Huayi Brothers was undoubtedly a giant in China's film and television industry, almost monopolizing the entire film and television industry, holding the lifeblood of hundreds of stars, the big boss Wang Zhongjun used a high price of 377 million yuan to shoot Van Gogh's original "Poppy and Daisy", and then won Picasso's oil painting "Seated Portrait of a Woman with a Bun" at auction for 185 million. At that time, the Huayi brothers were like the sun in the sky, and the Wang brothers also spent money like earth.
But now, Huayi Brothers has lost nearly 6.2 billion yuan in three years, and because of the violation of the contract with Alibaba, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei brothers have been enforced by the court for 300 million yuan and have been restricted from high consumption. With nearly 6.8 billion in debt, the Wang brothers can only sell their beloved paintings to alleviate the urgent need, and many negative news plague the Huayi brothers, making the once giant tower in jeopardy... Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei probably did not expect that it would not take long to go from the spring breeze to the fall into the clouds.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the seeds of restlessness</h1>
To talk about the development process of Huayi Brothers, we have to talk about the entrepreneurial road of Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei. Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei were born into a military family, and like Wang Shuo and Feng Xiaogang, they were all children of the courtyard. Wang Zhongjun loved art and painting since he was a child, determined to enter the Academy of Fine Arts, and became a painter, but unfortunately could not embark on this road, but at the age of 16, he was conscripted into the army and became a soldier, during his service, his military technical assessment ranked first in the whole army.
After the expiration of his service, Wang Zhongjun was assigned to the Material Publishing House of the State General Administration of Materials to work as an art designer and photojournalist. Although he is a civil servant with an iron rice bowl, he is in a sense a continuation of his dream of painting. A stable life of nine to five is not what Wang Zhongjun wants, and he has always had a restless seed in his heart.
Three years later, he quit his job as a civil servant and entered Yongle Culture as the manager of the advertising department, and it was from then on that he began to contact the media industry and the advertising industry, laying the foundation for his future career.
At the same time, his younger brother Wang Zhonglei was admitted to the Beijing Youth Political College, Wang Zhonglei, who was in college, liked to watch movies, and when his brother had time to go home, he pulled his brother to talk about movies, and the two brothers found common ground in their careers. The young Wang Zhonglei had the idea of co-founding a film company with his brother since then, but Wang Zhongjun felt that his brother was just a young idea of young people who had not stepped out of society, but at that time, Wang Zhongjun also had plans to do a media company in his heart.
In 1989, in order to seek better development opportunities, Wang Zhongjun chose to study in the United States, and returned from studying abroad five years later to obtain a master's degree in mass media from the State University of New York.
Wang Zhongjun took the money he had saved up with Wang Zhonglei to set up huayi brothers advertising company, coincidentally, And Wang Zhongjun, Wang Zhonglei, who were not yet familiar with Feng Xiaogang and Wang Shuo, co-founded the Good Dream Film Company, ready to show their fists in the film and television circle, but the two companies embarked on the opposite path.
At that time, domestic advertising companies were still very scarce, many large enterprises were looking for professional advertising companies, the Wang brothers with their family connections, as well as Wang Zhongjun's previous connections in the advertising company, soon got the Bank of China, State Power and Sinopec and other large state-owned enterprises commercial orders, for their design, installation of logos, shooting advertisements, etc., earned the first bucket of gold in their lives. With capital, the idea of stepping into the film and television industry was once again bred in the minds of the brothers.
In the 1990s, the film and television industry Chinese mainland was starting to develop, but it became a blockbuster, producing high-quality films such as "Farewell to the King", "Alive", and "Red Sorghum", which gained a very high reputation at home and abroad, and became an insurmountable classic in the history of Chinese film.
After the release of the movie, from investors to directors and actors, they have both fame and fortune, the film industry this big cake, people who want to share food are not too many, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei naturally covet here, want to share a piece of the pie, but suffer from the lack of opportunity.
The company established by Feng Xiaogang and Wang Shuo is far from being so lucky, although it has received some investment, but Wang Shuo is not careful when making movies in the later stage, Feng Xiaogang is still a novice director, there is no work that can be done, and the box office and word of mouth are not satisfactory.
A few years after the establishment of the company, it was even banned for "promoting grayism" and officially came to a desperate situation. Wang Shuo waved his sleeve and moved to live in the United States, while Feng Xiaogang took the Wang brothers and opened his era of "Feng comedy".
