Chapter 648 New films, new genres, new challenges! Month
"A Chinese director tried to buy the Los Angeles Lakers, the funniest joke of the year!"
"The Lakers are a team owned by Los Angeles people and are absolutely not allowed to be acquired by Chinese people!"
"Is the United States going to repeat the shame of the 1980s, when Japan and Benzene bought Rockefeller Center? More than 20 years later, the Chinese actually wanted to buy the greatest basketball team in the United States!"
"Boycott Chinese director Tang An's film is an insult to Los Angeles and the United States!"
"Chinese director Tang An has acquired three Hollywood film and television companies in succession. The Chinese are invading Hollywood!"
With the news that Midnight Investment Company and its three companies, Flash Films, Kailu Pictures, and Digital Domain, were acquired by Tang An, Tang An has become a big topic at the end of the North American summer season.
Originally, these three companies were nothing, and together they were not as good as one AMC theater chain.
However, when they thought about Tang An's previous boast that Haikou would acquire the Los Angeles Lakers, and considering that these three companies had all been acquired recently, Lakers fans panicked.
Some racists in the United States were also very angry, and there were frequent reports of attacks on him in newspapers.
Major TV stations have also followed the trend, and the hosts of many talk shows have also mentioned Tang An, but most of them are ridiculing, occasionally accompanied by some ridicule.
Tang An didn't have time to pay attention to them. He was going back to China soon. Once he left, these news would disappear.
After all, he is not American. There are so many film and television and sports stars in North America, but none of them is not as well-known in North America as Tang An.
The people below were responsible for the acquisitions of the three companies, and Tang An began to discuss the DVD, TV, and Internet copyright issues of "Interstellar" with major companies.
Although Kailu Pictures has the ability to distribute DVDs in North America, it still has a certain distance from big companies.
Moreover, after the previous two movies, we can get a higher price this time. However, if we hand it over to Kailu Pictures, we may not be able to make much more money.
Moreover, it cost a lot of money to acquire the three companies. The three-party negotiations for domestic Weibo are basically coming to an end, and they are waiting for the money to be spent.
However, Tang An did not choose the distributor Fox, nor Columbia, which he had cooperated with before, but Disney Pictures.
In a conference room, Tang An and Disney Pictures CEO Iger signed a sales contract for physical media and network media copyrights.
Excluding China, the global physical media and network media copyrights are priced at US$52 million.
This price is not high. After all, with the current trend in North America, the final box office should reach 123 million, and it will only be higher overseas. Buying out the copyright for 52 million is not expensive at all.
Of course, if you can trouble Disney CEO Iger to come forward, it must be more than just the copyright of one movie.
The two parties signed a second contract. Disney will authorize Hantang Media to adapt the 1967 animated film "The Jungle Book" and will have a 30% priority investment right.
That's right, it's that fantasy movie, a full CG live-action animated movie. Tang An will make a bold attempt.
The fantasy theme is a brand new theme, and the production time will probably take almost five years.
Although there is still a gap between domestic special effects and Hollywood, this is not a technical gap.
This gap comes from concepts and styles.
It can even be said that from a technical perspective, the top domestic special effects companies do not have many problems with the special effects in Hollywood movies.
The nickname "50 Cent Special Effects" means that domestic special effects companies have been blamed for these directors for decades.
Special effects companies such as Industrial Light & Magic and Weta Digital have a large number of special effects personnel from China in high positions. In the past two years, Tiangong Yicai has offered high prices and poached several Chinese special effects talents who can lead the team alone. From the perspective of management and concept
They are all the world's top special effects talents.
After winning the digital field this time, Tang An will send a group of people to the digital field every six months to exchange and learn, not to learn technology, which is not lacking in the country, but to learn advanced concepts.
Domestic special effects are so misunderstood that even the special effects in "Love Apartment" and the decisive battle on the Forbidden City were praised by the audience.
Of course, this is relatively speaking. From the perspective of a professional special effects technician, it is just average, let alone the peak of special effects.
It means adding CG after green screen shooting to render the background. The actors are not stiff and it is cool and good-looking.
But after all, it is a small-budget TV series, so it cannot be of high quality.
But why that level of special effects is praised by the audience? That's because the audiences, special effects professionals, and directors have different perspectives.
The special effects in "Love Apartment" don't have much technical content, but they are gorgeous enough, and the audience bought it.
Good-looking in the eyes of the audience ≠ good on a technical level.
For the audience, the requirements are very simple, just make it cool and good-looking. As for the technical level, the audience doesn't care at all.
On the other hand, special effects serve the plot, so "The Great Wall", the pinnacle of special effects in Chinese-language film and television dramas, was criticized for its 50-cent special effects.
From a technical perspective, "The Great Wall" is the best among Chinese-language films, but it is hampered by its plot.
Special effects, like design, need to understand product positioning, customer needs, product style, and customer aesthetics.
The same goes for special effects. The special effects producers don't know what effect the audience wants to see. They can only find out from the director.
