Ten-year commercial map of Xú Zhēng

Original GuDuo guduo editorial department guduo network movie and television

Text │ Jingwei

In recent days, influenced by the TST pyramid scheme, Tao Hong, who has a close relationship with Zhang Ting and his wife, was pushed to the forefront, and the news of "420 million dividends in five years" quickly reached the top of the hot search. Then some netizens found out that Xú Zhēng is the image ambassador of the secret "Zheng wine series" of TST Court, and clearly wrote in the propaganda draft of the secret related website of TST Court: "Xú Zhēng is the boss of our TST, and Zheng wine is named after him!"

For a time, Mr. and Mrs. Xú Zhēng, as "associates" of the TST case, became a hot topic among netizens. Although the case is still under investigation, it is unknown whether Xú Zhēng and his wife will be implicated in it. However, Xu Zheng, who started as an actor and successfully transformed into a director and producer, has indeed been caught in the whirlpool of controversy many times in recent years.

From "Embarrassed by Thailand" to its triumphant progress in business, it was sued by the copyright owner of "People in Embarrassed Road" for 100 million yuan, and it was sold to ByteDance in Lost in Russia for 630 million yuan. At the same time, it caused resistance from many industry practitioners. Every step of Xú Zhēng’s capital operation was quite smart, but disputes were often accompanied.

Including the TST incident, it is also related to Xú Zhēng’s layout and interests on the commercial page. As many netizens and the media have defined him, compared with director and actor Xú Zhēng, businessman Xú Zhēng may be able to better summarize the characteristics of his achievements and controversies.

"Embarrassing the road is a real joy."

Before the "Embarrassing" series of movies, Xú Zhēng’s impression in the eyes of the public mostly stayed in several childhood-recalling TV series such as "Pig in a Bright Spring" and "Love through Time and Space", and the screen image of Han Han MengMeng gained a lot of audience’s favor. However, his later roles in films such as Crazy Stone, Love Call Transfer, Night Shop, etc. were mostly small people who lost their lives.

In 2010, Xú Zhēng’s co-star Wang Baoqiang starred in "A Man on a Lost Road", a comedy film directed by Hong Kong director Ye Weimin, which earned nearly 50 million at a low cost of 7 million yuan, which undoubtedly made Xú Zhēng see the huge benefits of film investment. Later, he set up Beijing Zhenledao Culture Communication Co., Ltd. in 2012, and he, Tao Hong and agent Liu Ruifang held 51%, 25% and 24% shares respectively.

The first work released by True Music Road is "Sorry". At that time, Xú Zhēng, who had not been a film director, took the script of "Sorry" and looked for investment everywhere. Finally, he pulled Light Film as the first producer of the film, and True Music Road only served as a joint production. "Embarrassed in Thailand" was not optimistic at first, but in the end it rocked the box office of 1.272 billion at a cost of 40 million, which opened the box office era of 1 billion movies in China, and broke many records, successfully surpassing "Avatar" to create 40 million domestic movie audiences.

According to the official announcement, Light Media achieved a net profit of 310 million that year, up 76.47% year-on-year. The film "Sorry for Thailand" contributed about 545 million, and Xú Zhēng’s own income may have reached 40 million. However, while the wind and water are booming, troubles also follow.

In 2014, Wuhan Huaqi Film and Television Production Co., Ltd., the copyright owner of A Man in a Long Way, took four producers and Xú Zhēng to court. After four years and two trials, the court finally ruled that Xú Zhēng and the producers lost the case and paid compensation of 5 million yuan, while Wuhan Huaqi’s initial appeal was 100 million yuan.

However, for Xú Zhēng, compared with the huge commercial returns brought by "Jiong", this is obviously not worth mentioning, and he has not stopped the development and commercial layout of "Jiong" series of works.

"Make sure you don’t lose money, Zheng is happy."

In 2015, Xú Zhēng continued to be a director, a screenwriter, a leading actor and a producer, and released "Hong Kong Long".

In the same year, Xú Zhēng, together with Ning Hao and Dong Ping, subscribed for 21 Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed company, with the shareholding ratios of 19%, 19% and 24% respectively. The company was later renamed Joy Media. After that, Joy Media attracted Wong Kar-wai, Chen Kexin, Gu Changwei, Zhang Yibai, Zhang Yimou and other directors to join by issuing new shares.

Before the release of "Lost in Hong Kong", Xú Zhēng sold 47.5% of the film’s net box office income from True Music Road to Joy Media for 150 million yuan, which means that before the film was released, Xú Zhēng had earned a guaranteed box office of 150 million yuan, not to mention that the box office rose all the way to 1.6 billion. He not only earned a lot of money in the name of directors, starring roles and shareholders of True Music Road.

Another great benefit of "Hong Kong Long" is the placement of advertisements. Xu Zheng once said in an interview that it’s a pity that "Thailand" doesn’t have any implanted brands, while "Hong Kong" has 14 brands, including 58 Tongcheng, China Life Insurance and Pulse. Due to too many advertisements implanted in the film, it was also vomited by many viewers. Coupled with the negative evaluation of the film at the story level, the final score of Douban in Hong Kong was 5.7, which was the worst in the "Hong Kong" series.

Perhaps influenced by the word-of-mouth of Hong Kong, there was no new work in the series of Hong Kong for five years, and Xú Zhēng only directed the work as a director in the unit that won the championship in My People，My Country in 2019. An industry screenwriter once told Gu Duo, "At that time, companies in Xú Zhēng were looking around for scripts about the crisis of middle age, and all they wanted was this theme", or a portrayal of his difficulties in creation at that time.

