Indeed, no one was willing to take over The Hero overseas!
If one were to simply watch the movie, the content itself would not be attractive enough for Westerners. The cast was also relatively unfamiliar. Except for a few who had a certain influence in Hollywood, the rest of the actors were basically strangers to Western audiences. They had no box office potential.
Although it had some popularity now, it was named by Li Mu as a participant in the killing of Li Mu's innovative product. Just this point alone meant that no one dared to take over the movie's copyright.
YY was already a world-class product with users all over the world. Under such circumstances, no one could ignore the influence of YY. Moreover, the Mu's Shadow ticketing system was so powerful that it shocked and drove everyone in the film industry crazy. Everyone hoped that one day, the Mu's Shadow ticketing system could enter the film market in their region. If anyone took over The Hero at this time, wouldn't that be asking for trouble?
Therefore, even if The Hero had a certain profit margin, there was absolutely no company in the industry that was willing to risk offending Makino Technology, Makino Image, and Li Mu to run this movie.
The cruel reality made the producers of The Hero fall into despair. The current situation was that their movie could not be sold overseas. Without the cooperation of overseas companies and cinemas, there was naturally no way for it to be shown overseas. Therefore, the overseas box office was basically wishful thinking. In addition, the overseas DVD sales were also like bubbles. Without the cooperation of a distribution company, it was impossible for the producers of The Hero to legally distribute and sell even one DVD in any country.
It was basically a done deal that they would lose everything!
During the team meeting, many people wept sadly. They had originally planned to use this movie to make a name for themselves, but in the end, it was a complete failure. There was no room for improvement at all. The movie met its Waterloo in every field and became the biggest loss in the history of Hua Xia's commercial movies …
It was as if the sky was falling down. For the entire production team of The Hero, it was like the end of the world. Everyone instantly became extremely depressed. The movie was screwed up, and their future would be much more difficult. From the director to the producer to the screenwriter to the actors to the producer, their reputation and reputation would be greatly affected.
Only then did Director Zhang realize that Li Mu had set up a Go game for "The Hero", trapping the entire "The Hero" in his game. No matter how hard "The Hero" tried, it couldn't break through this layer of shackles. It could only be trapped in his cage, with no chance of survival.
At this time, Li Mu did not know what would happen to The Hero and what kind of losses it would have to bear. He had always adhered to the principle of fair competition, not attacking and not slandering the other party. However, the team of The Hero had secretly caused him trouble, and did not even clean up their mess, allowing him to get a hold of it. They really could not blame him for not giving them a chance to live!
As The Hero fell into a state of limitless desolation, in stark contrast to it, Those Years continued to nourish the hearts of every audience, and the box office continued to create new records.
Since the day it was released, The Years' box office had been soaring. After breaking the 300 million mark, it continued to rush up, showing no signs of stopping. Now, it had almost reached 400 million, shocking the entire country.
Interestingly, many people who were unwilling to pay to go to the cinema were forced to go to the cinema. They had been waiting for the pirated version of The Years, but found that they could not buy it no matter how hard they tried.
It was not only this group of users. Most people could not buy the pirated version of The Years from the pirated disk market. Every day, many people went to various pirated video stores and stalls to inquire, hoping to buy the pirated version of The Years, even if it was a pirated version. However, most of the pirated sellers could only say to their customers, "Sorry, we don't have The Years."
Not long after The Years was released, the pirated sellers did make a small fortune. The original five yuan pirated disk, because of the movie's popularity, The Years was in short supply even when it was sold at ten yuan. There were even some shop owners who specialized in renting disks who bought ten to twenty disks in one go. They could rent out all of them in a day. Other movie disks cost one yuan a day, but only two a day, and they were all sold out in seconds.
However, such good days did not last long.
When The Years' box office exceeded 100 million, all the departments of industry and commerce received an order to crack down on pirated products related to The Years.
The relevant departments were aware of Li Mu's influence. If his first big movie was released, and they suffered heavy losses because of the pirated version, what if Li Mu made things difficult for the departments of industry and commerce in front of the media? Who was going to shoulder this burden? Instead of that, they might as well take the initiative to organize a special operation to crack down on all pirated products related to The Years. Naturally, there would be no risk left.
