Chapter 729: A ban based on rumors
Just as everyone was speculating wildly, Lin Weimin continued, "You just said that the Film Bureau was going to ban it. Someone actually told me that our Guowen Press should stop selling the novel 'To Live' for now."
Ge You's face was filled with worry when he heard this. The ban has been a hot topic recently. If even the director and the original novel are banned, then his fate as the leading actor will probably not be any better, especially since he won the Best Actor award and has a bigger target.
"Teacher Lin, you..."
Just as Ge You was about to speak, he was interrupted by Lin Weimin, "It's okay, I let that person fight back. It's incomprehensible, how come they have the right to control the sale of books by our Guowen Publishing House?"
"Teacher Lin..." Ge You hesitated to speak.
Lin Weimin immediately understood that what he was worried about was not the novel.
I couldn't help but pat his shoulder and teased him, "You are so brave. With the director in front of you, what are you afraid of?"
Ge You chuckled twice and said nothing, while Zhang Yimou had a bitter expression on his face.
Lin Weimin simply said, "Okay, I'll call and ask about this later."
After he said this, Zhang Yimou and Ge You immediately felt relieved.
With Teacher Lin taking action, everything will be easy.
Zhang Yimou was very tactful and didn't even mention the movie. Teacher Lin spoke up for him because of their friendship.
The movie was invested by Qiu Fusheng and has nothing to do with him at all.
What's more, Lin Weimin's words just now showed that he was extremely dissatisfied with Qiu Fusheng as an investor.
In fact, it was not just Lin Weimin. Zhang Yimou was a kind man, but he was not stupid and he knew what Qiu Fusheng was thinking. However, when he thought about the fact that Qiu Fusheng had invested real money, he had no choice but to take the risk and cooperate with Qiu Fusheng in taking that step.
Thinking about it now, it really doesn't make up for it.
Lin Weimin didn't take what he said casually to heart, but a few days later, Xu Feng suddenly called him.
"Mr. Lin, I heard that you want to ban Qiu Fusheng?"
Lin Weimin looked confused. "When did it happen? Who said that?"
"Many people in the film industry are saying that you called the Film Bureau because of Zhang Yimou's To Live."
Lin Weimin immediately recalled what happened a few days ago. He shook his head and said, "It's probably a rumor. He did call the Film Bureau, but it was for Yimou. He took "To Live" to participate in the competition in violation of the rules and didn't take the Film Bureau seriously at all. Director Liu just took office, isn't he just waiting to be punished? Recently there are rumors that the Film Bureau wants to ban him, so I called to ask for him, but it's all false."
He added: "As for what you said about me banning Qiu Fusheng, I don't have that ability. That day I just mentioned the fact that To Live violated the rules in the competition. I heard that it was Qiu Fusheng who took the initiative to let Yimou participate. I felt that this person was not doing things in a proper way, so I publicly criticized him a few times."
After Lin Weimin finished speaking, he asked, "Why do you care about this?"
Xu Feng hesitated for a moment, but still said truthfully: "After all, we are both from Taiwan, so we will meet each other sooner or later. He invited me to dinner before and he is interested in investing in Kaige's next movie."
"Oh, I see. There is no such thing as a ban. I'm not the director of the Film Bureau." Lin Weimin said.
However, Xu Feng couldn't help but secretly complain that you said you are not the director of the Film Bureau, but you are more popular than the director of the Film Bureau.
Xu Feng is a shrewd person. Although Lin Weimin said "there is no such thing as a ban", he clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with Qiu Fusheng just now. With Lin Weimin's power in the mainland, it is not a difficult task to ban the movies invested by Qiu Fusheng in the mainland. He just needs to block it at the Film Bureau.
She had heard rumors today, so she went to Lin Weimin to find out more about the situation. If possible, it would be best if she could act as a middleman between the two parties. This would be a good opportunity for her to show off her connections and status in the mainland in front of Qiu Fusheng, which would be beneficial to her image on the island.
