Chapter 598: Joker’s Profit Sharing and Green Book Completed

When “Painted Skin 2” was raking in the box office in the country, Liu Zhou had already flown to Hollywood on a private jet.

Kevin Chandler came to pick us up in person.

After adjusting to the jet lag, Liu Zhou went to Warner headquarters to meet the crew members of “Green Book”.

In fact, he has met most of them, because he personally selected the main members of the crew.

The purpose of bringing them together is to let them get to know each other.

There are only two main actors in “Green Book”, Viggo Mortensen who plays the driver and Don Foldel who plays the black pianist.

Unable to find the original Mahershala Ali, Liu Zhou had to look for a new candidate.

In Hollywood, there aren’t many black actors with names or surnames, but the actor community is still quite large.

At that time, Liu Zhou commissioned Warner to hold an audition, but at that time his name was well-known in Hollywood, and there were too many people who signed up, and even well-known black actors came to audition.

Warner then had to raise the requirements and no longer hold open auditions.

After carefully selecting five candidates, Liu Zhou personally went to Hollywood and finally decided on Don Fodell.

Don Fordell is also considered an actor who has done very well in Hollywood.

He graduated from an art school in California and entered Hollywood in the 1980s. He started acting in comedies and became a well-known comedian in Hollywood.

Later in the 1990s, he began to transform and collaborated with Soderbergh on several crime films.

In 2004, he brought the work “Hotel Rwanda”, for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.

So his acting skills are beyond doubt.

More importantly, he himself was born into a middle-class family, studied music since childhood, released an album, and was even nominated for a Grammy.

His somewhat thin image is also more in line with the role.

So Liu Zhou finally chose him to play the role of pianist Tang.

After everyone gets to know each other, they will be given two days and then go to Texas. All the plots along the way will take place in Texas.

The southern region of the United States is the most discriminatory against blacks, and the movie takes place during the pianist’s southern tour.

“Green Book” has already signed an investment agreement.

The total investment of the film is 50 million US dollars, with Summit Entertainment and Warner each investing half.

For a road movie, or an art film without any grand scenes, an investment of 50 million is considered quite large.

Mainly because the film remuneration accounted for the majority of the total, Liu Zhou alone received 20 million, and Tang Fuld received 10 million.

Don Fuld also reduced his pay to a certain extent. After all, he has been famous for a long time, has been nominated for an Oscar, and is still not out of fashion.

However, he liked the story of “Green Book” so much that he would rather reduce his pay in the hope of being able to star in this movie.

The two of them cost 30 million US dollars in salary. Although the other leading actor, Viggo Mortensen, entered the industry early, he was not very famous, so his salary was not high.

Including some other minor supporting roles and extras, Liu Zhoujia’s total pay is about 35 million.

Then, spending $15 million to make an art film is not a low investment in Hollywood.

This is because the filming team assembled by Liu Zhou are all senior veterans in the industry, otherwise they would not have spent so much money.

This time when he came to Warner headquarters, in addition to meeting all the main creators of the film, Liu Zhou had another more important thing to do.

“Joker” has ended its screening in overseas regions, the film has been taken off the screen, and the box office has finally been fixed.

It has been screened for a total of five months, from March to August now.

The film’s final global box office was $10.62 billion, ranking tenth in global film history.

Because “The Avengers” and “Skyfall” were released during the summer vacation, the global box office of both films exceeded that of “Joker”.

But being able to rank in the top ten is already a remarkable achievement.

This ranking should be maintained for a year, and it will definitely be squeezed out during next summer’s season.

Starting with “Avengers”, the box office of Hollywood blockbusters is the same as that in China. The billion mark is a result worth bragging about. However, for Hollywood, the unit is US dollars, and of course it also refers to the global box office.

After that, there will be an endless stream of Hollywood blockbusters breaking the billion-dollar mark, with one or two every year.

However, Liu Zhou is already satisfied that “Joker” can enter the top ten once.

The film grossed $3.46 million in North America, ranking third in the year, behind “The Avengers” and “Skyfall.”

When the investment agreement for “Joker” was signed, Warner’s main concern was to win over Liu and Zhou, and it did not pay too much attention to the movie.

