Chapter 218 Director Wu Who Is Crazy About Buying Copyrights for Film and Television Adaptations

The movie that Wu Yuan showed Li Yang was a classic youth romance film.

It can even be said that it was the appearance of this movie that led to the explosion of the Chinese youth film market and triggered the youth film craze that lasted for seven or eight years.

Yes, it was Jiu Ba Dao's "Those Years, We Chased the Girl Together".

There was no way. Wu Yuan thought about it and thought that among so many youth romance films that were relatively good, this movie was the most suitable for Liu Yifei to shoot.

Yes, Director Wu was going to promote his girlfriend again, and this time it was really completely out of selfishness.

After all, the girlfriend gave him her first time without reservation. If Wu Yuan was a man, he should be better to his girlfriend.

He thought about it and thought that the character of the heroine in "My Girlhood" was an ordinary girl, which obviously did not match Liu Yifei.

The early stage of "A Little Thing Called First Love" was not even ordinary. The heroine was completely an ugly duckling, and it was not until the middle stage that she became a white swan.

But Liu Yifei was really born with beauty. No matter how ugly she pretended to be, she could not be ugly.

Wu Yuan can say with a straight back that his girlfriend may have been rustic and vulgar, and her early clothing aesthetics may have some problems, but she has never been ugly, and she really can't play "A Little Thing Called First Love".

The remaining youth films such as "So Young", "Left Ear", "Whose Youth Is Not Confused", "My Deskmate", and the one she actually filmed, "You Are Still Here", are far from "Those Years".

After thinking about it, only Shen Jiayi, the object of secret love of many boys in the class and the one who amazed the boys throughout their youth, is the most suitable for Liu Yifei to play.

The original work of "Those Years" was released on the Internet by Jiubadao in 2005, and the physical book was published in Taiwan this year.

At the first time, Wu Yuan instructed Li Xiaoping to buy the film and television adaptation rights of this novel.

Not only "Those Years", Wu Yuan also asked Li Xiaoping to buy the film and television adaptation rights of Liu Cixin's novels and "Zhu Xian".

This is just the beginning.

The next two or three years will be the real peak period for copyright purchases.

Wu Yuan plans to try to get the copyrights of novels such as Ghost Blows Out the Light, Grave Robbers' Chronicles, Startling by Each Step, To Youth, The Voice of China, The Journey of Flower, The Legend of Zhen Huan, Nirvana in Fire, etc., which will be adapted into TV series in the next few years.

It's not that he wants to adapt all these novels into movies and TV series and shoot them himself.

The era of light and shadow has not taken such a big step yet.

Mainly as a person with memories of later generations, for Wu Yuan, the easiest thing to make money in the film and television industry is to buy the rights to adapt novels into movies and TV series.

Let's put it this way, this thing is so easy that it is similar to the behavior of those who registered Shunkou websites in the 1990s.

Nowadays, the rights to adapt various novels into movies and TV series are very cheap, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and you can buy the rights to adapt.

And you can buy the copyright for ten years.

This is cheaper than cabbage price, and if someone buys it, the author is basically willing to sell it, and there is no such thing as waiting for a price.

Wu Yuan doesn't even need to shoot it himself. He just needs to buy the film and television adaptation rights of these novels first. When a film and television company wants to shoot it, he can resell it at a higher price and make a fortune.

Although he may not make much, judging from the current market expansion rate, he can only make one or two million yuan by reselling an adaptation right.

But it is much more. Almost all TV dramas in later generations are adapted from novels, and original scripts only account for about two tenths of TV dramas broadcast each year.

Before Internet companies entered the market, Wu Yuan could at least buy the film and television adaptation rights of his thirty or fifty excellent online novels, and buy seven or eight every year.

Guangying Times only needs to pick out the essence of ten or so and shoot it by itself. The rest can be resold at a higher price. How easy is it to make money?

So since 2006, Wu Yuan has consciously paid attention to online literature platforms, mainly in the female frequency. Once he finds the original works of TV dramas that he remembers in later generations, he will immediately ask Li Xiaoping to buy the film and television adaptation rights.

Not just in China.

In Hollywood, the first part of Twilight was finally published, and it caused a sensation among North American teenage girls and became a popular reading material.

Its popularity was roughly equivalent to the popularity of Dragon Race among Chinese boys.

However, no one could have imagined that all five volumes of Twilight could actually sell 250 million copies worldwide.

This is a crazy achievement.

Taking advantage of the fact that the phenomenon of Twilight has just begun, Wu Yuan immediately asked John to talk to the original author of Twilight about the purchase of film and television adaptation rights.

Authors in North America attach more importance to film and television adaptation rights, after all, there are works such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.

However, although Twilight is popular, the six major Hollywood movies don't think much of it. They think it is just a youth idol novel, and the movie adapted into a youth idol movie is also a youth idol movie, which has no market in Hollywood.

This idea is quite normal. Before the movie "Tiny Times" appeared, no mainland production company had ever imagined that such a book for teenage fans could be adapted into a movie and sell for hundreds of millions.

