Over the next few days, two indicators continued to grow in Hollywood.
One thing that continues to grow is the number of female celebrities who have publicly accused Harvey of sexual assault.
When the box office of "Zombie-Master" exceeded 100 million, the number of female stars who publicly accused Harvey by their real names also exceeded ten. A total of 12 female stars came forward to denounce the harm they had suffered.
Among these 12 actresses, almost half of them were exposed because someone anonymously exposed scandalous information about Harvey on the Internet, mentioning that Harvey had unspoken rules for these actresses, so these actresses jumped out to accuse Harvey in order to protect themselves.
This matter seems to be a bit of a cold world. Harvey has indeed done many fucked-up things and abused many female stars, but there is still a large proportion of female stars among them who did it voluntarily or half-heartedly, but In order to preserve their reputations, they all put the blame on Harvey. For Harvey, the debts are too heavy and the lice don't hurt. But for these actresses, they are not willing to do it because of Harvey. Wei's incident ruined his own future.
Another data that is constantly growing is the total box office of "Zombiw-Master".
The first day was 18.5 million U.S. dollars, the second day was 33 million U.S. dollars, and the attendance rate was 100%. On the third day, theaters were impressed by the strong attraction of "Zombie-Master", and the number of films scheduled continued to increase by 20%, plus the online The rumors about Harvey and the movie continued to increase the popularity of the movie, so the attendance rate on the third day remained unchanged, still an astonishing 100%, and the total box office exceeded 41 million.
On the fourth day, theaters continued to squeeze the number of screenings and gave the film a higher rehearsal rate. The rehearsal rate increased by about 10% based on the previous day. However, the attendance rate dropped slightly and remained at 95% overall. The total box office gross was US$42 million. Within four days of its release, the box office exceeded the US$100 million mark, reaching US$134 million.
There is also good news that is expected to increase the box office. Coca-Cola and McDonald's have obtained the authorization to use the image of the new version of Chinese Zombies in "Plants vs. Zombies Online" and have begun preparations for its launch. Soon, Coca-Cola will appear in the North American market with the image of Chinese zombies. , as well as McDonald's meals and toys, which will definitely increase the movie's box office to a certain extent!
Lucas estimated that the box office of this movie may exceed the US$300 million mark, which simply overturned his understanding of the entire film industry. What made him even more unimaginable was the DVD industry's response to this movie. Now many DVD distribution companies have approached him to cooperate, hoping to obtain the DVD distribution rights in North America from him. According to estimates, if the box office can exceed 300 million US dollars, then within the next year, , the total output value of DVD should also exceed 100 million US dollars.
Lucas carefully selected the most reliable DVD distributor and signed a 5:2:3 three-party cooperation agreement. The North American DVD distribution rights were authorized by Makino Image to Lucas, and Makino Image obtained all DVDs. 50% of the distribution revenue, and of the remaining 50%, Lucas takes 20% and the DVD distributors take 30%.
It seems like Lucas suffered a bit, but in fact he is the most profitable one. As the copyright holder, Li Mu also paid copyright costs when he obtained the copyright, and DVD distributors not only have to bear the production, promotion and sales of DVD releases The three links of work also bear the risk of loss of production costs, but Lucas doesn't have to pay for anything. He just needs to sit down and sign the three-party agreement, and he will get 20% of the net profit.
The North American market has a box office space of 300 million U.S. dollars and a DVD distribution space of 100 million U.S. dollars. This data has made Hollywood unable to complain. Seeing an 85-year-old Hong Kong movie making so much money, many Hollywood distributors have begun to set their sights on it. It’s Hong Kong.
The success of "Zombie-Master" made Hollywood realize that in fact, the North American film market does not have obvious peaks and troughs. It seems that Christmas and summer are the peak box office, but this does not mean that 3 and 4 No matter how bad the box office market is in May, September, October and November, the key is to have films that can mobilize audiences to pay.
In order to ensure revenue, Hollywood blockbusters basically focus on the Christmas and summer holidays, which has resulted in the embarrassing situation of few major productions being released in other time periods. Although Hollywood is reluctant to move major productions to these time periods, this During this time period, you can introduce some high-quality overseas movies at low cost, and then use them to tap the box office potential of non-popular time periods.
After all, theater chains are not popsicle stands. The latter are all over the streets in the summer and disappear without a trace after the summer. However, whether it is the peak period or the trough period, every theater, every cinema and every The seats are there, even if they are vacant during the low period, they cannot be demolished or used for other purposes.
"Zombie-Master" took advantage of such a coincidence. Anyway, there are no films competing now, and there are not many people competing for theater resources, so it gave "Zombie-Master" the hardware foundation for a box office explosion.
Hollywood also learned a practical lesson from this incident. In this case, it might as well be like Lucas who introduced "Zombie-Master" and then cooperated with Makino Technology to promote it, and use some overseas ready-made products during this period. film rights.
A few days ago, the Hong Kong film industry was still cursing Li Mu's low-price raiding methods. He took away all the copyrights of zombie movies in Hong Kong to make a lot of money. As a result, the money given to Hong Kong film and television companies was not even 1% of what he earned. No, purely based on this ratio, in their eyes, Li Mu is really the most cunning businessman in the world.
