Restart life

Chapter 463 0453 [There's actually a profit to be made]

The theatrical version of "Summer of Little Monsters" is considered to be the first film that Chen Guiliang led the investment in.

He actually values ​​it quite a bit.

The next day after get off work, Chen Guiliang sat in front of his computer and started searching.

It's impossible to check daily box office figures; the website only shows weekly figures, and the data isn't very authoritative.

Looking at movie ticket booking websites, only [email protected] is doing reasonably well, offering online ticket booking through a group-buying model.

Immediately afterwards, Chen Guiliang searched for other information.

He discovered that automatic movie ticket machines were officially launched this year and are developing rapidly, and even online seat selection is emerging.

However, their PC websites are all poorly made, and they don't even have a single app.

Another day later, Chen Hua, the former CEO of Kuxun.com, was summoned.

Chen Hua is currently the head of ByteDance's large search business, which includes not only search but also user behavior analysis and precise advertising.

Under Chen Hua's leadership, the relevant technology has been iterated twice and is currently at the international top level.

"Still haven't found a suitable project to start a business on?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Chen Hua shook his head: "No."

Chen Guiliang changed the subject: "Kuxun.com is doing quite well now."

Chen Hua smiled wryly: "No matter how well I do, it has nothing to do with me anymore."

After Chen Hua, the founder of Kuxun, was forced to resign by venture capital firms, Kuxun's business was in chaos for more than six months. The venture capitalists finally realized their strategic mistake and poached Zhang Haijun, a senior executive from 360, to be the CEO.

Zhang Haijun cut off miscellaneous businesses and focused on tourism-related services, and has now turned Kuxun into the world's largest travel information, search, and ticketing company.

This development strategy was one that Chen Hua had formulated long ago, but it was disrupted by the interference of venture capital firms.

"How about I buy KuXun back?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Chen Hua's eyes lit up, then he sighed and said, "Zhang Haijun is doing a good job now. If you buy Kuxun, Mr. Chen, you should let him continue as CEO. It wouldn't be good for me to go and reap the benefits. Besides, my old team, including Zhang Yiming, resigned with me a long time ago. The current Kuxun team was rebuilt by Zhang Haijun. If I force him out, the Kuxun team will definitely resent me."

For social networking sites, which have huge traffic sources, the most important thing is how to monetize that traffic.

Chen Guiliang had long had his eye on Kuxun.com and wanted to find a suitable opportunity to buy it.

However, now is not a good time. KuXun.com is at its peak, and those venture capitalists will not sell. They are all thinking about going public through an IPO.

We could have Chen Hua develop movie software, similar to Maoyan.

We'll buy Kuxun later and merge it with the movie software. This will allow users of Renren, HaiNei, and ByteDance Weibo to quickly and easily search and book train tickets, plane tickets, movie tickets, attraction tickets, and hotel rooms.

Chen Guiliang said, "I've found you a really good startup project. But this project is too good for you to start, and I can only do angel investing. We need to find another way."

"In what way?" Chen Hua asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "We will create a subsidiary of ByteDance. You don't need to invest a single penny; I will give you 10% equity, and the first few rounds of investment will not dilute your equity. You will be the CEO and have full authority to develop and manage the company. All of ByteDance's social networking sites will be the traffic entrances for this company, including the HarmonyOS phones, which will all be pushed to you!"

Chen Hua began to weigh the pros and cons.

If he were to start a business solely on his own, not only would the initial development be difficult, but he would inevitably have to accept venture capital later on, and repeated rounds of this would dilute the founder's equity. His previous venture, KuXun.com, which he co-founded, hadn't even reached its IPO stage yet, and his shareholding had already dwindled to just over 10%.

If Chen Guiliang's account is accurate, the company could develop very smoothly with the backing of ByteDance. Although his 10% stake is small, Chen Guiliang has promised that it will not be easily diluted.

Chen Hua understood Chen Guiliang's meaning very thoroughly.

It's normal for a company to need funds in its early stages of development, and multiple capital injections from the parent company won't change the CEO's equity. However, if the company still isn't doing well despite several rounds of investment, then it's a problem with the CEO's ability, and the CEO deserves to have their equity diluted to nothing.

Chen Hua thought it was a good idea: "I agree. What kind of business?"

