Super Zoo

When Su Ming heard Long Wu talking about World of Warcraft, his first reaction was not to connect it with the movie at all. He nodded subconsciously: "I have played it. Brother Shi, I didn't expect you to play games at your age. I play a warlock. What profession do you play?"

"Ah?" Long Wu looked at Su Ming blankly.

Xiang Zuo said: "My dad doesn't play it. He can only steal vegetables. He can't play so many skills in World of Warcraft. I play a defensive warrior. I play the Dalkan server in District 10. Uncle, which district and server are you from? What's the equipment level? Horde or Alliance, let's team up to play 2V2 and brush the honor level next time..."

"I play the Horde in Theramore in District 5." Su Ming said. "Oh, that won't work. I'm from the alliance. We're not on the same side, so we can't team up." Xiang Zuo was a little disappointed, and then said, "Why don't you switch sides, uncle? There are many friends in my guild from the entertainment industry. You know Daniel Wu, he also plays a warlock..."

Long Wu had a serious expression on his face, with his eyes wide open, just like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, sitting on the side and looking at the two of them innocently.

"Oh, I'm off topic. This is a game, not a movie..." Su Ming realized that he had made a huge mistake. His voice changed slightly, and he looked at Long Wu in surprise: "Brother Shi, you mean, the movie you are shooting this time is World of Warcraft."

Long Wu smiled and nodded, "That's right. I heard you two talking so happily, so I know that there are many players of this game, and the fan base is large enough."

"Of course, this is a game that has been popular all over the world for ten years. Not only does it have a huge fan base in China, but it also has a large number of fans in any country with the Internet all over the world. Oh, except for North Korea, I guess their Internet speed is not good..."

Su Ming nodded: "However, the copyright of the IP should be in the hands of Blizzard, right? Brother Shi, did you negotiate it?"

Blizzard Entertainment is a genuine American company that has launched many classic series, such as Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series. The company is located in the United States, and its leaders and employees are all Americans. It has almost no intersection with the Hong Kong film market.

Even if Blizzard wants to sell the rights to the adapted film, it is more likely to choose Hollywood and European film companies, such as Sol Leontz, which produced the Lord of the Rings series, or simply choose well-known companies such as Disney Pictures and Legendary Pictures, which have rich experience in fantasy films.

Whether in terms of overall strength or company reputation, Long Wu and even Huaxiaxing are far from being opponents of the above companies.

Long Wu's "power" has a huge influence in the Hong Kong film and television industry. It can be said that there is no script or copyright that he cannot get. But in the United States, it is impossible to have such great power.

Speaking of this, even Long Wu, who is so introverted, couldn't help showing a proud expression: "My family has a deep relationship with a capable person in Blizzard. It just so happens that Blizzard is interested in investing in the filming of World of Warcraft movies and looking for partners."

"What are the conditions offered by the other party?" Su Ming frowned slightly and asked curiously.

The East is a society of favors, and the West is a society of contracts. No matter how good the relationship is, no matter how great the favor is, it is impossible to give the film copyright to Long Wu for nothing.

Not only is it impossible to give it away for free, but the conditions proposed by an Eastern film company that can hand over this purely Western fantasy-style work to a Western film company may be more stringent than those proposed to Western film companies.

Of course, Long Wu's "relationship" played a decisive role. Without this "relationship", the other party probably would not consider cooperating with Long Wu at all.

The cooperation in filming proposed by Blizzard Entertainment mainly means: the other party provides the copyright of the film IP, participates in the guidance and supervision of the film, does not interfere with the filming process and the selection of people, and finally extracts 20% from the share that the producer deserves as copyright fees.

Assuming that the box office is 100 million, the producer can probably get 40 to 50 million, and Blizzard has almost no expenses, and only takes 8 to 10 million from it.

The above are the conditions for Western companies, which are industry practices and are not excessive.

In addition, as Su Ming expected, the other party has an additional condition for Eastern film companies: no matter how much the final box office of the film is, the producer must prepay a minimum deposit of 30 million US dollars.

Regardless of whether the final dividend is 30 million US dollars, Blizzard will not refund the 30 million.

In other words, Blizzard's final share is 30 million US dollars, plus about 8% of the total box office.

The 100 million US dollars investment mentioned by Long Wu includes the 30 million US dollars in advance.

That's why he is trying to attract investment everywhere. The cash he can use now is not enough to cover the 30 million US dollars in advance, unless he is willing to sell Huaxiaxing's shares.

