Chapter 431 Guarding the West of Blue Mountain
A refreshing fragrance hits the face, and a soft jade touches the chest.
Meng Bai was stunned for a second by her sudden action.
"What are you doing?"
"To express my sincere gratitude." Meng Ziyi raised her head and blinked.
"Thank you if you want to, don't touch me."
Meng Bai grabbed Meng Ziyi's collar with his backhand and pulled her away from him: "You are so old, and you still throw yourself on me."
"Wow, little uncle, it's a rare opportunity to have such a cute and beautiful niece like me to be close to you, and you actually despise me!"
"Haha, since it's so rare, then keep it well."
"Tsk, rare."
Meng Ziyi muttered, puffed her mouth and sat back to sulk.
But this girl has a good thing, that is, she forgets her anger quickly. Not long after, she happily pulled Meng Bai again and asked about the script and the role.
Both scripts were carefully selected by Meng Bai, so naturally he knew about them. Although he has never studied acting, he has been a screenwriter and producer for so many years, and his understanding and analysis of the characters are much deeper than most actors, so it is no problem for him to guide Meng Ziyi.
After chatting for most of the day, Meng Bai decided not to stay because he had said almost everything he wanted to say.
Before leaving, he specifically reminded her, "Those fans are busy with their quarrels and don't have the energy to continue to black you, but that doesn't mean they have forgotten about it. There will definitely be a lot of small-scale attacks in the next period of time, so just keep a calm mind."
"Don't worry, little uncle, I'm fine!" Meng Ziyi said confidently.
The main reason why she collapsed before was actually because of the feeling of being abandoned. But it's different now. No matter what happens outside, she knows that her little uncle will definitely stand behind her.
This alone is enough to support her to move forward, even if she is still criticized by those black fans.
Meng Bai didn't know what she was thinking, but seeing that the girl was optimistic, he didn't worry about it: "The variety show we talked about before will take a long time to prepare, maybe until next year. It's just right for the second half of the year to finish filming the two dramas."
"Again, as an actor, as long as it's not against the law, other problems or black spots can be solved by the work and the role."
——Relying
on the fan circle war between fans, Meng Ziyi's problems were initially solved. The team no longer cares about the remaining sporadic bad reviews. Which artist doesn't have a few black fans?
Meng Bai put his energy back into the company. The first thing he did was to hold a celebration party for the crew of "The Hidden Corner" with Qiyi TV.
"Congratulations, Director Xin."
Meng Bai held a wine glass and said to Director Xin Shang with a smile: "I saw that many viewers on the Internet have called this drama the best drama of the year, thanks to your directing."
"No, no, you are too polite, Mr. Meng."
Xin Shang, who has long hair and looks quite artistic, quickly picked up the wine glass and said in return: "To achieve such results, it is mainly due to the script adapted by you, Mr. Meng. I just filmed it according to the plot."
Meng Bai waved his hand: "Well, this is not the first time we have cooperated, so there is no need to say these polite words."
Although it is said that "movies look at directors, and TV series look at screenwriters", in fact, to really make a good work, both are indispensable.
Just like the drama "The Secret Corner", if Xin Shang had not led people to dig out details to restore the sense of the times of the story, and did not lower the shooting level despite the typhoon weather, even if Meng Bai's adapted script was brilliant, it would at most be just a good web drama, and it would not have the current super high quality.
The audience looks at the leading actors, and the industry looks at the main creators. With just the drama "The Hidden Corner", Xin Shuang, a new director, is enough to take root in the industry.
Taking a sip of the red wine in the glass, Meng Bai asked: "What are your plans next?"
"I haven't thought about it yet. I want to take a break for a while. I happened to have a few stories that I was interested in before, and I plan to study them." Xin Shuang did not hide it, and said sincerely.
"Okay, then you study it first. If you have plans for new projects, just come to me directly." Meng Bai smiled and said: "Don't worry, whether it is the budget or the team members, they will be prepared for you according to the top configuration."
"Thank you, Mr. Meng! I have a new idea, and I will tell you." Xin Shuang thanked excitedly.
Only directors who have worked with Arc Light know how happy it is to have such a capital party that is not short of money, people, and will not forcibly suppress the expression of creators.
Anyway, after Xin Shuang finished filming "The Hidden Corner", he never wanted to find those companies with grass-roots teams outside to cooperate.
On the other hand, Meng Bai was also very satisfied with Xin Shuang's promise. Although Arclight already has many outstanding co-directors, there is no such thing as too many talents.
Arclight has sufficient projects and funds anyway, so there is no need to worry about these people not having room to play.