If the director doesn't know, if he says it needs to be spectacular and grand, let alone the domestic special effects team, even if you look for Industrial Light & Magic and Weta Digital, it will be in vain.
The special effects of "Avatar" were copied in China, and it took seven or eight years to produce something almost exactly the same. But first, a director had to accurately convey the effect, and then he could do it.
What is missing is never technology.
Moreover, a Hollywood special effects director must participate in the entire preparation to the completion of a movie, so that he can fully understand the movie and know what his subordinates should accomplish.
Domestic special effects supervisors will only follow up after the movie is shot.
Hollywood directors will guide on the front line and accurately convey their ideas, while domestic directors don't understand special effects at all.
Cameron was able to depict a beautiful Pandora planet and make the special effects people understand his ideas.
Domestic directors may only say that this planet must be beautiful and spectacular.
How beautiful? What type and style of beauty?
Plants, what style do you want for the background, magical or something like that?
Where are the mountains and water? Where are the animals?
What should the overall rendering style be?
The same lens can render more than ten different styles.
No matter how well you do it technically, it’s possible to achieve 50% special effects.
Currently, the technical heads of several departments in Tiangong Yicai are top Hollywood special effects talents who have returned to China, and coupled with the digital field, which is already a top Hollywood special effects company, we are absolutely sure to complete "The Jungle Book".
It just takes a long time. Any wonderful special effects movie needs a long time to polish.
There are actually not many special effects in "Interstellar", "The Martian", and "Edge of Tomorrow".
It took five years and thousands of people to create a wonderful full CG live-action animated film.
It also took a lot of effort to convince Disney to license Tang An. The movie itself took nearly thirty hours to discuss.
In addition, Disney has not yet released a live-action animation. It will take until next year when the two live-action animated films "Maleficent" and "Cinderella" are released before Disney will really pay attention to live-action animation.
Moreover, the domestic market is also a powerful tool. With the box office growth rate in the domestic market, as well as Tang An's ability and appeal, the box office is definitely not bad. If Disney's live-action movies are popular in China, it will be equivalent to opening up a new era for this genre.
huge market.
Even movies like "Pacific Rim" can be revived by relying on the domestic market, and despite the failure in North America, Legendary Pictures plans to make a sequel just because of the high domestic box office.
Taking the opportunity to expand the domestic market is Disney's ultimate goal.
Moreover, Disney has too many classic animated movies, and "The Jungle Book" is completely worth taking such a gamble.
After seeing off the Disney CEO, Tang An is about to return to China.
"The Jungle Book" is just an idea at the moment. When Tang An comes up with a complete set of plans, including the overall style, animals, exterior styles, and special effects, the designs and three-dimensional images of all animals will also be given, and several of them will be produced.
A dynamic video of the animal was sent to Disney for inspection to confirm that Tang An’s team met the technical requirements.
Otherwise, there is no need to discuss anything.
At the Los Angeles International Airport, Tang An told Zhao Yi, who came to see him off, about the follow-up matters for the three companies, and then boarded the plane back home.
It cost 300 million yuan to acquire 70% of the shares in the digital field.
Kailu Pictures spent US$23 million on 80% of its shares.
Midnight Investment Company spent 51% of its shares at a cost of US$86.7 million.
A total of US$155.8 million was spent.
The overseas copyrights were only sold for US$52 million, and the North American trip cost more than US$100 million.
After talking about business for several days, Tang An was a little tired.
The company is full of professional filmmakers and marketing planning talents. Although there is a professional investor, there is still one missing CNO, which is the chief negotiator.
There are very few companies that actually have this position. The Ministry of Commerce has an international trade negotiator, who serves concurrently as the deputy minister, and there is also a professional deputy representative.
Among private companies, CFO Cai Chongxin is mainly responsible for leading some major acquisitions and mergers, or he is the head of each major business unit.
The financial director of Hantang Media was promoted from an ordinary manager in the audit department under the finance department two years ago, and he did not have that ability at all.
However, chief business negotiator is still a relatively rare profession and difficult to find. It is definitely impossible to be like the character in "The Negotiator". That kind of negotiator will be unlucky for any company.
Get on the plane, take off, and then have a good sleep after it's stable.
Yang Mi next door came to make noise again.
"Ange Ange"
"What's wrong?"
Tang An opened the curtains and asked puzzledly.
Yang Mi, who was sitting next door, looked at the stewardess not far away, and saw that the stewardess walked away knowingly.
They were the only ones in the entire first class cabin.
Yang Mi, who was idle and bored, asked curiously, "Brother An, do you really have to spend five years making a movie?"
"What's wrong? Isn't it possible?"
Yang Mi whispered, "Then you won't have any movies released in the past five years, and everyone will have forgotten you by then."
"If you forget, just forget it. Besides, the early preparations will take two or three years, and after the filming is completed, the post-production will take another two years. I have time to make other movies."
"Okay, we'll talk when we get back, I'm tired."
Tang An stopped nagging, closed the curtains, closed his eyes and went to sleep!