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Zhou Buqi has long been eyeing the copyrights for these six Star Wars movies. He sent someone to contact 20th Century Fox, but they ignored them at all.

Hollywood film companies are all controlled by filmmakers. In addition to making money, these people all have more or less movie sentiments, so they will not sell the copyrights in a daze.

In the past few years, there have been many Hollywood giants who have made profits by selling copyrights. However, those who do this kind of thing are not filmmakers, but capitalists.

For example, Kerkorian, who tormented MGM to death, or Redstone of Viacom, the parent company of Paramount, including Zhou Buqi's process of retrieving the copyright of the "Spider-Man" series.

To buy back the copyright of "Spider-Man", they cannot do it with Sony Entertainment. They will never be able to sell it. They have to do it with Sony Group, the parent company of Sony Entertainment.

The same goes for the copyright of Star Wars this time. There is no chance to go to 20th Century Fox, so go directly to the parent company News Corporation and Murdoch!

Sure enough, Murdoch's reaction was more positive.

As long as the price is reasonable, there is nothing that cannot be sold.

The third transaction was to help. Zhou Buqi mentioned Star TV and expressed his willingness to help mediate and build a bridge between News Corporation and the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund. Both parties put aside their prejudices, negotiated in an equal and fair manner, and reached a satisfactory and reasonable transaction price.

This matter is very complex and may reflect from individual cases to the macro level.

The reason why Zhou Buqi was asked to help was actually to have an extra layer of connections to explore Murdoch's background. Let’s see what his psychological price is.

It's too low. If it's too low, the old man won't be happy. Once it stirs up trouble, it may affect domestic confidence in foreign investment. It's not good if it's too high. It gives foreigners a free advantage.

Zhou Buqi told him clearly that he would not be allowed to lose money in the Star TV project. But it is impossible to make a big fortune, and the total return rate will not exceed 25%.

Murdoch sighed and said that even if all three transactions were completed, they would not be able to satisfy News Corporation's $1 billion financial hole.

Zhou Buqi smiled and asked, "Do you have any other good ideas?"

Murdoch said: "I have a deal that might interest you."

"Oh? What is it?"

"MySpace."

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi looked very surprised.

Murdoch was unambiguous and straightforward, "For $100 million, MySpace is yours."

Zhou Buqi didn’t want that mess, and was very embarrassed, “I’m sorry, this is not in my plan. I am an early investor in Facebook, and Ziweixing and Facebook also have many business cooperation. If I buy it MySpace, will affect strategic cooperation."

This is of course a perfunctory statement. In the final analysis, it is because he is not optimistic about MySpace.

Zhou Buqi had been paying attention to MySpace for a long time when he was a friend network.

The early MySpace was a blog-type social platform that was very popular and directly led to the rise of the blogging industry.

At its peak, MySpace surpassed Yahoo and became the website with the highest traffic in the world.

However, News Corporation changed everything.

In 2005, News Corporation spent US$580 million to acquire MySpace, and then transformed the website using traditional media thinking, adding many categories such as "music", "video", "games", "sports", " News”, “Fashion” and other channels.

Then put News Corporation content on this channel.

In other words, the positioning of MySpace as a website has changed, from a social platform to a content platform.

Even in order to increase advertising revenue, MySpace canceled the login system and visitors can freely access the website, which further reduces the social attribute.

More and more people are using MySpace without registering or logging in. How much user stickiness can this bring?

Not logging in means that the bond of community relations is invalid.

Loyalty is greatly reduced.

If you just want to read news and content, is it better to go to Yahoo?

It just so happened that Facebook started doing it again at this time.

In just a few years, MySpace, once the world's largest website, was reduced to a fringe website under Mr. Murdoch's wise leadership.

$100 million?

Zhou Buqi sneered in his heart.

This crappy website, even if he offers $10 million, he won't buy it.

In his previous life, Murdoch peddled MySpace for a year, but no one took notice. He had no choice but to lower the price again and again, and finally found a buyer in 2011 and sold it for $35 million.

Then, the takeover man became the one who was taken advantage of, and was completely finished in the mobile Internet era.

…

Zhou Buqi chatted with Murdoch for more than an hour, mainly because the old man was old and could not stay seated for too long.

Although the time is short, the basic intention has been achieved.

Especially the copyright of Star Wars, the old man said, as long as the price is right, you can sell it! As for the price, it needs to go through financial evaluation and let Ziweixing Global and 20th Century Fox make contact.

Zhou Buqi returned to his home in New York and made two phone calls.

The first call was made to Andy Hopkins, who was in charge of copyright acquisition, and told him to contact 20th Century Fox to negotiate the rights. Not only the streaming rights to Fox Searchlight's film and television content, but also the rights to the six "Star Wars" movies!

Andy was very happy and asked: "Star Wars movie rights? Are they limited to streaming rights?"

Zhou Buqi said: "No, Star Wars is a product of Lucasfilm. It is unreasonable to have been living outside for so many years. Go talk to them about getting all the six Star Wars movies owned by Twentieth Century Fox." Buy back the copyright and profits!”

"This is expensive!" Andy has long been eyeing Star Wars, but this matter is very difficult. "These six movies can bring at least US$25 million in profits to 20th Century Fox every year."

"so much?"

Zhou Buqi was somewhat surprised.

Andy explained: "This is "Star Wars", which is the most popular movie brand in the United States. These six movies are replayed once or twice a year on cable TV, and the revenue alone is more than 30 million US dollars. Also There are overseas TV rights, as well as DVD sales of collector's editions, collector's editions, Blu-ray editions and many other versions, which are a huge amount of income."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about Lucasfilm? How much revenue can these six movies bring to Lucasfilm every year?"

"Around $15 million."

"Less than Fox?"

"In the early trilogy, the main investment expenses came from 20th Century Fox, so they got higher income. 20th Century Fox only had 20% of the income. Fortunately, when the later trilogy was filmed, Lu Cass Films is rich and has an investment income of 45%."

"This business is really ugly!"

Zhou Buqi expressed doubts about George Lucas's business methods. Forget about the first trilogy in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, he was very poor and had no choice but to join 20th Century Fox. But by the time of the second trilogy in the 1990s, when he was already a rich man, he still gave away most of the profits.

45% investment income, that is to say, when George Lucas produced the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, Lucasfilm only invested 45% of the total production funds, and the other investment shares were divided equally. Risks or maintaining relationships within the industry are transferred.

Andy smiled and said: "The logic is different. Lucasfilm's income from the 'Star Wars' brand mainly comes from the derivatives market, not from the peripheral market of the movie. The second thing is that the movie itself makes more money but less money. .The proceeds from the derivatives belong to Lucasfilm, and they value this equity."

Zhou Buqi said decisively: "No matter what, take it back! Go talk to them! Murdoch has already agreed. As long as the price is right, 20th Century Fox will definitely release it."

Andy said weakly: "If we want to buy back all the interests, I'm afraid it won't be less than US$500 million."

"Well, do it!"

Zhou Buqi has psychological expectations.

Precisely because it could be sold at a higher price and alleviate financial difficulties, Murdoch was willing to have the headquarters personally order the release of the copyright for the six-part Star Wars series. The opportunity is rare, so you must seize it.

On the second call, Zhou Buqi wanted to contact Mr. Li from the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund to discuss the strategy for acquiring Star TV.