Chapter 533: Principal Is Such a Good Person

The film Big Hero 6, now in its sixth week of release, has reached a global box office total of $581 million.

Box office performance has largely stalled in most regions worldwide, with most theaters having already pulled the film; only North America still shows screenings.

Even in North America, daily box office earnings are low—just a few hundred thousand dollars per day, declining day by day.

Whether it can break $600 million depends entirely on the Chinese market.

"#BigHero6# Global cumulative box office has officially surpassed $580 million, becoming the highest-grossing animated film of 2014! To celebrate, why not go watch #Baymax# at the cinema on December 8th!"

This Weibo post included three images—all renderings of Baymax, showing various cute and goofy expressions—and the registered social account was: Yutu Film.

From now on, this ID will serve as the official platform for film propaganda and public statements.

Any official announcements will be made through this account, not through leaders making random comments—so long as it represents Yutu, it's fine.

Other platforms also have this same account: Toutiao, Bilibili, Tieba, and others.

Accounts on other platforms are often ignored or subject to traffic limits, but it doesn't matter—because Big Hero 6 is already so popular, many fans follow it.

It quickly surpassed one million followers, with abundant comments.

"Only I cried watching Baymax at the Hong Kong cinema!"

"Damn it, hurry up and release it already! My heart is itching."

"Yay! Only a few more days until release!"

"I just want to know where to buy official merchandise!"

"Hahaha, what a sexy butt!"

"#BigHero6# Free movie tickets giveaway! Follow, retweet, and pin this Weibo to participate—let's go watch Baymax together!"

This last post was made by Tu Piaopiao, purely for traffic generation.

There are also many pirated Baymax dolls in China—there's nothing we can do about it; we lack the ability and energy to enforce control.

They're all produced by small workshops; impossible to regulate.

The only company in China capable of producing decent merchandise is Alibaba—they have an e-commerce platform that allows for monitoring.

For others, only government intervention could help.

On December 8th, Big Hero 6's domestic opening day box office reached 52.38 million RMB—about 40% higher than its predecessor's figure.

This is normal: different release windows, different promotional companies, different scale of marketing—and mainstream media and official outlets are also helping with promotion.

Plus, it's a domestic animated film; such results aren't surprising.

There's no strong competition—only one film, The Case of Huang Kegong, which nobody's even heard of.

Nowadays, no one in the film industry dares to directly challenge Principal; challenging him requires first weighing your strength and then your wallet.

If you can't destroy Yutu, just stay quiet and wait for major capital to enter the scene.

Who isn't rich? Constantly targeting Principal is just asking for humiliation.

The only major production, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, releases at the end of this month; other famous big films like From Vegas to Macau 2 and Dragon Blade won't release until Spring Festival.

This year's Spring Festival is mid-February—still a long way off.

Big Hero 6's second-day box office rose to 61.77 million RMB.

On the third day, it collapsed to 22.94 million RMB.

It seems the Chinese public still isn't very interested in animated films; only a small group remains enthusiastic.

On this same day, Big Hero 6's global box office just broke $600 million—equivalent to 4.2 billion RMB—an unprecedented achievement.

First, "Yutu Film" posted this good news on Weibo: "Thank you to the hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide for your support and companionship—we move forward with sincerity, grateful for every step of the journey."

Below this message was a poster showing the cute, bent-over figure of Baymax, with large artistic characters beside it: Thank You!

Below that, it read: Global Real-Time Box Office: 4.2 Billion!

This combination of text and image was immediately reposted across the entire internet, and picked up by self-media and mainstream outlets for massive promotion.

"Strongest Domestic Animation—Global Box Office Breaks 4.2 Billion!"

"Who says domestic animation can't beat Hollywood? This is the golden age of domestic animation."

"Big Hero 6 has given domestic animation the hope of rising."

Such clickbait headlines are everywhere, visible everywhere.

