America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM...

Chapter 250, Page 249: All the World's Best Works Are Here

"Fight for your dreams!"

Upon waking up, many people find that their surroundings have changed, with countless pieces of information bombarding and surrounding them—and this information is none other than Lionheart.com's GG.

After several days of preparation, under MGM's extravagant spending spree, the roar of the lion could be heard in every major city across the United States.

Workers are busy posting posters on the "GG" signs at bus and subway stations, in the window displays of major shopping malls, and on the walls of every public restroom.

Empire State Building, Times Square, Nasdaq screen, Golden Gate Bridge lights.

Apart from landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and Capitol Hill where seats aren't for sale, the roar of the golden lion echoes across major national landmarks.

As the world's most powerful web search engines and portals, Google and Yahoo are not immune to this.

MGM directly invested $3000 million in the former and $1500 million in the latter, demanding that they provide Lionheart with the best GG treatment within half a month.

Internet users who log in to these two websites will immediately be bombarded with errors in the interface and search engine.

The religious disputes that had been dominating the mainstream were temporarily sidelined.

Facebook and YouTube even officially launched promotional campaigns, offering free one-month memberships to Lionheart.com for different tiers by simply sharing Lionheart.com's posts and accumulating a certain number of likes.

Furthermore, registered users of Facebook and YouTube enjoy preferential policies. As long as they log in to the two websites for 7 consecutive days and are online for half an hour each day, they can purchase a Lionheart.net membership at half price.

The main idea is to create synergy, promote each other, and ensure that no one loses out.

Unlike Facebook and YouTube, which initially burned through cash, Lionheart was going to charge a fee from the start, and Eric set up several membership tiers.

He referenced the pricing standards of major cable TV stations and also set a progressively tiered pricing standard for Lionheart.com.

First, there's the lowest tier membership, which costs only $6.99 per month. That's $2 less than the lowest-priced basic cable channel, AMC, making it an incredibly reasonable price.

Of course, spending less money comes at a price: you can only watch under one IP address at a time, the highest possible video quality is 720P, and you must watch GG.

This tool is similar to Huaxia's. It has a boot-up tool, an interface tool, a pre-viewing tool, and a big data filtering tool. In short, you have to watch it all the time except during the viewing process.

However, it's not as outrageous as Huaxia, where a game over time lasts two minutes, which is really frustrating. On Lionheart.net, the game over time usually doesn't exceed 15 seconds.

Another advantage over China is that its 720P quality is genuine 720P, unlike the cut-down versions available across the ocean.

Everyone knows how disgusting video websites like Youku, Tudou, and iQiyi are. They claim to be 720P, but it's actually only 480P; they claim to be 1080P, but it's even worse than 720P.

The lowest tier is for poor people, poor students, and people who want to try something new but have plenty of time. Then there's the standard membership.

The price is $9.99, $3 more than AMC, but I have my reasons for charging more.

Firstly, I'm confident that the quality of my TV shows and movies is better than yours. Secondly, standard members get free access to content without any issues, while basic cable channels like AMC do have issues.

Standard members can choose the highest resolution of 1080P and can watch it on up to two IPs at the same time.

Couples only need to activate one account, and they can also share it with friends and family, making it very cost-effective.

Then there's the top-tier membership plan, comparable to premium cable channels like HBO, which costs $12.99 per month, the same as HBO.

Eric had considered whether $11.99 would be more attractive, but when he talked to his dad, his dad advised against it.

Those willing to buy premium membership packages won't care about the $1 price difference; what they really care about is the level of service and the quality of movies and TV shows. Price wars are almost ineffective against this group of users.

Moreover, if you set the price too low now, what will you do when you want to raise the price in two years?

Raising prices too much at once is not advisable. The industry's unspoken rule is that price increases should not exceed $2 at a time, a concept derived from years of experience in understanding user psychology.

So Eric decided to price it at $12.99, going head-to-head with HBO, his former partner.

Premium membership is still completely free, but the highest picture quality has been upgraded from 1080P to Blu-ray, and it supports up to 4 IPs for simultaneous viewing, which is enough for a family.

Blu-ray technology only fully entered the market last year and is considered an emerging technology that many people are still unaware of.

In the current market environment, this is already the highest level of image quality that ordinary people can access, and it is also a point of attraction for users.

In addition, premium members are offered a feature that seems amazing by today's standards: download support! Any work available on Lionheart.com can be downloaded freely without any restrictions.

