That afternoon.

After Li Yishu sent Jiang Qinqin and others back to school to continue their classes, he and Gong Li returned to the courtyard house in Nanluoguxiang and played the game of Empress Dowager Gong and the fake eunuch.

The next morning.

Major newspapers in mainland China have begun reporting on “Empress Dowager of the Liao Dynasty”. Thanks to Gong Li’s current fame in mainland China, most of the articles have given positive reviews.

It is believed that Gong Li portrayed the legendary empress dowager’s turbulent first half of her life.

However, this movie uses the extremely rare Liao Dynasty background, and most viewers are not impressed. Fortunately, there are quite a few war scenes in the movie, which is a feast for the eyes for some fans who like to watch history and costume themes.

At the same time, I began to look forward to the release of “Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms” next year.

As early as after the filming of “Red Cliff” was completed, “Popular Movies” and CCTV sent people to conduct interviews. In addition to the routine reporting of some interesting stories and tidbits within the crew, they also revealed that the film is very likely to be released next year.

Li Yishu did not give a clear answer as to the specific release date, mainly because post-production takes a long time.

This is a blockbuster movie, and even though many scenes were shot live, there are still some shots that require special effects.

At present, the foundation of special effects in mainland China is almost zero, so we have to go abroad to find special effects companies to carry out post-production.

Li Yishu read the newspaper for a while, and when she saw Gong Li bringing in the breakfast, she said, “Your film has received a lot of positive reviews, but the box office may not be very good.”

“It was expected.”

“Did you expect this?”

“Yes.”

Gong Li put down the bowl of egg noodles and said with a smile: “If you hadn’t told me about this film, I wouldn’t have known about the Liao Dynasty Empress Dowager Xiao Yanyan. I think except for people who are interested in history, no one would know her.”

The history of the Liao Dynasty itself does not attract much attention from ordinary people, let alone the Empress Dowager Xiao Yanyan.

This is also why Gong Li’s new film was promoted before the movie premiered.

Advertisements in some newspapers also focused on Gong Li’s outstanding acting skills and her ancient costume looks, attracting Gong Li’s fans to come.

After all, in recent years, the mainland film market has been seriously sluggish, the number of moviegoers has been declining year by year, and with the advent of Hollywood blockbusters, people who are willing to spend money to watch movies will definitely give priority to those with interesting themes rather than historical dramas.

“That’s true.” Li Yishu nodded in approval.

“That’s why I’m going to the Cannes Film Festival in person. I don’t want your investment to go to waste.”

Gong Li has been shooting literary and artistic films for the past ten years and is still quite well-known in the European film industry. She personally participates in the promotion of films, and the effect is much better than that of director Huang Jiali.

Li Yishu smiled and said, “Then I’ll trouble Queen Mother Gong. When you come back, I will definitely reward you well.”

“award?”

Gong Li didn’t understand at first, but after seeing Li Yishu’s smirk, she knew what the reward was and chuckled, “Then I’ll be waiting for your reward.”

The two finished their breakfast chatting and laughing.

Li Yishu went out and took a bus to the Beijing Film Studio to participate in the editing work of the first part of “Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms”.

It took a few days.

After the rough cut was completed and Han Sanping reported in, he followed Han Sanping to a place that made people excited and thrilled.

This place is heavily guarded. Anyone who hangs around the gate for a long time will be taken away for questioning.

Here, Li Yishu met an important person.

In a small screening room, everyone watched the rough cut of “Red Cliff”.

Because it was a rough cut, there was no soundtrack, not even dubbing, and it was all live sound recording, so the viewing experience was not particularly good, and some of the plot was a bit dragged out.

But fortunately, the quality of the film is still very good. Whether it is Cao Cao’s eastern expedition to the Wuhuan, Zhuge Liang’s burning of Bowangpo, or even Zhao Zilong’s seven ins and outs of Changbanpo, they all give people a sense of déjà vu of a top blockbuster.

The tens of thousands of troops stretching endlessly, thousands of arrows fired at the same time, Zhang Fei who can defeat ten thousand enemies, and the young general in white robe roaming the battlefield all make the film’s visual effects perfectly presented.

The three-hour film was divided into two screenings, with a half-hour break in between.

After the screening, the big shot was very satisfied with this domestic blockbuster and gave Li Yishu high praise. He also encouraged him to create more excellent literary and artistic works.

