Treasure Island 1992, starting from the Four Little Heavenly Kings

Sometimes plans just can't keep up with changes.

Andy Lau joining the "Swapping Identities" project was an unpredictable change.

When Piltover reported the proposal to include the character Liu Hua from "Agent" in "Swapping Identities" for character linkage, he reported it to Paramount executives.

Paramount seems to take this proposal very seriously.

It really needs to be taken seriously.

The film "The Last Man" has been released worldwide.

In addition to more than 770,000 US dollars in North America, it has also received more than 50 million US dollars in other overseas regions except the United States.

The global box office is 1.2 million US dollars.

This data is not particularly dazzling.

But not bad either.

Even, to a certain extent, the movie "Lonely Agent" is still the most popular movie in the world this year.

Liu Hua, the protagonist in the movie, is loved by many fans.

Therefore, when Piltover's proposal was reported to the company's senior management, the senior management became very interested in letting Liu Hua's character join "Swapping Identities".

No one who can sit in the top position of Paramount is a fool.

On the contrary, they are all very smart.

Now that Chen Qiming has agreed to let Liu Hua's character join the "Swap Identity" project, does that mean that Paramount hopes to participate in the subsequent development of the "Lonely Agent" project?

Hollywood has always been a place where profit comes first.

The project "Lonely Agent" is a typical example of using small things to make big things happen.

The first one has been a huge success and very profitable.

As long as Qiming Film and Television is not stupid, they will not give up on continuing to develop the follow-up to this project.

Paramount is still very greedy for this project.

So, in less than a day, Paramount headquarters called Piltover.

Not only did they agree to let Andy Lau join "Swapping Identities", they also directly suggested that he could be given more roles.

At the same time, Paramount also sent a person to find Chen Qiming and solemnly proposed to him that he hoped that Qiming Film and Television would allow Paramount to participate in the subsequent development of "The Lonely Agent".

Incidentally, they also gave away their own trading items.

Nor does it count as a trading item.

What Paramount means is that they can use their company's investment share in a future project to exchange the right to invest in "The Lonely Agent" with Qiming Pictures.

To put it bluntly, it is actually resource exchange and risk sharing.

This practice is very common in Hollywood and even in the Asian film and television industry.

As we all know, film and television investment is risky.

Even the most famous directors and actors face risks in their projects.

Therefore, in order to reduce this risk, when everyone invests in a project, they will often involve another company, and everyone will invest together to share the risk.

Although the two companies invest together, they will make less money, but relatively, even if the movie fails, the loss will not be too big.

Looking at the many movie companies in Hollywood, several giant companies have movies that lose money every year.

Sometimes, at the end of a year, the number of films losing money is still very high.

But these companies never collapsed.

what is the reason?

It’s not that the investors behind these companies have been pouring money into them.

To be honest, no financial owner would be so stupid.

Let's talk about Chen Qiming. After he founded Qiming Film and Television, he will not continue to invest money in it. On the contrary, he will have to take money out of Qiming Film and Television.

His purpose in establishing the company is to make money, not to throw away gold coins. If the company cannot bring him benefits, why should he keep him?

In the same way, the same is true for these giant film and television companies in Hollywood.

Regardless of their huge backgrounds and the support of many financial groups.

But if they couldn't make money, these consortiums would have abandoned them long ago.

In short, the Hollywood film and television giants are able to dominate the film and television industry. In addition to having huge funds at the beginning, they actually accumulated subsequent funds step by step.

Each of these giant companies has a market value of more than one billion, and they rely not only on the one or two movies produced by their own companies.

Their profit sources also include stable cooperative investments and various distribution channels.

The renewed success of "The Lonely Agent" has obviously put Qiming Film and Television into the spotlight of several major Hollywood giants.

Paramount wants to take this opportunity to reach a cooperative relationship with Qiming Pictures. If there are projects in the future, they can share the risks together.

Of course, cooperation is cooperation, and competition also exists.

Companies in the film and television industry are so contradictory.

While they cooperate to make money, they also dig holes for each other and want to swallow each other up.

When he learned that Paramount wanted to invest in a follow-up film to "The Last Man", Chen Qiming's first reaction was to refuse.

There are two reasons.

Firstly, the first part of "The Lonely Agent" has been successful. If you want to continue to make sequels, the chance of success will be greater. It is easier to succeed than making a brand new movie. In this case, Chen Qiming does not want to make a profit.