After talking with Xin Shuang, Meng Bai turned around and saw Dai Ying. As the vice president of Qiyi TV, her main purpose of coming here today was to find out from Meng Bai about the "Retrospection Series" that Arclight and Evergrande cooperated on and the situation of their new platform.
"Don't worry, Mr. Dai. It's just an ordinary project cooperation, just like what we have." Meng Bai said, "Although I am a shareholder of Ruyi, Arclight Films is still an independent production company and will not be tied to any platform. If there is any new cooperation on Qiyi TV, we also welcome it."
"Now that Mr. Meng said so, we are relieved." Dai Ying said with a smile, "When we first heard the news, we were really worried whether Mr. Meng would cooperate with Evergrande's new platform in the future."
"Haha, Mr. Dai's worry is a bit redundant. Qiyi TV has hundreds of millions of paying users and ranks first among the three major platforms. What is there to worry about for a newly established small platform?" "
Well, if it were someone else, we would naturally not worry, but if it is linked to Mr. Meng, then we have to think more." Dai Ying said with a wry smile.
Video platforms attract users by relying on high-quality works. The emergence of a hit new drama can directly drive changes in the traffic of the entire website.
A new platform only needs to produce two or three dramas of the level of "The Hidden Corner" to gain a foothold. If two or three works can be produced every year, it may replace the current "three major" positions in a few years.
This requirement may be difficult for other teams, but it is completely achievable for Arclight.
Therefore, when they heard that Arclight was going to cooperate with Evergrande's new platform, Qiyi TV immediately became nervous.
However, at present, the situation is not as bad as they imagined, and Arclight Film and Television still maintains an independent cooperation model. Dai Ying did not doubt this, mainly because she thought that President Meng had no need to lie to them.
After solving a worry, Dai Ying's purpose of coming here tonight was achieved. I breathed a sigh of relief and started chatting. As we talked, we talked about the recent summer season.
This summer, the three major platforms for online dramas each produced a hit work, which was hard to distinguish, and at the same time, it also made most of the audience enjoy it.
In contrast, the movie market, which is also in the summer season, seems a bit weak. Since last month, several movies have been released in succession, both in terms of word of mouth and box office, and they have no momentum at all for this year's Spring Festival.
Especially "Shanghu Fortress", which was released at the beginning of this month, used the "domestic science fiction" label, the hottest label in the film circle this year, in the trailer, obviously trying to take advantage of the popularity of "The Wandering Earth".
However, after years of baptism of deceptive publicity in the domestic film market, today's audience is no longer the "silly and sweet" at the beginning. No matter how cool your trailer is, it's useless. Many people have already blacklisted this drama in their hearts when they see the leading actor Lu Han.
The evaluation after the movie was released was consistent with the expectations of many viewers. This is indeed a bad movie that is still about urban love in the skin of "science fiction".
However, Lu Han is not alone this time. After watching the movie, the audience scolded him, director Teng Huatao, and screenwriter and original author Jiang Nan together on the hot search.
Facts have proved that not every director who makes youth films can jump directly to the science fiction track like Guo Fan.
The most praised sentence in the movie review is, "The door to domestic science fiction that "The Wandering Earth" just opened was closed by "Shang Hu Fortress" again."
In addition to "Shang Hu Fortress", another movie that failed in the summer season is "Galaxy Tutorial" starring Deng Chao. Before its release, this movie tried to benchmark "Dying to Survive", which was a big hit in last year's summer season, but the combination of "Deng Chao + Yu Baimei" really couldn't hold up.
Of course, not all movies failed, such as Bona's "The Bravest", Hong Kong film "Drug War 2" and imported film "Spider-Man: Far From Home", etc., all performed well.
It's just that the box office of these movies is in the range of more than 10 billion, far from the popularity of the summer season.
What no one expected was that the real support for this summer season was actually an animated film called "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World". The box office on the first day of its release was 140 million, and it rose sharply in the next two days.
At the end of the first weekend, the cumulative box office has exceeded 500 million. And with the increase in the number of screenings, the attendance rate has not declined at all.
This trend makes people unconsciously think of "The Wandering Earth" at the beginning of the year.
In fact, the box office trend of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" is indeed very similar to that of "The Wandering Earth". Since its release for more than half a month, the box office has broken through the 10 billion, 2 billion, 3 billion and 4 billion levels all the way, heading straight for the 5 billion box office record.
This really amazed all the audience and film practitioners. Everyone thought that the 5 billion box office record of "The Wandering Earth" could be maintained for one or two years. Unexpectedly, in just half a year, a new movie will challenge this number.
