Like "The Black Leather Notebook," in early December, "Crazy Rich Asians," which had been filming on and off for more than half a year, finally went through many hardships and was successfully completed.
To say that this second big-budget movie from Fog Studios is really expensive.
Originally, Ning Weimin thought that he had clothing sponsorship from Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Cardon.
Moreover, the big scene of the wedding banquet at the beginning of the movie was filmed in Yunyuan by taking advantage of my marriage to Qingzi.
These two conveniences can really save a lot of money.
So according to his estimation, it should be enough to make about 1.5 billion yen for this movie.
The remaining 500 million budget part can at least reimburse Matsumoto Keiko for expenses, reduce taxes on income, let them take advantage of the Japanese government, and also save a lot of luxury goods for filming movies.
Unexpectedly, something happened in Singapore and the Sugar King family hindered the filming of the movie. As a result, many of the films that had been filmed were scrapped and had to be re-filmed in another location.
Both France and Japan are high-cost places. As long as you shoot a movie in these two places, the cost will be high.
In addition, the actors' work cycle was also postponed due to this accident, and many scenes needed to be reshot, which inevitably increased travel, accommodation and additional remuneration.
This can lead to a huge increase in production costs, almost twice as much as expected.
In fact, after the film was completed, not only did the production cost exceed the original budget of 2 billion yen, it even cost 300 million yen.
This film has truly become a large-scale production with a production cost of over 20 million US dollars. It can be called a production cost nightmare and an absolute failure.
However, it must be said that even without spending any money, the effect of the film after the initial editing is really impressive.
The rhythm of the plot is not sluggish at all, and the plot of Cinderella discovering that her boyfriend is actually a millionaire is also very interesting, especially the strong national aesthetics and traditional Chinese values, which are rarely reflected in an undistorted perspective.
Although it is in the style of a romantic comedy, it is relaxed and not vulgar at all. It is obviously different from the ugly and stupid shit routine of Hong Kong movies.
In addition to being romantic, this film is actually very artistic. In fact, it is much better than the original version of "Crazy Rich Asians" that Ning Weimin remembered.
This not only surprised Ning Weimin, but he also looked at director Yutaka Osawa with admiration and felt that the candidate recommended by Akira Kurosawa was indeed extraordinary.
In addition, Teresa Teng's songs play a finishing touch in the film as the soundtrack, completely achieving a perfect fit between the songs and the film content.
Especially in this era, the concept of MTV has just been born, and the first generation of MTV works are still very rough.
Even Michael Jackson in the United States has just released "Thriller" not long ago, and his movie "Moonwalker" has not yet been released.
Therefore, "Crazy Rich Asians", as a gorgeous musical movie specially tailored for Teresa Teng, an Asian diva, is undoubtedly at the forefront of the times in terms of concept.
So no matter how you look at it, Ning Weimin doesn't think there's a chance that this movie will fail at the box office, and he's not worried at all about whether the actual cost of the movie will be earned.
In fact, his attitude was quite positive. Not only did he ask Matsumoto Keiko and Shochiku Pictures to request as many screens as possible, he also asked Taurus Palace to prepare a movie soundtrack album with a base figure of one million.
They even invested more money without hesitation.
In addition to asking Yutaka Osawa to cut out the film and prepare it for advertising on TBS, he also asked Mitsuru Watanabe to provide Akira Okamoto with an additional 300 million yen for post-production promotion of the film.
In short, he is completely convinced that this movie will be a hit when it is released.
Not only will it make Fog Studios make a lot of money again, it will allow Teresa Teng to clear her reputation as a "box office poison" in one fell swoop, and it will also sell at least one million platinum copies in Asia, giving Taurus Palace a win.
It's a pity that this movie will be released on Valentine's Day next year. The final results of this movie cannot be verified immediately, which makes people a little anxious.
After all, in order to maximize profits, you have to choose a better schedule, so you can only wait patiently.
But it doesn't matter, at least Ning Weimin now has a yacht sent to him by Nomura Securities, and he can also hold a gorgeous Tokyo Bay celebration party on the yacht for the entire crew.
By the way, we can also celebrate that Teresa Teng won the Japan Cable Broadcasting Award again in the middle of the month for her movie theme song "Please Don't Go".
This is an award that cannot be manipulated. It is voted for by the Japanese audience.
It can be said that Teresa Teng really broke the original historical record with her strength.
Therefore, as the main contributor and beneficiary of this matter, Ning Weimin is not only very happy, but also has a full sense of accomplishment in participating in this matter.
