In the digital field and moving images, if you want to start, Zhou Fangyuan asks himself that it is not difficult, and it will not cost much.

He still has 150 million in liquidity, which is not enough to buy Disney, not enough to buy Marvel, and still not enough to buy Corning...... But if this money is not spent, it is wasted. Originally, his plan was to buy the copyright of superheroes, but later he found out that he wasn't sure what heroes he was buying, except for some superheroes that he knew in his previous life, or who had already been adapted from the movie, he didn't know about other superheroes, and he didn't know whether they would be useful or not after buying. Besides, his future goal is to buy the entire Marvel, and if he buys Marvel, he will naturally buy all the heroes, which is nothing to say.

In this way, the money in his hand is of no special use at the moment.

It can be used to inject capital into his three small companies in the United States, but it doesn't seem to be of much significance at present, after all, Twitter and Facebook have accepted financing, and now relevant people are dealing with this matter, and it is meaningless for him Zhou Fangyuan to make additional investments at this time.

After thinking about it, it is better to invest in the field of special effects, at least in the future, he will have a lot of places to use computer special effects.

It can be said that it is necessary to invest, and the two companies that have been selected so far do not spend much money, and the rest of the money is a real waste in his hands, so Zhou Fangyuan has to set his sights on the other three large companies.

Of course, there are far more special effects companies in the world than these, but the other companies are either not strong, or the scale is too small, or they do not meet his requirements...... In short, that's all the right company for. Of course, there are also special effects teams in China, but then again, most of the domestic special effects teams are really just starting out, after all, as far as the current situation is concerned, the degree of domestic development, especially the development of computers and the Internet, is still not as good as that of the United States. Therefore, the so-called special effects companies in China are actually really a team, the scale is too small, and the strength is really not good.

Of course, if there is a suitable target, Zhou Fangyuan will also invest heavily, but the problem is that he can't find a suitable target now, so he can only set his sights abroad.

Among the companies he fancies, the remaining three are Sony, Industrial Light & Magic, and Vita.

Among them, Sony doesn't have to think about it, he can't even get the copyright of Spider-Man, and Sony's special effects team is even more useless. And Sony itself also has a lot of needs for the special effects team, whether it is making movies, or advertising, or other aspects, the special effects team has a certain usefulness, if you want to buy it?

Therefore, the only ones that can really accommodate Zhou Fangyuan to choose are Industrial Light and Magic and Vita.

ILM was founded in 1975 to coincide with the start of the filming of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which had a large number of special effects shots, and because the talent in this area was scattered all over the world, it was difficult to ensure that the level of production was ideal, so George Lucas chose an old warehouse in Van Nuth, California, where ILM was born.

At that time, it was rare for Hollywood to even have a special effects "department".

For the filming of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Lucas pioneered the film special effects industry. Some of them are engaged in architecture, some are modeling, some are shooting commercials, and some are playing mechanical design. Almost no one has ever worked in film. But there is also a good thing: this energetic group is imbued with a hippie spirit, completely free from the constraints of the system. In the large warehouse of the early Industrial Light & Magic office, Lucas and his team embark on a world-changing Star Wars journey.

Rather than saying that it ushered in the era of special effects films, it is better to say that "Star Wars" itself is the history of the changes in special effects in Hollywood movies, and when Spielberg decided to start filming the sci-fi masterpiece "War of the Worlds", the first person he contacted was not Tom Cruise, but Dennis Mullen of Industrial Light & Magic. Spielberg wanted to make sure Dennis was available to work with him on War of the Worlds. After 20 years of working together from "Contact of the Third Kind", Dennis has become Spielberg's most trusted special effects producer.

The film industry's high emphasis on visual effects began with the success of the first Star Wars film in 1977. In 1976, George Lucas set up his own special effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, to shoot the first "Star Wars". At that time, Hollywood did not have a company specializing in special effects, and even large production companies did not have independent special effects departments - the owners of production companies had long since eliminated special effects departments in order to save money, and no one concentrated on special effects. And in Hollywood, choosing the right special effects supervisor is just as important as choosing a male lead.

Counting the 20 highest-grossing films in film history, you will find that they are either visual effects blockbusters or CG animated films. The landscape of the film industry has been completely changed by special effects. In a sense, the development of the "Star Wars" series and Light and Magic is also the development of special effects in world movies.

On the road of special effects of Industrial Light & Magic, there are not only George Lucas, but also Lucas's best friends Spielberg, James Cameron and even Michael Bay, who has interned at Lucasfilm. After "Star Wars: A New Hope" and "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back", ILM worked on Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Aliens" before working on the special effects for "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi".

But it was Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" that really led the trend of digital special effects in 1993. In this film, ILM uses digital technology for the first time to create a complete creature full of detail – a dinosaur. Jurassic Park's use of digital technology is unprecedented. It was this film that made Lucas realize that the time was ripe for the "Star Wars" prequel, and from 1999 to 2005, the "Star Wars Prequels" trilogy came out one after another, and the prequels using new digital technology were obviously far better in terms of special effects than the Star Wars trilogy in the 80s.

Today, ILM is already the largest special effects company in Hollywood, and even in the world, Lucas relies on non-stop filming "Star Wars" and special effects for other movies, and manages ILM well, at least it is not difficult to make a living, and it can also make some money, which is the best special effects company at present except for the Sony special effects team backed by big trees. In fact, if you want to talk about industrial light and magic, it can be regarded as a big tree, after all, Lucas itself has a Lucasfilm, although this company can only be regarded as a second-rate small company in the whole of Hollywood, but this only refers to the size of the company, to say that the company's fame, Lucasfilm is also a little famous. At least there was Star Wars in the past, and there was Industrial Light and Magic in the back, although it was difficult to continue to be big, but the small life was quite comfortable, and there was no need to look at other people's eyes.

