Chapter 506: "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2" and Company Transformation
Chapter 506: "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2" and Company Transformation
The left-handed "Beyond the Storm" helped Uncle Long successfully transform, which not only once again demonstrated the strong creative ability and mature film industrialization system of Galaxy Group, but also showed a more international film production idea to peers in the industry:
That is, a top international production team, a first-class genre story in an international cultural context, and the positive establishment of the Chinese screen image in the English market.
In this way, while ensuring the entertainment value of the film, it also outputs Chinese culture and self-confidence.
Banning plagiarists with the right hand not only maintains the industry's atmosphere and promotes the normal ecological development of the creative industry, but also demonstrates the Galaxy Group's strong strength and tough approach, deterring certain thieves with ulterior motives.
The Galaxy Group's operation of combining carrots and sticks really allows domestic audiences to eat both melons and vegetables, making the originally dull days much more interesting.
The movie "The Foreigner" has been making great strides in this environment, achieving box office results far exceeding the original version.
It grossed 1.4 million on the first day and 4.7 million in the first week. As for the final box office, it reached 16 billion in mainland China and more than 1 million US dollars overseas. It can be said to be Jackie Chan's best-performing movie in recent years.
In addition, as the release period of this movie is coming to an end, an interesting thing happened. That is the popular online drama "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2: The Cave of Dragon Ridge" on Star Video. The plot at the end of the drama just happens to correspond to the ending easter egg of "The Foreigner" currently in theaters.
In the only post-credits easter egg of "The Foreigner", Hu Bayi, who had completed his revenge and was about to return to the United States, fell asleep on the plane and ended up landing in China.
Then Shi Qiang from the special department appeared in front of Hu Bayi.
"Mr. Hu Bayi, welcome home!"
Shi Qiang showed great respect for Hu Bayi.
And when he invited the other party into the car and took him to a secret base, the reason why Shi Qiang behaved so strangely was revealed.
"Do you still remember this thing?"
"Of course there is nothing there. The Bronze Sacred Tree and the Dragon Ridge Cave. It seems like you have discovered something incredible from them."
Hu Bayi sighed, and the camera moved horizontally and upward along with his line of sight. In the open space not far away, the bronze sacred tree that had appeared in the post-credits easter egg of "Source Code" reappeared in front of many viewers.
And this scene corresponds exactly to the plot of "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2: The Cave of Dragon Ridge".
Galaxy Group's version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2: The Cave of Dragon Ridge" is still different from the original version because it needs to be integrated into the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe".
However, the story timeline is extended from "Ghost Blows Out the Light 1: The Ancient City of Jingjue". After returning from the mysterious Ancient City of Jingjue, Hu Bayi, Fatty Wang, Shirley Yang and others ended the transaction and went their separate ways.
Shirley Yang brought the mentally disturbed Professor Chen back to the United States, but accidentally discovered the cryptic tortoise shell left in her grandfather's secret room. Then, she followed the advice and returned to Beijing, preparing to seek help from Professor Sun Yaozu, Professor Chen's friend at the National Cultural Heritage Administration.
On the other side, Hu Bayi and Wang Pangzi continued to do business in the Beijing Antique Market, and at the same time they found strange red eye-shaped scars on their bodies.
However, the two of them didn't know what this thing represented. They just thought it was a special skin disease and didn't take it seriously.
While doing antique business, they also met Li Chunlai, a farmer from Shaanxi who was holding an embroidered shoe to sell.
Hu Bayi asked Da Jin Ya to appraise the treasures, and Li Chunlai took the opportunity to invite the three of them to return to Gulan County, Shaanxi to look for more treasures.
The three followed Li Chunlai to Shaanxi. Their car broke down on the way, so they took the water route. They listened to the boatman telling the story of the Iron-Headed Dragon King and the Fishbone Temple. Hu Bayi suspected that there were tomb robbers using the temple repair as a cover-up. They were then attacked by a giant monster fish in the river.
Fortunately, they escaped without any danger and finally arrived at Gulan County smoothly, where they met the senior in the martial arts world, Blind Chen.
Blind Chen kindly reminded them that there would be a disaster on this trip, which happened to help Hu Bayi and the other two avoid the trap set by Li Chunlai and his boss Ma Dabing.
After fighting with Ma Dabing and his men and escaping in a hurry, the three accidentally fell into a cave and mistakenly entered the Longling Labyrinth Cave.
Fortunately, there is always a way out. There is an ancient tomb of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the Longling Cave. The legendary Fishbone Temple was built by the previous tomb raider for this ancient tomb.
