China Entertainment Times

Chapter 836 Tang An's trump card!
Tang An stayed in Shanghai for a day. Apart from Han and Tang literature, it happened that Li Rui had just returned to Shanghai, so Tang An stopped by to meet him.

Nowadays, although Li Ruigang can't say that he has controlled Shaw Brothers and TVB, his voice and influence are gradually strengthening.

As the chairman of the board of directors of Shaw Brothers Films and the vice chairman of the board of directors of TVB, coupled with his previous status as the chairman of Wenguang, it will be a matter of time before he takes control of TVB and Shaw Brothers.

Xiangjiang Films originally started on the basis of Shanghai Films. Because of the Anti-Japanese War, a large number of filmmakers from Shanghai went south, and the Shaw Brothers all came from Shanghai.

More than half of the directors, screenwriters, and actors in Shanghai have gone to Xiangjiang, which has allowed Xiangjiang to gradually become a center for overseas Chinese investment in films from a region specializing in the production of Cantonese films facing eastern Guangdong, Singapore, and Malaysia.

At the end of the 40s, although the Anti-Japanese War was over, the war was still going on, and the current situation was turbulent. Another group of filmmakers and capitalists went south. In 1948, Xiangjiang produced 157 films throughout the year, setting a record.

At that time, Shanghai was the film and music center in China. With the southward movement of movie and musicians in Shanghai, Xiangjiang has assumed the status of entertainment center in Shanghai.

Although many years have passed and few of the older generation are still alive, but with such a relationship, coupled with the fact that the Xiangjiang entertainment industry has declined, it was relatively easy for Li Rui to take over Shaw Brothers and TVB.

Otherwise, as soon as he left, the chairman of Shaw's board of directors suddenly fell ill.

Although Shaw Brothers has declined, it used to have a complete distribution network in Southeast Asia after all.

Since the 80s, Shaw Brothers has ceased production, but it is still distributing Xiangjiang films to Southeast China.

The foundation is there, and it is better to rebuild the distribution network in Southeast Asia than nothing.

However, the current Shaw Brothers alone is not of much use. Tang An intends to bring in Southeast Asian countries such as Hongguo, Singapore, and Yuenan to form a new distribution company.

Even if part of the benefits are given up, as long as a complete distribution network can be built so that most Chinese-language movies have the opportunity to be released in Southeast Asia, that will be enough.

Even if audiences in Southeast Asia are not used to mainland movies, at least some big-budget movies are more acceptable.

It is also possible to allow Southeast Asian audiences to subtly accept Chinese-language films through time.

Just like watching Japanese dramas and Thai dramas, you will not get used to it at first, but you will get used to it after watching too much.

This matter can be carried out at the same time as the establishment of Xiangjiang Cinemas. Regarding the reclassification of cinemas in Xiangjiang as cultural and entertainment facilities, under the promotion of the Ministry of Propaganda, the Xiangjiang government is already discussing.

Tang An didn't want to be like in the 70s. It was unrealistic to get a storefront at an extremely low price.

As long as it's cheaper than it is now, it doesn't matter if you lose a little.

The monthly rent of a movie theater in Times Square in Hong Kong has now reached 2500 million Hong Kong dollars. This is just the rent. Whoever can afford it will be throwing money out of the movie theater.

As long as the cost is reduced a little, Tang An will be confident enough to control half of the Xiangjiang cinema market.

What other theater chains do is business, they want to make money.

Tang An can accept a loss and influence Xiangjiang culturally, compared to losing a little money, it is nothing.

If two or three years is not enough, it will be five years, eight years, or even ten years. A large number of mainland movies will be released in Hong Kong. Let Hong Kong audience watch them for ten years, and they will naturally accept mainland culture.

There is nothing that time can’t change. Back then, Hong Kong’s popular songs were still mainly in Mandarin, and Cantonese songs were only a small audience. It’s not that they have gradually become popular, and Mandarin songs are no longer popular.

The same is true for early Xiangjiang films. In the 60s and [-]s, Cantonese films were of the worst quality and the lowest grade. Only small companies made them, and big companies disdain them.

And at that time, there was probably such a chain of contempt in the Hong Kong film market: rich and educated people watched English movies, rich and uneducated people watched Mandarin movies, and poor and uneducated people watched Cantonese movies.

In 1972, Quanxiangjiang produced 82 films, but none of them were Cantonese films, which shows how bleak Cantonese films were at that time.

The market in Hong Kong is too small to support the film industry in Hong Kong. It has to rely on the Chinese community in Southeast Asia and the Taiwan market, and Mandarin is the language that can communicate with Chinese people all over the world.

Even if there were a large number of Mandarin-speaking immigrants in the early days of Xiangjiang, Shaw's top executives were all from the mainland, and they also spoke Mandarin.

The older generation of Xiangjiang filmmakers and actors can speak Mandarin fluently.

Li Xiaolong's films had to be dubbed in Mandarin in the early stages before they were released.

