Chapter 247 258 [The introduction of the blockbuster movie has been finalized. When the wolf comes, I have a shotgun! ]

I only stayed in the UK for two days.

After saying goodbye to Monica, Li Yishu went straight back to Berlin. The copyright negotiations with Qiu Fusheng had come to an end, so he had to go over there to go through the process.

“Central Station” is a standard feature film, so we can’t expect too much from the box office, but it is a film that won the Golden Bear Award after all, not to mention that it is Lee Ye-seok’s famous work that completed the triple gold grand slam.

We certainly cannot lower the price when it comes to copyright, especially German copyright, which must be discussed separately and cannot be mixed together with the entire European copyright as in the past.

“Gong Li returned to China?”

It was not until she arrived in Berlin that Li Yishu learned from Qiu Fusheng that Gong Li had returned home early.

Qiu Fusheng said: “Yes, Miss Gong Li asked me to tell you that the granddaughter of Hermann Fischer, the designer of the old Jinan Railway Station, has been contacted by the Berlin government. She hopes to go to China to visit the architectural design supervised by her grandfather…”

Li Yishu seemed to be thinking about something. It seemed that Gong Li went back early in order to temporarily add a cultural booth for designer Hermann Fischer.

He didn’t care that Gong Li left early, but asked, “Mr. Qiu, how much has the copyright fee been negotiated so far?”

Hearing this, Qiu Fusheng said excitedly: “Except for Germany, the full copyright in Europe is 1200 million US dollars, and Germany alone is 300 million US dollars!”

“So high?!” Li Yishu was very surprised. This number was quite high, adding up to 1500 million US dollars.

“It’s all thanks to the Time magazine report and Director Li winning the Golden Bear Award, making him a triple-gold Grand Slam director.”

Qiu Fusheng laughed: “When I was talking to those film producers, they were only willing to give 1200 million US dollars for the whole of Europe. But after Time magazine published the article, calling you, Director Li, the godfather of Asian movies, these film producers immediately came to ask for a higher price. I guess they were afraid that someone else would snatch it away.”

I didn’t expect that the title of the Godfather of Asian films is worth 300 million US dollars!

Li Yishu’s eyes lit up. It turned out that a good reputation was worth money these days. This was just like Spielberg, who was almost out of ideas later on, but a remake of “Indiana Jones 5” still sold 3.84 million US dollars worldwide.

He has been boasting about his title as the godfather of Asian films for decades. After his “membership” expires, even if he makes an ancient version of Werewolf, he will probably be able to make 20 to 30 billion yuan at the domestic box office like Zhang Yimou.

As for making inspirational weight loss movies to reap profits?

Does Li Yishu still need to make inspirational films?
At that time, he will directly make an autobiographical movie of his own, and before the release, he will say, like Big Nose Dragon, that this is his last movie, and it will be his real retirement. Maybe the global box office will exceed more than one billion US dollars.

It’s good to have a famous name!

Li Yishu has seen too many directors and actors who use their fame to make money. Her current fame with the three gold grand slams can at least last until 2014. After that, it will be the world of financial traffic stars.

But think about it, by that time, Li Yishu had already become the largest capital in the domestic film and television industry.

It seems that I have to talk to Canon Group again and the movie sponsorship fee that was agreed upon before will have to be further increased.

Just one or two million dollars to sponsor a movie directed by a triple-Award winning director—isn’t that a bit too cheap?

As for whether the European film producers made a profit or a loss by paying 1500 million US dollars to buy all the copyrights for the entire Europe, Li Yishu thinks it is definitely not a loss, otherwise they would not do such a loss-making business.

By then, we will release “Central Station” first to make some box office money, then release the video tape. After a month, we will directly release a collector’s edition of the video tape collection of the triple grand slam director’s works. With dozens of countries in Europe and hundreds of millions of people, it will definitely not be a problem to recover the investment, and making money will be even easier.

It’s a pity that Li Yishu’s distribution channels are still limited to parts of Asia. If he had the capabilities of the six major Hollywood film companies, he would not have given these European film producers a bargain.

The European copyright has been finalized, and the next step is the North American copyright. The copyright in this regard was not obtained by the film’s own company, but was sold to Harvey Weinstein for US$800 million.

This price is actually a bit high. Last year, after deducting the copyright fee paid to Xu Suo, “Farewell My Concubine” earned less than 300 million US dollars for Li Yishu in North America.

This is the benefit brought by one year of operation, but now the Miramax independent film company founded by Harvey has been acquired by Disney. Although he is rich and powerful and does not care about this little money, he also wants to take this opportunity to make friends with Lee Yi-su, so that she can think of Harvey when making movies in the future.

After spending two days selling all the copyrights except for Asia, the total amount received was about 3000 million US dollars, which is much more valuable than the copyright of “Farewell My Concubine” last year.

However, things are different now. Lee Yi-su is no longer last year’s double-Award-winning director, but a triple-Award-winning director. The value of her awards has been improved, so the copyright fee will naturally increase.

“Director Li, I now understand why President Xu likes to work with you. This is so profitable!”

“I was just lucky this time and won the Golden Bear Award, otherwise I wouldn’t have made so much money.”

“Haha, even if you can’t make that much money, it’s still a profit. If Director Li wants to attract investment in the future, he must remember our Era Film Company.”

Qiu Fusheng’s mouth is about to be crooked with smile. When he invested in “Central Station”, he spent a total of nearly 500 million US dollars. If we only consider the cost of filming, it is definitely not that high. It was all filmed in the mainland. How much money could it cost?

However, Li Yishu also included the old Jinan railway station in the cost, which is why the production fee was so high at 500 million US dollars.

