In the café, Zhang Chu really has a feeling of a blind date in his previous life, but the person who came to dock was not a Hollywood beauty star, but an Uncle Sam.

"Why haven't you yet, it's almost twenty minutes late, right?"

Zhang Chu looked at the watch on his wrist, and he began to doubt the statement that foreigners are very punctual.

"Don't worry, I've already contacted the people at Universal Pictures China, and they followed the navigation, but some leader came over there, and the road was blocked. It's slowly coming over now, and it may take a while for you to play with your phone. ”

Zhou Kang is sorting out the information in his hand, and he will have to face to face with the people from Universal Pictures later, which will be a very difficult thing.

Now Ye Shumei is also making the final confirmation, "It's right not to ask for a translator now, one more outsider will be more likely to be leaked." Boss, your own English level is high enough, then you don't have to worry about communication problems, if you have any uncertain content, you can discuss with us, and we also have this translation artifact, how much can I understand some. ”

Simultaneous translation headset is a new product recently launched, not the simultaneous interpretation receiving headset that you usually see those bigwigs wearing at international conferences, it is really the headset itself that is translating the content, rather than having simultaneous interpretation staff, but the accuracy rate is definitely not so high.

The confidentiality of this meeting was very high, and it was not spread within the Hanlin Culture Media Company, and Zhang Chu did not tell his friends that the global side naturally wanted to wait for the deal to be reached before making it public, and it was not necessarily good for Hanlin Culture to have one more competitor to disrupt the situation.

The other day at the Cannes Film Festival, a notorious American distributor beat out its peers with high royalties and a share in the sale of the rights to a Chinese-language film.

However, when it was about to be officially signed, it kept delaying time, and in the end, it was impossible to directly break all the previously promised conditions, and in the final stage of the Cannes Film Festival, it was too late to find the rest of the distributors, so the domestic production company had to hold its stomach and sign a contract with that company.

Sometimes, others don't value the film or the copyright at all, but they just don't want competitors to get it, so they come out to stir up the situation.

A few minutes later, two white men in long-sleeved shirts walked into the box under the surprised gaze of the waiter.

Even if this is Yanjing, there are many foreigners, but few people can speak Chinese so fluently, and they are about to catch up with Teacher Dashan!

"Sorry, I'm sorry we're late, I don't know how to express my apologies. By the way, I'm Chris from Universal Pictures, the head of Universal Pictures' Yenching theme park, and my good friend Rodney, who speaks Chinese. ”

Chris knew that Zhang Chu's English level was very good, otherwise it would be impossible to translate Chinese into English by himself, but there were some cultural differences and misunderstandings about customs, so he still brought his friends over.

Zhang Chu stretched out his hand and shook his hand and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Zhang Chu." In fact, when I heard that your company was writing the script for "The Lord of the Rings", I personally refused. It's hard for you to write it alone without reading the content of the latter two works, it's a whole and can't be separated. ”

"In fact, we felt this problem when we were writing the script, we didn't know which of the content of the first part was related to the later text, and we didn't know which part should be omitted, so it was very troublesome to do. But our gold medal screenwriters all agree on one thing, that is, your "Lord of the Rings" is very interesting, more majestic than the fantasy works we usually see, more like a complete world. ”

The good words in Chris's mouth rushed out as if he didn't want money, and kept praising "The Lord of the Rings".

In fact, he didn't deliberately elevate it, because this is actually the true thought in his heart. If it weren't for the fact that Middle-earth in "The Lord of the Rings" seems to be very expansive, the three movies can't be the end, and it can be filled with a lot of things, and it's a completely alternative cinematic universe!

Zhou Kang and Ye Shumei, two people who are not good at English, can only put on headphones and listen to the cold machine voice praising Zhang Chu's works, which is quite novel.

Zhang Chu was very helpful to praise him, and he said modestly: "I have received a lot of offers from Hollywood studios before, and they are not particularly optimistic about the commercial prospects of this book, I wonder what kind of price you Universal is going to start with?"

