Chapter 454: "Stars" is on air.
[The latest news: more than 30 countries around the world, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, have declared a state of emergency.]
[Good! You used to mock us every day on the Internet, but now it's good, everyone should spread it together.]
[No, they don't have national aid and lockdown measures. They go out on the streets every day to "walk", and the infection is much greater than ours.]
[Initially, no one cared about this disaster. It was just a wildfire (Australian wildfire), a drought (Chilean drought), the extinction of a species (Hawaiian snails), and the closure of a distant eastern city. Until this disaster was closely related to everyone.]
[I said that "The Wandering Earth" is still too advanced. It would definitely be a masterpiece if it was released now!]
[……]
"The cinemas are all closed. If it is really released now, I'm afraid it can only be changed into an online movie."
Looking at the comments of netizens online, Chen Zhixi complained.
"Don't mention it, didn't Xu Zheng's latest "Lost in Russia" sell it to ByteDance and change it to online broadcast?" Meng Bai on the side said: "It is possible that movies will also be divided into online and offline in the future."
Upon hearing this, even though Chen Zhixi and Xu Zheng have a good relationship, he couldn't help frowning: "Old Xu and his people have gone a little too far this time, and they have offended the downstream side badly."
The flu is raging, and the state has issued a notice to temporarily close all public places, and cinemas are naturally one of them. Without the big screen, the Spring Festival movies have withdrawn and chosen to postpone.
The relationship between theaters and producers can be described as "love and hate". Usually, they are fighting for box office share with each other, but at this time, they "overcome difficulties together".
The producer withdraws the schedule and waits for the theater to restart, and then makes money together. Although there is no explicit regulation, it can be regarded as a tacit understanding between each other.
But at this time, ByteDance suddenly issued an announcement stating that it had bought the popular Spring Festival work "Lost in Russia" for 650 million yuan. Audiences can watch the entire movie for free on various platforms such as Douyin, Toutiao, and Xigua.
ByteDance’s statement was very generous, saying that they knew everyone was bored staying at home during the Spring Festival this year, so they invited people across the country to watch movies for free. As
soon as this announcement came out, the Internet exploded instantly.
Netizens and viewers naturally praised it. Although the quality of the "囧 series" films is getting worse and worse, and the plot of this "囧妈" is hard to describe, it is free.
It just so happens that staying at home is boring, so it’s not bad to watch a movie with the family, anyway, it’s free.
Compared with the audience, the video platforms are confused, especially the three major ones, Qiyi TV, Tencent Video and Youku. It’s not that they haven’t thought about doing this before, but they were embarrassed to do it because of the rules of the traditional film industry.
Unexpectedly, they were robbed by ByteDance, a short video platform.
But think about it, it’s not that they are messing around. Just like all major Internet applications have wanted to make short videos in recent years, ByteDance, a platform that started with short videos, also wants to make long videos.
As early as 2018, ByteDance’s Xigua Video announced that it would invest 4 billion to create a self-made variety show. Then last year, Douyin also pushed the length of videos on the platform from one minute to five minutes, and finally to fifteen minutes.
Even before the Spring Festival, Douyin announced a partnership with Netflix to simultaneously broadcast the new work "Dracula" by the British drama "Sherlock Holmes" team.
Coupled with the current "Lost in Russia" movie, ByteDance is obviously planning to continue to deepen its development in the field of long videos.
The audience is happy to get free stuff, the video platform is confused and regretful, and the film industry, especially the distribution and theaters, is only angry.
On the day when ByteDance and the "Lost in Russia" drama announced the news, theaters and film practitioners across the country spoke out and condemned the film party's rule-breaking behavior.
It's no wonder they are anxious. Huanxi Media's incident this time really directly hit the key interests of all parties.
For the distributor, if your movie is not released in theaters, then there is no need for a distributor.
For publicity and distribution, the gameplay of streaming platforms is very different from the current traditional theater gameplay, and it has also been seized by emerging Internet companies.
The most hurt are the cinemas and theaters. Not to mention the disputes between online and offline, such a high-grossing movie with a volume of more than 1.5 billion yuan is released on streaming media, and they can't get a penny from the downstream. At this time, it is really painful.
More importantly, once this kind of thing starts, it will be out of control in the future.
