"Huh?"

"The company is short of money. ”

He calmly recounted the company's predicament at the moment, holding the steering wheel with both hands, looking straight ahead, waiting for the next moment of change in the red light, and then slammed on the accelerator, the car was like an arrow from the string, roaring out of the distance, he seemed to want to experience more of the happiness it can bring to the driver before losing his car.

"You're gambling again?"

"Do you think I'm the kind of person who gambles with company money?"

Mickey glanced at Lu Ze and threw a piece of gum into his mouth, although he has a gambling addiction, he likes to go to the casino to play two handfuls with some spare money, but unlike those dementias who lose when their brains are hot, he has always held the idea that he will definitely lose all his money when he enters the casino, and never pursues to win money back, even if he really has a set of cards.

In contrast, he is more like indulging in the pleasure of spending a lot of money, rather than greedy for cards, making money to play, losing almost, leaving the money to leave, never thinking about playing cards to return to the capital, let alone using the company's funds to squander, because he knows that this is the capital that he can continue to squander.

This is the difference between Mickey and ordinary people, if there is self-control, then the real self-control person will not go to the table, but you have to say that he has no self-control, but at the table can firmly grasp his own consumption mentality for a long time, not to give up his life, and at some levels of strong self-control is terrible.

Perhaps because he felt that he had said something stupid, Lu Ze did not continue the topic at the first time, but carefully thought about how much the company's expenses were during this time.

From the beginning of the establishment of the brokerage company, the expenses that can be seen on the surface such as leasing office space and decorating do not account for the majority of the company's total expenditure, so at first Lu Ze did not feel that the expenses were very high, but the problem was that the amount of those invisible expenses was a bit huge, and this account began to make Lu Ze's forehead sweat.

From the beginning of the establishment of the brokerage company, the biggest expenditure is not the cost of labor, but the cost of cooperation with other economic companies.

At the beginning, the new actors recruited by conventional economic companies need to exchange resources with other companies or directly connect to the downstream industry, that is, the crew, to help their own actors quickly enter the market, but the question is does Mickey have so many friends in the European market? Or does he have friends?

No, even if it is Gambiano Pictures, a shareholder and brother company, except for Fatini, the president, who has a good relationship with Mickey and Lu Ze in private, but he still maintains a businesslike attitude in cooperation, and he will charge you a little benefit fee at most, which is not bad, it is purely a dream to want others to help you, after all, people invest in your Universal Brothers Pictures, not Universal Brothers Agency, and your own training of actors has nothing to do with them.

In such a European market that recognizes money but does not recognize people, the only way to quickly launch its own artists is to open the way with money, cooperate with other economic companies, establish a network of contacts, and exchange resources.

This is not a compensation price for a character after asking for it, it is just a price for bridging with other economic companies, and if you want the role in the future, you still need to give the other company a certain amount of economic compensation, so that the other party will take your actor over and push it to the downstream crew.

This is the upfront price that small companies need to pay if they want to get a share of the market where the oligopoly has been formed, just this one expenditure has consumed nearly 30 million euros of the company's start-up capital in just half a year.

Don't think this amount is too exaggerated, if it weren't for the global economic recession after 2020, the entertainment industry has also shrunk, otherwise the funds spent will be even more exaggerated, after all, bubbles, one price at a time, as an upstream industry, the foundation of film and television drama production, if you don't have a little money, you can't play this at all.

After calculating the company's existing funds, and deducting the production costs of Mickey's next movie, Lu Ze probably understands the company's situation, no wonder Mickey wants to sell the car, even if the car is sold for a maximum of 1.5 million euros, it is tantamount to a drop in the bucket for the funds needed by the company, and it is a medium scene of shot expenses, but ...... A little more, a little more.

Suddenly, Lu Ze was very envious of Fatini's economic conditions, he made a movie, he never had any shortage of funds, and even continued to make additional investments, the scene was not big enough, the money was smashed, the props were too cheap, and the money was smashed, just like a money printing machine in his pocket, and the money was spit out.

Looking at the shrimp soldiers and crab generals of the Global Brothers, they just had a little money and didn't cover it yet, so they went back to the days when they had to insert two straws to buy a cup of milk tea and drink it separately, and couldn't help but let Lu Ze lean against the glass, sighed melancholy, and announced the only solution to the company's current shortage of funds in a tone full of fatigue.

"Then you have to finance. ”

"Well, I've already let it out, and it doesn't take long for someone to come to the door. ”

After all, today's "Global Brothers" has three shareholders, and the personal capital injection of either party has an impact on the fluctuation of shares.

Even if there is a valuation measurement, but for the "Universal Brothers" whose valuation is still rising and the total price is not stable, everyone hopes to hold the shares in their hands, and everyone will not get rid of it easily, the relationship between Lu Ze and Mickey is okay, but once the shares change, Gambiano's side is still profitable, and the two don't want Gambiano Pictures to take advantage of it in vain.

So Lu Ze didn't think about using the more than 10 million euros of personal assets in his hand at all, unless it was a joint capital injection by the three parties, but the question was whether Mickey could still come up with an equal amount of cash flow?

Now there is only one last way to go, and that is financing, and the crocodile is enlarged, but there is a problem, that is, less than two years have passed since the A round of financing of "Global Brothers".

For a company in the high-tech industry, or a company in the IT industry, the financing speed is fast, after all, they need a lot of cash flow into the market to do marketing, it is said that most of the APP promotion costs are about 200 yuan per person, and more is needed in the European and American markets, so it is imperative for high-tech companies to quickly dilute their equity.

But the entertainment industry is slightly different, although you can think of a movie as an app product of an online company, but the profits and traffic that movies can create are relatively limited, so the value-added of entertainment companies can only rely on the stacking of a large number of works and the value of public figures.

