The meeting between Lu Ban and Thomas Lee was not ideal.

The main problem lies in the distribution of revenue and the number of films scheduled.

Lu Ban expected the best release date to be the New Year's Day period around Christmas, which is half a year away and is enough time for his team to complete the film production and provide the master tape.

Moreover, Christmas is equivalent to the New Year for foreigners. There are many holidays during that period and a large number of moviegoers. In China, there is the New Year's Day holiday and there will also be a large number of audiences.

But for foreign cinemas, this period is also very important, and may even be the most important period, similar to the Spring Festival period in China, when the strongest movies are shown. It would not be reasonable to play a movie made by a "foreigner" at this time, and the shareholders of the cinemas may not agree.

After all, Lu Ban is not famous enough.

As for the distribution of profits, it is very intuitive.

After deducting certain special business taxes and special funds from the domestic movie box office, more than 50% of the remaining money has to be given to the film and theater chains, and Thomas Lee wants to increase the proportion of this portion. They want more than 60, close to 70%.

Lu Ban had no interest in money, but this mission required a profit of 5 billion. If he could get 5 billion at the domestic box office, then the remaining half would have to be made up from abroad. According to the 40:60 split, he needed to get a box office of about 900 million US dollars in the overseas market, which was already a huge number that far exceeded the previous domestic film record. If it was a 30:70 split, Lu Ban would have to get a box office of 1.2 billion US dollars.

The extra 300 million is higher than the box office record of a domestic film overseas.

Lu Ban is not an irrational and arrogant madman. On the contrary, he thinks he is just an ordinary filmmaker without any exaggerated skills or genius sense of camera. The movies he makes are not much better than others except for the subject matter and the immersive power.

Because of this, in order to complete the task safely, Lu Ban must want to reduce the difficulty of his task.

Fortunately, this is the first contact and it is not the final deal. Thomas Lee will stay in the country to talk to several other companies. Lu Ban is not in a hurry. He believes that if Thomas Lee is not a waste who only knows how to talk big, he will definitely investigate and study Lu Ban's works. After watching these works, he will definitely not let Lu Ban's works be released alone in other theaters.

at the same time.

Thomas Lee was also quite distressed.

As the domestic manager of AMC Theaters, he is responsible for introducing Chinese-language films.

In the past, in the 1980s and 1990s, the films introduced were mainly Hong Kong films, including some police and gangster films, zombie films, etc. Later, kung fu films became the mainstream, including a series of kung fu actors going to Hollywood to make their fortunes, which set off a wave of popularity.

However, with the decline of Hong Kong films and the rise of mainland films, the introduction of films has become much more difficult.

First of all, there are cultural differences. Many kung fu films in the past had simple plots, which were popular with European and American audiences who just liked to watch the fancy fighting scenes.

But later on, many domestic films paid more attention to ideas and content. National hatred, family feuds, historical changes and other contents became the themes of kung fu movies. Chinese people felt happy watching those martial arts masters beating up foreigners, but foreigners found it a little subtle.

In fact, according to Thomas Lee's understanding, what European and American audiences want to see is actually just the classical, simple and backward world of the mysterious East, just like civilized people observing the people of primitive tribes.

In the minds of European and American audiences, the East is backward. Therefore, most movies that show how modern and powerful the East is are not recognized by European and American audiences.

Not to mention that in recent years, there have been many popular movies in the film market. Even Chinese people don’t like to watch this kind of movies, let alone foreigners who can’t understand them.

The job of importing movies is becoming increasingly difficult.

Thomas Lee has talked to several companies in the past few days, but he is not satisfied with any of them.

Although there is still time, the deal cannot be concluded and the performance cannot be completed.

In the evening, he returned to his home in Yannan.

Turning on the TV, he wanted to find some movies to watch.

At this time, Thomas Lee thought of the disc that Lu Ban had given him before.

He knew that director Lu Ban was the number one horror film in China and his box office was very scary in the horror film field. And many Europeans and Americans also liked Asian horror films.

However, Thomas Lee cannot show that he attaches too much importance to Lu Ban. He must be tough enough to lower the price.

According to the bottom line of Thomas Lee's previous work, he should keep the theater share at 60% and the screening volume at around 5%.

During the wonderful Christmas, horror movies are not that popular, but the same may be true for Halloween.

But the specific results still depend on the quality of the finished film.

Thinking of this, Thomas Lee, who had never seen any of Lu Ban's movies before, took out the disc of "The Wailing" and put it into the projector.

He wanted to see why this movie was such a hit.

Two hours later, Thomas Lee sat stiffly on the sofa, unable to move.

His expression was stiff and ferocious, with his eyes wide open.

There was a scratch mark on the armrest of the sofa, which was the result of his instinctive reaction due to being overly frightened.

Thomas Lee has seen many horror movies, especially those from Asia, and he used to like zombie movies.

But now, the feeling this movie brought to him was no less terrifying than when he was forced to go to the hospital for injections as a child.

Thomas Lee was defeated.

It wasn't until the production list ended and the movie ended that Thomas Lee finally came to his senses.

He found that because he had been in a tense state, now that he relaxed, all the muscles in his body relaxed.

Including some that shouldn't be relaxed.

“…FUCK!”

Thomas Lee felt the wet and warm body on the sofa and couldn't help but swear.

He tried to stand up, but his weak legs wouldn't allow him to move and he failed.

The whole person sat back down.

“…”

It took Thomas Lee another ten minutes before he was able to get up. He changed his clothes and cleaned the living room. He looked at the second CD that Lu Ban gave him and fell into deep thought.

"It's no wonder that a movie like this can get such a high box office in the country."

Thomas Lee exclaimed.

Nowadays, when the audio-visual experience is becoming more and more complicated, it is difficult to give people such a horror movie experience.

Humans, after all, like to seek excitement.

And this experience... is very special. Thomas Lee has only experienced it in Lu Ban's movies so far.

This unique experience may well be the key to his films selling well overseas.

"It's just that I don't know if this is the only movie of this level, or if..."

There are many directors who exhaust their talent in the first movie, start to rely on their past achievements in the second movie, and eventually become mediocre. Lu Ban is going to release his third work, so it is hard for Thomas Lee not to be suspicious.

Of course, Thomas Lee now has the idea of ​​introducing these two films of Lu Ban to be released overseas. Although due to timeliness, the box office may not be too high, it may serve as a prelude to build momentum for Lu Ban’s third film.

"Let's watch this second movie first."

Thomas Lee had already put the disc into the projector and looked at the sofa again.

He decided to change into a pair of swimming trunks and watch.