Big Hero 6's massive success has made other film studios jealous and sighing—but there's nothing they can do; Yutu is making the money.

At the same time, capital is flooding into various animation companies, all hoping to replicate Principal's success and make their own animated films dominate internationally.

Fang Hong has indeed altered the timeline—back in his previous life, capital would have flooded into animation only after Big Sage Returns.

Especially Tencent, which has been actively reaching out to animation studios like Yihua Kaitian, Original Force, and Sparkly Key Animation, seeking investment.

Tencent only has this one trick—nothing else!

This phenomenon is normal: when the Chinese see something profitable, they all rush in blindly, ignoring how many difficulties and complications lie ahead.

If Fang Hong weren't a foresighted person, achieving international success with animated films would have been unthinkable.

Of course, they don't understand the hidden circumstances behind it.

Internationally, Universal also released a battle report—identical to Fang Hong's, except for a few word changes in English: Global Real-Time Box Office: $600 Million.

$600 million isn't an earth-shattering number, but it doesn't matter—as long as money is being made.

The new Yutu Film and Television Base in HR District has been completed, and all office buildings have been fully renovated.

They've been aired out for one or two months—letting the air circulate!

In other words, after more than a year, nearly two years of construction, the Yutu Film and Television Base is essentially finished.

Fang Hong and Yutu's senior executives held a meeting, primarily to plan the company relocation: moving the Film and Television Production Department, Special Effects Company, Animation Department, Finance Department, Literature Division, and Public Relations & Talent Department.

All departments will relocate from their current offices to the new premises.

The company must complete the move within one month, and fully transition into the new office environment before the 2015 Spring Festival—the annual party will be held there.

The entire company relocation involves massive work: numerous office furnishings, stationery, filming equipment, and more all need to be moved to the new film and television base.

After all, it's a company five years old, so its material reserves are still very rich. Once this news broke, every employee in the company began discussing it—some didn't care, some looked forward to it, some worried, some were anxious.

"I just bought a house in the city center, and now I'm being moved to Huairou New City? That's way too far."

"Same here—I just got married, and now I have to go that far away, separated from my husband."

"I heard the place doesn't even have a bus stop—it's way too inconvenient to commute back and forth."

Those who worried were mostly people with families, who had just bought homes, or whose commutes were already too long.

There were also people who found moving too troublesome and didn't want to go that far.

That's normal—Huairou is nearly seventy or eighty kilometers from here; even by car it takes over an hour. Who has that kind of spare time?

Inside an office of the Animation Department, several young production staff were discussing when a colleague from Human Resources walked in.

Seeing the person enter, everyone immediately fell silent.

Sure, they talked—but actually quitting was still scary; where else could they find a job like this?

The Human Resources officer held a thick stack of documents and addressed everyone:

"General Manager Fang said: except for staff who must shoot on film sets for film and television, all other positions will now follow an eight-hour, five-day workweek—no more than eight hours per day, no more than forty-four hours per week, no overtime required, and salaries, benefits, and performance pay will not be reduced. Yutu Company will strictly abide by labor laws."

Hearing this, everyone present looked astonished—they had all been working overtime before.

Especially in the Best Special Effects and Animation Departments, where staff sat in front of computers for twelve-hour shifts, and sometimes pulled all-nighters during busy periods.

There was no choice—they had to create special effects, produce visuals.

All other post-production editing and production roles were the same, often requiring overtime.

"Also, considering the difficulties of some employees—long commutes and inconvenient travel—General Manager Fang has also conveyed his opinion."

"The company will assign each person a dormitory room; dormitory standards will vary according to position, technical importance, and family circumstances. Here is a form—fill in your name, address, and family details, and allocation will be decided accordingly."

Human Resources handed out forms to those in front, who passed them back to colleagues behind them—there were many people.

Those with larger families would get larger rooms; those with smaller families would get smaller rooms—but this wasn't stated outright; they were to fill it out themselves first.

