Chapter 42 Overseas Distribution
When the Hong Kong film market was booming, the film copyright was sold before the film was even shot.

That year Wang Jing was on vacation, but the Xiang brothers called him and asked him to turn on the phone seven days later.

There was no script, just ten words: Stephen Chow, Andy Lau, Tricky Brains.

They said the copyright has been sold and it will be released during the Spring Festival in a month and a half.

Wang Jing racked his brains, and with the help of Stephen Chow and Andy Lau, the overall effect of the film is quite good.

Although Hollywood is not as rushed as Hong Kong, many films have already solved their distribution issues before filming begins.

This is not the case with Jiang Heng, because he is too young and is not a Hollywood director, so major global distributors do not have that much trust in him.

If we go straight to "The Matrix 2", with the support of the previous work, everyone will naturally rush to release it.

But if you want to follow the trend and make monster movies, you have to wait and see the quality of the film before making a decision.

Fortunately, the mainland market performed very well, attracting film producers from Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan to rush in, selling a total of 985 million US dollars in copyright fees. Converted into RMB, it is almost million, which completely covers the "book" cost of the film.

This result made all the leaders of the Beijing Film Studio, including Han Sanping, extremely happy.

Once the costs are recovered, the rest is pure profit.

The box office performance in mainland China is estimated to be 2 million, and the shareable income is about 7 million.

If the box office performance in North America and Europe was better, the film would have made double the money.

However, no one at the Beijing Film Studio had any idea how much these two properties could be sold for, and Jiang Heng was also a little nervous.

After all, it is not a classic script in film history, and it was criticized by many netizens on Mop. Although the special effects scenes were unanimously praised, only God knows whether it can win the favor of European and American audiences.

Unexpectedly, before he even set off, film producers from Britain, France and other countries came to him and offered to share the profits and distribute the film according to the same terms as "The Matrix 1".

These people obviously came after seeing the finished product and its market performance, which boosted Jiang Heng's confidence a lot.

After Christmas and before New Year's Day, the first Hollywood company finally arrived, and it was Universal Pictures.

The condition offered was to buy out the North American distribution rights of "100 Million Years BC" for US$8 million.

Jiang Heng was so angry that he laughed. Eight million dollars? It must be a joke!
Just based on the subject matter and the fact that it is a pure special effects blockbuster, it can easily earn thirty to fifty million dollars if it is released in North America.

"Mr. Frank, you don't want to buy my film, take it back and put it in the warehouse, and wait until your "Jurassic Park 3" is released before releasing it to the public!"

Larry Frank was stunned for a moment, then laughed and said, "How is that possible? If you wait two or three years before selling it, I'm afraid you won't even be able to get back the buyout fee!"

"The problem is that if it is released at that time, it will not affect the box office of Jurassic Park 3!"

Frank waved his hands quickly, "No, no, Mr. Jiang, you really think too much. Although too many dinosaur movies released in a period of time will make the audience aesthetically fatigued. But don't forget that North America is the world's number one box office market. Even if there are two or three dinosaur movies a year, there will be some profit!"

Jiang Heng sneered: "Really? Then why do you guys take several years to make a movie?"

Frank thought, don't you just not know how to shoot? If you use the same routine too many times, the audience will definitely get tired of it!
If it is innovative, I don’t know whether the audience will like it.

Speaking of innovation, Jiang Heng's new film "100 Million BC" is also a different approach compared to "Jurassic Park", but I don't know if the audience will buy it. Universal Pictures' idea is that they can't stop your film from being released in North America anyway.

It would be better to give it a try yourself. Eight million US dollars is a lot of money in the Chinese-language film market, but if it were in Hollywood, you couldn't even hire a top star.

Although the plot of "100 Million Years BC" is a bit poor, after all, it has Jiang Heng, Wu Qiuzu and Li Meiqi as publicity gimmicks, and the special effects are not bad. If it can sell for around 100 million at the box office, it will be a profit.

Unexpectedly, although Jiang Heng was young, he was not easy to fool. After talking for an entire afternoon, there was no result and he had to return home empty-handed.

Next came Columbia.

The two parties had a pleasant cooperation last year and had already signed a profit-sharing and distribution contract for "The Matrix" series of films. Vice President Pascal once even thought of signing Jiang Heng over.

As a result, the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

If we want to publish "10,000 BC", we have to renegotiate the cooperation.

The person who came this time was still the same person from last year, Douglas Wick.

"Director Jiang, you really gave me a difficult problem this time!"

"How to say?"

"The special effects in your film are really great, better than Jurassic Park. But the plot is a bit bad. I'm really worried that if it's released widely, the box office performance will be too poor!"

Jiang Heng smiled, "It's because of this expectation that we want to split the revenue for distribution! If we buy out the film and the box office eventually collapses, wouldn't that be a rip-off for you guys? I will never do anything to rip off my friends!"

"I understand. I believe in your character. But this movie is so troubling for us. If it was a sequel to The Matrix, I wouldn't have such a headache!"

Jiang Hengxin said, nonsense, the distribution contract for the sequel to "The Matrix" has been signed, why do you still have to worry about it?
The two men exchanged sharp words for a whole morning, neither giving in to the other, and finally signed the agency distribution contract based on the distribution conditions of "The Matrix".

The reason, of course, is that I am optimistic about the film's box office performance.

Douglas Wick returned to the United States with the signed contract and the English version of the film and met Amy Pascal, who had been promoted to president.

"Ms. President, Jiang Heng is really too difficult to deal with. No matter what I said, he refused to lower the terms and insisted on following the revenue-sharing ratio we had when we made The Matrix. He even more refused to agree to a buyout. Seeing that he was determined and that several other companies were involved, I signed a contract with him."

Pascal recalled the last conversation with Jiang Heng, still feeling a little resentful. "He is a stubborn and greedy man, and he will fall into trouble sooner or later. This time, let him get away with it!"

Pascal had just been promoted to president, and the pressure on performance soared.

Originally, she had thought about not distributing Jiang Heng's monster movie, but as the year was coming to an end, after much thought, she agreed. Without her instructions, Douglas Wick would never dare to sign such a profit-sharing contract.

"By the way, have you seen his new movie? How was it?"

Douglas Wick hesitated for a moment, "I can only say that the special effects are far better than Jurassic Park!"

"Movies are a holistic art form. You can't make a lot of money just by having outstanding special effects!"

Vic thought of the scenes he saw when he secretly visited some cinemas in Beijing: countless boys and girls, parents and children gathered in the cinemas!

He didn't know what these people really thought of the film after watching it, but it was true that the film was a huge box office hit!
(End of this chapter)