Chapter 346: Stephen Chow, Sino-Korean Cooperation and Movie Ticketing Website

"It's a big hit at the box office, congratulations."

At the celebration banquet for "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", Wei Yang took the initiative to clink glasses with Stephen Chow. Wen Zhang next to him wanted to talk, but was ignored by Boss Wei.

The newly promoted Mr. Billion Box Office had a flash of shame and annoyance in his eyes, but he didn't dare to quarrel with Wei Yang, so he could only leave embarrassedly.

To this day, no matter how the gossipers evaluate the performance of the two actors, it is just a few idle chats after dinner.

Wei Yang's current identity, businessman + production talent is the key, and the identity of an actor is ranked behind. Putting aside the comprehensive conditions and a single evaluation is originally a paradox.

No matter how awesome Wen Zhang is, his performance as an actor can beat Wei Yang, but in reality, he is still a younger brother.

Two years ago, he dared to make a few noises, but now Wei Yang is worth tens of billions, making a fortune every day, and backed by the Shanghai circle. He is a big man in the industry.

Wen Zhang may be crazy, but he is not really stupid...

Master Xing looked at Wen Zhang and said nothing. He had a good impression of Wen, but not enough to stand up for him, and this was not a conflict.

Compared with the early years of the Hong Kong entertainment industry, Wei Yang's disregard was already very civilized and polite.

Twenty years ago, in the Hong Kong entertainment industry, two people with such a different status had a conflict.

At the mildest, they would scold and ridicule with a cold face, and lose face on the spot. At the worst, they would insult and even beat people. What's more, there are even more vicious and fierce methods.

At the beginning of the century, when Hong Kong artists collectively marched and protested against gangsters, it was not a show, but the blood, tears and resentment accumulated over decades.

If he couldn't figure out the grudges, and there was no conflict, Master Xing would not speak rashly.

This person has no doubt about his talent, but his personality is more introverted and gloomy, and he often even gives people a feeling of indifference and selfishness.

Such people are not willing to care about other people's affairs, and in most cases are unwilling to communicate with others, especially those they are not familiar with. The main reason why they can chat with Wei Yang is that Wei Yang is also an excellent creator.

Regarding film creation, comedy design, and some character creation, the two sides have enough common language.

Wei Yang catered to his interests and even talked about the lines of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". Many people complained that the lines "Once there was a feeling..." and "Love you for ten thousand years" were plagiarized from old works or played with memes, but Wei Yang put forward his own views.

"The feeling is different twice. The first time was fake, and this time it is real. The time is different, the artistic conception is different, and the meaning and words to be expressed are also different."

Star Master's eyes lit up: "Do you understand what I mean?"

Wei Yang nodded and shook his head: "It's also self-speculation. I dare not say I understand. Later, I learned about your story and probably have some ideas."

Star Master suddenly realized, was silent for a moment, and suddenly said thank you.

Wei Yang accepted it calmly. Although his conversation with Star Master was a bit tricky and imitated Chai Jing's interview with Star Master in his previous life, he really understood some of the meanings of the movie.

As a professional screenwriter in his previous life, he naturally dug up the script of a phenomenal movie like "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons", and for various reasons, he began to dig deep into the story behind it.

Compared with the half-true and half-false story of "A Chinese Odyssey" back then, the "Tang Monk" in "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is Stephen Chow himself, and the Miss Duan is a real person, who is his first love Luo Huijuan, who died of illness last year.

In the movie, Miss Duan expressed her love to Tang Monk, and was replied with "mental illness", which is the real story between the two.

There are many details in all these, and the story of the two has become a permanent regret. The quality of the movie "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is not high or low, but Stephen Chow is deeply in love with the emotional line.

Boss Wei admits that his style is not good, but it does not mean that he dislikes pure love. He always respects some sincere feelings.

However, he is not here to flatter Stephen Chow's feelings today. Respect is respect, but more of it is to brush up the favorability and get in touch with Stephen Chow.

"Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was mainly controlled by Huayi, but later fell out with Stephen Chow over money.

Huayi was dishonest. From the surface evidence, it was agreed that dividends would be distributed, but Huayi found excuses to delay signing, resulting in the contract not taking effect. It saved 80 million yuan, but lost its reputation and morality.

After suffering this loss, Stephen Chow said he would not work with Huayi anymore and turned to the capital in the Shanghai circle.

The first to cooperate were Guangguang and Lianrui. There is no need to say much about the former, and the latter was established this year.

This company is also a rising star in the film industry in the future. It has produced and released many movies and is good at making a big profit with a small investment. Its starting capital is because it took advantage of Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid".

