Cover news reporter Xun Chao Yang Fan
On February 3, the news of the death of Zhang Zhao, the former CEO and executive director of LeTV Pictures, made many people in the industry sigh. Looking back at the resume of this person known as "LeTV's last night watchman", he has founded Light Pictures and LeTV Pictures, and joined Fosun Group after leading LeTV Pictures out of the darkest hour, and is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the Chinese film industry. His works as a producer include Zhang Yimou's "Return", "The Great Wall", "Shadow", guo Jingming's "Little Times" series, etc.
Zhang Zhao
Majoring in film, he is a good "leader" in the eyes of employees
Zhang Zhao graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai with a bachelor's degree in information science and a master's degree in philosophy. In the early 1990s, he studied in the United States and received a master's degree in film production (MFA) from New York University, where he won several awards for his film productions, including a short film "Wood and Words" that won a student Oscar.
In 1996, Zhang Zhao returned to China to join shanghai film group, directing the Sino-US co-production film "Space Hijacking", Sino-US co-production TV series "Emotional Visa" and other works; in 2003, Zhang Zhao joined Guangguang Media as an artistic director; in 2006, Zhang Zhao founded Guangguang Pictures and served as president. In 2011, with the idea of "wanting to become such an investment and distribution company based on the Internet platform as the main platform" from a film investment company based on traditional film media and entertainment media and cinema distribution, Zhang Zhao left the light film industry created by one hand, joined LeTV, and founded LeTV Pictures.
On the evening of February 3, Ms. Ma, who worked at LeTV Pictures, talked about the impression that Zhang Zhao left on the former employees in an interview with the cover news reporter, "He is really a person who is always passionate, always passionate, and always has many ideas." Meetings are always passionate and super confident. Ms. Ma said that the old colleagues of that year respected Zhang Zhao because he was a good leader.
The first "ground network distribution", "light speed" has attracted the attention of the industry
"At that time, when I was in Guangguang, I did a thing, that is, to establish the so-called local network of Chinese film distribution, and the ground network was to do it from the perspective of distribution." This is the answer that Zhang Zhao gave when he recalled his career in Guangguang Pictures, which is known as "local network distribution".
According to data, in the four years from zhang Zhao's founding of Light Pictures in 2006 to 2010, Light Pictures produced and distributed more than 20 commercial films, maintaining a 100% growth rate for four consecutive years, creating a "light speed" that attracted the attention of china's film industry.
Ms. Ma believes that the former glory of LeTV was indeed created by Zhang Zhao, and it was he who gradually made LeTV the top list of private film companies in that year. "At that time, basically every month we were releasing new films that were acclaimed and popular." Talking about this, Ms. Ma is very nostalgic for the local network distribution model pioneered by Zhang Zhao in the Chinese film industry at that time, she said: "Including the later 'local media' is this model, that is, the film company has its own city manager distribution team and media team in each city. ”
From prosperity to decline, the release of "Traces" became the inflection point of his career
Zhang Zhao made a big show after joining LeTV, and in 2012, the company produced and released 6 films, ranking fourth among the five major private companies in terms of market share. Among them, "Disappearing Bullets" won thirteen nominations such as the Academy Award for Best Picture. In addition, The American film "Daredevil 2", which LeTV Pictures co-produced and was responsible for the distribution in the Chinese market, achieved a box office of $54 million in the Chinese market, accounting for 18.5% of the film's global market share.
In 2013, LeTV Pictures produced/distributed 10 films, and in 2014, it produced/distributed 16 films, including Hollywood productions such as "Daredevil 3" and "Machine Army", with the target market share ranking first among the top 5 private film companies in China. In 2016, LeTV Pictures released 11 films with more than 100 million films, of which "Notes from the Tomb Robber" and "The Great Wall" grossed more than 1 billion. Also that year, LeTV also produced Guo Jingming's "Jue Trace", the film's reputation and box office were not satisfactory, and the set of "Jue Trace 2" schedule was pushed back and forth, and this film became an inflection point in the expansion of LeTV's territory and Zhang Zhao's career. Ms. Ma said: "The failure of the box office of "Traces" has really affected us, after all, the company was striving for listing during that time, and everyone was under pressure. ”
Cash flow is broken, and it is difficult for a person to rely on feelings and ideals alone
At that time, Zhang Zhao was dug up by Jia Yueting, the founder of LeTV, and Zhang Zhao believed that Boss Jia was like-minded with him, and the "Internet + movie" model he had always wanted must be able to be realized in LeTV. However, in November 2016, after the news that LeEco's capital chain was tight, more than 10 billion yuan was owed to suppliers, suspected contractors' threats to stop work, and the capital chain was broken, LeEco's financial situation took a sharp turn for the worse, LeTV Pictures was affected, and the subsequent production and distribution plans were also affected.
Zhang Zhao refers to this period as the "darkest hour", which is derived from an internal letter published in March 2018, "You have walked side by side with me through the darkest moment of the company's founding, and I am deeply moved!" "Some insiders broke the news to the cover news reporter that the decline of LeTV is actually because Boss Jia shorted the company, and then took a large amount of money from the Side of LeTV Pictures to fill those holes, and then the Blood Supply on the Film Side was insufficient." Even if Zhang Zhao himself has great ideals and feelings, he is difficult to support alone, and the company will be difficult to turn over in the end. ”
Jia Yueting
The performance fell off a cliff, and the "night watchman" bid farewell to LeTV the year before
After the cliff-like decline in the performance of LeTV Pictures, the company officially changed its name to "Lechuang Entertainment". After the name change, Zhang Zhao still served as the chairman and CEO of Lechuang Entertainment. For the company's name change, Zhang Zhao explained in an interview with the media: "I just hope that through this name change, we can let everyone know that this is a company that wants to face society independently - it is to face the capital market independently, face investors independently, face the industry independently, and face the audience independently, not as part of LeTV." ”
Some people say that Zhang Zhao is "the last night watchman of LeTV". However, on June 24, 2019, the "Night Watchman" resigned as chairman and CEO of Lechuang Entertainment and quietly left the company he had founded for eight years. In July 2019, Zhang Zhao was appointed as vice president of Fosun Group and CEO of Film and Television Group, and in May 2020, Zhang Zhao resigned as vice president of Fosun Group, CEO of Fosun Film and Television Group and CEO of Fuyi Culture. Ms. Ma finally said with great emotion: "Zhang Zhao is actually still very pragmatic, and he is also relatively at the forefront, for example, the slogan of LeTV Pictures is to build an Internet film company." As a son of the seventh son of LeTV, the collapse of the parent company overwhelmed our LeTV Pictures, and finally there was no way to let Sunac take over. ”
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