Chapter 547 The Release of Cold War 2

Chapter 547 The Release of Cold War 2

Chapter 547 The Release of Cold War 2
The crew of "The Three-Body Problem 1" is bustling with people every day, and you can see a lot of celebrities as long as you stand at the door of the studio.

Wu Jing, Wang Jingchun, Shu Chang, Wang Zhi, Bai Jingting, Wang Baoqiang, Wu Mengda, Shen Teng, Ning Li...

Of course, there is also the villain of this movie, Christian Bale. For a while, the entire [Eastern Galaxy Movie City] was more lively than many film festivals.

On the Internet, some crew members or publicity teams would occasionally share on-set photos of these stars to warm up for "The Three-Body Problem 1" which will be released next summer.

However, although the filming schedule of "The Three-Body Problem 1" was very tight, Wang Hao was not always on the crew.

After all, his wife is still pregnant, and her due date is during the filming of this movie.

So Wang Hao took a few days off in the middle of the filming, handed over the filming task to several executive producers and assistant directors of the crew, and accompanied his wife through this most important moment in her life.

Jing Tian certainly suffered a lot in this process, but when she saw her son, she couldn't help but smile with joy on her tired face.

Of course Wang Hao is extremely happy about the fact that he has a son and is always immersed in the joy of being a father.

It’s a pity that there were so many things to do in the crew that Wang Hao only stayed with Jing Tian in the hospital for a few days, and then he had to run between the crew and the hospital.

Just as the filming of "The Three-Body Problem 1" was in full swing, the summer box office battle was also coming to an end.

"Rampage" directly surpassed "The Brink" and "Line Walker" and earned 11 billion yuan at the box office in mainland China.

This result can only be considered average in today's Chinese film market. However, as a co-production, "Rampage" is not only a box office hit in mainland China, it is also released simultaneously around the world.

The box office of "Rampage" in the United States was 1.3 million US dollars, and including the box office in other places, the global box office of the film was 5.7 million.

Although this number is only average among Hollywood special effects blockbusters, its cost is much lower than that of Hollywood.

You should know that those realistic special effects in "Rampage" were all produced by a group of young people born in the 85s and 90s in the Starlight Fantasy Company.

Because of this, CCTV's news channel specially interviewed and reported on them, praising these young new generation forces in the Chinese entertainment industry.

Also, because of them, the cost of special effects production within Galaxy Group is only one-fifth of that in Hollywood under the same quality conditions.

Coupled with the low labor costs at [Eastern Galaxy Cinema Metropolis] and the tax exemption measures of the Chinese government, it is impossible for "Rampage" to produce a movie comparable to a $300 million blockbuster with a cost of less than $100 million.

With the cost reduced, Rampage will naturally make a profit.

Originally, because of the events in South Korea not long ago, Hollywood was still a little hesitant about cooperating with Galaxy Group. However, the profitability of Rampage made a number of Hollywood companies including Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Fox Films, and Universal Pictures suppress their bad thoughts.

Businessmen have no borders, and the same goes for Hollywood. They may discriminate against Asian directors and actors and ignore Chinese film and television companies, but they will never ignore the US dollar or go against money.

Galaxy Group can provide lower production costs and China can provide a larger film market, so they cannot help but pay attention to it.

Especially if you don't pay attention to it, but other Hollywood film companies do, then your market share may become lower, and your stock price and market value will fluctuate, which means investors will lose money.

Therefore, even though Galaxy Group made some efforts in the Desa incident and cracked down on some Korean artists, celebrities and film and television companies that jumped out, Hollywood just turned a blind eye and even provided some cooperation.

Of course, although Hollywood companies are looking forward, they won’t cooperate with everything.

After Galaxy Group's TikTok achieved certain success in China, it began planning for an overseas launch in July and also tried to get Sony and Universal to invest in it, but was rejected by them. The reason, of course, was that they had no interest in Internet business.

The people below had reported this to Wang Hao specifically, and he knew that this was an excuse made by the two families.

It’s not that we are not interested in the Internet business, but that we are not interested in the North American Internet business of a Chinese company.

After all, this is different from a film project. Film projects are phased and seem to be risky, but in fact the operating risks in the United States are low, and you can give up or change strategies at any time when you encounter problems.

