Heads Up Hollywood

Three days later, Twain will fly to London to watch the battle between the red and the blue.

This weekend, Tang En participated in a meeting with giants.

Including Disney's Michael Eisner, Warner's Barry Meyer, NBC's Steve Burke, Twentieth Century Fox's Tom Rothman, Legendary's Michael Ovitz, and MPAA's Gao Tube and several California lawmakers.

The reason for the meeting was the 30th wedding anniversary of Michael Eisner and his wife.

Michael Eisner is one of the biggest names in America.

Over the past few decades, he's been to Hollywood what Bill Gates is to Silicon Valley.

For such an important anniversary party, either the door is closed and passed quietly, or invitations are spread widely, and all the important guests are invited to witness the harmony and love between the husband and wife.

Even Buffett found time to come over.

On weekends, everyone is generally free.

However, the circle is different.

Buffett did not join the discussions in Tang En's circle of entertainment giants.

This proposal comes from Michael Ovitz.

And through Tang En's relationship, taking advantage of the opportunity of Michael Eisner's wedding anniversary, many industry leaders gathered together to reach a general consensus that can meet the collective interests.

Proposed content: Product placement.

In a word, it is the placement of product advertisements in film and television works!

In Hollywood, this is already a very mature industry.

Product placement has been around for half a century. However, this caused great controversy at the time. It was believed that this kind of behavior violated the principle of news objectivity and violated the audience's right to know. It was not widely spread, but only individual cases.

Until the 80s -

Spielberg made a movie "E.T." In the movie, the alien E.T is connected with Liz Chocolate. Then, let Lisi chocolate become a hit, and the sales volume of that year increased by 65%!

Tom Cruise wore a pair of Raymond sunglasses in the movie "Crazy Good Guys." Then, the sales of Raymond sunglasses tripled!

Since then, advertisers have truly seen the power of Hollywood movies, and began to increase investment, desperately spending money to place advertisements in movies.

Plus the cost of making movies and TV shows exploded starting in the 80s. In order to reduce costs, the producers could only give up their past persistence and start looking for more external funds, and the placement of advertisements began to be officially popular.

In the 1990s, it got even worse.

For example, the producer of MGM's movie "007: Tomorrow's Empire" adopted an integrated plan for implantation, and reached a product implantation agreement with five companies, Smirnoff, BMW, VISA, and Ericsson. $98 million!

You know, the total production cost of this movie is only 120 million US dollars!

This simply became the most sensational event for the Hollywood bigwigs that year!

This is even more sensational than the change of director of "Titanic" in the same period, and let the 18-year-old boy Dunn Walker direct it! Even more shocking!

Ordinary movie fans are naturally more shocked by the huge sales of "Titanic". Their level is low, their vision is limited, and they can't see the bigger picture. They think that a movie with a box office close to 2 billion US dollars is an earth-shaking event .

In fact, in that year, it was "007: Tomorrow's Empire" that had a greater significance for the Hollywood operation.

"Titanic" is just a movie that made a lot of money, but "007: Tomorrow Never Dies" has changed the industrial structure of Hollywood.

The significance of this movie is no less than the concepts such as "platter investment", "explosion theory", and "special effects industrial process" proposed by Tang En later.

Since then, product placement has truly evolved into "standard operating procedure" for Hollywood productions.

Became a huge source of income for Hollywood!

Last year, New Universal Group exclusively produced 44 movies, 16 TV dramas and 9 reality shows.

The total production cost was $3.16 billion.

Among the production costs of more than 3 billion US dollars, the product placement alone helped the New Universal Group save 1.13 billion US dollars in budget.

In other words, 30% of the production budget can be met by advertisers!

This is definitely a huge cake.

Other film and television companies are not as good as New Universal in terms of size and attractiveness to advertisers. But their production budgets are more limited and their reliance on product placement is stronger.

However, more and more advertisements are implanted, causing more and more negative effects.

First of all, trying to sell products to your audience without their knowledge is tantamount to cheating.

Secondly, product placement will destroy the artistry of the content of the film and television works, resulting in incoherence in the plot. Or the implanted product does not match the plot of the work, which arouses the audience's disgust.

Just a few days ago, in this year's white paper, the Hollywood Screenwriters Guild focused on the current situation of product placement that is flooded with marketing.

They believe that this phenomenon makes it necessary for the crew and the final stage of the workflow to modify the work to "plug" the merchandise, depriving the screenwriter of their creative rights.

