Chapter 418 Subsequent Storm
As news spread that Liu Zhou and the Beijing News were about to go to court, everyone couldn't help but focus their attention on this matter.

And because of his warning, major media outlets in the mainland have become more restrained and no longer seek traffic by spreading rumors.

Instead, it turned around and clarified the nationality issue of the actors in "The Founding of a Republic", which attracted another wave of traffic.

When Liu Zhou saw this situation, he couldn't help but admire their ability to do journalism, which, in the words of later generations, was how they played with traffic very clearly.

Seeing this, the banana people realized that it was futile to continue to fish in troubled waters and set the tone, so they began to stop.

Therefore, the heat regarding the nationality incident in "The Founding of a Republic" began to slowly subside.

By October 15th, 20 days after the release of "Founding of a Republic", the box office had exceeded 400 million yuan, becoming the second domestic film to do so.

If "Transformers 2" is included, it will be the third movie in China to break million in box office.

Although the nationality incident has caused some concerns among celebrities in the circle, it has a very good publicity effect for "Founding of a Republic".

This movie definitely has an extension key, and it still has more than a month of screening time, so there should be no problem in breaking 500 million at the box office.

At the same time, on this day, Golden Harvest Group also held a grand celebration banquet for two movies released in the summer, "No Man's Land" and "The Message".

Both of these films have exceeded 300 million at the box office, which can be said to be very good results.

Especially "The Sound of Wind", which has a box office of 3.5 million. As a main theme movie, this result is undoubtedly outstanding.

More importantly, both films use actors from the mainland. It can be said that the era when Hong Kong and Taiwan actors dominated the box office has completely passed, and mainland artists have begun to rise in an all-round way.

In fact, this celebration party should have been held a long time ago. "No Man's Land" has been off the screen for more than two months, and "The Sound of the Wind" has been off the screen for more than half a month.

But because Golden Harvest was busy with its IPO at the time, and had a lot of other things to do after the IPO, it only had time to hold a celebration party for the two films and hold them together.

Now Liu Zhou no longer needed to worry about small matters like the movie celebration party. At seven o'clock in the evening, he went directly to the Shangri-La Hotel.

When Liu Zhou walked into the hall, the originally noisy environment in the hall suddenly became quiet, and then became even more lively, with everyone's eyes focused on him.

As a person who has confronted numerous media outlets and successfully forced them to leave, and at the same time sued the domestic major newspaper "Beijing News" in court, it can be said that no one in the circle has such power as him.

This also allowed everyone in the industry to witness Liu Zhou's powerful influence. Being a major domestic director may be his least noticeable identity.

Everyone knew that Liu Zhou had a great influence, but he never showed it in public.

This time Liu Zhou showed off a little bit of his skills, which was something they wanted to do but were far from able to do, and this made everyone even more in awe of him.

Liu Zhou greeted some people, chatted with the main creators of the two films for a while, and then found a place to sit down.

Then Ning Hao followed and sat next to him.

"You are the protagonist today, why are you sitting here?"

Ning Hao poured himself some wine and replied:
"I have already greeted everyone I should have. I feel like a lot of people are too fake. Instead of dealing with them, it would be better to sit next to Mr. Liu and have more peace and quiet."

"Haha, you will be your own boss from now on. You may have to deal with those people often in the future."

"What kind of boss am I? Even if I set up a studio, if there are any projects, I will definitely cooperate with Golden Harvest. There is no need to go to those people to solicit investment."

Liu Zhou did not comment on this. Ning Hao would definitely set up his own business in the future, and he did not expect to keep Ning Hao in Jiahe forever.

After Golden Harvest went public, Ning Hao's studio had already begun to be set up.

If he has any projects in the future, he will cooperate with Golden Harvest in the form of a studio and participate in the project dividends, which means he can be his own boss.

"By the way, when are you going to the United States? We have already contacted Warner for a project there."

"Mr. Liu, can I work with you on the Interstellar project? I think I can learn more from you."

Liu Zhou pondered for a while and said:
"You'll have another chance with me in the future. The preparatory work for Interstellar has already been completed. You need to follow a large-scale science fiction production in its entirety."

"Ok."

“Do you have a science fiction story you’d like to film?”

"There are a few good stories in Science Fiction World, and some ideas. I'll take a look at it later."

"Then I'll ask Mr. Zhang to buy the adaptation rights first."

"The copyright has been purchased and is in Golden Harvest's copyright library."

