Text/Golden Wrong Knife Channel
The atmosphere of "real-name reporting" has been blown from Tangshan to the film and television circle.
On June 13, female director Wang Yichun reported the old owner on Weibo.
She said: "I didn't get a single point of screenwriting fee, director fee, production fee, but also to find them 1.29 million, if you don't pay, even the copyright of their own script is theirs." ”
If it is only a dispute of interests, it is natural not necessary to disturb netizens across the country.
But Wang Yichun said: "They want to send me in." ”
The news quickly appeared on Weibo's hot search, and some netizens commented on dissuading: such a big company, you can't fight.
The company, called Huanxi Media, has a market value of more than HK$4.4 billion, and even Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar-wai have signed contracts in this company and are still major shareholders. "I am not a medicine god", "Hong Kong 囧", "Win the Championship" (formerly known as "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team") are all produced by it.
But in fact, since its establishment, Huanxi Media has been operating for a total of 7 years, and has been losing money for 6 years, with a total loss of more than 2 billion yuan.
Holding the ace to play a mess, what has it experienced?
Smash 1.4 billion web dramas,
Zhang Yimou took the initiative to join the company
Joy Media is a strange flower in the film circle.
At that time, Xu Zheng took "Tai 囧" to find investors to produce and publicize, and the budget of 25 million was abused by insiders over and over again, not only no one was willing to do it, but some people proposed to "reduce it by half".
In the end, Xu Zheng "performed" "Tai 囧" in 20 minutes in front of Wang Changtian of Guangguang Pictures, which was replied: "It is eight or nine million."
First from the left: Wang Changtian
As a result, "Tai 囧" grossed 1.27 billion yuan, winning the historical champion of the domestic film box office, and Xu Zheng gradually became one of the most influential directors in China.
In the second part of "Hong Kong 囧", Xu Zheng did not find others to invest, but did it himself.
At that time, two big men in the film circle, Dong Ping and Xiang Shaokun, found Xu Zheng and Ning Hao to co-found Huanxi Media, and the four of them hit it off: "Control the source of the original top content of Chinese film and television dramas." ”
The so-called "top content source" refers to influential directors.
In the following years, Huanxi Media has successively signed directors, and the famous direct shares.
Huanxi Media is very strict in the choice of directors, and most of the shareholders who can become shareholders have national-level works, such as shareholder director Gu Changwei has "LiChun" and Chen Kexin has "Chinese Partner".
Therefore, even if Jia Zhangke, who is called "the leader of the sixth generation of directors" by the film circle, can only be a contracted director and cannot become a shareholder.
In order to let these directors into the shares, Joy Media really made a bloody investment.
In 2016 alone, Huanxi Media signed 4 directors, Wong Kar-wai, Gu Changwei, Zhang Yibai and Chen Daming. Among them, the shares given to Wong Kar-wai are worth 100 million yuan, and the other three are 140 million yuan.
Even Zhang Yimou took the initiative to find Xiang Shaokun of Huanxi Media to shoot 6 online works together.
With equity, that is, partners, bosses, this kind of play is very attractive to the director.
In the following years, Huanxi Media insisted on bloody signing, and a number of new directors in China were also included in the army.
In 2013, Wen Muye, who had already made several short films on realistic themes, was discovered by Xu Zheng, and a few years later he got "I Am Not a Medicine God" that was originally for Ning Hao.
"I am not a medicine god" was not optimistic at the beginning, and even the investment was made up by Xu Zheng and Ning Hao and a group of brothers.
Xu Zheng once mentioned in an interview that an actor said that he only accepted films with a box office of more than 1 billion yuan and refused his offer.
After all, "Medicine God" tells the story of the poor's treatment of the disease, and the background of not having money to buy medicine to save lives is incompatible with Xu Zheng's past comedy painting style.
But what I didn't expect was that the box office of "Medicine God" on the first day reached 159 million, with a cumulative box office of 3.1 billion, winning the first Douban score of domestic cinema films in the past 16 years, and director Wen Muye was also on fire.
2 months later, Huanxi Media put "I Am Not a Medicine God" on its own video platform "Huanxi Premiere" online.
Screenshot of the joy premiere
During the double 11 period, users of the Happy Premiere can watch "I Am Not a Medicine God" as long as they spend 1.99 yuan, and the registered users quickly exceeded one million.
First make money and then earn traffic, the way the Internet is played, Huanxi Media can be seamlessly connected.
In 2020, China fell into the new crown epidemic, and movies have been withdrawn, and even many foreign films imported with heavy money have been postponed.
If the new film is not released, it will lose money, and even boil into a backlog.
At a time when everyone was overwhelmed, Huanxi Media sold the movie "囧Mom" to ByteDance, saving 630 million yuan in revenue.
Let the audience watch movies for free during the epidemic, this operation has made Huanxi Media gain a lot of good feelings.
A movie sold for 630 million,
Joy Media lost 6 years
Although Huanxi Media has the top director Tiantuan in China, it has lost 6 years since its establishment 7 years.
The main reason is that although there are explosive works, the overall box office is dismal.
For example, "Where Has time gone" released in 2017, co-directed by directors from China, Russia, India, Pakistan and South Africa, only 8.54 million at the box office.
Even Zhang Yimou's "One Second" only had a box office of 130 million, and it did not return to the book.
The reason is that the main role of these big coffee directors is to put on a name and gild Huanxi Media.
For example, Huanxi Media signed a contract with Wong Kar-wai in 2016, although it plans to shoot an 18-episode web series with two seasons, wong Kar-wai's responsibility in the agreement is "at least 1 episode of directing".
