Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 178

Wang Yong found Jiang Ning at Manager Qian’s place and then told her that a TV station wanted to buy the film and television rights of her work. He asked her for her opinion.

Jiang Ning’s answer did not exceed Wang Yong’s expectation, “Sell it, of course.”

The money she earned from the store during that period, the royalties from Wuxia Magazine, and the royalties from the two volumes of Catcher in the Song Dynasty, was spent all at once when she bought the villa. She had to pay three hundred yuan a month for the remaining two apartments. From film and television copyrights, she would get income. Of course, she decided to sell it.

For Jiang Ning, it didn’t matter how much the first work was sold for. What was important was how it was produced. As long as the first work was produced, it would be easy to sell the film and television rights later.

After Wang Yong got the exact answer from Jiang Ning, he gave her the contact information of the TV station and asked her, “Do you need me to come over and help you review the contract?”

Jiang Ning had signed quite a few such publishing contracts or film and television copyright contracts in her previous life. She knew better than Wang Yong what traps there were in the contract and what necessary clauses needed to be included, so she naturally refused.

Wang Yong also knew Jiang Ning as the editor-in-chief who had negotiated the contract.

Being smart and mature, he was not worried about the cooperation talks between Jiang Ning and the TV station.

The people at the TV station quickly received a call from Jiang Ning. Although Director Li had already expected that the author of Catcher in the Song Dynasty was a woman, he really didn’t expect that the voice that came over the phone would be so young. The voice still had a soft little tone that had not yet changed.

Jiang Ning was born at the end of the year. At that time, she had just turned fourteen and her nominal age was sixteen years old. At that time, her voice was in the transition period between a young girl and a young woman. However, her voice was cold and calm, which made Director Li think Jiang Ning just had a softer voice.

(According to the Chinese nominal age system, a person is counted as one year old on the day of birth and becomes one year older each year on the day the Chinese New Year is celebrated. This means that, in China, nominal age is usually exaggerated by one to two years compared with actual age.)

In their TV station, he had witnessed several voice actors who could transform into such a soft little voice, so it was not surprising. After looking at the phone, he put the receiver to his ear again and asked Ning Meng uncertainty, “You’re Ning Meng?”

“Yes, I’m Ning Meng. I heard from my editor that you want to buy the rights to Catcher in the Song Dynasty’s TV series.” The tone on the other end of the phone was completely different from the calmness of her voice.

At that time, the division of film and television copyrights was not so detailed. After listening to Jiang Ning talking about the rights of TV dramas, Director Li paused and said, “Yes, we have read your work and think that the cases in your work are very suitable for adaptation into the second series of Detective Bao. We want to buy the TV series copyright and adaptation rights of your work. I wonder if you are willing.”

Jiang Ning originally thought they were going to film Catcher in the Song Dynasty directly, but she didn’t expect it to be an adaptation.

Jiang Ning didn’t hesitate too much, “It can be adapted, but it must be stated in the title of the TV series that the TV series was adapted from Ning Meng’s My Years as a Catcher in the Song Dynasty. In addition, the copyright for the TV series is only authorized for five years. After signing the contract, if you have no filming plans or projects within five years, I have the right to resell the TV series contract after the contract expires.”

Director Li did not expect Ning Meng to be so familiar with film and television copyrights. After buying the rights, they would start a TV series filming project, so there would be no problem. He was afraid that Ning Meng would insist on using her novel’s title as the title of the TV series, which would defeat his plan to use Detective Bao’s popularity.

As long as Jiang Ning was willing to authorize the adaptation into Detective Bao, it was just to indicate the adapted work in the title of the series, which was not a big deal to him. They could go on to talk about copyright fees.

The film and television copyright fees at that time were not as high as her publishing fees, but for the TV station, the copyright fees he paid were already very high.

At present, all the TV station’s income depended on advertising for businesses. The initial investment in the filming of a self-made drama required not only buying the copyright but also contacting the director and actors of the original Detective Bao’s crew, the filming location, the persuasion, etc. needed money.

At that time, the performance fees for actors in the mainland were very low, but the actors from Detective Bao’s crew were currently very popular, especially the actors who played Zhang Zao and Bao Zheng.

After the negotiation was completed, Director Li quickly finalized the contract. Knowing that Jiang Ning was in Shanghai, he asked Xiao Qin, who recommended Catcher in the Song Dynasty to him, to go to her with the contract. At the same time, he contacted the director, crew, and actors.

When the TV station originally bought the mainland broadcast rights of Detective Bao, they had the contact information of the crew and actors.

Although Detective Bao had just been released, the filming of that drama was completed earlier, and the actors in the TV series had also taken on other jobs. When they heard that Detective Bao was going to film a second sequel, the actors who had received bonuses all expressed that after completing the work at hand, they were willing to continue shooting the second part.

It was actually inaccurate to say it was the second part. It should be said to be the third part.

There were only forty-six episodes of Detective Bao in the beginning. After it was released, the ratings increased rapidly and it became popular all of a sudden. Only then did more than 200 episodes get filmed.

The actors and actresses of Detective Bao’s crew were just doing the same as before, finishing the work at hand and continuing to reshoot.

As for the screenwriter, Director Li also quickly found the original screenwriter of Detective Bao, brought its various copyrights, and asked the original screenwriter to adapt the cases of Catcher in the Song Dynasty.

The original screenwriter had written more than two hundred episodes of scripts for Detective Bao before and was almost exhausted. His CPU was about to be burned out. When he heard that he was asked to write Detective Bao’s script again, he sternly refused in his heart. If he could really write it, why not take advantage of the popularity and write another two hundred episodes?

But Director Li said that there were ready-made cases, which were from a book that was very popular in the mainland, with sales of two million copies. The original screenwriter was surprised. With a two million sales volume, it must be a very popular work; even in the mainland, it should be a phenomenal work. At least the cases and logic would not be too bad. Directly adapting such a work with existing cases would not be much for him.