Chapter 599 IP Copyright Era
At this time in China, the summer movie season has come to an end.

In the summer of 2012, Hollywood movies were much weaker than in previous years.

The highest-grossing movie is only “Ice Age 4” with 4.8 million, and there is not even a movie with a box office of million.

There are also many Hollywood blockbusters among them, such as “The Amazing Spider-Man”, the reboot movie after the Spider-Man trilogy, which only grossed 4.1 million.

The Dark Knight Rises, the last film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, failed to become as popular in China as it did in overseas markets, and only took in a mere 3.8 million yuan at the box office.

The rest worth mentioning are “Madagascar Penguins 3” with 2.8 million, “The Hunger Games” with 2.6 million, “Prometheus” with 2.4 million, and Jason Statham’s action film “The Machinist” with 1.02 million.

On the contrary, domestic films have been very popular during this summer’s season.

First of all, the most anticipated movie is of course “Painted Skin 2” produced by Golden Harvest. After two months of screening, the movie has been taken off the screen.

The film’s final box office reached 9.1 million yuan, successfully surpassing “Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate” and ranking fifth on the box office list of Chinese-language films in history.

The movie “Original Time and Space” has grossed more than 700 million yuan at the box office. Now, compared with the same period in history, the scale of the film market has become larger, and the publicity and promotion capabilities of Golden Harvest Group are stronger. The film’s rhythm is more compact, and the shorter length can also arrange more screenings.

Therefore, the box office increased by more than 100 million yuan, and Liu Zhou was not at all surprised when he saw the data in the report.

It’s just a pity that it was only 90 million away from breaking through 1 billion.

When “Painted Skin 2” was released, it grossed more than million yuan in its first week and exceeded million yuan in days. Liu Zhou also shared the same view as the outside media, thinking that the final box office of the film might be able to break the billion mark.

However, perhaps due to some negative reviews, or perhaps the movie was just an early hit and did not have the potential for long-term screening, or perhaps due to fierce competition from other movies, the box office growth slowed down three weeks after the movie was released.

However, the box office of “Painted Skin 2” of 9.1 million is still very dazzling, and it has won the box office champion of this summer season.

“Painted Skin 2” fell behind the movie “Tiny Times” which is closely related to Golden Harvest.

This movie, which was criticized by the entire Internet, eventually grossed 5.1 million yuan at the box office, not only surpassing a number of Hollywood movies, but also surpassing all Chinese-language movies except “Painted Skin 2”.

People outside are criticizing them a lot, and although their reputation is very low, it does not affect their ability to make money at all.

Guo Xiaosi, who is always a big mouth, didn’t say a word and just counted the money silently.

Guo Xiaosi has always been a very shrewd person. All four “Tiny Times” movies were criticized a lot, but he kept smiling and didn’t care at all because he made some money.

Later, “Jade Dynasty” not only had a bad reputation, but also had the potential to lose money. He appeared in public with an image of someone about to cry.

So when he cries in public, 80 percent of the time he is worried that his new project may risk losing money.

However, “Tiny Times” did bring rich returns to Chai Zhiping, Golden Harvest and Guo Xiaosi.

The cost of the film was only 30 million, and the publicity and promotion was only 20 million. Because the film was highly targeted at Guo Xiaosi’s fans and young people, the publicity costs were not that high.

With a total cost of 1.5 million, the film grossed over million at the box office, reaching million in a few minutes, with a profit of up to million.

There are other copyright incomes later, which should add up to at least 50 million, with profits as high as 200 million.

Of course, the company that reaped the biggest benefits was Golden Harvest, because Golden Harvest not only took up 40 percent of the investment, but was also the distributor of the film, and could take at least half of the profits.

The remaining 100 million or so was divided between Guo Xiaosi and Chai Zhiping.

Even if each person gets half, they can make 50 million in half a year, which is violent enough.

For Guo Xiaosi, even if he works hard writing books and publishing magazines for a year, he cannot earn 50 million.

Now you can earn 50 million easily just by playing.

So without any hesitation, Guo Xiaosi decided to focus his career on the entertainment industry.

How much money can you make by writing novels?
Not only does the entertainment industry make a lot of money, but there are also many handsome young men.

Therefore, without any urging from Golden Harvest, Guo Xiaosi himself was impatient to find Golden Harvest and wanted to start the sequel to the movie.

In order to save costs and show their optimism for the film, they also plan to shoot the remaining three parts of “Tiny Times” together.

Of course, Jiahe and Chai Zhiping would not disagree with this.