The second reason is that Chen Qiming has not yet figured out how to develop the second part of "The Lonely Agent".

At present, Qiming Film and Television already has several international series projects.

"Death is Coming", "Anaconda" and "Resident Evil" which are about to start filming this year.

Among them, "Anaconda 2" was released in March.

Although this film does not have the starring role of Chen Qiming, the results of the second part are still very gratifying.

The film was first released in Hong Kong after the Chinese New Year and eventually earned HK$37 million.

Subsequently, it was launched in Europe, the United States and other places, earning a total of 97 million US dollars worldwide.

The results are a lot lower than the first one, but still gratifying.

The company is currently planning to shoot the third episode.

In addition to Anaconda, Death Comes, a horror film that brought tens of millions of dollars in profits to Qiming Film and Television last year, will also start filming its second installment this year.

Plus Chen Qiming’s “Resident Evil” planned for this year.

It can be said that Qiming Film and Television's funds are severely scarce this year and it is impossible to continue to develop "Alone Agent 2".

Therefore, Chen Qiming has no plans to develop "Lonely Agent" this year.

As a result, it is naturally impossible for Paramount to participate in this project.

However, after some ideological struggle, Chen Qiming finally decided to change the plan.

When he was free from filming, he returned to Qiming Film and Television, held a high-level meeting, put the filming of the third part of "Anaconda" on hold, and put the second part of "The Lonely Agent" on the agenda.

The reason for the change in plans is actually very simple.

After the success of several consecutive films, Chen Qiming has clearly felt that the development of Qiming Film and Television in North America has begun to be restricted.

After all, it is a foreign company. Continuous success will inevitably arouse the hatred of local companies.

This year, Qiming Film and Television has not only been subject to frequent audits by the US tax bureau, but Chen Qiming has also clearly felt that the United States has begun to target Qiming Film and Television in terms of project distribution and other aspects.

Therefore, in order to avoid being targeted by all Hollywood film and television giants, and even being made things difficult by the authorities.

Chen Qiming must make a choice.

Again, it is very offensive to eat alone, and it is impossible to survive successfully. Let’s talk about Wanda and Tencent in the future. They have almost monopolized the industry, but they still have to choose to give up profits to avoid being targeted by the entire industry.

Qiming Film and Television has not yet reached this level! There is no strength to eat alone.

Therefore, at this time, choosing to give up some of the benefits is obviously the best way to develop.

As long as Qiming Film and Television can maintain cooperative relationships with several giants, for the sake of profit, even if Chen Qiming doesn't say anything, these giant companies will protect Chen Qiming's industry in the United States.

In addition, shelving the plan for the third part of "Anaconda" was actually Chen Qiming's careful consideration.

There have been two Anaconda films released in two years, almost one a year.

With the continuous release, coupled with the past year, there have been a large number of follow-up snake movies on the market.

How popular are snake movies this year?

Just say it!

Last year alone, more than 200 movies were released in theaters in Hong Kong, of which 30 were snake movies and python movies.

"Anaconda" grossed hundreds of millions of dollars internationally and ranked among the top ten in the global box office list in 1994. The addition to this genre is unimaginable.

I think back then, the hit of Mr. Zombie by Lin Zhengying directly led to the emergence of zombie movies on a large scale in the market.

Later, the success of Wong Jing's "God of Gamblers" made gambling movies popular.

In addition, Tsui Hark's "New Dragon Gate Inn" directly sparked the popularity of martial arts films, making martial arts films that year account for two-tenths of the market.

In short, whenever a new type of movie appears these days, as long as it sells well at the box office and is liked by the audience, similar follow-up movies will immediately appear.

The disaster of wild python is naturally inevitable.

A large number of follow-up movies have appeared, with uneven quality, which naturally leads to audience fatigue.

This is also the reason why Anaconda 2 can only get more than million Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong.

This type of movie has almost been ruined by following the trend.

After investigation, the company came to a conclusion.

After "Anaconda 3" is filmed, it will definitely continue to make money. After all, this project is considered a popular genre movie.

But no one can guarantee how much you can earn.

The only thing that is certain is that if this project is released this year, the revenue will definitely plummet.

The project "Anaconda" is obviously a good project.

The shooting is simple and the investment budget is small. It is a project that can be kept at the bottom of the box.