I hope to see more top blockbusters that can rival those of Hollywood in the future. It was not until the evening that the two of them left this place.

Mid May.

After arranging matters in the mainland, Li Yishu took her bodyguards and went to the United States to prepare to participate in the filming of “Rush Hour”.

This film began preparations in the second half of last year. The script was initially written by Li Yishu, and later several Hollywood screenwriters were invited to revise it.

After all, this movie’s main box office is in North America, and Li Yishu knows nothing about American jokes, so naturally she has to find someone to make the modifications.

Art Film Company.

The crew is having the final discussions before filming in the conference room.

“Has the crew’s application for location shooting been approved?”

Li Yishu looked at Roger Birnbaum, the executive producer sent by New Line Cinema.

“The application has been approved.” Roger nodded and said, “But the City Hall gave us three days, and only five hours a day.”

Rush Hour was primarily filmed in Los Angeles, including a large number of exterior scenes.

However, if the crew wanted to shoot on the main street, they had to apply to the Los Angeles City Hall, and because it was a police and gangster film, they also had to report to the LAPD.

Li Yishu said, “Three days is enough. We will shoot the indoor scenes on the set first. After Jack and Chris get into character, we will confirm the specific shooting time with the city hall.”

“No problem, I’ll arrange it with the City Hall.” Roger responded.

Li Yishu looked at Monica Bellucci again: “Have you arranged the logistics for the crew?”

Monica said: “Everything has been arranged. We can start filming at any time.”

Having participated in the production of many films and serving as the first producer, Monica’s production experience has increased rapidly and she is now a well-known female producer in Hollywood.

There are few female producers in themselves, and even fewer who are as good-looking as Monica, so after participating in the production of films such as “Final Destination” and “Sense and Sensibility”, she became a huge name in Hollywood.

Even CAA, the agency she signed with, listed her as a first-line producer.

This is of course due to the fact that Monica’s films have been a huge success both at the box office and offline, but the most important thing is that she has the support of the Art Film Company and Golden Lion Pictures.

Monica can always get the title of producer for any film produced by these two film companies, but for many crews, she is just a figurehead.

The discussion lasted for more than half an hour.

Li Yishu said, “Notify Jack and Chris that they will officially join the crew tomorrow and begin a three-day crew read. After the read, filming will begin.” After the meeting, Li Yishu returned to the office.

Monica followed in shortly after.

She said, “Goldman Sachs called and confirmed the date for Yahoo’s IPO. It will be in August of this year. The exact date is yet to be determined, but it should be in the early part of the year.”

“It’s finally going to be on the market!”

Li Yishu’s eyes lit up. Since he started investing in Yahoo, he had invested hundreds of millions of dollars, and now it was finally time to reap the rewards.

For today’s Internet companies, users are not actually that important. After all, there are only a few Internet companies today. However, the number of Internet users in North America is increasing every day, creating a trend of too many wolves and too little meat.

Therefore, what can really make an Internet company create value is whether it can make a profit.

After more than a year of exploration, Yahoo reached advertising cooperation with many companies offline and launched its first advertising campaign at the beginning of this year.

The results were amazing, and the product sales of these companies increased significantly.

Today, it has become the largest Internet company in North America, and successfully turned losses into profits last month through advertising revenue. Although the profit was less than $100,000, it also represents Yahoo’s future market potential.

Although this is a big deviation from the Yahoo in Li Yishu’s memory, it did not prevent Yahoo from growing rapidly and becoming profitable in the past year or so, relying on its financial advantages.

Today, almost all of the tens of millions of Internet users in the United States have visited Yahoo. A professional valuation company has evaluated Yahoo’s market value after its listing, and the conservative estimate is 2 billion US dollars.

This number is already very high.

You have to know that Yahoo was established only for more than two years, and the total investment is only 300 to 400 million US dollars, but it can increase five or six times after listing.

Before Li Yishu could be happy for a while, Monica said, “Someone contacted me and wanted to buy Yahoo shares from us at a high price.”

Hearing this, he frowned: “Who?”

Monica said, “A Japanese, Masa Sun.”

“Masa Sun?”

Li Yishu looked at her in confusion.

“Yes, he claims to be the chairman of Japan’s SoftBank Group and wants to buy our Yahoo shares at a high price.”

SoftBank Group!