When Wang Zhongjun first invested money to make a movie, he only wanted to help his friends solve the problem of shortage of funds, and he did not expect to get a good income in the end. After tasting the sweetness, Wang Zhongjun invested in three more films, namely Chen Kaige's "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King", Jiang Wen's "The Devil Is Coming" and Feng Xiaogang's "Endless", of which only Feng Xiaogang's film made the company get the ideal income. Since then, Huayi Brothers and Feng Xiaogang have joined forces to seize the Jiangshan and open up the world in the film and television circle of Chinese mainland.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > movie dream factory</h1>
In 1998, Huayi began to make large-scale film and television investments, and the film works invested in included "A Sigh", "Big Names", "Gua Sha", "Evidence of Guilt", "Heroes of Heaven and Earth", "My 1919", etc., all of which achieved good box office results. Subsequently, Huayi Brothers Taihe Film and Television Investment Company was formally established, and successively launched "Mobile Phone", "Night Banquet", "No Thief in the World" and other films with excellent box office, earning hundreds of millions of dollars.
You know, at the beginning of the 21st century, a movie box office exceeded ten million is already amazing, and huayi brothers invested in the film, almost every part of the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of box office, Huayi brothers is riding on the initial development of China's film and television industry express, obtained huge dividends, became the industry's leading big brother. Feng Xiaogang and the Wang brothers have also filmed many well-known films together in line with the principles of friendly cooperation and mutual benefit and win-win results.
Released in 2001, the box office of "Big Names" reached 42 million, "Mobile Phone" in 2003 was the box office champion of that year, in 2004, "No Thief in the World" won 120 million box office results, becoming the first film in China to exceed 100 million box office, "Night Feast" won 130 million box office, "Gathering Number" was even more wild 260 million, Feng Xiaogang is undoubtedly the guarantee of the box office, Huayi Brothers cooperated with it, and it is even more beautiful, like a movie dream factory.
Before 1998, domestic artists did not have professional agents, and no one had the consciousness of "setting up a brokerage company", and Wang Jinghua, who is now known as "China's first generation of cultural agents", is probably the first person to eat this cake.
Before there was no professional agent, actors were assigned to major state-owned units after graduating from colleges and universities, although there were units and dramas, but the salary was not high, and it was even difficult to support the family, so most people would "sneak away from the cave" and earn some foreign blocks.
Wang Jinghua, a graduate of the China Academy of Performing Arts, carried the little money in his pocket, rode around on a bicycle and took a leather bag, looking for suitable performance opportunities, and after finding the opportunity, he would contact the artist to interview, and after the interview was successful, he could earn a commission from it.
After Wang Jinghua's work gradually stabilized, he was able to gather a group of stable artists in his hand, and his fame in Beijing city gradually grew, and he was revered as "Flower Sister", and the consensus of the artists was basically "to eat meat with Flower Sister".
In the early years, she had a large number of outstanding artists such as Li Bingbing, Ren Quan, Hu Jun, Chen Daoming, Liu Wei, etc. Slowly, she had the consciousness of opening a brokerage company, and after inquiring from many sources, she decided to cooperate with Huayi Brothers.
Huayi Brothers feels that the establishment of a brokerage company is a good opportunity for development, because the operation mode of the Film and Television Industry in Hong Kong and Taiwan is like this, so it has set up "Taiwen Brokerage Co., Ltd." under the company, intending to combine artist agency and film and television shooting, and fully monopolize the private film and television industry.
In this way, huayi brothers paid money, Wang Jing spent money, strong and strong, further. Huayi Brothers, while investing and producing movies, developed artist management, like a bird with growing wings, gradually using its wings to win half of the Chinese film and television. The Huayi brothers hold the contracts of hundreds of actors and control their destiny, even if they are big stars, they still have to respect the two bosses Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei.
This can be seen in the large row of Huayi Brothers' 2014 20th anniversary celebration - Jackie Chan, Ge You, Andy Lau, Li Bingbing, Yao Chen, Huang Xiaoming and hundreds of other film and television stars have come to congratulate, and Feng Shaofeng insisted on coming to the scene even if his hand bone was fractured.