But Lin Weimin's attitude made her give up this idea. If she really did that, she might offend Lin Weimin, which was totally unnecessary.
Xu Feng changed the topic and mentioned Cheng Kaige's new movie.
"Farewell My Concubine" won the Cannes Palme d'Or, Golden Globe Awards and Oscars last year. Not only did it win many awards, it was also a box office hit.
After June, "Farewell My Concubine" was finally taken off the screens in all countries around the world.
Among them, the box office in North America was 302 million US dollars, and it was difficult to squeeze into the top five in the history of the North American box office rankings.
The box office in Europe and East Asian countries exceeded 89 million US dollars, and the box office in mainland China, Taiwan Island and Hong Kong also exceeded 43 million US dollars, with the cumulative total box office exceeding 434 million US dollars.
The total investment of "Farewell My Concubine" was 8 million US dollars, and the box office revenue was 434 million US dollars, with an investment return ratio of an astonishing 5400%. Looking back at the decades of Hollywood history, there are only a handful of movies that can achieve this level of revenue.
The above countries all share the box office revenue, with the lowest share for the film company being 20%. In most countries, the share is around 25%. Only the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau have the highest share, which can reach up to 60%.
All in all, "Farewell My Concubine" generated 116.7 million yuan in box office revenue for the film company in the above countries and regions.
In addition, the copyrights of the film were sold to dozens of countries around the world, with revenue exceeding 10 million US dollars.
For now, the nearly 130 million knives that have been received have made Lin Weimin, Xu Feng and Michael Phillips rich.
In addition, the subsequent TV broadcasting income and videotape income that "Farewell My Concubine" may generate will be at least 20 to 30 million US dollars.
Xu Feng has been making movies for half her life, but the income she earned is less than half of what "Farewell My Concubine" brought her. How could she not value Cheng Kaige as a director?
Moreover, Xu Feng understood that the success of "Farewell My Concubine" was inseparable from the contribution of the original work, so her inner thought was to facilitate the second collaboration between Cheng Kaige and Lin Weimin.
She was sure that if news of Cheng Kaige and Lin Weimin's second collaboration came out, Hollywood funds would chase after the investment, and the movie's box office would have to bottom out at 100 million US dollars.
Unfortunately, no matter what she thought, Cheng Kaige didn't buy her ideas at all.
Recently, Cheng Kaige is planning his next work. After much selection, he chose Ye Zhaoyan's novel "Flower Shadow".
Xu Feng was not satisfied with this, but the current Cheng Kaige is no longer the same Cheng Kaige. With three major awards, including the Palme d'Or, the Academy Awards and the Oscars, he has already entered the ranks of famous directors.
Xu Feng can give Cheng Kaige advice, but cannot influence Cheng Kaige's thoughts.
After all, she didn't invest in Cheng Kaige's movies, but there were plenty of people who would invest.
"In fact, in my opinion, I definitely hope that he can cooperate with you again."
How could Lin Weimin not understand what Xu Feng meant? She was just trying to hint that Cheng Kaige's new movie was his own decision.
"Kaige is a capable and thoughtful director. Even if he doesn't cooperate with me, he will definitely make a good movie!" said Lin Weimin.
Xu Feng asked again: "Would you like to invest in his movie this time?"
"That's not necessary. You and Mike can do it."
Without Farewell My Concubine, Cheng Kaige's movies cannot be said to have lost money, but they certainly did not make much money, and Lin Weimin was not very interested.
Xu Feng asked again tentatively: "The investment in this movie is not large. I think the funds from Mike and I are enough..."
She just said that Qiu Fusheng wanted to invest in Cheng Kaige's new movie, and now she said that the funds from her and Mike alone were enough, which was tantamount to rejecting Qiu Fusheng's investment. It was obvious that she was trying to curry favor with Lin Weimin.
It's normal to think about it. Xu Feng earned tens of millions of dollars thanks to Lin Weimin's works.
