Chapter 954： DVD player

Head to head Hollywood 954 Author Qian Duxue Full text 4590 words

Head-to-head Hollywood Volume Chapter 954 DVD Player Tang En doesn't know much about Chen Chong, only that she was a famous actress in the mainland back then, and later starred in "The Last Emperor Begins in Hollywood." I really don't know what movies she directed. Fortunately, Katherine Kennedy sent detailed information. Tang En read it, this female director Chen, in 1997, made a Chinese film "Tian Yu has a good reputation and won a lot of awards. Later, he made a romantic film "Autumn in New York" starring Winona Ryder and Richard Gere for MGM, which also achieved a lot of success. Released in 2000, the film cost $45 million and grossed $90 million at the box office. Because MGM has been incorporated into the new Universal, so Dunn can see more detailed data. The film grossed $32 million at the box office, $700,000 from pay-on-demand, $3 million from pay-TV, $5.4 million from free-to-air TV, $6.2 million from overseas TV rights, and $21 million from DVD/video sales and rentals. Excluding the production cost of 45 million US dollars, the announcement and distribution investment of 5 million US dollars, the dividends of shareholders and actors of 1.1 million US dollars, the loan interest of 2.1 million US dollars, and the taxes and fees of 7.65 million US dollars... As of yesterday, the total income of "Fall in New York" was 68.3 million US dollars, Total expenditure of $60.85 million has generated a substantial profit of $7.45 million. It's not easy. Especially for MGM, which had so many bad movies and lost one, it was not easy to be able to make such a profitable movie. Looking at the details, it's even more surprising. A quarter of the crew of "Autumn in New York" are filmmakers from China! Among them, the cinematographer of the film was Gu Changwei, the imperial photographer of Laomouzi who had been drinking with Tang En at a wine table. This is so important. Although "Autumn in New York" is a film fully funded by the United States, part of the production team is from China, which can be regarded as a Sino-US co-production. Chinese and American filmmakers work together in a crew, and they have long had experience. Although "Autumn in New York" is only a medium-cost romantic drama, it can't be compared with Hollywood commercial productions, but existence is better than nothing. Chen Chong has lived in the United States for so many years, and has had so many work experiences, so he has a sufficient understanding of Chinese and American films. From this perspective, she is much more suitable than those first-class directors in mainland China. "Mulan is a Disney cartoon, we can't change it according to the traditional Chinese story, we have to change it according to the plot background of this cartoon. Even, many plots, shots, and composition designs must be copied from the original cartoon. , in order to achieve the emotional effect of killing fans' memories." Katherine Kennedy said. In the cartoon of "Mulan", there are fantasy elements and the appearance of "dragon", which is completely catering to the Western imagination of Chinese culture and breaking the traditional story of "Mulan". Precisely, because of the successful blueprint of the cartoon "Mulan", the plot of the live-action movie can be planned. Coupled with the appearance of some big stars of Chinese movies, the popularity of "Mulan" in the mainland market will not be too bad. There will be no ending like "The Great Wall", which neither successfully pleases the West nor meets the tastes of mainland fans. Tang En didn't think too much, and said decisively: "Okay! Let's do this! Catherine, "Mulan" is handed over to you! We want to create the first film in history with a female producer, female director, and female She starred in a major Hollywood commercial production! Rose Pictures is a feminist pioneer in the film industry!" If it is co-produced with Disney, according to the schedule, "Mulan" needs to be released in February 2006. This is in late October 2004, so it will be rushed. Now, Disney has withdrawn from "Mulan", and the schedule arrangement only depends on the will of New Universal, which is much easier to handle. Don't worry too much, just fix the project and let them do it slowly. After basically confirming Chen Chong as a female director, Tang En can let go of the "Mulan" project and have the energy to focus on more company business, as well as the "Avengers" that is being produced. The Departed, which opened for five weeks, broke all of Martin Scorsese's past box office records, grossing $210 million in North America, $190 million overseas, and $400 million worldwide. New Universal is still showing the invincible attitude of the king in the film market. In contrast, among the giants