Chapter 214 This is not blood
Now United Artists has reached the stage of survival. Apart from the signatures of its eight major companies, the only valuable things left are the 007 series and the "Rocky" series. .
The vitality of these two IPs is huge. Stallone's "Rocky" series has produced five films, and later the "Creed" series was derived.
The 007 series is even more outrageous. Before Yang Ye's time travel, spanning 60 years, a total of 25 films were released, with 6 different Bonds, and the cumulative box office exceeded 8 billion US dollars.
As for the early days of United Artists, the IPs of ancient greats such as Chaplin and Mary Pickford were all silent films. They were old and of little use any more.
Moreover, the copyrights of "King of Movies" Griffith's two most awesome films, "The Birth of a Nation" and "We Are Different", do not belong to United Artists, because they were shot before he founded United Artists.
The "Withering Flowers" filmed by Griffith at United Artists could be remade as a gimmick as Yang Ye's first venture after taking over United Artists.
Because this movie is about a love story between a Chinese young man and a Western girl.
There is a laughing scene in this movie, which has been paid tribute to many classic movies including "Tang Bohu Spots Autumn Fragrance" and "Joker"!
It is not difficult to acquire United Artists. It is ridden with debt and is worried that no one will take over.
Even if Yang Ye does not acquire it this year, it will be absorbed by MGM next year.
Yang Ye’s question is, how can we control this company?
Hollywood is a Jewish world, and what Jews are best at is controlling the news media and using public opinion to stir up trouble.
It would be easier if Yang Ye was a white man. After all, Hong Kong is now under the British rule, and Americans are not so sensitive.
But he is Chinese, so this is difficult!
The Jewish news media can use public opinion to make him disgraced by fanning the flames.
Ten years later, what happened to Sony when it acquired Hollywood giant Columbia?
At that time, Columbia’s stock price per share was US$12, and Sony offered US$27, a super double!
After the acquisition was completed, "Newsweek" put the Colombian goddess logo in a kimono and wrote on the front page: "Japanese invade Hollywood!?"
With the help of the media, , the Americans were angry and regarded it as a territorial invasion.
Subsequently, the Americans filed various unfounded lawsuits in various ways.
So, how did Sony respond?
As long as you come to sue me, I will compensate you. I will compensate you US$2.7 billion a year. The compensation will be so great that the Americans can’t find an excuse to sue you, so I will ask you if you accept it?
In order to calm the hostile sentiments of Americans, Sony also made a special guarantee: the film company will operate entirely as an American company.
The meaning of this statement at the time was to allow the Americans hired to have full autonomy to be responsible for management.
As a result, the management team received salaries from American companies, but never acted according to the performance appraisal system of American companies.
Sony's US management team cleverly used the intimidation from the media to make Sony suffer.
Of course, Sony's acquisition of Colombia was a bad thing done in the context of the era when the Japanese were waving checks to buy in the United States. It will definitely be targeted wildly. Yang Ye's current purchase of United Artists will not be the same.
Furthermore, United Airlines is known as one of the top eight, but its actual size is nothing compared to a real big player like Colombia.
According to data from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), in 1980, the total box office in North America was US$2.749 billion, while United Artists' market share was less than 2%, and its annual revenue was only tens of millions of US dollars.
After deducting various expenses, the interest payments are not enough, and we suffer losses every year.
Even so, it is almost impossible for Yang Ye to join United Artists as a Chinese.
Even if he does it forcefully, those Jews will incite the news media to target him crazily afterwards, and he will eventually leave the scene sadly.
You know, the news media in the United States are all in the hands of Jews.
Yang Ye is not as wealthy as Sony, so he just used money to convince those grandsons.
Unless... Yang Ye is only a small shareholder.
However, after careful planning, he led White and Shea to make such a large sum of money, then went to great lengths to acquire United Artists, and finally became a small shareholder?
How is this possible?
If you can’t control this company, is there any point in acquiring it?
I made wedding dresses for others!
It would be better to just use the old New Line Cinema to get by slowly.
When he decided to acquire United Artists, Yang Ye made it clear to Shay and White: After the acquisition is successful, I will hold 51% of the shares and become the shareholder who decides to control the company!
The 100 million start-up capital used by the three of them to acquire United Artists was all earned under the command of Yang Ye, who showed unparalleled talent in the film industry.
This basically means that you can make money as soon as you get in the car, so neither of them has any objections.
The question now is: How can Yang Ye achieve 51% of the shares?
Yang Ye looked at his daughter...Elena Adjani, who had just turned one year old.
......
