Chapter Thirty-One: Lion's Gate Film

  America is a very strange country, where Americans wear Chinese-made clothes, Indian-made shoes on their feet, eat corn grown in Mexico and Brazil, and drive many Japanese Toyotas and German BMWs.

  In short, this country's food, clothing, housing and transportation are basically all made by other countries. However, they also have one thing that is domestically produced and dominates the world, which is... movies!

  Not bad, the United States is the country with the largest film production and sales in the world, with an annual total value of over $20 billion. If you connect all the films made in the US in a year, it can circle the Earth one and a half times!

  The output of American films is amazing, but so are the losses. Many dark horses have emerged.

  Low cost, small production, but ultimately achieving astonishing box office results, such a dark horse is not unheard of in the history of American cinema.

  For example, the classic romance film "A Chinese Ghost Story" shot in 1990. The total investment of this play was less than 100 million yuan, and most of the funds were used for the special effects design of "ghosts", but the box office of this play was very surprising, and the domestic box office broke through 200 million US dollars in just four months; followed by a harvest of 2.8 billion yen in Japan, defeating big films such as "Total Recall" and "Back to the Future Part III" in the United States, becoming the box office champion.

  In the end, this low-cost "ghost film" achieved a staggering global box office of $500 million! And that's not all - it also received six Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe nominations, winning several major awards overseas, absolutely achieving the highest state of fame and fortune!

  With this precedent, Yi Feiyang was very confident in finding a suitable film company to negotiate the copyright sales of "The Blair Witch" and hoped to sell it at a good price.

  Of course, if you have your own film company, your own cinema chain and a lot of money for promotion, there is no need to sell such a profitable movie to others. As long as the movie is released, it will be able to reap high box office revenue in the future.

  But nowadays, Yi Feiyang has nothing. Even if he does, he must face a problem: box office revenue is not accumulated in one day and cannot be obtained overnight. At least half a year or even one to two years are needed to truly receive the money. During this period, you need to ensure that you can "survive".

  Yi Feiyang is a very pragmatic person. He understands his own strengths and weaknesses, and everything he does now has only one purpose: to create wealth for his original accumulation!

  With funding, you can execute bigger plans, shoot the movies you want to shoot and do what you want to do; conversely, without start-up capital, you can't do anything!

  A single penny can overthrow a hero!

  Even one penny can be difficult for any genius!

  Needless to say, the United States is a country with an exceptionally developed film industry. Like this vast film empire, film companies are like the warring states of the Seven Heroes era, vying for supremacy.

  And these seven movie kings are MGM, Columbia, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount and Fox!

  These seven major film companies basically hold the rise and fall of Hollywood, controlling the direction of the world's film industry. However, occasionally some new film companies will emerge to challenge their authority, such as... Lionsgate Films.

  The founder of Lionsgate is Frank Giustra, who was originally a Canadian banker. In 1997, he founded Lionsgate and hoped to invest in the booming film industry at that time. At the beginning, the company acquired many small production equipment and distributors, and spent a huge amount of money to acquire a batch of large cinema lines.

  Lionsgate's first successful film was American Psycho. This started a trend of Lionsgate acquiring young-adult focused horror and thriller films such as the Saw series, Hostel, The Hunger Games, and The Divergent Series.

  Yi Feiyang chose Lionsgate as the object of his business deal this time, precisely because he valued this point. Moreover, in his past life, Yi Feiyang had a lot of affection for Lionsgate, especially loving the company's "Saw" series and "The Hunger Games" series.

  Lionsgate's US headquarters are located in Santa Monica, a suburb of Los Angeles. This area is home to many film companies and is situated near Hollywood to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The most important aspect of this location is that it serves as a transportation hub for the entire Los Angeles area, connecting the city's movie theaters and allowing for expansion into overseas markets while also showcasing its strength in Hollywood.

  When Yifei Yang came to the headquarters of MGM Studios with full confidence, he looked up at this newly established film company and clearly saw that in another ten years, by 2007, this young lion would replace the original MGM and become a mighty lion dominating Hollywood. Become one of the new seven lions of Hollywood.

  The gate was guarded by a black security guard who looked like a giant gorilla, and he eyed Yi Feiyang, a Chinese man with strange behavior, warily.

  He didn't understand what the other person was looking at, but as a security guard he walked over vigilantly and asked Yi Feiyang, "Hey, buddy, do you have something to do? If not, please don't wander around here aimlessly."