This feature will have a huge impact on DVD sales, but it doesn't matter anyway, DVDs have been declining for a long time and don't have many years left to survive.

Some misers could easily sign up for a one-month premium membership, download all the movies and TV shows they want to watch, and then cancel the subscription the following month.

Whenever there's a new drama that interests me, I'll start downloading it again in another month, as long as I don't mind the hassle.

Finally, and most significantly, Lionheart Network's biggest disruptive innovation was abandoning the weekly broadcast format and instead releasing the entire series at once.

For the American TV series industry, this reform is nothing short of a major earthquake, a super earthquake of magnitude twelve.

It is well known that American TV series have always been broadcast weekly, and this has been the case for decades.

Weekly broadcasts certainly have their advantages, but these advantages are relative to the television station and the production company.

Typically, three or four episodes are produced first and then released, followed by a survey of audience satisfaction and approval of the plot and characters.

The production team will change the plot based on the survey results. If a character is popular, they will have more screen time; otherwise, they will be killed off.

If the show doesn't receive the expected response overall, it's very likely that the first season will directly produce the finale.

This approach is most comfortable for investors, as it saves a significant amount of costs, while long-term GG revenue is also a major source of income for television stations.

The actors were a little uncomfortable because they were constantly facing the prospect of losing their jobs.

Of course, being a popular actor is comfortable because you can maintain your popularity for a long time, but you also face the disadvantage of not being able to take care of other jobs.

The most disgusting ones are, of course, the viewers, especially since American dramas are fast-paced and often leave the next episode in suspense.

I was really into watching it, I even took my pants off, and now you're telling me my penis is gone and I have to wait a week for it to grow back.

A week is enough for the audience's passion for watching the movie to fade, but they are reluctant to give it up. So they can only go through a cycle of excitement, nausea, fading, anticipation, excitement, nausea, fading, and anticipation, like the Avici Hell described in Buddhism.

Moreover, TV stations broadcast at fixed times; if you miss it, you have to wait for a rebroadcast, and if you miss the rebroadcast, it's a real hassle.

Everyone is so busy with work that they can't be glued to the TV all the time.

The entire series is released at once, so you can watch whichever episode you want, whenever you want, and rewatch whenever you want, without having to buy DVDs or get videotapes.

Why has Netflix risen so rapidly? This is one of the key reasons.

Of course, not all programs adopt the one-time release model. For example, competitive variety shows like "The Voice of China" use a one-time half-season plus weekly broadcast format to keep the suspense of the champion until the end.

While the website was shutting down, MGM's own productions and imported shows were edited into trailers and wildly promoted on various websites and YouTube.

For Lionheart.com at present, the scale of its self-produced dramas has not yet taken off. Only after achieving fame can it attract a large number of creators to join it.

The few films directed by Eric alone are clearly not enough for the audience, and releasing one or two films every week or two is also not enough.

So during this period, besides lobbying smaller companies like New Line Cinema and DreamWorks, he was also working on bringing in new talent.

MGM has been sending representatives to contact influential theatrical genres in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, South Korea, and China.

The focus is naturally on British dramas and Japanese anime.

The influence of British dramas on American dramas is undeniable; many Hollywood professionals have been influenced by British dramas.

With Michael Dobbs's help, MGM imported a large number of high-quality British dramas, including Poirot, War Detective, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Bean, and Little French Restaurant.

While Japanese dramas generally have a moderate influence, anime has a much greater impact, even in the United States.

Since the early 80s, Japanese manga has become popular in the United States, with many universities establishing manga fan clubs and fan associations emerging in society.

This period was somewhat similar to the early days of Huaxia (a Chinese online platform for subtitles), where many domestic manufacturers would not broadcast certain content, so they would do their own translations, which were known as subtitle groups.

Later, a phenomenal Japanese manga sparked a viewing frenzy in the United States; that was Akira. From then on, Japanese manga entered its golden age in the United States.

Works such as Pokémon, Ghost in the Shell, Sailor Moon, and Doraemon have garnered a large number of fans, not to mention the solid foundation laid by the super popular series Dragon Ball.

If it weren't for its immense popularity, Spirited Away wouldn't have won last year's Oscar so easily.

One statistic perfectly illustrates the situation: last year, Japanese manga sales accounted for 42% of total US manga sales.

