Zhou Buqi has long been interested in the copyrights of these six Star Wars movies. He sent someone to contact 20th Century Fox, but they ignored him at all.

Hollywood film companies are all controlled by filmmakers. In addition to making money, these people all have more or less movie passions, so they will not sell the copyrights in a daze.

In the past few years, there have been many Hollywood giants who have made profits by selling copyrights. However, those who do this are not filmmakers, but capitalists.

For example, Kerkorian, who tormented MGM to death, or Redstone of Viacom, the parent company of Paramount, including Zhou Buqi’s process of taking back the copyright to the “Spider-Man” series.

To buy back the copyright of "Spider-Man", they can't do it with Sony Entertainment. They will never be able to sell it. They have to do it with Sony Group, the parent company of Sony Entertainment.

The same goes for the copyright of Star Wars this time. There is no chance to go to 20th Century Fox, so go directly to the parent company News Corporation and Murdoch!

Sure enough, Murdoch's reaction was more positive.

As long as the price is reasonable, there is nothing that cannot be sold.

For the third deal, this is help. Zhou Buqi mentioned Star TV and expressed his willingness to help mediate and build a bridge between News Corporation and the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund. The two parties put aside their prejudices, talked in an equal and fair manner, and reached an agreement.

Satisfied with the reasonable transaction price.

This matter is very complex and may reflect from individual cases to the macro level.

Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund is a private equity arm of the National Development and Reform Commission. It is state-owned capital and can be regarded as one of our own. However, just because Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund is our own and News Corporation is an outsider, we cannot continue to put pressure on News Corporation.

Lower the price and buy Star TV at the lowest price.

This is News Corporation, a media giant with world-class public opinion power.

It is too easy to squeeze out Star TV by relying on relevant domestic policies and regulations. You can even be more ruthless and directly send the industrial and commercial, fire protection, taxation and other departments to investigate, and keep going back and forth, maybe you can get it without any money.

Hua then incorporated Star TV.

But you can't do that.

Must maintain a good international image.

In this transaction, the Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund cannot give too much money, because they cannot afford it. At the same time, it cannot give too little money, because too little money will make it look ugly.

Originally, in the case of Star TV, the relevant departments were wrong and blindly exploited and kept lowering prices, which caused great harm to the business environment.

Just like when Xiaomi went to India to do business, it developed very well and made a lot of money. However, the Indian authorities were unwilling to let foreign companies take away the money, so they imposed fines in a clever way and confiscated the money.

Then what?

It is not only Xiaomi that is disappointed, not only China Capital, but also the entire international capital. Whether it is Korean capital, Japanese capital, American capital, or European capital, as long as the background is not strong enough, they will not dare to play in India.

US$30 billion in foreign capital was withdrawn in one year. India, which was originally prosperous and was considered by the world to be the next large emerging economy, will inevitably suffer a major economic recession due to the credit crisis.

Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund has actually contacted News Corporation.

The reason why Zhou Buqi was asked to help was actually to have an extra layer of connections to explore Murdoch's background and see what his psychological price level was.

It's not good if it's too low. If it's too low, the old man won't be happy. Once it stirs up trouble, it may affect domestic confidence in foreign investment. If it's too high, it's not good either. It gives foreigners an advantage.

Zhou Buqi told him very clearly that he would not be allowed to lose money in the Star TV project. However, it was impossible to make a big fortune, and the total return rate would not exceed 25%.

Murdoch sighed and said that even if all three transactions were completed, they would not be able to satisfy News Corporation's $1 billion financial hole.

Zhou Buqi smiled and asked, "Do you have any other good ideas?"

Murdoch said: "I have a deal that you might be interested in."

"Oh? What is it?"

"myspace."

"ah?"

Zhou Buqi looked very surprised.

Murdoch was unambiguous and straightforward, "For $100 million, myspace is yours."

Zhou Buqi didn't want that mess. He was very embarrassed, "I'm sorry, this is not in my plan. I am an early investor in Facebook, and Ziweixing also has many business cooperation with Facebook. If I buy it

myspace, will affect strategic cooperation."

This is of course a perfunctory remark. In the final analysis, it is because he is not optimistic about myspace.

Zhou Buqi had been following MySpace for a long time when he was a friend.

The early MySpace was a blog-type social platform that was very popular and directly led to the rise of the blogging industry.

At its peak, MySpace surpassed Yahoo and became the website with the highest traffic in the world.

However, News Corporation changed everything.

