Chapter 327 Closing
Many industry celebrities came to the reception, including stars, producers, directors, and manufacturers.
As the saying goes, don’t hit someone with a smiling face. Regardless of whether you have understood the movie "Cruise of Terror", everyone will give it a very high evaluation.
Wang Shu, who does not drink alcohol, is also walking around the dance with champagne, talking to everyone in his broken English.
Wang Shuju politely communicated with him for a while.
Then we chatted with people from Warner for a while.
Warner is one of the eight major film companies in the United States. After entering the Chinese market, it has been cooperating with China Film.
"Crazy Stone", "Jade Warrior", "The Veil", "Crazy Racing", "Red Cliff", and "The Famous Man" all have Warner participation in investment.
In fact, "Terror Cruise" is ostensibly an investment by One Tree Company and China Film Group Corporation. In fact, China Film Group Corporation and China Film Group's joint venture company China Film Warner Hengdian participated in the investment.
China Film is responsible for distribution in the Chinese mainland market, and Warner is responsible for distribution in the North American market.
"Terror Cruise" is a movie for the global market. Only China Film and Yishu participated in the investment, and it is difficult to enter North American theaters.
But if Warner is added, there will be no problem.
There is no way around this. If Chinese-language films want to enter North American theaters, it will not work without a strong North American company to distribute them.
The easiest way to get a strong North American company to be responsible for distribution is to have a North American film and television company participate in the production.
Without Warner's participation and finding some small publishers, "Terror Cruise" can actually enter the North American market.
It's just that it will most likely be shown on a dozen screens, and then nothing will happen.
There is no specific limit on the release time of Chinese-language films in North America, it is determined by the box office.
If the box office income reaches US$5,000 in a week, it can continue to be released, otherwise it will be offline.
When U.S. distribution companies introduce Chinese-language films, their first target group is Chinese-Americans. They are usually released in theaters in areas where Chinese-Americans gather, usually in more than a dozen theaters.
For a long time, the Chinese-language films that have had greater influence in the United States are "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" directed by Li Eucalyptus in 2000 and "Hero" directed by Zhang Yimou in 2002. The latter has been the North American box office champion for two consecutive years. This week, it was hailed by the American media as "China's most successful cultural export."
However, such success stories are rare.
So far, except for a few domestic blockbusters that can be released in U.S. movie theaters, the vast majority of Chinese-language films appear in the United States in two forms.
The first is to participate in Chinese film screenings, and the second is to have theaters in Chinese-inhabited areas directly contact domestic producers and introduce a small number of films individually.
In fact, before the 1990s, there were many theaters in American cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles that screened Chinese films. At its peak, there were five or six theaters in Los Angeles. They mainly screened Hong Kong Kung Fu films, and sometimes some with accompanying films. Mainland movies with English subtitles.
Although these cinemas are in Chinese-populated areas, they also attract many English-speaking audiences.
Movies by Hong Kong movie stars such as Chow Yun-fat, Chen Long, Zhou Xingxing, and Andy Lau still have a certain degree of appeal and influence.
So theaters in residential areas will contact domestic producers and introduce a small number of films individually.
And it will only be shown in areas where Chinese Americans gather.
Then in the mid-to-late 1990s, as the Chinese way of appreciating movies was successively replaced by video tapes, VCDs and DVDs, coupled with the increasing rise of Chinese TV stations and the Internet, Chinese cinemas gradually declined, and Chinese movies also It was once almost extinct in the American film market.
At this time, a large number of Chinese films appeared on American screens, which appeared with the rise of centralized screening events for Chinese films such as the China-US Film Festival.
The China-American Film Festival was hosted by Eagle Dragon Media Company of the United States in 2005. It united a number of media and entertainment organizations in the United States to participate, and received support from the National Film Administration of China and the American Film Association.
During the entire month of November every year, the China-American Film Festival Organizing Committee screens 200 consecutive films at more than 20 screening venues in mainstream American movie theaters in Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. Screening.
During the screening, the organizing committee will invite Chinese and American filmmakers and mainstream film institutions to observe and communicate, and will also hold academic forums at major American film schools, museums and other institutions.
