter 440: Mr. Meng can actually make mistakes
[Daily Economic News, recently, Hengten Network, a Hong Kong-listed company, officially launched a full-owned acquisition of Ruyi Pictures, with a total amount of up to HK$116 billion. According to the current market value of Hengten Network, after the acquisition is completed, the original Ruyi Pictures shareholders will hold 32% of the shares and become the second largest shareholder of Hengten Network. It is reported that Hengten Network also set up a profit betting agreement for this acquisition, and Ruyi Pictures needs to complete a total profit of 15 billion yuan within three years...]

"Three years and one and a half billion."

In the Bad Monkey Film Studio, Ning Hao said with emotion: "At this moment, only President Meng and you have the courage to achieve the goal."

"It's not that I have any courage. It's just that I couldn't cut it during the negotiation." Meng Bai, who was sitting opposite, took a sip of tea and chuckled, "It's understandable. They offered a high price for the acquisition, so their requirements will definitely be higher."

Ning Hao followed with a smile: "Evergrande is quite confident in the film and television market. They dare to rush in at this time."

Meng Bai shook his head: "They are not confident, they are obsessed. Evergrande established Evergrande Film and Television a few years ago, but all the movies it invested in lost money. Later, they wanted to start from the channel end and acquired the Times and Amy cinema chains through Jiakaicheng. Isn't this thinking about continuing to expand the upstream production end?"

"That's good too. With the entry of new capital, life in the film and television industry will be better." Ning Hao sighed.

Hearing his depressed tone, Meng Bai raised his eyebrows and said, "Director Ning, the performance of our movie is not as good as expected. Besides, we didn't lose money. Why are you so depressed?"

Ning Hao didn't say anything. Shen Ao, who was sitting at the bottom, said with a somewhat ashamed look, "I'm really sorry, Brother Ning, President Meng. It's my inability that caused the box office failure this time."

"It has nothing to do with you, Xiao Shen." Ning Hao sighed: "Although you are the director of the movie, in fact, I, as the producer, have the final say most of the time from beginning to end. Now that the box office is not good, the problem should be mine."

The movie that the three were talking about as having "poor box office performance" was "The Beneficiary" which was released a few days ago.

As the fourth film in the "Bad Monkey 72 Transformations Plan", it is also a realistic theme, and it is also a combination of "producer Ning Hao + new director". The style of the film is also similar. Many people think of "Dying to Survive" which was a big hit in last summer.

Although it can be seen from the investment that the two films are not at the same level at all, it does not affect the audience's expectations.

Ning Hao and his team also had high hopes for this movie. Not to mention matching the 5000 billion box office of "Dying to Survive", a box office of to million would be pretty good. After all, the production cost of this movie was only million.

However, it turns out that everyone was thinking too much.

The Beneficiary was originally scheduled for this summer, but later had to be postponed due to some problems with post-production. The National Day holiday was not suitable due to the subject matter and this year's node, so it could only be released in the ordinary time period after the National Day.

This is actually not a big deal. Affected by the cold winter of the film and television industry last year, the number of films this year is relatively small. As long as the quality of the film is excellent, it may be more comfortable to schedule more films during ordinary time periods than to collide with those popular works during the popular period.

Unfortunately, the quality of "The Beneficiary" is also average. One is the actors. Not to mention that the lead actor Dapeng's popularity collapsed because of the original "Jianbing Man", and he is still paying off the debt. Even in terms of acting skills, compared with Xu Zheng with hair, he is not a little bit worse.

Many viewers who watched the movie gave him the same evaluation - "He wanted to play a poor and struggling person at the bottom of society, but he couldn't let go of his pride, and he always inadvertently revealed that he was very awesome. It was as if he was always telling the audience: Look, how similar the ordinary person I played is!"

However, the female lead Liu Yan received quite high praise, and many people felt that her role as "female anchor Yue Miaomiao" was true to her character.

However, the actors' problems are only minor ones. The biggest problem with this movie is the failure in plot design and character creation.

I don’t know if it was influenced by the movie “No Man’s Land”, but Ning Hao’s movies in recent years always have this kind of frustrating feeling of “I want to say something but I don’t know if it’s appropriate, but I feel uncomfortable if I don’t say it.”

