On December 22, 2003, the day before the official global simultaneous release of "Gourd Baby", Morgan Stanley, on behalf of China's Minghu Culture Company, formally submitted an acquisition application to Coca-Cola, offering $2.44 billion to acquire all the assets of Columbia Pictures and its subsidiaries in the United States.

Of course, this also includes debt.

On that day, Coca-Cola did not respond or respond.

Even, looking at the trends of Columbia Pictures, they did not even notify the acquired party in time - Morgan Stanley analyzed: This deal is very sure that it will be reached in the end!

On December 23, "Hulu Baby" was officially released simultaneously worldwide.

China, Japan, South Korea, six Southeast Asian countries, eleven European countries, two North American countries, Latin America, and five other countries and regions in the world, together with a total of 29 countries and regions in the world's film market, the cartoon landed in theaters on the same day for ticket screening.

This is China's first domestic animated film to appear on the big screen, and it is also the first time that a Chinese film has been released simultaneously around the world in the true sense of the word - many domestic films have done similar publicity before, but it is not really released simultaneously.

In the Chinese market, produced by Minghu Culture, directed by Li Qian, and directed by Cao Zhan, it is the first animated film carrying the "Chinese animation dream".

However, the box office can only be regarded as unsatisfactory.

Released on December 23, plus the early screening, the box office on the day was 17.38 million yuan.

In the face of this result, not only Cao Zhan was not very satisfied, but even the domestic theaters also expressed some disappointment - as soon as they were disappointed, the film scheduling rate would of course drop.

Of course, there is a screening agreement, and after all, the box office is not low, and it is also within a certain range.

On December 24, the box office on the day was 15.29 million yuan.

On December 25th, Christmas, although there is no holiday in China, young people have already begun to celebrate this festival, so on this day, the single-day box office of "Hulu Baby" soared, reaching 18.11 million yuan.

On Friday, December 26, the box office on that day was 20.04 million Chinese yuan.

On Saturday, December 27, the box office on that day was 22.18 million Chinese yuan.

On Sunday, December 28, the box office on the day was 17.53 million Chinese dollars.

After six days of release, the box office in the first week exceeded 100 million, and the cumulative total reached 100 million and 10.53 million!

This box office is enough to make "Gourd Baby" firmly rank first in the domestic box office list this week, but for the six words "director Li Qian's works", many people in the industry who are accustomed to Minghu culture exploding more than 500 million at every turn feel slightly disappointed.

If there are no accidents, this basically means that the total box office of this movie is between two or three hundred million, and it is possible to exceed 300 million, but it is absolutely impossible to exceed 400 million!

Although this is definitely the highest box office of animated works, it has given a shot in the arm to domestic animators and the market for animated films, but ...... That's not enough!

For "Director Li Qian's works", for "Minghu Culture Production", for the investment of more than 100 million yuan, no matter which one, it is far from enough!

Of course, in terms of global distribution capabilities, at present, Minghu Culture is definitely the best of all domestic film companies, so "Hulu Baby" can directly report the global box office!

At half past four o'clock in the afternoon of December 29th, many people noticed that a banner was suddenly displayed on the official website of Minghu Culture, and then, in less than five minutes, the homepage of iFLYTEK and the homepage of the entertainment version of iFLYTEK also swiped a headline news one after another - the global box office of "Hulu Baby" broke 100 million US dollars in the first week!

Seeing this news, many people who originally only had a faint feeling in their hearts, but didn't really understand what the global simultaneous release of "Hulu Baby" meant, suddenly understood.

No wonder I always feel that the movie "Gourd Baby" has all kinds of differences from Li Qian's typical Chinese-style works in the past-

"Red Sorghum", "Huang Feihong", and even "My Savage Girlfriend", which tells about urban emotions, although the themes of his works have always been varied, the things in their roots have always been rooted in China's social environment and tell Chinese stories.

And when it comes to "Gourd Baby", people in the sensitive industry feel that this story is not bad, but compared with Li Qian's past works, it seems that the sense of national, social, and cultural substitution is not as strong as in the past.

Now, everyone understands.

The movie "Gourd Baby", from the time when the idea of filming began, was directly screened around the world. It weakens China's unique social background to the greatest extent, even if it is a myth, it is more global, and it belongs to the kind of thing that can be understood and liked by the audience without ethnicity, culture and society - or to put it another way, it is simply a Hollywood work made by Chinese!

Moreover, the global box office exceeded 100 million US dollars in the first week, of course, it is not as successful as those Hollywood hits that are super popular in the world, but for a Chinese film, or a Chinese animation work that has just started on the road, it is already successful enough!