But Internet business is different. It needs to be rooted in the United States and operate for a long time.

These Hollywood executives are well aware of the obstacles and difficulties a Chinese Internet company will encounter if it wants to operate in the United States. There are problems such as competition from peers, the coveting of local governments, and restrictions from top leaders of the country. There are too many problems to deal with at every step.

But they don't want to get involved in this mess, and Douyin still has to continue expanding its business overseas.

Anyway, TikTok is just a small player in the United States now. We can wait until it grows to a certain size and then we can talk about it.

Moreover, not all overseas markets are difficult to enter. At least Douyin’s development in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other regions is quite smooth.

In addition to Douyin, Galaxy Group's other businesses have also developed very smoothly.

Needless to say, websites such as Star Video and StarReader Chinese Network, which rely on cultural content, have already begun to charge towards the leading position in the industry.

Taopiao.com is now the leading website with the highest market share among domestic ticketing websites, and its business is also expanding into offline life and group buying areas, competing privately with platforms such as Meituan.

As for other peripheral sales, such as books, toys, clothing, etc., backed by the big IP of "Galaxy Cinematic Universe", and the prices are much more affordable than many overseas film and television peripherals, sales are always good.

In addition, even Pinduoduo, an Internet shopping platform invested by Galaxy Group not long ago, now has more than 1 million users and has begun preparing for its Series B financing.

This time, the amount of financing has reached 1.1 million US dollars. A number of domestic Internet capitals and venture capitals are also very optimistic about it, which has greatly increased the value of the investment made by Galaxy Group not long ago.

Of course, Galaxy Group will still invest in Pinduoduo's Series B financing. After all, Wang Hao knows the future potential of this platform.

Naturally, peers in the industry are extremely jealous of the Galaxy Group's all-round, multi-field and smooth development.

However, in today's Chinese entertainment industry, many film and television companies have begun to be unable to take care of themselves and have started a wave of renewal and replacement.

It seems that many of the old film and television companies in the past have begun to decline, the most obvious of which is Huayi and LeTV.

Although LeEco has not collapsed in 2016, that is only for the majority of netizens and the public who are not well-informed. In fact, in Wang Hao's circle, the problems of LeEco Group have already begun to emerge and are becoming known to more and more people.

After all, last year LeTV's boss Jia had already been gradually cashing out his shares.

Of course, when Boss Jia cashed out, in order not to cause panic, he deceived investors by saying that the cashed-out money would be loaned to the listed company for five years without interest.

But this was just talk. In fact, he did not lend all the money to the listed company, and the part of the money he borrowed was quickly returned.

Therefore, many celebrities in the circle who had invested money in LeTV panicked and wanted to get their money back privately. However, the money had already entered other people's pockets and it was not so easy to get it back.

The Galaxy Group is also watching this from the sidelines, as it is none of their business anyway.

The Galaxy Group is currently thriving, and they are too busy to handle their own business alone.

When September came, Galaxy Group's new film "Cold War 2" also began to release a number of trailers on major platforms.

From the trailer, we can see that as the sequel to the movie "Cold War", "Cold War 2" will still be starred by the original cast, which makes many viewers look forward to it.

At the same time, Zhuang Wenqiang and others also began to participate in variety shows on major TV stations to warm up for the movie.

During this process, naturally some people asked about the plot of "Cold War 2", and Zhuang Wenqiang's answer was quite meaningful. He said that the political scale of "Cold War 2" will be larger than that of "Cold War 1".

As for whether what he said was true, when the time came to October 10st, everyone saw this movie in the cinema, which was said to be extremely explicit and gave a lot of Hong Kong filmmakers very complicated feelings.

How complicated is it? When the film was released in Hong Kong, apart from the Hong Kong actors in the film, only a few Hong Kong actors were present at the scene, and only a few local news media came.

And why do they behave like this? It's just because the story of "Cold War 2" hurts some people.

At the beginning of this movie, Liu Jiehui (played by Jacky Cheung) has been promoted to Commissioner of the Hong Kong Police Force.

However, before he could enjoy this glory, he encountered the biggest crisis in his life.

Liu Jiehui's wife and daughter were kidnapped by terrorists, and the kidnappers asked the police to exchange his wife and daughter with Li Jiajun (played by Eddie Peng).

Faced with such a threat, Liu Jiehui was caught in a dilemma.