  Yi Feiyang smiled and said politely: "I'm here to see Mr. Gusta, I have important things to discuss with him."

  "Gusta? You're looking for our boss? Unfortunately, our boss is out, so please come back next time!" The black security guard didn't believe this guy's nonsense. What makes you think you have the qualifications to see our boss?

  "It doesn't matter, I can wait for him here, what time will he be back?" Yi Feiyang said undaunted.

  "I don't know about that, but I advise you to leave, buddy, do you understand what I mean?" The black security guard was getting impatient.

  Yi Feiyang shrugged, "Then can I find someone else? For example, there's a Mr. Mike, who seems to be the head of the publishing department. I'll go ask him too." After finishing speaking, Yi Feiyang walked in and plopped himself down into the chair in the leisure area.

  The black security guard seemed to have muttered something under his breath and then ignored him.

  Yi Feiyang waited for a while, looked at the time, and it was already 10 o'clock in the morning. So he got up and went to the secretary's desk, and said to the female secretary who was applying nail polish: "Excuse me, when does Manager Mike come to work?"

  The female secretary said in a tone of "I don't care": "How am I supposed to know? I'm just the secretary here, not his nanny!"

  Yi Feiyang could only nod helplessly, and just as he was about to turn around, someone shouted: "Mr. Mike, there's a document here that needs your signature."

  Yi Feiyang turned his head to look back, and saw a short and stout white man coming in from the revolving door, with a company employee holding files following behind him.

  It's obvious that this dwarf pumpkin is Mike's boss.

  Mike's boss took out his own gold pen, scribbled his signature on the document with a flourish, and then tossed it back, getting into the elevator accompanied by his personal assistant.

  The elevator doors were just about to close when a hand slipped in, and then he saw a Chinese man say to him: "Hello, Mr. Mike, my name is Yifei Yang, I had previously contacted Mr. Gusta about the film copyright issue..."

  "Oh, you're the one who... my boss mentioned it to me; but I'm very busy now, buddy, as you can see, I have an important meeting to attend, just wait a minute!" As Mike pressed the button, the elevator doors closed.

  Yi Feiyang didn't expect this short pumpkin to be so uncooperative. Seeing the other party go upstairs, he had no choice but to return to the leisure area and continue sitting on the cold bench.

  Time is passing away bit by bit, second by second.

  Yi Feiyang and others were getting impatient.

  Not far away from the desk, a black security guard is chatting and laughing with the female secretary.

  Yi Feiyang walked over and asked, "Excuse me, has Mr. Mike's meeting finished?"

  "How am I supposed to know?" The female secretary was annoyed at being interrupted while chatting.

  "Then trouble you to make a phone call and ask."

  The female secretary gave Yifei Yang a fierce stare, "You wait!"

  He dialed the number and soon got through.

  "Mr. Mike, there's a gentleman downstairs looking for you... Ah, yes, it's that Chinese man, hmm, let him wait a bit longer... Alright, alright, hmm, goodbye!"

  "Haven't you heard? Wait a little longer!" The female secretary hung up the phone impatiently.

  "Hey buddy, just sit there! Don't bother anyone else, Mr. Mike will call you when he's free!" The black security guard spoke up for the female secretary.

  Yi Feiyang took a deep breath and tried to suppress his fiery temper, smiling wryly. "Alright, I'll wait a bit longer." He walked back to the leisure area.

  The black security guard turned his head and said to the female secretary with a sense of triumph: "Damn it, Chinese people are just so uncooperative!"

  ……

  Another few hours have passed.

  It's already noon, and Yi Feiyang's stomach is growling. The female secretary and the black security guard have already changed shifts and eaten lunch.

  The black security guard was picking his teeth with the company key, while the female secretary in the front desk was touching up her smeared lipstick with a small mirror.

  A delivery guy walked in, saying it was Mr. Mike's order of French set meal, black pepper beef tenderloin, cheese baked escargot, and foie gras...

  The female secretary quietly called Mike's supervisor and said, "Your meal has arrived, and that Chinese person is still waiting."

  "Oh for crying out loud, is that idiot still here?! Tell him to wait, just say I'm busy and I'll deal with it after lunch!"

  Then a woman's giggles and Mr. Mike's laughter came from the other end of the phone: "Baby, look, are we drinking red wine or brandy later?"

  The phone was hung up with a ghostly sound, and when the female secretary looked up, she saw Yi Feiyang smiling at her.