Chen Qiming also didn’t want to shoot it badly.

He plans to shelve it for now, and then take it out in a year or two when there are fewer follow-up films on the market and the market becomes clear.

Well, if the company is short of funds, it can also be allowed to appear.

It’s not just the Anaconda and Death project, that’s how Chen Qiming planned it.

Both of these projects are the kind of films that, if made, could be made into several films.

Especially when death comes.

This project in the future in the dreamland has produced nearly ten films, and all of them have done well at the box office.

The most important thing is that the investment of these two projects is small and the return is large. They are perfect for emergency relief.

Although Chen Qiming doesn't think he needs emergency help, what if!

Even if he has information about the future, he doesn't dare to report that he will always be successful.

Therefore, it is also good to learn from Sony. (Spider-Man is Sony’s ultimate weapon. If there is a loss in the books in any year, Spider-Man can be let out for a while)

At the end of April, the crew of "Swapping Identities" completed filming in Hong Kong.

Chen Qiming took advantage of his free time after filming to meet with Paramount and Warner's legal teams, and the two parties decided on future cooperation intentions in the form of a contract.

Qiming Pictures will continue to launch the second part of "Alone" this year, investing 60%, and the remaining 40% will be jointly invested by Paramount and Warner.

The reason why there is Warner.

This is because Warner is originally the distributor of "The Alone Agent" and has cooperated with Qiming Film and Television a lot.

Warner had previously expressed interest in joining the Lone Agent project, but was rejected by Chen Qiming.

And now, since they have decided to let Leigh out of Lone Agent, and have already asked Paramount to join the project, it might as well add Warner too.

Signing the contract was very troublesome and took two whole days.

Sometimes we would argue for half an hour over a small detail.

What's more, the three parties will quarrel for a long time because of a sentence or word in the contract.

However, these have nothing to do with Chen Qiming himself.

It is impossible for him to go out and pick out the words in the contract himself. These are the responsibility of his lawyers and team.

While the legal team was negotiating the contract, he was drinking tea in another room with representatives from Paramount and Warner.

In the room, Paramount representative Eric Botten watched the movie being played on the TV with interest.

The movie played on the VCD was none other than "The Storm" by Qiming Film and Television.

"What? Mr. Boto is interested in this film?"

Chen Qiming was sitting on the sofa on the other side. When he saw Eric Boten watching the storm on TV, he couldn't help but ask.

"I didn't expect you, Chen, to have acted in a movie like this. It looks very interesting!

Which company produced this film? I would love to introduce it! "

Eric Borten laughed.

"Haha! Eric, don't you even watch movies? This movie has already been released in North America, and it was distributed by our company.

At the same time, this project is also invested by Qiming Film and Television, which is very popular in Asia and is one of the most popular movies starring Chen. "

Next to him, Warner representative Anderson laughed.

"That's it! It's such a pity!" Eric looked regretful. He thought that the Hollywood film producers were all blind and did not introduce such a film by Chen Qiming, which made him suffer.

Putting away his regret, Eric raised his head again and looked at Chen Qiming.

"Chen, I received news that your company will have a big project this year?"

"You mean "Resident Evil"?" Chen Qiming asked with a flash of his eyes.

"Yes, I heard that you are looking for partners for this project?"

Eric nodded.

"Yes!" Chen Qiming did not hide it. "This project is a big project attempted by Qiming Film and Television. The investment is expected to be around 40 million. Qiming Film and Television does not have that much money on its books, so I plan to find partners who share the same philosophy. !”

The Resident Evil project is definitely the one that Chen Qiming has attached most importance to in the past few years.

Although he will not be starring in this project.

But in my dream, this project produced nearly a dozen films in a row, and each one was a box office hit.

It is no exaggeration to say that it is a box office money-attracting tool.

However, it attracts money, but it attracts too much money. Chen Qiming is worried that Qiming Film and Television cannot fully grasp it.

Therefore, he wants to bring in one or two American giants.

Therefore, he released the news when the project was being prepared.

“We at Paramount are very interested in this project, maybe we can have a good chat!”

Eric glanced at Anderson, then looked at Chen Qiming and said.

"Eric, you don't need to look at me. I am also very interested in this project. This project is the purpose of my coming to Hong Kong this time!"

Anderson didn't understand Eric's idea of ​​​​wanting him to leave, so he said directly.

(End of this chapter)