"Oh, dear Qian, hello, I'm your fan, a loyal fan! And I'm still your fan, I firmly believe that Chinese kung fu movies will one day be popular in the world!"

"Hello Mr. Anderson, thank you!"

…………

"Ah, Qian, our great Oriental musician and great Oriental director! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Hello Mr. Smith, thank you, you've won the prize. ”

…………

"Look who it is, my God, Qian, I must say, you are my daughter's idol, please don't come to my house in the future, or my daughter will elope with you!"

"Mr. Oliver, you're exaggerating, but thank you! When you get home, please tell your daughter that Qian is very handsome, okay?"

"Oh my God, don't do that!"

…………

One another, one another, and another.

Meet, greet, greet, make a joke, chat.

One person, one person after another.

In fact, as long as you let go of your thinking, you no longer simply talk about the release of "Hulu Baby" as a separate matter, but talk about the two-way distribution cooperation in the next few years as a big business.

Today, Hollywood films dominate the world, except for a few countries whose self-produced films can barely support in the local market, in most other parts of the world, the local film industry has been basically squeezed in the face of powerful Hollywood films, and only a faint breath remains.

These include European literary films, which once dominated the world cinema for decades, as well as Japanese films, which were unique and short-lived in the eighties and nineties, and are known for being "full of oriental thinking and beautiful oriental style", are now no longer in the limelight.

Europe and Japan have become the most important box office for Hollywood movies.

The so-called Hollywood, of course, is not just a few large studios, the entire Los Angeles area, that is, Hollywood in the narrow sense, there are hundreds of large and small production companies, and the independent films produced in the United States that do not rely on these specialized film companies are not only hundreds of films every year, but it has to be said that independent films only provide the width of American films, which is a kind of exploration. The three words that truly represent American cinema and represent Hollywood are well known to fans all over the world are the seven major Hollywood studios.

Minghu Culture wants to talk about cooperation, of course, it also has to talk to these companies.

Disney is one of them, but it's just one of them.

Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount, who produced and distributed Titanic, as well as Columbia, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., and so on, each of them is strong enough to be an absolute powerhouse in the world of cinema — but either one will be very interested in gaining the friendship of a company with strong distribution capabilities in China.

What's more, the condition is just to act as an agent for the distribution of a movie by China Qian.

And this movie is also an animated film that other major Hollywood studios are extremely weak except for Disney - they are actually willing to go against Disney's "Wig the Pooh"!

Of course, it's a good attitude, it's admirable, but it's actually a not-so-pretty distribution scheme - our purpose is to make money, not to get gas, isn't it?

However, this cooperation, of course, is exciting!

So, in the following period, under the leadership of John Deiss, Li Qian began to travel between several major Hollywood studios, meeting and greeting relevant people from major companies.

As for the real negotiation task, it was all left to John Deiss.

Then, as they continued to meet and talk all the way, the people from several major production companies that Li Qian and John Days met became higher and higher.

It wasn't until later that several companies with the same opinion sent their CEOs, at least at the level of vice presidents and executive directors, to meet with John Days and Li Qian.

Suddenly, John Days seemed to be back to his best days.

It's just that at that time, he was backed by James Cameron, and now, he is backed by Li Qian. Or it can be said that he is backed by the entire Chinese film market.

Finally, after such rounds of contact, collision, negotiation, and competition for every inch of land, the situation began to gradually become clear.

After collecting all kinds of information and filling his mind with all kinds of cooperation plans, John Days drove straight to Liao Liao's mansion in Los Angeles after coming out of the twentieth century Fox film company that he was most familiar with.

Waiting for the electronically controlled door to slowly open, John Days drove the car in, and saw from a long distance that Li Qian was already standing on the steps in front of the house and waiting.

John Days got out of the car and stepped straight on.

The two shook hands, and Li Qian smiled: "It's hard work." ”

John Days laughed, and the two walked into the house side by side.

Is it hard?

It's hard work!

In the past ten days, he has seen the top brains in the whole of Hollywood every day, everyone is quick and witty, even a cunning person like John Deiss has to work 100% to deal with it every time to ensure that he is not taken away from his mind.

However, after experiencing a slump in his life and career for several years, this time he traveled between several major Hollywood studios, meeting and talking about cooperation every day, and it was the big names in Hollywood who were in charge, but it made him quickly return to the peak of his life and mental state!

When the two of them entered the room and sat down, before the maid at home brought a drink, John Days couldn't wait to say: "Boss, I feel that we have almost talked about it, the general situation of each family has been basically discussed, and the next step should be to determine one or two of them for in-depth detailed negotiations." ”

Seeing Li Qian nodding, he turned his head and said thank you to the maid who brought the drink, and then opened his briefcase and said, "Except for the Disney Group, the other six companies have been very positive in dealing with the negotiations as soon as they heard that we can reverse the distribution of the films they produce in China. ”

"After a lot of contact and selection, I think we can exclude MGM and Universal Pictures! They also agreed to distribute Hulu Baby, but they asked us to sign a distribution exclusivity agreement, which means that once we reach a cooperation with them, then in the next five years, we will only be able to represent their company's distribution business in China, and we will not be able to work with any other company. As you said, this is a condition that we cannot accept, it is too harsh. ”

After a pause, he waved his hand, "They are too arrogant, they don't regard us as an equal and mutually beneficial partner at all, they just want to develop us into their agency distribution company in the East!"