Now that Wei Yang is here, he will naturally not give up this piece of fat easily, and why would he look for a new company? He himself is the largest film and television capital in the Shanghai circle.

"The Mermaid" and "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons Strike Back" have poor reputations, but the box office is tens of billions of real money.

At worst, let Feicui Xia come forward, but the project cannot be cheapened by others.

So today Wei Yang took the opportunity to attend the celebration banquet of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons". On the surface, he was congratulating them, but in fact, he was thinking about poaching them.

Just now, he was just laying the groundwork and leaving a good impression. When Huayi and Stephen Chow fell out, he would be the first to come with money to cooperate. Not only would the contract be written in black and white, but they could also work for Huayi together.

Wei Yang was not the only one who had this idea. After a while, Lao Wang from Guangguang came over, and Fatty Yu from Bona also came over.

They didn't know that Huayi and Stephen Chow would fall out, but they tried their best to poach them. What if they succeeded?

"Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" is one of the only two Chinese-language movies with a revenue of over 1 billion yuan, so Stephen Chow naturally became a hot commodity.

Everyone was happy to make friends with him. Even if they couldn't poach people from Huayi, it would be good to invest in it.

Normally, people wouldn't be so anxious, and poaching people at a celebration party was no different from being a yellow-haired Huayi. They still had to give face to the Wang brothers.

As a result, when they saw Wei Yang and Stephen Chow chatting happily, several people couldn't sit still.

I'm afraid even Boss Wei didn't know that he was very important in the hearts of other bosses.

Let alone the company's scale and production capabilities, that vision was definitely enviable and jealous.

"Lost in Thailand" made hundreds of millions of dollars in real money, not to mention the influence and soft power growth in all parties. Every time Wang from Guangguang thought about it, he couldn't help but slap himself.

So when he saw Wei Yang and Stephen Chow in contact, he was really afraid that Wei Yang would fool people away, so he hurried over to show his face.

Fatty Yu has the same mentality, but he is not completely targeting Stephen Chow, and half of his purpose is targeting Wei Yang.

In the previous "Famous" and "Lost in Thailand", Wei Yang starred in and cooperated with China Film, Shanghai Film and Guangguang, especially in terms of distribution.

These two movies have proved the potential of Wei Yang and even Blue Whale. Bona started out by distributing, so naturally they want to cooperate more with Boss Wei.

They can't grab the share of Shanghai Film, and Wei Yang is almost clear with Shanghai Film.

Everyone knows that the two sides have reached a tacit understanding, one side makes money, and the other side is the backer + distribution. Even China Film can only get a share, but it can't avoid Shanghai Film.

Fatty Yu didn't think about competing with Shanghai Film. Apart from the official background, the United Cinema Line under Shanghai Film ranks among the top three in China, second only to Wanda and China Film, and Bona is not as important.

But if Shanghai Film can't compete, Guangguang is hard to say.

Last year, Wei Yang took the lion's share of the two Blue Whale movies, but Guangguang was not just gnawing bones, and made a lot of money quietly. Wei Yang provided tens of millions of yuan for the distribution income of the year-end financial report.

Of course, Fatty Yu also wanted to take a bite of this kind of fat meat. His desire for Wei Yang was even greater than that of Master Xing.

After all, the latter was just one person, and the output frequency was relatively slow. Behind Wei Yang was a mature company, and it was quite productive. Even a fool could know who was more suitable for long-term cooperation.

Wang of Guangguang also realized it after seeing that Fatty Yu and Wei Yang had a good chat.

They were not poaching Huayi, but wanted to poach him? !

Wei Yang did not get entangled with the two. When the atmosphere of his chat with Master Xing was disrupted, there was no need for him to stay, and there were several bosses around, so Huayi was not stupid.

If the Wang brothers really changed their minds and were afraid that Master Xing would be fooled away, the 80 million would be given to Master Xing, and it would be difficult to poach him.

So, Wei Yang exchanged contact information with Master Xing, and then pulled Fatty Yu aside to chat.

Fatty Yu is interested in him, and he is not averse to Fatty.

He is involved in many projects, and he is well connected in Beijing and Hong Kong circles. Wei Yang's Jade Shrimp has more and more funds, which Blue Whale can't afford, and Shanghai circle doesn't have so many high-quality resources.

So while ensuring the basic market of Shanghai circle, it is also a way to expand appropriately and contact the crew outside. What's more, Wei Yang now has Coral Entertainment and has many artists under him. It's good to contact Bona more.

Although Bona also has artist brokerage business, it doesn't have many cards to play. The most famous ones are Huang Yi and Yuan Quan.

Of course, Zhang Hanyu, International Zhang, Huang Xiaoming, and Li Bingbing are all small shareholders of Bona. These people are not Bona's direct line, but more like a cooperation.

