Chapter 489: Need Further

Time passed quickly, and Liu Tianxian's *The Four Great Constables 3* was about to be released; she needed to accompany the main creators on promotional tours.

Some media meetups, interviews, that sort of thing.

Because Liu Tianxian's romance with Fang Hong had been heavily publicized, questions about the two of them were unavoidable during interviews.

During an interview on Zhu Dan's show, she asked: "What kind of movies do you like to watch in your daily life?"

"I really like watching *Black Swan*," Liu Tianxian replied, legs crossed, dressed casually, her hair parted to one side with a braid trailing behind, looking utterly pure.

"That's a very oppressive art film—would the Principal go watch it with you?" Zhu Dan asked.

"Yes, he'll go with me. He likes movies too; we both love watching films and sometimes discuss them," Liu Tianxian answered calmly.

"Do you watch horror movies? The really scary ones?" Zhu Dan curiously asked.

"We do. When we watch horror movies, he always likes to scare me—jumping out and startling me," Liu Tianxian said, sounding quite amusing.

"So you two are quite affectionate, aren't you? You don't even seem scared," Zhu Dan asked.

"I don't know if he gets scared—I've never asked. But when I watch horror movies a second time, I'm not scared anymore," Liu Tianxian said.

"You're pretty strong then. Still, I hope you never end up acting in such horror films."

"No no, I actually want to act in them—like *The Ring*. I think I'd do a great job," Liu Tianxian said, flashing a toothy smile, even feeling she didn't seem like a girl at all.

"Hahaha!" Zhu Dan covered her mouth and laughed loudly.

This girl was too interesting—unlike other girls, who avoid such movies entirely.

They're terrified, timid. But she's different—she's fearless.

The interview continued. Liu Tianxian was always casual during such interviews, speaking freely, but the more she talked, the more fired up she got, going on and on.

She talked about everything—her insights on roles, acting, even life.

Zhu Dan sat across from her, listening intently, but grew increasingly confused, mostly not understanding what Liu Tianxian was saying.

It was normal—their realms were simply different.

"For a while, I became obsessed with a novel, and I wrote daily journals, searching online for photos of streets and alleys from that era—what men wore, what women wore—imagining what my co-actor would wear, what kind of person they'd be.

Slowly, I felt my entire self become transparent, as if I'd become someone else. The drama became clear—I could connect with this character, and that character too."

"What role were you playing at the time?" Zhu Dan interjected.

"It was a book—I'd better not say the title," Liu Tianxian waved her hand, remembering Fang Hong had told her not to mention book titles in public.

"Do you and the Principal develop a spiritual rapport?" Zhu Dan changed the subject.

If she kept going, who knew what she'd say next.

"Rapport? Yes, we do develop it."

Liu Tianxian, warmed up, added: "You know, at first you won't find anything interesting about the Principal, but after spending time with him, you start noticing many shining qualities—you think, 'Hmm, this guy is actually quite interesting.'"

"."

*The Four Great Constables 3* would premiere on August 21, and Fang Hong would be there—Liu Tianxian had insisted he come.

It's the last movie, after all. Go see it.

Fang Hong no longer cared much about the box office of *Xiu Chun Dao*—whether it made more or less didn't affect his development or Yutu.

He cared about furthering his layout—laying out cinema chains.

Everything he did was to avoid being controlled. If anything threatened his strategy, he'd act on his own.

Acting on his own meant he wouldn't panic—he'd have confidence! As for opposition, as long as he had strength, he'd have the confidence to resolve it and strike back.

Money without strength is all empty talk.

Cinemas are heavy-asset ventures; heavy assets require money—lots of it. Without money, this can't be done.

So Yutu needed further development to sustain its theater operations. Buy but can't afford to maintain? That wouldn't be fun.

It's like buying a Mercedes-Benz—you own it, but maintenance, fuel, insurance, repairs each year cost a fortune.

Cinema acquisitions can be loosely integrated across provinces, but you can't fully merge all cinemas within an administrative region.