Taking advantage of the limelight, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei officially established Huayi Brothers Media Group, which in addition to film and television, economy, but also involved in records, Internet entertainment, live entertainment and other fields. In 2009, Huayi Brothers successfully went public, becoming the first film and television entertainment company in Chinese mainland to be listed, and the two brothers, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, also rose in value, reaching 1.098 billion and 397 million respectively.
The two also have a division of labor in the company's operation, Wang Zhonglei is mainly responsible for external publicity, and Wang Zhongjun sits inside the company, so most of the time people see the figure of his younger brother Wang Zhonglei.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" > dangerous turn</h1>
For a long time, Huayi Brothers did have unlimited scenery, but in fact, this big group has long been hiding a crisis. In the movie, Huayi completely relies on Feng Xiaogang, and in the artist management, it completely relies on Wang Jinghua, if these two people leave, Huayi is bound to suffer a heavy blow. In 2004, Feng Xiaogang saw the speed of making movies and collecting money, so he left Huayi Brothers and set up his own company, Dongyang Meila Company.
After the contract expired in 2005, Wang Jinghua chose to take Dozens of artists such as Chen Daoming, Liu Jialing, Liang Jiahui, Xia Yu and so on to orange sky entertainment, and gave up 50% of her own equity, and then she set up her own brokerage company.
The problem is that after Feng Xiaogang and Wang Jinghua left, the media exclaimed that "Huayi was hollowed out", and Wang Zhongjun, who has always been known for his calmness, released "harsh words": "Instead, it is almost as if I am gone, and Huayi can be without anyone." ”
2005 was a difficult year for Huayi Brothers, for the sake of profit, Huayi did not hesitate to use 1 billion yuan to acquire Feng Xiaogang's company, the two sides are still close partners, Huayi is also back on track, in four years after the successful listing, but Feng Xiaogang and Wang Jinghua's departure is a dangerous signal for Huayi, sounding an alarm for it.
Although many years later, Wang Zhongjun said in an interview that at that time, Wang Jinghua's resignation was reported, Huayi respected her choice, and the artist's going and staying was also decided by themselves, according to the regulations, the artists whose contracts had not expired could not leave the company casually, but the media reaction was too big, Even if Wang Jinghua resigned, he was still friends with Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei, and the brothers met with her and called "Flower Sister" with half respect and half joke, so it was not like the outside world rumors at that time.
But no matter what, the Huayi brothers reflected and felt that there was still a certain way to firmly lock in artists and directors, so the Wang brothers allocated equity to Zhang Jizhong, Huang Xiaoming, Li Bingbing, Deng Chao and others, so that they all earned a pot full load, so as to lock them.
Between 2014 and 2015, Huayi Brothers successively produced "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", "Catch the Demon", and "Get Out!" Tumor Jun", "Wolf Totem", "Scorching Heart of the Sun", "Wolf Warrior", "Old Cannon" and other acclaimed and popular movies, it is still the leading big brother standing at the top of the industry, and in 2015, Huayi Brothers reached the peak of market value, close to 90 billion yuan.
The so-called prosperity will decline, the material pole will be reversed, if you want to reach the peak, you must first bear the pain, for the Huayi brothers, a dangerous turning point, let them step by step wrong chess.
Wang Zhongjun is a big guy with a good reputation and popularity in all circles, likes art, car play, collecting, wine tasting, is generous, has a dashing temperament, let people like, Yu Minhong commented on him: "Wang Zhongjun's temperament is easy to be liked, and can always become the core figure in the party." ”
Many of Wang Zhongjun's projects were negotiated at the liquor bureau, and the wine table also became a classroom for him to learn from his friends in the corporate circle, but unfortunately, he failed to become a school bully.
In 2014, alibaba, Tencent and Ping An of China, three major industry giants, invested in Huayi Brothers, becoming Huayi's "strong backing for breaking through the restrictions of industry boundaries" and the beginning of Huayi's entry into Internet entertainment. At the time, this was seen as an industry story of the big guys joining forces. But later, Wang Zhongjun admitted that Ma Yun's Ali Pictures and other Internet online entertainment platforms have brought an oppressive blow to Huayi Brothers.
Huayi Brothers first invested 100 million yuan into the game manufacturer Palm Fun Technology "test the waters", after obtaining a good income, Huayi Brothers added Yinhan Technology, game revenue accounted for 30% of the company's total revenue, but as the Internet game market is getting more and more sluggish, Huayi Brothers reduced its holdings and cashed out, running away, accumulative cash out of more than 2.4 billion yuan.