As a result, many people in the industry will subconsciously sigh and think: It turns out that people have begun to stop mixing with China, at least they no longer only focus on the domestic film market!

However, for the first time it was released worldwide, the box office exceeded 100 million US dollars in the first week!

It's definitely a success!

So everyone thinks that Li Qian is Li Qian after all, and Minghu culture is Minghu culture after all!

In fact, what they don't know, and what they can't know for the time being, is that the box office of this movie exceeded 100 million US dollars in the first week of its global simultaneous release, which is certainly a success, and for Li Qian's heart, this achievement is already up to standard, but in fact, within the producer's Minghu Animation, it is not too satisfied with this box office.

Not to mention China, in the North American film market, the $15 million publicity and distribution funds, Columbia Pictures as the main distributor, and the sudden wave of Chinese culture fever before the release of the film have all made the film get a certain degree of attention in the North American market.

However, the box office was mesdiocre.

The opening scale of the highest 2039 theaters is not small, and a schedule like Christmas is also wonderful, but an animated film from China has a congenital disadvantage in a market like North America, not to mention, there is a giant with an opening scale of nearly 4,000 theaters in the same period!

"Wig the Pooh" is not the best among the works produced by Disney Animation over the years, but the level is definitely above the passing line, coupled with Disney's years of experience in animation, promotion and distribution of family movies, all of which made this movie a big hit in North America as soon as it was released.

Released on December 22, plus the early screening, the film got a box office of $23.61 million on the first day of release, and it was a weekday box office!

The next day, although "Hulu Baby" was released, with more than $900,000 in advance, the Chinese animated film with an opening scale of 2,039 theaters only got a single-day box office of $6.38 million. And on this day, "Bear Vig" continued to win a whopping 17.36 million box office on weekdays!

So, on the second day, the release scale of "Gourd Baby" suddenly fell to less than 2,000 theaters, and on the eve of Christmas Eve, "Bear Vig" got the release scale of 4,133 theaters at the level of the sky!

The people of North America ushered in their own Christmas holiday, and if you add the following Saturday and Sunday, they even have a total of five days off starting on December 24.

The vast majority of people spend these five days with their families.

So there is no doubt that "Bear Vig" ushered in its super explosion.

22.49 million US dollars on the 24th, 24.51 million on the 25th, 20.38 million on the 26th, 18.22 million on the 27th, 16.3 million on the 28th, seven days after its release, the North American box office of "Vig the Pooh" was as high as 142.87 million US dollars!

Even with conservative estimates, many box office forecasters have given estimates that the film will grossed $280 million to $300 million in North America and $600 million worldwide.

There is no doubt that even for North America, where the film market is developed, even for a wealthy man like Disney, this movie can be regarded as a big hit.

At the same time, in the North American market, "Hulu Baby", which has been continuously reduced from the second day of release, has received box office results of 8.42 million US dollars, 5.77 million, 4.21 million, 4 million and 3.68 million in parallel with "Vig the Pope".

In the six days of release, the total box office in North America added up to $32.46 million.

The five-day Christmas holiday in North America is over, but the screening scale of "Hulu Baby" still remains above 1,000 theaters, and this oriental animated film that was completely crushed by "Wig the Pooh" at the box office has won quite a good reputation from the audience.

And its score on some professional movie rating websites and audience rating websites is not low.

To a large extent, this means that the subsequent box office of this movie will be relatively stable.

Therefore, many professional box office forecasting agencies, as well as professionals in Colombia, have given the film a North American box office estimate of $65 million.

For Li Qian, not to mention 65 million US dollars, even if it is only 60 million US dollars, he is basically satisfied, and for the distributor Columbia Pictures, according to the account-sharing agreement between the two parties, they can not only properly recover the publicity and distribution costs of 10 million, but even have a lot of money to make - at the time of the initial negotiations, they were mentally prepared to lose money for the distribution of Minghu Culture's film works in North America.

They just hoped that they could recoup their costs and make money by distributing Columbia-produced films in China by Minghu Culture, but surprisingly, they are starting to make money now.

Of course, for Oriental Dream Films, things are not so wonderful. Because they had to try their best to squeeze into the ranks of distributors, Oriental Dream Film Company suffered a lot in the account sharing, even if the movie was sold for $65 million, they would still lose money. Only if the North American box office exceeds $70 million will they be able to save their capital and even make a little money from this release.

Of course, because Oriental Dream Film Company acts as an agent for the distribution rights of this film in many countries in Europe and Latin America, so, in general, this movie must still make money.