This made things difficult for the pirated sellers. Usually, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce did not care about it. Unexpectedly, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Urban Security were investigating together. If they saw any pirated copies of The Years, they would seize all of them. This caused the pirates to panic.
The most infuriating thing was that when the pirates started to deliberately avoid the Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Urban Security, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Urban Security started to enforce the law in plain clothes. Although it was called plain clothes enforcement, it was more like a fishing operation. Usually, they would send a few young ladies in plain clothes to the pirate sellers and ask innocently, "Boss, do you have the pirated copy of The Years?"
As long as the stall owner said yes and took out the disk, a large number of plain-clothed industrial and commercial officers and urban management officers would immediately rush out from all directions and confiscate all the disks. If the stall owner refused to cooperate, he would be directly sent to the police station for three days.
As a result, almost all the pirated peddlers had suffered losses from "Those Years", and some had even suffered losses more than once.
After a few times, the pirates in the country did not dare to sell The Years. Although the market demand was high, they still did not dare to stock up or sell it on the streets. This made it difficult for the pirates who produced the pirated discs. These people had been traveling around the country to produce pirated discs all year round. When they saw a popular movie or album, they would immediately go all out. They hated that they could not use 200% of the production capacity to make a killing. But this time, they had hit a wall.
A businessman who was producing pirated discs in a rural area of Guangdong Province was worrying about the 100,000 discs of The Years in his warehouse.
This batch of discs used the best pirated version on the market. It had high brightness, good colors, and the picture was stable. The most valuable thing was that the people in the theater were of high quality. There was no noise from the National People's Congress, and there were no children crying. So, this businessman spent 20,000 yuan to buy a copy. After he came back, he desperately produced the discs.
The 30,000 discs were all snatched up by his distributors. When he saw that the profits were too high, he did not hesitate to increase the production capacity and produced 200,000 discs in one go. But when he had sold half of the 200,000 discs, he was immediately returned by the distributors. This left him scratching his head in confusion.
This was the best selling disc in the market! Why did you all return it to me?
The distributors all expressed their opinions. "Big Brother, this disc is good, but it is easy to get into trouble! Many distributors even went to jail because they were selling pirated discs of this movie. We want to make money, but we don't want to go to jail. "
"F * * k, you guys were not so afraid when you were selling those Japanese movies in the past! Is there a ghost in 'Those Years'? "
Although the pirates did not understand, they could only grit their teeth and bear with the situation. At the same time, they accepted all the refunds. They had no choice. In the future, they still had to rely on these distributors to make money. If they angered them this time, they would have to sell the discs they produced in the future.
After this happened a few times, the entire pirated industry had a clear goal. Don't touch 'Those Years' if you've thought it through …
Not only was the pirated disc production and sales chain affected, but even the pirated disc rental business was heavily controlled by the Industrial and Commercial Bureau and the urban management. All the disc rental shops that sold 'Those Years' were confiscated the first time they sold the discs. The second time, they were closed down.
Unlike those street vendors who sold pirated copies, disc rentals had fixed storefronts, so they couldn't operate from one place to another. Therefore, when the Industrial and Commercial Bureau and City Security joined forces to beat them down, they immediately surrendered. No one dared to have any ideas about renting "Those Years".
It was precisely because of such a strong anti-piracy force that the box office growth of "Those Years" could reach a completely unstoppable effect.
A box office of nearly 400 million yuan was definitely a first for a commercial film of Hua Xia. Moreover, this number was too shocking to the industry. Before this, no one dared to imagine that the box office of a movie could exceed 200 million, 300 million, or even 400 million. They originally thought that Hua Xia users did not like to spend money to watch movies, but they did not expect that Li Mu had his own way to get these users to come to the cinema.
The media had been following up on the miracle of the box office of 'Those Years'. Film critics began to guess how high the final box office of this movie would reach. The industry insiders saw the tragic death of 'The Hero' and secretly swore that they would not go against Li Mu in the future. At the same time, they wondered why they didn't make more campus youth movies since there was such a market?
Therefore, in the second half of December 2002, many film companies began to set up projects, preparing to invest in a campus youth romance drama. Some of the faster ones had even started filming.
Just as the box office of 'Those Years' reached 390 million and was about to break the 400 million mark, Li Mu suddenly received news that the famous Harvey had come to Hua Xia and was waiting to meet Li Mu in Yanjing.
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