Huaxiaxing's equity is the foundation of his livelihood. Of course, he can't cash it out unless it is absolutely necessary.

"How about it, are you interested in joining?" Long Wu asked with a smile.

Su Ming considered holding the wine and shaking the glass gently, but did not answer, as if he was considering it.

This investment is definitely not 10 or 20 million yuan. Even the deposit paid in advance to the other party has reached nearly 200 million Chinese yuan. If you want to participate in this game, you have to start with at least 50 million, and 100 million is not too much.

Long Wu's budget is a total cost of 100 million US dollars, but for such a blockbuster, the budget may be increased at any time. It is reasonable to increase it by 10% to 20%, and there may be more investment in the future.

If you want to play, it's a big gamble.

Seeing Su Ming thinking, Long Wu didn't rush him and waited quietly.

"Brother Shi, if the filming starts in the near future, when can it be released?" Su Ming suddenly asked.

Long Wu's eyes lit up slightly: "I thought you would ask questions like this about the director, screenwriter, and leading actor."

"Those are all details, not important." Su Ming said.

Long Wu nodded seriously: "Yes, this is a big deal. The shooting cycle determines when the money can be recovered. For businessmen, the most terrible thing is the interruption of funds. But don't worry, the Hong Kong film model is different from Hollywood. It cannot be said that one is better or worse. The styles are just different. A play takes several years in Hollywood. According to our method, the same quality can be completed in a few months. Of course, in terms of special effects, we can only invite European teams and speed up by adding money."

"How about this, Brother Shi, I will give you an answer tomorrow about the specific investment amount. Do you think it's okay?" Su Ming asked.

...

After returning to the hotel that night, Su Ming immediately contacted the heads of the subordinate companies to quickly calculate the funds that all companies can call and the funds that must be reserved to ensure the normal operation of the company, as well as the planned income for the next step.

Immediately afterwards, he did not sleep all night.

It was exciting!

The Warcraft movie, this is an opportunity that fell from the sky.

As a casual player of World of Warcraft, although Su Ming rarely spends time playing the game, he is still very familiar with the situation of the game. He not only has a large number of players in China, but also has a huge number of fans all over the world.

This is a movie that can be used to sell feelings, which determines the box office basis;

At the same time, since there are also a large number of players in the West, it can easily open up the European and American markets.

Due to cultural differences, it is difficult for any Chinese local film to truly open up the Western market, and the more the film can reflect the essence of Chinese culture, the more so.

Su Ming has never limited his vision to the local market when he runs a film company. From the first film, he has considered the Western market, but it has been proved that it is too difficult for Eastern films to truly open up the ticket warehouse in the Western world.

World of Warcraft is a good opportunity that fell from the sky.

As for whether it will be a bad movie, Su Ming did not think much about it.

After talking about movies with Xin Linli several times, Su Ming has some new understandings of the so-called bad movies. There are two types of bad movies, one is that they are criticized for not making money, and the other is that they are criticized but make money. The Legend of the Gods belongs to the former, while movies with a huge fan base and the signboard of "sentiment" belong to the latter.

There are too many so-called "XX big movies" in China, which are so bad that they can't be made any worse, but they make a lot of money, relying on the fan effect and sentiment.

According to Su Ming's current understanding of the world film market and the World of Warcraft game, even if this is really a bad movie, it is absolutely not a problem to guarantee a box office of more than 300 million US dollars worldwide.

In fact, Su Ming himself has thought about filming World of Warcraft, but on the one hand, he is limited by funds. This kind of magical blockbuster cannot be played without a few hundred million Chinese yuan, and he can't take it out for the time being.

But the most important thing is that he still can't get the copyright.

Shooting and producing World of Warcraft, as long as it is a mature film company, it is destined to make money. Excluding the theater distribution fees and the dividends distributed to Blizzard Entertainment, the income must be at least close to double.

In the West, I may not be 100% sure, because the cost of filming in the West is more than three times that of the East.

The main reason for this understanding is that Su Ming is a World of Warcraft player himself, and he has played it intermittently for many years, and has a personal experience of the status of this game in the minds of players. Lian Longwu actually does not have this advantage, and most entrepreneurs in Hong Kong do not have this advantage either. Most of the players who have this in-depth understanding of the market advantage do not have the money to invest in filming.

Xiang Zuo may have it, but after all, he is not Long Wu himself, and it is impossible for Long Wu to experience this feeling.

Long Wu came to him, firstly because he was indeed short of money, and secondly, it was more or less to repay the favor of the last Fengshen Legend.

