The Decision

The next day, Chu Yu and Huang Ming, along with Zhao Qinyin and Su Ruo, met again to discuss the production of the two projects in detail!

There wasn't much to discuss, really. The three of them had built their fortunes alongside Chu Yu, so they had no objections to either Spirited Away's high budget or the other project's lower one. How could they expect to make money without taking any risks?

Their main concern was Chu Yu. After all, according to his plans, he was putting up the lion's share of the nearly 700 to 800 million investment by himself. If the works performed poorly after release, he could suffer a devastating loss!

Spirited Away was especially concerning. With an investment of 450 million, and ticket sales accounting for roughly a third of the returns in the film industry, the movie would need to earn at least 1.3 billion at the box office just to break even, by conservative estimates!

Of course, animated films had plenty of other ways to recoup their costs: merchandise, product placement, selling the rights, and adaptation licenses. Their revenue streams were much the same as those of serialized animation.

But all those income sources depended on the film's popularity. Popularity determined the box office, as well as the revenue from everything that came afterward.

If the box office flopped, it meant the film had received poor word of mouth and failed to attract an audience. In that situation, recouping the investment through other channels would be extremely difficult too!

So...

Hundreds of films had been released in Dragon Country so far this year, but only thirteen had earned more than one billion Dragon Country Currency at the box office!

If Spirited Away had a 450 million budget, Chu Yu would need it to rank