Every year, the China-US Film Festival invites high-level representatives from China's mainstream film groups and film management organizations and mainstream American film organizations and film groups to participate, and holds various exchanges at major Hollywood film groups and mainstream film organizations in the United States. Through lectures and forums, we hope to build a platform for practical exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese and American film industries.
To put it bluntly, many Hollywood filmmakers are actually willing to make movies with Chinese themes because they value China's growing film market.
In the same way, this kind of cooperation objectively helps Chinese filmmakers become familiar with the vision and ideas of American filmmakers, and also helps Chinese-language films to enter the U.S. market.
It’s just that mainland filmmakers are not up to par.
In fact, many truly excellent Chinese-language films have not entered the U.S. market, which has a lot to do with insufficient promotion by agents.
For example, the movie "A City of Golden Armor" was distributed by a Japanese company.
The trick is that this film was not fully promoted in advance.
Two weeks after the release, the agency brought in a truckload of promotional materials and small gifts.
Without a good agency, it will be difficult for Chinese-language films to enter the market.
Because, publicity before the screening is very important.
Chinese-language films need to find powerful distribution agencies to promote good Chinese films as quickly as possible and with the best publicity methods.
Otherwise, when it comes to Chinese movies, Americans always think of Kung Fu movies.
According to statistics, the target audience of Chinese-language films shown in theaters in many ethnic-Chinese areas has always been clearly positioned as Chinese, and the selected films are all suitable for Chinese tastes. However, in fact, 65% of the audience is non-Chinese.
This shows that there is no market for Chinese-language films in North America.
It’s just that after many American film distribution companies purchase the copyrights of Chinese-language films, they do not intend to show them in cinemas, but to reshoot them based on the storyline or make them into DVDs for sale, so it is unlikely that they will go all out to promote them.
Under normal circumstances, when selecting movies to be released, distribution companies mainly look at the director's reputation. Movies by big-name directors such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige are more popular.
The popularity only means whether there is a publishing company to distribute it as an agent, but it does not mean whether it is fully publicized.
For example, when "The Golden Armor" was released in North America, it was cheated by Xuanfa.
Fortunately, Zhang Yimou is famous enough, and Gong Li stars in the movie, so it won 656W at the box office.
If the announcement is guaranteed and there are enough theaters, it is not impossible to earn tens of millions of dollars.
However, I was tricked by the distribution agency.
In contrast, the co-production "The King of Kung Fu" is different. Not only was it well-publicized and released, it even landed in 3,151 theaters in North America during its first week of release.
However, this film really didn't work, and it only made 52 million US dollars at the box office at the end.
Compared to the United States, China also has restrictions on imported films, and the restrictions are even more severe. Before 1994, films imported into the country would be bought out at a price of US$20,000, and the film producers could not share in the box office profits.
In 1995, China first adopted the internationally accepted accounting method, allowing 10 foreign films to participate in domestic box office accounting every year, but the accounting ratio was only 13%, which was far lower than normal The proportion of 40%-50% that can be obtained under certain circumstances.
In 1999, in order to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), China made a commitment to relax the import quotas for split-account films after joining the WTO.
In 2001, the import quota for ledger sheets was expanded to 20 units.
This number increased to 34 in the memorandum of understanding reached in 2012, and the account sharing ratio also increased from 13% to 25%.
However, as the domestic film market is getting bigger and bigger, foreign film studios naturally hope that China can abolish trade protection for films.
So, after the original memorandum of understanding expired in 2017, Hollywood negotiated with China with this goal in mind, but it was not successful.
Although Chinese-language films can enter the North American market as long as they find a distribution agent, there are many restrictions on imported films in China, which is obviously unequal.
In fact, this move not only restricts foreign films from making money out of nothing, but also protects the domestic film industry.
If the same people in the United States can enter the domestic market by just finding a distribution agent, then with the energy of Hollywood movies, the domestic film industry will be broken down in an instant. Not only will it not be able to develop, it will even become a Hollywood movie. The fish pond that harvests the box office.
In this regard, not only China has restrictions on foreign films entering the domestic market, but South Korea also has restrictions.
It is the efforts of Korean filmmakers that have prevented Hollywood movies from entering the Korean market, and the Korean film and television industry can develop.
However, more than ten years later, the efforts of Korean filmmakers ultimately came to nothing, and the entire film and television market slowly became a vassal of Hollywood.