It's not his style to be hypocritical, like this, he goes straight to the point and puts the conditions straight to the point.

It's useless to talk about the rest of the things, everyone is an adult, and they won't throw the bottom line away because of a good word or two!

Chris has studied Zhang Chu's style of doing things, and there is no surprise at all about this, so he directly took out the folder in the briefcase at this time, and then handed Zhang Chu a piece of paper, and said, "We want to create this magical Middle-earth world with you." We're going to buy the rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy for $50 million, just for the rights transaction fee. In addition, we have committed to the production cost of no less than $200 million per film, which can be written into the contract. In addition to these, we have some special things we want to share with you, Universal Pictures is not stingy, 5% of the global box office profit sharing, 5% of the follow-up costs, you can also get 2% dividends on the sales of peripheral products, in addition, Universal Studios theme parks will also carry the scenes in "The Lord of the Rings" to reality, and you can enjoy ticket dividends when the time comes. ”

Zhang Chu had to admit that Universal Pictures was indeed prepared, and compared with the millions of dollars and tens of millions of dollars in copyright fees of Disney, Warner Bros., and Paramount, their sincerity was very strong.

The price of 50 million US dollars for film and television adaptations, on average, is almost 17 million US dollars per film, this number alone is dazzling enough, not to mention box office dividends, omni-channel sales dividends, and peripheral product dividends, the conditions are almost superior to the limit!

Although the dollar has been inflationary now, if the copyright fee exceeds 50 million US dollars, plus the sales of the rest of his works and the box office dividends of the film this year, his income will definitely become the most writer in the world, breaking 100 million in a year, which is a feat that no writer has ever accomplished!

Zhou Kang and Ye Shumei glanced at each other, completely unexpectedly this kind of thing.

They were all preparing to loosen their mouths on the copyright fee, and then focus on various dividends, if you round it off, it will be 100 million!

And it's in dollars, not in yuan!

Chris: They would rather give more royalties than share the follow-up profits, and with such a large investment in the project, the profits must be very considerable.

After he said this passage, he paid attention to Zhang Chu's expression, and wanted to find out the mood from his facial expressions, which is an important part of negotiation, and a person's micro-expressions will be related to his heart.

However, he was disappointed, because Zhang Chu had not changed much from beginning to end, and it seemed that this number was very ordinary.

Zhang Chu really thinks so, the price of 50 million US dollars is indeed the highest copyright fee among many of his works, but in his previous life, he knew that Amazon spent 250 million US dollars in copyright fees in order to get the global copyright of the "Lord of the Rings" series of TV series!

Fifty million is only one-fifth of that transaction fee, and movie rights have always been higher than TV dramas.

Of course, things can't be so simple to compare, at that time, the sky-high price of the "Lord of the Rings" series of TV series was based on decades of transmission and the success of the three Lord of the Rings and three hobbit movies, and the number of fans and passers-by were very high.

Now that only one copy of "The Lord of the Rings" has been released, it is indeed a conscience that the other party can give this price.

"I'm grateful for such a great contract, but there are some terms that we probably can't accept. Uncle Zhou, come and talk to him in detail. ”

In this kind of sword and sword negotiation situation, the author is not suitable for himself to end up in person, and it just so happens that there is someone on the other side who understands Chinese, so the agent Zhou Kang took off the earphone on the left, took the paper, and sketched it on the terms.

"We'll talk about the copyright fee later, now let's talk about this box office dividend, we hope that it is 5% of the global movie box office, not 5% of the movie profit, what is the difference, I believe you can all understand!"

A movie with a box office of $1 billion may be made a loss by the film company, and there will be no profit at all?

A film company with a slightly better conscience will not be so obvious, but lying about profits will definitely happen.

Only newcomers to Hollywood will be fooled, and those movie stars, directors, and producers will all receive box office dividends directly!

Profits can be changed, but the number of the movie box office is under the eyes of people all over the world, and this cannot be faked.

