The two films financed from Abu Dhabi both rolled off the North American market, but their fates were very different.

"Ace Agent", which was released first, did not start well, but the target audience group was clear, and it still won $10.6 million at the box office in North America.

And the style of sharp editing and handheld photography has been well received in the videotape market, and from the beginning of January to now, the sales of videotapes and discs have also reached nearly $3 million.

"The Grim Reaper", which was released later, became a phenomenal horror film, and its value can be extended many years later.

"The subsequent distribution of all peripheral rights of these two films was handed over to Embassy Pictures. ”

In the office, Ronan said to George Clint: "Your task now is to cooperate with Paul Greengrass and complete the preliminary planning of "Byrne's Identity". ”

George Clint asked, "Funding?"

Ronan said: "Let's borrow a portion from Relativity Entertainment as a start-up fee, and the rest will be settled according to our plan." Speaking of this, he remembered another thing: "Find two videotape films from the film library that have not yet sold overseas rights, and authorize them to be distributed by the embassy film agency." ”

George Clint then asked, "Do you want Embassy Pictures to distribute overseas, and who will do the overseas distribution of "Ace Agent" and "Death Is Coming"?"

He reminded Ronan: "It's been a long time since the release in North America, and there have been pirated copies in the underground market, and the overseas situation will not be optimistic, and overseas distribution should be as soon as possible." ”

Even in places like North America, where copyright protection is extremely strong, piracy cannot be eradicated, and it is difficult to completely solve the problem of theater piracy alone.

Ronan knew this and said: "The overseas distribution department of Embassy Pictures has just been established, and the channels are still being sorted out, so it is impossible to release films in a short period of time. "It is obviously unrealistic to let Embassy Pictures immediately invest in overseas distribution of films now:" The overseas rights of these two films continue to be licensed for sale. ”

Whether it is the publicity effect or the piracy problem, the overseas copyright of the two films cannot be pressed in the hands for too long.

Ronan plans to divide the overseas distribution of "Ace Agent" and "Death Coming" into two parts, the copyright of "Ace Agent" is sold separately so that the accounts are clearer, and "Death is Coming" and Shahai Entertainment's two videotape films form a film package and are sold in a package.

"Ace Agent" was filmed with funds from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and "Death is Coming" was financed from the private sector in Abu Dhabi.

Ronan has some concerns about the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and plans not to cooperate with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority after "Ace Agent".

Without the support of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, it would have been much more difficult to raise money from the private sector in Abu Dhabi, and he didn't want to go to Abu Dhabi anymore.

Of course, if the wealthy people in Abu Dhabi are willing to come to Los Angeles in person to continue to participate in Shahai Entertainment's film investment, Ronan will also welcome it.

Compared with investment from industry insiders like Tom Cruise, Ronan still welcomes funds from overseas.

After George Clint left, Ronan made a special phone call to Tony Koch in Germany, asking people to pass the preliminary information of "The Identity of Bourne" to Koch Films, so as to facilitate Koch Films to finance and operate.

After a year of development, Koch Films is also on the right track, and has now attracted nearly 10 million US dollars in financing, as long as it has a Hollywood film project in hand, it will be even more attractive.

In addition, when the tax rebates for the two projects "Ace Agent" and "Death Comes" were operated in Germany last year, Shahai Entertainment had been owing Koch Films $10 million in "investment shares", and Ronan also gave Mary a notice asking her to pay the $10 million within a week.

Last year's investment went round and went back to German investors, and although the money didn't go any further, it saved more than 30 percent of the tax in the middle, which is a great deal for anyone.

In this era, the vast majority of people invest legally, and it is impossible to have such a high profit in a year.

As long as these people get a taste of the sweetness, it will be much easier for Tony Koch's side to ask them for a second investment.

And there are no worries.

Strictly speaking, this is not a tax avoidance, but a special policy introduced by the German government to stimulate investment and financial circulation.

The relevant materials of "The Identity of Bourne" were faxed to Koch Films, and Tony Koch called again and discussed it with Ronan for a long time.

If Tony Koch's side has a smooth funding, not only "Byrne's Identity", but also the sequels to "The Human Eradication Project" and "Here Comes the Grim Reaper" can continue to work in the same way.

However, films with smaller investments are less likely to pass the review.

In addition to the existing ones, Ronan is also considering new projects, limited by funding and company size, and the preference is still to be serialized films that can generate revenue continuously.

During this period, I went to the Copyright Office again to make inquiries and denied many projects, and Hollywood has too many movie scripts or adaptation rights, which were in the hands of the six major companies for many years before filming.

For example, "The Princess Diaries", Ronan always thought it was an original movie, but after querying, he found out that it was based on the adaptation, and the copyright was already in the hands of Disney.

