Chapter 210 Huge Profits and Strengthened Investment

In addition to achieving good results in the first book, "New World" also performed even better in South Korea.

For the version released overseas, Liu Zhou did not have so many concerns and directly used the original ending.

So in terms of the sense of pleasure, it should be stronger.

This undoubtedly suits the taste of South Koreans. The film was released in South Korean theaters after the Spring Festival and was screened for nearly two months, with a total of 2.2 million viewers.

This result puts Chinese films second in the Korean box office charts, second only to "Hero" with 289 million viewers.

This record of "Hero" was not broken until "Red Cliff" and it was maintained until Liu Zhou was reborn. After that, almost no Chinese films were able to achieve good results in South Korea.

The number of viewers for "New World" is equivalent to a box office of approximately 860 million US dollars, or about 7400 million RMB.

The film market in South Korea is much smaller than that of the first film, but its box office is higher than that of the first film, which shows how popular this movie is in South Korea.

In addition to Japan and South Korea, the two most important markets in Asia, New World has also achieved excellent results in various Southeast Asian countries.

The total box office in Southeast Asia is nearly 4300 million US dollars, which is about million RMB.

The box office in mainland China was 2.35 million yuan, and Golden Harvest was able to get 41.7% of the box office share, which is 9800 million yuan.

Then some other copyrights sold for nearly 500 million in total.

The box office in Hong Kong was just over 60 million Hong Kong dollars, and Taiwan also earned more than 50 million New Taiwan dollars. The total amount is equivalent to about 70 million RMB.

In these two regions, Jiahe can get 3500% of the share, which is million.

Both Yiben and Jiahe have deep ties in the South Korean market. With the added fame of Liu Zhou, the share negotiated this time reached 33%.

This is not inferior to the box office share of some local films.

The total box office in these two regions was 144 million, and Golden Harvest was able to get 48 million.

In the Southeast Asian region, Golden Harvest negotiated a 1300% share, and could get million in box office revenue from these regions.

Therefore, all the revenue of the movie "New World" in Asia added up to 1.99 million, nearly million RMB.

In addition, the copyright of "New World" has also been snapped up in overseas markets outside of Asia.

The two most important ones are Warner, which has always had a good relationship with Golden Harvest.

The adaptation rights of "Infernal Affairs" were previously bought by Brad Pitt, and then invested and produced by Warner into "The Departed".

The movie "The Departed" not only achieved a super high box office of 1.9 million US dollars in North America,

At the same time, it won four major awards at the Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing.

The Oscars are a place of fame and fortune. Why are people so keen on winning awards? Apart from honor, the most important thing is profit.

As long as a film wins some important Oscar awards, its value will be immediately magnified.

Therefore, Warner not only made a lot of profit at the box office, but also earned more from the subsequent copyright operations after winning the awards.

Even in the short term, Warner made at least $100 million from this movie.

So for another classic gangster movie comparable to "Infernal Affairs", Warner is of course eager to get the adaptation rights to "The New World" and make another big profit.

Another company that is more interested in "New World" is Lionsgate, which has a good cooperative relationship with Liu Zhou.

Liu Zhougang collaborated with Lionsgate on a movie called "Source Code", which grossed over 100 million yuan in North America.

The movie "The Piano Tuner" by Liu Zhou that they purchased before made money both in distribution and adaptation, especially the American version of "The Piano Tuner" which made Lionsgate a lot of money.

What's more, everyone has seen the huge profits Warner has made from "The Departed".

Therefore, the copyright of "The New World" has attracted competition from many major Hollywood companies, especially Lionsgate and Warner.

In the end, out of trust in Liu Zhou, Lionsgate Films took the plunge and directly offered a price of 10 million US dollars.

Warner was a little frightened by Lionsgate's courage. After discussion, they finally chose to give up.

The reason why Lionsgate offered such a high price, besides the fact that the movie "New World" was profitable, the most important reason was that they wanted to win over Liu Zhou.

After Source Code, Liu Zhou became a hot commodity and many production companies approached him for cooperation, including some of the Big Seven in Hollywood.

In order to continue cooperating with Liu Zhou, Lionsgate has spared no effort in winning him over.

Lionsgate, which is now in a stage of rapid development, has such great courage.

