CHAPTER 330: CHAPTER 330: ACQUIRING THE ONLINE COPYRIGHTS

After carefully reading the script brought by the director, Chen Yiyang thought this director truly has some unique ideas.

Only the French could make such a grand film to some extent.

Four daughters married to four foreigners of different cultures, this content is easy to be maliciously interpreted just by thinking about it.

If such a film was produced in other countries, the director’s hometown might get razed even before the film could be released.

"The total cost of the film is about nine million Euros, and it’s still short of approximately four million Euros," Xiao Fulong discussed the film’s costs with Chen Yiyang.

Before coming, Chen Yiyang checked the average filming costs of European cinema.

Based on the script, Chen Yiyang calculated on his own and felt that the cost was more or less reasonable.

Although this is an urban drama with no large scenes in the whole film.

Yet, the cost of shooting a movie domestically in Europe is just that high.

Apart from labor costs, there are also many hidden costs, various associations, organizations, and institutions that all need to be managed one by one.

"So what are your box office expectations?" Chen Yiyang inquired.

"About fifty million US Dollars. If it achieves this, not only can it break even, but it can also earn a small profit."

Xiao Fulong optimistically estimated the box office of the film he shot.

Of course, it might also be because, facing Chen Yiyang, the potential investor, he had to inflate the numbers a bit, or else why would Chen Yiyang invest?

"If the number of viewers for your film can enter the top ten in the history of French domestic films, what would the box office be?" After silently calculating in his mind, Chen Yiyang asked.

"Me, top ten in viewership for French domestic films?" Xiao Fulong, hearing Chen Yiyang’s words, felt that Chen Yiyang was joking.

Because the best-performing French domestic films were all shot before the Euro was born and couldn’t be compared by box office, they were generally ranked by viewership.

But Xiao Fulong never believed that the film he shot could be among the top ten in the historical viewership list of French domestic films.

He always felt Chen Yiyang was deliberately mocking him.

But facing Chen Yiyang, a potential investor, he still honestly did some calculations and said, "That would probably have roughly a box office of about one billion Euros in the French domestic market. However, if the box office really reaches this result, then the box office in other European countries should also be good, totaling up to about 1.5 billion Euros?"

As the film was a recommended investment due to leaked intelligence, Chen Yiyang believed there was a high probability that this film could rank in the top ten in terms of viewership in French domestic film history.

However, he didn’t expect that even with such a high ranking, the box office would only be 1.5 billion Euros in the end.

But considering the inherently fragmented and small scale of the European film market, this result was still quite satisfactory.

The French film market is considered the largest in Europe. However, its best performance in recent years was only 1.4 billion US Dollars a year.

In comparison, the US film market has an annual box office of 11.8 billion US Dollars.

Of course, France is only a part of Europe.

But among the remaining major European film markets, Germany has a yearly box office of 960 million US Dollars, and Italy 630 million US Dollars, all not very high.

Besides these major countries, there are also many small countries in Europe, but the problem is that releasing a film in these small countries might not even recover the marketing and translation costs.

"I can contribute the four million Euros investment, but I don’t want a box office share."

Chen Yiyang thought for a moment, thinking that if he invested four million Euros, just taking a share wouldn’t only mean waiting a year or two to get the money back, but the returns might not be significant either.

So he said to Xiao Fulong, "I want the global internet rights for this film. If there are sequels, I also want the priority to purchase the sequel rights at the same price."

In the streaming era, unless a film has an explosive box office, the most valuable part is not the box office revenue but the online rights.

If a film becomes renowned worldwide, just licensing it for a platform like Netflix could bring a substantial annual copyright revenue.

"You are simply my savior," said Xiao Fulong, eyes wide open after hearing Chen Yiyang’s words.

He had been worried about how to persuade Chen Yiyang to accept a relatively lower box office revenue share if Chen was willing to invest.

Because most of the box office revenue shares of this film had already been promised to other investors. Now, although the film was lacking funds and delayed, those investors weren’t necessarily willing to reduce their share proportion.

As a result, Chen Yiyang unexpectedly said he did not intend to take a share of the box office revenue.

As for the online distribution rights, he also knew it was valuable, but generally, online distribution rights of a film would only be worth one or two million Euros.

Unless the viewership truly places it in the top ten of French domestic films.

But is that possible?!

Thus, Xiao Fulong very happily reached an agreement with Chen Yiyang and signed the contract before Chen Yiyang arrived in Germany.

This trip to Germany was nothing to write home about, after Schaefer received a large commission, he helped arrange everything for Chen Yiyang.

Chen Yiyang just met with the president of Lufthansa, and then the two sides signed the supply contract.

However, it was clear that the president of Lufthansa did not want to engage in more business with Chen Yiyang, as he declined the dinner party held in the evening after signing the contract.

So Chen Yiyang and Schaefer had to find a restaurant to eat alone.

"He doesn’t really have anything against you," Schaefer explained to Chen Yiyang, speaking on behalf of Lufthansa’s president, "It’s just that he is upset due to some domestic issues in Germany recently."

"What happened?" Chen Yiyang casually asked.

"The Moerburg Power Plant was blown up," Schaefer replied, "Our president is quite an industrialist, always thinking of reviving German industry.

As a result, the Greens directly blew up the Moerburg Power Plant a few days ago. Upon hearing this news, he almost didn’t end up needing emergency treatment in the hospital."

"What’s the matter with that?" Chen Yiyang didn’t get the implication in Schaefer’s words.

Humans have used thermal power plants for a very long time.

In addition, Germany is a long-established industrial powerhouse, with many old and inefficient power plants in the country, isn’t that quite normal?

Eliminating these outdated capacities and plants can facilitate updates and the construction of better new power plants.

What’s there to be upset about?

Schaefer noticed Chen Yiyang’s thoughts, he leisurely ate his steak and said, "I recommend you look up the kind of power plant that the Moerburg Power Plant was."