In one area, you can't own all the cinemas—that's the rule, to prevent monopolies.

This was still just Fang Hong's idea; there was no immediate plan to act on it. Approval from the Radio and Television Administration was still needed.

The approval would be easy—Yutu was already specialized in this, did nothing else, and had no foreign ownership.

During this time, *The Purge 4* had already been released in July, screening in 2,350 theaters across North America, following *Get Out*.

Of course, *The Purge 4* was just like its predecessors—critically panned, ratings below six, undeniably a bad film—but its box office was still strong.

By late August, *The Purge 4* had been out for over a month.

Its North American gross reached $69.08 million, overseas $66.5 million, global total $135 million.

Its budget was around $13 million.

That meant China's share was $33.75 million; after deducting costs, profit was roughly $20 million.

But the cost had already been spent; over $30 million had come back.

$33.75 million from *The Purge 4* plus $63.75 million from *Get Out* totaled $97.5 million.

That meant they were just $2.5 million short of $100 million.

Rights and such weren't counted—since they needed to invest in other films and share profits with Yu Xian.

This year alone, they'd earned at least tens of millions in profits—rights were expensive.

Yu Xian had bought a huge Villa—he needed money to maintain it, and current income covered expenses.

He was also investing in filming other horror films—*Annabelle 2*, *The Conjuring 2*, *Halloween* were all in planning.

Now Yu Xian rarely directed such horror films himself—he acted as Producer, serving as Fang Hong's agent.

For these horror films, he hired directors—there were plenty of depressed, underachieving directors in Hollywood.

As for the $97.5 million, Fang Hong had not yet given it to Yutu to build a film base—*The Nun* was set to release on September 7, and more money would come after.

Liu Tianxian's birthday was approaching—he needed to solve her matter first, give her a surprise. He couldn't keep letting Liu Tianxian carry the ring—it'd be embarrassing, and the Principal would lose face.

He doesn't even give her a ring, so stingy it's disgusting.

Fang Hong summoned the financial officer Meng Jun and gave him two tasks: first, go to Hong Kong and buy a ring. He had his eye on two stones—one called Pink Star; the other called Josephine's Blue Moon.

The former, Pink Star, was held by De Beers, a South African diamond mining company with a sales network in Hong Kong.

This Pink Star was later auctioned off by Chow Tai Fook for over seventy million dollars.

The latter, Josephine's Blue Moon, was put up for auction by a Hong Kong auction house and would be bought by Liu Luan Xiong for 48.4 million dollars next year.

The people in Hong Kong are truly filthy rich! Fang Hong favored the former, Pink Star, because it was expensive—he couldn't tell good diamonds from bad, but expensive meant good.

Whether something is good or not depends on personal taste, but if it's expensive, its value is plainly there, and won't vanish.

The latter is cheaper; if the former can't be bought, then the latter must be secured as a backup plan.

Of course, this money will never be exhausted—if there's surplus, it will be reconsidered later.

The second task for Meng Jun in Hong Kong was to sell off Tesla stock.

Tesla's current market cap has already risen to 31.6 billion dollars, the perfect time to sell; this year it will climb to around 33 billion dollars.

In the one hundred percent accurate version!

But it's impossible to sell precisely at 33 billion dollars, and it can't all be sold at once, so selling can begin once the market cap exceeds thirty billion dollars.

Hong Kong is an international market, suitable for such operations.

After arranging these two tasks, Chen Zhixi and Meng Jun passed each other at the office door and nodded slightly.

Chen Zhixi entered and said to Fang Hong: "Xu Guangtou wants to film Goodbye Mr. Loser—he wants half the shares, and he wants personal ownership too."

"Then don't film it," Fang Hong said bluntly.

Half the shares is already too much; he wants personal ownership too? Dream on.

After all, this is Xu Guangtou's last film—he might never make another good one, and in Fang Hong's eyes, his usefulness is already gone.

"Cutting him off completely like this isn't very wise," Chen Zhixi said.

If you shut him down entirely, he'll just change his name and team up with another company—it might end up messy, and it's just not worth it.