Zhou Kang directly helped Zhang Chu ask for 5%, if the box office of a single "Lord of the Rings" movie is 1 billion US dollars, then this dividend alone can get 50 million, so they didn't care about the amount of copyright fees, but wanted to be entangled in the dividend ratio.

Of course, $1 billion at the box office is a threshold, and only a few films in the world reach that number each year. Zhang Chu himself is not sure that his version of "The Lord of the Rings" will have as good reputation and box office as it did on the earth, everything is unknown.

"5% is too much! When we are looking for actors and directors, we will consider box office dividends, and the company also needs to make a profit. How about a 2% box office dividend?"

Rodney translated Chris's words into Chinese and began to bargain with Zhou Kang.

Box office dividends are almost a symbol of status, only the most important actors in a crew can enjoy the treatment of box office dividends, many big star actors are 20+20 way, $20 million in salary plus 20% of the global box office share, otherwise how to calculate the salary of those actors on the Forbes actor income list every year is often seventy or eighty million US dollars.

Zhou Kang said with a smile: "You plan to use top actors in this "Lord of the Rings"? I'm afraid this is not a good idea, and it is estimated that the rest of the people will not agree." ”

Now is the era when IP is king, there are too few actors with personal appeal, and most of the actors seem to be famous, but they are actually tied to a series of movies.

It is obviously impossible to spend money on top actors, and the protagonist in this is a hobbit, so it is suitable to find the kind of newcomer actor who is good and cheap.

Chris laughed, and it was clearly written in his schedule that he was mainly looking for the kind of actors who had some acting experience but the price was not high, and the combined salary of these actors may not be as much as that of a top superstar, and it is easier to manage, and the superstars have too many requirements!

"Well, I have a simple offer. The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, we only need 4% of the box office dividend of the first part, and each subsequent part will increase by 1% on the basis of the previous work, so it's always okay, right?"

Incremental clauses are more common in series, and movies that make a third part usually don't do too badly at the box office.

Instead of signing contracts one by one, it is better to come together with three parts.

"This proposal is okay, but I can't guarantee that it will be approved, everything will have to be sent back to the company later!" Although Chris has a lot of power in his hands, this kind of big project needs to be seen by the president or even the board of directors, and he, the producer, will be restrained when the project is initiated.

Zhou Kang breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, a good start is half the success.

Next, they reached a preliminary agreement on the dividends of peripheral products, not to mention the dividends of up to 7% of peripheral products, Zhang Chu also has the right to decide.

The authorization and listing of any peripheral products must be authorized by him in writing, and Universal Pictures also requires Zhang Chu not to refuse the sale of conventional peripheral products, and check and balance each other.

What is a routine, this has to be explained with a note.

Star Wars has authorized Mentholatum to make lipstick, and these products that can't be beaten can not be combined, isn't lipstick a regular product?

It's a veritable word cut, and every project needs to be extra detailed.

For example, Universal Pictures cannot develop its own spin-off movies and TV series of "The Lord of the Rings", which is emphasized by Zhang Chu.

He didn't want his "Hobbit" to come out before the end of the day, and Universal would come up with a Middle-earth story about the feud between elves and dwarves.

Several people discussed from more than four o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock in the evening, the drinks were changed several times, and the different A4 papers were densely recorded with dense text, and the original contract was changed beyond recognition.

"You're too tough to deal with. Chris found the negotiation very annoying, because the language barrier was one thing, and on the other hand, he was completely at a disadvantage.

Whoever is the first to move will be at a disadvantage. This applies not only to the feelings of men and women, but also to negotiations.

Universal Pictures has to do it, and Hanlin Culture will naturally bite it, don't talk about it, there is no loss!

Universal Pictures, which is strong in dealing with American and European writers, is really bleeding this time.

"I hope we have the opportunity to cooperate, my agent has personally come up to make the revised contract content, and it will be sent to your email after the modification. Whether they agree or not, I hope that there will be a reply from the United States as soon as possible!"

The night is falling here in Yanjing, and the sun is just rising in the United States, so the time is just right.