In short, many Hollywood film and television works are relatively more sophisticated in terms of investment and production, while in South Korea, because the market is relatively small, investment and production are relatively cheap.
If Hollywood film and television works can freely enter the Korean market without restrictions, then under the survival of the fittest, cheap Korean productions will simply not be able to compete with Hollywood film and television works.
Although there are also a lot of garbage in Hollywood film and television works, but compared with garbage, the investment and production scale of Hollywood's garbage-level film and television works are also better than the garbage works produced by Korean producers.
This is also true in China.
If Hollywood film and television works can enter the country at will, not to mention making money with nothing, it will also cause a devastating blow to domestic entertainment.
Wang Shu chatted with Warner's people for a long time before leaving "still not satisfied".
He is just pretending that he is not satisfied. After all, the box office performance of "Terror Cruise" in North America depends on whether Warner can contribute.
If Warner also lets "Terror Cruise" be released in 3,000 theaters in North America, then
Wang Shu knows that this is nonsense.
But since we need to rely on Warner, we still need to have the appropriate attitude.
In fact, Warner is either infighting or infighting within the company. Handing "Terror Cruise" to Warner to be responsible for the distribution of North America may cause some troubles.
Although he really didn't want to hand it over to Warner, this company not only cooperated with China Film in China, but also established a joint venture with each other.
Furthermore, Warner is also one of the eight largest film and television companies in North America.
He really has no good reason to put it aside, so he can only accept it.
As the guests enjoyed themselves, the promotional reception for "Horror Cruise" at the Cannes Film Festival ended successfully.
During this period, many film producers expressed interest in the film, and staff from Yishu Company and China Film Group will negotiate with them later.
With China Film’s connections, Wang Shu’s fame, and Gong Li’s starring role, the distributors of “Terror Cruise” in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong Island, Taiwan, and North America have already been decided. Down.
But there are many regions in the world, and although China Film Group is big, it is not omnipotent.
If "Terror Cruise" wants to be distributed in multiple regions around the world, it still has to go to international film festivals to sell the film.
Whether it is theatrical release or DVD release, we can discuss it.
The next day, Wang Shu went out alone and met and chatted with his agent in the US stock market for a while.
The agent’s name is Tom, Tom Harris, an American.
Wang Shu gave him a list, which basically included well-known Hollywood filmmakers, including people from the academy. He told him to visit the people on the list after returning to the United States and lobby them to sell short together. U.S. housing market.
The purpose of this move is not really to succeed in Tom's lobbying, but to leave an impression in front of those people.
When Wang Shu really shorted the U.S. property market, these people would know that Tom had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Then when Tom visited again, it was a two-level reversal.
After that, when Tom leads them to make money in the stock market according to Wang Shu's will.
If Wang Shu was also involved in Hollywood at this time, whether it was an Oscar nomination or an award, the difficulty would change from the difficult mode to the easy mode accordingly.
The low-end operation is to give money, give benefits, and exchange benefits.
High-end operation not only allows everyone to make a lot of money, but also makes it clean.
On May 23, Han Sanping and other bigwigs from domestic film and television companies came to the Cannes Film Festival to begin the screening of Chinese-language films.
The organizers of Cannes have set up a separate exhibition area for the screening of Chinese films.
In addition to participating in the Unique Attention section, "Terror Cruise" is also screened in this exhibition area.
Although the setting of this movie is extremely novel in the domestic market, at the Cannes Film Festival, many filmmakers from all over the world have watched many movies, so it is right The setting of "Terror Cruise" is not surprising.
Hollywood has made many similar movies. Although the plots are different, they reach the same goal through different paths.
Not too surprised, but not too surprised, but after all, it is a rather strange movie, and it still attracts people.
In a blink of an eye, the red carpet of the closing awards ceremony on May 26 came, and Gong Li came to Cannes again in her best dress.
During the opening, Gong Li went to Cannes to cooperate with the promotion of "Terror Cruise" and then returned to the United States.
The closing awards ceremony is now held, and she is invited to attend again.
Wang Shu and his party were also invited to attend the closing red carpet.
This was a rare opportunity to win a position. Zhou Xun and Zhou Haiwei didn't want to miss it, so they both dressed up to attend.
(End of this chapter)