In the fifth week of the screening of "Spirit-Ghost Shadow", it continued to be the weekly box office champion in North America with a single-week box office of 24.1583 million, which is already the top position of its fourth consecutive week; In the sixth week, as schools in North America began to open one after another, the box office of the film industry plummeted, and "Ghost Shadow" only received 11.5017 million box office in a single week, although the number of weekly box office champions ended in 4 weeks, it can still rank third this week.

According to the momentum of this percentage decline in the box office, the potential of "Ghost Record" in North America is almost exhausted, and with the gradual reduction of the number of theaters screened, it will be good if it can collect another 10 million box office by the time the whole film is released in North America. But there is no doubt that the film is already a miracle, a myth. The production cost of $10,000, which adds up to less than $1 million in publicity costs, has received $154.2 million at the box office in North America!

Lionsgate is already preparing for overseas distribution, because on the Internet, fans in Europe, Asia and other countries have told their expectations for this film, and it is certain that overseas distribution will make money and loss, and the popularity will not necessarily be as popular as in North America, but it seems that it is not difficult to collect tens of millions of box office and make the global box office of "Ghost Record" exceed 200 million US dollars.

This "supernatural phenomenon" made all the film companies and all the analysts fall through the glasses together, what movie can reach 15,000 times the revenue ratio? "Ghost Shadow" told everyone. In this regard, a Wall Street financial analyst lamented to the media: "The most profitable movie in 1998 was not "Titanic", but "Ghost Record", and when it landed on the big screen overseas and launched a DVD, the revenue ratio of this movie may even reach 30,000 times." Lionsgate and Wonder Young are simply a 'money-grabbing couple'!"

Lionsgate is now the most popular film company in the United States, this small company has become famous in one fell swoop, and they have been called a "business miracle" in the newspapers, and the viral publicity of "Ghost Record" has also made professionals admire, so that everyone does not believe that the "rumors" that appeared on the Internet at the beginning were not Lionsgate's handiwork.

Naturally, there are also many film companies who don't want Lionsgate to have a good time, and they told the media: "The way "Ghost Shadow" is promoted is the idea of the Chinese director, and he told us when he came to our company to seek distribution. The guy had a whole plan, and he told us, 'I can get many, many people into the cinema, trust me!' but we didn't want to use this kind of pretending to be a ghost, and Lionsgate did, and they were shameless liars. ”

In fact, those film companies just say that grapes are sour because they can't eat grapes, and the fact is that because they missed the "Ghost Record" delivered to the door, there are several film buying managers who were fired, suspended, or demoted by the company, including Stephen Thomas of the Artist Company. When the chairman of Yijiang heard that his company was one of the "fifty-four" film companies that had rejected Wang Yang, he called the CEO of Yijiang to hold him accountable, and then Stephen Thomas became a punching bag, and he was fired.

And in the sixth week of the show, as some movie theaters finished showing "Ghost Movie," Lionsgate began to receive pre-tax rent from movie theaters.

The current box office of "Ghost Record" in North America is 154.2 million, and of course the money will be divided, Lionsgate and the theater chain. So how is the box office revenue of a movie divided? It depends on what kind of cooperation contract the distribution company and the theater chain have signed.

There are several ways to cooperate, one is called negotiating a guaranteed price, which is that the distribution company buys out the big screen of the cinema for a period of time with money. For example, Lionsgate gave $100,000 to the "Vitai Projector" movie theater and got the right to screen a screen from 0:00 to 6:00 for a month. Then in the next month, no matter how many tickets "Ghost Record" sells, all the box office is yours, and in the end, the movie theater will not take a dollar from you.

But this form of cooperation is not popular. In North America, the mainstream way of cooperation between distribution companies and theaters is sharing. The proportion of the share, generally before the release of the film, the two parties have negotiated and signed the contract. Over the years, the ratio of the two sides has long been a common practice, and now it is basically a model called "90/10-with-floor-of-70%".

This model means that on a weekly basis, the total weekly box office revenue of "Ghost Record" in a movie theater is subtracted by the necessary fixed expenses of the movie theater that were negotiated at the beginning, such as cleaning fees, electricity bills, etc., and then multiplied by 90%, and the figure is the rent received by Lionsgate.

However, this is only Plan A, and this model will also sign Plan B at the same time, that is, the total box office does not subtract the screening expenses of the cinema, but directly multiplies it by 70% (this ratio is generally agreed between 60-70%), and the figure obtained is the distribution company's share.

So the distributor will generally look at the higher number A and B, and then choose the larger one as the commission income from the movie theater this week.

