Chapter 1340 Technological Progress and Cost Compression

"Good Boys 2", which started filming in October last year, was released on time on the first day of the new year.

Like the first episode, it received a ton of positive reviews right out of the gate.

This kind of family movie is not only enjoyed by children, but parents also find it interesting.

In just 5 days, the box office across Asia reached HK$120 million, of which Baodao alone contributed 30 million!

Originally, "Good Boy" was a movie that became popular in Taiwan, and then became popular throughout Asia.

Now it has become Xiangjiang Production and sold to Baodao, and they also buy it.

It can also be seen from here that the people of Baodao are becoming more and more wealthy, and watching movies has become a very common entertainment.

The three little protagonists who play the three main roles, A Guo, A Hu and Xiao Pang, were also taken by Wang Jing. They started promoting the film on the first day of the new year and are expected to visit Baodao, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Five places in Thailand.

The first place they ran to was Treasure Island.

God knows what method Cai Songlin used to bring Zhao Wenzhuo from the mainland to the treasure island, and it was such an upright propaganda movie.

During the three days in Baodao, the good boys accepted a total of 5 advertisements, attended 8 events, and earned more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars.

Their own dividends can reach more than 3 million, which is simply scary.

The media in Baodao are also very powerful, and they quickly revealed the news.

As a result, the trio of good boys became the second most profitable group after Happy Girls, far better than the Star Know My Heart team from previous years.

I don’t know how many mothers are regretting it. I wish I had paid attention to it when Deputy General Manager Wen Jun of Qilin Film came to Baodao to select actors for "Good Boy". Then the one who can become famous and make a lot of money is my child. .

But in Hong Kong, according to the National New Year, the box office champion so far is not "Good Boys 2", but "The Best of Us 3".

New Art City now regards the "Best Partner" series as its trump card, and in fact it can indeed bear the title of trump card.

Especially this year, when Zhang Guorong and Mei Yanfang were invited to join "The Best Partner 3", until now it is released during the Spring Festival, the local box office in Hong Kong has reached 56 million!

It is worth mentioning that this year, movie ticket prices in Xiangjiang have once again increased by about 10%.

It is indeed commendable for the courage of Hong Kong filmmakers to be able to buck the trend of rising ticket prices despite the economic crisis.

However, the audience did not complain too much. Those who should watch the movie should still watch it. After all, in this era where people are a little confused and overwhelmed, watching a movie is also a kind of entertainment and escape for them. Realistic approach.

In addition to the movie's box office success, Kirin Group has another reason to be happy.

That is the copying technology of Kirin Copying Company. After such a long period of hard work, it has finally reached the same level as Japan and the United States.

This is the goal that was finally achieved after thousands of failures.

As a result, Qilin Copy Company was finally able to increase the price of copies to 5,000 yuan each.

Others think that Kirin Copy Company's copies can now earn 20% of the profit, which means the pre-tax gross profit is 1,000 yuan. However, as technology advances, Kirin Copy Company's various costs have also been reduced accordingly.

In the past, it took 4,000 yuan to almost break even, but now it has dropped sharply to 3,000 yuan.

So the pre-tax profit has reached 67%.

But even so, it is still about 40%-60% cheaper than copies from Japan and the United States.

Therefore, filmmakers in Xiangjiang also choose to use Qilin Printing Company's copies.

Although Cai Songlin was in Treasure Island, he secretly made movie copies at Qilin Co., Ltd., and then went around the Philippines before returning to Treasure Island.

In fact, the most profitable place for Kirin Copy Company is in the United States.

The total number of screens in the United States now exceeds 10,000.

The total number of movies produced and released by Disney and United Artists in a year exceeds 50. Even if we only calculate based on the average opening of 1,500 screens, we still need 75,000 copies. In the past, this was at least 700 million Hong Kong dollars.

Now it has become less than 400 million in one go. This cost alone has been reduced by 300 million or even 500 million, which is not a small sum.

If Kirin Copy Company can rely on its huge advantages of low price and high quality to develop business in other European and American film companies, it is not impossible to become a first-class giant in the future.

The key is not only price, but also technology. You must stay at the forefront of the industry at all times, so that others can safely let you make copies.

Kirin Copy Company is not complacent. Since last year, while improving ordinary copies, they have also begun to experiment with producing IMAX copies.

Compared with ordinary copies, IMAX copies are more expensive and technically more difficult to overcome.

