Chapter 273 284 [Refreshing Copyright Record, Musical Chicago]

The next morning.

The closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival has ended, but there are still crowds of people around the Cannes Film Palace. In addition to tourists who go to watch the screenings of shortlisted and award-winning films, there are also a large number of filmmakers from all over the world who come to look for buyers with their films.

There are many film festivals in the world, but in terms of scale and influence, only Berlin in February, Cannes in May, and Venice in September are the real popular film festivals in the film trading market.

Under normal circumstances, the half month before the opening of the film festival and the half month after the opening, a total of one month, are the most active and lively times for the Cannes film trading market.

And with the end of the film festival, film producers from all over the world can finally start to peacefully select foreign independent films that they can afford to buy.

Film trading market.

A huge poster was erected at the entrance of a large exhibition hall.

This poster adopts the style of Chinese ink painting with a touch of realism. Two women with long hair, dressed in ancient costumes, sit on cushions. On the coffee table in front of them is a musical instrument similar to an electronic keyboard.

Two women full of Chinese classical temperament, looking at each other, smiling, and each placing their hands on the strings of the piano. This scene is so beautiful and harmonious.

“Gong, this is Gong!”

When two film producers from the Netherlands passed by this poster, one of them immediately recognized one of the women as Gong Li.

Another person nearby took a look at the poster and found that it was indeed Gong Li. He also looked at the entire poster curiously, and then saw a string of English letters and a string of Chinese in the upper right corner: “Except for Wushan?”

“Besides Wushan? What do you mean?”

“Who knows? Let’s go in and take a look! Gong’s film To Live, which he shot this year, won the Special Jury Award. This film must be a good one to be promoted in Cannes. Maybe we can try to buy the UK copyright of this film.”

Neither of them is a professional film dealer. Their main business is videotape business. They have more than a dozen videotape rental stores in Holland, and they have some assets.

On the one hand, I came to Cannes to broaden my horizons, and on the other hand, I also wanted to open up a new track.

Because they are in the video rental business, they know that the movies bought and sold at film festivals are not expensive, and the cheapest price is a few thousand dollars to get the copyright of a movie.

They thought that since they already had a video rental business, they could definitely make back their money with some profit if they spent a few thousand dollars to buy the copyright for a movie.

The two walked into the exhibition hall, only to find that it was already full of people, so they quickly found a seat and sat down.

After half an hour.

Before they even finished watching the movie, they immediately ran to the door and asked the staff if the Dutch copyright of the movie had been sold. They wanted to buy the Dutch copyright of the movie!!

Zhang Minghua said with a smile on his face: “Don’t worry, we will conduct a copyright transaction the day after tomorrow morning. Please leave your contact information and we will call you to come.”

He is an employee of Arts Entertainment Group who specializes in European film festival copyright transactions.

This is not the first time Zhang Minghua has participated in a copyright transaction, but this is his first time to sell copyrights.

“Okay!” The two quickly left their contact information and then returned to the exhibition hall.

No one knows better than these two how destructive this movie is in the Netherlands, which is known as the country of lesbians.

The lesbians here are the best in Europe. Such a film about the love between ancient women is so beautifully shot with a strong oriental flavor. I believe that many videotapes can be rented in the Netherlands.

While the employees were busy promoting “The Fairy of Tianshan”, Li Yishu was not idle either. He personally took Han Sanping and two leaders of Emei Film Studio to participate in the copyright transaction.

Although the movie “Nobody” has many memes that only Chinese people can understand, with the efforts of professional film translators, many of the memes have been appropriately adapted to English, or directly changed into memes that are only found in foreign English-speaking areas.

As a result, the difficulty of watching the movie is greatly reduced, and it is also due to the fast-paced editing style, including the unique city appearance, and the blessing of Lee Yi-su winning the Cannes Best Director Award for the first time.

Inside the hotel’s conference room.

After some discussion, several major film producers who had collaborated with Li Yishu many times offered a full copyright fee of US$1500 million for the European region.

“No, no, no, at least 2000 million US dollars!”

“But the previous film ‘Central Station’ only made $1500 million!”