Of course, in general "90/10" is only the ratio of the first three weeks of the show, then 60/40 in the fourth and fifth weeks, 50/50 in the sixth week, and 40/60 in the seventh week...... The specific changes depend on the contract, and when it is signed, it will be as it is.

In any case, from the release of a film to the end of the film, all the total box office revenue, the distributor and the cinema share will generally be about 50/50, half to half.

First, the distribution companies themselves will hire professional investigation companies to sometimes openly and sometimes openly and sometimes openly go to the movie theaters to check the situation; second, the United States itself has a strict judicial system, including the tax department, which is watching the situation, so it is very rare to conceal and lie about the box office. Basically, no cinema company will be stupidly greedy, destroy its reputation, and be punished by the law.

The sharing model of "Ghost Shadow" is "90/10-with-floor-of-70%", at the end of the six weeks of screening, 154.2 million box office, Lionsgate got 91.76 million, nearly 60% of the pre-tax share, and then subtracted nearly 3 million costs, including publicity fees, copy fees, freight, printing costs, etc., and the final pre-tax profit of the total box office in six weeks was more than 88.75 million.

There is no pre-tax profit of more than 100 million yuan in North America, and according to the fact that there are only more than 500 movie theaters still showing "Ghost Shadow", and the sharing ratio has dropped to 40/60, by the time the movie is fully offline, the pre-tax profit will not exceed 100 million. Therefore, Wang Yang agreed to implement a 40% dividend plan with Lionsgate.

Fortunately, Lionsgate is only a small business, so it can enjoy some preferential policies, but it still pays nearly 20% of the tax, and only more than 71.58 million US dollars are left after tax, and Wang Yang has 28.632 million yuan.

But the matter did not end like this, because Wang Yang still has to pay federal personal income tax, California personal income tax and other taxes to the tax bureau. There are so many types of taxes in the United States that an ordinary person can't figure it out, let alone know how to avoid taxes reasonably. So Wang Yang went to the "Integrity" law firm again and consulted with Hebrew-Karl, a lawyer, for a long time, before he understood that the 28.632 million tax paid was probably only about 21.4 million left.

Of course, Wang Yang will not go to the tax bureau to declare and pay taxes immediately, because the individual income tax in the United States is generally paid once a year, and the deadline for individual income tax declaration is April 15 every year, just declare before the end of that day.

Wang Yang doesn't want to delay taxes, but the dividends of the movie are still being recorded one after another, and it is most convenient to wait for next year to clear all the taxes of this year in one go. Anyway, he got more than 21 million available funds and became a multi-millionaire in one fell swoop.

Although Lionsgate did not disclose Wang Yang's specific dividend figure to the media, the media still found some details, so as to guess that Wang Yang's dividend is more than 10 million. This speculation was also tacitly acquiesced by Lionsgate, with Jon Fittimmel, the distribution manager, saying, "He's got a fortune that a lot of people can't get in a lifetime, and he's only 18 years old, so he's too young, isn't he?

"The youngest multimillionaire", this is the latest title given to Wang Yang by the Los Angeles Times, the article found professional analysts, and assessed that Wang Yang's worth has exceeded 20 million, and with the overseas and multi-channel distribution of "Ghost Shadow", his worth will soon rise to more than 30 million.

Wang Yang doesn't care about these media reports, he doesn't deny or respond, he prefers the title of "youngest director" to "youngest multimillionaire".

After receiving this huge amount of money, his life has not changed, he still rents the original apartment, but replaces the dilapidated furniture in it, and then buys a set of high-end home theater equipment, frantically sweeps down a lot of movie DVDs, ready to collect and enjoy them, and in addition, he also buys a universal coupe to facilitate his own travel.

The media's attention to him gradually faded, and his refusal to cooperate was one of the important reasons. For example, "Vanity Fair" magazine invited him to shoot a group of photos and do an interview, but he refused, he would rather read a book and watch a movie at home than go for a photo shoot. First, he has no interest in this for the time being, and second, he wants to get out of these things as soon as possible.

What magazine interviews, what celebrity parties...... He can't indulge in that, he can't allow himself to spend all his energy on it, he's still young, he needs to keep improving, not get lost in the temptation of success until he's kicked out. He kept reminding himself: "Young, you're just a rookie, you're nothing, look at the follow-up report on the creators of "Blair the Witch", do you want to be them? Think about your original intention!? Become a director and make movies." ”

So Wang Yang rejected the interview with "Vanity Fair" and rejected some party invitations. He knows that the ultimate decision on the success of a movie is not determined by how many parties you attend or how many magazine covers you have, but by the film itself.

