Wang Chuan was so moved that he wept.

Qi Hao knew that movies were hard to profit from, yet he repeatedly invested more to allow him to make the film according to his true vision.

The promotional team also gave their all.

Especially with the scheduling, it's said that Qi Hao personally called the cinemas to negotiate the showtimes.

He managed to carve out a decent number of showtimes from big-budget films like "Legend of the White Snake" and "Mural."

Otherwise, an animated film like this would surely have only been given single-digit showtimes.

Qi Hao used his brilliant achievements from last year to negotiate with the cinemas to barely maintain "Kuiba" at double-digit showtimes.

Now, a week after "Kuiba" premiered, the box office just barely exceeded 20 million.

It really hasn't lived up to so many showtimes.

Actually, this year's National Day holiday saw a cluster of domestic animated films: "The Young Yue Fei Legend," "Rock Kingdom's Holy Dragon Knight," "Tunna the Rooster," "True Kung Fu," "Citizen 1911" all came to the forefront, with no other period in the past welcoming such a flood of animated feature films.

The success of the "Pleasant Goat" movie made many feel there was a market here.

Since there's a market, then there's a first-mover advantage.

So a crowd rushed in.

Most of these producers were previously making toddler animations, which gave them a foundation, but there were significant gaps in concept and technology.

The brutal result was no major victories, with only "Kuiba," which exceeded double-digit showtimes, doing slightly better, but even that was just the tallest of the dwarfs.

Honestly, this result truly doesn't justify the showtimes the cinemas gave, and it certainly damages Qi Hao's credibility.

Credibility, what's that?

Qi Hao couldn't care less about it.

The cinemas only care about money, not people. As long as your next movie's box office explodes again, they'll still support you, there's really no hindrance.

"Lost on Journey 2" has almost finished editing.

Qi Hao watched the rough cut and felt that the quality of this second installment is higher, with more laughs, and the box office will surely be better than the first. They're prepared to release it by the end of the year, aiming for the 2012 Chinese New Year slot.

Meanwhile, Tian Xiaopeng's "The Return of the Great Sage" is also progressing smoothly.

If all goes well, even if it doesn't release next year, the year after is a sure thing.

Qi Hao has more confidence in this animated film.

While Wang Chuan's "Kuiba" is the first animated movie invested in by West Hao Animation Film and Television, it was already halfway through production by the time they invested.

It's a mid-course entry.

Initially, Wang Chuan only had five million.

He could only lay the foundation with a five-million budget, and even though the production cost was later increased to over twenty million, it couldn't change the inherent deficiencies of this project.

At most, the situation for the next film will improve.

By then, with the foundation of fans from the first film who already understand the world-building, there won't be a need to spend as much on exposition, allowing the storyline to flow more smoothly.

Additionally, the production budget will also increase somewhat.

"The Return of the Great Sage" is different.

"The Return of the Great Sage" started with a production budget of 60 million.

This is purely the production cost.

The promotional budget isn't included here and will be adjusted based on the situation once production is complete.

With that much money, Tian Xiaopeng is carefully managing every penny and is truly dedicating all his efforts to this animated film.

He's securing top-tier animation talent in the industry, striving to do everything in the best possible way.

Let's see what kind of results "The Return of the Great Sage" will deliver.

If the results are terrible again,

then the animated movie really has a hard time making it.

If the results show promise, it will naturally attract more hot money into the animated film industry like with "Pleasant Goat."

After the National Day holiday, Maotai distributed this year's dividend.

This year, it's 39.97 yuan per 10 shares.

Qi Hao holds 3.85 million Maotai shares, which adds up to as much as 154 million.

The dividends alone amount to 1.5 billion, which is truly comfortable.

Qi Hao is particularly short of cash recently.

On one hand, there's a lot of film investment going on.

On the other hand, there's also Sina and Xiaomi waiting to be fed.

Sina wants to raise 300 million US dollars, offering Qi Hao 20% of Weibo shares.

Previously, they raised 360 million US dollars for 18%, so the terms have eased quite a bit.

Donghao Venture Capital has basically agreed.

Everyone will soon be like locusts on the same boat; Donghao Venture Capital will also send personnel to participate in the operation of Weibo.

Qi Hao prefers Zhanqi Laiden to replace Old Tian on the Sina board and also serve as vice president of Weibo.

In the future, Zhanqi Laiden will handle any matters over at Sina.

Weibo's function for Qi Hao is mainly reflected in public relations and marketing.

The discussions with Xiaomi continue, with Donghao Venture Capital aiming to maintain a stake of over 10%.

If there's no objection from Xiaomi, Qi Hao is also willing to invest further, increasing the shareholding from the current 12% to 15%, worst case scenario by borrowing from Dongfang Yixiao.

After all, he knows that Xiaomi's series C financing between 2013 and 2014 could boost the valuation from 4 billion US dollars in series B to 45 billion US dollars.

Xiaomi recently also launched a new product, the M1.

Then, Lei Jun let everyone know that purchasing things actually required snatching, and there was a high probability of not getting it.

