"Boss, these are the sales figures for the Harry Potter books in January."
After the meeting, all the executives dispersed, leaving only Kyle and Ms. Hassan in the large conference room.
Ms. Hassan presented the report to Kyle and said, "Boss, thanks to the global box office success of the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the sales figures for January were explosive."
Explosive data?
"In just one month, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets sold 15 million copies, which is almost the result of our entire previous year's efforts," Ms. Hassan said with a mix of emotion and excitement.
There was no doubt that the movie's impact on book sales was very significant.
"That many?!"
Even Kyle was startled: "So, the cumulative global sales of the Harry Potter book series are already close to 40 million copies?"
"It's 42.3 million copies!" Ms. Hassan exclaimed excitedly, "Boss, I can hardly believe its sales are so astonishing. In my career, only a handful of books in the entire publishing industry have achieved such incredible performance."
She couldn't contain her emotions.
It was important to know that the entire Harry Potter series, according to author Rowling, was expected to have as many as six books, or even more.
From book sales, movies, TV series, animation, music, apparel, merchandise licensing, theme parks… undoubtedly, this was a huge gold mine!
"Boss, I suggest that when the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets begins filming, we can take the opportunity to release the book Harry Potter 3. At that time, it will surely be another big seller," Ms. Hassan said.
Kyle nodded.
In the future, the entire Harry Potter series, with just its official book sales, would cumulatively exceed 500 million copies worldwide, second only to the Bible. How could that be a joke?!
In the time that followed, Kyle and Ms. Hassan discussed many things.
They focused mainly on best-selling book copyrights.
Hmm,
The film adaptation rights.
Golden Dawn Publishing, backed by the Golden Dawn Entertainment Group, possessed vast film and entertainment publicity and promotion channels, resources that many other publishing houses could not match. The mere prospect of film adaptations was enough to attract a large number of young authors to submit their works.
Golden Dawn Publishing has a promising future!
Of course, the traditional publishing industry's future would inevitably be impacted by the internet, especially online content. Even with America's strong foundation in physical books, it would still be affected. Otherwise, so many publishing houses wouldn't have closed down after 2010.
Transformation, if not an immediate imperative, was a top priority for the company's future.
"The film adaptation rights for are a key focus for the company!" Kyle declared loudly.
Finally, before Kyle left, he left the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy, asking her to arrange its publication and simultaneously hand it over to the company's editorial department for a second revision and to continue writing the subsequent content.
"Who told me I only had the content for the first book?"
...By the time Kyle left Golden Dawn Publishing, it was already 9 PM.
"Mr. Page, please wait a moment."
As soon as he stepped out of the gate, a tall young man rushed straight towards Kyle, but he was stopped by the security personnel beside Kyle.
"Mr. Page, my name is Zach Braff, I'm a screenwriter and director. This is the script I wrote, please give me your critique, I'd be extremely grateful. Please give me a chance~"
Although the young man was stopped by the security guards, he still pleaded loudly.
"Oh dear!"
Kyle sighed: "Jonathan, let him come over."
"Yes, boss," the security guard responded.
People stopping Kyle to promote themselves had become common ever since Kyle became a famous Hollywood movie mogul; there were simply too many instances.
To be honest, Kyle knew he was getting a bit annoyed.
All sorts of terrible scripts came his way.
Even worse, some only wrote a script outline, without any detailed content. What was their purpose? To put it bluntly, they were just trying to scam money!
However, Kyle was still willing to give these young people a chance.
What if he really encountered an excellent script?
Missing it would truly be a great regret!
If a script Kyle missed was filmed by another movie company and achieved good box office performance, then for Kyle, it would definitely feel like a "dog-bitten" experience.
In the original timeline, director James Wan (Wen Ziren), carrying the Saw script he co-wrote with a friend, went through several film companies before finally gaining the favor of Lionsgate, achieving instant fame and box office success.
In 1976, Sylvester Stallone, with his self-written screenplay Rocky, negotiated with dozens of film companies, but no one bought it; at the same time, he set an astonishing record of mailing scripts to as many as 230 film companies.
Many companies scoffed, believing Rocky had no highlights.
What was the result?
Rocky achieved over $100 million in North American box office revenue!
Dude, that was in 1976!
Its shocking performance was like the release of Titanic in 1997, a worldwide sensation!
Over 230 film companies in Hollywood had all received the Rocky script, but without exception, they all missed out.
"Alas, I don't want to miss an excellent movie script," Kyle often reminded himself.
Not long after... Kyle, who had taken the script from the young man, read it for a while and then let out a surprised sound.
— Garden State!
That was the name of the script.
The reason for his surprise was that in his previous life, Kyle had once bought a pirated VCD of this film.
This movie could be said to be the beginning of Hollywood's indie-chic films in the 21st century. It possessed all the elements that similar films would later have: awkward male-female interactions, extensive use of indie band songs as background music, and a melancholic atmosphere with a glimmer of sunshine… At the same time, its box office performance was also very impressive.
With a production budget of only $2.5 million, and released in 2004, it earned over $35 million in the American box office market alone.
A rare low-budget, high-grossing film!
"Excuse me, what's your name?" Kyle closed the script and looked at the young man who dared to stop him.
A tall man of 1.85 meters, wearing a decorative shirt and a khaki overcoat.
"My name is Zach! Zach Braff!" the young man responded excitedly.
Kyle nodded, thinking to himself, "As expected."
In the original timeline, Zach Braff was not only the screenwriter of the movie Garden State but also its director, and he also played the lead male role.
While he might not have become a huge superstar, he was quite well-known in America, and he never lacked offers from film companies.
From the moment Kyle asked his name, he had already made a decision in his mind.
Movies like Spider-Man and Harry Potter were excellent, top-tier commercial blockbusters that achieved high box office performance, but a film company also couldn't lack other types of low-budget productions; otherwise, it would only stagnate.
"Jonathan, give him Kevin Feige's number," Kyle said with a smile, looking at Zach Braff.
"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Page!" The young man was overjoyed.