In 2005, News Corporation spent US$580 million to acquire MySpace, and then transformed the website using traditional media thinking, adding many categories such as "Music", "Video", "Games", "Sports"

News”, “Fashion” and other channels.

Then put News Corporation content in this channel.

In other words, the positioning of the MySpace website has changed, from a social platform to a content platform.

Even in order to increase advertising revenue, MySpace canceled the login system and visitors can freely access the website, which further reduces the social attributes.

More and more people are using MySpace without registering or logging in. How much user stickiness can this bring?

Not logging in means that the bond of community relations is invalid.

Loyalty is greatly reduced.

If you just want to read news and content, is it better to go to Yahoo?

It just so happened that Facebook started doing it again at this time.

In just a few years, MySpace, once the world's largest website, was reduced to a fringe website under Mr. Murdoch's wise leadership.

$100 million?

Zhou Buqi sneered in his heart.

Even if he offers 10 million US dollars for this crappy website, he won’t buy it.

In his previous life, Murdoch peddled MySpace for a year, but no one took it. He had no choice but to lower the price again and again. Finally, in 2011, he found a successor and sold it for $35 million.

Then, the takeover man became the one who was taken advantage of, and was completely finished in the mobile Internet era.

…

Zhou Buqi chatted with Murdoch for more than an hour, mainly because the old man was old and could not stay seated for too long.

Although the time is short, the basic intention has been achieved.

Especially for the copyright of Star Wars, the old man said that as long as the price is right, it can be sold! As for the price, it needs to go through financial evaluation and let Ziweixing Global and 20th Century Fox make contact.

Zhou Buqi returned to his home in New York and made two phone calls.

The first call was made to Andy Hopkins, who is in charge of copyright acquisition, and told him to contact 20th Century Fox to discuss copyright. Not only the streaming rights for Fox Searchlight's film and television content, but also "Star Wars"

The rights to those six movies!

Andy was very happy and asked: "Star Wars movie rights? Are they limited to streaming rights?"

Zhou Buqi said: "No, Star Wars is a product of Lucasfilm. It is unreasonable to have been living outside for so many years. Go and talk to them about getting all the six Star Wars movies owned by 20th Century Fox."

Buy back the copyright and profits!”

"This is expensive!" Andy has long been eyeing Star Wars, but this matter is very difficult. "These six movies can bring at least 25 million US dollars in profits to 20th Century Fox every year."

"so much?"

Zhou Buqi was somewhat surprised.

Andy explained: "This is "Star Wars", which is the most popular movie brand in the United States. These six movies are replayed once or twice a year on cable TV, and the revenue alone is more than 30 million U.S. dollars. Also

There are overseas TV copyrights, as well as collector's editions, collector's editions, Blu-ray editions and many other versions of DVD sales, which are a huge amount of income."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about Lucasfilm? How much revenue can these six movies bring to Lucasfilm every year?"

"Around $15 million."

"Less than Fox?"

"In the early trilogy, the main investment expenses came from Twentieth Century Fox, so they received higher income. Twentieth Century Fox only had 20% of the income. Fortunately, when the later trilogy was filmed, Lu

Cass Films is rich and has an investment income of 45%."

"This business is really ugly!"

Zhou Buqi expressed doubts about George Lucas's business methods. Forget about the first three films in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, he was very poor and had no choice but to join 20th Century Fox. But by the third three films in the 1990s,

Part of it, he was already a rich man at that time, but he still gave away most of the profits.

45% investment income, which means that when George Lucas produced the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, Lucasfilm only invested 45% of the total production funds, and the other investment shares were shared equally.

Risks or maintaining relationships within the industry are transferred.

Andy smiled and said: "The logic is different. Lucasfilm's income from the 'Star Wars' brand mainly comes from the derivatives market, not from the peripheral market of the movie. The second reason is that the movie itself makes more money but less money.

.The proceeds from the derivatives belong to Lucasfilm, and they value this equity."

Zhou Buqi said decisively: "No matter what, take it back! Go talk to them! Murdoch has already agreed. As long as the price is right, 20th Century Fox will definitely release it."

Andy said weakly: "If we want to buy back all the interests, I'm afraid it won't be less than US$500 million."

"Well, let's do it!"

Zhou Buqi has psychological expectations.

It is precisely because it can be sold at a higher price and alleviate financial difficulties that Murdoch is willing to personally order the release of the copyright for Star Wars Episode VI from the headquarters. This opportunity is rare, so we must seize it.
Chapter completed!