Coming from the internet industry, Lei Jun truly took scarcity marketing to the extreme.

The M1 was often "unavailable," leading many dissatisfied consumers to criticize it as "monkeying around," and Lei Jun was humorously dubbed "Monkey King Lei."

However, Xiaomi primarily focused on cost performance.

Xiaomi M1, with its flagship hardware configuration and a selling price of 1999 yuan, undoubtedly dropped a bomb in the high-end smartphone market of the time, and it genuinely redefined the concept of "cost performance," which was well-known among regular consumers.

Compared to Apple, this price with this configuration truly couldn't be called expensive, otherwise there wouldn't have been such a rush to snatch it, creating a situation of high demand.

Of course, it wasn't without its flaws.

As if living up to Xiaomi's product concept of "born for fever," this phone got quite hot under heavy load.

And it was during this National Day holiday.

Lei Jun's idol, Apple's legendary godfather Jobs passed away due to pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor at the age of 56.

On the day of his death, Apple's stock price slightly dropped by 0.23%.

It seemed to have little impact.

But the next day, as the news further fermented and became more widely known, Apple's stock price finally fell again.

By the close, Apple Inc.'s stock price had fallen by 7.57 US dollars, closing at 369.00 US dollars, a decrease of 2.01%.

On the other hand, the stocks of Apple's competitors soared. Nokia's stock price rose by 6.09%, closing at 5.92 US dollars; BlackBerry phone manufacturer's stock rose by 3.50%, closing at 24.42 US dollars. Stocks for Sony, trading on the New York Stock Exchange, rose by 1.81%, closing at 19.12 US dollars.

As the holder of 1.5 million Apple shares, Little Buffett, Qi Hao, lost 11.355 million US dollars that day.

Almost equivalent to half of Maotai's dividends for the year.

It can only be said that investing in stocks is truly risky.

However, this loss was quickly recouped in the following days.

Actually, Jobs had not just fallen ill on the first day, and there had long been suspicion about his health from the outside world.

For a long time, Jobs' illness had been a sword hanging over investors' heads, but now there's nothing more to worry about as the situation has already occurred, and there can be no worse outcome.

The stock decline due to his resignation in August also partially absorbed the impact of his passing away.

The negative impact affecting the stock price had actually been absorbed by the market.

As the saying goes, once the negative factors are exhausted, good news follows.

Many people are considering taking the opportunity to buy some Apple stock.

As Qi Hao invested in one movie after another, the system finally prompted him that he had completed the task, allowing him to settle it.

This task required him to invest in three potential directors, and Qi Hao had invested in one after another, even those from Korea which had already been greenlit and were about to start.

"Architecture 101" indeed invited Han Jiaren.

The movie adapted from "Seoul Station" was called "Train to Busan," featuring Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung, Ma Dong-seok, Choi Woo-sik, and others.

Qi Hao wasn't familiar with the actors from Korea.

He also had no intention of probing into it.

To put it simply, the two scripts from Korea were very commercial types, clearly capable of making money at first glance.

Qi Hao invested in them not to support Korean movies or to exploit Han Jiaren or Ma Dong-seok.

The main goal was to make money.

Rather than letting the Korean companies make this money, it's better for him to earn it.

Even a little is still meat.

Moreover, the more he earns, the less the Korean side earns.

Perhaps he could even unite a group with shared interests, and if one day more and more people in the Korean entertainment circle rely on Huaxia capital for survival, they would naturally go out of their way to speak well of Huaxia.

There are so many big capitalists domestically, some are just plain vile, but many are driven by interest relations.

There are also some who left early on.

They sold their houses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even courtyard houses, having mixed abroad for a decade or more, only to find that the money they made doesn't even compare to the demolition compensation of those houses, making it hard not to harbor resentment.

Though the task was complete, Qi Hao did not immediately settle it.

Instead, he continued to scout for good projects.

Art films were also fine.

As long as the script was good enough and the budget reasonable, the funds would be disbursed directly.

Qi Hao didn't even interfere with who was the director or lead actor, making it seem to competitors like the Wang Brothers that Qi Hao was possessed by the Holy Mother Mary.

Even absurdity itself would find this incredulous, it's utterly absurd.

Once this news was out, there was another wave of projects rushing in.

Previously, everyone knew their films wouldn't make money, so they were hesitant to present them to Qi Hao at the risk of rejection, but now Qi Hao clearly stated they didn't need to be profitable, as long as the script was good enough.

At this moment, no one could stop everyone from capitalizing on Qi Hao's generosity.

Even within Qi Hao's circle, many were skeptical that the boss had gone mad.

Only Old Tian and a few others remained as calm as old dogs.

He even conducted a full mobilization, explaining in detail why Qi Hao was acting this way.

Listing!

Zhonghao Entertainment wanted to list, and it had to make a name for itself.

Having only commercial films wasn't enough.

There needed to be a significant number of art films, showcasing the social responsibility and cultural commitment of a large company.

Qi Hao nodded continuously as he listened.

He could only say, brother, as long as you're happy.

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