"That's fine."

As the science fiction trend began to rise in China, "Science Fiction World", which originally had few fans, began to become popular.

Original hardcore science fiction stories are a bit too difficult for filmmakers in the industry, so if you want good science fiction stories, you can only look for them in "Science Fiction World".

Several larger film and television companies in the industry have already purchased the rights to adapt one or more science fiction novels into film and television.

However, as the person who made the first domestic science fiction film, Liu Zhou was approached by the editor-in-chief of "Science Fiction World" after the release of "The Martian" to ask if he was interested in adapting the science fiction novel into a movie.

Liu Zhou was of course interested in this, so the two sides hit it off. He bought the copyrights of several novels, including the most well-known "The Three-Body Problem", "Rural Teacher", "The Wandering Earth" and "The Fortress of Magic City", which have all been acquired by Golden Harvest.

Therefore, the novel copyrights purchased by those companies in the circle were the ones left over by Liu Zhou.

Among all the copyrights purchased by Golden Harvest, the one he values ​​most is of course "The Three-Body Problem".

However, it is rather difficult to adapt "The Three-Body Problem" into a movie. In the original time and space, there were people who were deceiving people under the banner of adapting "The Three-Body Problem" into a movie.

In order to keep the copyright in their hands, they just made a random movie, which couldn't even be considered a shoddy product.

Later, the copyright of "The Three-Body Problem" was transferred from one person to another and finally fell into the hands of China Film Corporation.

Lao Liu was also helpless. At that time, he probably didn't expect that "The Three-Body Problem" would become so popular, but the copyright had already been sold, and he could only watch others ruin his work.

Although the Three-Body Problem was in the hands of China Film Group, it was difficult to develop and required a large investment, so even China Film Group did not dare to start rashly. They first made a TV series to test the waters, but the situation did not seem to be very good.

Now that "The Three-Body Problem" has been acquired by Golden Harvest, Liu Zhou has no intention of filming it immediately, and it will take some time.

Liu Zhou has reached a buyout agreement with Liu Cixing on the film and television copyrights. Even if the film is not developed for more than five years, the copyright will still be in the hands of Golden Harvest. He will not let the other party suffer a loss, and gave him a seven-digit buyout fee.

Those people in the original time and space were afraid that the copyright would expire, so they made a shoddy product. In this way, the "Three-Body" movie was released, and the copyright could be retained.

At least now we don’t have to worry about "The Three-Body Problem" being ruined. If Golden Harvest really wants to develop the "The Three-Body Problem" project, it will definitely go all out.

The two chatted for a while, and then couldn't help but talk about the recent turmoil. Ning Hao said without hiding anything:
"Boss Liu is really amazing. His moves were as powerful as thunder. All the media in the industry are so scared that they dare not spread rumors anymore. I'm afraid no one will dare to slander you in the future."

When Liu Zhou heard what Ning Hao said, he shook his head and said:
“That’s not necessarily true. Even though I seemed to lose my temper and the media backed off, you’ll see that the trend of smearing me has only just begun.

The nationality incident of "The Founding of a Republic" is just the beginning. There will be bigger storms in the future. It's just that due to my identity, they may not dare to be too blatant. "

Ning Hao was very surprised after hearing this and couldn't help asking:
"It just started? Even the Beijing News is ready to give in, who would dare to smear you?"

Liu Zhou was not in a hurry to explain, but asked:

"Do you know when the large-scale smear campaign against Director Zhang Yimou began in China?"

Ning Hao thought about it and replied:

"It should have started with Hero. Many experts criticized the film for its problematic values, saying Director Zhang sang praises for tyrants. Even poet Chen criticized Hero, saying the film's theme was problematic."

Liu Zhou shook his head slightly and said:

“Hero was a complete explosion, and the massive criticism started when Not One Less withdrew from Cannes.

At the end of the movie "No One Left Behind", after Wei Minzhi's search for her students was reported by the TV station, the students were found. The TV station sent a special car to take them back to the village, and a truckload of school supplies donated by all walks of life was also delivered to the school.

However, Jacob, the then president of the Cannes Film Festival, did not like this ending, and even publicly expressed his strong dislike for this unartistic ending because he felt that the film was promoting the government.

Director Zhang was quite tough. He wrote an open letter to break with Cannes, withdrew the film from the Cannes Film Festival and sent it to Venice.

You should know that the Cannes Film Festival has a very high status in the mainland film industry, so Director Zhang's approach was a bit distorted in the eyes of some people.

