Currently, there were only two types of people among the countless film companies in Hong Kong.
The first type were people who didn't have the rights to zombie films themselves, but realized that zombie films could have a second spring, so they were looking for the rights to zombie films everywhere.
The other type were people who originally had the rights to zombie films, but were bought out by Makino Image some time ago.
They were currently frustrated. It turned out that Makino Image was already prepared for this. They probably knew that Hua Xia's zombie films would be popular when they were developing the new version of Plants vs Zombies Online, so they bought out all the rights to zombie films they had.
What depressed them the most was that the prices offered by Muye Yinxiang were nothing more than cabbages. It wasn't that Muye Yinxiang was deliberately trying to scam them, but the prices offered by the film companies themselves …
From their point of view, these zombie films were already worthless trash. As long as someone was willing to buy them, they would be profiting no matter how much they paid, so the prices they offered weren't too high.
Moreover, the worst part was that they had purposely sold them as a package.
Makino Image originally didn't want those shoddy, crappy movies. Zombie films were so popular that there were indeed too many crappy movies. Even Lin Zhengying herself had taken on quite a few of these crappy movies. However, it wasn't easy for these film companies to find a buyer, so they made demands that they thought were too harsh.
For example, Huan Ya. Makino Image wanted to buy the rights to their Mr. Zombie series, and besides Hong Kong, they wanted the rights to broadcast it in cinemas, television, and audio and video products in all countries and regions. At first, Huan Ya wanted to ask for a "high price" of five hundred thousand. After all, the movie was almost twenty years old, and in the last ten years, it didn't even earn fifty thousand, so five hundred thousand was indeed a high price. However, because they had too many worthless zombie films, Huan Ya decided to sell the rights to over thirty zombie films to Makino Image at a package price of eight hundred thousand, and Makino Image bought them all.
Looking at it now, this price was really a huge loss, a huge loss!
Those who wanted to buy the rights to zombie films had been ringing their phones, but they still couldn't find a single zombie film that hadn't been sold yet. The answer they got made them vomit blood. Without exception, all of these zombie films had been bought by Makino Image, and the price was so low that it made one's hair stand on end!
In the 80s and 90s, Hong Kong movies were still very influential in Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea. At that time, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea distributors would often buy Hong Kong movie rights, and even try to buy Hong Kong movie rights. However, in recent years, Hong Kong movies had declined too much, so these distributors rarely set their sights on Hong Kong. However, with the new version of Plants vs Zombies Online causing a stir, these people also smelled a business opportunity, and started looking for Hong Kong movie companies to buy the movie rights. In the end, they discovered that the Hong Kong movie companies that had the zombie movie rights only kept the Hong Kong movie rights. Aside from Hong Kong, all the other movie rights were in the hands of Makino Image …
It wasn't just the movie rights, Makino Image had also plundered the rights to a zombie TV series like the Zombie Taoist …
"This is too ruthless! This is really too ruthless! " Countless bosses of Hong Kong movie companies were cursing at Makino Image's malicious behavior. In their eyes, what Makino Image was doing was like knowing in advance that a plague was going to spread, so they bought all the medicine. It was as despicable as that.
However, in Li Mu's eyes, this was what a businessman should do. Once you found a business opportunity, you had to seize it. If you knew in advance that a stock would definitely rise, without any risks or accidents, then the best thing you could do was invest all the money you could raise and borrow into the stock. Either you spent every penny, or you bought all the stocks. That was the best way to go. Moreover, he wasn't really trying to make a profit by hyping up the copyrights. What he wanted was to have all the copyrights in his hands, and then he would license and export them to the outside world.
If countless guerrillas fought on their own, it was very likely that they wouldn't be able to work together. In fact, they might even cause internal strife and disturb each other. It was better to simply gather all the armed forces together, form an army, and then aim in one direction and strike!
Based on this idea, and also based on the curiosity and concern of overseas people towards Hua Xia's zombie culture, which was a local culture of Hua Xia, Li Mu got Makino Image to make a big announcement in the global film and television industry. Currently, the copyrights of all Hong Kong zombie movies "in countries and regions outside of Hong Kong" were in the hands of Makino Image. Moreover, there were more than ten blockbuster movies that had done very well at the box office and received good reviews from the audience. These blockbuster movies were available for copyright cooperation.
At the same time, Makino Image also announced that apart from Hong Kong, all countries and regions outside of Hong Kong were not allowed to use these movies for commercial purposes. Otherwise, Makino Image would defend their rights to the end.
