Chapter 1046: Fulfilling the Dream of the Three Major Festivals; Copyright Price!

"The 75th Venice International Film Festival concluded successfully at 4 AM domestic time today. Two Chinese films won a total of 4 individual major awards;

It is a pity that they failed to win the highest honor of the Venice Film Festival—the Golden Lion for Best Film, and also missed out on the second-place Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize..."

"It is reported that Director Ning Hao won the Silver Lion for Best Director with the film *The Father*, and Li Baotian also won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor with this film;

Cao Dao Baoping won the Silver Lion for Best Screenplay with *She Kills*, and Zhou Xun strongly won the honor of Best Actress, making this award fall to a Chinese film for two consecutive years.

What is worth encouraging and celebrating is that after years of hard work, Director Ning Hao, Li Baotian, and Zhou Xun finally fulfilled their dreams of the three major film festivals, and all three achieved dazzling results at an international A-list film festival for the first time!"

"In the morning, Maoyan officially released its listing prospectus to the public and submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

According to the information in the prospectus, the original controlling shareholder, that is, the largest shareholder Enlight Media, has seen its shareholding drop from 57% to 44.8%, and the new shareholder Lin Nan Pictures holds 8%.

This is also the first time Lin Nan Pictures has participated in the investment of other companies in the industry and participated in the company's listing process as a shareholder; calculated based on Maoyan's current market valuation, Lin Nan Pictures' shareholding is worth 800 million HKD."

"This morning, in response to the desperate accusations made by a certain mainland big director on Weibo recently, Cui cited screenshots and posted an article to attack and mock:

It is said that this was posted by a certain 'pants' on Weibo, it is truly extremely exaggerated, how could you be so good? Your crimes are all in my drawer, quietly waiting for *Cell Phone 2* to be released, and then I will cooperate with your promotion..."

At 3 or 4 AM on the 9th in Venice, the domestic internet was already boiling; although it looked chaotic, the relevant news and public opinion of the film festival undoubtedly occupied a dominant position.

"Damn, shouldn't Director Ning Hao kowtow to Lin Dao Nan? This is a foster father!"

"Zhou Xun also has to go to Producer Liu's house to be a maid for a month, right? Hahaha..."

"No one has any objections to Teacher Li Baotian winning the award, right? The old man was a veteran actor who rushed for the Cannes Best Actor twice and the Berlin Best Actor once!"

"To be honest, I'm interested in these two films. But it seems they haven't been scheduled yet?"

"I guarantee with my head that Lin Dao Nan, Director Tian Zhuangzhuang, and Gong Huang definitely fought for the awards in the jury, otherwise it would be impossible for these two films to both win two individual awards."

"No problem, directors who don't have a resume of awards from the three major film festivals, basically only win one award the first time they win! It can be seen that Lin Dao, as the jury president, put in a lot of effort this time, and he did it to the limit."

"Winning the three most core major awards in one breath: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress. If you want to have such a good thing again in the future, I'm afraid you really have to wait until the year of the monkey."

"Is no one paying attention to Maoyan? Lin Dao's company threw 800 million HKD to buy shares..."

"Still watching Old Cui poke Old Cannon's chrysanthemum, I'm more interested in this, hahaha."

"Waiting for 'pants' to respond, but he won't be cowardly, right?"

"Really won Best Actress?" As the most direct competitor among the big actresses in the industry, Little Zhang Ziyi had always been paying attention to the news from Venice. At this moment, there was truly a sense of powerlessness deep in her heart.

She was called "International Zhang," and a large part of the reason was that she had taken the international route since her debut: *The Road Home*, *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*, *House of Flying Daggers*, *Memoirs of a Geisha*...

But after 20 years, she hadn't won any important international film awards, and she was even suppressed by Fan Bingbing one after another, suppressed until she had no confidence left. Now that the other party had finally cooled down, another one came!

"If you want this kind of major award, you still need a big director, especially a big director in his prime!" Little Zhang Ziyi muttered helplessly. On this point, she was indeed far inferior to the other big actresses.

"Ziyi, you should think about it from another angle. I heard that the first choice for this role wasn't Zhou Xun, but Fan Bingbing. What is her mood right now? Hehe."

"Heh, I'm afraid she regrets saying 'Wu Yue is very happy' very much? No, she regrets taking *Cell Phone 2* very much, hahaha..."

Sure enough, happiness and good moods are compared. For a time, Little Zhang Ziyi couldn't stop laughing.

And just as Little Zhang Ziyi and her assistant were gloating, Fan Bingbing was indeed not feeling very well.

"If it weren't for this *Cell Phone 2*, wouldn't it be different now?" Fan sat in front of the studio office and couldn't help asking her agent.

In front of her was a list of assets, all of which could be sold, but all of which could not be sold in a short time or were being taken advantage of and couldn't be sold at a good price.

Seeing her agent speechless, Fan muttered something else: "I suspect now that when Lin Dao asked Cao Dao to replace me, it was because he knew about these things of ours?

When *The Taking of Tiger Mountain* was established in 2013, the mainland salary hadn't entered the explosive stage, and there was no such thing as sky-high salaries... At that time, I still didn't have any big problems."

A knock on the door interrupted Fan's sentimentality and regret. She and her agent looked at the door at the same time: "What's wrong?"

"Sister Bingbing, there's another call from over there, asking us to go over again to cooperate..."