They think that this movie is whitewashing the truth and singing praises for "Conquer", and Cannes is the palace of art in their eyes. Director Zhang's break with Cannes means giving up artistic pursuits and turning to "Conquer".

Therefore, they thought that Director Zhang had fallen and the criticism against him became more and more frequent.

In addition, there are factions in the domestic film industry, and Director Zhang has blocked the way for some people.

That Wang Shuo even said shamelessly that Director Zhang should be eliminated. Many people think that Director Zhang is stinking shit, and if he is not eliminated, the impact will be extremely bad.

The movie "Hero" was the opportunity for them to destroy Director Zhang. After the movie was released, criticism against Director Zhang broke out in an all-out manner!
You should have known at the time that the movie "Hero" was not bad, but it was criticized a lot. At the same time, Director Zhang was criticized even more.

It is obviously a bit abnormal that instead of discussing the movie properly, they keep scolding people.

Even though Director Zhang has successfully directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, which can be said to be a great feat, in the eyes of some people, Director Zhang is just the spokesperson and lackey of "Conquer".

They didn't dare to curse their superiors openly, so they vented all their dissatisfaction towards Director Zhang.

Although Director Zhang's popularity has skyrocketed and he has become very popular after the Olympics, there are still people who continue to criticize him.

If it weren’t for our Jiahe Club protecting him, he would have been criticized even more severely.”

This was the case in the original time and space. Later, no matter which movie of his, "Three Guns", "Under the Hawthorn Tree", "The Flowers of War", or even "Coming Home", basically every one of them was criticized.

However, when the tide recedes, you will know who is swimming naked, and everyone has a sharp eye. Later, Zhang Yimou's influence became increasingly greater, and those banana people also became the target of everyone's condemnation because of the increase in domestic cultural confidence.

"My relationship with the higher-ups is well known, and I have such a great influence in the circle. They will definitely try to discredit me like they did to Director Zhang and bring me down.

They didn’t dare to criticize the film “Founding of a Republic” openly, and I didn’t participate much, so they only dared to use the nationality issue as a trick to discredit it. They will definitely not let go of the opportunity in the future.”

After hearing what Liu Zhou said, Ning Hao suddenly realized:
"That's why you took action against the Beijing News, Mr. Liu, to make an example of them. When the storm comes, they will think twice!"

"That's right. So even if the Beijing News has already given in to us, I won't agree to a settlement. This time I want to tell those media that you'd better be careful when you slander me. Be careful that I will destroy your nest."

This time, using the Beijing News as an example to scare others is not just a matter of filing a lawsuit.

For the media, lawsuits are nothing to them, and even a public apology is not unacceptable, so this does not hurt them at all.

In fact, the most important thing to deal with these media is to deal with those who control the media.

Domestic media newspapers are almost all state-owned enterprises, and within the system, they are subject to the jurisdiction of higher authorities.

It just so happened that Liu Zhou had a good relationship with the leaders in charge of domestic propaganda. He might not be able to remove the leaders of the Beijing News, but he could still smooth out the problem by adjusting the positions of the newspaper's leaders.

What's more, the style of the Beijing News, which uses any means necessary to pursue traffic, must have left behind a lot of evidence, which is almost certain to be proven once investigated. This provides a good reason to adjust the positions of the newspaper's leaders.

If it were not difficult to obtain evidence of their corruption, Liu Zhou would definitely bring them down, which would have a greater deterrent effect.

Ning Hao admired Liu Zhou's judgment very much. He also observed a minute of silence for those who were trying to discredit Liu Zhou. He smiled and said:

"They are wrongly calculating when they slander you, Mr. Liu. You are not as easy to bully as Director Zhang. You will not endure it and keep silent. Slandering you is just asking for trouble!"

"It's not that simple. If someone spreads rumors, it's easy for me to fight back. But if someone says your movie is a bad movie, that your movie is ugly, that your film ideology is problematic, what can you do?

They may not be able to bring you down, but they will disgust you very much. They are like a dog-skin plaster that you can't get rid of. "

"Director Liu, are you still afraid that they will criticize your movie? Just use the box office to crush all their malicious intent."

"I can't guarantee that every one of my movies will do well at the box office." Liu Zhou replied with a smile.

After the two chatted for a while, Ning Hao was called to knock on ice sculptures with the film's creators and be interviewed. As soon as he left, Han Shanping came over again.

(End of this chapter)