Qiu Fusheng himself knew that this amount of money would definitely be a lot more, but he was willing to spend it. Li Yishu quoted a price, and the director’s salary alone started at tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the box office share.

He can get 40% of the profit by investing 5 million US dollars, which is definitely a sure-win deal.

Now it seems that it is not only a sure win, but a huge win. Not counting the Asian copyright, it can be $3000 million. If the Asian copyright is included, it will be at least $1-2000 million more, which is $4-5000 million.

After deducting taxes and keeping 40% for yourself, it would be at least 10 million US dollars.

Looking at the excited Qiu Fusheng, Li Yishu smiled but said nothing. There is definitely no end to the money to be made. Qiu Fusheng is very powerful in Taiwan and has a say in both the black and white worlds. Only by helping him make a fortune can her future movies be successfully released in Taiwan.

The film and television industry itself is full of all kinds of dirty things. The mainland is relatively better, having been fighting with an iron fist for decades, but Hong Kong and Taiwan are not so good. It is now rampant. In recent years, his movies have been smooth sailing in Taiwan, and there has been no problem of large-scale box office theft. It is all thanks to Qiu Fusheng’s help behind the scenes.

Therefore, helping Qiu Fusheng make some money can be considered as doing him justice, and it can also be considered as repaying the favor he had done at the Venice Film Festival.

end of February.

Li Yishu flew back to the mainland from Berlin.

Not long after he came back, he was taken to the Film Bureau by Han Sanping. This report by Time magazine was a good thing for Li Yishu and for the mainland as well, because China had produced a world-renowned cultural celebrity.

This will be a great benefit for China to actively embrace the world and export its products to the world.

Many leaders came to the conference room of the Film Bureau, not only leaders from the film department, but also leaders from the radio, television and propaganda departments.

At first, Li Yishu thought they were just here to discuss “him”, but as she listened, she felt something was wrong. It seemed like they were discussing imported films.

But he was the only director on the scene, and the others were all leaders. Has he reached this level without realizing it?

Li Yishu glanced at Han Sanping beside her and saw that he also looked confused. She knew that Han Sanping probably didn’t quite understand the specific content of the meeting.

“Director Lee Ye-seo, what do you think about introducing foreign films?”

Suddenly, an unknown leader started asking questions about the only director on the scene.

“Well… I’m just a director…”

“It’s okay. I just want you to consider the issue from the director’s perspective.”

The leader smiled and said, “You are a director who has made achievements abroad. Time magazine in the United States even named you the Godfather of Asian Film. I believe you must have a different opinion on imported films.”

“That’s…okay.”

Knowing that he couldn’t escape, Li Yishu stood up and said, “When it comes to importing foreign films, the leaders must have taken the overall situation into consideration. I will simply look at this issue from my perspective as a director. Please forgive me if I am not clear about what I say.”

Seeing that everyone around him nodded slightly, he said, “Introducing foreign films, or more precisely, American films, will definitely have an impact on our domestic films in the early stages… The decline in the number of moviegoers in the mainland in the past two years and the sharp drop in the total box office for the whole year are mainly due to the gradual popularization of televisions. The main reason is that most of the films produced by mainland studios are dramas, which cannot compare with Hong Kong films in terms of viewing effects…”

Li Yishu made a prediction about the mainland film market after the official launch of the ten imported films…

Well, it can’t be called a prediction.

After all, Li Yishu witnessed with her own eyes the process of the mainland’s annual box office plummeting during the decade from 1990 to 2000.

At the same time, Hollywood blockbusters have almost dominated the domestic movie box office charts for several years since they were introduced into the country. At one point, the relevant mainland departments had to introduce a domestic protection month to protect the stability of domestic films at the box office.

But the protection month was useless, and the real breakthrough came only after 2008.

Especially in 2013, domestic films began to flourish on a large scale. At the same time, with the rise of the Internet era, movie ticket prices were subsidized to a certain extent by major Internet companies, falling from a few dozen yuan to 29.9 yuan, 19.9 yuan, and even 9.9 yuan.

You can watch a newly released movie with the money for a cup of milk tea. Many people who have almost never been to the cinema in the past are now happy to spend a little money to contribute to the box office.

This is how movies that later made tens of billions, hundreds of billions, or even over half a billion were created.

At this point, the movie-watching market was completely boosted. Even though ticket prices later increased, most young people were willing to spend some money to go to the cinema to watch movies.

But now it is really too far away from that time, there are still 20 years to go.

Of course, it’s a bit early to talk about these things. Li Yishu mainly talked about the pros and cons of introducing foreign films to the country at this time.

Li Yishu thought about it and made a conclusion: “The disadvantages are huge. I have a hunch that foreign films will definitely have the highest box office in China in the next few years. If Hollywood releases another blockbuster like “Jurassic Park”, it will probably sweep the national box office in an instant… The advantage may be that it will accelerate the process of promoting the industrialization of Chinese films…”

The leader was very satisfied with what Li Yishu said. He looked around and said, “Well! Director Li Yishu said it very well. The analysis was very comprehensive and he also mentioned some points that we have never seen.”

“Importing foreign films definitely has its pros and cons. The cons are huge, but from a long-term perspective, it is still beneficial to the rise of our domestic films. The Ministry of Commerce is under great pressure. If nothing unexpected happens, the import agreement must be finalized before June, and the first imported film will be released in China before the end of the year at the latest. Everyone should pay more attention to this period.”

Imported films will be released in China at the end of the year. This time the wolf is really coming!
Fortunately, Li Yishu is now also a gun-wielding hunter. When wolves come, he can kill a few to eat. The mainland film market will not be ravaged by a pack of wolves like in the previous life.

(End of this chapter)