But as the box office of "Zombie-Master" in North America is getting higher and higher, it has achieved great success in just a few days, and the Hong Kong film industry has also ushered in a new spring.
Hollywood distributors and film and television companies have approached Hong Kong film and television companies and actively sought cooperation, hoping to reach copyright cooperation with them. The cooperation model is that they will select suitable Hong Kong movies and then negotiate with the copyright owners for North American screening rights. buyout price, sign a buyout agreement, and then a Hollywood distributor will release the film in North America.
Originally, Hollywood might not be able to buy a few copyrights from Hong Kong a year, but now, there are more than 50 Hong Kong movies that Hollywood is interested in, and many of these Hong Kong film companies have already reached agreements with Hollywood film and television companies. After signing a cooperation agreement, due to the success of "Zombie-Master", the copyright price of Hong Kong movies has increased several times than before.
One of the more representative ones is "Infernal Affairs" released in Hong Kong last year. This movie was originally called a rescue film for Hong Kong movies, and its quality is very high. It is a rare high-quality film in recent years. However, Before Universal Asia, it seemed that this movie had no chance of being released in North America. But this time, several Hollywood film companies came swarming to compete for the film rights of "Infernal Affairs", and the price was once as high as 8 million. U.S. dollars, you know, the total box office of "Infernal Affairs" in Hong Kong was only 55 million Hong Kong dollars, which is about 7 million U.S. dollars.
Uniasia had been cheated by Li Mu before. It sold the rights to a bunch of zombie movies including "Mr. Zombie" to Li Mu for a price of only about 100,000 US dollars. As a result, after Li Mu took it, it was only broadcast on TV. The rights were sold for hundreds of millions, and the North American box office now exceeds one billion Hong Kong dollars. In comparison, Asia Pacific really lost money.
So this time when Hollywood wanted to buy the rights to "Infernal Affairs" and the price reached US$8 million, Uniasia hesitated.
In the eyes of Universal Asia, "Infernal Affairs" is much stronger than "Mr. Zombie" in terms of production cost, production scale and star lineup, and the quality and depth of the movie are even different. If "Mr. Zombie" is It can earn hundreds of millions at the box office in North America. For a phenomenal work like "Infernal Affairs", even if it costs less than $100 million, there is still hope, right? If the box office is calculated based on US$100 million, and only 25% is taken, US$25 million will be gained, which is much better than selling it for US$8 million.
Therefore, Uniasia offered Hollywood a 30% share of the box office distribution rights for "Infernal Affairs" in North America, along with a guaranteed income of US$10 million.
In other words, whoever wants to get the North American distribution rights of "Infernal Affairs" must first give UniAsia a guarantee of US$10 million, and then release the film in North America. If the box office revenue after the release reaches US$33.33 million, According to the 30% account sharing ratio, it is exactly the same as the guaranteed amount of 10 million required by Uniasia. If the total box office does not reach 33.33 million US dollars, Uniasia will not refund a dime, and the publisher will have to pay the loss on its own. bear.
If the total box office exceeds US$33.33 million, the distributor will provide additional revenue sharing to Uniasia. For example, if the box office eventually reaches US$100 million, at a ratio of 30%, Uniasia will share US$30 million, in addition to what has been paid With a minimum guarantee of US$10 million, the issuer will pay another US$20 million to Asia Pacific.
The reason why UniAsia offers such cooperation conditions is entirely based on the successful precedent of "Mr. Zombie". However, people in Hollywood are not stupid at all. They know why "Zombie-Master" is such a success. The most important reason is that The hit game "Plants vs. Zombies Online" is being supported, coupled with the strong promotion capabilities of Makino Technology, the unswerving support of Muying Ticketing System, Li Mu's huge profit concessions to theaters, and the various activities Li Mu has done through Muying Ticketing System. kind of promotional activities.
Li Mu has so many resources as factors for success that he promoted "Zombie-Master". On the other hand, does "Infernal Affairs" have these resources
The answer is of course no.
Therefore, a one-shot deal of US$8 million was the highest offer that Hollywood could offer to Uniasia. No Hollywood company was willing to guarantee Uniasia a minimum share, which made Uniasia feel particularly uncomfortable, but it still insisted on its own offer.
Asia Asia's ambitions caused Hollywood distributors to back down. One moment they were competing for the North American distribution rights of the film, and the next they announced their withdrawal from the competition and then set their sights on other companies. Hong Kong movies.
Huanya thought this was a joint effort by several Hollywood companies to lower prices, and was extremely tough at first. However, seeing that there was no news from these companies after they all left, it became anxious, and then went back to these companies to express their willingness. Certain concessions have been made to the original guaranteed amount and share ratio. It used to be 30% with a guaranteed bottom of US$10 million, but now it is 25% with a guaranteed bottom of US$8 million.
Several Hollywood companies still refused to accept it.
A negotiator from one of the companies said to the person in charge of the negotiation of Huanya: "If you can bring Makino Technology in to cooperate together, we are willing to give you a guarantee of 20 million, but if there is no Li Mu, we have carefully considered it. The previous buyout offer of US$8 million was a bit irrational, and the highest buyout offer we can give should be about US$5 million."
Huan Ya suddenly felt depressed. How come he still kept talking about it? One moment, eight million, another moment, five million, which is scarier than the stock market crash!
(End of chapter)