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Volume 3 Chapter 1 New Year

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    January 1, 19RU, New Year¡¯s Day, Los Angeles.  Shen Chong woke up from his dream. He opened his eyes, sat up suddenly, looked at the room through the dim light coming from the window, then rubbed his head hard and let out a sigh of relief.  It has been a year since time travel There seemed to be countless thoughts in his head, but there seemed to be no thoughts at all. He hugged the soft quilt and sat blankly for a while. After that, Shen Chong came back to his senses and took a look.  The time at bedside was 5:10 in the morning, so I woke up more than an hour earlier than usual.  Although this was the best time to sleep, now that he was awake, Shen Chong did not intend to sleep again. He just leaned on the bedside, silently thinking about how to run the business in the new year in the dark.  After time travel, I have been working hard for a whole year, all for the purpose of laying the foundation for the film company. Now I have money, people, a company brand, market information consultation and audience comment feedback media. There is only one thing missing, that  It is the distribution and exhibition channels.  Shen Chong does not plan to build movie theater chains in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The markets in these two places are small and the competition is fierce. He will use huge sums of money to rush in. If he fails, it will destroy the fragile film survival environment in the two places, and the gain will not be worth the loss.  If you build a theater chain in the United States, the financial pressure will be very high, and it will be meaningless. The scale of your company is too small, the output is insufficient, and it cannot sustain it. Moreover, the market is in the territory of the United States, so when making a movie, you must consider their moviegoers.  Taste and habits, in this way, are like a sheep entering a tiger's mouth, and sending yourself to Hollywood.  So Shen Chong thought about it and decided not to develop cinema lines for the time being, but instead focused on the secondary film market.  Around 2000, the main screening window for movies was cinemas, followed by television stations, and video tapes were only in their ascendant at this time.  At that time, VCD swept China and Southeast Asia with great momentum, but it could not open up the North American market at all, because almost every home has a video recorder. It is conservatively estimated that there are at least 200 million video recorders in North America. This incident deeply impressed Shen Chong, and  Sony invented the tam video recorder as early as 1975, and Cl also invented the VP video recorder in 1977, so he always subconsciously believed that video recorders had already entered thousands of households in North America at this time.  It wasn't until October that Shen Chong came to the United States and accidentally saw a piece of news saying that Universal and Disney had jointly filed a lawsuit against Sony in the District Court for the Central District of California, arguing that consumers were using video recorders to record their copyrighted movies without permission, which constituted  Due to copyright infringement, the two film companies demanded compensation and a ban on the production and sale of such video recorders.  This news deeply surprised Shen Chong. In later generations, everyone knew that video tapes or CDs were the main source of income for a movie, and could provide more profits than box office. Universal and Disney sued the video recorder manufacturers. This was because  What's going on?  So he immediately commissioned Nielsen Company to conduct a market survey, and the report that came back shocked him - in 1979, less than 10% of households in the United States owned video recorders, and many people had never heard of this product.  Such a situation allowed Shen Chong to see an opportunity.  After the popularization of video recorders, the video tape market quickly surpassed the box office and became the second largest source of movie revenue after TV stations. Shen Chong clearly remembers that at the beginning of the 21st century, the annual revenue of video tapes and D  billion, while the total box office of North American movies during the same period was only over 9 billion.  And according to the survey, the current production cost of each video tape is no more than 4 US dollars. If it is rented, each rental is 5 US dollars. If it is sold, the price is around US dollars, and the gross profit is amazing.  Video tapes are similar to software and games. They are all content-based products. In this case, why not sell them in software chain stores?  Once the chain stores have opened thousands of stores, occupying the majority of the video tape distribution market, and have strong bargaining power, they can be like the Apple App Store in the 21st century, doing nothing, waiting for a share, and lying around.  How refreshing it is to suck blood from the major Hollywood film companies. In the next 20 years or so, video tapes will be the only secondary market screening window for movies besides TV stations. With chain stores, Hong Kong movies can directly enter the North American video tape market. Anyway, the cost of video tapes  It is low, and rental and sales are also a long-term business. There is no need to pay special attention to the tastes and habits of the audience. Hong Kong is the second largest film production place in the world after Hollywood. There is absolutely no shortage in quantity. Thousands of Hong Kong films will be produced by then.  The film went to the United States, subtly cultivating Hong Kong movie lovers like Tarantino in North America, and preparing for its future entry into the North American box office market.  The plan is perfect, but there are two problems in operation. One is to expand the chain store outlets as quickly as possible, and the other is to have at least a certain number of movie libraries.  