For mature copy companies, they should abandon this technology that costs too much, wait until others develop it, and then purchase the technology patent themselves, thereby further reducing costs.

But in today's environment, IMAX's technology has just begun to be used in 100 cinemas of Kirin North America Cinemas.

A roll of IMAX film is 70mm wide and weighs 400 kilograms after 120 minutes of editing. The cost of each copy is US$60,000.

A copy costs 60,000 U.S. dollars. If 1,000 IMAX copies are released at the same time, the film cost alone will be 60 million U.S. dollars. What a terrifying cost is this?

Including filming, production, publicity and distribution costs, etc., it is 150 million US dollars less. Can it be successful?

As for the cost of 150 million U.S. dollars, it would take at least 400 million U.S. dollars to barely cover the cost.

In today's world, how many movies have a global box office of more than 400 million US dollars?

In one year, there are no more than 10 movies!

All right.

You said that the ticket price of IMAX is three to four times that of other ordinary 2D movies. According to the normal attendance rate, as long as the movie is good, making money will not be a problem.

But this is also the crux of the problem.

Who can guarantee that a movie will be good?

Who can guarantee that a good movie will have high attendance and attract audiences to watch it?

"Terminator 2" and "The Lion King", what kind of excellent creativity and filming must be done to create such a miracle?

How many other movies can do this?

If you don't have enough confidence and insist on watching the IMAX version, then the film company will not know how it died.

No mature film company decision-maker dares to take such a risk to make an IMAX movie, even if they want to keep pace with the times and make big money.

Therefore, at the beginning of such a severe market, if Yin Jun himself does not further develop new technologies and reduce the cost of IMAX film, then IMAX technology will definitely not be used on a large scale.

If IMAX technology cannot be used, it means that Yin Jun's subsequent series of IMAX developments cannot be realized quickly. At least they cannot rely on movies to support them. They can only rely on the continuous blood transfusion of other industries to ensure the development of IMAX technology.

There is no doubt that this is very unhealthy and unsustainable.

If IMAX technology wants to continue to develop strongly, they must be able to pioneer and innovate, and lower the price, so as to promote it and dilute the cost.

In order to achieve this, technical staff from the Canadian IMAX headquarters have been coming to Xiangjiang since last year to live, sleep and conduct research and development together with technical staff from Kirin Copy Company. Everyone worked together and tried their best to reduce the cost while ensuring the viewing quality. Various costs.

By the time of the New Year and Spring Festival, they had already reduced the price of a normal 120-minute IMAX movie copy to around US$40,000 based on the existing price.

This is already a remarkable achievement.

1,000 cinemas is a reduction of US$20 million, which can be said to be a huge cost reduction.

Moreover, Kirin Copying Company said that if the number of IMAX theaters can be increased to 2,000, the cost of IMAX copying is likely to drop to US$30,000 per copy.

But even Yin Jun knew that this was impossible.

At least within ten years, if special effects technology does not advance by leaps and bounds, it is impossible for any movie to reach 2,000 openings.

Even the "Terminator 2" prepared by Yin Jun, or the more fascinating "Jurassic Park", is impossible.

Because theater chains open IMAX theaters to make money, not to be used as decorations.

If there are not 10 to 20 IMAX movies produced in a year, they will definitely not be willing to specially renovate an IMAX hall, and they will have to buy expensive IMAX projection equipment.

This will only result in a year in which you simply cannot make ends meet and lose a lot of money.

Other film companies must be jealous of the success of "Terminator" and "The Lion King", but their difficulty is that they do not have the appropriate special effects technology to allow them to produce IMAX movies.

Special effects orders from Industrial Light & Magic and digital fields have already been booked for three years. If new special effects orders are added, it will be at least five years.

no way.

They are the only ones in Hollywood. If you want to make good special effects movies, you must go to them.

With such supply exceeding demand, even if they wanted to make an IMAX movie, it would be impossible.

Unless special effects technology develops rapidly, many special effects companies have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, so that everyone can make IMAX movies properly.

The rapid development of special effects technology is indispensable for the rapid development of computer performance and software.

This makes Yin Jun more and more eager to hope that the WINDOWS system can be released as soon as possible, which will trigger the entry of software companies to develop various special effects software.

Fortunately, during the Chinese New Year, Bill Gates had already called Yin Jun.

Their WIN2.0 version has already made a revolutionary breakthrough, and it can be released only after the system procedures and tests have been perfected.

It will be around March!

Therefore, Yin Jun is extremely looking forward to this trip to the United States and the arrival of March!