After Li Mu promised to help Chen Kaige promote movies at the dinner table, Li Mu gradually became the focus of the conversation at the dinner table. Gong Li also took the opportunity to chat and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, my new movie will be released next month. I wonder if I could ask you to help promote my new movie?"
Li Mu knew little about the film market situation before 2005. Apart from some relatively famous big movies, he had no idea what other movies would be released at what stage, so he curiously asked her: "What is the name of Sister Li's new movie?" name?"
"Zhou Yu's Train." Gong Li said: "This drama will be released on the 1st of next month. I will star in it with Sun Honglei and Liang Jiahui."
Li Mu nodded. He had watched this movie when he was young. He couldn't remember the specific plot. He only remembered that Gong Li was quite charming in it. Sun Honglei was not very popular at this time, so the influence of this movie seemed to be mediocre. However, Li Mu still adopted the strategy just now, and accepted it with an attitude of not being completely sure at first, saying: "I will go back and communicate with the company to see the latest content schedule. If I can find a way to find a way, I will definitely help."
Gong Li smiled heartily, nodded and thanked: "No matter what, I would like to thank Mr. Li first."
Ge You smiled and joked at this time: "You all have new plays this year, but I don't. It's hard to get to know a very capable person like Mr. Li, but I still can't ask for help. I feel really sad." It’s not an ordinary loss.”
Gong Li smiled and said, "You are poor. The box office results of your New Year films in recent years are obvious to all. Last year, the number of big names exceeded 40 million. Except for Pearl Harbor, you were the highest. We don't know how much we envy you."
"Hey." Ge You said seriously: "That's in the past, okay? We're not talking about this year. You all have new dramas this year, but I don't. Am I right? You can all go to Li I always help promote new dramas, and I also want to speak up, but there are no new dramas released this year. You can tell me that I am so grateful."
Gong Li joked: "Don't you have two movies coming next year? One of them is director Feng's New Year's film. In my opinion, the box office will definitely exceed 50 million!"
Ge You laughed and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, if I ask you for help next year, you must remember me."
Li Mu nodded and said: "Don't worry, if you have new dramas to be released next year, you can tell me in advance." After a pause, Li Mu added: "I think there are actually many places where we can cooperate. Makino Image now also We want to participate in the production of more film and television dramas. At the same time, within the framework of the entire Makino Technology, we also hope to get involved in the theater market. However, we have no foundation in the film and television industry and do not understand many things very well. We will also need you in this regard in the future. Professional help.”
Director Chen asked curiously: "Mr. Li, Makino Technology wants to get involved in theaters?"
Li Mu nodded: "I have always been interested in theaters, but I haven't had the opportunity to get involved in this industry."
Director Chen said: "With the strength of Makino Technology, it will be very easy for you to build theater chains. Now is a great time for theater chain reform. Many new theater chains are also busy opening up territories. Based on my personal experience, I believe that the theater chain market will become more and more popular in the future, and when China joined the WTO, it promised to open up Hong Kong investment and foreign investment in theater chains to enter the field of theater chain renovation in the mainland. By then, the market will gradually heat up."
Li Mu asked him: "Does Director Chen understand the current situation of theaters in Yanjing?"
Director Chen nodded: "Yanjing currently has several established theater chains, among which China Film and New Film Alliance are relatively large. However, they also have big problems at the moment. The construction standards of new theaters are high, and the cost of renovation of old theaters is high. At present, it costs at least 20 million to build a multiplex cinema, and at least 10 million to renovate one. It is very difficult for the cinema chain. Now when I am looking for financing everywhere, I heard that the most profitable joint cinema chain in Shanghai is At the moment, they cannot bear the cost of theater transformation. Their annual revenue is only tens of millions. If the spring of the movie box office has not arrived yet and there is no capital to participate in it, they will not be able to quickly realize the theater transformation. If Mr. Li If you are really interested in theater chains, you can talk to them. It will be faster to invest in existing theater chains than to build one yourself."
Li Mu was surprised. Although Director Chen had repeatedly failed at the box office in his later films, he did not expect that he had a very deep understanding of the film market. What he said made Li Mu feel a little itchy. If we look at the situation in his previous life, now The movie box office has just begun to enter a stage of slowly rising, but this stage will suddenly fall to a freezing point when SARS arrives in the first half of next year. If you want to close theaters, actually the SARS period next year is the best stage. , but Li Mu didn't want to wait that long, and he didn't want to have a reputation of making money in a desperate situation. If he could invest in a stake or even acquire several theater chains now, it would be really timely.
