America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM

Chapter 214 It’s time to give you a sample

Strictly speaking, the story of "Chain Saw 2" is not closely related to the first one, at least in terms of storyline, it is relatively independent.

The only connection is that the big boss behind the scenes is still old Jigsaw. After all, without him, the audience would be half as small.

Another point of contact is Amanda, the survivor in the first film. In this film, she has been converted to Jigsaw's sect. Her mental state is somewhat similar to Stockholm syndrome, but not quite.

Eric did not participate in the creation of the script for the second part. He only proposed the story outline and development direction, and Le Whannell completed the rest independently.

His screenwriting skills are far stronger than his immature directing skills, and the plot is still excellent. Wan Ziren will still be the producer of the third film. If the old partners work together for another film, Wan Ziren's directing ability will be almost mature. Can direct independently.

With the huge failure of "Dead Silence", the market's attention has all turned to "Saw 2".

Lionsgate definitely hopes that "Saw 2" will fail, and people who are jealous of MGM and hate Chinese Americans also hope that it fails, so that they can easily mock James Wan.

However, as the feedback from the first batch of viewers came out, reality slapped these people hard.

Fox News: "'Saw 2' continues the excitement and exploration of human nature of the first part. Compared with the first part, the second part has innovations and improvements in technology and plot."

"But it still retains the core elements of the series, including high-intelligence killing machines, complex interpersonal relationships, and profound themes. It is a masterpiece worth watching."

Los Angeles Times: ""Saw 2" is still a very cleverly conceived film, continuing the ambush routine, which is unexpected but reasonable."

"After watching this movie, you can solve a mystery in the first movie, why Jigsaw left survivors in the first place. It is recommended for movie fans to watch."

Salt Lake City Entertainment News: "You all know that I like to recommend good movies to movie fans, but I rarely recommend sequels because less than 10% of movies can be good sequels."

"But there is no doubt that "Chainsaw 2" belongs to the 10%. It is still a sophisticated killing game, terrifying traps, and a brutal plot that makes people adrenaline soar. Horror movie fans will find what you want here. Everything you want.”

Like most of the positive reviews from the film review media, the majority of online fan reviews are also positive.

The words of praise from die-hard fans are even more disgusting, with words such as the highest praise, the highest honor, and the best of the year coming out.

The freshness of Rotten Tomatoes has reached db's opening score of 2 points. It will definitely decrease in the future, but it is already high enough for a horror film and belongs to the category of masterpieces.

The most intuitive manifestation of the positive reviews is at the box office. It was released on Friday and earned US$37 million in the first three days of the first weekend, US$4 million more than the first film.

The cost is the same as the first one, with production costs of US$5 million and publicity costs of US$10 million.

"Dead Silence" has been in theaters for 6 days, but it has only earned more than 7 million US dollars at the box office.

It is true that one of the reasons is that Lionsgate's operating capabilities are not as good as MGM's and it was only shown in a thousand theaters, but the collapse of the film's quality and reputation is the root cause.

There was no imaginary encounter with an opponent or a good talent, and there was no tug-of-war. The competition between the two films was over, and "Dead Silence" was a complete failure.

Apart from Lionsgate, the most uncomfortable person right now is James Wan. The outside world is scolding him and praising him at the same time. It's almost like he has a split personality.

Eric and Revonard naturally stood up to speak for him.

Eric: "It's not uncommon for every director to have failed films. Even Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa can't guarantee that every one of their films will be a success."

"The success of a movie is the result of many factors, such as creativity, market environment, behind-the-scenes team, actor performance, etc."

"When a movie is successful, we not only praise the director, just like the Oscar for Best Picture, the entire crew goes on stage to receive the award."

"Similarly, when a movie fails, you can't blame all the mistakes on the director. I have always believed that James Wan is a good director and will definitely become a successful director in the future."

James Wan: ""Saw 2" was completed by James and I together. Although I have the name of director, he helped me a lot. In fact, this is the work of the two of us."

"I have known him for many years, and I never believe that one failure can knock him down. I believe that he will stand up soon and bring better works to everyone."

"In fact, I heard that MGM is already in contact with James for new projects. Wen is a restless person and he will prove himself again."

The firm support of the two moved James Wan deeply. Anyway, "Dead Silence" had turned into a bear, and Lionsgate was too embarrassed to promote it anymore. James Wan simply devoted himself to the promotion of "Saw 2" .