"It's still about searching for information and booking tickets, but this time we're focusing specifically on movies," Chen Guiliang explained, recounting what he had discovered over the past two days. "Currently, less than 10% of movie tickets are sold online, indicating a huge market potential. Moreover, major cinemas are all developing online ticketing services, and more and more cinemas are setting up automatic ticket machines. In addition, there aren't any related apps, and there's only one well-developed PC website."

"It's definitely doable!" Chen Hua was instantly eager to try.

The travel and tourism industry is extremely competitive, yet Chen Hua managed to break through. If he were to enter the movie ticketing market now, it would be like an ancient crocodile diving into a small pond.

Moreover, behind this ancient behemoth stands a dragon—ByteDance's terrifying traffic portal.

Chen Hua said, "In addition to movie information, movie search, online ticketing, and online seat selection, I also want to launch a function to check movie box office in real time. I asked Mr. Han from China Film Group, and he said that the data is in the hands of the Special Fund Office. Once the cinema ticketing system is more mature, I will contact the Special Fund Office to see if I can pay to obtain real-time box office data."

The full name of the Special Fund Office is the Office of the Management Committee for the Special Fund for the Development of China's Film Industry.

Later, when checking box office figures through software like Maoyan, the data was found to be provided by the Special Fund Office.

This year, the proportion of digital screens in China will rise to 69.55%, instantly placing it among the world's leading levels. This not only provides the foundation for online seat selection but also makes box office statistics more convenient, leading to the rapid development of the national cinema ticketing system.

It is estimated that in another year or two, we will be able to pay to obtain the real-time box office data from the Special Fund Office—the Special Fund Office only opened up the data to the public for free after 2015.

Chen Guiliang quite enjoys watching movies and used to be a loyal user of Mtime.com.

He remembered clearly that Mtime.com would be shut down for a month this year for rectification. The reason was that it contained pornographic content, and also that some movies and reviews were too sensitive.

Mtime.com has not yet received any funding, and the founding team owns 100% of the shares. It has a large user base but struggles to monetize it; it could be fully acquired for under 1000 million yuan.

After acquiring Mtime, they used its existing users as a base and then brought in traffic from Renren, HaiNei, and ByteDance's Weibo. Initially, the focus was on PC-based search, ticketing, movie reviews, and ratings, but gradually the emphasis shifted to mobile devices, and a movie app was created.

Chen Guiliang said, "In the next two or three months, you should familiarize yourself with the situation in the film industry and hand over your current work. I'll buy Mtime and let you operate it."

"Great!" Chen Hua said confidently.

……

The box office for "Summer of Little Monsters" is gradually climbing.

Daily box office figures are difficult to calculate, but the first week's box office was over 3800 million.

This figure is very impressive for an animated film, but with a production cost of up to 8000 million, it still looks like a complete loss.

It's important to understand that there weren't any strong films released during this period, so the box office competition wasn't intense.

In just over a week, "Aftershock" will be released!

But word of mouth has already spread.

Online reviews were increasingly positive, even extending from white-collar workers to students. Many college and high school students on summer vacation thought the film was trendy and went to the cinema after reading online comments. Unlike more than a decade later, very few parents were taking their children to the cinema this time!
As the number of moviegoers increased, many cinema chains proactively increased the screening frequency of "The Little Monster" and placed promotional posters for the film in prominent positions. This move made it easier for viewers who didn't read online reviews to buy tickets for "The Little Monster" at the cinema.

Moreover, those promotional posters were quite interesting; they directly downplayed the animation production team.

The promotional keywords are: screenwriter Chen Guiliang, a Chinese animation blockbuster with a budget of 8000 million yuan.

The box office soared to over 72 million in the second week, bringing the cumulative box office to over 100 million.

Although it is still far from breaking even, it is already the second film to gross over 1 million yuan this summer - the first being "Toy Story 3", which currently has a box office of 2 million yuan.

The rest of the blockbuster films, scheduled for release in August, have not yet appeared.

It was precisely during a market lull.

Just when everyone predicted that the box office would drop in the third week, the result showed that the third week's box office was 7500 million. This is the result achieved in the last three days of this week, under the pressure of "Aftershock".

The cumulative box office over three weeks reached 1.9 million yuan.

Still haven't broken even, but it's almost there.

Wang Chenyu said in the company's QQ group: "Everyone, get a good night's sleep tonight. Breaking even is definitely not a problem, and I estimate we can even make a small profit."

Friends started popping up in response.

Why do I feel like crying?