Some things are just outrageous.

No company in Hollywood thinks that "Twilight" has the meaning and value of being adapted into a movie.

So Tiny Times is the only film and television company that approached Stephenie Meyer, the author of "Twilight".

When only one company was willing to bid, Stephenie Meyer and John sold the film and television adaptation rights of the first film for US$2 million after grinding for a period of time.

And the second part, which will be released soon this year, John also packaged and bought it.

However, Stephenie Meyer is still very shrewd. Although she agreed to sign the clause that Light Times would have priority to purchase the sequel film and television adaptation rights, she also proposed supplementary clauses.

If the adaptation of "Twilight" is successful and the movie box office exceeds $100 million, she will receive 8% of the global box office as royalties.

Maybe she has seen J.K. Rowling suffer.

Rowling's agent sold the movie rights to "Harry Potter 1" very early, for only US$1 million. As for the income from theme parks and peripherals, it was all owned by Warner. Rowling barely made much money from the movie. .

Stephenie Meyer is of course confident in her work, so she doesn’t want to repeat Rowling’s mistake of asking for a share of the global box office.

Of course, John couldn't agree easily. The two negotiated many times and argued for a long time. Finally, after consulting Wu Yuan, they reached an agreement of 5% of the box office split.

In John's opinion, Stephenie Meyer may not be able to get this money.

Anyway, as a professional Hollywood producer, he is also not optimistic about movies adapted from novels about youth idols.

However, Wu Yuan knew what he was doing and knew that he would definitely give the money.

But who said the "Twilight" series is really too profitable?

If you find a few young and beautiful idol actors and spend 30 to 40 million U.S. dollars to make a movie, you can win a global box office of 390 million U.S. dollars, and it doesn't matter if you give points to the original author.

In this regard, Wu Yuan is more generous than the capitalists in Hollywood. After all, he is a director first and then the boss of a film company.

After John won the copyright of "Twilight", Wu Yuan was not in a hurry to film it.

"Fake Marriage" has been released in North America, with a box office of 168 million US dollars. It is indeed much less than the "Hangover" series, but it is still a huge profit.

Wu Yuan is now known as the "Golden Touch" in the circle of Hollywood production companies.

Many gold medal producers are impressed by his investment vision. From its establishment to the present, Light Times has made three movies, all of which were box office dark horses with small costs in exchange for high box office. They made a lot of dollars with a small profit.

Wu Yuan also has to pay attention to his eating habits. He will finish the movie "Weakness" for the time being, and then think about "Twilight".

After all, The Chosen Actress Kristen Stewart is only 16 years old this year

Let’s get back to the point.

After getting the script of "Those Years", Li Yang read it on the spot.

Movie scripts still seem to be much faster than TV drama scripts, plus the director himself has the ability to read scripts quickly.

After a while, Li Yang roughly finished reading the script of "Those Years".

"Great script!" He said with excitement: "The script really shows the youth in high school, and the story is in line with the high school era that most people have experienced."

"The boys in the class all admire the school goddess. In order to pursue the goddess, they work hard, use their own unique tricks, thrilling talents, and make all kinds of ugly appearances."

"The lines are also well written."

"This sentence: The cruelest part of growing up is that girls are always more mature than boys of the same age. It's so right!"

"Director Wu, did you write this script?"

"Those Years" has not yet been published in the Mainland, so of course it has no reputation.

Wu Yuan shook his head and explained: "This script is adapted from a youth novel written by a novelist in Taiwan. Most of the lines are original sentences from the novel."

"Director Li, if this movie is handed over to you, are you confident that it will be a success?"

In Wu Yuan's view, Li Yang's "Prosperity" is still okay. This kind of youth romance film is about knowing everything. If he can make one, then it will not be difficult to make another one.

The prerequisite is that the parties involved must have confidence.

Now that the opportunity has been placed in front of him, it depends on whether he can be brave enough to seize it.

Li Yang tightened his grip on the script and took a deep breath.

"I can shoot!"

"Okay!" Wu Yuan smiled brightly and stuffed the script into his arms.

"The project can be started immediately, and we strive to start production around November and complete it before March."

"It may be difficult to shoot summer scenes in winter. You can go to the south and find a seaside city in Guangdong or Fujian Province for filming."

"I think Xiamen is good."

This kind of low-cost youth film really doesn't cost much. Judging from the current industry prices, this film can be made for less than 10 million. Any more would be money laundering.

In 2011, when Nine Knives took the photo, it only cost NT$50 million, which is equivalent to 12 million RMB.

"By the way, there is no need to choose the heroine of this movie."

Wu Yuan looked at Li Yang with a smile on his lips, and said in a calm but unquestionable tone: "I prefer Liu Yifei to play the role of Shen Jiayi."

"For other roles, you just have to decide on the actors."

As the producer + producer, Wu Yuan has the right to directly decide who will play the heroine, and Li Yang will not even think of refuting the rejection.

"Okay, Director Wu."

"I understand, Director Wu!"