This is different from Arclight's previous "Soul Ferry: Huangquan". Because of the subject matter, that film was aimed at online, not to mention that Arclight has always been a web drama company, and no one will say anything.
"Lost in Russia" is a real cinema movie, and Xu Zheng is a serious film practitioner, and the nature is completely different.
In fact, there have been rumors in the industry recently that a certain video platform has issued an "urgent copyright purchase" invitation internally, contacting another Spring Festival movie and asking whether it will choose to broadcast online.
Although no one has confirmed it, many people choose to believe it. After all, for upstream producers, revenue is the most important thing. As for whether to share the profits from the cinema or sell it directly to the streaming platform, they don't care.
Originally, due to the cold winter of film and television, the days of cinemas and theaters have been difficult in the past two years. Before I could recover, I was hit by the flu. I could only swallow my anger and accept force majeure, but then this happened again.
As far as Meng Bai knew, many theaters and distributors had privately said that they would jointly boycott Huanxi Media and Xu Zheng to serve as a warning to others.
"I don't think a joint boycott will be possible." Meng Bai shook his head. "No one knows how long this flu will last, and how much energy the theaters will have left by then. Let alone Huanxi Media, Xu Zheng is a real box office appeal. When the time comes, I'm afraid no one will say that they will absolutely not cooperate."
"That's true." Chen Zhixi said, "In that case, can we also transfer the movie online? I always think that the movie "Famous" is actually very suitable for the style of online streaming platforms."
"It's okay to transfer it online, the key is who to sell it to." Meng Bai said, "The cast of this movie is much worse than "Lost in Russia", and it's difficult to raise the price. You can't just transfer it from one hand to the other and sell it to Heng Video. It's better to wait and see when the blockade is restored, and try it in theaters."
After that, he smiled and said, "Maybe by then, the audience will have been holding back for so long, and it will bring about a wave of movie-watching enthusiasm, and we can also get the bonus."
Chen Zhixi thought about it and felt that it made sense, so he put the matter of the movie aside for the time being.
Regardless of the boycott from the theaters, the film company of "Lost in Russia" not only landed without risk this time, but also made a lot of money.
ByteDance is also not at a loss. As the current leader of short videos and the world's strongest "super unicorn", burning 600 to 700 million to earn traffic and users is nothing.
They did attract a lot of traffic. After all, everyone is now locked up at home. It's better in the countryside, at least there is a yard, and in the city, there is really only online entertainment.
It's not just ByteDance. Almost all platforms have received a lot of traffic this time, and the number of daily active users has increased by leaps and bounds.
Among all the major platforms, there is a second-tier platform that is particularly eye-catching, that is the new Heng Video.
As early as when various places called on the masses to stay at home, Heng Video started its own "one dollar membership enjoyment" promotion.
Then, facing the blockade of Hubei, it issued a policy of "free opening of all copyrights to IP users in Hubei region".
These two eye-catching plans, coupled with the platform's own ad-free and refreshing interface, attracted many new users at once.
When Heng Teng Network just acquired Ruyi, Pumpkin Movie had only 7 or 8 million users. After the integration and reorganization into "Heng Video", the number of users was less than 9 million before the Spring Festival.
However, with the popularity and traffic during the Spring Festival, in less than half a month, the number of paying users of Heng Video has grown to more than 17 million, nearly doubling.
Although not much membership fees were received, Heng Teng Network's stock price rose against the trend. Although the increase is not large, compared with other film and television stocks that have fallen, it can be said to be unique.
The surge in the number of users has driven great popularity and traffic. Hengten also took advantage of the opportunity and announced that the first drama of the new "Retrospective Series" in cooperation with Arclight, "Twinkle Twinkle Star", will be broadcast soon.
As one of the few signatures in the domestic entertainment film and television circles in recent years, Arclight dramas themselves have their own traffic.
In addition, many audience fans know that the "Retrospective Series" is Arclight's next key project, and the theme of "time travel" is even rarer in domestic entertainment, so as early as when the project was just announced, it has attracted a lot of attention.
I thought the first work would have to wait until this summer, but I didn't expect it to be broadcast so soon.
Not only horizontal videos, but all platforms obviously want to seize this rare opportunity and have launched trailers for their dramas.
