Text/ Golden Wrong Knife Channel JingXu
On May 10, Huayi Brothers, who was once the top leader of Chinese film and television, was listed as an executor for owing 300 million yuan in debt.
Even if the VAM agreement expired that year, Feng Xiaogang owed 168 million yuan, which could not plug the big hole that Huayi Brothers has now.
Since 2018, Huayi Brothers has been tight on cash flow, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei brothers even sold their private property to plug the hole, Wang Zhongjun not only auctioned countless collections of calligraphy and paintings, but also sold Hong Kong mansions for money at a low price of 220 million yuan last year. Immediately after that, the Weibo content of Wang Zhonglei and his wife disappeared one after another, and netizens even thought that this big son had run away to hide his debts.
Huayi Brothers, which was half of the domestic films at that time, at the beginning of the listing, 75 shareholders and many first-line film and television stars, commercial stars, the luxury of the lineup, unstoppable.
But now, the prosperity has passed, Huayi brothers, can you still turn over?
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="261" > film departments, high-grossing machines</h1>
Huayi Brothers' highlight moments, starting in 1999.
At that time, Feng Xiaogang's film "Endless" was released, with a box office of 30 million, subverting the Chinese people's perception of the film in one fell swoop, and at the beginning of the movie, Wang Zhongjun's name was written on the producer's page.
Immediately after that, "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King" directed by Chen Kaige and "The Devil Is Coming" directed by Jiang Wen both set a new high at the domestic box office and directly pushed this small film company from which the advertisement was born on the altar.
Image from: Movie "Endless"
Image from: The movie "Here Comes the Devil"
At that time, Huayi Brothers, with today's Internet thinking, was a group of people with a strong sense of purpose, and the movies produced had super product power, and all of them were explosive.
In fact, what they do right is two things: choose the right work and find the right person.
1. Blockbuster works are the cost of box office success
At first, Huayi Brothers was just a small advertising agency, and it was through friends that the brothers learned that domestic audiences had a great demand for movies, so they made their first movie, "Psychological Clinic".
Although this movie is not as mature as those in the future, because of its rich income, Wang Zhongjun has made it clear that he wants to take the road of film.
In order to maximize the benefits of investment, in the choice of works, Huayi Brothers has a critical eye, and most of the initial works are also big directors, famous actors, and good scripts.
The whole film of "Endless" tells a story of love and money, but the integrity, logic, and authenticity of this story are to the point of jaw-dropping, and it also carries a cold sense of humor:
In another play, "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King", the protagonists' rich inner drama is extremely eye-catching.
Image from: The movie "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King"
China's best actresses and China's best male actors, face to face with their faces, no one has been able to surpass them until now.
From 2003 to 2009, Huayi Brothers and Feng Xiaogang filmed a series of popular works such as "Mobile Phone", "No Thief in the World", "Night Banquet", "Assembly Number", "Do Not Disturb", "Tangshan Earthquake" and so on, all of which were worth the ticket price and the word of mouth exploded.
Image from: The Movie "The Gathering Number"
Among them, the war blockbuster "Assemblage" directed by Feng Xiaogang grossed nearly 200 million yuan in the three weeks of release, and the box office of "Tangshan Earthquake" exceeded 600 million.
Picture from: Movie "Tangshan Earthquake"
2. Key figures: Feng Xiaogang, Wang Zhonglei and Wang Jinghua
In 1998, Wang Zhongjun co-produced Feng Xiaogang's film "Endless" and signed Feng Xiaogang for 650,000 a year.
However, not long after, the little achievement Feng Xiaogang signed a contract and opened another film and television company with Zhang Guoguo, planning to "go it alone".
The Huayi brothers did not stand in the way of this.
Wang Zhongjun agrees with Feng Xiaogang: "Art and money don't fight. ”
Let it go and stay, but it has achieved a long and long time later.
Not long after, Feng Dao, who was not talented in business, returned to the Huayi Brothers.
After returning, Feng Xiaogang willingly signed the "4 million guarantee plus 2.88% of Huayi shares" and an "exclusivity" contract, which has been bundled in this company since then, becoming the strongest trump card of Huayi Brothers, and making great efforts in future development.
In terms of producing movies, another of the Huayi brothers, Wang Zhonglei, has more professional ability and a dead spirit.
"The Gathering Number" and "Tangshan Earthquake" and many excellent works behind it are all written by Wang Zhonglei.
He likes to position himself as a combination of filmmakers and businessmen, who can both advise the company and die for the film work.
Many years later, there are old colleagues who recall:
"Every movie helmed by Wang Zhonglei, from PPT to poster, Wang Zhonglei will personally check the pass, as small as punctuation. Whenever a new film is about to be released, Wang Zhonglei will lead the team to stay up late, and even sleep only for three or four hours for several consecutive days. ”
If it were not for Wang Zhonglei's professional control, the Huayi brothers probably would not have been able to have the brilliant achievements of the future.
But that's not enough.