When he was happy, he really didn't care about money. He showed off almost exactly according to the plot of the movie, and finally tried the feeling of living and drinking without any scruples.
However, it is absurd, and others cannot blame him for it.
For no other reason than because at this celebration he not only enjoyed eating, drinking and having fun, but also accomplished several important business matters.
Dare to be the matchmaker through Liang Jiahui, Ning Weimin also invited Xin Yicheng's Xu Ke, Shi Nansheng and his wife, and action director Yuan Heping from Hong Kong as special guests to attend the celebration party together.
And after two days of banquets and consultations, friendly cooperation agreements were reached with them.
As for Xu Ke, Shi Nansheng and his wife, Ning Weimin was talking about cooperation in film copyright.
In view of the popularity of "A Chinese Ghost Story" this year, Ning Weimin proposed a deal to buy the film and the sequel they are currently planning from them for a lump sum of HK$30 million.
Ning Weimin took a fancy to the interests of the "A Chinese Ghost Story" series' public release and distribution rights and audio-visual product copyrights in Japan, Europe and the mainland of the Republic.
This deal naturally surprised Xu Ke and Shi Nansheng.
After all, they only spent more than HK$5 million to make "A Chinese Ghost Story", and it has already made HK$18.83 million at the box office in Hong Kong, which is a huge profit.
However, I never expected that I could get more money from Ning Weimin.
New Arts itself does not have many overseas distribution resources. Even if it is sold to Japanese film studios, it has always received only three to four million Hong Kong dollars at most.
Europeans don't even think about it. No one in Hong Kong except Jiahe has access to the Western market.
There is nothing to regret in the mainland market.
Although it is said to be a market of one billion people, mainland movie tickets are too cheap after all.
Moreover, under the current situation in the Mainland, this kind of ghost film is not allowed to be shown in public. It is called promoting superstition.
Xu Ke, Shi Nansheng and his wife did not believe that Ning Weimin could release "A Chinese Ghost Story" publicly in the mainland.
So Ning Weimin gave him 30 million, and all the series were booked in advance, which made Xu Ke and Shi Nansheng happy.
Not to mention doubling the profit, this amount of money can also guarantee that the sequel will only make profit without losing money.
In addition, there is the possibility of continued cooperation in the future, how could Xu Ke, Shi Nansheng and his wife not be happy?
Especially Shi Nansheng, he still thought that Ning Weimin, a mainlander who didn't understand the market, was a victim who fell from the sky.
So this husband-and-wife team sells movies very happily, so naturally they want it.
The two happily signed the contract and took the check away.
As for Yuen Woo-Ping, although he has acted as an action director for two films for Jackie Chan, he is now well-known in Southeast Asia and Japan.
But action directing is not a prosperous and comfortable career in the Hong Kong film industry.
Moreover, his current status is not that of the "number one martial artist" and he is not the "Eighth Master" respected by everyone in the circle. It is even more difficult for him to resist the price offered to him by Ning Weimin - one million Hong Kong dollars.
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Is this as good as the leading actor from an A-list actor?
No action director in Hong Kong City has ever paid this price.
What's more, Yuan Heping was originally from the capital, and Ning Weimin was very polite to him and fully respected his professionalism.
So these two fellow villagers were quite close when they met in a different place.
Yuan Heping felt that he had met Ning Wei, and he was happy to become famous in Japan to increase his qualifications, so he happily agreed to come back to Japan next March to provide action guidance for Miura Tomokazu and Teresa Teng's movie "The Bodyguard" next year.
In this way, Ning Weimin has begun to substantively try to combine the production advantages of Hong Kong films and Japanese films, and has begun to try to make money for himself in the Japanese film market by buying out outstanding Hong Kong films. By the way,
It also accumulates a film library for the future streaming media era.
Although he himself is not sure that this path will definitely work, based on his understanding of the outside world, the probability of success is not low.
In the long run, it is indeed worth a try, and it must be a try.
What if it works well?
Ning Weimin, who already knows in advance that Hollywood blockbusters will flood into the Asian market with special effects technology in the near future, naturally hopes that when the time comes, Wu Studio and even Chinese-language films will have more confidence to protect themselves.
There are more checks and balances.
If it can cause some trouble for the American devils, that's what he wants.
In addition to these bumper harvests in cultural undertakings, the last thing worth mentioning at the end of 1987 was probably the trolley suitcase sale that Ning Weimin represented, and the parking lot sale that he and Axia collaborated on.