Golden Harvest was of course happy to see this happen and sold the distribution and adaptation rights of "New World" (except Asia) to Lionsgate for US$10 million.

Although this achievement did not set a record, it caused a huge sensation in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, in particular, has been boasting crazily, shouting "Hong Kong films are not dead."

This has led the bosses of many film and television companies who have plunged into martial arts blockbusters to consider whether they can also try making gangster films.

Some are considering it, and some have already taken action.

In fact, after the box office success of "New World", Hong Kong launched several gangster movies.

After the news of this overseas copyright deal spread, it attracted more people to invest in gangster movies.

So, only three months into 2006, the number of film projects launched in Hong Kong has already exceeded the entire year of last year.

Although this cannot be compared with the peak period of Hong Kong films, this small last glimmer of hope has also made Hong Kong filmmakers and Hong Kong media very happy.

Having a project means there is work to do, so you won’t be idle at home all the time.

That is why the Hong Kong media has been shouting that Hong Kong films are not dead, because in the past two years, the performance of Hong Kong films has really scared them.

This made Liu Zhou gain a lot of favor in the Hong Kong circle.

Liu Zhou doesn't care much about these things. Hong Kong films are destined to gradually and thoroughly integrate into Chinese films.

Currently, Hong Kong films are only supported by the older generation of filmmakers. Once they retire, Hong Kong films will no longer be able to continue.

So compared to these, Liu Zhou is more concerned about how much money he makes.

Ten million US dollars is equivalent to 8600 million RMB, plus the revenue in Asia, the total is 2.85 million.

The production cost of "New World" was 30 million, and the investment in publicity and promotion was also about 30 million.

In other words, the film made a profit of up to 2.25 million.

If a movie earns more than 200 million yuan, it may shake not only the film industry but also the entire mainland business community.

Now is not ten years later. Currently in mainland China, if your net worth reaches 200 million, you can even be included in the rich list.

Together with the 2.55 million earned from Crazy Stone, Golden Harvest earned a total of million from the two films during the Lunar New Year holiday last year. Although this money still needs to be used to pay taxes and other operating costs of Golden Harvest, it is all settled at the end of the year.

With this money, Liu Zhou no longer has to worry about Jiahe’s financial problems.

Because after taking over Sina, Liu Zhou is now really penniless, unless he cashes out his Penguin shares.

But unless Liu Zhou was out of his mind, he would not do this.

Currently, Golden Harvest’s biggest expense is still on cinemas.

Now, Golden Harvest’s Golden Harvest International Cinemas in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have all started construction.

Although Liu Zhou had already allocated this part of the money, Gao Jun is now about to reach an agreement with a cinema chain in Hunan Province.

This cinema chain company was one of the 30 cinema chains established at the time, but its cinemas only covered Hunan Province and the neighboring Jiangxi Province.

Because the film market in these two regions is relatively sluggish, theater companies have been in a loss-making state for almost four years.

Gao Jun doesn't care whether it makes a loss or not, he only cares about its cinema license.

Golden Harvest Media is now a mainland enterprise registered in Beijing, so it can wholly own a cinema chain company.

As long as the price is finally agreed upon, Golden Harvest will then have to focus on the cinema chain, which will require a huge amount of money.

It is impossible for Liu Zhou to keep adding money, so listing Jiahe is an inevitable choice.

In order to go public, you need to have good performance.

Last year was a year of adjustment for Golden Harvest after its reorganization, while this year is the year when Golden Harvest begins its full-scale offensive.

Liu Zhou looked at Zhang Zhao’s current project investments and felt that they were still a bit conservative.

Only two TV series have been approved for investment. One is "New Shanghai Bund", a new drama directed by Gao Xixi, who previously collaborated with Zhou Shan Studio on "The Sky of History".

This TV series chose Huang Xiaoming as the male lead and Dong Xuan as the female lead.

Ever since "Snow Goddess Dragon" became popular, Dong Xuan's popularity has declined a lot because there are not many projects within the company and she cannot get good resources from outside.

Now that Golden Harvest is doing well again, of course it has to give more resources to its artists, so Feng Chengcheng was directly given to Dong Xuan.

Dong Xuan is much prettier than Sun Li, so she shouldn't be criticized.

Another TV series is "Soldier Assault", which is the TV version of the drama "Erna Assault".