"Cooperate with the investigation? Okay, I know, you go book the high-speed rail ticket." Fan nodded numbly and ordered. In the past few months, she had become accustomed to this kind of summons.

Although the actual office location of the studio was in the capital, the place of registration was in Jiangsu, and she needed to run over again and again to cooperate...

"This kind of running back and forth will soon be over." The agent's expression was solemn, comforting her.

"Yeah, it's also about to be officially banned."

Venice time, 9th, 11 AM.

In the hotel's banquet hall, a six-story tall cake was very eye-catching. And all around, there was champagne, red wine, and delicious food.

That's right, the big director Lin was having a birthday today, which was much more grand than Liu Yifei's birthday a few days ago.

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The reason for this is that this birthday banquet today was not proposed by Lin Nan. Look, it was paid for by our newly promoted Silver Lion director and Volpi Cup Best Actress.

Of course, it was also ostensibly a private celebration banquet for the two Chinese films. Look, the crew members in Venice and the Chinese filmmakers with good relationships were all there today.

"We are all on the flight at 6 PM tomorrow, which is landing at Capital Airport at 11 AM domestic time."

Lin Nan was chatting and laughing with Zhang Yimou while holding a wine glass. The latter and Zhang Mo were on the flight this evening, and after the banquet ended in a while, they would have to pack their luggage and prepare to take a boat to leave the island.

"Leaving tomorrow afternoon? That is to say, the overseas copyright matters for *The Father* and *She Kills* have already been confirmed?" Ren Zhonglun immediately thought of the key point.

Lin Nan nodded with a smile and immediately beckoned to Jiang Xuerou in the distance: "Director Jiang, please come over."

Taking advantage of Jiang Xuerou waving to Ning Hao and the others, Lin Nan explained to Ren Zhonglun and Zhang Yimou: "Director Jiang just led the team to finalize the contract. The copyright contracts for all three films have been signed. I haven't asked about the specific prices in detail yet, let's ask her directly now."

The selling prices of the overseas copyrights for the three films couldn't be hidden, so Lin Nan naturally became a lot more generous.

"Lin Dao, Chairman Ren, Director Zhang." Jiang Xuerou came over with a smile.

"Chairman Ren is asking about the overseas copyright prices for those three films, and I want to hear it too."

Hearing the question, Jiang Xuerou instantly beamed with joy:

"Because there is *Monkey King: Hero is Back* as a foundation, and *White Snake* is also a big IP of Chinese classical mythology, with many overseas Chinese, the price of *White Snake: Origin* is also very good, at 43.5 million USD.

The reputation of Director Ning's *The Father* is very good, selling higher than Lin Dao's *Marriage Story* last year at 30.6 million USD, but far from *Manchester by the Sea* at 98.2 million USD and *The Invisible Guest* at 62 million USD. The price is not much different from the overseas copyright of *The Hunt* before, selling for 34.2 million USD.

As for Cao Dao's *She Kills*, this film is relatively the lowest in price, only 24.6 million USD... because the commercial attributes are relatively small, but the artistic attributes are not the top-tier kind..."

Speaking to the end, Jiang Xuerou's voice became a bit lower, and she subconsciously turned her head to glance at Cao Baoping, who was chatting and laughing with Dong Ping in the distance.

"Tsk tsk tsk, it's still selling copyrights that makes money." Ren Zhonglun couldn't help but sigh.

Looking at Zhang Yimou again, his expression was even more complicated.

In those years when he won awards, the copyright prices in the international film market were not this high, and the copyrights sold didn't reach his hands; they were all owned by film studios and production companies.

"Next is *Mulan*, right?" Zhang Yimou changed the subject and asked.

"Well, the original plan is to start filming at the end of this month. At the latest before the 25th, Yifei and I have to rush to Xinjiang to prepare.

The scale of this crew is the largest since I started my career. It's estimated that I'll be exhausted to death by then." Lin Nan couldn't help but joke about himself.

"It's just a few thousand people, at most ten thousand. It's time to cure your lazy habit, hahaha..." Ren Zhonglun joked with a smile.

Chatting and laughing, everyone talked about visiting the set. Even Zhang Yimou was nodding, saying that he would definitely visit the *Mulan* set when he had time later.

"Lin Dao, a call from Weibo." The assistant reminded from the side.

Lin Nan took the phone, signaled to Ren Zhonglun and Zhang Yimou, then walked toward Liu Yifei and Zhou Xun, and connected the call at the same time.

"Speak."

"Lin Dao, everything has been handled, now there is only the news of her winning Best Actress."

"Well, that's good, say thank you to Chairman Cao for me."

After two simple sentences, Lin Nan hung up the phone. Of course, he also walked up to Liu Yifei and Zhou Xun.

"Thank you so much, Lin Dao." The latter arched her hands with a giggle.

And Liu Yifei looked at Zhou Xun with quite a bit of disgust, shaking her head with a smile.

"I'll say it first, only this once. Next time if you are stepped on again, you'll have to solve it yourself." Lin Nan said straightforwardly, not joking.

"Understood. Don't worry, if there is a next time, I will definitely not trouble the two of you." Zhou Xun patted her chest with certainty and promised with a giggle.

"Alright, the time is almost up, we can start the lunch banquet." Liu Yifei glanced at the watch on her wrist and said solemnly.

Beside her, Ning Hao immediately raised his wine glass and shouted: "This is our first time attending the birthday banquet of the big director Lin. Come, let's have one together..."

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(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 1047 =====