Due to time difference and mileage, Simon arrived in Beijing at around seven o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, September 29.
Chen Qing came to pick him up as usual.
After getting in the car and leaving the airport, we chatted for a while about Simon's trip to Moscow, and then talked about the recent excitement in the film industry in China.
Mainly about "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin".
Just last Saturday, on the evening of September 27, when Simon was in Ukraine, "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" directed by Chen had a grand premiere at the Great Hall and was scheduled to be released tomorrow, just in time for the National Day holiday.
Controversy ensued.
We have to start from the beginning. Overseas, even if it received nothing at the previous Venice Film Festival, the media reputation of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" is not bad.
Then there's Japan.
The main investor in this film is Japan, and over the years, it is clear whether a film can win awards in the West, and the possibility of being an upset is very low. Therefore, when "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" was completed, the Japanese investors, who basically had no expectations for awards, arranged for the project to be released in Japan in early May before the summer season before the movie was screened in Venice.
The results can be said to be very good.
In the first week of its release, the film ranked third in the box office list that week. By the end of the year, "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" has earned a cumulative box office of 1.4 billion yen in Japan, which is equivalent to 83 million yuan at the current exchange rate. .
Because the market is mature, the box office share of Japanese theater producers is higher than that of China and South Korea, about 50%. This means that "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" only recovered more than 40 million yuan in revenue during the Japanese theater release stage. Video tapes and TV broadcast channels are expected to reach about 40 million.
Then there are the European and American markets.
Although it fell short of Venice in terms of honors, relying on the reputation accumulated from the previous "Farewell My Concubine" and the success of the previous "Hero", the film's copyright sales in Europe and the United States also reached 7 million US dollars.
Converted into RMB, Japan recovered 80 million, and Europe and the United States recovered 60 million, totaling 140 million. Even if Director Chen increased the project cost from 70 million to 100 million, he had already achieved a pretty good profit.
Even Simon was a little surprised.
Because Jinshu also had investments, Simon initially thought that the film would be in vain. Unexpectedly, it had already made a lot of money even before it was released in China.
Of course, it's still incomparable to "Hero".
Even if the global distribution continues, "Hero" is expected to have a global box office of more than 200 million US dollars, which is equivalent to more than 10 times that of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" converted into RMB.
Then there’s China.
When "Heroes" was released, Simon adopted a large-scale model of introducing overseas public opinion to set the tone of the film's reputation in advance, which avoided the kind of controversy in history to the greatest extent. In addition, the film's excellent marketing and the publicity after "Titanic" Mobilizing national sentiment, "Hero" finally had a box office of 320 million in mainland China.
A huge success.
However, this time, "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" does not have the luck of "Hero".
The domestic distributor of the film is China Film Group, which has the success story of "Hero". Of course, China Film Group will not ignore its experience. It also promoted the reputation of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" at the Venice Film Festival a few days ago. In addition, there are also films in the film industry. It has been released in the Japanese market with an excellent box office of 1.4 billion yen, equivalent to 83 million. For Chinese-language films, this is definitely a very impressive result.
Unfortunately, the problem still lies in the plot of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" itself.
Let's talk about "Hero" first. This is basically a completely fictional story set in the Qin Dynasty. Since the story is largely fictional, there is actually not much to tangle with in terms of plot.
However, "Jing Ke assassinated the King of Qin", the same assassination of Qin, this is what actually happened in history.
Here comes the problem.
The Japanese don't understand the history of China, so they take "Jing Ke's Assassination of the King of Qin", just like the Three Kingdoms. They can read it with interest without going into details. However, for the Chinese, who doesn't know that Jing Ke assassinated Qin, and who doesn't know that "the wind rustles and the water becomes cold, and a strong man never comes back"
As a result, what everyone saw was Dao Chen's fancy modification of the history of Jing Ke's assassination of Qin.
This is really unacceptable.
Therefore, after the premiere in the bustling auditorium, the media immediately became noisy. Basically, they were all criticizing. The trend was to accuse the movie of being a "fake" and "far-fetched". Anyway, there were not many good things to say.
In a car driving from the Capital Airport to the city.