Wei Yang didn't think of letting Blue Whale and Coral replace them. The two sides can still reach a cooperation, and then discuss according to the share of specific projects.

Fatty Yu even intended to let Wei Yang buy individual shares, but Wei Yang declined. Cooperation is cooperation, and he doesn't want to be tied to Bona.

After chatting with Fatty Yu, Wei Yang felt a little hungry. Just when he was about to find something to eat, he bumped into Guangguang who came over.

Lao Wang looked a little resentful: "Is this a hookup?"

"Why do you make me look like you've abandoned me after having sex with me, Brother Wang? You can't make enough money by trading with one or two companies. Cooperation and development are the hard truth."

Boss Wang of Guangguang was not really angry. This situation is too common. If they had a quarrel over this, Wei Yang would have been the first to turn against him when he tried to poach Stephen Chow.

Although Bo Na's participation may cause Guangguang's interests to suffer, it may also make the pie bigger and make everyone rich together.

Without this vision, Boss Wang should stop messing around. He was looking for Wei Yang mainly for another reason.

"China-Korea co-production?"

"...The higher-ups are already promoting this project. I heard that it was the propaganda department that pulled the strings, and China Film was also involved. Let's not talk about the general policy. China-Korea co-production is equivalent to domestic production, and it is not subject to import restrictions in both countries..."

Boss Wang came from the system and was much more informed about some of the relationships in the upper echelons. Wei Yang was not surprised because this trend had been blowing for a long time.

As early as the year before last, some Korean directors had come to test the waters. Da Mimi's "Far Cry" was directed by a Korean director.

The so-called Sino-Korean co-production means that the Korean actors and directors have set their sights on the Chinese market, while China values ​​the professional ability and enthusiasm of Korean directors, teams and actors.

At the same time, the cooperation between the two sides can share the financial pressure, spread each other's influence, and go abroad.

From a large perspective, there are still certain benefits.

However, Wei Yang is not too enthusiastic about this project. He is not short of money, professional ability, and actors, but he is not very optimistic about the Korean market.

As a result, there is naturally little interest in, and even some resistance to, Sino-Korean co-productions.

Because his main advantageous business coincided with this group of people, he felt a bit like he was being robbed of the cake.

What makes this project a little tempting to Wei Yang is that some sensitive subjects can be filmed in South Korea, but the plot and ideology cannot pass the review, and it still cannot be released in China.

But he was quite curious as to why Lao Wang was telling him this for no apparent reason.

"Got a project?"

"Whether or not we do "My Sassy Girl", you will be appointed as the male lead, and you can choose the female lead as you please, Son Ye-jin, Lim Yoon-ah, Jun Ji-hyun..."

It's still Wei Yang's familiar pimping tone, but I understand why he is so keen.

Thanks to several hit dramas, Wei Yang is relatively famous in South Korea.

It is equivalent to the influence of TVXQ and Girls' Generation in China, and may even be a little more powerful. After all, "You Who Came from the Star" is a sensation in East Asia. His other dramas can also compete with popular local dramas on Korean websites, known as [ The King of Chinese Drama].

In other words, with Wei Yang adding a well-known Korean actress, there is no need to worry about the Korean market, the domestic market is guaranteed.

This Sino-Korean co-production is simply tailor-made for him!

But Wei Yang is really not interested. To put it bluntly, why not just drink his traffic? The majority of the market is also in China, so why bother?

Wei Yang really doesn't have much obsession with becoming an international superstar. He just wants to make money.

Wei Yang is very satisfied to be able to tap into the huge market of China in a down-to-earth manner. For him, it is gratifying to go abroad, but he will not pursue it deliberately.

"Isn't this a waste for you?"

It's a pity for Boss Wang that the talent and business ability that was born to be a superstar turned out to be worse, and he became less and less interested in his acting career, and his face was lost in vain.

"Don't worry, you can go back and ask if there is a good script over there. If there is a good story, maybe I will agree."

Wei Yang muttered a few words and walked towards the corner with Boss Wang in his arms.

"By chance, I also have something I want to tell you. I'm looking for someone to build a movie ticketing website, and I want to match some theater resources with your lighting."

"Ticketing website? I remember Meituan seems to have one?"

"It's gone now. His team was incorporated by me and renamed Hualuo. You'll know later that Meituan, Penguin, and Baidu are cooperating."

"Flower snail?"

Lao Wang tasted it and found that it was indeed Wei Yang's handiwork, but he was curious about how Wei Yang recruited people from Meituan.

Boss Wei gave a simple smile: "I may not have told you before, but I have a small stake in Meituan."