This company, if it is to be acquired, the difficulty is not low, at least with the more than 100 million funds that Zhou Fangyuan now has, it is impossible to completely eat it. Unless he is willing to take a stake, he will only occupy part of the shares.

In addition, ILM has more than just a special effects team. In fact, few people know that the famous Photoshop software of the future is actually born out of industrial light and magic.

Back in 1987, Thomas Knoll, the main designer of Photoshop, bought an Apple computer to help with his doctoral dissertation. At the same time, Thomas discovered that Apple computers at the time could not display grayscale black-and-white images, so he wrote his own program, Display, and his brother John Knoll was working at ILM at the time and was interested in Thomas's program. Over the next year or so, the brothers revised Display into a more powerful image editing program, and after changing its name several times, they accepted a suggestion from an exhibitor at an exhibition to rename the program Photoshop. At this time, Display/Photoshop already has adjustments such as Level, color balance, saturation, etc. In addition, John wrote programs that later became the basis for plug-ins. Therefore, the original PS is actually one of the internal retouching software of Industrial Light & Magic, and one of the auxiliary software used for special effects production.

Later, it was spun off and became a separate company.

Far away, in short, Industrial Light and Magic is very good, but it is not difficult to buy, at least the current funds are not enough for Zhou Fangyuan to completely take down this company, so he began to think about Weta again.

Vita is still a small company at the moment.

The company was founded in 1993 and founded Weta Studios with his friends Richard Taylor and Jimmy Selkirk to create visual effects for his new film "Angel of Sin." At the time, the company only had one computer. Jackson is a master storyteller with a lot of outlandish ideas and a penchant for visual effects, while Taylor and Selkirk share a similar flinch, helping him bring those ideas to life with their expertise in makeup, sets, and visual effects. From Hollywood's point of view, "Angel of Sins" is a small-budget movie, but Jackson and his Weta partners have done big things for a small amount of money and made a film that can be considered a classic, and its visual effects can breathe the hearts of Hollywood veterans. Even so, at the time, Weta was a small visual effects company.

"Angel of Sin" caught the attention of connoisseurs, and a Hollywood studio approached Jackson, which was Time Warner Media's New Line Films, which was already a subsidiary of Warner Bros. and was already on an equal footing with Warner Bros., and often outperformed Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, the weaker of the six major distribution companies.

Originally, the independent film moguls Weinstein brothers, who were in charge of Miramax, planned to make a live-action film about Professor Tolkien's famous "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but their ambitions were surprisingly small, and they only wanted to make one, or at most two. Fortunately, the rights to shoot the film fell to the founder of the new line, veteran producer Robert Saya, who decided to make the film into a trilogy, and with a single "Angel of Sin" costing only $5 million, he asked Peter Jackson to direct the blockbuster, which was really a moonshot adventure in the film industry. To put it another way, "The Lord of the Rings" is actually a super movie that is more than 9 hours long and costs $300 million, but because it is too long, it is only shown in three parts. What's even more incredible is that Saya also agreed to Jackson's various non-governmental requests, including that the film should be shot in New Zealand, and the special effects and visual effects were also handed over to Jackson's Weta.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy established the pattern for Weta Digital, which Jackson helmed, while Weta Digital, led by Richard Taylor, was responsible for the rest of the work, including concept art, props, costumes, sets, models, sculptures, and the trump card was the design and production of various monsters and weapons and armor. is also because of the Lord of the Rings movie, Vita is really famous, so that they exist in the later "King Kong" and "Avatar".

Speaking of which, the special effects production of a movie is not just handed over to a company, especially the blockbuster film in the United States, which is known for its large scenes, and there are often a lot of special effects that need to be produced, and it is difficult to complete them all with the strength of one company. Especially for companies like ILM and Weta, they have a lot of work to do, and it's impossible to pull all the people to make a movie, so usually a real special effects masterpiece is often done by two or three companies in different parts. It's like the Harry Potter series, which has both moving images and industrial light and magic.

And Vita, who made "The Lord of the Rings", is now no less famous than Industrial Light and Magic. But Weta has a problem, and that is that they don't have backers.

Sony's special effects department is purely domestic, so you don't have to worry about money. As for Industrial Light & Magic, there is George Lucas behind him, as a well-known director in Hollywood, he is also quite a money-making figure, even if it is very difficult to raise an Industrial Light & Magic, but he can still raise it. But Weta Digital is different, although its founder is also a well-known director, but the problem is that Weta Digital does not have a large established company behind it as a backing, they rely on connections to take over their work, and they do not get a fixed job content, so that life is relatively difficult.

In the future, Weta will have more than 65,000 square feet of studio and more than 600 creative staff that can design and produce a variety of large and micro props including professional prop modeling and repair, creature prop making, armor and weapon crafting, miniature carving, large-scale sets, sets and costumes, as well as special effects, and more. But at this stage, Weta is having a hard time, making almost the same amount of money as they spend, and the company's profitability is simply touching.

Therefore, Zhou Fangyuan finally set his sights on Weta Digital, and he asked An Lin to find Peter Jackson's phone, and then made a phone call and called it directly.