After doing the post-promotion of "Ghost Record", he faded out of people's sight, reading books and watching movies at home every day, sometimes chatting with good friends such as Jessica on the phone, occasionally going out to play together, and living a peaceful life. During this time, he joined the Directors Guild (DGA), and although his itinerary was very low-key, it was published by a gossip tabloid, and then he reported it again for two days until the end of September.

The reason for the report is that Lionsgate announced a new shooting plan to the media, they will shoot "Spirit-Ghost Shadow 2", and they have purchased the sequel rights of an episode from Wang Yang for 5 million.

Yes, Wang Yang received another 5 million, and Lionsgate was only willing to pay 1 million at first, but Wang Yangli didn't want to pay attention to them, only one word "no", and revealed a little information to Jon Filtimmel "New line, craftsman...... I've also been contacted by a lot of companies that know that my sequel rights are still there, and they want to buy it. This is a fact, and now it is the turn of new lines, craftsmen, Dimen and other companies to take the initiative to find him, and discuss with him sincerely, and Wang Yang also gave them "no" one by one.

However, he will not identify with Lionsgate, although he is very grateful to Lionsgate for the opportunity given him, but "Ghost Record" also brought Lionsgate tens of millions of profits, and no one owes anyone. The sequel copyright of the movie, which company meets his conditions, he will give to whichever company.

As a result, Lionsgate's offer went all the way up to 5 million, but the artisans seemed to be determined to buy it, so they raised the price to 7 million, plus 20% of the total box office. In the end, Wang Yang chose Lionsgate, 5 million, plus 20% dividends at the box office, he chose for several reasons, first, he has a good relationship with Lionsgate, second, he is really worried that the artisan will default on dividends, third, when it comes to shooting the sequel to horror films, the future Lionsgate company has been doing very well, although the market needs time to digest "Ghost Record", but the second part will be released a year later, and the profit should be no problem, not how much is the 20% dividend, the important thing is to keep the signboard of "Ghost Record".

After spending such a large price, Lionsgate naturally attached great importance to "Smart - Ghost Record 2", so as soon as they bought the copyright, they hyped up this matter, and announced at the same time that "Ghost Record 2" will not be directed by Wang Yang. Lionsgate celebrity Jon Feltimel told the media: "We didn't invite Wang Yang to direct because we wanted to change the style of the film, and the story of the second part will be set in the office, which is obviously not a scene that 18-year-olds are good at." ”

In this regard, many fans have long expected it, except for a small number of people who say that "they will not watch "Ghost Shadow" directed by Wang Yang", most of them have a wait-and-see attitude. The Los Angeles Times said: "Although this lucky young man's worth has increased by another 5 million, he has just been ruthlessly abandoned, he has lost the director's microphone of "Ghost Record", and now it seems that no film company is willing to hand him a microphone." ”

The Chicago Sun-Times turned up a passage that Wang Yang had previously answered Oprah in "Oprah's Talk Show": "No, I don't think I will make horror movies again for the time being." The Chicago Sun's tone was rather unkind: "Did Jan already know that he wouldn't be invited to be the director of Haunted Shadows 2? A colleague of mine asked, why didn't he choose to invest in a sequel by himself, and do it again for 10,000 to 100 million? I think that's his shrewdness, just get 5 million, and then enjoy life, isn't it? Now the question is, if Young doesn't make a DV horror movie, what else can he make? Oh, will he have a second movie?"

After reading this report, Wang Yang joked with Rachel on the phone: "He is right, I don't have to do anything, I just need to sit at home and collect money, which is good." Rachel laughs, "yes, just in line with your retirement plan." Wang Yang laughed and smiled at her: "No, I don't want to retire again, I will have a second movie, I told you, song and dance films." Rachel asked, "Yang, have you really decided?" Wang Yang nodded and said seriously, "It's decided." ”

The hallroom of the apartment had been replaced, the couch with a few holes in it was gone, replaced by a rattan sofa, and the computer had been removed from the bedroom and placed on a new wooden desk with books, camera models, and a pot of daffodils.

Wang Yang sat in front of his desk, looking at the blank document on the computer screen, frowning and thinking, what is he going to make in his next movie?

After the song and dance film entered a period of contraction in the 70s, it came to the 90s, in fact, it was not without masterpieces, such as Disney's "Pocahonta" launched in 1995, which was popular and sold well, but it was an animated film;

Why is it that only "pseudo-song and dance films" like "Pocahonta" are selling well now?