in Hollywood, the worst... may not be Paramount, but Sony Pictures. With the release of the third quarter earnings report, Sony is really miserable. Once the world's largest electronics giant, at the end of the twilight, it is about to move towards bankruptcy. Sony's CEO Nobuyuki Idei's resignation seems to be a certainty. The candidate to replace him, unsurprisingly, will be Sony's president, Ando Kuniwei. As for Howard Stringer, vice chairman of Sony and head of Sony America, because of Sony Entertainment's poor performance, the possibility of promotion has been completely cut off. On this day, a few Japanese came to Dunn's office, and the leader of the team was Sony's President Ando Guowei! Obviously, Ando Guowei saw the current situation of Sony, and planned to work harder to create some achievements and pave the way for his smooth ascending. He will negotiate with New Universal, not the entertainment business, but the electronics business! It's HD Blu-ray Disc! The current DVD market is divided into two parts, one is the normal version and the other is the high-definition version. Among them, the high-definition version of the market is completely occupied by Toshiba's hd-dvd. Since the launch of hd-dvd last year, it has been favored by the market. Because the resolution of TVs is getting higher and higher, 1k is the popular standard, and 2k has appeared one after another. The resolution of ordinary dvd is between 0.3k-0.8k, which can no longer satisfy the moviegoers' appetite for watching movies. The future of DVD market, must be the world of high-definition. Toshiba took a step ahead and launched HD-DVD, and signed cooperation agreements with major Hollywood manufacturers. All movies in the copyright library, including New Universal, have produced HD-DVD versions. Such a market environment makes Sony very worried! Blu-ray disc, because the technology is newer and more advanced, the research and development time will be longer, and it will appear two years later. If there is no better preparation in advance, then even if Sony successfully launches Blu-ray HD, I am afraid it will be difficult to beat hd-dvd. In this situation, Ando Guowei stepped forward. He wants to convince Dunn! Pull New Universal into the Blu-ray camp! New Universal acquired MGM, coupled with Netflix's crazy acquisition of movie copyrights around the world, New Universal's inventory exceeds 6,300, which is the largest movie copyright library in the world! After getting the new Universal, Blu-ray has great hope. "Mr. Ando, ​​I have long admired the name!" Tang En warmly invited the Japanese delegation into the parlour. The layout of the entire living room is very advanced. There are assistants Tosca Musk, secretary Ella Fisher, Frank Derry, vice president of the interactive entertainment department, and Dolby little CEO of Dolby Laboratories. people to accompany. The scene is grand. It's like talking to the leaders of the two countries. Ando Guowei said with emotion: "Mr. Walker, I have also heard about Netflix Japan. It's amazing. It's a great initiative to rent DVDs on the Internet!" Tang En was a little funny, "It's all the efforts of all the gentlemen." Ando Guowei said solemnly: "I know that Zhou Fang Yuxiong has a set of skills in drilling camps, doing business... Haha. If it wasn't for your help, he would not have found such a good way." Tang En was noncommittal. After a simple courtesy, Ando Guowei said: "Mr. Walker, our sincerity is very great, and we sincerely hope to cooperate with a powerful company like New Universal," Tang En said with a smile: "We signed a three-year contract with Toshiba, It will not expire until 2006." Ando Guowei quickly said: "I know, it doesn't matter! To be honest, Blu-ray disc is still in the testing stage, and there are still several technical problems that have not been solved. According to the normal research and development cycle, it will be launched next year. The official version. To be mass-produced to the world, d-dvd is upgraded and refitted from DVD, and even the production line does not need to be changed. From a technical point of view, it is relatively simple, so the research and development is faster and the test is simpler and shorter. But Blu-ray is different. This is a completely different disc form from DVD. It is a video disc standard re-developed by Sony. The research and development cycle... will naturally be longer." Tang En nodded and said with a smile: "So, Blu-ray. The research and development cost of discs is much higher than that of hd-dvd." "Yes." "Is there any advantage? Higher resolution?" Ando Kuniwei said honestly: "In terms of visual effects, Blu-ray and hd-dvd DVD, there will not be much difference. For users, there is no difference in appearance and weight between the two discs. But it is different