Chen Qing leaned on her boss and talked about this matter: "With the current trend of public opinion, if it is released tomorrow, the box office will not be over 100 million, let alone 50 million, it may be even lower. Moreover, although we made money this time, everyone Understand, what is consumed is actually the reputation accumulated by the last "Farewell My Concubine", and even the popularity that "Hero" has just accumulated for Chinese films. The Japanese investors responsible for overseas distribution probably also see this, and the overseas market is basically It has been sold out. Recently it was released in some European countries, and the box office is completely incomparable to "Hero". The distributors want to return the film, and Director Chen's reputation has collapsed."
Simon couldn't say anything about it.
In my memory, Director Chen did go silent for some years after "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" and could only film TV series and the like.
Her boss didn't say anything, but Chen Qing thought of something else: "Boss, Daenerys should have obtained the distribution rights of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin". Isn't it also a buyout?"
Simon shook his head and said: "Split."
Ella Deutschman also specifically discussed this project with Simon, because after seeing the finished film, she was really not confident, and the Gomen Pictures team was only willing to pay a maximum of US$300,000 to win the North American omni-channel rights of the film. The Japanese film studios operating the project overseas naturally disagreed, and finally signed a sharing agreement.
Probably also wanted to give it a try.
The film is scheduled to be released on a small scale next month, with only about 50 screens available. If it cannot make a splash, there will be no consequences.
Simon actually didn't want the film to enter North American theaters at all.
As Chen Qing said just now, it is easy to consume the popularity that Chinese-language films have finally accumulated. But there is no way. Many things cannot be purely based on commercial interests. When the impact is not big, human relations must be taken into consideration.
Chen Qing was relieved when her boss said it was a share, and then added: "Also, because the media has made accusations about "Jing Ke's Assassination of the King of Qin" in the past few days, China Film Group has criticized the three parts of "Chu and Han" Qu was a little hesitant again. This project is also based on historical facts and has been adapted to a large extent?"
Simon was not worried. He covered Chen Qing's groping little hand with a pair of big hands and said, "It's different. "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" is positioned as a historical drama, and it's a more serious one that leans towards historical facts. , at least the audience subconsciously thinks so. When the results are not as good as they expected, criticism is inevitable. The positioning of the "Chu and Han" trilogy is similar to that of "Heroes", war martial arts films, since it involves 'martial arts', Similarly, the audience will subconsciously recognize the fictional elements in it. And, the most important thing is that the movie is made for the audience after all. I have seen the finished film of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", and most viewers probably won't like it too much. For the "Chu and Han" trilogy, it will still be the same as "Hero", or it will be a step up from "Hero". It is a standard commercial film. As long as the finished film is not much different from our original concept, the result will be the same as "Hero". It won’t be too different.”
After Chen Qing listened carefully, she nodded with a smile and said, "I will tell them the boss's original words later and see who keeps talking."
Simon just smiled and said no more.
It was just after eight o'clock in the morning when we arrived at the big house in Maoer Hutong in the city center.
Although it was a nine-hour flight, the Boeing 767 was comfortable enough, and Simon didn't need much rest. After a short rest, he started his schedule here.
For three hours in the morning, I first went to the Levison International Center construction site. While checking the progress of the project construction, I had a small meeting with the team in charge. With Chen Qing watching, Simon actually had nothing to worry about. The main thing was to see it on the spot. , be aware of it.
Then went to Zhongguancun.
Here we met with several new technology teams, mainly Xiangshan Network, which is responsible for the game business, and World Online, which focuses on e-commerce.
Both company teams officially launched their products this summer.
Among them, Xiangshan Network, which is responsible for the operation of "StarCraft", is not as popular as "Counter-Strike OL" obtained by Suzhou Jiangnan Interactive Entertainment, but it is still off to a good start. As for Huanyu Online, Huanyu Mall started operations in July. It is still in a state of burning money and exploring, and its market scope is limited to the Beijing area.
At present, Chinese residents still attach great importance to purchasing large household appliances. Online shopping, a relatively virtual channel, inevitably has concerns. Therefore, the start of World Online is not as good as expected, and there is still a long way to go.
Simon is not in a hurry about this either.
Now that we have seen the future, China has fostered a bunch of teams, both direct and collateral, and how many will succeed in the end.
Moreover, because he basically monopolizes the current domestic traffic portal channels in China, Simon is not even too worried about Cheng Yaojin who will appear halfway this time. With no traffic, no customers, and even no online payment channels like Yipay, Simon doesn’t think it can succeed...well, of course he doesn’t.