Hearing this, the representative in charge of the negotiations on Li Yishu’s side shook his head repeatedly, “‘Central Station’ is a purely literary film, while this ‘Nobody’ has rich commercial elements. I believe that the price of 2000 million US dollars is enough for you to make back in Europe.”

Several major film producers are looking at each other and starting to further lower prices.

Of course, they know that the commercial value of “Nobody” is very high. It can be said that it is the film with the highest commercial value since Lee Yi-su participated in the film festival.

In addition to suspense and black humor, the fast-paced editing and multiple narratives make this movie a great viewing experience.

This is several levels higher in commercial value than previous art films.

After an intense discussion, both parties finally compromised and reached the copyright deal for US$1800 million.

This number is indeed high, but “Nobody” is a commercial art film that can be shown in theaters. It will first generate box office revenue and then be made into a video tape for sale or rental.

In the next room, Li Yishu was chatting with Han Sanping and others, but he could clearly feel that their expressions were a bit stiff and absent-minded. He guessed that their minds were full of the results of the negotiations next door.

He smiled and said, “Uncle San, Director Lin, Director Zhang, don’t be nervous. I’ve already told you that I’m personally in charge this time, so the copyright deal will definitely not be a bad one.”

“This is not the first time I’ve participated in a copyright transaction, and I’m very nervous.”

Han Sanping chuckled.

Even if it’s just one dollar more, it’s a good thing, not to mention transactions of tens of millions of dollars, who wouldn’t be nervous?

“Dong dong!”

Just then, someone knocked on the door and Li Yishu shouted, “Come in.”

After a while, the door opened and the copyright transaction manager said excitedly: “Boss, it’s done. 1800 million US dollars to buy out all European copyrights!”

1800 million! US dollars!

Han Sanping held his breath, feeling a little dizzy. He had never thought that the overseas copyright of a movie could be sold at such an astonishingly high price. And this was only the European copyright!
There are also America, Asia, Africa…

Even if these places cannot be sold at such a high price, it is definitely not a small amount, at least tens of millions of dollars.

By this calculation, wouldn’t “Nobody” be able to earn $3000 million in copyright fees?
According to the 8:2 split, Emei Film Studio will receive at least 600 million US dollars for this movie alone.

600*8=4800 million RMB.

Oh my God!
Han Sanping was dizzy by this number, and the other two factory managers felt bad as well. They finally understood how great Li Yishu’s influence was overseas.

The copyright of a movie was sold for 1800 million U.S. dollars in Europe, and at least 3000 million U.S. dollars in the global market excluding China.

This is still an art film!
No wonder Beijing Film Studio and Bayi Film Studio had the courage to participate in a big-budget movie with a budget of 5 million RMB. The money earned from an art film is basically equivalent to half of the investment in “Red Cliff”.

Lee Yi-su didn’t expect to be able to negotiate 1800 million. Her last film, “Central Station,” which won three awards, only grossed 1500 million U.S. dollars. She thought it had already reached the top, but she didn’t expect “Nobody” to be even higher?!

But think about it, this movie has a lot of commercial elements, and its value is definitely higher than the purely literary film “Central Station”. Moreover, if spread across dozens of European countries, the cost per country is only about 300,000 or 400,000 US dollars.

Even if the payback period is a little slower, it is definitely a profitable deal. After all, the director of this movie is Lee Ye-su. After winning the triple gold grand slam and the title of Godfather of Asian Film, he has long become the director with the most familiar Asian face to European audiences, no doubt about it!

“Very good. Please tell the three factory managers the details.”

After saying hello to Han Sanping, Li Yishu turned and left. He had something else to do and had to go find Harvey.

Since the price has been negotiated, the next step is to sign the contract. It doesn’t matter whether he is there or not.

However, this time the 1800 million US dollars have to be transferred back to the mainland, just in time to be used for investment in Shanghai.

In a certain cafe.

“Lee, how about giving me the North American rights to Nobody? I can give you this amount!”

As soon as they met, Harvey raised a finger and said that he had seen “Nobody” and that the quality was very good and worth $1 million.