One man looked at the form and asked: "Is it one room per person?"

"Yes, only the size differs. Even the smallest standard room is twenty square meters—that's enough for you," Human Resources explained.

Hearing this, colleagues exchanged glances, their eyes filled with delight.

"But due to limited dormitory availability, priority will be given first to colleagues facing severe hardship and extreme commuting difficulties. Please understand—eventually, everyone will be accommodated," said Human Resources.

The place is still under construction—building dormitory buildings. The land is vast, and it was all purchased by Yutu Company.

Five hundred mu—it could house 140,000 people in residential housing, even under excellent environmental conditions.

Fang Hong has set aside such a large area to build dormitories for them—that's no trivial matter. Building these structures doesn't cost much; the real expense is in long-term maintenance, water, electricity, food, and lodging.

After all, the consumption of so many people isn't a small sum.

But with Yutu's current strength, they don't need to care about these costs—just one Big Hero 6 could support them for years.

China's per capita consumption expenditure is only 24,000 yuan. Based on that figure, even if Fang Hong supported ten thousand people, it would cost only about 240 million yuan per year.

And Yutu doesn't even have ten thousand people—only a few thousand.

"Understood, understood!" Some colleagues, delighted, immediately filled out the forms, sweeping away their earlier gloom.

Other colleagues also quickly filled out the forms—this was free housing, free meals, and at least partial reimbursement for water and electricity—it saved them a huge amount of expenses.

Principal is such a good person!

"What if someone already owns a house and doesn't want to live in the company dormitory?" asked a female colleague.

She had a family—husband and child—and moving that far to live in dorms wasn't practical; her husband also had a job, and living there would make his commute inconvenient.

"That's no problem—the company will arrange shuttle buses for morning and evening pick-ups and drop-offs. Since work hours are now shorter, this time is precisely what General Manager Fang has reserved for your commuting and personal activities," Human Resources merely relayed.

Fang Hong had said exactly that in the meeting.

"Principal is awesome!" someone cheered.

Through emails or Human Resources, nearly everyone at Yutu Company learned of Fang Hong's initiative.

Fixed work hours gave them back large amounts of time; dorm assignments saved them commuting time; shuttle buses eliminated commuting hassles.

One could say Fang Hong truly cared for his employees.

Nothing else—because Yutu has now passed its struggling phase and can afford to give benefits to its staff, no longer needing to be as tightfisted as before.

As long as this growth continues, the company's vast inventory of film and television copyrights can support many people.

And Yutu has no external capital shareholders—only internal shareholders—so there's no need to distribute profits to them; what's distributed now is merely a trickle leaking from Fang Hong's fingers, not much at all.

Even a trickle from a star's fingers can support many people.

Now film, Variety, and Animation are all running smoothly; only Best Special Effects may still need development—but technology must constantly evolve, and as long as there are orders, it can sustain itself.

South Korea's International Market broke box office records again locally, earning 110.9 billion Korean won—roughly 500 million yuan.

Not only does it bring revenue shares, but Best Special Effects also has orders—for TV dramas and web series alike.

Next, Fang Hong instructed Human Resources to revise the salary standards—they could no longer follow the old ones, because the next few years will be the period of fastest inflation, and money will lose value rapidly.

Revising the salary standards takes time—it won't be finished in a hurry.

But Fang Hong's original intention has never changed: to help those who follow him achieve prosperity—he has always acted this way.

Chen Zhixi sighed: "Before, I thought he was an evil capitalist; now, I think he's a saint—giving away his white money to the poor."

He didn't have to give so much—but he chose to give so much.

"Such a Principal is adorable, isn't he?" said Meng Jun.

"That's true."

Chen Zhixi clearly remembered how Fang Hong looked when they started the company together—plagiarizing, taking others' value and using it without a shred of guilt.

Now looking at him, she felt he had changed—and yet she felt he hadn't changed at all. He's always been like this.

(End of Chapter)