Hu Bayi and his two companions were considered to be extremely lucky. Not only did they find the tomb-robbing talisman and a dragon-shaped jade pendant from the Warring States Period in the cave, they also successfully escaped from the maze cave through a hole dug by the tomb-robbing captain.
Later, they happened to meet Professor Sun who came here to do archaeological excavations, and Shirley Yang who came here to find Professor Sun to decipher the ciphertext on the tortoise shell.
Fate brought them together again in this farmer's home in Shaanxi. Through Shirley Yang's introduction, Hu Bayi and others learned that the red spots on their backs were the sign that the Zagrama people were cursed by the "ghost cave".
It is precisely because they had been to the ancient city of Jingjue before and witnessed the "ghost cave" with their own eyes that Hu Bayi and Wang Fatty had this curse mark on their bodies.
Those who are cursed by this will eventually die from iron deficiency, as their blood gradually coagulates and turns yellow.
The descendants of the Zagrama tribe were tortured by this curse, but they happened to learn that the Zhuchen Pearl, which was the jade eyeball they had seen in the "Prophet" scroll in the ancient city of Jingjue, could dissolve the "Ghost Hole" curse on them.
However, this Zhuchen Pearl has long disappeared in the long river of history and its whereabouts are unknown.
There are rumors that it drifted to the land of China, so the descendants of the Zagrama tribe also left the "Ghost Cave" and went to China to inquire about the news about the Zhuchen Pearl, and transformed into the Moving Mountain Taoist lineage of the four legendary tomb-robbing sects.
Shirley Yang’s grandfather, Partridge Whistle, was exactly the last Taoist monk who moved mountains.
Through the notes shown by Shirley Yang, Hu Bayi and others also learned about the past of Partridge Whistle.
In order to learn the art of tomb raiding, he took Master Liaochen, the eldest disciple of Zhang Sanlianzi, as his master. The master and his disciple, together with the Russian Thomas, entered the Blackwater City of Western Xia and found a tortoise shell with secret codes in the main tomb chamber. However, they encountered a swarm of black shadow insects and suffered heavy losses. Partridge Whistle's arm was eaten and Master Liaochen died.
Afterwards, he became disheartened and moved to the United States with Thomas. However, the cryptic tortoise shell he found in the Black Water City of Western Xia turned out to be the legendary Dragon Bone Book.
This dragon bone book contains information about the Zhuochen Pearl, but Queqiao Shao only got half of it. As for the other half, it may be in Li Chunfeng's tomb.
As for the tomb of Li Chunfeng, it happened to be in Gulan County, Shaanxi. In order to break the curse, the three tomb raiders had to team up again and set out to explore the tomb of Li Chunfeng and find the remaining half of the dragon bone book.
Of course, in order to pass the review smoothly, the three tomb raiders here would definitely not actively carry out tomb robbing, even if they were trying to find the Zhuochen Pearl to save their lives.
So Ma Dabing and others who had had a conflict with Hu Bayi and his group before came online again. This group kidnapped Fatty Wang and Da Jin Ya, and forced Hu Bayi and his group to go down to the tomb to search for treasure with them.
They entered the Dragon Ridge Labyrinth through the tunnel in the Fishbone Temple and witnessed various strange traps and monsters such as spider chases, mercury coffins, and hanging soul ladders.
During this process, they naturally saw the bronze sacred tree that appeared in the easter eggs of "Source Code" and "Fighter".
However, Hu Bayi and others did not know the function of the Bronze Sacred Tree at that time. They simply thought that it could cause hallucinations and make people unconscious.
After experiencing battles with giant spiders, solving Go across time, and the Nine Palaces and Eight Gates Wall, a treasure box rose from the chessboard in front of Li Chunfeng's coffin, and inside it was the other half of the Dragon Bone Book.
Afterwards, everyone took the dragon bone book and finally escaped successfully from the attack of the giant spider underground. As soon as they got out of the cave, Ma Dabing and other criminal gangs were guarded outside the cave entrance. They were captured by the police who arrived after Chen Xiazi called the police.
Afterwards, everyone returned to their residence and showed the complete set of the Dragon Bone Book to Professor Sun. Professor Sun also deciphered the contents of the Dragon Bone Book. Combined with the human skin map that Blind Chen took out, they basically confirmed that the Zhuchen Pearl was in the tomb of King Xian in Zhalong Mountain in Yunnan.
However, before they could set out for the next adventure, due to the incident of the Longling Mystery Cave, China's official mysterious affairs investigation department contacted Hu Bayi and others, and invited three tomb-raiding lieutenants to join them as special talents.
Galaxy Group's "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2: The Lost Tomb" and "The Foreigner" have now completed the linkage and closed loop. After putting on makeup, the old Cheng Long and the middle-aged Pan Yueming do have some similarities.
