Chapter 657 Prospects for Cinema and Online Ticketing Business

After Li Mu promised to help Chen Kaige push movies at the dinner table, Li Mu gradually became the focus of the topic at the dinner table. Gong Li also took the opportunity of chatting to say to Li Mu, "Mr. Li, my new movie will be released next month. I wonder if I could ask you to help me promote my new movie too?"

Li Mu didn't know much about the movie market before 2005. Except for some famous big movies, he didn't know at what stage any movies would be released, so he asked her curiously: "What is the name of Sister Li's new play? name?"

"Zhou Yu's Train." Gong Li said, "This play will be released on the 1st of next month. It was played by me, Sun Honglei and Liang Jiahui."

Li Mu nodded. I saw this movie when I was young. I can't remember the specific plot. I just remember that Gong Li was quite charming in it. Sun Honglei was not very popular at this time. However, Li Mu still adopted the strategy just now, accepting it with an uncertain attitude, and said, "I'll go back and communicate with the company to see the latest content schedule. If I can find a needle, I'll definitely help."

Gong Li smiled heartily, nodded and thanked: "No matter what, I will thank President Li first."

Ge You laughed and joked at this time: "You all have new dramas this year, but I don't have it. It's hard to get to know a person with great ability like President Li, but I can't ask for help from others. I really feel this way. Not just an ordinary loss."

Gong Li smiled and said, "You are less poor. The box office results of your Lunar New Year films in recent years are obvious to all. Last year, the biggest names made more than 40 million. Except for Pearl Harbor, you are the highest. We don't know how much we envy you."

"Hey." Ge You said solemnly: "That's the past, okay? We're not talking about this year. You all have new dramas this year, but I don't have them. Am I right? You can all find Li I always help to push new dramas, and I want to speak, but there are no new dramas released this year, you say that I am in a panic because of this."

Gong Li quipped: "Don't you have two dramas coming next year? One of them is Director Feng's New Year's film. In my opinion, the box office will definitely exceed 50 million!"

Ge You laughed and said to Li Mu, "Mr. Li, if I ask you for help next year, you must remember me."

Li Mu nodded and said, "Don't worry, if you have a new show to play next year, you can tell me in advance." After a pause, Li Mu said, "I think there are actually many places where everyone can work together, and Muye Imaging is also doing it now. We want to participate in the production of more film and television dramas, and at the same time put it under the framework of Makino Technology. We also hope to be able to get involved in the cinema market. However, we have no foundation in the film and television industry, and we do not understand many things very well. In the future, we will also need you in this regard. Professional help."

Director Chen asked curiously, "Mr. Li, Muye Technology wants to get involved in the cinema?"

Li Mu nodded: "I've always been interested in theaters, but I haven't had the chance to get involved in this industry yet."

Director Chen said: "With the strength of Muye Technology, building a theater chain will definitely be very easy for you. Now is a good time for theater chain reform. Many new theater chains are also busy expanding their territory. In my opinion, the cinema market will become more and more popular in the future, and when Huaxia joined the WTO, it had promised to open up Hong Kong and foreign investment in cinemas to our mainland’s cinema renovation field, and the market will gradually heat up by then.”

Li Mu asked him, "Does Director Chen understand the current situation of Yanjing's theater chain?"

Director Chen nodded: "Yanjing currently has several established theater chains, among which Huaying and Xinying are relatively large, but they also have big problems at the moment. Right now, it costs at least 20 million to build a new multiplex, and at least 10 million to renovate one. It is very difficult for the theater chain. Now when I am looking for financing, I heard that the most profitable joint theater chain in the Shanghai stock market is. At the moment, they can't bear the cost of the renovation of the hospital line. Their annual revenue is only tens of millions. If the spring of the movie box office has not arrived, and there is no capital to participate in it,

They simply can't realize the transformation of the theater chain quickly. If Mr. Li is really interested in the theater chain, he can talk to them. Investing in an existing theater chain will come faster than building a theater chain yourself. "

Li Mu was surprised. Although Director Chen had repeatedly failed at the box office in the later films, he did not expect that he had a very deep understanding of the film market. What he said made Li Mu feel a little itchy. If we look at the situation in his previous life, now The movie box office has just begun to enter a stage of slowly rising, but this stage will suddenly drop to the freezing point when the movie arrives in the first half of next year. If you want to close the theater line, in fact, the movie period next year is the best. However, Li Mu didn't want to wait that long, and he didn't want to lose a reputation for making a fortune. If he could buy shares or even acquire a few theater chains now, it would be too timely.

