Chapter 226: Unbelievable Box Office

With the old sailing ship of the Tang family raising its sails high, Zhou Ming, Tang Ran and Tang Lin set sail together for San Francisco.

In the castle on Quan'an Island, several elders of the Tang family watched them leave. Tang Yu's father was also there. He watched the backs of Zhou Ming and the others as they left, the more he thought about the previous meeting, the more upset he became. So he turned to his brother and asked, 'Jingsheng, I think I need an explanation. Why did you speak up for that guy from an unknown background?'

In response to Tang Yufu's father's question, Tang Jingsheng sighed helplessly and said, 'An unknown guy? I really can't imagine how ignorant you are to ask such a question.'

Tang Jingsheng's words left everyone stunned. They were all very surprised and didn't understand what he meant.

At this point, Tang Huiyin told everyone, 'Cousin Jingsheng had previously looked into the background of that Zhou Ming, and even made a special phone call to Yanjing to inquire about Zhou Ming's situation.'

Tang Huiyin stopped there and didn't say any more, because no one here was a real idiot, and everyone knew exactly what was going on when Tang Jingsheng called back to Yanjing.

As Chinese people living abroad, no matter how rich they are, and whether they can integrate into Western circles or not, they can't change the fact that they have yellow skin. Therefore, they have always been very concerned about the situation in the country, from the Opium War in the beginning to the subsequent warlord chaos and the eight-year War of Resistance, and even the liberation of the country. They have always maintained contact with the leaders of that land. from the initial warlord chaos and the eight-year resistance war to the liberation of the country, they have always maintained contact with the leaders of that land.

Of course, due to some political reasons between the East and the West, they have fewer contacts with Red China now, and there is only one dedicated phone line that can be directly connected to the central government and the highest leader. Now, from Tang Huiyin's words, it is clear that Tang Jingsheng has already made this call, which is why he has such an attitude towards Zhou Ming and Tang Ran.

Although it is said that money can gradually infiltrate its way to power, a consortium is still too small in the face of a country. Therefore, they reported back and everyone was shocked.

Tang Yu's father asked blankly, 'Brother, are you saying that Zhou Ming is someone sent by the Yanjing faction? Or is he a descendant of one of the Red Clans?'

Tang Jingsheng heard the change in his address from Jingsheng Big Brother to Big Brother, but he didn't say much. He just shook his head helplessly and head: 'I can't really explain it, but you have to understand that it's best not to make things too difficult for Zhou Ming.'

Tang Yu's father nodded numbly and said, 'I understand. I'll go home and teach Tang Yu a lesson right away!'

At the same time meanwhile, on the departing sailboat, Tang Ran asked Zhou Ming, 'Brother Ming, do you really think Tang Yu will not interfere with our premiere today? I don't really trust those guys.'

Zhou Ming replied with a smile, 'I don't think they would dare to deceive us on this issue. We'll just have to wait and see how our box office does tomorrow.'

Time It was soon the next day. Zhou Ming, Tang Ran and Tang Lin sat together in the meeting room of Jieke Company early in the morning, waiting for a phone call from Disney. However, it was only at 11 am that the distribution manager of Disney, Eg, called them to tell them that the box office results for the previous day were 99,000 US dollars, and the average attendance rate had increased to 33%.

Hearing this answer, Tang Ran immediately cheered up and gave Zhou Ming a kiss on the cheek while hugging his neck; on the other side, Tang Lin also let out a sigh of relief.

After all the box office results were already very pleasing. Imagine that one day is equivalent to 100,000 US dollars, then if this can be maintained for the remaining six days of the week, then it will be 600,000 US dollars. If it is continuously screened for four weeks is 2.4 million US dollars. If the number of screenings and the scale are increased, I believe it is still possible to increase the box office to 5-6 million US dollars. Tang Lin believes that he will be able to recover his investment after all.

However, Zhou Ming said in the face of this box office: 'This is less than 100,000 only, and because of the influence of Tang Yu's interference at the entrances of various cinemas yesterday, which has not yet been eliminated, there are still many people who want to come and see it but cannot. I believe that if these people go into the cinema, the box office will stretch further upwards.'

When they heard Zhou Ming these words, both Tang Lin and Disney's distribution manager, Eg, were discounted. In particular, Eg even mocked Zhou Ming, saying, 'Mr. Zhou Ming, it is good that you have confidence in your own film, confidence in your film is a good thing, but blind confidence is not. I think that the current box office of nearly 100,000 US dollars is already unexpected. A 35% attendance rate is already very high, so you should stop dreaming of unrealistic fantasies.'

Just as Zhou Ming told Tang Lin, the supporting characters in this book are bound to get their faces slapped, and E.G. is naturally no exception.

On the third day of Toy Story's release, before E.G. even called, Zhou Ming and Tang Lin already got the result they wanted from the TV news.

It was the Los Hollywood channel, a channel dedicated to movies and movie-related information, was broadcasting the morning news early in the morning, reporting that the Toy Story box office had earned 170,000 US dollars. Perhaps there is nothing amazing about this box office alone, but the key is that it was shown in only 25 cinemas.

Because of this , Toy Story's average attendance rate of 61, and the miracle record of a 100% attendance rate for the 7 pm show.

Compared to Tang Ran and Tang Lin's dumbfounded expressions, Zhou Ming waved his fist in the air and shouted, 'This is the real box office appeal of Toy Story, the previous ones are nothing!'