In this way, the movie and the web drama promoted each other, and the trailer of "Ghost Blows Out the Light 3: Wrath of the West Hunan" released by Star Video made the popularity of this movie hyped up again, which naturally pushed the movie's box office performance, which had already been declining, to rise again.
There was even news circulating online that Galaxy Group had purchased the copyright to the movie "The Myth" and was preparing to remake it as an adventure story of Hu Bayi and integrate it into the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe."
It is not known whether this news is true or false. The Galaxy Group has neither acknowledged nor denied it.
Regardless of whether the news is accurate or not, it has once again made Jackie Chan's fans excited, and also contributed to the box office explosion.
This is the first time in the industry that a movie and a TV series are jointly screened and promoted. The popularity of "The Foreigner" and "Ghost Blows Out the Light 2" will undoubtedly help Galaxy Pictures' stock curve climb up again, just like previous works such as "Nezha: The Devil Child Comes into the World".
The industry, the capital market and the general public are naturally becoming more optimistic about the Galaxy Group, especially as the Galaxy Group's current creative capabilities are still on the rise and it is continuously producing excellent works.
And this is actually what Wang Hao really values.
As the scale of the group company continues to expand, it has become a top domestic giant enterprise spanning multiple fields such as film and television culture, Internet ticketing, toy peripherals, high-tech, cultural tourism and real estate. The current Galaxy Group is no longer like in the past, where Wang Hao’s ideas alone are enough to support it to continue to move forward smoothly.
It needs more talents to join in, and more creators to provide new inspiration and ideas to implement and execute.
This will be the strategic focus of Galaxy Group for a long time in the future. Developing works such as [Galaxy Cinematic Universe], [Shushan Cinematic Universe], and [Fengshen Animation Universe] are only tactical actions.
Build a new industry ecology and system, create a healthy, convenient, fair, orderly and vibrant environment, promote cultural innovation, cultural confidence, and cultural export, give newcomers more opportunities to try and explore more possibilities, and ultimately allow the circle to grow upward and outward spontaneously, forming a positive feedback.
This is what Galaxy Group will do at the strategic level.
To this end, after the New Year's Day holiday in 2015 and before the Spring Festival holiday, Wang Hao led the company's senior management team to sort out the major events, important matters, key issues and execution status at the strategic level throughout the group for a month.
The first is the group company’s film and television creation system, which has been the focus of Galaxy Group’s adjustments in the past year.
In the past, Galaxy Pictures only had one key project, the Galaxy Cinematic Universe, so it could control it in the form of a company.
However, with the gradual expansion of the company, the increase in creators, the emergence of new projects such as the Shushan Movie Universe and the Fengshen Animation Movie Universe, and more film and television projects in the foreseeable future, the management model of relying solely on Galaxy Pictures is undoubtedly a bit bloated.
then what should we do?
After a meeting and discussion with a group of senior leaders and creators of Galaxy Group, Wang Hao finally decided to make changes in the creative model and management.
To put it simply, it means transforming Galaxy Pictures from an original film and television company into a large-scale creative platform, dividing the various projects within the company into specialized project production teams or studios.
In this way, each project team is responsible for its own project and has a certain degree of independence. At the same time, they rely on the Galaxy Pictures platform to share resources.
Moreover, project teams are not completely independent companies or studios. Personnel can flow between them. If a project team is too large, it can be further divided and refined to form new small project teams.
It's like a thriving tree that grows branches, branches on branches, leaves grow, and eventually becomes lush and leafy.
To be honest, when it comes to adjusting the management structure of this cultural innovation system, Wang Hao and his colleagues have fully learned from the successful experiences of major Internet companies.
Tencent, in particular, has made strategic adjustments after the previous 3Q war, choosing an open platform to achieve industry win-win results. It no longer copies by taking advantage of its traffic as in the past, but instead increases investment in its business and actively builds an ecosystem with third-party partners.
They have opened up their platform resources and interfaces, allowing third-party developers to develop applications and services on their platforms, empowering partners through traffic and achieving collaborative development.
This has reversed Tencent's reputation in the industry and among the public.
Galaxy Group is certainly not as bad as Tencent, which is hated by everyone because of its monopoly on traffic, to the point where it becomes the first hurdle that investors ask entrepreneurs.
However, with its rapid expansion in the entertainment industry, it is likely to face the same situation that Tencent encountered in the past in the future.
Therefore, it is undoubtedly a better choice to prepare for the future and actively complete the transformation of Galaxy Pictures and make it a "platform".
(End of this chapter)