After returning to Xijing from the city, Li Mu once again devoted himself to the post-editing of the film.

He has the original movie of his previous life in his mind as a reference, plus whether it is himself or Liu Xiaowu, they are both old men who have been in the film industry for nearly 20 years, and their business level is absolutely solid, so the post-production work of "Hurricane Rescue" is progressing very smoothly as a whole.

At the end of February 2005, "Hurricane Rescue" completed all post-production and submitted for review, and at this time, "Myth", which was completed earlier, was still a considerable distance from completing post-production.

After the post-production of the film was completed, the investors, Xiying, Cheng Long, and Yinghuang, sat together to discuss the details of the release, and finally set the release time of the film in June.

Before the official release of the film, the large-scale campaign kicked off.

In May, Cheng Long went on an expedition to Cannes with two films, "Myth" and "Hurricane Rescue", and Western Film, Cheng Long, and Yinghuang each contributed 3 million yuan for publicity.

Of course, the purpose of this trip is not to win awards, the post-production of "Myth" has not yet been completed, and I am not even qualified to participate; Although "Hurricane Rescue" has completed the final stage, this type of film has never been the main force to win awards.

Cheng Long's purpose in Cannes is very clear: one is to build momentum for film promotion, and the other is to sell copyrights and negotiate cooperation.

The Cannes Film Festival is not only the red carpet and actresses, but also the world's largest film market.

Li Mu did not follow to Cannes to join in the fun, in the process of film production, Li Mu and Liu Xiaowu combined to have considerable influence, but in the promotion and sales stage of the film, Li Mu basically had no influence.

When will the movie be released, which foreign company will it cooperate with, whether to use a one-time buyout or a guaranteed share, Xiying and Cheng Longyinghuang have each invested nearly 30 million yuan, where is Li Mu, the screenwriter with an investment of 500,000 yuan, to speak?

Since his words are insignificant, he is too lazy to join in the fun.

The crew of "Hurricane Rescue" went to Cannes including Liu Yifei, Liu Xiaoli, Song Ji, Yan Yiyun, director of Western Film Studio and others.

On the crew of "Myth", Jin Xifan and Liang Jiahui departed from South Korea and Xiangjiang respectively, while Cheng Long himself flew to Cannes by private jet from other places.

After the meeting between the two crews, Cheng Long held a grand press conference on May 9 to meet with media from all over the world, and that night, Cheng Long held a beach party in Cannes to entertain filmmakers from all over the world, with a rent of more than one million Hong Kong dollars a night.

Because "Myth" had not completed post-production at this time, when meeting with the film company, the crew of "Mythology" played a 3-minute promotional video.

The film "Hurricane Rescue" was invited to participate in the non-competition section of the Cannes Film Festival.

On May 11, 2005, the 58th Cannes Film Festival officially opened, with 20 films from 13 countries competing for the awards.

Among them, there are two shortlisted Chinese-language films: one is "Qinghong" directed by Wang Xiaoshuai and starring Gao Yuanyuan, and the other is "The Best Time" by Hou Xiaoxian, director of Baodao.

In fact, Li Mu didn't pay much attention to the news of the Cannes Film Festival, instead of paying attention to these, it is better to pay attention to the sales of "The Hunger Games" in the United States, after all, every time this novel is sold in the United States, Li Mu has 1 to 2 US dollars in his account, which is a real income.

After selling 480,000 copies in the United States in December, sales of the English version of The Hunger Games continued to grow in January, reaching 570,000 copies, then 650,000 copies in February, 700,000 copies in March, and 800,000 copies in April.

The number of 800,000 copies sold per month alone is amazing enough, but what is even more frightening is that the current sales curve of the novel is still climbing rapidly, and no one can say whether it will wake up one day, and the monthly sales of "The Hunger Games" will suddenly exceed 1 million.

In 4 months, the total sales exceeded 3 million copies, and the total revenue exceeded 5 million US dollars, which is more than 40 million yuan at the US dollar exchange rate in 05.

Just when Li Mu was thinking about which movie to choose at home, as his first film completely dominated by himself, he unexpectedly received a call from Cheng Long's eldest brother in Cannes.

It turned out that after "Hurricane Rescue" was screened in Cannes, it received a strong response far beyond the imagination of the crew, and the world's major film companies waved a lot of money to pocket all the overseas rights of the film.

Among them, Columbia Pictures is the most generous.

Columbia Pictures intends to buy all the overseas rights of "Hurricane Rescue" in North America, Europe and other countries, including DVD and home video products, with a bid of $25 million!

The total production cost of the film is only more than 60 million yuan, and now that the film has not been released, 25 million US dollars have been recovered only by selling overseas copyrights, which is 200 million yuan when converted into RMB, such a huge success makes everyone involved in "Hurricane Rescue" excited.

In contrast, Cheng Longbao's market response to "Myth", which had higher expectations, was very mediocre, and the foreign bidders were not even half of "Hurricane Rescue".

However, on the whole, Cheng Long is still very excited, after all, "Hurricane Rescue" is also his movie.

And the reason why Cheng Long called Li Mu today was not only to inform him of the good news, but also to inform him of the good news.

This time, he does not want to follow the previous practice of selling overseas copyrights at one time, but wants to follow the current "revenue sharing" model of international cultural product distribution, that is, the producer and distributor will share and withdraw their respective revenues according to the proportion predetermined in advance and according to the actual box office revenue of the film.

But the problem is that this time the foreign businessmen gave so much that no one could easily refuse them.

The sharing model, of course, may have a high income, but at the same time, there is also a huge risk, and no one can say for sure how much box office the film can sell after its release.

If you choose the one-time sellout model, the $25 million will be directly in the pocket.

Rationally speaking, of course, 25 million US dollars should be chosen, but Cheng Long still wanted to hear Li Mu's opinion.

Li Mu thought for a while and said: "$25 million to buy all the copyrights in North America and some European countries is very suitable. The foreign company's bid this time was very generous, and with the same range of copyright rights, Zhang Yimou's popular "Hero" only sold for about 20 million US dollars, which I think is acceptable. ”

Li Mu is confident in the "Hurricane Rescue" movie, but he has no confidence in foreign companies.

In this world, if you sign a contract, people will definitely come according to the contract, Li Mu has every reason to believe that foreign companies can definitely do things that are a box office hit on the one hand, and on the other hand, you can't share the money.

So $25 million to sell the rights to North America and some of Europe is indeed a good option.

Cheng Long was a little disappointed after hearing this, but he also agreed with Li Mu's words. Rationally, 25 million should indeed be chosen, but ......

But in the end, Cheng Long couldn't help but ask another question.

"If Hurricane Rescue were your own movie, and you could call the shots alone, what would you choose?"

Li Mu thought for a while and said, "If this is my own movie, I think I will choose it." ”

After hearing this, Cheng Long said, "I know. ”