How could someone as smart as her not be able to tell what is important and what is not?
"Haha, then I wish you another successful cooperation this time!"
After chatting for a few more words, Lin Weimin hung up the phone.
Dealing with a woman like Xu Feng is really tiring. She always has a lot of thoughts behind every word she says.
After get off work, not long after Lin Weimin returned home, Qu Xiaowei and Zheng Guo came to his house together.
The two men did not bring their wives and children today. As soon as Qu Xiaowei entered the door, he pulled Lin Weimin and said he had something important to tell him.
Lin Weimin knew what he meant by business without having to guess.
"What? Do you want to join in the fun with him too?" Lin Weimin asked Zheng Guo.
Zheng Guo looked relieved, "He has no money, so he asked me to invest some."
"No money?" Lin Weimin glanced at Qu Xiaowei. "If you don't have money, just sell the Santana. Then you'll have the money, right?"
Qu Xiaowei muttered, "Do you think I'm a landlord like your family? Can I change my BMW whenever I want?"
His Santana isn't even hot yet, and he's unwilling to sell it.
"You are the kind of person who cherishes your life when doing great things and forgets your principles when seeing small gains." Lin Weimin said sarcastically.
"Only you can do great things!" Qu Xiaowei retorted.
After a few words of banter, Qu Xiaowei talked about what he had done in the past few days.
A few days ago, Lin Weimin gave Qu Xiaowei an idea and asked him to open an Internet cafe.
This thing is not new now, it didn't exist at all.
Qu Xiaowei was at a loss for a moment, but he was a local resident of Yanjing, and his family had complicated connections in Yanjing, so it was not difficult for him to find out something if he really wanted to.
Although there are no Internet cafes now, computer houses have appeared in Hong Kong and Taiwan. These computer houses basically use LAN game battles as their selling point and can be considered an upgraded version of game halls.
It is indeed very promising, but it requires a huge investment.
A computer can easily cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan, plus rent, utilities, labor, and of course the most expensive thing is the cost of Internet access.
Internet access services are not yet popular in Yanjing, but the Telecommunications Administration is now working hard to open 64K dedicated lines to the United States in Yanjing and Shanghai.
Once the access is successfully completed, the telecommunications company will open up Internet access services, and Qu Xiaowei has even found out the price.
Dial-up Internet access costs 40 yuan per hour.
Lin Weimin was secretly surprised when he heard this number. The earliest Internet cafe he knew charged only 40 yuan per hour for Internet access. Now, dial-up Internet access costs 40 yuan per hour. How can Internet cafes make money?
This thought flashed through his mind, and Lin Weimin suddenly thought of the difference in time. Wigate opened in 1996.
In the first few years of Internet access in China, the cost of dial-up Internet access decreased year by year, and the decline was dramatic.
By 1999, the Internet usage fee for Yenching's dial-up Internet users was 4 yuan per hour for the first 60 hours and 8 yuan per hour for the period exceeding 60 hours.
This is a 90% drop from the initial 40 yuan per hour.
After Qu Xiaowei told him about some of the situations he had inquired about, Zheng Guo said, "I think it's actually quite good to open a computer room now. Internet cafes seem to charge high fees, but they are basically working for the telecommunications company. Opening a computer room, even if it charges 10 yuan per hour, is quite profitable. If everything goes well, it will pay back in less than half a year. When we can dial up to the Internet in the future, we will definitely have to selectively provide Internet services! Not every customer who uses the computer needs dial-up Internet services."
Zheng Guoyi's words revealed a shrewdness, and Lin Weimin really felt that he was much more suitable for doing business than Qu Xiaowei.
"You are more suitable for business."
Lin Weimin was clearly praising one person, but it affected two people.
Qu Xiaowei was very unhappy, "Why do you think I called him?"
Lin Weimin looked at him and said, "You know you can't do this?"
(End of this chapter)
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