The copyright of this play belongs to Zhoushan Repertory Theatre. Last year, screenwriter Lan Xiaolong and director Kang Honglei found Zhang Zhao and wanted to adapt the play into a TV series.

Zhang Zhao also asked Liu Zhou about this matter, and Liu Zhou of course agreed. Wasn’t it for this TV series that he invested in this drama in the first place?

Later, Kang Honglei and Lan Xiaolong chose Wang Baoqiang as the male lead. Zhang Zhao disagreed at first because Wang Baoqiang was an actor under Huayi, and he knew that his boss did not get along well with Huayi.

Therefore, he and the two of them were in a stalemate for a while, and finally agreed after Liu Zhou nodded.

However, Huayi wanted to take advantage of the situation and, seeing that the director and the male lead were from its own company, it also wanted to participate in the investment.

Liu Zhou thought they were dreaming and rejected them without hesitation, even saying that Huayi actors were not allowed to be used for other roles.

Huayi was turned down and had to retreat in embarrassment.

In addition to the TV series, there are also only two film projects that have been approved for investment.

One of them is a low-budget comedy film "Nightclub", which was recommended by Xu Zheng to Ning Hao, and then Ning Hao recommended it to Zhang Zhao.

The investment in this film was not large, not to mention that it was recommended by Ning Hao, and the director was also Liu Zhou’s alumnus of the Central Academy of Drama, so he agreed to invest directly.

The other one is "The Swordsman 2", a movie that has been delayed for almost a year.

The sequel to this hit was planned last year, but filming did not begin until this year.

Because it’s not easy to find a director for this movie.

There were several suitable candidates, but they all refused because they were afraid of being compared with Liu Zhou and affecting their reputation.

After searching for a while, Zhang Zhao finally chose Xu Ke.

After "Seven Swords", although his box office performance was not a flop, it was not particularly good either, and he also had conflicts with the investors because of this movie.

Later, his ex-wife Nansun Shi persuaded him to develop in the mainland. As soon as the news came out, he was immediately sought after by major film and television companies in the mainland.

In the end, it was Chen Guofu who personally stepped in, reasoned with the people and moved them with emotion, and finally defeated Huayi and got Xu Ke to join Golden Harvest.

The first project he joined Golden Harvest was "Swords of Passion 2".

Xu Ke is not afraid of being compared to others. Firstly, he is confident in his own abilities. Secondly, he has also read the script and found that the quality is not bad.

What's more, Golden Harvest was very supportive of him and agreed to invest in his new script "Detective Dee" without any hesitation.

Now that it's difficult to find a director for "The Swordsman 2", he feels that he has to take on this project even if it's just a way to return the favor.

In fact, producing two movies and two TV series a year was considered a lot at that time, but for Golden Harvest, it was not enough.

Seeing that Zhang Zhao had not left the company yet, Liu Zhou called him over and told him his opinion.

"Mr. Liu, there are too few good projects out there right now. If we ignore quality for the sake of quantity, wouldn't that be a loss?"

"I know. I'm not asking you to find a hit product. You can invest in any project that you think is of decent quality. Now we need to make the company's profit figures look good."

"Mr. Liu, are you planning to take Jiahe public?" Zhang Zhao asked tentatively.

"I do have this idea. I plan to list Golden Harvest within three years, but if the profit figures are not good, then we can only wait."

After hearing Liu Zhou's words, Zhang Zhao immediately became much more energetic.

He has options. If Golden Harvest goes public, his wealth will skyrocket. This is closely related to his interests.

"Mr. Liu, I will find more projects during this period of time, which will definitely not delay the company's listing."

"Okay, actually it doesn't matter if some projects fail, as long as most of the projects are successful."

After hearing what Liu Zhou said, Zhang Zhao hesitated for a moment and said:
"The company actually received a TV script, and I think the quality is very good, but I feel that the threshold for watching it is a bit high. The reputation may be good, but the ratings should not be high."

"It doesn't matter. We are a big company at Golden Harvest. We should not only pursue the ratings, but also pay attention to the reputation of the TV series. Since you think the quality is very good, then invest."

"Okay Mr. Liu."

"By the way, what's the name of this play and who wrote it?"

"It was written by Liu Heping, the screenwriter of Red Cliff. It's called The Ming Dynasty 1566."

(End of this chapter)