It was not until 1973 that Shaw Brothers made the first Cantonese film "72 Tenants", which beat Li Xiaolong and won the annual box office champion. After that, Cantonese films gradually revived. In 1977, the number of Cantonese films surpassed that of Mandarin films.

From Mandarin to Cantonese, it only took four years.

For Hong Kong audiences to accept mainland movies, double the time should be enough.

As a filmmaker, he has to do something for this industry. To promote Chinese films to Southeast Asia and become one of the mainstream films in Southeast Asia is Tang An's goal at this stage.

After staying in Shanghai for a day, Tang An flew back to the capital.

I commute to and from get off work on time at the company every day, and my life is finally a little normal.

As for "Fantasy Forest", Tiangong Yicai is still continuing the special effects preparation work in the early stage.

This movie can't be sloppy, the focus is all on the CG, and Tang An doesn't direct blindly, he only checks their results regularly.

Tiangong Yicai and the technology in the digital field are still inferior to Weta Digital. Fortunately, Kingsoft Cloud's cloud rendering farm has been used now, and it can go through more calculations and strive to be the best.

It's easy to shoot, but there's no rush, children's scenes are actually the best.

Adults have all kinds of looks, heights, personalities, and temperaments. It is not easy for actors to fit the roles.

But little kids?
There are no other occupational and personality restrictions for a child to play a child, and he acts in his true colors.

In many film and television dramas, child stars and even children who have never been exposed to acting, often perform very well.

Especially five or six-year-old children do not have such complicated personalities and tempers.

As far as Tang An watched the variety show "Actor" before, in a few episodes he found a few children to co-star, which was more natural than real actors.

Zhang Yimou likes to use newcomers, because newcomers are like a blank sheet of paper, and the content on it depends on the director's training, which is easier to shape.

August has passed, and with the arrival of the school season, the domestic film market has begun to enter a flat period that lasted for nearly a month.

However, the market value of Wanda Films broke through the 800 billion mark on the third day of listing, and surpassed Huayi to become the film and television company with the highest market value.

Four days later, the market value exceeded 900 billion.

However, it still failed to break through the 960 billion mark. At the peak, the market value once reached [-] billion, but it couldn't survive.

It is much worse than the original 11 consecutive daily limit of Wanda Cinemas, which was listed separately.

After the rise, it began to fall immediately. It is estimated that it will be good if it can stabilize at 900 billion in the end.

Wanda's listing was absolutely successful, and it stole the limelight during the school season.

Not long after that, the cooperation of several major companies could no longer be hidden.

Originally, only a few senior executives knew about it, so it was good to hide it, but once the contract was signed, so many projects had their own share, and more and more people needed to participate in the follow-up, and it was naturally exposed.

At the beginning, it was only rumored that several companies participated in "Legend of the Gods", and that a certain company purchased shares in "Ip Man 3", but all these things came together to straighten out the films they collaborated with. Anomalies were found.

Han Tang Media, Tang An convened a meeting of the company's director and above management.

"Tell me, what's the situation now."

In the low season of the market in September, several other companies have also begun to make big moves.

Wang Zhongjun's abnormal attitude before, and Tang An felt something was wrong when they got together in the magic city. It turned out that they had started to connect.

"Chairman, it has been confirmed that several major companies will have at least ten blockbuster films in the next two years, as well as film projects with good box office potential, and have added other investors."

The promotion and marketing director of the film business department explained what happened in the past two days in front of the curtain.

Tang An also looked at some data that was synchronized between the small screen on the table in front of him and the curtain.

"The Great Wall", a major production costing over US$[-] million, was originally invested and distributed by Wanda's Legendary Pictures, Lay's, and Universal.

Legendary Pictures got the largest share of investment, and Leshi managed to create Zhang Yimou, who got the controlling distribution rights in the mainland.

However, there is an appointment investment for the "Great Wall" project in Yubaoli, a subsidiary of Zhifubao.

Entertainment Bao has been online for some time, but the most important movie before is just "Tiny Times 4".

Because the third film failed to meet expectations, Leshi and Ah Li made a movie financial management gimmick to make money for the whole people.

Ahli Films also issued an announcement, announcing that it had acquired part of the box office proceeds of "The Great Wall" at a high price.

China Film Group Co., Ltd. and Maoyan Films have also become one of the joint publishers of "The Great Wall".

In other words, this blockbuster has more participation from China Film, Ah Li, and Guangxian.

Ah Li's three films "Unbelievable", "Havoc in Tianzhu" and "The Ferryman" also have more participation from other companies.

The same is true for Bernard's "Operation Mekong" and "Omen 2".

There are more than ten high-quality projects, and suddenly there are other big companies participating.

After the report was over, Tang An looked at the expressions of everyone, and they were all a bit dignified, obviously they all knew what this meant.