There are many things like a script that has been registered with the copyright office for ten years before it moves on to the film adaptation.

There are too many screenwriters who sell out the copyright of the script to a deep-pocketed film company because of life problems before they go to the front-line screenwriters.

Hollywood is a typical pyramid structure, and very few can go to the top.

If it weren't for meeting James Wong, Ronan couldn't believe that a veteran screenwriter who has been in the industry for more than ten years had to forcibly change careers because of income problems.

According to the actual situation, Ronan made timely adjustments and formulated a special coping strategy.

On the one hand, recruit and hire a professional screenwriting team to write some of his ideas into scripts like the most common assembly line production in the industry, and the script does not need to be too elaborate, and it is enough to pass the registration and review of the Copyright Office.

Of course, this can't completely block the emergence of certain movies, after all, there are too many Hollywood movies with similar themes and types, the most typical "The White House Has Fallen" and "Shocking Crisis" can be said to be very similar.

In fact, some films are completely able to change the form of expression a little and appear on extremely similar themes.

This aspect is unavoidable, even the six major companies cannot dominate the film market, let alone the current Relativity Entertainment.

However, this will ensure that Relativity Entertainment will have more themes to choose from in the future.

Ronan, on the other hand, insisted on looking at the New York Times bestseller list in each issue, looking for books that were worthy of adaptation.

Some memories are pressed in the deepest part of the mind, people sometimes try to think about things but can't remember anything, and if they are slightly touched, relevant memories can appear in their minds.

In his previous life, Ronan watched too many movies and TV series because of his relationship in related industries, including domestic films, Hollywood movies, European movies, action movies, art films, horror films, and even love and romance movies.

And what little Anderson left him was just an ordinary person's brain, which was a little smarter at best, and had no retrieval function at all.

Foresight is Ronan's greatest strength, and the ability to find something valuable in many matters can be said to be one of the greatest manifestations of this advantage.

Another aspect is to make the most of the existing series.

Both "The Human Eradication Project" and "Here Comes the Grim Reaper" will develop sequels, and "The Identity of Bourne" will be a trilogy series as long as it can be successful.

On this basis, is it possible to tap value?

After thinking about it carefully, Ronan suddenly thought of a comment about "The Grim Reaper is Coming" that he had read on the Internet in his previous life, is it possible to shoot a funny film similar to "Screaming"? I remember that netizen also gave the name of "The Grim Reaper is Gone", some people escaped the black hand of the Grim Reaper, and then the Grim Reaper couldn't kill him no matter how he chased him, and finally left the Grim Reaper......

The investment is not large, there are successful films as a basis, and the market audience of vulgar comedy is wider than that of horror films, which seems to be feasible.

Fearing that he would forget it later, Ronan quickly wrote it down, wrote down the general idea, and had someone give it to George Clint.

The company is expanding, the number of people and projects is increasing, and Ronan can't be specific about the details of participating in every project, but more about making decisions and controlling the direction of development.

This project can allow Shahai Entertainment to hold an internal meeting to verify, and then do targeted preliminary market research, and if it is valuable, it will be operated and filmed.

Control your investment, it doesn't matter if you can't get into the theater, you can also directly distribute videotapes and discs.

The home entertainment market is very large, and the output value directly created in North America every year far exceeds the theatrical box office.

Ronan's actions are very fast, in just one week, he has finalized a team of five screenwriters, all of whom are unambitious screenwriters in the industry, and they have all been engaged in some gunman screenwriting work before, and the two sides have signed a good agreement, there are provisions of the copyright law, and the copyright of the work during the contract period is clear and clear.

They were responsible for turning a few ideas from Ronan's memory into a script, which was then handed over to Attorney Dinah Ampton at the law firm Centrics for copyright registration.

Each of these items must comply with the law to avoid future copyright disputes as much as possible.

Ronan will never underestimate people's greed, like Hollywood's best-selling movies, many people who have nothing to do with each other have jumped out to say that they are infringing on copyrights and want a piece of the pie, not to mention some people who have been engaged in script writing themselves.

In addition, Ronan also remembered several popular adaptations of movies in his previous life, but soon found that the copyright was already in the hands of the six major companies, and tried to get in touch with it, but there was no possibility of taking it down, so he gave up.

For example, the copyright of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" has long been obtained by Paramount Pictures, and later transferred to Disney, and now Disney is already planning to adapt the movie in the next few years, without considering the transfer of copyright at all.

The six major companies eat the meat in their mouths, and it is too difficult to make them spit it out.

Ronan quickly gave up on those unrealistic ideas and cared more about the projects that could be obtained.