This is the disadvantage of "Universal Brothers Pictures", first of all, the company's current works are very few, although the reputation is excellent, but the profitability is not comparable to commercial films, so the income is not considerable, if there is a big IP, the situation will be completely different, but unfortunately "Universal Brothers Pictures" has been making original script movies for a long time, and it is difficult to form an IP for its own theme, so it ...... In the eyes of most investment banks, their small temple is really not worth much. Glamorous e-books

Lu Ze believes that there will definitely be investment banks interested in their own companies, after all, mosquito meat is also meat, and for capitalists, it is a happy thing to make an extra piece, but he also needs to admit that the shares of "Universal Brothers Pictures" are really not worth much.

Spending money always brings unpleasant emotions, and those beautiful things that can make people do anything will definitely cause pain from the heart when they are slowly peeled away from their bodies, so along the way, the interest of both of them is not high, because it is a very dangerous thing to put capital in, at the very least, you need to give up some aspects of freedom.

The two of them have some speculation about the future situation, but it is not so discouraged that the two of them are concerned, and their most important question now is how to get more chips and exchange for more white money before the B round of financing.

"We should be out there now, some more awesome actors, of which 'No Listen' is key, but it's not enough, it's too little, I guess...... We should make some IP. ”

When they arrived in the city, a large number of homeless people wandered here, the old man in shabby clothes sprayed some foam water on the car glass, and quickly cleaned the car window in front of the green light, and then stood at the driver's door, bent over, his eyes flickered slightly, and he did not dare to speak.

Mickey put the car window down, lowered his sunglasses slightly, kept chewing gum in his mouth, and looked at the old man for five or six seconds, this is not a 100% successful deal, so the old man is not sure if the guy in front of him who looks like a bad guy will give him some money, but in the end, he did succeed.

After digging in his pocket for a long time, he found a few coins, about one hundred and fifty pence, Mickey beckoned to the old man, who was a little excited, stretched out his fingernails full of dirt palms, took the money and looked at it, but was a little disappointed.

"Sir, this may ...... It's so little, it's not enough to buy a bottle of beer, your car is so good......"

"Your glass cleaning skills are not very good, you see, it's all sewage marks, your ten seconds of work is only worth so much money, go away, I'm going to work as a laborer." ”

"That's ...... sir."

Mickey had a tough attitude and was unforgiving, out of awe of external value, he didn't dare to refute, so he could only look at Lu Ze in the co-pilot with a pitiful look.

"What does it have to do with him? Do you work for him? Do you want to be a car cleaner or do you want food? You also want dignity, right? Leave, right away, I'm leaving...... Damn, damn the economy. ”

The light was green, and before starting, he flicked his cigarette ash out of the window, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror to see the old man still standing in the middle of the road with his head down, and finally, with some annoyance, he slapped the steering wheel and exhaled a sullen breath that stuck in his chest, and every Englishman who had a bad day would curse like him, if the economic situation was better, maybe ...... The problem at hand will no longer be a problem.

Lu Ze didn't want to discuss with him about the economic cold, after all, this is a global problem, and it is true that the employment pressure is gradually increasing in China, but it is not like Western countries, where people go into bankruptcy liquidation every day and live on the streets, especially in the United Kingdom, where the economic situation is already a little weak after Brexit, the originally expected V-shaped economic trend has not come up until now, so, after the episode, the discourse returned to the topic, leading to the matter that Mickey said just now that he wanted to create IP.

"IP is the thing...... What do you want to do?"

"I haven't thought about it yet, the script of "No Listening" has kept me busy enough, so I haven't had a clue, but anyway, it will definitely not be a superhero movie, we can't compete with Marvel, and the investment is too big, it's not something we can afford to play, the most important problem is that this kind of IP series of movies, Zhuang Yu and I have no creative ability. ”

Mickey has always been honest in terms of his ability, if he can't get it, he can't get it, otherwise he wouldn't have brought Zhuang Yu from Huaxia to help him create a character, and Lu Ze was not surprised by this.

"What about the new screenwriters?"

"It's the same clue, they don't know how to get a big IP with a small cost, it's too difficult, we can only do it slowly, we can't wait, now we can only do it, all we can do is to increase the company's film heritage, since last month, I started to collect films. ”

Film collection, as the name suggests, is to find some films shot by individuals in the market, and distribute them to the videotape market or even theaters on behalf of them through buyouts or shared.

Generally speaking, most of the movies invested by individuals are shot by amateur directors or rookie directors, due to the relatively immature technique, most of the actors have no acting experience, and the production cost is low, both the picture effect and the auditory effect are very rough, so that fans who are used to watching big productions have no way to accept it, for example, "Siping Youth".

But this does not mean that there are no movies with high gold content, for example, Mickey and Lu Ze's first film "The Effect" is a typical example of the success of entering the DVD market, but compared to the massive number of bad movies, the probability of finding a good movie is very small.

But in any case, in the current situation where "Universal Brothers" lack the background and have no extra funds to make movies, there is only one way they can go.

"Did you find a good film?"

"Where is it so easy, most of them come to the door, and they say that they are all crazy, but in fact, they are all rotten and can't be rotten anymore, and I basically dismiss this idea now, and now my only expectation is that the only thing I can expect is the film that will be sent over next weekend, I have a hunch, if you are lucky enough to meet a good quality film, nine times out of ten it will be it. ”

"What type?"

"Horror films, I received part of the script, it looks good, it's quite innovative, the director is still a graduate of college, has professional skills, and the title of the film is ...... What do you call it......"

"What is the spirit...... Ghost Record. ”

“……”