On February 10, "Saw 2" was released in more than 2,700 theaters for 10 days and has already grossed nearly 60 million US dollars at the box office. It is no problem to exceed 100 million US dollars in North America.

Overseas, it will only be released simultaneously in some countries in Europe. After a large-scale release in a few days, it will break through 200 million US dollars worldwide without any pressure.

As for Lionsgate's "Dead Silence," no one cares about it and it has been swept into the trash.

But now Eric's focus is not on the movie, because today is the day when the YouTube channel goes online.

Silicon Valley, he has not come to the company for a month. As a decision-maker, he only needs to have the right direction and focus on good people and money.

Facebook's development is booming, especially last month when there was a small peak in new users, and most of the new users were adults.

The number of registered users has reached 50 million, accounting for nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.

There are more than 42 million active users, and the data is terrifying.

This is still actual data, and the data released to the outside world is even more exaggerated, causing the competitor Myspace to keep chasing nervously, and the friction becomes more and more fierce.

And probably due to internal pressure from Fox, myspace has recently started advertising.

Advertisements have a great impact on user experience. The most obvious one is that it takes longer to open the homepage, which has been complained by many users.

Last month, Facebook also updated a new feature, which is the drift bottle.

As for the drift bottle, I'm afraid all Chinese people know what it does. It can hold text, voice, and pictures.

As for whether the pictures and voices posted by users are borderline and illegal, it is difficult to control for the time being.

Moreover, Facebook is not as stingy as WeChat. There are limits on how to throw and fish out bottles every day.

We have specially equipped such an awesome server, why don’t we just leave it idle?

There are no limits, there are no limits on anything, you can send as much as you want, so within a few days of the function going online, all kinds of crooked ways were developed.

Some old people who couldn't bear the lag and left MySapce naturally switched to Facebook.

Fitz was a little worried about the impact this feature would have on Facebook's reputation, but Eric knew better.

The function of the drift bottle is like a chamber pot. You should use it when you need to use it. When MySpace is overturned and Facebook dominates, just kick it under the bed.

And unlike MySpace, which launched with porn as a selling point, Facebook is still a normal social network, and the drift bottles are just embellishments.

Those who are attracted by the drift bottle function will not leave because of the lack of this function, because Facebook has other attractions to retain people.

With Facebook as the forerunner, YouTube promotion is much simpler.

Major TV stations, portals, forums, and chat rooms carried out carpet bombing propaganda.

All Facebook users have received the open letter and can log in to YouTube directly with their Facebook account without re-registering, which is fast and convenient.

Hundreds of celebrities, big and small, also help promote the event on social accounts, then open YouTube accounts and upload several short videos to attract fans.

Eric took a look and saw that everyone had little experience. It was their first time doing this kind of thing, and the content of the video was very simple.

Just aim the camera, introduce yourself, welcome everyone to open an account on YouTube, and hope to become friends with everyone.

Eric shook his head. After experiencing the bombardment of long and short videos in later generations, and looking at everyone's restraint now, he felt like he had returned to the Stone Age.

In addition to these conventional publicity methods, Eric also prepared a big killer weapon, which is to spend real money.

Different from the dynamics of posting pictures and editing a text on Facebook, it is relatively more difficult to create videos on YouTube.

At least you need a DV machine, otherwise you won't be able to shoot videos. If you want to make high-quality videos, you also need editing and other skills. The cost has already restricted many people.

Even though YouTube has built-in various editing plug-ins, the cost of learning will still shut out a large number of people.

Therefore, if you want to quickly accumulate creators, the most direct way is to give money.

As long as creators can make money from their videos, people will naturally join in.

But when the website was first established, advertising was definitely not allowed. There was no advertising revenue, so Eric had to come up with the money.

Fortunately, he is not short of money now. Even if MGM's shares cannot be moved for the time being, he still has a lot of liquid funds in his hands.

First, use US$300 million as an incentive fund. If it is not enough, add more. If your personal liquidity is not enough, then borrow money from MGM, and use your left hand and your right hand.

The revenue is mainly calculated based on the completion rate of the video, and a portion of the likes and shares will be provided. The price is then set in stages according to the length of the creator's video, similar to the range pricing for short videos, medium videos, and long videos.

There is only one standard, the more you work, the more you will get. The more exciting the video, the higher the income you will get.

Currently, when you open YouTube, you can find that the entire website is only divided into a comprehensive area and a music area.