"Then Yutu takes 60%, the rest is up to you."

Fang Hong drew a line and added: "If it's below this share, don't film it."

"That's acceptable," Chen Zhixi thought this left room for negotiation.

In truth, Xu Guangtou is greedy—he knows it'll make money, so he wants more shares; and Yutu is greedy too—they know this series will make money and won't give in.

But the copyright is jointly held; without Yutu's cooperation, this series can't be filmed.

Yutu isn't the company they worked with on Lost in Thailand—Xu Guangtou fears offending Yutu, or he'll suffer too.

And copyright enforcement is strict now—it's nothing like before.

Fang Hong didn't care about this—he asked: "What film projects are scheduled for the next six months?"

"I was just about to tell you—take a look yourself!" Chen Zhixi handed him a file.

Fang Hong reviewed these matters every six months; now that he was acquiring theaters, he must closely monitor Yutu's development and push it to the next level.

Unreleased, unproduced films include Goodbye Mr. Loser, Mojin: The Lost Legend, The Big Bang, The Monkey King: Hero Is Back, Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, among others.

Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe was not given to director Lu Chuan—it was given to Lu Yang, and Yutu will produce it themselves; this is an adaptation of the Ghost Blows Out the Light novel, whose copyright belongs to Yutu.

Of course, actors won't be Yao Dazui or Zhao You Ting—choose from Yutu's roster; if none are suitable, hire outside actors.

Mojin: The Lost Legend was assigned to Guo Fan to direct.

Both men are currently in Hollywood studying film production and will return in about a month.

Assigning them these special effects films is for practice.

They must bring back something from their study trip—otherwise, what's the point of going if they learn nothing?

Also, there's Superintelligence 2—whether Xu Laoguai films it or not, if he doesn't, Fang Hong will find someone else or film it himself.

Fang Hong glanced through it, set down the file, and asked: "What about Variety?"

"Dad Where Are We Going Season Two is still airing—it's reached Episode Nine and will finish around October," Chen Zhixi said.

This Variety Season Two has sixteen episodes—it will be a cash cow; such high episode count guarantees massive revenue.

After all, this Variety show was a traffic explosion at this time.

Yili won the naming rights for Dad Where Are We Going Season Two for 310 million dollars; special sponsorship ads reached 170 million dollars, setting a record for TV programs.

Currently, naming rights for Variety shows are astronomical—The Voice collected 250 million, but The Voice doesn't have the popularity of Dad Where Are We Going.

Of course, it will only get higher later—but only for breakout Variety shows.

Also, Dad Where Are We Going has copyright and other rights, but the copyright belongs to Yutu, while online streaming rights were given to Chang'e Video.

Chang'e Video uses free streaming, increasing interactive ads—each interactive ad earns 38 million, with a minimum of 23.99 million per ad.

This Variety show brought Chang'e Video very substantial income and extremely high traffic.

TV dramas haven't stopped either—Chang'e Video is currently airing Love, Now, co-broadcast with Jiangsu Satellite TV.

Thanks to this drama, Zhao Xiaodao demonstrated her naive, sweet-girl acting—compared to peers, she clearly has acting ability.

Otherwise, she couldn't have pulled off such a low-budget idol drama so well.

Zhao Xiaodao was very popular this year, one drama after another, but she also suffered a lot of bullying—most 85s were isolating her.

As if she didn't belong to the 85s category at all.

It's a normal phenomenon—no star escapes criticism; the more popular, the more criticism; some things you must endure alone.

But Yutu won't cut off her resources as long as she stays with Yutu.

"Also, Keep Running will launch in October—it's currently in filming," Chen Zhixi said.

Variety shows can be edited and aired simultaneously, since they only air one episode per week.

"Who's been cast as the female lead for this Variety?" Fang Hong asked curiously.

"The female lead is Nazha—I watched her Variety appearances and think she has real Variety talent; she's bad at acting, but she's great at Variety," Chen Zhixi said.

Fang Hong said nothing and had no opinion on it.

(End of chapter)