Movies are played by people, and good actors can't be less.
At this time, the Huayi brothers met another top master, Wang Jinghua.
This unassuming lady was once known as the "first agent in the mainland" and the teacher of Yang Tianzhen, the ace agent who is now popular all over the country.
Under the auspices of Wang Jinghua, Huayi Broker, a brokerage company under Huayi Brothers, has signed more than 300 top artists, including Li Bingbing, Fan Bingbing, Hu Jun, Tong Dawei, Ren Quan, Xia Yu, Yang Ziqiong, Guan Zhilin, Liu Jialing, Wu Junru, Zhou Xun, Chen Daoming, etc.
From 2009 to 2013, these stars generated more than 100 million yuan in profits for Huayi Brothers per year, and the gross profit was not less than 60%, exceeding the sum of movies, TV series and derivatives.
It was under the impetus of these key figures that Huayi Brothers was successfully listed in October 2009, becoming the "first listed stock" of domestic film and television companies.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="264" > star escape, box office diving</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="265" > what makes Huayi fall off the altar? </h1>
Find the right person, let the Huayi brothers take a lot of detours.
But success is also Xiao He, and defeat is also Xiao He.
The first blow suffered by the Huayi brothers was the departure of Wang Jinghua in 2005.
Leaving Huayi, Wang Jinghua's explanation to the outside world at that time was that he was too tired.
But what is surprising is that it is not only Wang Jinghua who has left, but also more than 70 stars under his command, which is a bottom for Huayi Brothers.
However, thanks to the good foundation of Huayi Brothers before, hundreds of stars go some, and they will not hurt their bones, and in the good days of smooth sailing, box office miracles continue.
But just after the successful listing in 2009, Huayi Brothers' films began to decline, and within the company, several big things happened.
1, only to do the film is too single, to put the capital into operation
Wang Zhongjun high-profile proposed "de-film singleness", he said:
"In the future, if you only do box office, I think this company will go astray." Huayi must not only make movies. ”
In Wang Zhongjun's view, to achieve a successful enterprise, it is destined to operate capital and spread the scene.
In June of the following year, Huayi Brothers bought a 22% stake in mobile game maker Palm Fun Technology for 148.5 million yuan to expand its Internet entertainment sector.
In 2015, Huayi Brothers took advantage of the victory and quickly invested in the Korean entertainment company HB Entertainment (the producer of "You from the Stars"), and Russo Brothers established a joint venture company (the director and producer of "Captain America 2 and 3"), drama and drama screens, etc., so that film and television, live entertainment, and the Internet together formed Huayi Brothers' "troika" strategy.
But this also made Huayi Brothers a "film company that does not make movies".
2, buy a small company to bind the star and director, but the focus of work is gone
Subsequently, Huayi Brothers received a total of nearly 4 billion yuan of fixed increase investment from Ali Ma Yun, Tencent Ma Huateng and Ping An Ma Mingzhe.
With money, dreams can become reality.
With this money, Huayi Brothers immediately acquired 70% of the shares of dongyang haohan and dongyang meila two new companies, with a total price of more than 1.8 billion yuan, and then invested nearly 1.9 billion yuan in hero mutual entertainment. Nearly $3.8 billion was spent.
Its Middle East Sun Haohan is a company jointly founded by several fire stars: Angelababy, Feng Shaofeng, and Li Chen.
Dongyang Meila was the company that Feng Xiaogang and Wang Zhongjun later bet on.
The two agreed that Huayi Brothers would acquire Dongyang Meila for 1.05 billion yuan, and after the acquisition was completed, Feng Xiaogang would earn 100 million yuan for Dongyang Meila in the first year, accumulating 15% per year, and if the agreement could not be completed, the money that was not earned would be made up by himself.
However, at that time, Dongyang Meila's book loss reached 0.55 billion yuan, and the bet between the two was actually Huayi once again deeply tied to Feng Xiaogang through investment.
By spending money, binding a blockbuster director and several popular actors, this kind of play has a certain risk for Wang Zhongjun at that time, after all, the director and actor will also encounter bottlenecks, if they cannot develop a breakthrough, the investor will lose.
But at this time, Wang Zhongjun, who was deeply immersed in the dream of running a "Chinese Disney", had a clear deviation in his estimation of reality, and the transformation away from the core business was only a superficial phenomenon, and in a deeper place, he wanted to use the system to restrain filmmakers, so as to free his work focus from the film industry.
Whether he made a movie or not seemed to be unimportant to him anymore.
3. When the new leader takes office, the row of noodles is there, but the people's hearts are scattered
In 2016, the trusted new head, Ye Ning, took office.
It can be said that Ye Ning, who is not related, has enabled Wang Zhongjun's idea of transformation to land.
During his tenure, Ye Ning led Huayi Brothers to produce films such as "Finding the Dragon", which was praised by many big men in the circle, but this time, ye Ning, a professional manager, not only did not let Huayi Brothers achieve rapid transformation, but listed box office, commercial development, and profitability evaluation as the most important projects, putting the polishing of excellent works in a secondary position, attracting the dissatisfaction of many old filmmakers and scattering people's hearts.