Tang An smiled, attracted their attention, and said, "Obviously, the cross-investment of these major companies must have reached some cooperation, and we who were excluded should be the ones who facilitated their cooperation. reason."

Zhang Qiang nodded, and echoed, "Director Tang, the addition of a happy event by the seven major companies has kept us in the dark, and they are clearly targeting us. Be prepared, it's not easy to deal with."

Everyone can see that this is not a cooperation between two or three companies.

There are grievances and grievances between several major companies. Wang Changtian and Zhang Zhao can be said to be deadly enemies, and they wish each other to die all the time.

Le's and China Film had a feud over "The Expendables 3". As an investor, Le's was the mainland copyright owner and the buyout party for the approval of the film. In the end, it couldn't hold back its arms, so it still had to distribute it to China Film, giving up 20% of the profits.

Back in the day, Guangxian’s blackmail of “White Legend” caused the publisher Wanda to lose a large amount of publishing income.

It is not that simple to let them let go of their mutual grievances. If they talk about sharing the Han and Tang markets together, it makes sense.

"Director Tang, with the joint efforts of the eight major companies, it will be very difficult for us to fight against. We may be facing backwardness in film planning, publicity and marketing. In my opinion, we should immediately contact Bernard and Guangxian to persuade them to quit!"

"Not only in terms of publicity, but now that they have enough high-quality projects, if they really want to deal with us, it will be really difficult for two or three movies to attack one."

"It is necessary to disintegrate their alliance. As long as they pay enough benefits, they will naturally be self-defeating."

All the directors and vice presidents expressed their opinions one by one, and without exception, they did not think that Hantang could resist the alliance of the eight major companies.

In the past two years, Hantang has been able to sweep the domestic film market, but it does not mean that it is really stronger than other companies combined. After all, other companies are also competitors.

However, the most important thing is that Tang An will not have a movie released within a year or two, otherwise Tang An will still maintain the speed of one movie a year, even if the eight major companies join forces, they will have confidence.

Tang An's movie is worth 40 billion yuan, which is enough to sweep the hot schedules such as summer vacation and Spring Festival.

Li Nan, the deputy general manager of the film business department, suggested that Tang An could make a simpler movie to deal with the siege of major companies next year.

Although this is a bit bad, just like the national pigs lose every day, you can't let the leaders of the Pig Association win.

Everyone still agreed with this plan in their hearts. Tang An made a simpler and easier movie to deal with next year's problems.

But no one spoke up, let the boss go to work, who would have the nerve to say it.

Tang An shook his head secretly, making a movie by himself is indeed the easiest and most effective way.

Tang An had this confidence. If it wasn't for the fact that he didn't have a new movie released within a year or two, others would never dare to do so.

The alliance of the eight major companies must be at least three less!

"Okay, it's not a big deal, and we don't have to be nervous. We should do whatever we want and prepare for the release of every movie."

"The National Day file will be coming soon. We have two films, "Charlotte Annoyance" and "Rescue Mr. Me" invested by Song Ge and Du Yang. Ignore the others and show them the National Day file. We have to deal with it Han Tang is not that easy!"

Tang An was not at all afraid of their cooperation. With Han Tang's current resources, he could independently support a movie with a box office of 40 billion without the assistance of other resources.

And they can't be desperate to deal with themselves, and use four or five blockbuster movies to besiege one of them at the same time.

Even if he did this, it would only hurt both sides. Tang An could bear it completely, and at worst, he would make less money.

Hantang's current profitability is much stronger than that of any other company. If they suffer a major loss, they will not be far from the disintegration of the alliance.

What makes them cooperate is their interests. Even if they don't deal with themselves, cross-cooperation and sharing resources are also very beneficial.

But once there is a loss, someone will definitely withdraw first, or even turn against each other.

Besides, Tang An held several trump cards in his hands, and it was impossible for both sides to suffer.

What Tang An has already decided, everyone can only agree to it now, and fight the National Day battle well.

Tang An was relieved to entrust these matters to them. In such a short period of two or three days, not only did he collect enough information, but he also re-evaluated the other party's projects, as well as the possible schedule of each movie. Which movies are which? The opponents at the time and the advantages of both sides are all analyzed very clearly.

After the meeting, Tang An made an appointment with Ning Hao, Xu Zheng, Wu Ershan, and Wu Jing.

A day later, I saw the four of them in the office, one of Han Tang's most important assets, and also Tang An's trump card.

The directors of the older generation have all rushed to the street, and the directors of the new generation are almost all under his command. This is where Tang An's confidence lies.

The "Fengshen" series, "Wolf Warrior 2" that is being filmed, and "The Wandering Earth" that is in preparation can make the eight major companies lose their way!
But only Tang An knew about this. Now that Han and Tang were facing the siege of the eight major companies, no one knew what they were thinking, whether they were a little pessimistic, and even wanted to get off the ship.

It is necessary for Tang An to meet and chat with them, and drink some chicken soup by the way.

(End of this chapter)