Chapter 350: Grand Premiere and Liu Zhou’s Hollywood Connections
April 6th, China National Theatre.

As a well-known theater throughout North America, the premieres of many Hollywood blockbusters are generally held here.

Although "Twilight" is not a blockbuster, as the first appearance of Summit Entertainment after being acquired by Liu Zhou, both Liu Zhou and Anthony Edwards hope to make it grand.

So for this premiere, Summit Entertainment not only spent a huge amount of money to hold a grand premiere at the China Grand Theater, but also invited many celebrities and directors to attend.

As a well-known second-tier film company in Hollywood and a company with distribution capabilities, Summit Entertainment has accumulated some connections.

Coupled with Liu Zhou and Anthony Edwards' personal connections, the premiere of "Twilight" which was originally star-studded was actually star-studded.

There are about forty or fifty other less famous stars, including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Keanu Reeves, Christian Bale, George Clooney, Jackie Chan, and others.

If Anne Hathaway wasn't currently filming, she would have also participated. She is also very popular in the United States.

In addition, two famous Chinese directors in Hollywood, James Wan and Justin Lin, also came to show their support.

James Wan became famous through the classic horror film "Saw", and Justin Lin is of course best known for bringing the "Fast and Furious" series to its peak.

"Fast and Furious" can be said to be the most well-known Hollywood film series in mainland China, with each box office higher than the last.

The "Fast & Furious 4" directed by him is about to be released. This is also a transformational work in the series, completely transferring the film's leading male role from Paul Walker to Vin Diesel.

The subsequent "Fast & Furious 5" became the most classic of the entire series, and also started the series' wild journey around the world.

Liu Zhou is actually not very familiar with Justin Lin and they have only met a few times.

He and James Wan are quite familiar with each other. The two met before at Lionsgate. They have both been working with Lionsgate, so they communicate a lot and became familiar with each other over time.

It was James Wan who introduced Justin Lin to Liu Zhou. Not only Justin Lin, he also introduced many Chinese people working in Hollywood to Liu Zhou.

However, Liu Zhou had no intention of making friends with these people, because most of them were American Chinese.

In fact, James Wan and Justin Lin are also like this, but they are qualified to be friends with me, but others are not.

This is not Liu Zhou being discerning about people, but to be honest, Liu Zhou does treat people differently. But if he doesn't treat strangers differently, does he still have feelings for them?

Or maybe it's about brotherhood?

So Liu Zhou hardly interacted with those people in Hollywood.

Chen Chong, who had Liu Zhou's admiration at the Berlin Film Festival twelve years ago, now wanted to curry favor with him, but Liu Zhou ignored her.

Some of her behaviors are even more disgusting than those of second-generation Chinese.

In addition to James Wan and Justin Lin, what Liu Zhou didn't expect was that Christopher Nolan was also here.

Before, Liu Zhou just tried to send an invitation. After all, the two met through Christian Bale, but there was not much communication after that, and the two were not familiar with each other.

But since this new Hollywood director gave him so much face, Liu Zhou certainly didn't dare to neglect it.

Since the release of The Dark Knight, the second film in his Batman trilogy, last year, the film has grossed over $1 billion worldwide.

Not only did it make Heath Ledger, who played the Joker in the movie, famous, it also made director Christopher Nolan a hot director in Hollywood.

Nolan will also have another movie "Inception" released this year. After this movie, he will be completely deified.

So the current Nolan is not the same as when Liu Zhou first met him two or three years ago.

However, compared with the other three Hollywood bigwigs present, Nolan's influence is somewhat inferior.

One of them is Frank Gustaf, president of Lionsgate Entertainment, an old acquaintance of Liu Zhou and now a close partner of Summit Entertainment.

However, when he saw Liu Zhou, he greeted him and asked directly:
"Liu, do you still have the script for The Hunger Games?"

Liu Zhou didn't expect him to talk about things on this occasion. After a pause, he replied:
"Yes."

"So do you have any plans to film this script recently? We at Lionsgate are very interested in this script."

"Mr. Gustav, let's talk about this later. It's not appropriate to talk about it now. Besides, this script is what I prepared for Summit Entertainment."

