Chapter 419 "I'll sell my stuff to support you!"
The initial budget for the project "The Wandering Earth" was 350 million yuan. Later, with the actual preparation and filming needs, the total cost increased. In the end, including the publicity and promotion costs, the total cost exceeded 550 million yuan.
Arclight's initial investment was only more than 50 million yuan, but it continued to increase. In the end, the total share was nearly 40%, second only to China Film.
"Arclight followed the investment and became the main force", this joke has been talked about by movie fans since "The Wandering Earth" became popular.
Greater risks naturally bring greater gains.
The total box office of the movie is 5 billion yuan, and the shareable box office is nearly 2 billion yuan. After deducting the share of the distributor, Arclight, together with its shares in Ruyi Pictures and Guo Fan Studio, has a total profit of nearly 800 million yuan.
The cost is 200 million, the profit is 600 million, and the return rate is 300%. It seems that the profit is quite good. But if we add the five years from preparation to release, as well as the high risk of the film industry itself...
"Boss, from the perspective of cost-effectiveness, it is better to make a few more medium-cost comedies than to make such a big production. The capital turnover is fast and the risk is low. If we make one a year, the return in five years should be higher."
In the office, Gu Fei looked at the various revenue data of "The Wandering Earth" and made his own suggestions from the perspective of an investor.
Meng Bai smiled when he heard this. Indeed, if we only look at the risk-return ratio, small and medium-cost comedies are the most suitable projects for investment in the film and television industry.
Find a few comedians who are familiar to the audience, copy a few jokes from the Internet, add two homophonic puns, and a standard domestic comedy with a score of four to six points will be produced. After it is released in theaters, it will be sold to video websites after it is released. It is basically a sure profit.
But...
"It might be profitable to shoot like this, but at most it will only become an excellent but ordinary film and television company." Meng Bai smiled and said, "If Arclight only wanted to make money, it should still be shooting small and medium-cost web series, and it would not be the current scale."
Gu Fei was stunned, but then reacted. The boss is right. Small companies don't need to do big projects, but if they want to become big companies, they must be inseparable from big projects.
Although Arclight Film and Television has had successful projects such as "Detective Chinatown" and "Psychological Crime: City Lights", most people are still used to thinking of them as a web drama company.
However, with "The Wandering Earth" landing in the second place in the domestic film history box office with the momentum of a god, Arclight, as the main producer, has also become a new force in the film industry.
In addition, not long ago, it also joined forces with Ruyi Films, which also frequently hit the blockbuster. Perhaps it won't be long before this company, which occupies a dominant position in the field of web dramas, will also dominate the film industry with the same attitude.
"Okay, let's not talk about the film revenue first." Meng Bai said: "I asked you to collect information about domestic film and television special effects teams before. How are you preparing?"
"We have visited all the medium-sized and above domestic teams and companies during this period, and the information is here."
As he said, Gu Fei handed over a pad, which showed the sorted research situation.
Compared with Hollywood, which has mature technical strength, the domestic visual effects industry started late, but it is progressing very fast. In particular, with the rise of the domestic film market and the increase in demand for film and television special effects, a large number of domestic special effects teams have emerged.
It's just that there are many of these teams, but few of them have developed well. Most of the special effects companies are basically in a state of barely surviving. In addition, many viewers have complaints about the quality of domestic special effects, and "50-cent special effects" has almost become synonymous with domestic special effects.
In the final analysis, the reason for this is very simple, that is, the requirements of film and television crews for special effects companies are often "tight time, heavy tasks; little funds, poor aesthetics".
If we talk about the most "grassroots team" in all industries in China, then the film and television crew is definitely among the best. It's 2019 now. Regardless of the size of the project, the only way to shorten the production cycle for most crews is still to "work overtime" and "strength in numbers".
In this state, the crew has a tight schedule for filming, and there is also not much time for post-production. But the upper limit of the computer's rendering speed is there, and the speed is basically constant.
The machine doesn't tell you this or that. If you force me, I will work normally. If you force me hard, I will burn it for you to see.
In addition, in recent years, the traffic economy has been booming, and most of the funds of the crew have been put on the leading actors and IPs. The budget left for the post-production is limited. The money for finding a team is limited, not to mention finding several more to share the task.
In order to ensure on-time delivery, the special effects team can only save labor and materials on various unimportant details, and the resulting picture effects will appear very fragmented.