"Crazy Alien" at the beginning of the year actually had this feeling, but it was saved by its novel setting and the two leading actors "Huang Bo and Shen Teng".

Now, with the low-budget film "The Beneficiary" based on realistic themes, the problems in the story text are immediately revealed.

Although Shen Ao is the director, he is also a newcomer, and the right to speak is definitely given to Ning Hao, the "senior and boss". In addition, his writing ability is indeed not as good as Wen Muye in "Dying to Survive", resulting in the whole movie being full of forced reversal of plot logic and impetuous character settings.

The movie started with a score of 7.0, but it dropped to 6.9 in a few days. There was no hope for box office success, as it barely broke million after one week of release. Now, nearly days later, there is still no improvement. If it can exceed million by the time it is released, it will be considered good.

For investors, this result is not good, but acceptable. The box office share plus the subsequent income from the video platform means at least there is no loss.

But for Ning Hao and the main creators of the Olympic bid, it was very uncomfortable.

Ning Hao was especially guilty of feeling guilty towards Meng Bai. He had persuaded others to invest in his "Bad Monkey 72 Transformations", but the first project turned out like this. It was really hard to justify.

Meng Bai comforted him, saying that no one could predict the outcome of a film project before it was released, and it was normal to have both losses and gains.

But Ning Hao found it hard to accept this statement. After all, before "The Beneficiary", the projects that Arclight had participated in over the years had basically not achieved such poor results. But it just happened that they had just started working together and it turned out like this.

Fortunately, this movie did not lose money after all, otherwise Mr. Meng’s “invincible golden body” in the film and television industry over the years would be ruined in his own hands, which would be a huge sin.

"Director Ning, we should pay less attention to those marketing accounts." Meng Bai said: "Arc Light also has many projects with mediocre results, but they have not been promoted much. Where does the 'invincible body' come from?"

In recent years, ArcLight Films has invested in many other cooperative projects in addition to the projects initiated by Meng Bai himself, including some with mediocre performance like "The Beneficiary".

It’s just that Meng Bai’s personal record is too dazzling, so it overshadows these mediocre projects.

But a company can’t always rely on one person. He has plenty of inspiration, but the problem is that he doesn’t have that much time and energy. So as long as the final profit is not a loss, Arclight will not refuse the project.

"And Director Xiao Shen, you don't have to worry too much about the box office results. For a newcomer's first film, it would be a success if it doesn't lose money." Meng Bai looked at Shen Ao and said, "I think the Bad Monkey Project is still meaningful. At least it can train a few more cutting-edge directors for the film industry."

Although he was a few years older than Meng Bai, Shen Ao had no objection to the name "Xiao Shen". Mr. Meng was in charge of the film and television industry at a young age, so what was there to say about him being a few years older? On the contrary, he was quite happy with this somewhat intimate name, and felt that Mr. Meng treated him as one of his own.

However, he didn't have anything to show for it right now, and he didn't have the confidence to say that his next movie would definitely get good results. Therefore, he could only swear in his heart that if there was another chance next time, he would never disappoint Mr. Meng's hopes.

Meng Bai naturally didn't know that his casual words of comfort would cause the new director to have so many thoughts in his mind. After all, he would not normally think about the inner turmoil of an old man.

Looking at Ning Hao, he continued to ask: "Have you planned the next project? If the script is suitable, we can continue our cooperation."

"I did originally, but I've rejected it now." Ning Hao said, "My previous works went too smoothly, especially the huge success of "Dying to Survive", which made me a little overly optimistic about the "Bad Monkey Project". Now it seems that I still need to think about it carefully."

At this point, Ning Hao smiled again: "Don't worry, Mr. Meng, it's rare to find such a reliable investor like you, and I will definitely not let you go if there is a new project."

Meng Bai laughed: "Haha, great, then I'll be waiting for your new movie, Director Ning."
-
Speaking of which, Ruyi Films is also one of the producers of The Beneficiary. Chen Zhixi and Dapeng have been working together since The Pancake Man and have always been involved in his projects.

Although the first project after the merger failed, Evergrande didn't care at all. They lost 100 million yuan in the movie "Sky Hunter" they invested in, which directly shut down Evergrande Film and Television, which had just been established. In comparison, "The Beneficiary" at least did not lose money, and if they are lucky, they may make some money later.