for manufacturers. The single-chip cost of Blu-ray discs will be lower than that of hd-dvd! For new For a big company like Universal, which has a huge film library and a strong DVD sales force, choosing Blu-ray means lower production costs." Dunn smiled slightly. In fact, he knew what the other party said. He has foresight, and he knows that the future world belongs to Blu-ray! Although hd-dvd is jointly developed by Toshiba and Microsoft, the cost is indeed too high. Hollywood is the world's largest output base for high-definition video discs, and even a price difference of 10 cents can reach a scale of $1 billion. In this respect, Sony's strategy is successful. The development of Blu-ray requires a stronger and more R&D team, as well as a brand-new DVD production line. The initial investment is very large, and it is not dominant. However, as long as it is successfully introduced to the market, it can take advantage of the lower cost advantage to defeat the once-monopolized hd-dvd. Investing in the Blu-ray camp is an inevitable choice for New Universal in the future. Dunn will put on such a big stance, negotiating with these Japanese, mainly for another business - DVD player. This is a huge market worth over $20 billion a year! In the past, DVD players could not play hd-dvd. Movie fans want to watch hd-dvd, they must buy a new DVD player. In the same way, fans who want to watch Blu-ray HD must also buy a DVD player that can play Blu-ray discs. The development of Blu-ray discs is difficult, and the development of Blu-ray disc players is naturally more difficult than HD-DVD players in terms of technology. Last year, as soon as hd-dvd was introduced to the market, companies such as Philips, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, and Siemens immediately launched hd-dvd video disc players. It can be seen that there are no technical barriers. However, Blu-ray is different! The official version of the Blu-ray disc was launched in 2005, and it was not until half a year later that giant electronics companies such as Philips, Siemens and Samsung successfully launched the Blu-ray disc player. It took Sony a whole year to develop its own Blu-ray player. More importantly, HD-DVD players are not compatible with Blu-ray players! The hd-dvd player can only play DVD and hd-dvd format, and the blu-ray player can only play dvd and blu-ray player. It was not until half a year later that a DVD player capable of playing both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats was finally launched. At that time, it was already 2007. The replacement of this kind of DVD player is very unfair to the fans and users. You know, within a few years, the DVD player will be completely eliminated and enter the era of network streaming media. Tang En wants to enter this market on the one hand, for the sake of movie fans and users, on the other hand... also want to make a quick buck! "Mr. Ando, ​​in my opinion, Sony's current predicament is only temporary, and Toshiba is not a rival at all. If the cost of Blu-ray discs can be lower, it is possible for New Universal to cooperate with Sony." Dunn's words, let Ando Guowei was very excited. Dunn continued: "After three years, New Universal can sign an exclusive distribution agreement with Sony!" Ando Guowei was even happier. If the cooperation between Sony and New Universal can be facilitated, it will be of great significance to his promotion. "However, I also have a little request here." Tang En changed his words. Ando Guowei hurriedly said: "Just say it!" Tang En said, "I need the research and development materials for Blu-ray discs." "Ah?" Ando Guowei was stunned for a moment. Tang En said bluntly: "Mr. Ando, ​​New Universal has Dolby Laboratories, as well as hardware R&D and production capabilities. Of course, we are not interested in producing high-definition discs. What I value is the DVD player market." Ando Guowei said relieved. With New Universal's strength and influence in Hollywood, if it really enters the high-definition video disc market, Sony and Toshiba together will not be rivals. It's good now, Dunn is focusing on the DVD player market. Ando Guowei also understood what Dunn meant. If he could grasp the information of the Blu-ray disc in advance, he could let Dolby Laboratories start the development of the DVD player in advance. Blu-ray was officially launched in 2005, before other companies followed suit. If Dolby Laboratories can collect enough materials now, it can enter the research and development stage 10 months earlier than Siemens, Philips, and Samsung! Dolby Laboratories will be the first company in the world to sell Blu-ray Discs. "If that's the case, it's not a bad idea!" Ando Guowei gave Tang En a deep look, "As long as New Universal and Sony can become partners!" One-on-one Hollywood