In addition, many of the crew's investors are a group of middle-aged people in their forties and fifties. You can see what their aesthetic style is from the "Bling Bling Golden Light Big Wings Web Game" that the rich love the most.
This bunch of "debuffs" are combined together, and it's already very good to have a "50-cent special effect".
But in fact, the actual level of domestic special effects in recent years has improved much faster than most audiences imagine. Even in some individual fields, such as fireworks explosions and material rendering, they are not inferior to Hollywood standards.
The only big gap is that places like character skin and animal hair require a lot of experience data.
Like this "The Wandering Earth", there are four main special effects teams. Two are domestic, one is a Sino-German cooperation, and one is a Sino-Korean cooperation. The domestic rate is quite high.
And from the final film, the effect is very good.
It's just that despite the box office explosion of the movie, several special effects companies did not make much money.
Ding Yanlai, the visual effects director of "The Wandering Earth", is also the founder of "Orange Vision", one of the four companies. When the funds were tight in the later stage of the film, he even went out to take other jobs to make money and then put it into the project of "The Wandering Earth".
This spirit of "I will support you even if I go out to sell" can be called a "pure love masterpiece" in the world of Minotaur.
After the release of "The Wandering Earth", Meng Bai has been considering whether to invest in the visual effects team. This industry is a bit like the map business in the Internet industry. Everyone needs it, and it belongs to the category of infrastructure projects.
And then again, visual effects are not only in demand in the film and television industry, but also in the animation, game and other industries. If it can really develop, even if the business itself is not profitable, it will be enough to attract more cooperation projects and industrial chains.
Meng Bai slid the pad in his hand, which recorded many special effects teams in China.
For example, Orange Vision and Mojing Tianhe, which cooperated with "The Wandering Earth", Base FX, which cooperated with Hollywood, Tiangong Yicai, which is particularly outstanding in the field of animation, Hualong, which is backed by the strong power of China Film, and Po Chaoting, which Nicholas Tse started to get involved in many years ago.
In addition, there are AI vision projects including laboratories of several universities such as Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Unlike projects in other fields, this type of project team also adheres to the nature of the industry, and the funding is generally not high.
It just so happens that Arclight made hundreds of millions on "The Wandering Earth" this time, and less than half of the profits are enough for investment.
In the next few days, Meng Bai called Guo Fan, Lu Yang and other directors, as well as Qiming Venture Partners, to study which teams are suitable for investment, which can be regarded as preparation for "The Wandering Earth 2" in advance.
By the way, he also set up a new company called "Galaxy Fantasy", which is responsible for investment and integration of related teams and experimental projects involved.
Anyway, Arclight is now on the right track and does not need his boss, so Meng Bai has been paying attention to this "new toy" for more than a week.
Until Ke Liming called him and said that Evergrande contacted Ruyi to discuss restarting the acquisition.
——
"I thought it would take some time, but I didn't expect Evergrande to be unable to sit still so soon."
"Haha, it's mainly thanks to you."
Ke Liming smiled and said, "Evergrande has always wanted to learn from Wanda and develop new businesses in the film and television market. It was scared off by the film and television winter before, but in a blink of an eye, "The Wandering Earth" was a big hit, and Ruyi also made a fortune with the investment, so Evergrande hurried to contact us."
Meng Bai smiled, this is why he told Gu Fei that if you want to develop, you have to do big projects. Just making a little bit of money, even if the actual profit is not small, is not as eye-catching as a hit.
Especially for a listed company like Evergrande, if you want to drive up the stock price, sometimes the market imagination is much more useful than the actual performance.
"What is the offer from Evergrande?"
"We have just started to contact, where is the offer?" Chen Zhixi said on the side: "And the other party wants to acquire it in full and retain the existing structure, which involves the issue of shares after the acquisition, and we must talk slowly."
After that, she said with a smile: "But judging from the other party's attitude, the price will definitely not be low."
"Our offer can also be higher." Meng Bai also smiled and said: "Heng Teng Network, which initiated the acquisition, has Evergrande and Tencent behind it, and both are rich."
"Not necessarily, it was indeed rich before, but it's hard to say now."
Ke Liming stopped the two: "Forget it, let's not guess here, the situation will be good or bad after the actual discussion."
The one who negotiated with Ruyi Films was Zhou Cheng, the director and CEO of Heng Teng Network. He was previously from Evergrande and was transferred to be responsible for the new Heng Teng Network two years ago.