Shen Chong's software chain store has opened more than 00 stores in major cities in the United States, but this number is far from enough. Later, the American video rental giant Blockbuster (Uu) had many retail stores in RUUU.  With a revenue of more than billions of dollars, it is a real giant. Only by building such a huge network can it control the market.?? ability.  "It's just that the real estate market in the United States is very mature. With thousands of retail chain stores open, the rent is not a small figure. In this regard, you have to plan slowly.  The film library is equally important. With channels but no content, it can only be dominated by Hollywood. Only when you have certain content resources can you check and balance Hollywood.  After the Golden Horse Awards, Shen Chong purchased all his films from Wong Zhuohan of First Pictures. It was based on this consideration that not only First Pictures, but also the film libraries of all Hong Kong film companies, including Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers  , he is all eyeing it - since even Hollywood has not seen the huge prospects of the video tape market at this time, I believe that Hong Kong film companies are even more clueless and can take advantage of it and buy the copyright at a low price.  However, in its current form, the main function of Hong Kong films is to open up a video tape distribution network in Southeast Asia. If you want to open up a situation in the United States, you must have the support of Hollywood's film library. In this regard, Shen Chong's vision is naturally  Focusing on the upcoming unlucky United Artists Film Company NITPDARTI.  United Artists was founded in 1919 by Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickford, Griffith and other big-name Hollywood stars. It later gradually developed into one of the eight major Hollywood film companies. However, it has always been the weakest among the eight major film companies.  It does not have its own studio and has the smallest distribution network.  In 19RU, United Artists invested US$400,000 to shoot the "catastrophic blockbuster" "Heaven's Gate". The movie failed miserably at the box office, causing the company to close down. Shen Chong only had to buy it when the time came.  Although United Artists is the weakest among the eight major film companies, it has many classic and good movies in its film library, such as Chaplin's "The Gold Rush", "Modern Times", "The Great Dictator", Jack Nicholson's  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Stallone's "Rocky", of course, the most valuable and famous among them is the ever-lasting "UU" series.  However, United Artists only has 700 or 800 movies, and it is not confident enough to rely on its film library alone. In fact, Shen Chong would like to buy MGM's film library - MGM has more than 3,000 movies and TV series, and  It has a high gold content, such as "The Wizard of Oz", "The Blue Bridge", "Gone with the Wind", "Tom and Jerry" and so on, which are all immortal masterpieces.  MGM declined as early as the 1960s. After changing hands several times, it was bought by American gambling tycoon Kirk Kerkorian in 1970. Kerkorian had no intention of running the film industry. He spent all his savings on MGM  Sold all the props and costumes for many years, and then went to Las Vegas to open casinos and hotels In its heyday, MGM could produce more than 50 movies a year, but in the 1970s, it only produced four or five movies a year.  And there isn¡¯t a single big-budget production, they are all low-cost movies worth millions of dollars, just hanging on.  However, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. As the former king of Hollywood, although MGM has become lonely, the classic movies in its library are very valuable. For example, "Gone with the Wind", every time the TV station shows it, it has to pay 1.75 million.  Screening fees of US$3.5 billion can be said to be a long-term and stable cash cow, so if you want to buy its film library, there is no way to negotiate without a minimum of US$3.5 billion.  Shen Chong doesn't have that much money at the moment, so he can only do the next best thing. He plans to get United Artists first, and then build some independent production companies' film libraries to support the facade. As for MGM, they have a rubbish boss anyway.  , it will be finished sooner or later.  When I was thinking, time passed quickly. Before I knew it, it was getting bright and the hands of the clock were pointing to six o'clock in the morning.  Shen Chong looked at the time, lifted the quilt, rolled out of bed, washed up, got dressed, walked downstairs quietly, came to the kitchen, and planned to cook porridge for breakfast.  He washed the rice and put it in the rice cooker. When he turned around, he saw Lily walking down the stairs in sportswear.  "Morning." Shen Chong greeted her and said, "Going for a run?" "Yeah, let's go together." Lily stood in front of the stairs, did some very soft stretching movements, and said, "You're here all day long.  Stay in the house and exercise more." Shen Chong shook his head and said, "Go on your own. There are guests here, and I, as the host, have to prepare breakfast." Lily sneered and said, "Come on.  Can you eat the food you made with your cooking skills? Let¡¯s go for a run together. I¡¯ll do it when we get back later.¡± ¡°Hey, why don¡¯t you stay at my house and give me some face?¡± ¡°Okay.¡±  He said with a smile: "Cousin, the porridge you cook is not bad, but only serving white porridge to guests is not the Chinese way of hospitality." Shen Chong held the spatula and was about to refute when he looked up and saw Brigitte Lin.  Wearing a set of sportswear that was exactly the same as Lily's, she walked down and the two stood together, like spring orchids and autumn chrysanthemums, so beautiful that he was stunned for a moment.  "Good morning, Mr. Shen." "Good morning, Sister Qingxia." Shen Chong chuckled, put down the spatula, and said, "Since you are all going for a run, I, as the master, naturally have to accompany you. Wait for me, and I will change.  Set of clothes."
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