"Although I only earn a little bit after two or three years of hard work, I can earn several times more by honestly doing outsourcing and animation production. But I still feel a great sense of accomplishment. All my years of hard work have finally been recognized."

"Mr. Chen really put in a lot of effort. Without his script and promotion, this movie would definitely have flopped."

"It seems like 'Dream Back to Jinsha City' flopped badly. They also had a production cost of 8000 million yuan, and Mr. Chen even helped with the promotion. The data I checked yesterday shows that the cumulative box office after three weeks was only 260 million yuan."

"An 8000 million budget, only 260 million in box office revenue? Holy crap! The director must be wishing he were dead."

"..."

Chen Demin, the director of "Dreaming Back to Jinsha City", is numb at this moment. He has been scolded by investors these days.

In fact, thanks to Chen Guiliang's promotion, the box office of this animated film has already doubled.

Don't be fooled by the fact that it only grossed 260 million at the box office; in another timeline, it only grossed 120 million.

Chen Guiliang brought in a huge amount of traffic; a few simple shouts on Weibo were enough to attract many viewers to watch "Dream Back to Jinsha City." Unfortunately, the plot was weak and failed to capitalize on this surge in viewership.

In its fourth week of release, "Little Monster" was finally overshadowed by "Aftershock." Its weekly box office plummeted to 3100 million yuan.

In the fifth week, a bunch of domestic and foreign "blockbusters" were released—most of them were "fake blockbusters" with huge promotional hype.

"Little Monster" is still able to maintain a weekly box office of over 600 million.

By the time the film was withdrawn from theaters, it had grossed 2.28 million yuan.

They made a net profit of over 1100 million.

However, this 1100 million yuan was divided proportionally among China Film Group, ByteDance, Huaxia Film Distribution, Chen Guiliang, and Breakthrough Animation.

After splitting the profits among the five companies, it was practically the same as not making any money at all.

Make people dumbfounded.

They didn't make much money, but they made a fortune from all the shouting.

The film received high praise from the magazine "Contemporary Cinema":

"As the first domestic animated film to break 100 million and then 200 million yuan at the box office, 'Summer of Little Monsters' is worthy of being recorded in the history of Chinese films. Putting aside its high box office, the production quality of this animated film is also top-notch."

"With masters like Mr. Wu Guanzhong serving as advisors, the younger generation of animators is growing rapidly under the guidance of their predecessors..."

"What's even more remarkable is that 'The Little Monster' didn't deliberately promote Mr. Wu or use his passing to attract audiences. Instead, it quietly used subtitles at the end of the film to mourn and express gratitude..."

"The Little Monster is a milestone in Chinese animated films, marking a new chapter for domestic animated films..."

Wang Chenyu bought a whole bunch of copies of this magazine and gave one to each of the animation company's employees.

People were both crying and laughing as they read the film reviews.

Chen Guiliang was very satisfied with the result, after all, he had gone from losing money to gaining publicity to breaking even and gaining publicity.

Sometimes, making a name for yourself is very important!

Some netizens are now saying, "Whether it's novels, movies, games, websites, or electronic products like mobile phones, anything produced by Chen Laozu is guaranteed to be a masterpiece! Everyone can just buy it without thinking, you definitely won't be disappointed."

Chen Guiliang replied to this Weibo post: "Well said. You're so eloquent, you should say more in the future."

What was originally a passionate and emotional Weibo post immediately turned into a joke after Chen Guiliang's reply.

"Old Master Chen is truly shameless."

"I just gave you a compliment, and you started acting all high and mighty."

"Damn it, hurry up and write the sequel script for 'Little Monster.' Otherwise, I'll send you razor blades!"

"You're not doing your job properly. Instead of writing animation scripts, why don't you hurry up and write the sixth volume of 'Those Things About the Ming Dynasty'?"

"Those who are urging me to update 'Ming Dynasty' are overthinking it. With Chen Laozu's character, by the time this novel is finished, my grandson will probably be running all over the place."

"Damn it, God's Oracle Era, hurry up and end the closed beta and open a new server!"

"..."

The open beta of "Oracle Era" was conducted during the summer vacation, but the number of participants was limited to 50,000.

This move startled Tencent.

League of Legends, which was originally scheduled for public beta testing at the end of the year, was launched ahead of schedule during the summer vacation.

Two similar games have gone head-to-head!

(End of this chapter)