The history of economic development in many countries shows an amazing similarity, that is: when a country's per capita gdp exceeds 6,000 US dollars, the country's cultural, sports and entertainment market will surely usher in a blowout development. This will be in the future. Huaxia will also be perfectly confirmed. Huaxia has gradually developed from a market with an annual total box office of less than one billion yuan to the largest market in the world. It took more than ten years in total to reach the era of movie box office blowout. The film industry occupies the greatest interest and the right to speak, is the theater.

Li Mu has long wanted to set up a theater chain in advance, on the one hand to develop his own theater chain, and on the other hand to develop his own online ticket business.

His vision is that if Makino Imaging can have a cinema chain controlled by himself within the next year at the latest, then he will let Fang Xudong take the lead to develop a cinema online seat selection and ticketing system, referred to as an online ticket system.

After the system is developed, it will be directly embedded in Taobao online, and it will be popularized to every theater in its own theater line offline. It will also need to find hardware companies to customize self-service ticket machines, and embed this system into enterprising. In the ticket machine, in a word, this system needs to connect the user's computer, the studio's computer and the ticket machine in complete real-time through the system itself and the Internet.

The sorting logic of this system is not difficult. First of all, the terminal of the theater line must have certain custom permissions. In this way, the theater line can check the information and seating map of each theater according to the actual situation of its own theater. Define, and then upload the theater information and screening arrangements to the server. At the same time, this system is combined with the theater line's own theater sales system to share the sales situation on both sides in real time. In this way, users can understand in real time through Taobao.com The sales of seats for each session of each cinema are also purchased according to their own needs.

Whenever a user locks a seat, the seat is reserved for the user for a certain period of time in the whole system, and the user can directly purchase it. If the user does not purchase within the specified time, the system will automatically release the reserved seat and provide it to the netizens of the whole network again. After making a choice, users who have successfully purchased tickets can arrive at the movie theater directly before the movie starts, easily pick up the tickets through the ticket machine, and then watch the movie directly, which not only saves the time of queuing to buy tickets, but also avoids arriving at the movie theater. Later, it was found that there was no risk of no screenings and no seats.

The software and hardware of the online ticketing system is not a big product, and there is no technical difficulty. It can be easily implemented at present, but the real online ticketing system was born at the end of 2005 and was first launched by the online ticketing network. The main reason is that Because the film market is still in the ice-breaking period, the enthusiasm in the market is not enough, and Internet people have not set their goals in this field.

If Li Mu were to build such a system now, there would not be any difficulties in the software, and it could be implemented in a month or two, and the hardware involved in this system is also very simple. The so-called ticket machine is actually a Networked computer, with a simple input keyboard and a thermal paper printer, the user enters his own ticket code on the machine when picking up the ticket, the system sends the ticket code to the server for verification, and automatically calls the corresponding user after the verification is completed. The number of screenings and seat information, and then use thermal paper to print the ticket on the spot, you can realize the ticket collection, and this machine basically does not need any maintenance, it is enough to fill the thermal printing paper regularly, and there is no technical content.

As long as there is a complete online seat selection and ticketing system, online seat selection and ticket purchase on the Internet will become a reality. Li Mu has a complete online payment ecosystem, and users can choose a movie theater and show on Taobao to purchase tickets. Tickets can be paid directly with Alipay, and then go to the offline cinema to use the ticket machine to pick up the ticket and watch the movie.

Compared with the traditional way of purchasing tickets, online seat selection will bring a qualitative leap to the user's experience of watching movies, which will have a great positive effect on the promotion of the box office, and its own YY ​​will have a strong traffic. If you want to push a movie, you can directly promote it through yy, so that users can go directly to Taobao to buy a ticket after they are interested in a movie, and then they can go to the cinema to watch it directly. Compared with the traditional publicity method, this method requires Much more effective.

Once this system is successful and the box office of the theaters using this system is effectively improved, then I can popularize this system to all the theaters in the country, and let Taobao become their ticketing channel. Once Taobao becomes a user to buy tickets The main channel of the company, while it helps the major theaters across the country to make money from ticket sales, the major theaters across the country are also helping it earn generous commissions, which should not be underestimated.

So, Li Mu said to Director Chen: "Director Chen, please help to contact several big theater chains in Yanjing and ask them if they are interested in capital cooperation with Muye Technology. If you are interested, you can make an appointment to meet. chat."

(To be continued.)