The failure of a small film project did not affect Evergrande’s expectations for Ruyi at all. The film business was proceeding step by step, and the streaming media platform also began promotion.

At present, the most impressive thing about Heng Video is the "Retrospective Trilogy" in cooperation with Arc Light. In order to attract traffic, even if only one film has just been shot, all the relevant information of the three works has been released.

Many viewers were confused when they first heard the concept of "time travel", until they read the synopsis of the three dramas, then they suddenly realized - isn't this time travel?

But then again, although the setting of "time travel" is not new in movies, American TV series, or Japanese TV series, it is really rare for domestic TV series.

Not to mention TV dramas, the freshness of online dramas has also been declining since the censorship standards for online dramas were adjusted to match those for TV dramas last year. The suspense crime investigation trend brought about by Arclight has also become less popular under increasingly strict censorship.

Apart from anything else, "Day and Night", the masterpiece of the year that was a huge hit, has now become a typical case of "review error".

"Non-police personnel cannot investigate cases", "cannot exaggerate bloody violence", "villains must be completely bad and cannot show good qualities" ... various requirements have led to the repeated overturning of the sequel script of ArcLight.

Nowadays, the hot themes in the film and television market have returned to the traditional youth city, ancient idol fairy tales, etc. Occasionally, a few so-called "suspense crime dramas" are mostly just gimmicks, and in the end they are basically anticlimactic.

However, the theme of "suspense" itself has been retained as a plot element. Even today's ancient puppet dramas like to add some suspense at the beginning to attract the audience, and the effect is actually better than the orthodox "criminal investigation drama".

Like the "Youngsters of the Song Dynasty" produced by Arc Light some time ago, and the male-oriented IP "Joy of Life" that New Classics Media is about to launch, both are similar to the "ancient costume suspense" style, and each one is more popular than the other.

The previous summer hit "The Bad Kids" made many people think that Arclight was going to "return to the throne" and return to the orthodox suspense track. Unexpectedly, Arclight immediately announced cooperation with a new platform and launched a new "Retrospective Series".

For many viewers, this is actually good news - who doesn't like works with fresh themes?

As for the fact that the theme of "time travel" requires extremely high plot logic, no one is worried about it either. After all, the script of this series was written by President Meng himself, and it is a solid "S+" level project.

In addition to the three new dramas in the "Retrospective Series", Heng Video also announced several planned projects, including the documentary observation reality show "Guarding Blue Mountain West" in cooperation with Arc Light, the social observation slow variety show "Fifty Kilometers Peach Blossom Village" proposed by Meng Bai and in cooperation with Tencent Video, and several other similar plans.

However, the most eye-catching one is the girl group talent show called "Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves" which focuses on the "30+" group.

For the audience, the main point of talent shows, especially idol talent shows, is “cultivation”.

Like the "Produce 101" that Yang Chaoyue participated in, it was full of girls in their teens. The mainstream audience is a little older, and you can have a sense of superiority in front of them due to age and experience, which is the fun of nurturing.

My goodness, you now have a group of "sister contestants" who are over 30 years old, much older than the audience. What a mess this is.

Of course, some netizens think this format is quite novel. We have watched a lot of traditional idol talent shows in the past two years. Next year, Qiyi TV and Tencent Video will each release a girl group show. People are a little tired of watching it.

It just so happens that "Sisters Who Make Waves" will also be broadcast next year, and it can compete with the other two "girl talent shows" - who says that women in their thirties have no charm.

Many people on the Internet are divided into two camps. Some think that this program is just a "gimmick" and will definitely fail. Others think that this plan is quite interesting and they will support it.

But overall, most netizens are still pessimistic, especially with several girl group talent shows coming up next year.

Although the outside world is not optimistic, since Heng Video has already announced it, it will definitely go ahead. So the platform is now building a team while inviting non-first-tier female artists in the industry who were born in the 90s or earlier.

Chen Zhixi was very interested in this program, so he took on the position of chief producer, responsible for coordinating the production of the entire program.

As for Meng Bai, although he also participated in the planning and proposal, he himself was not very interested in this kind of talent show, so he did not get involved. Instead, he focused more on another less popular program "Fifty Kilometers Taohuawu".

This project is the slow variety show that he had promised Meng Ziyi before, which focuses on "friends reunion and experiencing life".

(End of this chapter)