Chapter 431 Parting on bad terms
The situation of "The Godfather" is not just good, it is very good.

It is also because of Orange Films’ persistence that Paramount has invited more theater chains and even individual theaters than in history.

Because the pilot project was very successful, the number of screens participating in the public screening on the 24th reached an astonishing 500!
[Historically, there were only more than 300 during the same period, but it also set a record in the history of the US film industry]

There was also good news from Hong Kong: Fist of Fury was released on the 22nd, and the box office on the first day exceeded 50, which was much higher than that of The Big Boss! This shows how popular Bruce Lee was.

Wang Yuanchao could only use this method to ask Hong Kong to send telegrams every day to show his concern for "Fist of Fury".

Paramount listed in newspapers around the world how much the film earned in each of the nearly 500 theaters throughout North America during its opening weekend, and whether it broke previous box office records. They even made a detailed count of the overall box office of The Godfather in cities, states and counties in the United States after its opening weekend, telling readers how many places set new local box office records.

This trick may seem ordinary now, but it was indeed refreshing in the early 70s. At that time, there was no concept of commercial blockbusters.

The good performance of "The Godfather" made Paramount bolder and more confident in its promotion.

It spread across the United States at the speed of wildfire.

Become a man's Bible!
In just one month, the film swept the North American market and achieved a staggering box office of 1.02 million U.S. dollars (8150 million U.S. dollars in the same period in history). With such huge profits, the producers and theaters all demanded another round.

Wang Yuanchao finally breathed a sigh of relief. He clearly remembered that the North American box office of this movie was over 200 million. It was impossible that it was just over million. It turned out that the magic weapon of extended playback had not been used!

Compared with the hundreds of millions of US dollars box office of "The Godfather", the 5 million Hong Kong dollars box office of "Fist of Fury", although it once again broke the record of the Hong Kong film market, is not so impressive.

Bruce Lee was extremely popular. Zou Wenhuai, Wang Danfeng, Ho Kuanchang and others only realized how wise it was for Wang Yuanchao to make Bruce Lee the second largest shareholder and set up Concord Films! How could Shaw Brothers poach Bruce Lee? Shaw Brothers could offer him double the salary, but could they help Bruce Lee?

Concord Hospital was working for Bruce Lee! Wang Yuanchao generously gave Bruce Lee 30% of the shares!

Since Shaw Brothers couldn't poach Bruce Lee, they set their sights on director Lo Wei, who, like Chang Cheh and Chang Baiwan, created many movies that grossed over a million dollars and made leading actors like David Chiang and Ti Lung famous.

Luo Wei is now Luo Qianbo! ("Fist of Fury" + "Fist of Fury", nearly 10 million)

He felt that it was his own credit, and was dissatisfied with Bruce Lee's eccentricity, unwillingness to listen to opinions, self-righteousness, and tyranny on the set. Shaw Brothers offered him double the salary plus 5% of the box office dividends, and he finally jumped ship!

Wang Yuanchao didn't care about these things. All the news came from the telegrams from Hong Kong, and he just replied with affirmation and encouragement.

His father-in-law, Governor Reagan, brought him a piece of news about the film company MGM, the one with the lion icon!
In 69, Kerkorian, a big capitalist in Las Vegas, bought MGM Studios. But he didn't want to make movies. Kerkorian seemed more interested in the real estate owned by MGM, and he started to build the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas!
Except for Paramount which made huge profits from "The Godfather", other film companies had fallen into a trough at this time due to the impact of television.

Paramount was like this before "The Godfather" became a big hit.

Back to MGM, in 1971, Kerkorian was deeply in debt from the acquisition of MGM Studios and Western Airlines. He had to sell one of his companies to Hilton Hotels Corporation at a very low price. He also wanted to sell MGM's distribution department to save more funds for the hotel.

(Historically, in 73, MGM's distribution business was sold to United Artists, the film company founded by Chaplin)

Because Wang Yuanchao had invested in the film industry and his investment in "The Godfather" was so successful, his father-in-law, Governor Reagan, provided Wang Yuanchao with this information - MGM's distribution business!
Wang Yuanchao owns Orange Films. If he takes over MGM's distribution business, then Wang Yuanchao will truly be a big name in the Hollywood film industry.

Because distribution is Hollywood's core competitiveness.

In Hollywood, the core of the vertical industrial chain of production, distribution, and screening is not content production and production, nor the large-scale production capacity of screening ports, but the distribution that connects content and consumption. The "Big Eight" giants have always produced and distributed their own films. The film distribution companies under the names of the "Big Eight" alone account for more than 90% of the box office revenue in the North American market.