Li Qian nodded slowly, this is one of the two rules they set early on before they contacted the major film companies: first, we don't do a company's downline, we don't sign an exclusive agreement, and the two sides have a reciprocal cooperative relationship;

In Li Qian's view, these two articles are the basis of all cooperation.

Because once the exclusivity agreement is signed, as the Chinese distributor, Minghu Culture will lose the right to choose, and as the distributor in the United States, Minghu Culture will also lose the right to choose.

As we all know, once you lose the right to choose, you can only be slaughtered at the critical moment!

At this time, John Days had already continued: "Although Paramount and Warner Bros. are very strong, they agreed to our precondition, that is, to establish a cooperation mechanism for both sides, and I negotiated with them separately, and a series of subsequent cooperation agreements are also based on this. However, for the subsequent release on the American side, the conditions they gave were very harsh, and I was not too satisfied. ”

Paramount promised to introduce three to five Chinese films recommended by Minghu Culture every year for public release in North America, but they only promised to ensure that each film could achieve a maximum distribution scale of 800 theaters, and promised that one of the films would be distributed in more than 1,000 theaters. ”

"Warner Bros. conditions are a little more lenient. They ask Minghu Culture to bring in at least five films produced by them every year, and they will open their own source library for Minghu Culture to choose from at any time. It's just that they require that all the five films per year must be in the form of box office sharing, and do not accept buyouts and film approvals. In response, they agreed to arrange three Chinese films recommended by us every year to be distributed by them as agents throughout North America, which is also a cost-sharing model, and they promise that these three films will be distributed in no less than 1,000 theaters, one of which can be determined by ourselves, and they will do their best to meet our distribution requirements. ”

As he spoke, Li Qian nodded, and when he finished speaking, he stopped for a long time, Li Qian looked up, and saw that he was looking at him expectantly, and he didn't seem to mean to continue, so he couldn't help but be surprised, and said, "Go on, what about the other two?"

John Days shrugged and said, "I thought you would be very happy with the outcome of my negotiations, because in my opinion, these two are good partners to work with, and Paramount and Warner Bros. are in the limelight now, and it is a better choice to choose them as partners." And the conditions I talked about have basically guaranteed that we will not suffer losses in this kind of two-way distribution cooperation!"

Li Qian shrugged his shoulders and was noncommittal.

Compared to other companies, this condition seems to be good, but five for three is still not completely fair - of course, this is not unacceptable.

After all, many Hollywood films, as long as they go to China, are often easier to make a profit, but it is really hard to say whether Chinese films can be accepted and make money when they are brought to North America.

So at this point, he just smiled and said, "So, that is, in your opinion, neither Twentieth Century Fox nor Columbia is a good fit?

When John Days heard this, he immediately said: "That's not true! But you know, I talked to you after the negotiations ended a few days ago, and the 20th Century Fox proposed that it hopes to hold shares in Minghu Culture, which is unacceptable to you! And once this condition is stripped away, the other party is only interested in the distribution of their films by Minghu Culture, and they have always been reluctant to discuss with me in depth about the distribution of Chinese films by them! So in my opinion, their sincerity in this cooperation negotiation is questionable. ”

Li Qian nodded slowly when he heard this, "Understood!"

Then he sighed and said, "Twentieth Century Fox has a lot of money now!"

John Days shrugged helplessly.

James Cameron's "Titanic" was almost about to completely collapse Twentieth Century Fox, and at the critical moment, John Days helped James Cameron get Paramount's funding, which finally ensured that "Titanic" was completed on schedule, and then released as scheduled.

The two major Hollywood studios teamed up, making the film almost the largest release and publicity, which contributed to the super hit of "Titanic".

Since then, Paramount has certainly made a lot of money from the production and distribution of this film, and since then it has developed a lot of sailing, and Twentieth Century Fox seems to have shaken off the old decadence and began to suddenly find a way to rise, in recent years, they have been able to come up with several national and global blockbuster movies every year, and even their sub-label Fox Searchlight has been able to make a lot of success almost every year in recent years.

As a result, Twentieth Century Fox, after nearly a decade of slumps, suddenly re-emerged as a powerful presence in the seven major Hollywood studios to compete with Disney and Warner Bros.

So, it's pretty strong.

Li Qian thought about it, and had to give up the company completely in his heart, so he asked, "So, what about Colombia? Isn't it appropriate? They shouldn't be so strong, right?"

John Days smiled when he heard this, "Of course, they can't be as strong as other companies! On the contrary, they are the most interested in being able to cooperate with us for two-way distribution negotiations, and they are also the most willing to make concessions on various conditions." But ......"

Speaking of this, John Days laughed again, "You know, this company has been almost deteriorating in the last ten years, and I even doubt that one day, they will go out of business!"

"The industry's comments on them are that they missed out on the acquisition of Japan's Sony 10 years ago, so what good is the deal if we have a particularly favorable deal with them, if they go out of business a year later?"