Reborn as a tycoon in Hong Kong

Lin Baicheng, a theater chain company, invested a total of HK$170 million in Star Cinema. Theater companies acquire venues in busy places and convert them into movie theaters, so each movie theater costs a lot of money.

However, Star Cinema currently only has 22 cinemas in Hong Kong, so not all of the HK$170 million has been spent, and there is even more than HK$100 million left.

Star Cinema's 22 cinemas basically cover the entire Xiangjiang area, but more than ten more will be opened in 1979 to cover remote and economically disadvantaged areas to achieve the goal of truly covering the entire Xiangjiang area. Because the remaining areas are more remote or have poorer economies, the venue costs will be less and the funds required will not be too much.

The remaining funds will naturally be used for overseas expansion. Markets such as Australia, Southeast Asian countries, and even Japan are all targets for expansion as long as they can enter the market, in order to create a cinema chain covering Southeast Asia.

Of course, to achieve such a big goal, Star Cinema's remaining capital of more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars was not enough, but this goal could not be achieved at once. More than 100 million Hong Kong dollars was enough for the company to spend in 1979.

By the end of 1978, Star Cinema had released a total of five films, two of which were produced by Star Cinema, namely "The Snake" and "Drunken Master" starring Cheng Long. Among the other three films, one is "The Pledge of Allegiance" starring the three Hui brothers, produced by Hui Film Company, and two films are "Tiger Frog" and "Mr.

"Salted Fish Stand" filmed by the New Art City Film Company established by Mecca and Shi Tian was scheduled to be released in January 1979. It is currently in the middle and late stages of release, so its performance cannot be counted in 1978. in the annual report.

Among the five films, "The Pledge of Allegiance" had the highest box office, with nearly 8 million Hong Kong dollars. The cinema took half of the share, making nearly 4 million Hong Kong dollars. Copying, publicity and other expenses were all borne by Hui's Pictures as the producer, and Star Cinema has nothing to do with it.

The box office of "Drunken Master" is also not low, just over 7 million Hong Kong dollars. The box office of the three movies "Snake", "Tiger Frog" and "Mr. Zan and Mr. Qianhua" is quite different. The total box office is only 8.2 million Hong Kong dollars, which is a little higher than "The Pledge of Allegiance".

For these five movies, the theater chain took half of the box office share, which is about 11.5 million Hong Kong dollars, which is pretty good.

In 1978, the top two box office movies in Hong Kong were "The Pledge of Allegiance" and "Drunken Master", and the box office results of the two were not much different. But in third place, the box office of the movie "Big Evil Star and Little Sister" was only less than 3.6 million Hong Kong dollars, less than half of "The Contract".

The three films "Snake", "Tiger Frog" and "Mr. Zan and the Money-seeker" were all ranked in the top ten of the Hong Kong movie box office rankings in 1978. Among them, "Tiger Frog" happened to be ranked tenth, only The box office is about 20,000 Hong Kong dollars higher than the eleventh place.

From a theater perspective, five of the movies released this year ranked in the top ten at the box office, which is already a pretty good performance. In particular, Star Cinema only released five movies in 1978, but all of them happened to be in the top ten. Not only did they make a lot of profits, but they were also quite proud.

In addition to the box office share, the theater chain's profits also include income from snacks and drinks in the theater, including the income from the arcade machines and claw machines placed in each theater. There are not many arcade machines and claw machines in the theater. They are mainly for leisure use by the audience waiting for the movie to start, so as not to make them impatient.

The assets of the arcade machines and claw machines placed in the theater belong to two companies, Galaxy Games and Jupiter Toys. However, these two companies put the machines in the theater, and the theater's space and electricity costs are the income from the theater and the two companies. companies equally.

Because the company is 100% controlled by the same boss, there is no need to worry about who has hacked whose money. As long as the employees have not hacked the boss Lin Baicheng's money, that's fine.

In 1978 last year, Star Cinema's box office share plus snacks and drinks totaled HK$13.8 million, with a profit of about HK$12 million. The reason why there is such a high profit is because the expenses such as employee salaries and water and electricity are not very large. The main expenses of the theater are venue fees.

Compared with Star Cinema’s investment of more than 60 million Hong Kong dollars, the annual income in 1978 was 12 million Hong Kong dollars, and that was not the full-year income. If a few of the movies released in theaters every year can occupy the top ten in the box office rankings, then the theater’s The income is absolutely explosive, and the cost can be earned back in just a few years.

It's a pity that the film industry is too uncertain. Whether it can make money is decided by the audience, and no one is sure about the audience's taste. However, this is not a problem for the reborn Lin Baicheng. He believes that those superstars before his rebirth will not be too bad in this life.

There is a big difference in whether a cinema is its own. Take Jiahe Cinema Line as an example. Except for a few cinemas in Jiahe Cinema Line, most of them are franchised by others. In addition to paying a fixed rent to the cinemas every year, , a part of the box office share of the cinema will be given to the cinema.

In other words, with the same box office share of 10 million Hong Kong dollars, after deducting employee salaries, water, electricity and other expenses, Star Pictures can earn 89 million Hong Kong dollars, but Golden Harvest can earn less than half. This is the difference between whether the cinema is its own .

However, the high income of Star Cinema is based on high investment. It will take several years to recover the cost of the current investment of more than 60 million Hong Kong dollars, and it must also perform well if the movie released in the theater performs well, otherwise the performance will be worse. The longer it takes to recoup costs. Also, not everyone has so much money to invest.

In general, in 1978, although Star Cinema invested more than 60 million Hong Kong dollars, it also had a good start, with a profit of almost 12 million Hong Kong dollars, and the results were quite good.

Currently, there are nearly 120 million Hong Kong dollars in the account of Star Cinema. Part of these funds will be invested in the construction of Xiangjiang Cinema next year, and a larger part will be invested in the construction of cinemas in Southeast Asia, Japan and other countries. .

Of course, not all countries will go. In addition to seeing which countries' markets can be entered, it also depends on whether the market is friendly to Chinese people. Lin Baicheng will not just send money to your doorstep.

Lin Baicheng is not responsible for the specific operations. With the manager Zuo Xiangqing here, Lin Baicheng only needs to determine the general direction.

Lin Baicheng is quite satisfied with the performance of Star Cinema last year. He hopes to make persistent efforts this year. The performance in 1979 cannot be worse than that in 1978.

After looking at the performance of the theater chain, Lin Baicheng naturally looked at the performance of Xingchen Pictures. After all, the two are closely related.