Li Yishu chuckled: “1 million?”

Harvey shook his head. “No, no, no, it’s 1000 million. 1 million is impossible.”

It was Harvey who got the copyright of the previous film “Central Station” and paid $800 million for it.

Li Yishu said slowly, “Harvey, we are old friends, and we will be working together on a movie soon. It’s an English movie, and it’s also the most popular musical at the Oscars…”

“Okay, okay, 1200 million…”

“$1500 million!”

Li Yishu interrupted the other party directly: “Nobody is a commercial art film. The viewing experience is very good, and it is more mature than Quentin’s Pulp Fiction. If it is sold to other film companies, I am afraid they will compete with you.”

1500 million…Xavi frowned, this number was a bit beyond his psychological price range.

“Harvey, hasn’t Disney always wanted to participate in independent film production and distribution, so it invested in your company? You can definitely ask Disney for money. I believe you know the quality of this movie. Although it is not an English movie, there have been protests against racial discrimination in North America recently. If you use this as a gimmick, I believe it can attract a wave of anti-racism white leftists to the cinema, and you don’t have to do too much publicity, which saves a lot of publicity costs.”

Li Yishu was naturally aware of the commotion in North America, and it was only after he contacted Morgan Freeman personally that the other party agreed to express some words of protest on the show.

After all, Lee Yi-su is not black. Although the two parties collaborated on “12 Years a Slave”, Morgan Freeman had already repaid the favor at the last Berlin Film Festival, so neither party owes the other anything.

To this end, Li Yishu also offered Morgan Freeman the third female role in “Chicago” as a price to help call for anti-discrimination, and by the way mobilized a professional black protest group to take to the streets.

“Okay, Li, you convinced me, 1500 million is 1500 million.”

Harvey thought about it carefully and felt that it was feasible.

Although the price is a bit high, there is some attention paid to this movie in North America, not to mention the discrimination that Lee Yi-su encountered before, which made the name of the movie appear many times in North America.

In the future, the film will also be able to attract a wave of movie tickets from anti-discrimination activists, and there will be no need to pay too much for publicity. When the film is officially scheduled and released, it can just do some advertising and appropriate promotion to evoke the public’s memories of this incident.

“Haha, you won’t lose, Harvey.”

Li Yishu smiled brightly. He did not have the same ability as Harvey in operating independent films. “Nobody” did have commercial elements, but it was a Chinese-language film after all. If it wanted to be released in North America and have the opportunity to be screened on a large scale, the Art Entertainment Group under Li Yishu was not qualified.

Including this year’s “Final Destination”, he also relied on Columbia Pictures’ distribution channels to be able to release the film on a large scale at the beginning.

However, Amy is now negotiating cooperation with theater alliances in some communities and towns in North America that are less valued by distribution companies.

The profit sharing ratio is certainly not as good as those of the old-fashioned publishing companies, but the advantage is that the talks between the two parties were quite good, and there is room for growth in the future.

“Lee, now we should talk about Chicago!”

Harvey’s eyes flickered, he was now extremely eager to collaborate with Li Yishu on a new movie. This “Nobodies” would at best bring him less than 10 million US dollars in revenue.

But “Chicago” is different. The original idea of ​​this story came from a social news in the 20s, but what really made it famous was that a director turned it into a musical. After it was released on Broadway in 1975, it won huge success.

If such a subject with a very broad audience base is made into a movie, the box office in North America will definitely not be low.

Moreover, the market for musicals is relatively broad in the world, and Europe itself has a rich history of musicals.

Because of the high commercial value, Harvey wanted to get a bigger piece of the pie.

However, Li Yishu also knew the value of adapting this story into a movie, and she took a tough attitude, so Harvey finally agreed to a 60:40 split.

“Harvey, I’ll leave it to you to buy the adaptation rights.”

Li Yishu wants a 60:40 split, not just to make more money, but more importantly for the right to speak.

Harvey vowed: “Don’t worry, Lee. I have asked someone to contact Broadway and they should be able to get the rights to adapt the script soon.”

(End of this chapter)