110 Bad Movies

After Zhang Bixuan returned to Hong Kong, Longteng Film Company issued a report. As the listed company with the highest market value in Zhang Bixuan, its operating profit in the first half of 1988 was only HK$130 million, which made many investors extremely disappointed with Longteng Film Company's performance.

Last year, because of "God of Gambling", Longteng Film achieved a total net profit of HK$1 billion in 1987. Longteng Film Company used most of the funds of more than HK$60 billion in the stock market to acquire theaters and buy new land to build studios. In addition, Zhang Bixuan also purchased many Hollywood film equipment in the United States and built a special effects studio. Originally, he wanted to directly acquire Industrial Light and Magic, the best special effects studio in the United States, but failed, and the other party negotiated continuously.

They all refused, so they had to dig out many employees of Industrial Light and Magic and set up a Longteng Film Special Effects Studio in Hong Kong. These assets have become fixed assets of Longteng Film Company. According to professional statistics, Longteng Company's net assets have reached 45 billion. A listed company with a market value of 60 billion has a net assets of 45 billion, which is "real". Unlike some companies with a net assets of 100 million, the market value has reached 1 billion, which has become a tool for major shareholders to make money.

Longteng Film Company's total share capital is 1 billion shares, of which 30% are outstanding shares. Since last year's shell listing, the stock price has been high, with a stock price of no less than HK$60 per share. When the first half of the year's performance statement was released in July, the stock price of Longteng Film Company's Longteng Film Company quickly fell below HK$50 per share, fluctuating in a large box of HK$40 to HK$50. Zhang Bixuan was a big crocodile in the Japanese stock market and swallowed up a listed company. Unexpectedly, when he returned to Hong Kong, his company's stock brought him nearly HK$10 billion in losses. Although Tang Xiaotian comforted himself that this was just a loss on the books, Zhang Bixuan still felt very disappointed.

Zhang Bixuan also knows that he is not an omnipotent God. He knows what kind of industry has a future and what kind of company has potential, but he cannot make money by making movies by directors who he has never heard of in his previous life. Among the more than 130 movies invested in and filmed by Longteng Film Company, the directors of more than 110 movies are inexperienced newcomers. They may have high enthusiasm, or they also have great potential to become big-name directors. However, among the 110 new directors' debuts, only one movie has achieved a box office of more than 5 million Hong Kong dollars. Most of the others have not even recovered the investment cost. Although these movies are very small investments, the total investment is not a small amount. 110 movies have brought Longteng Film Company a loss of 200 million Hong Kong dollars.

Because there are too many movies released, although each of the new director's debut works is only released in a few theaters, there is undoubtedly a shorter number of movies that are not popular in the market, which has been released for shorter time.

Many new directors suffered a low box office blow after filming their first film, and most of them gave up on becoming directors. However, more than 30 new directors realized that they should lack professional knowledge and experience, which led to the inability to fully capture the effect they wanted to shoot well. Therefore, these people took the initiative to propose to study professional knowledge from famous film academies around the world, and then went to the company to apply for director's second film.

Among the newcomers of Longteng Film Company, the only one that succeeded in the first filming was the movie called "Yuxinyuan". The screenwriter and director were the same person. It was a girl named Yan Xihan. Zhang Bixuan remembers that he saw Yan Xihan's photos in a large stack of directors' materials. He was a beautiful woman. At that time, Zhang Bixuan still felt heart-pounding. Zhang Bixuan turned over the script of "Yuxinyuan", and the plot was quite bloody. It basically tells the story of a girl named Yan Zhixi who died and was reborn in the body of a peerless beauty, and then fell in love with a handsome guy. However, at this time, this plot in the movie is relatively fresh. Although Yan Xihan's skills are extremely unfamiliar, it makes people feel refreshed because of this relatively fresh plot. This movie stands out among the bad movies made by many new directors, and many viewers and film critics gave very high praise.

Zhang Bixuan also guessed that it was probably the female director named Yan Xihan who processed his emotional story into a script and incorporated the director's personal emotions. The film naturally had a soul, and it was normal for it to infect the audience.

What satisfied Zhang Bixuan was that "Mr. Crazy Evil" directed by Wang Jing, Sammo Hung's "Seven Little Fortune", and Johnnie To's "Eight Stars News" used large productions to retain the funnyness while also having excellent quality, all achieved high box offices. These three movies brought Longteng Film Company a box office of HK$250 million.

However, in the first half of the year, among the movies released by Longteng Film Company, more than 20 other big-name directors barely recovered their costs, and there was no box office miracle like "God of Gambling". All the movies produced by Longteng Film Company, which made one profit and one loss, combined with a net profit of less than HK$50 million. Most of the profits of HK$130 million in the first half of the year were the share of the movies produced by other Hong Kong film companies.

Therefore, many film colleagues began to ridicule Longteng Film Company's so-called big productions.

What did Xiang Huaqiang say when facing the reporter's interview: "The movie is only the performance of directors and actors. It is not a miraculous box office to increase costs. Zhang Bixuan is obsessed with it! And investing money in people who have no experience in directing is the biggest failure!"

Yongsheng Film Company is not a listed company, but in order to highlight the authority of its words, Xiang Huaqiang specially announced the performance of Yongsheng Film Company in the first half of the year. Yongsheng released five movies with the theater resources of Longteng Film Company and achieved a box office of 100 million yuan, of which the profit belonging to Yongsheng Film Company reached HK$70 million, while Yongsheng Film Company's total investment in the five movies was less than 20 million yuan. Yongsheng invested 20 million yuan but obtained a net profit of 50 million yuan, while Longteng Film Company invested 1 billion Hong Kong dollars to achieve a net profit of 50 million yuan.

Mai Jia, Xinyi City Film Co., Ltd., also told reporters: "Most of the more than 20 major production movies of Longteng Film Company can barely recover the cost. The three movies that really make money are comedy movies. Haha, I have seen one of the movies called "Eight Stars Newspapers", which was made by Adu. I think this comedy movie with an investment of up to 30 million can actually achieve the same box office with an investment of HK$15 million!"

Even Shaoyifu said: "A few years ago, I thought it was becoming increasingly difficult to make money in Hong Kong movies, so I transferred my core assets to the TV industry. Zhang Sheng did all his business and could not put all his energy into the film industry. Longteng Movie invested in blind movies, but it was still Zhang Sheng's foresight to acquire 20,000 cinemas around the world without losing money. I think Longteng Movie may shift its focus to film distribution and theater operations in the future. After all, the box office of other companies filmed by popular movies may be safer."

Zhang Bixuan was a little helpless. After all, Hong Kong film companies have always invested in small investments and made big profits. Longteng Film Company invested no less than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars, but many movies have not achieved good results, which inevitably makes people doubt Zhang Bixuan's decision.
Chapter completed!