The music area mainly contains songs and MVs of all singers affiliated with Sony Music, which are directly licensed to YouTube by MyKou at a low price.

Others include parts of other companies that McQueen helped negotiate.

"Boss, we have it! We have it!"

"What?"

"The first video, the first video uploaded by a user, is not of those celebrities." Howard Hughes shouted excitedly.

Eric walked over and saw a user named Diablo on the computer screen. He uploaded a video of himself playing the game.

The video is not long, only a few dozen seconds.

Under the camera, I saw this guy pointing at his game interface with flying features: "Immortal King, I finally collected the Immortal King suit!"

The boy jumped up and hugged the photographer, and the video ended.

Eric nodded after reading it. Although there were not many views and it was more similar to the short videos of later generations, he had already won the out-of-print title of being the first to upload a video.

"It's not bad. At least his exaggerated expressions will attract some users to click in and watch. It's a good start."

After a while, another reviewer shouted: "Boss, the second user video has appeared."

Eric clicked to watch. This time it was a girl user, taking pictures of his own cat in motion.

"Hahahaha I've been looking for this guy for a long time, and it turns out he went to the neighbor's house and had sex with the female cat."

"I heard that female cat meowing all the time last night, you bad thing!"

Next is the third, fourth, fifth

By 3 p.m., the number of views from YouTube users had exceeded 100 million.

The number of registered users has easily exceeded one million. After all, there is a Facebook user base there.

However, most of the views in the comprehensive area are contributed to the videos of major celebrities, and less are allocated to ordinary users.

Overall, the music section accounted for more than half of the views, and the vast majority of users went to listen to songs and watch MVs.

The MV for "Rolling in the Deep" by Mykop received 730,000 views in one day and exceeded 50,000 likes.

This result is also expected. The number of videos in the comprehensive area is currently relatively small, with only more than 400 uploaded in one day.

They are all short videos and the quality is not high.

Users quickly finish browsing what they are interested in, and after finishing browsing, they will naturally go to the music area or exit YouTube.

This situation lasted for a week, but there was still not much improvement, which was somewhat different from what Eric expected.

"Howard, how's it going?"

Howard Hughes shook his head and nodded: "Boss, judging from the data alone, as a new website, YouTube can be said to be developing rapidly."

"But the traffic comes from the music area, which accounts for the majority. On the contrary, the personal videos of the users we mainly promote are squeezed into the corner."

"If this trend continues, YouTube will transform from a video website into a music website, which goes against our original intention."

Eric hummed: "What do you think the problem is?"

"Obviously, because the quality of the video is not high enough, it is not attractive enough."

"Boss, YouTube is a very novel operating mode that allows ordinary people to shoot their own videos, but most people have no experience in this area at all."

"Even the home comedy videos that were popular in the last century were screened from all over the country and then edited and broadcast by television stations."

"We can't expect users to get started and learn how to make it quickly. Maybe we will give everyone some time. After two or three months, the situation will improve."

Fitzheisenberg shook his head: "I don't think this is a good idea, because people have personalities, and websites also have their own labels."

"When a website is labeled with its own label, users who are not interested in the label will ignore it."

"Boss, you're a movie maker. Audiences who like horror movies won't watch comedies, right?"

"Go on." Eric nodded.

"If the music area is really allowed to suppress the comprehensive area for a long time, YouTube will be labeled as a music website."

"Most of the users it can attract are music enthusiasts, and its video attributes will be greatly weakened."

"If another opponent suddenly appears, like myspace, and the opponent only plays video attributes, it will be a huge challenge."

"So my suggestion is not to give up two or three months, but to take all measures as soon as possible to stimulate users' creativity and autonomy."

"But the public are not professionals. They can't make wonderful videos in a short time, or they don't know how to do it at all!" Howard said in frustration, slapping the table.

"Then teach them what to do!"

"What?"

"What they lack is teachers. As long as there are good teachers who can set an example, the process can be greatly accelerated."

As he spoke, Fitz looked at Eric: "And we obviously have ready-made teachers. Boss, you came up with the idea of ​​the oil pipeline. I think no one in the world knows how to do it better than you."

"Besides, MGM has so many professionals, why not lead them to do it together? First make a batch of high-quality videos, and the popularity will increase, which will instantly increase the popularity of the comprehensive area."

Eric nodded slowly: "It seems it's time to show you guys a lesson!"