Such a huge income is beyond Wang Zhongjun's imagination, but the capital market is balanced, Huayi Brothers blindly addicted to the capital game, in just a few years can indeed make a lot of profits, but once the capital imbalance, Huayi Brothers will be difficult to close in time, and eventually will drag the entire group into the abyss.
Because just simply pry a lever, can bring huge returns, the return far more than investment in movies, Huayi Brothers seems to have forgotten the "original intention", in 2014 2014, Wang Zhonglei proposed that Huayi Brothers to "go to the film single", to the Internet entertainment, cultural tourism real estate, fund investment and other fields to enter, this is the Huayi Brothers dangerous turning point, this decision, let it "start to lose the basic disk of film and television."
First of all, Feng Xiaogang's transformation work "1942" lost hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, "I Am Not Pan Jinlian" was both word-of-mouth and box office encountered Waterloo, and Huayi Brothers' main film business frequently failed. At the same time, the little brothers who were originally far behind Huayi rose to catch up, and in just a few years, the "film and television cake" in the hands of Huayi brothers was stolen little by little.
After losing the basic disk of film and television, Huayi Brothers' Internet entertainment profits are also gradually declining, and finally tasted the evil consequences of capital games, from 2015 to 2017, Huayi Brothers' net profits have fallen sharply, and Wang Zhongjun also has to admit: "(Huayi Brothers) has thought of doing Internet online entertainment, but does not have the ability to go to the Internet." ”
In 2018, Wang Zhongjun publicly stated that Huayi Brothers will return to the main film business, but this film and television market has already undergone earth-shaking changes, and it is not so easy to turn around.
In 2018, Huayi Brothers' stock price fell sharply, ushering in the first loss in the first ten years of listing, the films produced failed to bring good revenue, and few can make the audience remember, probably only "Di Renjie's Four Heavenly Kings" is still relatively "able to fight", but compared to the "I am not a medicine god" released in the same year - this film with excellent reputation and box office, Huayi Brothers is undoubtedly planted.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" > bottomed out</h1>
In 2019, Huayi Brothers probably had a harder time than any previous year. After getting higher value, the big stars within Huayi have all chosen to leave, like Huang Xiaoming, Lin Xinru, Deng Chao, Li Bingbing, Zhou Xun, etc., all opened their own studios and held the capital in their hands.
Huayi lost the artists who could support the scene, and also lost a stable income, and the new people's prices were too low to support the company's business, and the Huayi brothers suddenly fell into a dilemma.
On the other hand, the films invested in 2019 all had a mediocre response and did not bring much profit, and the original high-hope movie "Only Yun Knows" had a box office of less than 200 million, setting a new low for Feng Xiaogang's New Year movie box office, and Feng Xiaogang seemed to be no longer the box office guarantee he once had.
This year, Huayi Brothers lost 4 billion yuan, the bank's 2.2 billion bonds are about to mature, and in order to maintain the company's operation, Huayi signed a loan of 2.5 billion yuan from the bank.
In addition to the frequent failures at the box office of the movie, the live-action entertainment projects created by Huayi Brothers have also achieved less than satisfactory results. Wang Zhongjun has always wanted to build a Local "Disney" in China, and has invested in the construction of film and television cities in Jinan, Suzhou, Shenzhen and other places, but these film and television cities have lost money, and a large amount of money invested by Huayi has been adrift, and the capital chain has been destroyed and fragile.
In order to make up for the funding gap, Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei sold their collections, mortgaged their real estate, and reduced their investment overseas, preparing for a hard battle. Wang Zhongjun said: "For the safety of the company, I can sell anything", which is said from a 60-year-old population, which inevitably has a desolate feeling of exhaustion.
In 2020, the global film and television industry suffered a heavy blow, fortunately, Huayi Brothers with "Eight Hundred" and "King Kong Chuan" two movies, to recover some losses, but this is only a drop in the bucket, even the box office ranked first in the world "Eight Hundred" also failed to save Huayi from danger.
In the Spring Festival New Year file in 2021, Huayi Brothers launched the movie "Samurai Shodown" adapted by the mobile game big IP Yin yang division, using Chen Kun and Zhou Xun, a long-time friend duo, as a publicity gimmick, but because the plot was unsatisfactory, the publicity and the actual discrepancies.