A big reason is that song and dance films have developed to the present, and compared with the "golden age", there have been qualitative changes, and song and dance films have also begun to focus on the plot, rather than making a simple content, and then just sing and dance throughout the process. In the future, the revival of song and dance films will depend on the integration of the plot and song and dance, so that people can watch the song and dance at the same time as the story, so that the song and dance can serve the plot, rather than the two being separated stiffly.

In 2000, "Dancer in the Dark" amazed the film industry as a dark horse, then in 2001 Nicole Kidman was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a "Moulin Rouge", and in 2002, "Chicago" was a box office hit and won numerous awards, including Best Picture at the 75th Academy Awards (2002-2003). If you go a little further, there will be a "Black Swan" in the future.

In fact, these movies are not simple song and dance films, their most attractive thing lies in the plot, in the words expressed in the movie itself. Like "Chicago", "Black Swan", etc., they explore the ** of human nature, and singing and dancing are just in the service of this.

This kind of song and dance drama is very literary and artistic, and the production is also large, and the selection of actresses is even more crucial, and the performance level of non-actresses cannot be done. And with his current situation, even if he offers a salary of 20 million, there will be no actress to participate in his films, they are not short of money, they are not short of film contracts, and they will not act in a film that will win the "Rotten Tomatoes Best Film Award".

Therefore, this kind of movie is not his choice now, then it is the second category, youth and campus song and dance films. This kind of song and dance film has a long history, 1978's "Hot Prodigal Son" and 1983's "Lightning Dance" are classics, this kind of song and dance film has no heavy theme, mainly about the mentality of young people in that era, or the persistence of dreams, or the pursuit of love.

Once this kind of film is made, it will explode into an unparalleled craze, instantly sweeping the student class around the world.

And the next wave of craze was in 2006, which was fully detonated by a TV movie "Singing and Dancing Youth", and in the same year, "Dance Out of My Life" met unexpectedly, and then the youth and campus song and dance films were fully revived, and then flooded the entire market, famous "Rock Summer Camp", "Beautiful Girl Cheerleading" and so on, and there are countless films that are not famous.

"Singing and dancing youth?" Wang Yang muttered softly. This film is undoubtedly a good film, it finds the lifeblood of youth campus song and dance films, that is, there is a positive and inspirational theme, and there are music and songs and dances that are in line with the times, and it attracts handsome men and beautiful actresses to the student class. With all these things done well, it is not surprising that there has been a huge response from the student class.

Wang Yang seriously analyzed the difficulty of filming "Youth Musical", the shooting scenes are concentrated on the high school campus, which is a place he is familiar with, no problem; there are no complicated shots, no stunts, no special effects, no problems during the filming; in terms of actors, Jessica, Rachel, and Zachary are all very suitable candidates, and there is no shortage of young and handsome men and women with some acting skills in Hollywood.

The only problem he has with making song and dance films is choreography and arrangement, but these jobs can be done by hiring professional dance directors and arrangers, and in fact there is no problem.

However, it is now 1998, if "Youth Singing and Dancing" is launched, will the market accept it? Wang Yang held his chin and frowned at this question, trying to make himself rationally analyzed.

He's also a young man, and if there's a good, craze-generating school song and dance film right now, he'll go to the cinema and watch it. The reason is very simple, he likes to dance and sing, there are not a few people like him, look at the dance floor of the bar is always crowded with people, singing and dancing are never outdated, no matter what age of young people, they hope to sing and dance, to the fullest release of their enthusiasm!

But this reason alone is not enough, because he can go directly to the bar to dance instead of going to the cinema to watch a movie, so the movie should not only sing and dance, but also meet some needs of the audience.

Just like him, he misses high school life, he likes to be positive and dare to pursue the theme of his dreams, so he will go to watch "Youth Musical", which is the idea of a college student who has been expelled, and if he is a high school student, he will also watch it, because in real high school life, he will not have such a wonderful story, he longs for himself to be in the world of the movie, longs for himself to pursue and realize his dreams like the hero and heroine, and can have a beautiful love.

In addition, his classmates have all gone to see it, wouldn't he be outdated if he didn't go to see it?

This is why "Youth Musical" can be popular, why "Hot Prodigals" with a production fee of 6 million can collect nearly 400 million box office worldwide, they carry the expectations of young people for themselves, and the pursuit of beauty, they want to be like that.

Therefore, campus song and dance films are timely at all times, and the current market, the demand in this area is about to overflow, and their generation of young people also want to have their own "Hot Prodigal".