For the distraction, someone mentioned such a past:
At that time, Guan Hu wanted to shoot Old Cannon, at the meeting, Guan Hu said bluntly: Put the money I need on the table, don't care what I shoot. ”
At that time, people didn't care much about money, and they were more concerned about the quality of the movie.
But after Ye Ning, there was no such rhetoric.
Not only that, in the three years after 2017, even if it is the Spring Festival file, there is no Huayi Brothers movie.
At the end of 2019, the war masterpiece "Eight Hundred" and the youth film "Little Wish" were suddenly withdrawn, and Feng Xiaogang's "Only Yun Knows" box office Waterloo.
Image from: Movie "Only Yun Knows"
Even the live-action entertainment project favored by Wang Zhongjun is only continued to operate by Haikou Mission Hills Huayi Feng Xiaogang Film Commune, accounting for only 1.59% of the total revenue. Suzhou-based Huayi Brothers Movie World lost 160 million yuan in 2019.
Years of losses finally made Ye Ning unable to sit still any longer.
On April 28, 2020, Ye Ning resigned as a director and deputy general manager, returning Huayi Brothers to the original brothers.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="267" > huayi who is crazy to save itself, but it is getting deeper and deeper</h1>
In the following days, the Huayi brothers seemed to have fallen to the bottom.
According to the financial report, Huayi Brothers has accumulated losses of 6.195 billion yuan for three consecutive years.
As of the end of 2020, Huayi Brothers had 644 million yuan in cash and 1.961 billion yuan in short-term borrowings.
Compared with the peak of the market value of 90 billion yuan in 2015, it not only returned to the original point, but also lost a bottom.
In order to reverse the decline, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei of the Huayi brothers came out of the mountain again.
At the 7th Global Film Industry Chain Development Forum on July 27, 2020, Wang Zhonglei said:
"From August 2020 to the end of the year, Huayi has prepared a movie for every slot."
Wang Zhonglei's action is very real - using movies to return to the film industry.
At the same time, he pointed out several years of strategic mistakes within the company.
In a letter to all employees, Wang Zhonglei said frankly: "2019 is the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Huayi Brothers, and it is also the most difficult year since its establishment. Leaving aside the adjustment of the schedule of "Eight Hundred", the main investment project of Huayi Brothers Film has been blank this year. As a media company with content production as its core competitiveness, such a mistake is fatal. ”
Image from: The movie "Eight Hundred"
At the same time, Wang Zhongjun also frankly admitted that his strategy was improper: "The stalls were spread too big and too fast in a short period of time. ”
Brother Dao felt that although the two brothers of Huayi had said something, what the audience wanted to see was actually their works.
In recent years, China has made movies such as "The Wandering Earth" and "Nezha" series that are popular with audiences, but we have not seen the surprises brought by Huayi Brothers. Without this surprise, even if you say more, it is still zero.
In the 2021 Spring Festival file, although Huayi Brothers produced two movies, the high-cost production of "Samurai Shodown" only received 210 million yuan at the box office; "Sunshine Robber", the total box office of the street, only 39.8469 million yuan.
To save the company, Mr. Wang began selling his personal property as early as 2018, including paintings, art from a long-standing collection and a Hong Kong mansion.
In 2019, at the Summer Summit of yabuli China Entrepreneur Forum, Wang Zhongjun admitted that he was already selling paintings for working capital: "I recently sold a batch of art and took some cash to solve my liquidity problem. ”
Most of these personal properties were transferred to Huayi Brothers in the form of interest-free mortgages.
As of 2020, in order to circulate cash and save Huayi Brothers, the brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei have pledged more than 90% of the shares in their hands.
Later, in June 2020, Wang Zhongjun sold a 3,738-square-foot Hong Kong mansion for 220 million yuan.
On March 30, 2021, Huayi Brothers issued an announcement that Wang Zhongjun resigned from all positions of Huayi Tencent Entertainment and cashed out 900 million yuan from Hong Kong.
But even so, less than a month later, on April 28, Wang Zhongjun was informed of restricting high spending, and his name was also on the hot search.
Seeing this picture, I think Feng Xiaogang was also shaking his head.
On May 24 this year, Huayi Brothers issued an announcement that Dongyang Latin America's 168 million performance compensation in 2020 has arrived, and that ambitious gamble, no one has won, and it has ended dismal.
In the past 20 years, the vigorous development of Chinese films and the success of Huayi are closely related to factors such as the relatively single theme of films in the first few years, the lack of high-scoring films, and the immaturity of the market.
In the past, Huayi Brothers burst into flames because they could come up with acclaimed and popular movies every year, and now, if Huayi Brothers wants to save themselves, the top priority is to do a good job in core products.
Good movies are always the audience's needs, and they will never become obsolete.