“We can actually work together.”

"Then you can go talk to Anthony. I rarely interfere with the specific work of Summit Entertainment. He is usually in charge."

Although he knew that Liu Zhou was just trying to fool him, Gustav had no choice because the initiative was in his hands.

The reason why Gustaf was able to discover "The Hunger Games" in the vast library of registered scripts was mainly because Lionsgate had been paying attention to Liu Zhou.

To be honest, Gustava is really optimistic about Liu Zhou, just like Warner attaches great importance to Nolan.

But Liu Zhou is not a simple director like Nolan, he is also a big boss, and his wealth is even richer than his own.

So even though he was unwilling, he could only watch Liu Zhou leave, and then watch him take over Summit Entertainment with great pride.

However, despite this, Gustav did not intend to suppress others. After taking over Summit Entertainment, Liu Zhou became rich and powerful in Hollywood. He was also talented and it was impossible for him to be suppressed.

What's more, his own company is still being suppressed by the Big Seven in Hollywood.

So instead of making enemies with Liu and Zhou, it is better to cooperate together, develop together, and resist the pressure from the Big Seven in Hollywood.

Therefore, even if his right-hand man Anthony Edwards went to join Liu Zhou, he did not say anything, but decisively let him go.

In the past two years, although Lionsgate has grown a lot during the financial crisis, none of the movies it has produced has been a big hit.

So Gustav couldn't help but turn his attention to Liu Zhou again, and then the script of "The Hunger Games" naturally fell into his sight.

This script was not only highly praised by the Lionsgate production department, but Gustave himself also thought it was very good.

Lionsgate hasn’t come across any eye-catching scripts at the moment, so this time when they met Liu Zhou, they wanted to try to buy the script of “The Hunger Games”. At the very least, they could work together.

But looking at Liu Zhou's current behavior, it seems that he doesn't even want to cooperate with Lionsgate on the project of "The Hunger Games", which makes Gustav a little helpless.

After dealing with Gustav, Liu Zhou also breathed a sigh of relief.

After all, Gustav is not an ordinary person, and Liu Zhou couldn't refuse him too bluntly.

"Twilight" and "The Hunger Games" are the trademarks chosen by Liu Zhou for Summit Entertainment for the next ten years, so naturally, he would not let others get involved.

But Lionsgate is the partner Liu Zhou selected for Summit Entertainment after all, so he cannot bring the other party along for investment, but he can still cooperate with Lionsgate for distribution. At least he should give the other party some sweetness, and with Lionsgate distributing together, he can also fully release the box office potential of "The Hunger Games".

This is a win-win situation.

But now is not the time to think about these things. Liu Zhou put his thoughts aside and welcomed another important guest, Brownie Griffin, director of production at 20th Century Fox.

The connection between Liu Zhou and Fox is actually thanks to Wendi Deng, the wife of the current News Corporation boss Murdoch.

After 2008, Wendi Deng began to work in mainland China and built the Wendi Deng Sisters Group, which includes Zhang Ziyi and Li Bingbing.

But Wendi Deng’s most important goal is to help Murdoch’s News Corporation enter the mainland market.

News Corporation began to develop its presence in the Asian market as early as the 1990s, with Hong Kong as its first stop. It immediately acquired the Chinese TV channel of Little Superman and helped Little Superman become famous.

However, what Murdoch wants more is the mainland market, and he has been communicating with the mainland. Although he has achieved some results and successfully extended News Corporation's tentacles into the mainland, there are many restrictions.

The mainland has very strict controls on foreign investment in the news media sector, so News Corporation has spent so many years without making much progress.

However, News Corporation has never been willing to give up such a large market in the mainland, not to mention that News Corporation has already completed its global layout, except for the mainland.

If News Corporation can achieve some success in the mainland, Murdoch will have truly built a global news media empire.

So he has tried every possible means over the years, even seeking pressure from the US authorities, but the results have not been very good.

In the end, he had to find a roundabout way to save the country, and even his marriage to a Chinese named Wendi Deng was probably due to relevant considerations.

As Liu Zhou is a wealthy man in mainland China and the owner of a giant company in the film and television industry, he also has business in Hollywood, so he also became the target of Wendi Deng's wooing.

