Video Game Empire

(PS: The first draft, the typo has not been revised, you can wait and see it later!)

There is a saying in Hong Kong's film industry that "whoever wins the cinema will win the world". In the 1970s, the Hong Kong film industry was a rivalry between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest, because these two companies controlled the two largest cinema chains in Hong Kong respectively and held the power to release films in Hong Kong.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Lei, the owner of KMB, crossed the river and established the Golden Princess Cinema, the third cinema chain in Hong Kong. In order to make the new cinema chain have enough new films to play, Boss Lei began to support Xinyicheng Film Company.

With the strong rise of Xinyicheng, both Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest felt enormous pressure. For this reason, the two original rivals quickly turned their battles into jade and silk, and formed an alliance to suppress the Golden Princess Cinema and Xinyicheng Film Company.

However, Shaw Brothers' large-scale studio system has long been unable to adapt to the development of the new era. Therefore, after Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest formed an alliance, the box office of Golden Harvest's smashing films increased by a large margin, while Shaw Brothers' bad movies were still unpopular.

Shao Yifu saw that the alliance with Golden Harvest Company, not only failed to suppress Xinyicheng Company, but allowed Golden Harvest to take advantage of it, so the alliance between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest soon broke down.

According to the original history, Shao Yifu saw that TVB was thriving and the Shaw Brothers film industry was in a difficult situation, so he finally chose to shut down the Shaw Brothers film industry, and then rented the Shaw Brothers cinema chain to the film company. Famous Brand Pan", [～Chang [～Wind [～Wen [～Xue, ww○w.cf⊙wx.ne≌t, thus the rise of Debao Films and Debao Cinemas in the late 1980s.

However, due to the rise of ATV Group, the landscape of Hong Kong's entertainment industry has undergone tremendous changes. First of all, with the support of Li Xuan's heavy money, Asia Satellite TV has launched a fierce competition with TVB.

In another time and space, ATV has never been a real threat to TVB due to its weak competitiveness. Therefore, Shao Yifu felt profitable after taking over TVB, so he decisively gave up film and changed his career to TV. But in this time and space, TVB is not only overwhelmed by ATV in terms of ratings, but more importantly, its profitability has been greatly affected.

The purpose of Li Xuan's investment in TV stations has never been to make money. What he needs is the influence of public opinion. Better ratings require more sophisticated programs to support, and more sophisticated programs require higher investment as a foundation.

Therefore, Asia Satellite TV is very willing to invest in program production. So that the operating costs of TVB, a competitor, have also been greatly raised. Because the audience's eyes are sharp, there is really a clear difference between a TV series produced with 1 million yuan and a TV series produced with 10 million yuan!

And because TVB is suppressed by Asian Satellite TV in terms of ratings, its attractiveness to advertisers is also greatly reduced. On the one hand, revenue has decreased, and on the other hand, expenses have increased. Compared with the 1970s, TVB's operating conditions have not risen but fallen.

When ATV began to rise, Shao Yifu had just taken over from the Rishi family and started to helm TVB. If it wasn't for Li Xuan who hadn't killed them all, he would have stopped ATV's aggressive Jin Yuan offensive after overtaking TVB in terms of ratings. Otherwise, TVB may even fall into the quagmire of losing money.

Because the transformation of the TV business is not satisfactory, and the Hong Kong film industry is getting more and more prosperous, Shao Yifu is even more reluctant to give up Shaw Brothers. In another time and space, Shaw Brothers chose to stop production as early as 1985, but in this time and space, it still insisted.

"Aaron, I heard that your negotiation with Shao Liushu was not going well?" Zeng Zhiwei put down his racket and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel. Said to Curlew, who had just finished a game with himself.

"Yeah, the Shaw Brothers really dared to speak up. They raised the price to 200 million Hong Kong dollars yesterday!" Ke Lilun said after grabbing a bottle of Gatorade and taking a few sips.

"Haha, before Golden Harvest and Xinyicheng only produced dozens of movies a year, you are willing to spend 200 million and 250 million. There are more than 600 movies in Shaw Brothers' film library, and the asking price of 200 million is very conscientious. !" Zeng Zhiwei said with squinted eyes and a laugh.

As the saying goes, a thin dead camel is bigger than a horse. Although Shaw Brothers has not been satisfactory in the box office market in recent years, it has a huge library of more than 600 films. Still a mouthwatering piece of fat.

