Top of the big era

Leave the Netflix matter to Senior Sister Zhen Yu to handle.

She took her three assistants and two bodyguards with her and left on her special plane. This trip may involve flying many times to major cities such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston, and New York.

Zhou Buqi’s focus is still on Ziweixing Global.

The equity structure of the new company has been determined, but the innovation of the organizational structure still has a long way to go. Subsidiaries such as Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, and Marvel Studios all have their own film production plans, which must be carried out step by step, and basic business cannot be affected by changes in equity.

The companies' management teams remain unchanged.

In contrast, MGM is different.

A major blood change is necessary.

The previous CEO only took office in February this year, and the board of directors invited him here just to run the MGM transaction. Now that the deal is over, he's leaving with a commission of $12 million.

The new management team Zhou Buqi hired for MGM came from the small company Summit Entertainment, which produced the famous "Twilight Saga".

"Twilight" is very famous and very profitable.

But Summit Entertainment has little reputation and weak earning power.

The total cost of acquiring the company was only US$270 million, of which US$160 million was cash and US$110 million was debt assumed. The reason is the tragedy of Hollywood’s independent film industry.

Small companies are short of money and cannot afford the production costs of a movie independently. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't dare. What if I put all my money into it, put all my eggs in one basket, and the movie loses money? Wouldn't that be miserable?

Therefore, small companies will not invest independently in films, but will find ways to bring in a lot of financing from outside to share the burden. This resulted in the fact that although Summit Entertainment held the production rights to "The Twilight Saga", the equity ratio was very low and was all allocated to financing institutions.

For example, Jieyu Media’s platter investment business accounted for 43% of its investment in “The Twilight Saga” 2, 3, and 4. This is still a sequel, and Summit Entertainment can get half of the revenue. In the first part of "The Twilight Saga", Summit Entertainment's investment was only US$3.4 million, and the equity it shared was 20%.

Fortunately, this film is very regional. Its main audience is the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, which are English-speaking countries, so it is easy to distribute.

The chairman and CEO of Summit Entertainment is Bob Friedman, a senior executive in Hollywood. He was the president of Warner Distribution Company and the COO of Paramount. His resume is very impressive.

""Twilight" was published by Summit Entertainment itself?" Zhou Buqi was surprised by this. Summit Entertainment is a small company and doesn't even have a distribution department.

Bob Friedman said with a smile: “Relying on my past connections.”

"Can you tell me more specifically?"

"The six giants have global and large-scale distribution capabilities. There are about 3,200 theaters in North America. If it is a blockbuster like "Transformers", it must be distributed to every theater. At the same time, it must be distributed to every theater in the world. The country, this is the distribution capability of big companies. "Twilight" does not have it. I just contacted some American theater chains and movie theaters based on the contacts I have accumulated over the past few years, and released it on a small scale. When it first started to be released, 'Twilight' only had more than 500 theaters, and then the market mechanism came into play."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "There are 500 theaters. After the show, they found that the box office was very good. Other theaters also want to come in and make money, so they will take the initiative to ask you for copies?"

"Yes, because I had a hunch very early on that "Twilight" would definitely be a hit. If we cooperate with a big company, it will seriously damage the interests of this series. It is better to take it slow and rely on word-of-mouth fermentation."

"yes."

Zhou Buqi understands this very well.

For a small company like Summit Entertainment to find Universal Pictures to distribute "The Twilight Saga," the cost will be very high.

Universal Pictures will not only ask for the distribution rights of the entire "Twilight" series, but also a large part of the production rights. In the future, if Summit Entertainment wants to produce another "Twilight" movie, it will have no say, and it will have to be Universal Pictures.

The most typical example is the "007" series.

This was originally a project of a British film company, but due to insufficient funds and no distribution channels in the United States, it found United Artists Pictures, one of the eight major studios, to cooperate.

Cooperation doesn’t matter, power must be transferred!

Then, United Artists Pictures did not spend a penny, but cooperated with the film company founded by the author of the "007" novel to make the first "007" movie, and obtained the distribution rights of the entire series of movies, as well as 80% production copyright. The small British company only retains the rights to direct, cast the leading actors, and adapt the plot.

Later, MGM acquired United Artists, and "007" became MGM's core asset.

After Zhou Buqi's approval, the new version of "007" has entered the preparatory stage.

Bob Friedman will personally go to the UK to communicate with the cooperating companies of "007" on creative concepts.

It happened that Zhou Buqi was going to Manchester to watch a football match, so he stopped by.