As soon as they met, he came over and extended his hand to Meng Bai with great enthusiasm: "Mr. Meng, I have heard of your great name for a long time. Today I finally have the opportunity to meet you."
"Mr. Zhou, you are too polite. Our Arc Light is just a small film and television company." Meng Bai said politely.
"Haha, Mr. Meng is too modest. Since Evergrande wants to expand into the film and television field, we naturally understand the industry situation. In the current film and television circle, who doesn't know the name of Arc Light Film and Television?" Zhou Cheng said with a smile.
It was the first time for the two parties to meet. After sitting down, they chatted for a long time and finally talked about the main topic.
For the needs of Hengten Network, Ruyi Film has two biggest highlights - one is the production and investment of film projects, and the other is the streaming platform Pumpkin Movie.
"For the film project, whether it is Mr. Chen's vision or Mr. Meng's content support, we believe in it." Zhou Cheng frowned and said, "But for Pumpkin Movie, from the current number of users, market share and development growth rate, it seems that there is nothing particularly outstanding."
On the Ruyi side, Ke Liming was mainly responsible for the negotiations. Hearing Zhou Cheng's inquiry, he nodded generously and admitted: "Indeed, in the field of streaming media, the three companies
of 'Qi, You and Teng' basically occupy most of the market. Pumpkin Movie started late and has always lacked capital support, so it has not been able to seize the development trend." "However, I don't think the streaming media market has been completely finalized. On the contrary, it can be seen from the fact that many overseas entertainment giants have begun to lay out this year that the streaming media field still has sufficient development potential."
"Video websites have been developing for so many years, and the top platforms have actually been changing. From the earliest Youku, to the later Leshi.com, and then to the current three-point market, the market share of major websites has actually been changing."
"The foundation of video websites is users, but users are not 'loyal' to the websites. They will only follow the content. So in the final analysis, whichever has better content will have greater competitiveness."
Zhou Cheng seized the topic: "Then I don't know where the content development of Pumpkin Movie is? Mr. Ke, don't tell me that it relies on those overseas dramas that are on the edge of copyright."
Ke Liming shook his head: "Of course not, the current situation is just a means for Pumpkin Movie. If it really wants to develop formally in the future, then those works without copyright will definitely be removed from the shelves."
"Yes." Zhou Cheng said: "So, after those works are removed from the shelves, where will the high-quality content of Pumpkin Movies come from?"
"Last year, this was indeed difficult to do, but it is different now."
At this point, Ke Liming smiled and gestured to Meng Bai beside him: "We now have the support of Arclight Films."
Meng Bai, who was mentioned, nodded and smiled. The most important role he played today was to calm the situation.
Facts have proved that the effect is still very significant. As Zhou Cheng just said when they met, they did know a lot about the film and television market, so they also understood the value of Arclight.
So when Ke Liming said that there was Arclight's blessing, he did not sneer at it, but instead thought about it seriously.
"It would be great if we could have the help of Mr. Meng." Zhou Cheng frowned and said, "But to support an entire website, the output of only one company may be a little weak."
"Of course, Arclight Films alone is definitely not enough." Ke Liming was prepared for this problem. "The content of the video platform can be divided into two parts. One part is the top high-quality blockbuster works, which are mainly used to attract new users; the other part is a large number of ordinary works, which are used to grab market share."
"To be honest, there is actually no shortage of such ordinary works. Nowadays, the film and television industry is in a downturn, and major platforms are tightening their film purchase budgets. Many projects can only suppress inventory. For film and television companies, it doesn't matter who they sell to. As long as we have the funds to buy, we will not lack these works."
"But relying on these ordinary works alone will not attract users. To let the audience actively follow, what is needed is high-quality works of high quality. And this is the most important value of Arclight Films." Ke Liming said.
Zhou Cheng pondered for a while after hearing this, and looked at Meng Bai on the side: "I wonder what Mr. Meng's plan is?"
Meng Bai smiled and stopped pretending to be deep: "We are a film and television production company. As long as the price is right, we don't care which platform we sell to. If Hengten Network is interested in developing streaming media, then Arclight already has a new series of works and can start the project. At the same time, we can also provide Ruyi with new projects for exclusive broadcast every year."
Arclight is not fighting alone now. In addition to its own production capabilities, it also has many different teams such as the studio cooperating with Huace, Xiaotangren Culture, Tianqi Entertainment, etc., so there is no need to worry about the output.
(End of this chapter)
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