"Samurai Shodown" was eventually drowned in a large number of movies in the Lunar New Year file, only got 300 million box office, and was not recognized by mobile game players or young people, compared to "Hello, Lee Huan Ying", "Detective Chinatown 3" and other movies, Huayi undoubtedly lost another defeat. By May 1, Huayi's film "Sunshine Robber", which invested more than 500 million yuan, only got 40 million at the box office, and the rating on Douban was only 3.8 points, which was dismal.
Today, the market value of Huayi Brothers has evaporated by tens of billions, and it has not returned to its previous glory. Emerging film and television forces such as Huanxi Media continue to catch up, and the films launched, whether at the box office or word of mouth, far exceed the movies launched by Huayi Brothers today. Taobao tickets, cat's eye, etc. have taken the sails of the Internet and mastered the online ticketing channels. People say that today's Huayi brothers are really only brothers left.
Not long ago, Wang Zhongjun and Yu Minhong began a dialogue in the Tencent News "Discretionary See" program, and Wang Zhongjun, who rarely avoided the problem, also waved his hand tiredly when asked by Yu Minhong to talk about the Crisis of the Huayi Brothers: "Don't always talk about the crisis." "This once-spirited helmsman is really old.
However, Wang Zhongjun did not shy away from talking about the tribulations encountered over the years, and when he admitted that he was forced into debt by the bank, he really felt that the world was cold. "Last year, our debt was due, this just cashed, every day in the face of financial institutions, how to transfer the company's various funds, are eager to five days have not been done, this time will reflect on themselves."
But fortunately, the connections accumulated by good people are not useless, Wang Zhongjun borrowed money from his friends when it was extremely difficult, and his friends would lend him, like Shi Yuzhu, Liu Chuanzhi and others, who had the strength to mobilize two or three hundred million, which could alleviate the problem of Wang Zhongjun's old friend to a certain extent.
In fact, Huayi Brothers' debt may not be a real problem, the real problem is that Huayi has derailed from young people in the trend of the times. People joked: "Huayi Brothers' movies are all made by old men for middle-aged people." Indeed, the former Feng Xiaogang "created dreams" for the young people at that time in the movie, and what was difficult to achieve in reality, Feng Xiaogang realized for people in the movie.
Pompous or vain, the audience did get pleasure in the movie, naturally willing to go into the cinema to pay, but the dream is always to wake up, the group of young people at that time, has become a middle-aged man with old and small, reality is their most concerned problem, how can they pay for the past feelings?
The movie "Fanghua" is a film that Feng Xiaogang misses his youth, and eventually won 1.4 billion at the box office, but it is not recognized by the market of young people. Feng Xiaogang didn't care about these things, because the movie made his first love feeling.
"North and South" is a TV series work that Feng Xiaogang directed again after many years, but after the episode was broadcast, it was criticized far more than praise. Under the banner of realism, "North and South" is still a work far from reality and full of illusions, just a "history of women's struggle" from the perspective of middle-aged men, with no real words, far from reflecting the real plight of women.
Feng Xiaogang did not return to the general population to understand their lives, did not understand the real reaction of ordinary people to life, resulting in the work only the director himself wanted to see, not what the audience wanted to see.
Whether it is Feng Xiaogang or Wang Zhongjun or Wang Zhonglei, standing in the clouds for too long, they are no longer willing to look down to observe the mainstream aesthetics of young people, or to figure out their tastes, Wang Zhongjun also said: "There is no need to speculate on the tastes of the audience, a creator who speculates on the tastes of the audience every day is not called creation." He may not realize that gradually disconnecting from the young group is the real crisis of huayi brothers.
Nowadays, the brothers Wang Zhongjun and Wang Zhonglei sell assets, sell houses and cars to pay off debts, the middle and senior management salaries of Huayi Brothers are reduced, and the year-end bonus is not so stable. The company has alleviated the urgent need by laying off employees, resulting in an increasing per capita office area and more and more office buildings.
Wang Zhongjun said that the current Huayi brothers have not yet come out of the predicament, but they have not yet reached the point of delisting. He still believed Feng Xiaogang and said, "Where his cultural ability is, there must be drama." "However, how Huayi Brothers will develop in the future, whether it can make a comeback, we can only wait and see."