"The value of copyright is not determined by quantity. These old Shaw Brothers films can't be said to be unwatched, but they can never be released on a large scale like new films! You know that after our investigation, we found that Shaw Brothers' film library, Which type of film is the most popular in the videotape market? Fengyue film!"

Ke Lilun shook his head and continued, "The 80 million Hong Kong dollar price we gave before is actually not low. But now there is suddenly a competitor, Shao Liushu naturally wants to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight!"

Japanese VCR manufacturers such as JVC are not stupid, they are crazy to discover the conspiracy of Dongfang Sho to control the content of film and television. When JVC started the video format war with Sony, it actually used the same method.

At that time, RCA played a pivotal role in this war. This is because RCA, as one of the most well-known home appliance manufacturers in the United States, has great influence in market share and distribution channels.

On the other hand, it is because the NBC broadcasting company under the RCA company, as the largest public television network in the United States, can provide a large number of TV series, variety shows, talk shows and other program contents that meet the tastes of American audiences. Therefore, RCA chose to stand on the side of JVC's VHS format, and made great contributions to the early promotion of the VHS format.

In addition to competing for TV programming resources, Sony and JVC also engaged in a fierce intrigue in order to win the support of Hollywood production giants.

Therefore, it is not that Japanese video recorder manufacturers do not understand the importance of controlling content, but the Asian market has never been the most core market in the world. Therefore, JVC and Sony are willing to compete for exclusive rights in the United States and Japan, but they have never considered purchasing the exclusive rights of Hong Kong films.

This also gave the Oriental Commercial Company the opportunity to do the math without thinking. But when Japanese manufacturers really reacted, they acted very quickly. This time, the new competitor who suddenly jumped out to compete with Dongfang Commercial for Shaw Brothers' film library resources is an unknown company with a Japanese investment background.

"The yen keeps rising in value. Now the Japanese are very powerful in the world, and they are not bad at all! Last year, the number of Japanese tourists to Hong Kong increased by 40%. They go shopping in the mall as if they don't want money!" Zeng Zhiwei pointed nodded and said.

"What are you two talking about?" Li Xuan walked over with a leisurely face holding a colorful cocktail.

"I'm talking with Zeng Dong about the acquisition of the copyright of Shaw Brothers' film library. It seems to be difficult!" Ke Lilun explained.

"Since the Japanese are so interested, we might as well be an adult beauty! Of course, Allen can discuss with Shao Liushu and try to help him raise the price so that he can scrape more money from the Japanese!" Li Xuan said indifferently.

Whether it can win Shaw Brothers' film library, in Li Xuan's view, does not affect the overall situation. VCDs are in competition with VCRs. Has occupied a huge advantage! But the VCR already has a huge stock market, so it is not realistic to want to kill it all at once!

"Li Sheng, I recently heard new news that Chen Rongmei and Feng Bingzhong intend to form a new cinema chain. It is said that they have been lobbying those independent cinemas to join them! And as far as I know, Chen Rongmei and Feng Bingzhong are also overseas. Funding support, but whether these supports come from Japan is unknown!" Zeng Zhiwei suddenly broke out a new news.

Zeng Zhiwei is a smart man, and he knows that he wants to gain greater support within the Oriental Group. Efforts must be made to move closer to the core business of the group. The business focus of Dongfang Group is undoubtedly the electronics industry, so he is very attentive to the promotion of VCD, because this is the first time that Asia Entertainment has truly participated in the core strategy of the group.

Speaking of Chen Rongmei and Feng Bingzhong, Li Xuan is really no stranger. At the beginning, the first marketing action of Dongfang Electronics was carried out in the Lisheng Cinema. As a result, the two arcade machines "Hong Kong Cube" and "Tank War" caused a sensation in Hong Kong, and opened the prelude to the legendary rise of the Oriental Group.

At that time, the two bosses of the Lisheng Cinema Line behind Lisheng Cinema were Chen Rongmei and Feng Bingzhong. But soon after Oriental Electronics' arcade machines entered Hong Kong cinemas, the pair sold a majority stake in the cinema company to KMB's Lei Juekun. So Lisheng Cinema was renamed as Golden Princess Cinema.

But Chen and Feng never imagined that the theater chain would lose money all the time in their hands. After being accepted by Boss Lei, the pheasant soon turned into a phoenix and began to enter the golden bucket every day. Seeing that it is getting easier and easier for the Hong Kong film industry to make money, Chen Rongmei and Feng Bingzhong finally began to lose their patience.