In fact, from the day he started selling the patent for trolley suitcases, the sales of Ning Weimin's three independent brands of trolley suitcases will inevitably start to decline. There is no way around it.
After all, such a large market cannot be enjoyed by one company alone for a long time.
In addition, in order to obtain several years of profits in advance and develop itself more quickly, the sales volume of independent brands has declined due to competition, which is also a price that must be paid.
He had even predicted in advance that as commodities such as trolley suitcases became more and more common and customers had more and more brands to choose from, the basis for his own cooperation with Yamato Tourism was gradually crumbling.
Therefore, all he can do is to establish his own logistics company or department as soon as possible, and then gradually transfer the sales of trolley suitcases to the postal shopping platform.
As for the cooperative relationship with Yamato Tourism, he will not give up and will try his best to maintain it.
But objectively speaking, without the generous benefits as a binding agent, their relationship in the future will definitely not be better than it is now.
In the future, I am afraid that we can only use the wine agency of the French LVMH group as a medium, or jointly develop tourism routes in the French resort of Saint-Tropez as an opportunity.
However, unlike the trolley suitcase business that began to decline, the prosperity of the parking lot industry was also extremely exaggerated, far beyond Ning Weimin and Axia's expectations.
In this year when the bubble economy was at its peak, with the rocketing increase in consumer purchasing power, the development of the automobile manufacturing industry was also making rapid progress.
Car advertisements can be seen everywhere in ordinary people's lives.
These cost-effective, new, household, and luxury models emerge in endlessly, breaking through the American vehicle monopoly.
Especially at the end of the year, whether it is because of the strengthening of the stock and property markets or the payment of year-end bonuses, car sales in Tokyo increase significantly.
At the same time, people are more keen to use their private cars to travel at the end of the year.
As a result, due to the continued surge in vehicles, insufficient parking supply, and unestablished regulations such as garage laws, cars throughout Tokyo were stagnant, and no planning worked. Tokyo suddenly became the most congested city in Asia.
According to an NHK news investigation program, at about 11 o'clock in the morning on a certain day, more than 230,000 vehicles were parked on the road in Tokyo, of which 200,000 were parked illegally. The illegal parking rate was as high as 88.6%, which is comparable to that of vehicles parked on the road.
Collision accidents continue to increase.
Under such circumstances, the parking lot where Ning Weimin and Axia cooperated ushered in a happy moment when the parking spaces were full almost every day.
They made adjustments to the parking fee for that month, and the income increased by almost 60%. If we add the happiness of Tokyo land prices skyrocketing again at the end of the year, Axia no longer cares about the small profit she suffered in the stock market not long ago.
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What's more, the stock market is now improving again, and she has made up for a lot of her losses, so she has nothing to complain about.
Axia even followed Ning Weimin's suggestion. Taking advantage of the heavy losses suffered by Hong Kong City due to "Black Monday", she began to try to contact Hong Kong City and spent a lot of money to rescue Mr. Hong who was in jail.
Unexpectedly, Ning Weimin actually said it correctly on this matter.
Perhaps it's because several years have passed since Mr. Hong's case, and the British guy who hated him no longer pays attention to him.
Maybe it's also because the people in the port city were screwed so badly this time, and the market was so sluggish that they wanted to sell their blood to recover their losses.
If there are really any barristers who dare to risk offending the British and are willing to help smoothen judicial relations and win people over, they will no longer be shunned by everyone like they were in the first few years.
Although the asking price is not low, the other party wants one million US dollars first, and then another two million US dollars after the deal is completed. In addition, Axia needs to pay another one million US dollars. He needs to clear the relationship with the court.
But after all, the other party was a well-known barrister in the legal field, and he even put aside his rhetoric and said that he could guarantee that Mr. Hong would be commuted by at least ten years, which made Axia's thoughts change.
So after discussing with Ning Weimin, Axia took part of the profits from the parking lot and divided them in advance, and paid one million US dollars to the lawyer as agreed.
In this way, Mr. Hong, who has 14K, soon met the barrister in prison and was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had the possibility of being released from prison early to reunite with his daughter.
For him, although he has been locked up in the past few years, he has perfectly escaped the opportunity to make a fortune in the bubble economy.
But even so, when he suddenly discovered that Axia was sparing no effort to save him, he was very happy and looking forward to it. This kind of joy was not comparable to making a lot of money and a few "small goals".
In fact, there are many things in this world that are more valuable than money, but it is a pity that only a few people in special situations can understand this truth.