Tang Ran broke his fingers, he estimated that the current box office could exceed 1 million by the end of the week. If the screening scale was increased, then the box office could easily exceed 10 million this month, which would be amazing!

As for Tang Lin followed Zhou Ming's instructions and called Eger to request an increase in the screening scale for the next month.

At first, Eger was reluctant to increase the screening scale, but thinking that Zhou Ming would pay more for the exclusive rights, and with the contract already in place, he finally agreed.

However, no one no one could have imagined that just as Zhou Ming and Tang Lin were in Los Angeles signing the contract with Egg, Toy Story reached new heights on the fourth day: a box office of 210,000 US dollars a day, with an average attendance rate of almost 100%.

With these figures , even a Hollywood stray dog can understand how popular this film is.

It is precisely because that he signed the contract, but then chased Zhou Ming all the way from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He asked Zhou Ming to meet him for dinner at the Sunflower Restaurant and said apologetically, 'Mr. Zhou Ming Sir, the situation is this: We at Disney have received requests for screenings from over 70 cities across North America. Therefore, based on the market potential of the Toy Story film, we are preparing to scale up the screenings to 1,000 cinemas next week.'

These words made Tang Ran let out a gasp. They only had a pitiful 25 cinemas showing the film, and it was already grossing $210,000 a day. If it was shown in 1,000 cinemas, that would be a 40-fold increase in the scale of the screening, and wouldn't that mean a daily box office of $8 million? Of course Tang Ran also understands that box office is not simply a matter of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, but it will definitely bring in more box office.

However, Zhou Ming was not impressed. He smiled and asked Eger, 'You have a mission, haven't you? If I'm not wrong, Disney will definitely punish you.'

Eger's face became embarrassed, because Zhou Ming's words hit the nail on the head.

In fact, after the current day's box office of 170,000 and an attendance rate of 61 came out, this animated film distributed by Disney has attracted the attention of all Disney executives. The reason is none other than that as filmmakers, they all knew exactly what the 61% attendance rate meant. But more importantly, none of the company's executives had any recollection of this film at all.

So Disney asked Eger, who confessed that he had signed a buyout contract for the film.

The Disney executives were furious and accused Eger of being a pig with no vision. They demanded that he find a way to negotiate a change of contract. And when the second day, with a box office of 210,000 US dollars and almost 100% attendance, the president of Disney gave Eger an ultimatum: bring back a new contract from San Francisco, or a letter of resignation from the company.

Eger had no choice had no choice but to come to San Francisco with a stiff upper lip. In fact, he first went to Jobs, after all, the copyright to the movie was still with Jobs, so he must have gone to Jobs first, but Jobs told him that he had to get the consent of Zhou Ming, so he had to come back to find Zhou Ming again.

Seeing the expression on Eger face, Zhou Ming knew he was right. He then said, 'I'm very happy that Disney can give me the scale of screenings in 1,000 cinemas, but I'm afraid this is not a free service, is it? Isn't Mr. Iger going to talk about it together?'

'Yes the company's idea is to re-sign a distribution contract with Zhou Ming, changing from a buyout distribution contract to a revenue-sharing distribution contract,' said Eger.

At this point, Tang Ran curiously asked, 'Manager Iger, didn't you say you wanted a buyout? You also said that was the only way to protect the interests of your company, Disney. Why are you now asking for a share of the box office?'

Iger felt very embarrassed. He wanted to smack himself a few times and cursed himself inwardly for what he had said.

However, he also understood that since this was the shit he had chosen, he would have to eat it through his tears. So he nodded and said, 'Yes, at the time I misjudged it and didn't realise that this film had such great market potential. After all, there was no publicity for it at the time.'

'It wasn't for lack of publicity . You Disney people just didn't want to promote it!' Zhou Ming reminded him.

Aigis immediately corrected himself, saying, 'Yes, it was all my stupidity. I didn't want to spend more money on promoting Toy Story.'

'I have to say, Manager Eger is indeed very stupid!' Zhou Ming said, 'I really want to ask you, if you were in my shoes, and you had a movie that you were convinced would conquer the market, but the distribution company forced you to lower the price, and you couldn't even buy out the distribution yourself. Later, when your film had proven its box office potential, the distribution company then came back and demanded to renegotiate the contract. Would you agree?'

Facing Zhou Ming's question, Eiger lowered his head because he already had an answer. If it were him, he would never agree to it anyway. Why should he give up his own interests?

But to his surprise, Zhou Ming then said with a slight smile, 'But I can agree, but in terms of the profit-sharing ratio, I need 65%.'

Eiger then hope again. He nodded eagerly and said, 'No problem, I'll communicate with the company right away!'

With that, Eiger took out his phone and excitedly dialed. At this time, Tang Ran curiously asked Zhou Ming, 'Why did you agree to this? They're obviously cheating.'

'Of course I know they are cheating, but it doesn't matter, or rather it doesn't conflict with our goal of maximising our interests.' Zhou Ming saw that Tang Ran still still didn't understand, so he continued, 'It's a simple truth: no one will do anything without a profit. If we really hold onto the current buyout contract, then Disney will probably give us trouble when it comes to increasing the scale of the screenings. I don't have time to play this game with them.'

'So Ming might as well agree to their terms and ask for a bigger cut.' Tang Ran picked up where Zhou Ming left off.

Zhou Ming fondly rubbed her little head and smiled, "Yes, that's it."