And 2006's "Youth Singing and Dancing Youth", regardless of the story content or shooting style, is also applicable in 1998.

But "Youth Musical" is a TV movie, it was only broadcast on Disney's TV channel at the beginning, and Disney just wanted to test the waters, and didn't even invest much in publicity. As a result, this film sparked a wave of "singing and dancing" craze on campuses across the United States, and then swept the world, attracting more than 170 million viewers, making young people around the world reacquaint themselves with song and dance films and making them crazy. Disney's popularity was unexpected, so they filmed "Youth Musical" 2, which continued to be broadcast on TV channels, and the popularity continued to be hot, and then "Youth Musical" was moved to the big screen, collecting 252 million box office worldwide.

So if "Youth Musical" is directly screened in the cinema, will this film still be successful? Wang Yang is not sure, but the probability of success is very high. Because the repercussions of "Youth Musical" 1 are actually the biggest in the trilogy; "Youth Musical" has made a new attempt, the story background has been moved to the resort, and the structure of the plot has become complicated, although it has broken the ratings record, fans have not bought it, and have expressed their disappointment; "Youth Musical" has returned to the campus background, and the story structure has been adjusted back to a concise style, but it is still denounced by some critics and fans as a money-making movie with no new ideas.

It can be said that the last two parts of the trilogy are largely supported by the popularity of "Youth Musical" 1, and they just eat the old book. This is one drum, then decline, and three exhaustion. And the audience will have a mentality that the first two films can be seen on TV, why did the third part ask me to go into the cinema? If it was aimed at the big screen from the beginning, the audience would not think that way. But "Youth Musical" still received 252 million box office.

In addition, the success of the "Youth Musical" series is not only to break the ratings, not only the 252 million box office, but also the big sales of the film's DVD, the movie soundtrack CD to become the annual sales champion, and the touring stage theater is full...... This is the huge influence of "Youth Musical" 1, so as long as it is properly promoted, "Youth Musical" will be directly put on the big screen, and it may not become the second "Hot Prodigal".

Of course, if you want to shoot, then you need to make a lot of changes. Because TV movies are considered based on the viewing feeling of the small screen, whether it is the way of performance or the form of expression, there are many differences from screen movies, which is not limited by the production cost, but TV movies are TV movies, and it has its own set. If "Youth Musical" is broadcast on the big screen, it needs to change and follow the set of big screen movies.

Wang Yang was so engrossed that he was thinking about how to change the rhythm of the movie, and suddenly his mobile phone rang. He shook his head, took the phone on the desk, and when he saw that it was Jessica's, he pressed it, and while looking at the pot of daffodils, he said, "Hey, Jessica, is there anything wrong with me?"

"Hi Jan. Jessica over there smiled sweetly, "It's nothing, I just want to talk to you." Oh!" she said embarrassedly, "Are you busy, I'm bothering you?"

"No, I'm just thinking about something. Wang Yang laughed indifferently, and he suddenly asked, "Jessica, can you dance?" He knew that Jessica would have filmed a youth inspirational song and dance film "Sweet Dance" in 2002, in that movie, her dancing posture was of course very charming, but it was guided by a dancer, but I don't know if she can dance now.

Jessica was stunned, "Hmm", she couldn't guess what Wang Yang meant by asking, did ......she want to invite her to dance? She shook her head and said, "No, I won't, I haven't learned to dance." Wang Yang said a little disappointed: "Oh, that's it!" Hearing his disappointed tone, Jessica couldn't help but raise her eyebrows and asked tentatively, "Yang, do you want to dance?"

"No, not now. Wang Yang smiled and told her his thoughts: "I want to make a campus song and dance film." ”

Jessica's heart tightened suddenly, and she couldn't help but be surprised, "Oh God, really, are you going to make a school song and dance movie?" and then she reacted, and Jan asked her if she could dance, didn't she mean to let her participate? Oh my God, look at what she said!

Wang Yang said "um", reached out and fiddled with the camera model on the table, and said with a smile: "You know, I like to make movies, and I happen to get a lot of money, why don't I make them? Campus song and dance films are my plan now, maybe it will cost millions, and I will pay for it myself." ”

Oh my God! School song and dance film, but she can't dance...... Jessica's face was full of confusion, and she frowned and asked, "Young, is there a role that suits me?"

"I haven't finalized the script yet, but in a campus film, there is always a role suitable for you to play. Wang Yang stood up, walked to the kitchen to pour water, and said with a smile: "But I need a ...... who can dance" Before he could finish, Jessica nervously interrupted his voice: "Yang, I can learn!"

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