The profits from “Tiny Times” are also very lucrative for them.

In fact, there were other companies that approached Guo Xiaosi, but he rejected them all after considering it.

Not only was there an agreement in place before, but also because he had truly entered this circle, he was able to deeply feel the unfathomable strength of Golden Harvest.

If you don’t cherish such a powerful partner and instead offend him, you are simply out of your mind.

So the three parties quickly reached an investment agreement again, investing a total of 100 million yuan to shoot three films in a row.

But the impact of the box office success of “Tiny Times” goes far beyond that.

Film and television companies don’t just curse like other audiences and media do.

Since “Tiny Times” was successful, it must have its unique features. They have been analyzing the reasons behind its success.

They found that after much analysis, the main reason was still the fans of Guo Xiaosi and his novels.

Although they don’t know the term fan economy yet, they are aware of the concept.

Therefore, they also turned their attention to works or writers with high fan stickiness, which caused the copyrights of novels and films to skyrocket.

Especially Han Han, who is as famous as Guo Xiaosi, a large number of companies have invited him to make movies, preferably movies adapted from his novels.

Of course, the most popular writer in the country is still the man far away in Hollywood.

Of course they wanted to buy the film and television adaptation rights for Liu Zhou’s works, but they also knew it was impossible.

Liu Zhou himself has a powerful film and television company, so how could he possibly give the copyright of his novels and films to other companies?

Other companies may have thought of it, and Golden Harvest certainly thought of it even earlier.

Even Zhang Zhao personally communicated with Liu Zhou, hoping to obtain the film and television adaptation rights of his three youth novels.

Of course, if Liu Zhou were to be the director himself, Zhang Zhao would definitely not be so tactless.

In fact, the main reason is that the movie bears the name of the original author Liu Zhou. As long as the movie is not too bad, the box office will definitely not be bad.

Liu Zhou had no objection to this and sold the film and television rights of the three novels to Golden Harvest.

Even with the huge ratings of “Startling by Each Step” at the end of last year and the box office hit of “Tiny Times” now, the film and television industry has become increasingly aware of the importance of novel copyright.

Not only physical novels, but also online novels.

Therefore, the IP era in the film and television industry has officially begun.

And everyone in the circle looked around and realized that they couldn’t help but want to curse.

Damn, the largest online novel website in China, Singularity, belongs to Zhoushan Literature, and the largest short and medium-length youth novel website, Under the Banyan Tree, also belongs to Zhoushan Literature.

It is self-evident who owns Zhoushan Literature.

But at the same time, everyone couldn’t help but take a deep breath. Did Liu Zhou have anticipated this day and started planning it ten years ago?
How old was Liu Zhou at that time? 24 years old, probably graduated from college every two years!

In the past, everyone couldn’t understand why Liu Zhou suddenly wanted to set up a novel website, but now they finally understood his intention.

Zhoushan Literature produces content, Golden Harvest Group produces, distributes and releases it, and Sina Group cooperates in promotion, and there is also Sina Video, a terminal screening platform.

Everything is closed loop!
Liu Zhou’s companies have everything from IP incubation, film and television production, publicity and distribution to broadcasting and screening, and no matter which link, they are all at the top of the industry.

In fact, not only people in the industry understand this point, but also Pony Ma and Jack Ma, the helmsmen of the two giants Penguin and Ali, which have recently entered the film and television industry with great fanfare, are of course aware of this.

They also had to admire Liu Zhou’s long-term vision.

Although their company is larger than Liu Zhou’s, they were able to get to this point because of the times that pushed them forward step by step.

Instead of starting planning ten years ago like Liu Zhou did.

It is obvious that Liu Zhou has a thorough understanding of the development of the film and television industry.

They thought they could suppress Liu Zhou with their strong capital. After all, in their opinion, money is the most important thing, and their funds are undoubtedly the most abundant.

But now it seems far from that simple. They have already established their own ecosystem, which cannot be easily shaken by money.

What’s more, the three group companies under Liu Zhou are all developing very well and don’t seem to be short of money.

However, despite this, it cannot stop them from entering the entertainment industry.

The newly established Ali Pictures officially announced a partnership with Mr. Zhao to invest in the filming of his debut film “So Young”.

At the same time, he also acquired the copyright of “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” and decided to invest in the filming of the “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” movie.

Finally, the biggest deal currently being brewed by Ali, the acquisition of Youku Video, has accelerated progress.

At the same time, at the end of September, Penguin Group announced the establishment of Penguin Pictures, and at the same time invested 500 million yuan in its Chuangshi Chinese Network to create a new pan-entertainment matrix.