So in terms of investment shares, Liu Zhou talked about Summit Entertainment occupying six floors, while Warner occupies four floors with copyrights and part of the cash.

At the same time, Liu Zhou included the combined remuneration of the director, screenwriter and producer, totaling six million, into the investment, but he could only get a corresponding proportion of the box office share in North America, and no share of the subsequent copyright and overseas box office profits.

In fact, after the movie was released, Warner Bros. regretted it a little.

When the movie was released and the box office exploded, they regretted it even more.

Originally, they could have taken the lead in this movie, but because they didn’t pay enough attention, Summit Entertainment got a big advantage right under their noses.

If Warner hadn’t gotten the distribution rights, they might have really turned the table over.

The total investment of the film is 8.6 million US dollars, and Liu Zhou can personally get % of the North American box office share.

What he signed was a share of the box office profits, not a share of the North American profits, so he directly took 3.46 percent of the 2966 million, or million U.S. dollars, or almost million U.S. dollars.

This profit is very considerable. Few directors in Hollywood can get such a lucrative profit from a single movie.

Of course, it is still slightly inferior to Spielberg twenty years ago.

Their revenue from “Jurassic Park” was as high as 1.2 million US dollars, and that was 1.2 million in the early s.

He also gets a share of the subsequent copyright revenue from the film, which can bring him over a million dollars in income every year.

It wasn’t much for him, but it was stable, almost like a long-term meal ticket.

In fact, in North America, because copyright protection is very strict, many people rely on a hit work to make a living for their entire lives.

Then the rest was divided between Summit Entertainment and Warner.

Relying on Warner’s strong distribution capabilities, the producer received about seven layers of the North American box office, which is 2.42 million. After deducting the 2.12 million given to Liu Zhou, there was million left.

First, after deducting Warner’s 1.84% distribution fee of million, there is still about million US dollars left.

Summit Entertainment took 1.1%, which is million, and Warner took the remaining four tiers, million US dollars.

In North America, Summit Entertainment’s box office revenue was 1.1 million, and Warner’s was 1.02 million, with almost no difference between the two.

Therefore, distribution is still very profitable. This is just the 8% distribution fee, which is usually 10% or even more.

Then there is the overseas box office, which totaled 7.16 million.

It is impossible for the production side to have seven tiers. Even with Warner’s distribution capabilities, it can only get about 42% of the total tiers.

Forty-two percent of 7.16 million is about million US dollars. Warner did not give any discounts for overseas distribution, and directly charged % of the distribution fee.

Fifteen percent of 7.16 million is 1.07 million.

After deducting the distribution fee from the 1.93 million, the remaining million is divided between Warner and Summit Entertainment.

Summit Entertainment gets 1.16%, or $ million, and Warner gets $ million.

Warner’s overseas revenue totaled 1.84 million, higher than Summit Entertainment.

All in all, Summit Entertainment earned $2.26 million from the film, while Warner Bros. took in $2.86 million.

For Summit Entertainment, the revenue of more than 200 million is of course a very satisfying achievement.

You have to know that the investment in “Joker” was only 1.84 million, and Summit Entertainment only invested million, with a net profit of million US dollars, which is an incredible return on investment.

Even in Hollywood, few films can achieve such a high box office return ratio.

In the original time and space, the movie “Joker” is also a very famous Hollywood movie with a high return ratio.

For Warner, the profit of nearly $300 million was a huge profit, but it was still somewhat unsatisfactory.

Because in their opinion, all the profits of more than 500 million should have belonged to Warner, but now nearly half of them have to be distributed.

This is the nature of capital, making less profit is equivalent to losing money.

Of course, this is just some complaints among them, and it is definitely not something they can talk about outside.

However, they felt heartbroken when they thought that the subsequent copyright income would also be shared with the sixth floor of Summit Entertainment.

During this period of time, some of the subsequent copyrights of the film have been sold, which has already earned 80 million US dollars.

Although he was heartbroken, when he saw Liu Zhou coming, the president of Warner Bros. still had a friendly conversation with Liu Zhou with a smile on his face, and then arranged for the finance department to transfer money to Summit Entertainment and Liu Zhou in person.

