China Entertainment Mythology 2004

After returning to Xijing from Chengdu, Li Mu once again devoted himself to the post-editing of the film.

He has the original movie from his previous life as a reference in his mind. In addition, both he and Liu Xiaowu are old people who have been in the film industry for nearly 20 years, and their professional skills are absolutely solid. Therefore, the post-production work of "Hurricane Rescue"

Overall the progress has been very smooth.

By the end of February 2005, "Taken" had completed all post-production and submitted it for review. At this time, "Myth", which had been completed earlier, was still a long way from completing post-production.

After the film completed post-production, the investors—Xiying, Cheng Long, and Yinghuang—sat together to discuss the release details, and finally set the film's release date in June.

Before the movie was officially released, a large-scale campaign began.

In May, Cheng Long went to Cannes with his two films "The Myth" and "Hurricane Rescue". Xiying, Cheng Long and Yinghuang each provided 3 million for promotion.

The purpose of going here is of course not to win awards. The post-production of "The Myth" has not been completed yet, and it is not even qualified to participate. Although the post-production of "Taken" has been completed, this type of film has never been the main winner of awards.

The purpose of Cheng Long's trip to Cannes is very clear: first, to build momentum for the film's promotion, and second, to sell copyrights and negotiate cooperation.

The Cannes Film Festival is not only about the red carpet and best actors and actresses, it is also the world's largest film trading market.

Li Mu did not go to Cannes to join in the fun. During the film production process, Li Mu and Liu Xiaowu jointly had considerable influence, but during the film's promotion and sales stage, Li Mu basically had no influence.

When will the movie be released? Which foreign company will it be cooperating with? Should it be a one-time buyout or a guaranteed share of the profits? Xiying and Cheng Longyinghuang each invested nearly 30 million yuan. How could there be a screenwriter like Li Mu who invested 500,000 yuan?

The right to speak?

Since what he said was of no importance, he didn't bother to join in the fun.

The crew of "Hurricane Rescue" who went to Cannes include Liu Yifei, Liu Xiaoli, Song Qie, Xiying Film Director Yan Yiyun and others.

The crew of "Myth" Jin Xishan and Liang Jiahui flew from South Korea and Hong Kong respectively, while Cheng Long himself flew to Cannes by private plane from other places.

After the meeting between the two major crews, Cheng Long held a grand press conference on May 9 and met with media from all over the world. That night, Cheng Long held a beach party in Cannes to entertain film producers from all over the world. The one-night rental exceeded one million Hong Kong dollars.

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Since "Myth" had not completed post-production at this time, the "Myth" crew played a 3-minute promotional video when meeting with film producers.

The movie "Taken" was invited to participate in the non-competition screening of the Cannes Film Festival.

On May 11, 2005, the 58th Cannes Film Festival officially opened, with 20 films from 13 countries participating in the competition for awards.

There are two Chinese-language films shortlisted: one is "Green Red" directed by Wang Xiaoshuai and starring Gao Yuanyuan, and the other is "The Best Time" by Baodao director Hou Hsiao-hsien.

In fact, Li Mu didn't pay much attention to the news of the Cannes Film Festival. Instead of paying attention to these, it is better to pay attention to the sales of "The Hunger Games" in the United States. After all, every time a copy of this novel is sold in the United States, Li Mu has

With 1 to 2 US dollars credited to your account, this is a real profit.

After selling 480,000 copies of the English version of "The Hunger Games" in the United States in December last year, the sales of the novel continued to grow in January this year, reaching 570,000 copies, then 650,000 copies in February, 700,000 copies in March, and

In April, monthly sales reached 800,000 copies.

The figure of 800,000 copies sold per month alone is astonishing enough in itself, but what is even more frightening is that the current sales curve of the novel is still climbing rapidly. No one can say whether one day I will wake up and read "The Hunger Games"

Sales in a single month suddenly exceeded 1 million.

In 4 months, the total sales volume exceeded 3 million copies, and the total income exceeded 5 million US dollars, which converted to more than 40 million yuan at the 2005 U.S. dollar exchange rate. With this money, Li Mu can shoot the movies he likes.

Just when Li Mu was at home thinking about which movie to choose as his first movie entirely directed by himself, he unexpectedly received a call from his elder brother Cheng Long in Cannes.

It turns out that after "Taken" was screened in Cannes, it received a strong response that far exceeded the crew's imagination. Major film companies around the world spent a lot of money trying to acquire all the overseas copyrights of the film.

Among them, Columbia Pictures has been the most generous.

Columbia Pictures intends to buy all the overseas rights to "Taken" in North America, Europe and other countries, including DVD and home video products, with a bid of US$25 million!

The total production cost of the movie is only over 60 million yuan. The movie has not yet been released, but only the overseas rights have been sold, and 25 million U.S. dollars have been recovered, which is 200 million yuan when converted into RMB. Such a huge success has made everyone involved in "Hurricane Rescue"

They were all excited.

In contrast, the market response to "Myth", which Cheng Longbao had higher expectations for, was very mediocre, and foreign bids were even less than half of "Taken".

But overall, Cheng Long is still very excited, after all, "Taken" is also his movie.

The reason why Cheng Long called Li Mu today was not only to inform him of the good news, but also had another purpose.

This time, he did not want to follow the previous practice of selling overseas copyrights at once, but wanted to adopt the currently internationally accepted "revenue sharing" model for cultural product distribution, that is, the producer and distributor will share the film according to a predetermined ratio.

The actual box office revenue will be divided into respective profits.

But the problem is that this time the foreign businessmen gave too much, so much that no one can easily refuse them.

Although the profit sharing model may be very high, there are also huge risks. No one can say for sure how much box office the film will sell after it is released.

And if you choose the one-time sell-out model, the $25 million will be settled directly.

Rationally speaking, of course he should choose US$25 million, but Cheng Long still wanted to hear Li Mu's opinion.

Li Mu thought for a while and said: "25 million US dollars to buy all the copyrights in North America and some European countries is very suitable. The foreign company's bid this time is very generous. For the same range of copyright rights, Zhang Yimou's popular "Heroes" is only

It was sold for about US$20 million, which I think is acceptable."

Li Mu has confidence in the "Taken" movie, but he has no confidence in foreign companies.

In this world, if you sign a contract, others will definitely follow the contract. Li Mu has every reason to believe that foreign companies can definitely do things that make the box office a hit, but on the other hand, you can't get any money.

So selling the rights to North America and part of Europe for US$25 million is indeed a good choice.

Cheng Long was a little disappointed after hearing this, but he also agreed with Li Mu's words. Rationally speaking, he should choose 25 million, but...

But in the end, Cheng Long couldn't help but ask another question.

"If "Taken" were your own movie and you alone could make the decision, how would you choose?"

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "If this was a movie made by me alone, I think I would choose to share the profit."

After hearing this, Cheng Long said: "I understand."