Obviously, Liu Zhou’s operation gave Xiao Ma Ge a clear development path.

Because he found that the path Liu Zhou took could also be taken by Penguin, and Penguin had more traffic, so it might be possible to do better.

What may be more tricky is that Penguin Group has lost the initiative in IP incubation.

All the literary websites under Zhoushan Literature are leaders in the industry.

In the past, the online literature market was too small and they didn’t take it seriously at all, so they didn’t pay much attention to it, which allowed Zhoushan Literature to grow completely and even become the only one in the market.

It is not easy for Penguin Group to catch up.

All they can do is spend money, and spend a lot of money.

Therefore, the online literature industry began to be filled with smoke again.

In addition to the two giants Ali and Penguin, another giant Baidu is also not far behind.

In early October, at the beginning of the National Day holiday, Baidu announced the purchase of iQiyi shares held by US private equity investment fund Providence Capital.

Including the original shares, Baidu’s shareholding now reaches nearly 70%. It can be said that iQiyi has been taken under their control.

On the same day, Baidu acquired the PPS video business for US$2.9 million and merged it into iQiyi, and the advertising and account systems of both parties were fully connected.

Immediately afterwards, Baidu announced the establishment of iQiyi Pictures, fully entering the film and television industry and forming five core business segments focusing on project research and development, film and television production, film distribution, marketing, and commercial cooperation.

And a data research strategy analysis center, which is a support platform for the entire life cycle of movies.

It seems that the movie “Tiny Times” has affected various industries and also accelerated the pace of the three major Internet giants to enter the film and television industry.

Faced with this situation, except for Golden Harvest which is sitting on the defensive, other film and television companies are facing a formidable enemy.

Liu Zhou also sighed when he saw the news. He had expected this and was not surprised. In the future, the domestic entertainment industry will soon enter an era of giants.

In addition to the actions of the three major Internet giants, another major event happened in the circle.

Yu Dong took great pains to finally delist Bona from NASDAQ.

But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he discovered that the domestic film and television industry had also undergone tremendous changes, and suddenly there were three powerful competitors.

But Yu Dong doesn’t have the energy to think about it now. What he wants to do most right now is to get Bona listed on the A-share market.

If Bona wants to be successfully listed, the prerequisite is of course to have good performance.

So Yu Dong, who came back from New York, was ready to do something ambitious.

First, he set his sights on the Mekong River tragedy that had caused a lot of controversy some time ago.

He wanted to make this incident into a movie, but CCTV is currently preparing to shoot the TV series “The Mekong River Case”, and his film project is stuck.

Helplessly, he could only approach China Film Group and Golden Harvest, hoping to pool the strength of the three companies to make the project go smoothly.

However, these major events that affect the entertainment industry have little to do with ordinary audiences.

For them, just having good movies to watch is enough.

Perhaps it is because people’s living standards are generally better now, and people are going to the cinema more often.

During the National Day holiday, Golden Harvest did not schedule any films to be released during this period.

This makes this period even more intense.

“The Whisperer” was invested by Enlight Films and co-distributed with Shanghai Film Group, starring two popular stars Liang Chaowei and Zhou Gongzi.

The historical blockbuster “The Palace of the Golden Phoenix” starring Chow Yun-fat and Zhang Baizhi, and the romantic suspense film “Dangerous Liaisons” starring Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Dongjian and Zhang Baizhi.

And the martial arts blockbuster “Tai Chi 1: From Zero” produced by Huayi, starring stars such as Eddie Peng, Yang Ying, Liang Jiahui, Feng Shaofeng, Shu Qi, Feng Delun, and Yanzu Wu.

A total of four blockbusters will compete during the National Day holiday.

In the end, “The Whisperer” had the last laugh, winning the National Day box office championship with 2.4 million yuan.

Mr. Zhou’s recently released “Painted Skin 2” is at the peak of its popularity, plus with the addition of Liang Chaowei and the quality of the movie itself is also pretty good.

There is no pressure at all to win the National Day box office championship.

Next was “Tai Chi 1: From Zero” directed by Feng Delun, which earned 1.7 million yuan, but the investment in the film was as high as million yuan, so there was almost no profit.

I heard there will be a sequel, with a similar investment.

The box office of “Taiwan Palace” barely exceeded 100 million yuan. If Liu Yifei was replaced by Zhang Baizhi, the results would not be much better.

In the end, “Dangerous Liaisons” earned 7000 million at the box office, ranking last.

At the same time, “Green Book” was officially completed.

(End of this chapter)