What's more, the most crucial thing is that the boss is satisfied.

For John Days, that's enough.

He knows that what is more important to him now is the right to speak in front of the boss, and as for creating profits, it is something that can be done slowly.

Of course, if you can't lose, try not to lose.

It's just that with the Christmas holiday season over, it is inevitable that the box office market in North America will fall sharply. The box office performance of "Gourd Baby" is bound to decline rapidly, even far greater than the decline of ordinary movies in other schedules, and the decline rate is even faster!

And at this time, in an interview, a vice president of Disney Pictures was asked about the fact that "Hulu Baby" had sought Disney's release, and the vice president first admitted the matter, and then said with some disdain:" I haven't seen that movie, and we're one of our competitors now, so I can't comment on anything, but they did come to us, and our professionals, after seeing the Chinese director Li's work, finally submitted their professional opinion to me, and they advised the company not to accept the distribution of that film! You know, I believe in the ability and vision of our professionals, so I turned Li down, even though I love his and Liao's music!"

The implication is that "Gourd Baby" is a very bad movie, and Disney felt that if they operated the release and helped the movie be released, they might smash the signboard and lose money, so they refused.

It happened on the morning of December 29, the first day after the Christmas holidays ended.

Last week's North American box office charts have been released, and Disney Animation and Disney Pictures are responsible for the distribution of "Wig the Pooh", with a box office of $1044.87 million, undoubtedly topping the list.

As the most direct competitor, "Hulu Baby", with a box office of 32.46 million US dollars, is not even a fraction of "Wig the Pooh", ranking fourth in the box office list.

Therefore, suppressing and belittling the opponent is just a trivial matter for Disney, which is now proud.

After learning the news, John Days thought about fighting back, but after hesitating, he held back again.

He didn't think it was the right time.

However, in the afternoon of the same day, a source suddenly broke a communication, saying that Minghu Culture Company from China was entrusting Morgan Stanley to initiate the acquisition of Columbia Pictures!

And it is said that at present, Morgan Stanley has made an offer to Coca-Cola, the owner of Columbia Pictures - according to rumors, the offer is not low!

In the afternoon of the same day, a vice president of Coca-Cola was interviewed and admitted the news in person, claiming that Coca-Cola was seriously discussing the feasibility of the acquisition.

As soon as the news came out, it instantly shocked Wall Street and Hollywood!

You know, although in the past two or three decades, Columbia Pictures has been on the verge of being acquired, and it has been constantly rumored that it is about to be acquired, and that it is being negotiated for acquisition, etc., and many people are immune to the fact that it is about to be acquired, but it is still one of the seven major Hollywood studios after all!

It remains one of the most famous giants in the global film market!

And it was a film company from China that wanted to buy it — Hollywood, Wall Street, and most Americans had never even heard of its name before!

Minghu Culture!

Of course, the media and news industry in the United States is quite developed, coupled with the fact that there was a Times Square performance not long ago, and now "Hulu Baby" is still being screened, so less than an hour after the matter was confirmed, many fast-responding online media have begun to cut through this matter! Talk shows, of course, including many current politics, economics and financial programs, have also begun to go under the knife.

Li Qian, Liao Liao, the Four Beauties, "Gourd Baby", a performance in Times Square, Oriental Culture!

These names that are better known to Americans today were pulled together by them and began to analyze and dissect in detail to all the American people who were concerned about this matter.

Then, Minghu culture completely surfaced!

What kind of company is it, who does it belong to, what are its main achievements, what is its revenue, does it have sufficient financial resources to acquire Colombia, and after the acquisition, where will Colombia go under the control of Li Qian...... And so on and so forth!

Some media believe that once two powerful companies based in their respective countries join forces in the two world's largest film markets, it will be a perfect combination, which will play an immeasurable role in the development of both companies, and some media believe that we in the United States must begin to be vigilant, and the gradually rich Chinese, just like the Japanese ten years ago, are trying to invade the United States!

On the evening of December 29, all the media, the Internet, newspapers, television stations, radio stations, etc., were engaged in various discussions, and along with these discussions for or against, the name of "Hulu Baby" was constantly mentioned, on the other side of the distant Pacific Ocean, local time in China, it was already the morning of December 30, 2003.

When they got up early in the morning, countless Chinese were instantly stunned by the news that came from various news channels such as the Internet, newspapers, and TV morning news.

The news broke in the United States has been confirmed: Minghu Culture is initiating the acquisition of Columbia Pictures, one of the seven major Hollywood studios!

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