The history of economic development in many countries shows a striking similarity, that is: when a country's per capita GDP exceeds 6,000 US dollars, the country's cultural, sports and entertainment market will definitely usher in a blowout development. This will be the case in the future. China will also get perfect proof of this. China has gradually developed from a market with an annual box office of less than one billion yuan to the largest market in the world. It only took a total of more than ten years to reach the era of movie box office blowout. Those in the film industry that hold the greatest interests and say are theater chains.
Li Mu has long wanted to lay out theater chains in advance. On the one hand, he will develop his own theater chains, and on the other hand, he will develop his own online ticketing business.
His assumption was that if Makino Imaging could have a theater chain controlled by itself within this year or next year at the latest, he then asked Fang Xudong to take the lead in developing an online theater seat selection and ticketing system, referred to as an online ticketing system.
After this system is developed, it will be directly embedded in Taobao online. It will be popularized offline in every theater in its theater chain. It will also be necessary to find a hardware company to customize self-service ticket machines and embed this system into Jinjin In the ticket machine, in short, this system must connect the user's computer, the cinema's computer and the ticket machine in a complete and real-time manner through the system itself and the Internet.
The logic of organizing this system is not difficult. First, the theater chain’s terminal must have certain customization permissions. In this case, the theater chain can adjust the information and seat map of each theater according to the actual situation of its own theater. Define it, and then upload the theater information and screening arrangements to the server. At the same time, this system is combined with the theater chain's own theater sales system to share the sales status of both parties in real time. In this way, users can understand it in real time through Taobao. The seat sales of each screening in each theater are at the same time, and movie tickets can be purchased according to one's own needs.
Whenever a user locks a seat, the seat will be reserved for the user for a certain period of time in the entire system, and the user can purchase it directly. If the user does not purchase within the specified time, the system will automatically release the reserved seat and provide it to all netizens on the entire network again. After making a selection, users who successfully purchase tickets can arrive at the cinema directly before the movie starts, easily pick up the tickets through the ticket machine, and then watch the movie directly. This not only saves the time of queuing to buy tickets, but also avoids arriving at the cinema. Later it was discovered that there was no risk of venues and seats.
The software and hardware of the online ticket system is not a big product, and there is no technical difficulty. It can be easily implemented now. However, the real online ticket system was born at the end of 2005, first launched by the online ticket network. The main reason for this is Because the film market is still in the ice-breaking period, the market enthusiasm is insufficient, and Internet people have not yet set their sights on this field.
If Li Mu wants to build such a system now, there will be no difficulties in the software and it can be implemented in one or two months. Moreover, the hardware involved in this system is also very simple. The so-called ticket machine is actually a A networked computer is equipped with a simple input keyboard and a thermal paper printer. When the user takes a ticket, he or she enters his or her ticket code on the machine. The system sends the ticket code to the server for verification. After the verification is completed, the user's corresponding code is automatically called. The venue and seat information, and then use thermal paper to print out the tickets on the spot, and you can collect the tickets. Moreover, this kind of machine basically does not require any maintenance. Regular filling of thermal printing paper is enough, and there is no technical content.
As long as there is a complete online seat selection and ticketing system, online seat selection and ticket purchase on the Internet will become a reality. Li Mu has a complete online payment ecosystem. Users can select theaters and events on Taobao to select seats and purchase tickets. To purchase tickets, you can pay directly with Alipay, and then go to the offline cinema to use the ticket machine to pick up the tickets and watch the movie.
Compared with the traditional way of purchasing tickets, online seat selection and ticket purchasing will bring a qualitative leap to users’ movie-watching experience, and will have a great positive effect on promoting the box office. Moreover, its own YY has strong traffic. By then If you want to promote a certain movie, promote it directly through YY, so that after users are interested in a certain movie, they can go directly to Taobao to select seats and buy tickets, and then go directly to the cinema to watch it. Compared with traditional promotion methods, this method requires Much more effective.
Once this system is successful and the box office of theaters using this system is actually improved, then I can popularize this system to all theaters across the country and let Taobao become their ticket sales channel. Once Taobao becomes the ticket purchase channel for users, As its main channel, while it helps major theater chains across the country make money by selling tickets, major theater chains across the country are also helping it earn generous commissions. This income cannot be underestimated.
So, Li Mu said to Director Chen: "Director Chen, please help me contact several major theater chains in Yanjing and ask them if they are interested in capital cooperation with Makino Technology. If you are interested, we can make an appointment to meet. Let’s talk.”
(End of chapter)