Masa Son, it seems to be Masayoshi Son!

Li Yishu has a deep impression of this former richest man in Japan, mainly because he invested in Alibaba, which made the company famous in China.

Li Yishu asked curiously, “How much is he prepared to pay?”

Monica said, “We now own 19.5% of Yahoo’s shares, and he is willing to buy it for $5 million!”

“Haha.” Li Yishu chuckled, “It seems like he really wants to take over our shares.”

Yahoo’s estimated market value is around US$20 billion, and the price of 19.5% is about US$5 million. However, as a major shareholder, there is no way to sell off in the first year, and if it reduces its holdings, it will most likely cause a market reaction.

If it were an ordinary venture capitalist, faced with $5 million and several times the profit, he would definitely agree without hesitation.

After all, no one knows for sure what will happen to Yahoo after its listing. It is already a big profit to be able to get back $5 million now, and there is no need to wait for a year for the lock-up period to be lifted.

Monica also thought this was a good deal and asked, “Then should we sell it?”

“Sell? Why sell?” Li Yishu shook her head. “I am optimistic about Yahoo’s future. After it goes public, its market value will definitely be more than 20 billion US dollars. Maybe it can break through billion US dollars.”

“Ten billion dollars?” Monica was shocked. “That’s impossible. Wal-Mart’s market value is only 52 billion dollars.”

For Monica, Yahoo’s market value of $20 billion is already very high. After all, it just turned a profit last month, which was less than $.

“The number of Internet users in North America is increasing every year. There are now 20 million Internet users in the United States. How many were there last year? More than 10 million. Now it has doubled!”

Li Yishu said: “Next year I estimate that this number will expand to 5 million. In a few years, there will be at least million Internet users in North America. This is just North America. There are also Canada and Mexico next door, as well as European countries. I estimate that the number of Internet users in the world will exceed million around the millennium.”

Monica frowned. Because of her investment in Yahoo, she had taught herself a lot of Internet knowledge while participating in film production. She knew that what Li Yishu said was very feasible, but she still didn’t think that a website like Yahoo, which was built on the Internet, could have a market value of tens of billions of dollars.

After all, her thinking logic is still stuck on fixed assets.

“Honey, are you so confident about Yahoo?”

“Yes, I am very confident.”

Li Yishu smiled. This was not confidence in Yahoo, but self-confidence.

He is a man who has seen the future trend with his own eyes!
Monica said, “Okay, then I will reject that Japanese man.”

“Don’t rush to refuse.” Li Yishu thought for a while and said, “Contact that Sun and ask him to come to North America soon. I will talk to him in person.”

Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group still has a great influence in Japan, and it is remembered that he once briefly became the world’s richest man thanks to the SoftBank Group he held.

Li Yishu now has a lot of investments in Japan. He feels that he can cooperate with Masayoshi Son. He will not sell his own shares, but can introduce the other party to acquire shares of other investment companies.

More than a week later.

Columbia Studios.

The crew of “Rush Hour”.

Sun Zhengyi looked at Li Yishu who was having an intense conversation with Cheng Long not far away, and said to the woman next to him: “Ms. Bellucci, is Li Jun always so passionate when filming?”

He actually wanted to say irritable, but after thinking it over he changed it to passionate.

Monica answered the question irrelevantly: “Any good director is the absolute king in the crew!”

After hearing this, Masayoshi Son felt that it made sense. If a director could not even control the crew, it meant that he did not have the potential to be an excellent director at all. Just like him, the chairman of the group, he had absolute control over the group.

Waited for almost an hour.

After the crew finished a short shoot, Li Yishu walked over and Monica introduced her, “Boss, this is Masa Sun from SoftBank Group.”

“Hello, Mr. Li.”

Son Zhengyi extended his hand enthusiastically: “I really like watching the movies directed by Li Jun, and Jack Cheng is also my favorite action actor. I really liked the movie “Rumble in the Bronx” you guys shot. Now that I know you’re going to work together again, I’m already looking forward to your new movies. I wonder when I can see them?”

“You’ll be able to see it next year. It’s an action movie that’s far superior to Rumble in the Bronx.”

“Sri Lanka!” Son said with a smile, “I think Japanese fans will be very happy.”

Li Yishu smiled slightly and raised her hand: “Let’s go, let’s go to the restaurant to talk.” (End of this chapter)