The road is long, and Zhou Buqi can also ask more questions from this Hollywood professional. "MGM has made serious mistakes in its strategy in the past few years. It spent too much money on big stars."

Bob Friedman smiled and said, "Windtalker suffered too badly back then. MGM's previous management was scared and their strategy was too conservative."

"keep?"

"You can say that."

"Is it conservative to spend big money to hire big stars? Tom Cruise's salary is US$20 million!"

After all, Zhou Buqi is a layman and can't see clearly.

I just think there is nothing wrong with using 20 million US dollars?

The total investment for a movie is only about 60 million US dollars, and 20 million US dollars were spent on Tom Cruise alone. What is this?

Wouldn't it be better to spend more money on production?

Just for the traffic of big stars?

Bob Friedman said: "In the past few years, the films produced by MGM have been very homogeneous. If a theme becomes popular, they will immediately follow up. The characters and plots are similar, but the main reason is that they are different. Dare to take risks. Creating a new subject requires taking great risks. But Hollywood is a creative circle, and conservatism is inherently contrary to Hollywood."

"I go!"

Zhou Buqi suddenly realized.

Is there such a thing?

No wonder Hollywood clearly supports the Democratic Party, because the Republican Party is the conservative party.

Bob Friedman continued: "If you take risks, you have to invest, but are there any benefits? It's not clear. It's not that there are no outstanding talents within MGM, but they are restricted by their past bosses and are afraid of failure. , being afraid of taking risks leads to more failures.”

"Where's the big star?"

"Big stars have the same logic, they just don't dare to take risks. Although the price is higher with big stars, compared with other unpredictable risks, it is the safest, and the benefits are straightforward and clear."

"Um……"

Zhou Buqi nodded, thoughtfully.

Bob Friedman said: "There are three main advantages to using big stars. First, someone will definitely watch the film, and the first audience will be his huge fans; second, the media will actively pursue the big stars and report on them. There is no need for the film studio to pay additional promotion fees; thirdly, a big star has his own team. Although the salary of 20 million US dollars is very high, it also requires him to participate in many entertainment programs and accept many TV interviews, so that the film can be quickly promoted. Let’s promote it.”

Zhou Buqi felt that he had been taught a lesson, "I see, if the big star uses it, he might be able to save money!"

"Actually, there is another reason. Well... this is very important to you. This is my advice."

"What?"

"For professional managers, there is a hidden benefit of using big stars, which is that they can shirk responsibility."

"Well, that makes sense!"

Zhou Buqi felt a sudden enlightenment at that moment.

Bob Friedman was very sincere and said: "I left Paramount to join Summit Entertainment because I couldn't stand this kind of star responsibility system."

"Celebrity accountability?"

"At Paramount back then, the top star was Tom Cruise. The Redstone family was very optimistic about Cruise and appointed him to produce some blockbusters. Paramount's production team had a reason. Once If the movie failed, it was not because the movie was not made well, but because Cruise's acting was not good. He was no longer popular and popular with the public, which led to the failure of the movie. Later, the Redstone family could not tolerate Cruise anymore. I broke up with him. This led to the long-term cooperation between MGM and Cruise."

"It's really a shirking of responsibility."

Zhou Buqi was given some warning and felt that he must take a warning.

The Redstone family was obviously deceived and teased by Paramount's management.

Well……

Then, he started to associate.

The domestic dramas in the previous life, those popular stars... it seems that they are also in this routine.

Although traffic stars are expensive, they have many benefits!

Fans are the audience, and they can be harvested as soon as they come up. Moreover, these fans are also very diligent and will spontaneously help create data, help promote, maintain reputation, and quarrel with others.

Save a lot of publicity costs.

If a drama fails to be filmed well, it must be because the popular star did not perform well, is no longer popular, and is not popular with the public, which affects the reputation of the entire drama.

There is also a scapegoat.

When it comes to shirking responsibility, it really doesn’t respect national boundaries!

Paramount’s lesson is that the producer relied on Tom Cruise to take the blame and deceive the big boss Redstone into taking responsibility for big projects; for domestic traffic stars, the producer led a group of young people to deceive them. Investors, to defraud large sums of production funds.

In the final analysis, it's just a group of insiders joining forces to deceive outsiders.

Zhou Buqi is very alert.

When it comes to the Internet, he is very knowledgeable. When it comes to the entertainment industry, he is a layman.

You must be cautious about this and be on guard at all times.

Fortunately, after working in a company for so many years, he also has management experience. He can just get the results through the team. Don't get involved in the process, as you can easily be fooled!