Just kill him.
At noon, we rushed to the headquarters of the Human Society on the north shore of Houhai.
Chen Qing selected a group of guests from all over the country in advance, mainly the heads of key investment companies of the Westeros system in China. Everyone had a meal and chat, and then drank tea and listened to music until three o'clock in the afternoon. .
In the rest of the afternoon, Chen Qing and I went to see the decoration status of the two apartment buildings in the Guanchengyuan community we bought last time. In the evening, we returned to Maoer Hutong and made simple preparations. As usual, we went to Huangchenggen to participate in a convention. reception dinner.
We didn't return again until ten o'clock in the evening.
A night of silence.
The next day is Wednesday, September 30th.
Tomorrow is the National Day. In addition to the large-scale opening of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin" today, Simon only found out during breakfast that there is another small project of Jinshu that will be released at the same time, called "Nothing Happens".
That's right, it's the one starring Mr. Feng in "Having Fun with Nothing".
Simon originally thought about letting Uncle Feng appear in "Love Call Transfer", but of course it didn't happen in the end. Unexpectedly, he later hooked up with Jin Shu.
The project was brokered by Zhang Guoshi, and the script came from Zhang Guoshi’s royal screenwriter, a well-known celebrity in the domestic industry. He not only participated in Zhang Guoshi’s early films such as "Ju Dou" and "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit", the original timeline, Later, he also wrote major productions such as "Assembly Number" and "Jinling Thirteen Hairpins".
This time the urban comedy "Nothing Happens" is also written by the other party. Depending on the genre, it can be said that he is an absolute all-rounder.
Compared with the large investment of "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin", "Nothing Happens" only has a budget of 6 million. As long as the theater box office can exceed 10 million, and if it collects a little more in the future, it can enter the profit cycle. Therefore, compared to "Jing Ke's Assassination of the King of Qin" where all parties worry about gains and losses, Jinshu's attitude towards "Stealing Fun when Nothing Happens" is very relaxed.
Now that we are talking about "Nothing Happens", it is inevitable to talk about the development of Jinshu Series in China over the past six months.
Simon had really let go before and stopped paying attention to many things, so he didn't know anything about them.
As of September this year, Jinshu is still having a good year. This year's "Kangxi Private Interview" and the second season of "Super Girl" are still at a phenomenal level. There are also several key TV projects such as "Mansion Gate" waiting to be released. , in terms of movies, "Party A and Party B" and "Flash Girl", a collaboration with China Film Group Corporation, are both in the final stages of production and are targeting next year's Lunar New Year release.
Another film, "To Our Mortal Youth", was planned at the same time as "Flash Girl", but it was postponed for a year because it could not make it in time for this summer. Since there was enough time, Jinshu kept improving and planned to shoot in installments and collect footage from all four seasons of the year to give the story a sense of passage of time.
After completing the first phase of filming in the summer, we are now waiting for the winter vacation at the end of the year.
The schedule is next summer.
Then there is the "Chu and Han" trilogy. This is also a multi-party cooperation project. Even with all kinds of ups and downs, Zhang Guoshi has already formed a team and is in the early stage of scene viewing and casting. Of course, the development progress of the project that Simon initially expected to launch the first part at the end of 1999 is definitely not in progress. To be on the safe side, the first part will not be released until the end of 2000.
The two-year cycle undoubtedly means greater risks, not to mention the continuous shooting of a trilogy, which is why China Film has always been scrupulous.
At the same time, I can’t stop.
If it succeeds, it’s still the same sentence, political achievement.
Now that he was sure to let go, Simon had no plans to go to Jinshu this time. After continuing to spend the day in the capital, he was about to fly to Hangzhou in the evening. After all, tomorrow is the little guy's 1st birthday. Okay, but unexpectedly, Ren Jingxi came to the door after hearing the news.
He said that "Legend of Sword and Fairy" was basically completed, and he wanted Simon to help take a look at it.
No time.
However, the woman persisted and said that if it didn't work, she could follow him on the plane and watch the movie and discuss it on the way.
Simon had no choice but to agree.
We didn't discuss it on the plane, but arranged to go to Suzhou to celebrate the little guy's birthday and also go there.