Fortunately, the screenwriters union has almost zero voice in Hollywood.

It is far from comparable to the producers' union, directors' union and actors' union.

The bosses don't pay much attention to this kind of trade union's challenge.

In labor disputes, the employer must win in the end. Those where the labor side wins have become socialist countries, and then the squeeze on the labor side is even more ruthless, and it is called "blessed rewards".

"There's no need to worry too much about the situation here. The screenwriters' union can't make trouble." Tang En stood among a group of entertainment bigwigs holding a glass of red wine.

This scenario was unimaginable 5 years ago.

But at this moment, he is already the C core of these entertainment bigwigs.

"Let's make a long story short?"

The one who spoke was Andrew Feeney, a member of the California Senate, who is a direct descendant of Governor Schwarzenegger.

This time, he was the official representative of California.

When the bosses talk about things, they don’t need to be so fussy like the executives below. They propose solutions one by one. The main thing is to put forward an idea, and everyone makes a decision.

Tang En smiled, "This is Michael's home stadium, wait for him to come over."

Not long after, Michael Eisner walked over with a red face, and everyone greeted him with smiles.

After the simple greetings, we returned to the theme.

"Have you made it clear?"

"No, they are all waiting for you."

Michael Eisner smiled, and stopped being polite, and said sternly: "The role of product placement is getting bigger and bigger. With the increasing popularity of Hollywood movies around the world, it is foreseeable that in the future 5 In 2019, the film and television industry can obtain 20 billion US dollars in return from major advertisers through product placement."

That's an average of $4 billion a year!

This is definitely a super big cake!

No one can destroy it!

Not only can it not be destroyed, but also make this cake bigger and stronger!

This is more in line with Hollywood and in everyone's interests.

The bosses all looked solemn and listened attentively.

Although among the people here, there have been great conflicts between any two people. But as far as Hollywood is concerned, everyone is a community of interests.

Michael Eisner continued: "Now Hollywood has gradually changed from a geographical noun to a virtual adjective. More and more Hollywood film and television works are produced all over the world, especially the European continent. However, the EU and the UK are very secretive about product implantation."

Councilor Andrew Feeney nodded immediately, and said, "That's true, if I remember correctly... When Hollywood products were implanted, Europe began to be vigilant and restrict them through legislation."

At the end of the 1980s, the European Union promulgated the "Film and Television Without Borders" Act, which clearly stipulated the principle of separating advertisements from film and television programs.

This is hard and fast.

Even the branches of Hollywood giants in the European Union must abide by this bill if they want to produce movies and TV shows, and product placement is prohibited.

There is no doubt that this is a huge policy constraint for Hollywood.

Under the new model of global production and global shooting of Hollywood films, and then returning to Hollywood's centralized processing and distribution, the EU's bill is very unfriendly.

The UK is part of the European Union, but does not enforce EU law.

But the situation in the UK is not much better, and the British Broadcasting Authority also has corresponding regulations.

Generally speaking, the film and television environment of the entire European continent is very backward, even worse than that of East Asian countries.

It just so happens that Europe is Hollywood's largest overseas market, and it must be grasped.

"So... are you going to lobby the EU to amend the relevant laws?"

The bosses are all good people, and they immediately understood the purpose of this meeting.

At this time, Tang En spoke, and he said: "Yes, Hollywood film and television works will be sold to Europe without any restrictions, and new media technology is developing rapidly. Times have changed, and the old EU law has been promulgated for 16 years , it is time to introduce a new bill that is more in line with the trend of the times. Or... just cancel the "Film and Television Without Borders" bill and form free trade in the film and television market."

"Ha ha!"

Everyone laughed.

Act canceled?

This is simply not possible.

Europe is the biggest ally of the United States, but also the biggest competitor of the United States. The EU cannot allow the European market to become Hollywood's backyard.

The Film Without Borders Act is indeed a bit outdated.

The rigid requirement to separate commercial advertisements from film and television works does not conform to the trend of the times at all.

Film and television works produced by Europeans do not participate in commercial advertisements, but Hollywood works do. Can the European Union block Hollywood films?

Whether it is from the perspective of the industry structure, the development of the times, or the interests of Hollywood, it is imperative to promote the relaxation and reform of the EU's "Film and Television Without Borders" Act.

The internationalization of Hollywood is not the integration of Hollywood and the international community, but the compromise of the international community to Hollywood.