Liu Zhou couldn’t help but smile when he saw the 30 million US dollars arrive in his account.

Although this amount of money is not much for him, it is indeed earned by his own hands and can provide him with pocket money for a long time.

Kevin Channer was quite envious when he saw Liu Zhou earning such a large sum of money. The bonus he received from this project was only a few hundred thousand dollars, not even a fraction of what Liu Zhou earned.

Of course, he was envious but not jealous. Because of this project, he was recognized by the group’s leadership.

If “Green Book” is successful again this time, then he might really have a chance to become the president of Warner.

This is also why he is so dedicated to Liu Zhou and “Green Book”.

Two days later, Liu Zhou and Kevin Channer flew to Austin, the capital of Texas.

Although Austin is not as famous as Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, it has begun to catch up.

Austin has now developed a semiconductor industry and is known as the Little Silicon Valley. Its reputation in the global technology circle is also growing.

However, because it does not have an NBA team, its reputation overseas is far less than that of the Texas Three.

After the crew rested for a day, the filming officially started.

In order to get the crew to get used to each other, the scenes shot in the first few days were relatively daily scenes.

The main story is about the male protagonist Viggo Mortensen who lost his job in the bar and had no choice but to apply for the role of driver and bodyguard for Tang.

Because Tang was black, not many people applied to be his driver.

Finally, only Viggo Mortensen, who needed to work to support his family, came to apply for the job. Although Tang looked down on the other party’s roughness, he had no other choice but to accept him with some disgust.

It took nearly a week to shoot these scenes in Austin.

The crew then moved to the outskirts of Austin. Although “Green Book” is a road movie, it is impossible to continue filming on the road all the time.

The scenes on the road will be shot at prepared locations and studios in the suburbs.

Liu Zhou then filmed a classic scene from “Green Book” where Tony, played by Viggo Mortensen, teaches Don how to eat fried chicken legs.

Although Tang is a black man, he has never eaten fried chicken legs because he studied music since elementary school.

Tony couldn’t help but smile as he watched Tang Qing holding the chicken leg and eating it slowly.

Along the way, Tony felt that Tang was too pretentious, but now he is finally a little more down-to-earth.

So when he finished eating and asked Tony where to throw the bone, Tony personally demonstrated to him by opening the car window and throwing the bone out of the window.

Because Viggo Mortensen and Don Foldell prepared for several days in advance, this scene did not take long to shoot and was completed in one day.

As the filming progressed, things went more smoothly for the crew.

Along the way, Tony and Don gradually became friends.

Don taught Tony how to write letters to his wife, and Tony helped him solve a lot of problems.

The white people looked down on Tony for giving jobs to black people, but he didn’t care at all.

In particular, Tang was invited to play the piano at a banquet, but after the performance, there was no seat for him at the banquet and he was rudely asked to leave.

Tony wanted to help him, but was stopped by Tang instead. He was used to it.

But Tony felt that he should not be so weak, and the two people’s different ideas collided for the first time.

Later on the road, there was no seat for Tang in the white banquet hall, but he was treated like a guest of honor in the black bars that he had previously despised.

This is undoubtedly very ironic.

Although Tang was very famous, he had no friends and was very lonely.

After finishing this southern tour, the two became good friends.

Before leaving, Tony invited him to spend Christmas at his home.

But Tang, who was used to being alone, refused.

In fact, he really wanted to go, but he didn’t dare to take this step, so he was very conflicted.

On Christmas Day, after hesitating for a long time, Tang finally knocked on Tony’s door.

At this time, Tony’s family was sitting together for dinner. When they saw Tang coming, they all welcomed him warmly.

This was a scene he had never experienced before.

The movie ends here.

To be honest, Green Book is an easy movie to make.

With sufficient preparation, Liu Zhou finished shooting all the shots in just over a month.

The film was completed and the crew was officially disbanded.

Liu Zhou and Kevin Channer returned to Los Angeles and began post-editing work.

During the month that Liu Zhou was filming “Green Book”, a lot of things also happened in the domestic film and television circles.

(End of this chapter)