Yang Ye said to Adjani: "I am going to set up a fund, and the beneficiary of the fund is Irina Adjani. This foundation participated in the acquisition of United Artists After the successful acquisition, the company will hold 28% of the shares and become the company’s second largest shareholder. Since Irina is a minor, her shares will be held in escrow by her mother, which is you, Isabel Adjani!”
"In addition, you will also become a shareholder of Lianmei Company, holding 3% of the shares. And I will hold 20% of the shares. In other words, we, a family of three, hold 51% of the shares. We have the final say in this company. . Shay is already negotiating with United Artists. In order to successfully complete this acquisition, you need to immigrate to the United States with Elaine as soon as possible and participate in it.”
Yang Ye’s method is to use Adjani as a buffer. , going in a big circle to control United Artists.
It was impossible for Yang Ye to directly give money to Adjani and ask her to control Lianmei.
Neither husband nor wife can trust each other, let alone lovers.
But they have a common daughter, Elena, which is different.
With Elena here, coupled with Yang Ye's super ability in the film industry, it is almost impossible for Adjani to betray Yang Ye, and she will only choose to stand firmly with Yang Ye.
What Yang Ye wants is just the decision-making power of Lianmei so that he can control the development direction of this company.
As for the money not being in Yang Ye's hands in the future, he doesn't really care.
As long as Yang Ye can accept it in Elena's hands, it will be regarded as property distributed to her daughter.
Yang Ye does not want United Artists to dominate Hollywood, unify the North American entertainment industry, or establish a media empire.
He is a Chinese and wants to control the North American media industry?
I want to eat shit!
Sony bought Colombia and it was like that. If it buys a TV station, a newspaper, etc.... it buys a hammer!
Yang Ye has come up with this weird model by beating around the bush and going in circles. If it doesn’t become bigger, others will just turn a blind eye and close their eyes.
If you are really greedy and want to dominate the world, you will definitely be madly targeted, and then this trick will not work.
Fighting hand-to-hand with Jews on the territory of the United States is not something a wise person would do.
As a Chinese, Yang Ye’s core competitiveness will always be in Asia.
The only way is to rely on the mainland and base ourselves on Hong Kong to expand the influence of Chinese culture in the world.
This is why Yang Ye worked so hard to change some foreign IPs to Chinese IPs.
As for United Artists, just get some IP so that it can continue to make profits and ensure that it does not fall behind and will not be expelled from the ranks of Hollywood giants.
In this way, Yang Ye can always maintain a certain influence in Hollywood.
The real role of United Artists is to become the bridgehead for Poplar Pictures to enter the North American market!
As the saying goes...
The east wind blows the poplars, and the militiamen burst into tears!
......
Adjani originally thought that Yang Ye was just here to celebrate her daughter's first birthday, but she didn't expect that he would bring such big news.
Although after the successful acquisition of United Artists, the equity belongs to my daughter, it is no different from her.
"Am I...going from an actor to a capitalist all of a sudden?"
This was too much information, and she couldn't digest it for a while.
"Honey, I have to think about it!" Adjani said.
"My dear, let's think about it tomorrow, let's do something happy!" After chatting with such a peerless beauty for so long, Yang Ye's meaning was already self-evident.
...
After negotiating with Adjani, Adjani began to take Elena to apply for immigration to the United States.
As a French national treasure actress, Adjani will not have any difficulty immigrating to the United States, it will only take a minute.
Although the French people will be unhappy!
However, the rich have no nationality. France’s terrifying rich tax causes the rich in France to think about two things all day long...
Immigration, or tax evasion!
Many years later, Adjani was caught evading taxes. Many people in China said that her house collapsed. This was a normal thing in France.
French national treasure actor Gérard Depardie said directly because he couldn't stand the tax on the rich: I want to immigrate to the country of furry bears.
After Emperor Mao Xiong found out, he actually issued him a passport himself.
After receiving the passport, Depardi openly tweeted and cheered: The Emperor is great, Hollande (President of France) should go to hell!
This is not to say that tax evasion is right, tax evasion is definitely wrong, but high-income people will definitely find ways to evade tax.
After initiating the application to immigrate to the United States, you still have to wait for a while to go through the process.
Adjani simply took her daughter and Yang Ye to the United States. As for making a comeback and taking on roles...
I am going to Hollywood to become a tycoon after accepting a shitty role. .
Another purpose of Yang Ye coming to France is to chase his wife Lin Qingxia.
But... after Lin Qingxia got the news that Yang Ye had come to France, she ran away again.
This poor girl is trapped by love and doesn't know how to deal with it, so she can only choose to escape again and again.
