When Long Wu ntioned World of Warcraft, Suming's first reaction wasn't to associate it with movies at all. He nodded subconsciously: "Yeah, I've played it. I never expected you to be a gar at your age, bro. I play a Magician, what class do you play?"
"Huh?" Long Wu looked at Suming with a confused expression.
It was Xiang Zuo who chid in from the side: "My dad doesn't play, all he does is steal vegetables. He can't handle all the skills in World of Warcraft. I play a Protection Warrior, on the Tenth District Dalkhan Server. Uncle, which region and server do you belong to? What's your gear level? Horde or Alliance? Next ti let's team up for a 2v2 and grind for honor ranks..."
"I'm with the Horde in the Fifth District Theramore," Suming responded.
"Oh, that won't work. I'm Alliance, we're not on the sa side, we can't team up," Xiang Zuo said, a bit disappointed. He quickly followed up with, "Why don't you switch factions, Uncle? There are many friends from the entertainnt circle in my guild, you know Wu Yanzu, right? He also plays a Magician..."
Long Wu sat with a serious expression, his eyes wide open, as innocent as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, watching the two of them.
"Oh, oh, we're getting off-topic, this is about the ga, not the movie..." Suming said as he realized he had made a super big mistake. His voice changed slightly, and he looked at Long Wu in surprise, "Bro, are you saying, the movie being made this ti, is World of Warcraft?"
Only then did Long Wu reveal a smile and nodded, "Exactly, listening to how excited you two were chatting, I knew there were many players of this ga, and a huge fan base to boot."
"Of course, it's a ga that has swept the world for a decade. It doesn't just have a massive fan base in Huaxia, anywhere in the world with internet is bound to have lots of fans. Oh, except for Korea, I guess their internet isn't up to speed..."
Suming nodded, "But the IP rights, they should be in the hands of Blizzard Entertainnt, right? Bro, have you negotiated it?"
Blizzard Entertainnt is a genuine Arican company, having launched several classic series such as Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. With its headquarters in the United States and consisting of Arican executives and staff, it has almost no intersection with the Xiangjiang film market.
Even if they wanted to sell movie adaptation rights, Blizzard's choices would lean more towards Hollywood and European movie companies, such as Saulerenz Company, which produced The Lord of the Rings series, or perhaps Disney Studios or Legendary Pictures, well-known companies with rich experience in fantasy films.
In terms of overall strength and company reputation, Long Wu and even Huaxia Star are far from competitors for the companies ntioned above.
Long Wu's 'influence' is huge in the Xiangjiang Film and Television Circle, aning if there's a screenplay or rights he wants, there's nothing he can't get his hands on. But in the United States, it's just not possible for him to wield that much power.
At this point, even the reserved Long Wu couldn't help but reveal a smug expression: "My family has a deep connection with a key person within Blizzard, and it just so happened Blizzard was looking to invest in a World of Warcraft movie and seeking partnership."
"What are the terms they offered?" Suming asked, slightly frowning, his curiosity piqued.
The East is a society built on personal connections, the West, a contract-based society. No matter how good the relationship or how big the favor, Long Wu wouldn't get the movie rights for free.
It's not only improbable for them to give it away for free, but handing over a purely Western fantasy title to an Eastern movie company might entail even more stringent conditions than if given to a Western company.
Of course, Long Wu's 'connections' played a decisive role. Without it, the other party would probably not even consider partnering with him.
Blizzard Entertainnt's proposed partnership for making the film mainly ant: They would provide the movie IP rights, participate in the film's direction and supervision without interfering in the shooting process and casting, and finally, they would take 20% from the distributor's entitled share, as a fee for the rights.
For instance, if a film grossed one hundred million at the box office, the distributor could get about forty to fifty million, and without any expenses, Blizzard would take eight to ten million.
The above terms are for Western companies, standard industry practice and not excessive.
Furthermore, as Suming expected, for Eastern film companies, there was an additional condition: no matter what the final box office takings are, the distributor must prepay thirty million US dollars as a guaranteed minimum deposit.
Regardless of whether the final profit share reaches thirty million US Dollars or not, Blizzard would keep these thirty million.
That is to say, Blizzard's final share would be thirty million US dollars, plus roughly 8% of the total box office.
The one hundred million US dollars investnt Long Wu spoke of included this prepaynt of thirty million US dollars.
That's why he was looking for investors everywhere; even the cash he could access was tight, just to make the thirty million US dollars advance paynt, unless he was willing to sell Huaxia Star's shares.
Huaxia Star's equity is the foundation of his livelihood, he certainly wouldn't liquidate it unless it was absolutely necessary.
"What do you think, are you interested in joining?" Long Wu asked with a smile.
Suming pondered, holding his glass of wine, gently swirling it, yet not responding right away, seemingly considering.
This investnt wasn't a matter of one or two million; even the advance paynt to the other party reached nearly two hundred million Huaxia currency. To partake in this ga, the starting point would be no less than fifty million, and a hundred million wouldn't be too much.
Long Wu had budgeted one hundred million US dollars as the total cost, but for such a blockbuster, additional budgets were likely to be needed, and increases of 10% to 20% would be within reason, with potential further investnts later on.
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