Siheyuan's Silly Pillar has been replaced by someone else

He Yuzhu asked Zhou Zhixiong to sit down and poured him a cup of tea.

"You look like you're in trouble?"

Zhou Zhixiong nodded and then explained the problem he had encountered.

The problem lies with the script.

The two sides have not yet reached an agreement on the plot of the script.

Zhou Zhixiong wants to get into Hollywood through Cameron's connections.

So after several discussions, it was finally decided to continue working with Cameron.

Before the collaboration, the company had already arranged for someone to modify the script provided by He Yuzhu, changing the villainous supporting characters.

However, Cameron did not approve of these changes.

Cameron's team acknowledged that the script revisions were very good, but felt there were cultural differences that would not resonate with Western audiences, which would consequently affect the film's box office performance.

The two sides have not reached an agreement on this point.

This is also why He Yuzhu did not meet with Cameron after arriving in Los Angeles.

These trivial matters of negotiation were left to Zhou Zhixiong to handle.

After listening to Zhou Zhixiong's words, He Yuzhu also fell into deep thought.

"Putting aside our positions, what do you think of the advice they offered?"

Zhou Zhixiong held He Yuzhu's original script in his hand. He naturally knew that Cameron's suggestion was very appropriate.

"Mr. He, the script we revised does indeed have an Eastern flavor. To be fair, their concerns are justified."

However, our goal is to enter Hollywood, and that's our principle—we absolutely cannot back down.

"At worst, we can just change the name of the script and film it ourselves."

"Film it ourselves?" He Yuzhu looked up at him. "Then do you think we'll gain more from filming it ourselves, or from collaborating?"

Although filming alone can give them a voice, it's clear they lack sufficient ability on their own.

Filming itself isn't the problem; the biggest issue is getting into the Hollywood market and being accepted by Hollywood.

Zhou Zhixiong shook his head helplessly: "I also asked other directors, but the conditions they gave were basically the same."

I'm sure they reached some kind of agreement in private.

He Yuzhu remained noncommittal on this matter, whether an agreement was reached or not.

The root cause of their predicament lies in their lack of a voice.

Hollywood is an exclusive company; if they want to be accepted, they must have enough say.

"Tell me about what's going on in Hollywood."

Zhou Zhixiong had done his homework well, and he gave He Yuzhu a detailed introduction to the current situation in Hollywood.

This includes companies that control the narrative, actors, directors, talent agencies, and so on.

He Yuzhu focused his attention on film companies and talent agencies.

The most famous person in the agency is Ovitz, who is known as the most influential person in Hollywood.

His innovative talent agency has virtually monopolized the top talent in the film industry.

He Yuzhu is familiar with some film actors, such as Spielberg and Tom Cruise, who are all in his company.

Ovitz controlled film companies' projects to some extent by "selling" directors, stars, and scripts together through a "package" service.

This is an opponent that cannot be defeated.

After learning about the company, He Yuzhu gave up his plan to compete with it.

Compared to talent agencies, film companies have many more opportunities.

There are three film companies that are worth investing in right now: MGM, New World Pictures, and Pixar.

MGM and New World Pictures are both established forces in Hollywood with a glorious history.

However, neither of these two companies is currently in a very good operating condition.

MGM is facing financial difficulties, while New World Pictures suffers from incompetent management.

Compared to the other two, New World Pictures has a slight advantage.

MGM has sold the rights to its core film library to Turner.

Let them sell their core assets. He Yuzhu, who possesses memories of the future, doesn't really care much about his copyrights.

The key issue is that MGM, even without its core assets, still has a high valuation, at least $5 million. In comparison, New World Pictures is much more attractive.

New World Pictures, which just acquired Marvel for $4600 million, owns a large number of intellectual property rights.

As a time traveler, I'm certainly no stranger to Marvel movies.

The Marvel copyright alone was enough to attract He Yuzhu.

Another attraction is its valuation. Currently, New World Pictures is valued at less than 100 million.

Taking him down now would be absolutely worthwhile.

Besides these two, Pixar also attracted He Yuzhu.

In 1986, Steve Jobs bought the animation production business from Stephen Lucas, the "father of Star Wars," for ten million dollars, and founded Pixar.

Currently, Pixar is a purely technology company and does not yet have any representative works.

However, this is only for now, and does not represent the future.

Pixar went on to produce two animated films: Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

These businesses weren't attractive enough to He Yuzhu, but with Steve Jobs involved, they were more than enough.

This Steve Jobs is the same Steve Jobs who founded Apple.

Looking at the three options in front of him, He Yuzhu immediately ruled out MGM, as its valuation was too high.

The remaining New World Pictures and Pixar were giving He Yuzhu a headache.

He Yuzhu knew Jobs' capabilities and naturally wanted to cooperate with him.

But it will take Pixar a long time to develop.

He Yuzhu wants to get into Hollywood immediately, so Pixar is not a good option for collaboration.

"What do you think should be chosen between New World Pictures and Pixar?"

Zhou Zhixiong was unaware of Jobs' future achievements, but he chose New World Pictures directly.

Hearing this answer, He Yuzhu was somewhat unwilling. He felt he shouldn't miss this opportunity to work with Jobs.

He Yuzhu subconsciously touched his fingers, thinking about what to do next.

He made his decision very quickly.

Only children make choices, adults want them all.

He had a chance presented to him, so why would he give it up?

It's just money.

The one thing my great America has in abundance is money.

"Go and find a way to contact the shareholders of New World Pictures and tell them that I want to acquire New World Pictures."

Upon hearing He Yuzhu's words, Zhou Zhixiong's eyes lit up: "I'll go right now."

"Wait a minute," He Yuzhu called out to him, "I haven't finished speaking yet."

While acquiring New World Pictures, you also need to contact Pixar.

I plan to use New World Pictures as a stake in Pixar.

Zhou Zhixiong hesitated for a moment: "President He, we already have New World Pictures, why do we need Pixar?"

Pixar is just a newly founded company now; it has little value.

He Yuzhu said, "I know it's newly established. But I'm optimistic about its future development."

You need to understand, Pixar is the main focus; New World Pictures is just a side project. Even if it doesn't succeed, it's not a big deal.

He Yuzhu suddenly remembered that Marvel's rights seemed to have been sold several times. If they couldn't buy it this time, they could try again next time.

Pixar is different.

This was probably a difficult period for Jobs.

His collaboration with Jobs now will bring him the greatest benefits in the future.

Zhou Zhixiong didn't understand He Yuzhu's choice and sat there trying hard to recall the situation at Pixar.

He really couldn't see what Pixar had that made He Yuzhu value it so much.

He wanted to persuade He Yuzhu to avoid investment failure. (End of Chapter)