If he agreed to the kidnappers' demands for the sake of his family's safety, it would be tantamount to representing the Hong Kong police force in surrendering to the kidnappers, trampling on the spirit of the rule of law in Hong Kong, and giving way to his own personal feelings.

But if Liu Jiehui disregarded the safety of his family and severely cracked down on the kidnappers, resulting in the death of his wife and daughter, then public opinion would still attack him, emphasizing that Liu Jiehui ignored family affection for the sake of power and was inhumane.

After some struggle and hesitation, Liu Jiehui finally decided to take the risk alone for the sake of his family. He took Li Jiajun to the appointment and make a deal with the kidnappers.

Then comes the police-robbery confrontation scene that is typical of Hong Kong, which is tense and exciting.

During this confrontation, the kidnappers used a bomb to create chaos in the subway and successfully covered Li Jiajun's escape.

Because of his unauthorized actions in violation of regulations, Liu Jiehui was questioned by the Hong Kong judicial authorities, and his career and personal reputation were seriously threatened.

At the same time, Li Wenbin (played by Tony Leung), the former Deputy Commissioner of Operations of the Police Force who had already resigned, met his son and the supporter behind his son, namely the retired former Commissioner of Police of the Hong Kong Police Force, Cai Yuanqi (played by Cheung Kwok-chu).

Through their conversations, part of the conspiracy behind this was revealed.

It turns out that Cai Yuanqi actually attempted to support the Secretary for Justice, Lai Wing-lam (played by Li Zixiong), to run for the Chief Executive in order to realize his ambition to control the entire political arena with his group.

In order to achieve this goal, the first thing they had to fight for was the police force. However, because Li Wenbin himself was relatively upright and did not want to get involved in political struggles, Cai Yuanqi took a fancy to Li Wenbin's son Li Jiajun, intending to influence his father through him.

Faced with the solicitation of the person behind the scenes and watching his son getting deeper and deeper into trouble, Li Wenbin was caught in a dilemma.

So during the judicial inquiry, Li Wenbin suddenly changed sides and accused Liu Jiehui of having a secret deal with Li Jiajun, which put Liu Jiehui into an even more passive situation.

However, Li Wenbin's unusual behavior also aroused the suspicion of Legislative Council member and barrister Kan Oswald (played by Sammo Hung).

Jian Aowei felt that there must be another hidden story behind this matter, but before he could delve deeper into it, his junior brother Li Yonglian's visit disrupted his thoughts.

Because through the conversation, Li Yonglian had already hinted to him that this action against Liu Jiehui was very complicated.

And they don't need Jane Aowei to be biased, they just need to delay the established procedures for a little longer.

This is a very simple thing, but Jane Aowei refused.

Cai Yuanqi and others were extremely dissatisfied with Jian Aowei's non-cooperation. They believed that he was also a major hidden danger, and arranged people to create trouble for Jian Aowei in a physical sense in order to delay time.

However, during the operation, Jian Aowei's beloved disciple Ou Yongen (played by Janice Man) helped her teacher escape, but she herself was lying in the ICU. This made Jian Aowei extremely angry, and he found Liu Jiehui, ready to join forces with him.

Liu Jiehui just smiled and introduced him to another person, namely Lu Minghua, the boss of the Security Bureau who supported Liu Jiehui behind the scenes.

According to Lu Minghua, the Chinese side had already obtained some information about the actions and plans of Cai Yuanqi and others, and knew that these people actually had someone behind the scenes to disrupt the current environment and facilitate the power struggle.

Of course, the Chinese side would not allow this, and the reason why they have not taken any action is just to lure out the snakes from their holes so that some guys will jump out on their own initiative and then catch them all in one fell swoop.

With Lu Minghua's appearance, Jian Aowei felt relieved and knew that this kind of thing was not something he could get involved in, so he cooperated according to Liu Jiehui's instructions, making Cai Yuanqi and others think that Jian Aowei had surrendered. At the same time, Liu Jiehui also fell into a disadvantage at the questioning meeting.

At this time, Lu Minghua stepped in to take sides and expressed his intention to revise the laws and regulations specifically for this matter. This naturally gave Cai Yuanqi and others an excuse, and a bigger storm was brewing and could happen at any time.

(End of this chapter)