Qiyi TV teamed up with director Wei Zheng to restart the "Love Apartment" series after six years and launched the final season of "Love Apartment 5".
Tencent Video, in conjunction with Jiaxing, launched the sequel to "Eternal Love" "Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", starring Reba.
Youku's new drama is a food drama called "Human Fireworks Flower Chef". From the title, it can be seen that it wants to replicate the small hit "Huajian Tihu Fang Dachu" that Arclight previously cooperated with Huace. Even Mango
TV has released the latest trailer for the ancient puppet drama "Three Thousand Crows", starring Zhao Lusi, a new online drama actress who has been popular in the past two years.
All five platforms have new dramas to be released, which is naturally a welcome sight for viewers trapped at home.
The most anticipated ones are naturally "Twinkle Twinkle Star" from Hengshi Video and "Three Lives Three Worlds Pillow Book" from Tencent.
Needless to say, the former, although the latter starring Reba has lost her popularity in the past two years due to the previous "Water Flooding Golden Eagle", is still one of the few traffic among the "90 Flowers".
Expectations are expectations, but how the actual performance will be, we have to wait until the actual broadcast to know.
...
In addition to platform development and the launch of new dramas, Meng Bai has a lot of other things to do during this period.
For example, in the name of Arclight Films, Apocalypse Entertainment and himself, donations were initiated to Jiangcheng and other areas with severe influenza. This is basically what all large companies will do.
In addition, many Arclight employees were left in their hometowns due to the influenza. Fortunately, the company had a plan before the Spring Festival holiday, and they could work remotely online, which did not affect the company's operations.
But there are still some impacts. Several projects of Arclight, such as "Want to See You" and "Eastern Palace", have all suspended filming, waiting for the storm to pass.
The film and television industry is originally high in assets, high in risks, and slow in return cycles. Many companies are operating in debt. Now that they encounter such natural disasters, the investors are also tightening their belts. Few can get their money back, and the pressure is even greater.
Faced with such emergencies, the situation of large and small companies is actually similar. Small companies lack funds, and large companies have high costs, so they can only grit their teeth and hold on.
In comparison, Arclight's cash flow is still healthy. After the suspension of new projects, there are no other spending projects, so it is no problem to survive this storm.
The only thing Meng Bai is thankful for now is that the idea of buying a building to integrate the Arc Light system last year was not implemented, otherwise he would inevitably face considerable financial pressure now.
There are also benefits to the suspension of the project. For example, Meng Ziyi cannot shoot the next drama for the time being, so she can focus on the promotion of "Twinkle, Twinkle Star".
Because of the "fan siege" incident of "The Untamed", although the girl's reputation was affected, her popularity has also increased a lot.
Like Meng Ziyi, the male lead Qu Chuxiao's current reputation is also a bit mixed.
Fans of the two leading actors, black fans, fans of the rival works, fans of Arc Light, passers-by...
For a time, in the discussion areas of major platforms, you can almost see people arguing about the drama "Twinkle, Twinkle Star".
Putting aside other things, this popularity has been greatly increased, and many viewers who were not very interested in the drama before are also in a state of mind to watch the fun and are attracted.
Otherwise, why do people in the industry always say that "black fans are also fans"? As an industry that needs to attract the attention of others, popularity itself is the biggest resource.
"Uncle, I'm so nervous now!"
Influenced by public opinion on the Internet, Meng Ziyi knew that Meng Bai was busy recently, but she couldn't help but call him.
Meng Bai could naturally hear the anxiety in the girl's words, so it was rare that she didn't argue with her as usual, but comforted her in a gentle voice: "It's okay, there won't be a problem. Even if you don't believe in yourself, you have to believe in me and Director Wang Wei."
Meng Ziyi has blind trust in Meng Bai. So when she heard this, she really relaxed.
Yes, this is a project that the uncle personally took action on. When it hasn't failed yet, it's purely unnecessary for her to worry about it.
Meng Ziyi, who put down his worries, began to focus on publicity. The crew live broadcast, posted promotional videos, wrote recommendation copy... Anyway, he came up with various tricks.
Finally, amid the curiosity of passers-by, the expectations of fans and the attacks of haters, the first work of Heng Video and Arc Light, "Twinkle Twinkle Star", was launched before the end of February.
(End of this chapter)
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