For the fame of this episode, Huanxi Media gave Wong Kar-wai 100 million yuan of equity and promised to invest at least 360 million yuan for this online drama that has not yet been filmed.
With wong Kar Wai's blessing, the label of "good strength", Huanxi Media was even attached.
In addition, in addition to the dismal box office of cinema films, The Streaming Media's streaming works are also unsatisfactory.
For example, "The Sky of the Burning Wild Boy", at first glance, the name is also a copy of "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy", and the Douban score is only 4.5.
The score is so low that many people suspect it comes from some naïve and up-and-coming director.
But in fact, the director behind them, Zhang Yibai, is not low at all, and was once considered the founder of domestic youth films, and his works you at least know these two: "Carry love to the end" and "The subway to spring".
In addition, 2019's "Dragon Gate Phase" was not only shortlisted for the FIRST Youth Film Festival, director Xiao Yifan also won the Best Director Award, debuted in Kuaishou, but only 2197 people participated in the rating on Douban.
Xiao Yifan
In addition to a few popular blockbusters, Huanxi Media produces too many unknown and unprofitable works, and it is these works that eat away at its net profit year after year.
The influence is not enough or secondary, and the biggest problem with these low-scoring works is the impact on the reputation of Huanxi Media.
After all, the purpose of Huanxi Media signing a big director is to establish word of mouth.
Now the abacus of endorsing the debut of young directors with these works has also been empty.
The most "money-making" company,
Why is it losing money every year?
After the Wang Yichun incident, many people felt that Huanxi Media was too domineering.
After participating in the variety show "Director Please Advise", Wang Yichun had a certain degree of popularity, forcing her to go to Weibo for help, and Huanxi Media was destined to be criticized by netizens.
However, after the outbreak of the incident, Huanxi Media "defended its rights" through legal procedures, which made Wang Yichun admit to instigation.
Many people have asked, is it some kind of backing?
Joy Media was indeed born with a golden spoon.
Dong Ping, one of the four founders, has been investing in movies since 1996, and he has his presence behind Feng Xiaogang's "Party A and Party B" and "Endless", and he has also participated in Chen Kaige's "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King" and Zhang Yimou's film "Have Something to Say" with different identities.
He also has a more bullish skill: to find shell listings for film and television companies and run funds.
In 2009, Dong Ping renamed a cement company cultural China to start making movies, and five years later, Ali Group bought a stake of HK$6.244 billion and renamed it Ali Pictures. After that, Dong Ping sold his shares to Zhao Wei and Huang Youlong for a price of HK$3.088 billion.
Dong Ping
According to media calculations, during Dong Ping's tenure in listed companies, equity cash out alone was more than 1 billion yuan.
For him, making movies is not the goal, making money is.
In a conversation with Jiang Wen, Dong Ping once made a surprising statement, saying that Jiang Wen was a "movie virgin" and attached too much importance to movies: "Jiang Wen cares too much about movies. The more you care, the more exquisite you are, the more exquisite you will shoot, the less you shoot, the slower you shoot, the less you shoot, the more you are afraid of the market, afraid that others will not understand. It's like a girl who goes to bed too little, so she's always shaking. ”
Founded Joy Media, his purpose is also to make money.
In order to achieve a high enough income, Joy Media did its best to please the audience.
In terms of cinema movies, it is to do the series IP thoroughly.
"Hong Kong 囧" has been spat into a bad film by the audience, and Huanxi Media still made the third "囧Mom" and frantically overdrafted IP.
According to behind-the-scenes rumors, Xu Zheng and the screenwriting team completed the basic creation of "囧Mom" in only 5 days.
Some netizens issued their own summary of the 囧 series on Zhihu, the actors seem to be filming movies around the world, but the core of the story is exactly the same, all of which are "haunted, dead entangled xu zheng, pretending to be crazy and stupid, and the situation is continuous."
Source: Zhihu, to the north
In addition to the set of templates, the 囧 series that was eaten yellow, what is more tragic is Ning Hao's "crazy trilogy", which was complained by netizens, in addition to the name like, there is no relationship, rubbing heat with each other.
For the crazy series, Ning Hao really put in the effort.
When "Crazy Stone" was shown to investors as a film, Andy Lau, who invested 25 million, was completely amazed, he said: "That feeling is like being arranged by my parents to go on a blind date, and when I go in to see that it is Quan Zhixian sitting inside." ”
With "Crazy Stone", Huang Bo became famous, no longer need to run dragon sets and sing in bars.
Wang Xun was on fire and officially stepped onto the big screen from the stage.
The second "Crazy Racing" is also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and Huang Bo has become a movie emperor.
In a scene, Huang Bo only had his hands out, and was ridiculed by the actor Jiu Kong: "Huang Bo, don't you know that this play is my main play?" Why do you act better than my face? Believe it or not I cut it straight for you! ”
But in "Crazy Alien", although Ning Hao wrote the script for several years, the adapted prototype is Liu Cixin's science fiction short story "The Village Teacher", the whole movie is completely catering to the audience's expectations for the "crazy series", feeding the New Year file "industrial frosting", the rating is only 6.4, and the audience does not buy it at all.
Now, the two most profitable IPs of Huanxi Media have been filmed, and the 6-year signing time for several directors to invest in the shares is also coming soon.
After bloody signing directors and cooperating with streaming media manufacturers, Huanxi Media did not solve the problem of film content bottlenecks.
Although making a movie requires some audience thinking, it is more important to please the audience than the content, and even affects the quality of the movie, that is, putting the cart before the horse.
The pursuit of box office can not only care about holding the audience's thighs, but also pursue content as king
The author of this article | JingXu