……
Los Angeles, New Line Cinema screening room.
Yang Ye and others are watching the company's new work, "The Shining"!
Two years ago, Yang Ye suggested to Xie that he ask big directors to make horror films and raise the quality of this stuff to change people's prejudice against horror films.
And named the super director Stanley Kubrick.
Although Shea found Kubrick notoriously difficult to work with, he eventually brought him out.
For the past two years, Shay has been driven to the point of collapse by Kubrick.
For example, the scene in the movie where "a sea of blood rushes out of the elevator door" was hailed as a classic by later generations. However, during the filming, Kubrick always said that this thing did not look like blood and had to be replaced. .
It took nearly a year to complete this shot.
Kubrick was still a NG maniac. In order to get the shots he wanted, he kept wasting film without feeling any pain.
In the end, the production cost of the movie continued to rise, and the movie was repeatedly postponed...
Fortunately...after all the twists and turns, the movie was finally completed and will be released.
Although he had seen it a long time ago, Yang Ye still said to Kubrick sincerely: "Congratulations, this is a masterpiece!"
Kubrick himself was also very satisfied with the movie. He smiled and said: "Nick, I want to thank you. Your vision is very accurate and you found the right heroine for me."
Two years ago At the Cannes Film Festival Awards Ceremony, Yang Ye served as the award guest and presented the award to Shelly Duvall, who won the Best Actress.
On the stage, Yang Ye expressed that he wanted to cooperate with Shelly Duvall. The girl was a little strange at the time.
Later, she really received a call, inviting her to play the heroine of "The Shining", and finally achieved this masterpiece.
Shay said: "Can you discuss how to edit our trailer?"
Shea was fed up with Kubrick. He didn't want to discuss cutting the trailer with Kubrick, so he pushed the matter onto Yang Ye and asked Yang Ye to deal with Kubrick.
Yang Ye said strangely: "You don't have to ask, it's a horror movie. Of course, why is it so scary?"
Xie Yi said: "The most terrifying thing is the scene where the sea of blood rushes out of the elevator. I also used a broom to sweep blood in the corridor, but it was a pity that I couldn’t use it.”
“Why?”
“Because of MPAA regulations, non-restricted trailers cannot be shown in the screen. Blood. "
MPAA is the abbreviation of the Motion Picture Association of America. They have the final say on film matters. It can be simply understood as American Broadcasting and Television.
The American film rating system was created by them.
The main members are jointly held by the chairmen and presidents of the eight major Hollywood film companies.
This is also the reason why Yang Ye wants to acquire Lian Mei.
Although United Artists is a bad guy now, it is definitely one of the top eight companies and occupies a valuable spot in the MPAA!
With this quota, you can participate in the formulation of game regulations and become an advanced player.
If we don’t acquire United Artists and directly develop New Line, we may never be able to get this quota, because this quota will not increase.
In 1981, after MGM absorbed United Artists, the list of members directly became seven.
In 2005, after Sony acquired MGM, the list of members directly became six.
In 2019, after Mickey Mouse acquired Fox, there were five companies.
However, Netflix finally squeezed in with its strong strength and became the new top six, breaking the rule that the member list would not increase.
After hearing this weird regulation from the MPAA, Yang Ye curled his lips and said, "We can explain to the MPAA that that's not blood, that's red paint!"
Kubrick and Shay was dumbfounded: "Is this okay?"
"Why not? Have you ever seen so much blood? Is it normal to say it's paint?"
Kubrick I thought it made sense, so I cut a version of the trailer myself, with blood everywhere.
When asked by the MPAA, Shea said without changing his expression: "This is paint!"
Staff: "It's on his face too?"
"When I was cleaning it, it was on my face. Paint!”
“Okay!”
MPAA actually believed it!
Xie Yi asked Yang Ye strangely: "Why would they believe it?"
Yang Ye spread his hands: "How do I know?"
The reason why Yang Ye came up with such a bad idea is because of the original time and space This is how Kubrick fooled the MPAA.
After the trailer was released on the TV station, it attracted a large number of viewers' interest. In the end, the local box office reached US$44 million, ranking 14th in the annual box office in North America.
Although due to Kubrick's repeated delays and a lot of waste, the cost of this movie was as high as 19 million US dollars.
But including overseas box office, it can still make a lot of money.
Coupled with its good reputation and huge reputation in horror films, the sales of discs continued to flourish in the following decades, making it a real money tree.
After this battle, Xie Yi no longer has any doubts about Yang Ye's vision!
(End of this chapter)