However, Liu Zhou was too lazy to pay attention to her and asked Fan Xiaopang to deal with her. It just so happened that Fan Xiaopang was more interested in and better at such things.

But Wendi Deng was still very sincere and helped to connect himself with Fox, so even the director of Fox's production department came to the premiere of "Twilight".

Among the seven major production directors of Hollywood, which one is not an important figure in Hollywood?
However, compared to the last person, Bronny Griffin's identity as production director of 20th Century Fox is also not impressive enough.

The visitor was Greg Serfman, president of Warner Bros. Pictures.

The seven presidents are the ones standing at the top of Hollywood, and this one was invited by Liu Zhou himself.

Golden Harvest has always had close cooperation with Warner, and they still jointly run cinema companies in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

As Golden Harvest was reborn under Liu Zhou's leadership and its influence in mainland China and even in Asia grew, Warner also restored its relationship with Golden Harvest.

What's more, Liu Zhou is not a small figure either, he is also a wealthy man, and now he has extended his tentacles into Hollywood, so Warner certainly wants to deepen its relationship with Golden Harvest.

Greg Serfman was previously the production director of Warner. Nolan was discovered by him and he is considered Nolan's mentor. He took over the position of president of Warner only last year.

After Liu Zhou became famous in Hollywood, not only Lionsgate wanted to work with him, but Warner also wanted to work with him, so Liu Zhou and Greg Serfman also dealt with each other several times.

This time, Summit Entertainment organized such a grand premiere for "Twilight" not only to promote the movie, but also to build momentum for the new Summit Entertainment.

So Liu Zhou also personally invited Greg Serfman. He and Cheng Long were the only two people Liu Zhou personally invited.

Greg Serfman's appearance obviously surprised some other guests.

They thought that being able to invite so many Hollywood stars was surprising enough, but they didn't expect that Liu Zhou could even invite the president of Warner.

Seeing Liu Zhou chatting and laughing with the other party, everyone couldn't help but look at Liu Zhou's connections in Hollywood with admiration.

"Liu, you made a big scene at the premiere this time."

"That's because you've honored me by coming here."

"Haha, we are close partners. Of course I have to come since you specially invited me."

"Thank you. By the way, I may need your help with something else this time."

"You said, I will definitely help if I can."

Looking at Greg who was patting his chest, Liu Zhou didn't care and told him about wanting to rent a 70mm film IMAX camera.

After listening to Liu Zhou's words, Greg Serfman smiled and said:

"It's a small matter. Leave it to me. Those cameras are extremely expensive and few people use them."

"Thank you, Mr. Serfman." Liu Zhou also replied with a smile.

"Liu, you want to use this camera, is there another big project?"

"It's not a big project. We are just planning to shoot a science fiction movie in China and we need this camera."

"Okay, so when are you going to make a movie with Warner?"

Hearing this, Liu Zhou also pondered for a while and said:
"Wait until I finish shooting this movie, then we can work together again."

After filming "Interstellar", Liu Zhou is indeed preparing to come to Hollywood to make another movie.

Warner has invited him several times. Even if it is just to maintain the relationship between the two parties, Liu Zhou also feels that he should cooperate with the other party.

And now that he is cooperating with Warner, Liu Zhou has more bargaining power.

"Haha, okay, then don't forget it. Don't turn around and look for Lion Gate again when the time comes."

"Don't worry. There are so many people who want to cooperate with Warner right now. How could I possibly joke with you?"

Warner is now in its heyday, and its total box office performance has ranked first in Hollywood for three consecutive years.

In addition to the well-known "Harry Potter" series, Christopher Nolan has revived Batman.

Now Warner has also approached Zack Snyder, wanting him to revitalize Superman, the most famous American superhero, and create a new Superman movie.

In addition to these series IPs, Warner has also invested in a number of original films, such as "The Hangover" which will be released at the end of the month, which was also invested and released by Warner.

It was not until Marvel superheroes began to rise that Disney surpassed Warner Bros. to become the number one film studio in Hollywood.

So now, many people are eager to work with Warner.

(End of this chapter)