Based on this growth trend, it is predicted that it will reach 50% by 2007, greatly seizing the market share of local manufacturers such as Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse.

But what can be done? Audiences, especially young people, like to watch it, and capital is the most profit-driven.

During Eric's last trip to Japan to promote Transformers, he met with several major manufacturers.

After nearly half a year of negotiations, a cooperation agreement was finally reached, acquiring the exclusive online broadcasting rights for these popular works for 5 years, as well as some emerging and promising works, including "Bleach," "Naruto," and "One Piece."

To Eric's disappointment, MGM only acquired the film and television adaptation rights and exclusive online streaming rights; the rights to sell the comics and produce related merchandise still need to be negotiated.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Shueisha, MGM acquired the live-action film rights to Dragon Ball from legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama.

As the first live-action comic book adaptation, both sides had high hopes for it, and the movie's plot would end with Piccolo's defeat at the World Martial Arts Tournament.

Eric gave the screenwriter a death order: stay true to the original work, don't fucking mess around with it, and give me your script review once it's finished. If you change it, you'll be in big trouble.

Some screenwriters are arrogant and look down on games and anime, always thinking that movies are superior.

If you don't adapt it, you'll feel uncomfortable. Often, you'll just put on the skin of the original work but actually tell your own story, and the result is usually very poor.

Take, for example, the 2009 live-action "Dragon Ball," a piece of garbage that made countless viewers want to vomit; it deserved to be a box office and critical flop.

How many fans are there in Dragon Ball? All over the world!

Do I really need you to adapt it?

You know your own limitations!

That terrible adaptation was even worse than the 1991 Taiwanese version of "New Dragon Ball".

In Eric's opinion, although Taiwan's "New Dragon Ball" did not obtain the copyright and was therefore illegal, it is the best of all the live-action adaptations of Dragon Ball.

This time, MGM is determined to give Akira Toriyama and Dragon Ball fans around the world a sincere gift, and he has already thought of several characters to represent them.

For example, Samuel L. Jackson would be a perfect fit for Piccolo, and Arnold Worthru, who played Imhotep in The Mummy, could play Tien Shinhan.

Norino Morita would definitely be a much better fit for Master Roshi than Chow Yun-fat. God knows why they chose Chow Yun-fat to play Master Roshi; it's a terrible casting choice that ruins the original work.

Jay Chou could play Yamcha, the Tea God; his appearance is quite suitable, and Eric promised him a role.

By this point, Lionheart.net had gradually taken shape, bringing together excellent films, TV series, and animations from all over the world.

In addition, there are film libraries from companies such as MGM, New Line Cinema, DreamWorks, and Lionsgate, along with Marvel's accumulated works over the years, plus its top-rated self-produced series.

If you open Lionheart.com and search for the total number of videos, you'll find it's an astonishing 2+.

It may not be deep enough, but it is certainly substantial enough to satisfy film fans of all tastes.

Eric is ready to have a good fight with the six major companies and various television stations!

As Lionheart.net aggressively attacked GG, its social influence and popularity quickly grew, and discussions about this new website and its new model became endless.

Eric also gave interviews to his own YouTube channel and Yahoo!.

"Yes, I think that with the development of the internet, people's attention will increasingly shift away from television sets and towards more portable mobile devices in the future."

"Just like mobile phones, which have developed very quickly and have gone through countless versions in just a few years, I believe that in the near future, with the development of smartphones, watching movies on mobile phones will become a major trend."

"That was the time when people, especially young people, abandoned television sets. I call them the cable cutters, who stopped paying for cable TV."

"Their interests will shift more to the internet, where they can watch whatever they want while walking, chatting, or drinking coffee. That's what Lionheart.net aims to do."

Although the issues had been discussed beforehand, the host still looked at him with some surprise. His words were practically identical to the statement from a few days ago, which was tantamount to declaring war on all the major television stations.

The host, with a serious expression, asked, "Mr. Cooper, what do you see as the difference between weekly broadcasts and all-at-once releases of a TV series?"

Eric laid out the pros and cons of both forms, and then added, "binge-watching, which I call binge-watching, is what Lionheart aims to do—lead the trend, to create a binge-watching craze."

"Let the audience watch whatever they want, and for as long as they want."

"We also welcome screenwriters, directors, and actors to contact us with any good projects."

"Our dream is to serve the audience in everything we do."

(End of this chapter)