From the perspective of Hollywood's structure, it has been experiencing the reincarnation of the so-called "Big Six", "Big Five" and even the earliest "Big Eight". This change is not the first time. The earliest golden age of Hollywood had the "Big Five": MGM, 1951th Century Fox, RKO, Warner Brothers, and Paramount; later, with the rise of Columbia, Disney and Universal, the "Big Five" began to change to the "Big Eight". Later, RKO Films withdrew from the film industry in 1981 and turned to wireless and cable television development; in 2005, United Artists merged into MGM and changed its name to MGM-United Artists Entertainment; until Sony swallowed up MGM in 20, it established a seemingly stable Big Six structure. And with Disney's acquisition of th Century Fox, Hollywood returned to the "Big Five".

As a veteran filmmaker, although Reagan was only a second-rate actor, he was still very sensitive to this aspect.

This father-in-law is really good at recognizing me!

Before he knew the news, Wang Yuanchao had no idea what was going on. But after knowing the news, how could he, who wanted to make it in the audio-visual industry, hold back?
What's more, he is extremely rich now!
The first installment of 20 million yuan of Paramount's advance share has already been paid. The first round of box office revenue exceeded 100 million yuan, and Paramount and the cinema chain split the revenue 50-50.

Wang Yuanchao invested half of the money, and the publicity and promotion were also closely monitored. It would be difficult for Paramount to increase the publicity and promotion costs, after all, there was only so much work to do, and at most it would not exceed 200 million.

Therefore, Orange Film can get about 2500 million.

How could Paramount just give away the fat meat that was already in its mouth?

Originally they wanted to chop and drag.

In the end, I gave him 50 million and made % profit, which is very conscientious!

But the big boss of the California Department of IRS came to visit directly and tactfully said hello to Orange Film. Paramount may not be afraid of lawyers or courts, but it is afraid of the IRS.

Orange Films has done all the soft defenses, and now there is hard support, so Paramount has no choice but to pay the money according to the agreement.

Only now did they understand what Orange's intention was when he supported them in publishing the box office information in the newspaper!
So insidious!

But they still kept 500 million, under the pretext that the film was still being shown in theaters and some costs had not been fully calculated, so they would have to wait until the next release before settling the bill.

Wang Yuanchao doesn't care, he still holds half of the copyright of the sequel to "The Godfather"! He invested half of it in the beginning, and if he is not satisfied, no one can make money from "The Godfather 2"!
He is acting completely legally and in compliance with regulations, and with the governor as his backer, what is he afraid of?

MGM's Kerkorian did want to sell off MGM films, but the price he asked for was too high.

When talking about MGM films, we have to mention United Artists Motion Picture, a strategic partner of MGM.

What can we say about the film company United Artists? It has no filming locations of its own, nor its own distribution network. It has to rent studios from other companies to make films, and it usually cooperates with MGM to distribute films.

The big IP, the 007 series, is United Artists’ current flagship product.

Last year, on December 71, 12, the last film starring the first Bond, Sean Connery, Diamonds Are Forever, grossed 30 million at the box office with a production cost of 007 million.

It's slightly inferior to The Godfather, but it's actually quite impressive. With six times the production cost, both United Artists and MGM can make a lot of money.

It is no exaggeration to say that the 007 series of movies alone, with a frequency of one every two years, can bring an average profit of 400 million per year to MGM! Just based on the exclusive cooperation of the 007 series of movies, MGM is worth an additional 5000 million!
Combined with MGM's distribution network and vast film library, including classics such as "Gone with the Wind" and "Tom and Jerry," and a studio in Los Angeles (the rest of the land was divested by Kerkorian, and the land may be more valuable), Kerkorian's asking price is $8000 million.

This is really a big mouth!
Except for 007, few other films of MGM made money! Moreover, 007 was produced by United Artists!
MGM also has a huge distribution business to maintain and huge holding costs.

Another thing is the ever-growing investment. If we don’t just talk about profits, we have to look at how much has been invested!

When Sean Connery first played 1962 in the 007 film "Dr. No", his salary was $007. However, as his performance in the 3 series became more and more popular with the audience, his salary increased significantly. By the time he starred in Hitchcock's "Married Woman" in 007, his salary had risen to $1964. After that, his salary for each movie reached $40. By the time he starred in "Diamonds Are Forever" in 75, his salary was as high as $1971 million.

If we continue, will the next step be $150 million or $200 million?
Who can guarantee that every movie will be a big hit? If 007 loses money, then MGM loses money!
[In fact, the 74 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun had a production cost of 007 million, but only grossed 1300 million, a loss of several million.]

Wang Yuanchao has money, but he is not stupid.

He even said that he didn't need to cooperate with United Artists. No matter how good 007 is, it's not as valuable as MGM's hair network, right?

How could Kerkorian agree to this? The cooperation with United Artists was the biggest part of MGM's film business. If this business was stripped away, wouldn't the rest be useless?
So the two sides parted unhappily.

(End of this chapter)