It seems that the curiosity of the public has been sensed. The Radio and Television Bureau just issued a document two days ago, and also extended the release period of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World" by two months.
In this way, the two movies are really standing on the same starting line. Who will win the annual championship this year depends on the final results in two months.
However, despite the explosive "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World", it is still difficult to cover up the poor performance of this year's summer season. Compared with last year, the total box office of this summer season has only increased by 2%, and the box office growth rate has slowed down again.
If the increase in movie ticket prices is taken into account, the number of moviegoers this year has actually decreased.
Obviously, the film and television winter is still not over, and it has been transmitted from the production end of the film and television industry to the consumption end of the audience.
Faced with this situation, the response measures chosen by various film and television companies are also different.
Some believe that more small and medium-cost projects should be launched at this time, "small profits but quick turnover", and win by quantity.
Others believe that the film projects at hand should be reduced to avoid financial pressure and the risk of loss.
...
"This will not affect us much, right?"
In the meeting room of Ruyi Pictures, Zhou Cheng looked at Meng Bai and Chen Zhixi and asked, "I have seen our projects, the quality is good, and the box office results should not be too bad."
Although the merger and acquisition has not officially started, Evergrande has already started cooperation with Ruyi Pictures.
Now, in addition to "The Accidental Manslaughter" and "Famous", which Ruyi cooperated with Arc Light, it has also participated in Lu Yang's "Assassination of Novelist", Jia Ling's first directorial "Hello, Li Huanying", and Director Han Yan's new project "Send You a Little Red Flower" that has just begun to be prepared.
Evergrande has just entered the film and television industry and is thinking about making a big splash. It doesn't care about the film and television winter. So Zhou Cheng's idea is to add some new projects.
However, his proposal was blocked by Meng Bai and Chen Zhixi. At present, Ruyi has a lot of projects, and continuing to develop projects will only increase financial pressure.
"No one can tell what the market will do next. We still have to keep some funds to cope with changes." Meng Bai suggested.
Chen Zhixi also nodded in agreement: "Besides, there are no suitable projects recently. Instead of "picking gold from the shit" in those low-cost productions, it is better to wait and see if there are suitable big projects."
According to the agreement between Ruyi and Evergrande, the decision-making on film and television after the merger and acquisition will still be the responsibility of the original Ruyi management. So although Zhou Cheng was a little regretful, he still respected the proposal of the two industry insiders and postponed the new project.
Since there was nothing to discuss about the film business for the time being, the few people changed the topic and continued to discuss the situation of the streaming platform.
After several rounds of discussions between the two sides, the name of the new platform derived from the original "Pumpkin Movie" was temporarily set as "Horizontal Video".
Firstly, it is homophonic with Evergrande’s own name, which strengthens the brand effect; secondly, it is also compared with short videos such as Douyin and Kuaishou, which are mainly in vertical screen format, highlighting the platform’s positioning as mainly focusing on traditional horizontal screen TV series and movies.
The new "horizontal video" logo is a variant of the capital "H" in blue and white. The overall structure is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. The shape of the top is similar to the screen, and the bottom is the triangular play button commonly seen in videos. The overall look has a trendy cyberpunk style.
Although the new platform has not officially started operations, the reform measures set before are already in progress. All foreign dramas that the website originally did not have the copyright to were removed from the shelves, and replaced by Ruyi’s own previous projects and Tencent Video’s film library.
The overall atmosphere and style of the platform have also been completely changed. It is no longer a one-to-one copy of Netflix, but a new set of UI interfaces have been redesigned on this basis.
The website’s operating strategy has also changed. It is no longer all "horror suspense films", but is divided into three brands with different styles——
The "Misty Theater" focuses on suspense, criminal investigation, reasoning, and thriller;
the "Love Theater" focuses on urban, youth, and romance;
and the "Liuguang Theater" focuses on fairy tales and ancient puppets.
Of course, because of the unique conditions of Arclight Film and Television, and the fact that suspense themes are also popular in online dramas, the platform will focus on the "Misty Theater" in the initial stage.
And the opening new work is Arclight's "Tracing Back Trilogy. "
However, what they are going to discuss today is not the online drama project, but the variety show and reality show planning mentioned before.
"We have recently studied the variety show market, and have also contacted several variety show teams, and screened out several good proposals."
Chen Zhixi said, opening a document on the projection screen in the conference room: "The first project was proposed by President Meng, a documentary police observation reality show, and the plan is called "Protecting Blue Mountain West."
(End of this chapter)
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