As soon as this news was announced, Makino Image suddenly received cooperation intentions from distributors all over the world. What was more interesting was that the crazed behavior of mainland TV stations broadcasting zombie movies only lasted for less than 48 hours before completely disappearing. After Makino Image made the announcement, no TV station dared to broadcast these zombie movies again.
Those TV stations that had just started to broadcast zombie TV series could only immediately stop broadcasting them and replace them with other TV series.
In this era, it was difficult for satellite TV stations to achieve absolute respect for copyright when broadcasting movies. Most of the movies broadcasted on TV did not have the copyright of the broadcasters, that is, the TV stations. But because of the imperfect laws and the chaos of the market, whether it was the Hong Kong film industry or Hollywood, they could not do anything to the mainland TV stations.
However, these TV stations dared to ignore the copyright issues of the Hong Kong film industry and Hollywood, but they absolutely did not dare to ignore Makino Technology.
Everyone knows what kind of person Li Mu is. His influence around the world is so great that it makes the media doubt their lives. If the copyright of these movies and TV series is in the hands of his company, no TV station would dare to offend him. Therefore, everyone has a very tacit understanding to stop the infringement, and then began to look for Makino Image to buy the screening rights.
Just from the quotations of the major TV stations, it can be seen how cost-effective this deal is.
Xiangnan Satellite TV wants the broadcasting rights of "Mr. Zombie" series, "Happy Ghost" series, as well as "One Eyebrow Taoist", "Ghost vs. Ghost", and "People Scare People", and the price offered is 500,000 yuan for three broadcasts. If it can be an exclusive broadcast, the price can be five times higher.
Because of Li Mu's influence, zombie films are now the only field in China that strictly follows the copyright regulations. Usually, the exclusive broadcast is likely to be infringed by other TV stations, but this time, it is impossible. Whoever Makino Image authorizes, can broadcast it exclusively.
The person in charge of Makino Image originally hoped to take this opportunity to negotiate the price and strive to earn tens of millions or more from these TV stations all over the country in one go, but Li Mu's phone call set a big tone for this batch of copyrights.
Li Mu's requirements: the core purpose of licensing this batch of copyrights should not be to make money, but to spread and influence the most important purpose. Therefore, to the mainland, Taiwan, and Macau TV stations, they must not do exclusive licensing for the sake of making money, but must do non-exclusive licensing, and reduce the copyright price. The price set by Li Mu is 50,000 yuan for the first broadcast of a first-tier work, 30,000 yuan for a second-tier work, 10,000 yuan for a third-tier work, and 50% of the price for the second broadcast and above.
In other words, if any TV station, whether it is a satellite TV station, or a local city or county TV station, if they want to broadcast "Mr. Zombie", then as long as they pay 50,000 yuan for the copyright, they can broadcast it on their TV station once, and if they want to broadcast it a second time, they need to pay an additional 25,000 yuan.
For the TV stations, this price was indeed so low that it made one's hair stand on end. The low threshold also indicated that more TV stations could broadcast zombie-themed movies more often. This had a very good effect on strengthening this special wave of popularity.
As for the TV series, it only costs 200,000 yuan, which is so low that the TV stations can't even imagine it.
Compared to the domestic market, Li Mu is paying more attention to the international market.
This in itself is a cultural export, and it requires distributors all over the world to be responsible for the specific landing. Therefore, Li Mu's requirement is that he can't release all of his works at once, as that would not only distract the audience, but it might also cause an extreme reaction. Now that he has the copyright of all the zombie movies, he can go the premium route, and first release the best "Mr. Zombie" to test the waters. If this one gets a good response, then he will release the second one.
It doesn't sound very likely for an eighteen year old movie to make a big profit in the overseas box office, but considering the current situation, there is still a lot of room for maneuver.
First of all, for the western film industry, it's not the summer break, nor is it the Christmas break, so the box office is relatively quiet, and the cinema resources aren't that popular, but they are relatively abundant.
Secondly, the new version of "Plants vs Zombies Online" has brought Hua Xia's zombies to popularity, and most overseas players are very fond of this new element.
Thirdly, Li Mu ordered people to use the zombie movie's source material to popularize the Hua Xia zombie culture to other netizens, and also use the Internet Water Army to probe and guide the netizens' interest. He found that many netizens are quite interested in the Hua Xia zombie element, and many left comments in the comments, saying that they hope to watch this movie one day.
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