The turning point was the emergence of Lost in Russia in 2020. Lost in Russia was originally scheduled to be released in the Spring Festival in 2020. However, due to the outbreak, all the films of the Spring Festival were announced to be withdrawn. No one expected that Xú Zhēng’s business mind was so smart that he sold Lost in Russia to ByteDance for 630 million yuan.

It is rumored that Xu Zheng had signed a gambling agreement with the film investors, and if Lost in Russia’s box office did not reach 2.4 billion, he would have to bear the 600 million production expenses contributed by the investors alone. Therefore, after the film went online in ByteDance, not only did the gambling pressure on Xú Zhēng disappear, but the share price of Joy Media also rose by 40.15%.

However, Lost in Russia’s bold operation of "switching from hospital to network" for the first time also angered many filmmakers. A statement signed "More than 20,000 employees in Zhejiang film industry" condemned Lost in Russia for breaking industry rules, breaking promises, valuing profit over righteousness, and announced that if webcasting, it would boycott Joy Media and Xú Zhēng films. Twenty-two cinema line companies, including Wanda Film and Dadi Film, and Guizhou Film Distribution and Projection Industry Association even wrote to the State Film Bureau, saying that the free Internet premiere in Lost in Russia is an act of undermining the basic rules of the industry, and it is "trampling and deliberately destroying the current film industry and distribution mechanism in China, which will play a destructive leading role".

Controversy belongs to controversy. Xú Zhēng’s move not only "makes a steady profit without losing money" once again, but also sets a precedent of "switching from hospital to network", from which "merging of hospital and network" has become an industry trend.

"Behind-the-scenes players, Zheng winners"

According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, Xú Zhēng, as a filmmaker, has a total box office of 10.363 billion, ranking fifth among all filmmakers in China, and is also a member of the tens of billions of box office directors. As a producer, his company, Beijing Zhenledao, produced 12 films, with a total box office of 12.618 billion, ranking 23rd among all film production companies. Besides the state-owned enterprises such as China Film, the companies ahead of it are foreign companies such as Marvel Comics and Fox. Among the companies set up by actors or directors, only Dengfeng International of Jason Wu is ahead of it.

From the first film "Embarrassment of Thailand" in 2012 to the Breaking Through released in 2022, there are 14 films produced, co-produced and released by Zhenledao in this decade. Except for Breaking Through’s "Summer in Itaro", the box office performance of the other works is over 100 million yuan. Among them, Dying to Survive not only earned a box office of 3.1 billion yuan, but also won the good reputation of "Drug God" because of the high reputation of Douban 9.0.

In addition, starting from 2019, Xú Zhēng and True Music Road have taken a ride to invest in major theme films. In My People，My Country, True Music Road can only be produced jointly with state-owned enterprises or big-name films such as Huaxia Film and Bona Film. When it comes to My Father and I in My People My Homeland, True Music Road has transformed itself into a main producer together with several other leading companies (such as Bad Monkey in Ning Hao, Legend of Yitong in Chen Sicheng and Dengfeng International in Jason Wu).

As it turns out, the super-strong gold absorption ability of the main melody blockbuster made Xú Zhēng earn a lot of money: the total box office of the three "Me and Me" series was as high as 7.476 billion yuan. Even for loss-making projects, such as Breaking Through, which claims to have invested 200 million yuan, the final box office is only over 6 million. As the first producer, True Music Road in Xú Zhēng may not have lost too much. First, besides True Music Road, the producers in Breaking Through also include institutions such as the movie satellite channel program production center, that is, CCTV6, so the sale of TV rights is not a problem. According to relevant information, this movie may have sold its share early, just like Xú Zhēng’s previous commercial traders.

In addition to the main investment or joint production, Tianyancha shows that one of the shareholders of a film publicity company named Beijing Joy Pictures Co., Ltd. is Jiaxing Zhenledao Investment Management Partnership under Xu Zheng Zhenledao. Although the shareholding ratio is less than 5%, Joy Pictures has achieved good results in the field of publicity. According to the data, he participated in at least 47 projects, including Pancake Man, mr. six, A Chinese Odyssey 3, Luo Xiaohei’s War, White Snake: The Origin, Lost in Russia and so on. Xú Zhēng has formed a huge commercial territory in various chains of the film and television industry by arranging film investment, production and publicity.

In addition, as a director, Xú Zhēng’s production is actually not high. Besides the "Jiong" series, there is only the "Me and Me" series. Xú Zhēng seems to prefer being a producer to supporting the new director. According to public information, there are as many as 17 producer works in Xú Zhēng, among which Dying to Survive’s Behind the scenes Players, Living Together in Time and Space, Petty Love and Love Myth are very well known, and young directors such as Muye Wen, Pengyuan Ren, Su Lun and Shao Yihui are gradually known to the industry and the audience.

It is reported that Pengyuan Ren’s new film "Becoming a Winner" is still produced by Zhen Le Dao and supervised by Xú Zhēng. The film was finished at the end of last year and is expected to be released this year. Perhaps "being a winner" is exactly what Xú Zhēng, a "behind-the-scenes player", has been pursuing. Only "being a winner" can make us truly happy.

Original title: Ten-year Commercial Map of Xú Zhēng

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