"The distribution rights of the Hong Kong film industry are basically controlled by the three companies, Asia Film Industry, Art City and Golden Harvest. If other production companies in Hong Kong want to let the film enter the theater, they can only be recruited by the three of us. If filmmakers want to obtain the distribution rights of Hong Kong films, they can only be slaughtered by the three of us!

There are many people who secretly spy on the huge profits of Hong Kong movies. Taiwan film companies and Southeast Asian film companies may be the behind-the-scenes financial masters of Chen and Feng! Even if they are supported by Japanese funds, they want to build a theater chain from scratch. It is not an easy thing to win over a large number of production companies to provide film sources!

What's more, the cinemas with the best geographical location in Hong Kong have basically been pulled into their banners by the three major cinema chains. Even if the new cinema chain is established, it will be difficult to make profits for a while!

Therefore, the new theater chain is nothing to worry about. What I am more worried about is the Shao Brothers theater chain of Shao Liushu! Although Shaw Brothers is still struggling in recent years, as long as people with discerning eyes have no chance of coming back to life!

Uncle Shao is also old and no longer has the ambitions of the year. The reason why he kept the film company closed for once is that he just can't let go of the obsession in his heart! But since he is willing to sell the copyright of the film library this time, it seems that he has made up his mind to end the film business!

In this way, it is meaningless for Uncle Shao to continue to hold the Shaw Brothers Cinema Line. So I think he is likely to release rumors about selling or subletting the theater in the near future. This is what we need to be vigilant about! A gleam of light flashed in Li Xuan's eyes, and he said sharply.

Shaw's Cinema is one of the three major cinema chains in Hong Kong, and its influence is far from that of a new cinema chain. In another time and space, Debao Films quickly became one of the largest production companies in Hong Kong by renting Shaw Brothers Cinemas.

With Hong Kong films sweeping the entire East Asian market, the local box office has become smaller and smaller in the overall profit, and many films have been able to recover their costs just by pre-sale overseas. However, the box office of Hong Kong's local port still has the role of a weather vane.

Especially for those small production companies, it is impossible for them to have strong overseas distribution capabilities like the Big Three, and rely entirely on the box office performance of their hometown to raise prices from overseas filmmakers.

So if the Shaw Brothers Cinemas falls into the hands of Japan, they will soon be able to gather a large number of small and medium-sized film companies that lack high-quality release schedules. And Japanese manufacturers are not short of money. If a "New Art City" is cultivated like Boss Lei again, the entire structure of the Hong Kong film industry will suffer a huge impact.

"The development momentum of our Asian film industry is too strong, and Golden Harvest and Xinyicheng have a tendency to join forces to compete with us! If we can have our own theater chain, we can undoubtedly get rid of the constraints of these two companies on us!" Zeng Zhiwei nodded immediately. road.

At the beginning, Asian Pictures did not set up its own theater chain, because it did not want Jiahe and Xinyicheng to point the finger at itself. With the rapid development of Asian Films and the entire ATV Group, the company no longer has to fear any competition!

"Hollywood in the United States has been called the lost decade in the past ten years! A big reason for this is that it has received the impact of videotapes~www.readwn.com~ Since you can sit comfortably at home and watch movies, many The ** of the audience to go to the original movie ticket has dropped greatly!

With the development of the Asian economy, even if we do not launch VCD, the penetration rate of VCRs will increase rapidly. Next, the Hong Kong film industry is also facing a huge impact from video tapes. Especially the copyright protection of Asian countries is obviously not as strict as that of European and American countries, so the losses caused by piracy will become more and more serious!

Under such circumstances, how to attract audiences to re-enter the cinema will become a proposition that affects the life and death of all Hong Kong films! On the one hand, we must rapidly improve the production level of Hong Kong films. Shoddy production can only prosper for a while, but cannot develop for a long time!

On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the viewing experience of the audience, so that everyone in the cinema can enjoy the audio-visual feast that cannot be enjoyed at home in front of the TV! The group has long been researching on audio equipment, and not long ago, it also cooperated with the American Cinema Company!

If we can win the Shaw Brothers cinema chain, we can become the vanguard in promoting the upgrading of Hong Kong cinemas! "

Li Xuan's words made Zeng Zhiwei nod again and again, and knew what the focus of his next work was! (To be continued.)