He also has an advantage that no one else has: animals. There are a large number of beasts and fantasy animals in the World of Warcraft game.

Moreover, with the supervision and guidance of Blizzard Entertainment and the participation of Taoyuan Pictures, this future World of Warcraft may not be a big bad movie.

If a fantasy blockbuster can be shot well, it is difficult to estimate the market in the international market. In the past, the Lord of the Rings series invested 250 million US dollars and the total box office reached 2.9 billion US dollars.

Su Ming doesn't expect 2.9 billion. As long as the global box office of this movie can break 500 million US dollars, he can make a lot of money. If it reaches 1 billion US dollars, it will be a super big piece of fat meat.

The greater the investment, the greater the return.

And Su Ming's idea is deeper than Long Wu.

Even if this movie doesn't make money, as long as it doesn't lose too much, Su Ming has decided to invest, and the bigger the momentum, the better.

Because, under the Taoyuan Group, the key enterprise ranked in the first echelon of listing is Taoyuan Film and Television!

Taoyuan Film and Television wants to go public, and it lacks an influential big production!

Nothing can open up the market quickly and increase the popularity of Taoyuan Film and Television on a global scale better than World of Warcraft.

Even if it is a bad movie.

Once Taoyuan Film can go public, the income in the stock market will be the real big head, which will make Su Ming from a well-known local entrepreneur to a real wealthy class, and in the film and entertainment level, he will be on par with Long Wu, Huaxiaxing, and a series of big crocodiles in the mainland.

For a "small and medium-sized entrepreneur" like Su Ming, the real "first pot of gold" is actually in the stock market.

If you want to become a rich man, you might as well set a small goal first: go public.

It can be foreseen that when the huge cash flow of the stock market is injected into various companies, it will inevitably have a substantial improvement on the entire Taoyuan Group. Whether it is continuing to make movies or preparing for more listing sequences, it will be easy.

These days, the fastest way to make money is not to do business, but to play with capital. Although manipulating capital itself does not generate value, it can bring the maximum benefits to the trader in the short term. Capital accumulates like a snowball. The richer the person, the easier it is to make money and build a huge financial empire in a short period of time.

However, pure capital manipulation has huge risks. Without industry, there is no foundation, and any strong "yin wind" can blow it down.

Capital operation based on industry is relatively safe. Su Ming does not lack industry now, but lacks this "first pot of gold" to start capital operation.

Moreover, Su Ming was not worried about losing all his money in this gamble. The player base of World of Warcraft was there. Even if the movie failed, it would not be a problem to make 100 or 200 million yuan in box office worldwide. If it was a disaster, he would only lose tens of millions.

Su Ming sometimes played it safe because he was young and had plenty of time to develop slowly, but also because of his youth, he would not hesitate to make a move when it was time to make a move because he could afford to lose.

There is nothing in the world that is 100% sure. If there is more than 60%, you can make a move. Compared with the huge chain returns once successful, the tens of millions of yuan that may be paid for failure, Su Ming is willing to take a gamble.

The next afternoon, the total amount was counted. At present, the total amount of money that Su Ming could mobilize in various industries was about 180 million Chinese yuan. The bulk of it was the surplus from the last movie shooting, and the recent profit book funds of various companies.

Su Ming gritted his teeth and said, either don't do it, or do it in full, and invest all the 180 million yuan.

This almost drained his cash flow.

Fortunately, the solid foundation laid for the group's companies is in good operation, and there will be a steady stream of income in the future, which can ensure the stability of the company's operation.

In fact, if Su Ming grits his teeth, he can withdraw another sum of money to make up nearly 200 million. Every time he makes money, he will reserve a small part and put it into the financial management treasury. After a year, this treasury has more than 10 million, including principal and interest.

But after thinking about it, he still didn't move. This money is not for himself, but for my mother. In case I have a problem in the future, like my father, my mother will not be in financial trouble.

Early in the morning of the third day, the company's royal lawyer Liang Sicheng brought a whole team of lawyers to Hong Kong and moved into Long Wu's villa. Led by Su Ming, they discussed the specific details of the cooperation with Long Wu and made it clear on paper.

180 million investment, plus Long Wu's own 200 million, and more than 80 million Hong Kong dollars injected by Shenghe, almost 500 million Chinese yuan, cooperation between shareholders and Blizzard Entertainment, legal provisions, various agreements are vast and complicated, brothers should settle accounts clearly, everything must be determined in advance to avoid disputes later.

After this conversation, Su Ming stayed in Long Wu's villa for a whole week.

In the week, two major and minor things happened.