Mr. Nobuyuki ignored Nanaya's surprise and continued, "Kiritsugu was very unwilling to lose to you last time, so he planned to make a movie himself to defeat you fairly."
"Uh...I'm not some big devil."
Nanaya felt that Kiritsugu was just looking for trouble. He had never heard of any boss going back to work as a younger brother.
Isn't this a waste of time?
But the old man was very happy about Kiritsugu's behavior: "It's been a long time since I saw Kiritsugu so motivated. Iris is also very happy."
"Ha?"
Nanaya's head was full of black question marks. He felt that he didn't quite understand the Ryutani family's way of thinking.
"Since he took over the North American branch, that guy has been looking up to others but not being able to achieve his goals. And Kiritsugu hasn't understood the current film market for a long time. His thinking in running a film company is even more conservative than that of an old man like me. This is not a good thing." Nobuyuki said hesitantly, "This time he can start learning how to make movies again, which is a good thing for his future."
"Ha ha..."
Nanaya smiled awkwardly. Since the old man didn't blame him for slapping his son-in-law, he wasn't going to worry about it anymore.
"But the company's business..."
"Iris has taken over the operation of the company, and I will also assist as a consultant." Nobuyuki said easily, "Although you did win this time, Lin Bao is still Lin Bao, and we are not going to collapse yet."
"Okay." Nanaya didn't want to argue with the old man. What if he gave him a heart attack again? "Mr. Ryutani, are you calling me this time to tell me that I don't need to be the producer of the Kara no Kyoukai series? If there's nothing else, I'll hang up first."
"No, this is just a side note." Nobuyuki denied Nanaya's guess, "I mainly want to talk to you about something else."
"What is it?"
"Can you agree to let characters from Fate appear in the "Kara no Kyoukai" series?"
Letting Fate's character make a cameo appearance in "Kara" was the main reason why the old man called Nanaya.
Earlier, when Erque and Lin Bao separated, in order to ensure the integrity of the Type-Moon story, Nanaya gave the copyright of the "Kara no Kyoukai" series to Lin Bao, but still obtained the right to use the main characters.
At that time, everyone thought that Nanaya wanted to take advantage of "Kara" and hoped to use the popularity of "Kara" to promote his own new IP, just like Marvel went to Sony to negotiate the copyright usage agreement of Spider-Man last year.
The only difference between the two is that Nanaya succeeded in the former, while Marvel failed in the latter.
But what no one expected was that although Nanaya got the rights to use the characters of "Kara", he did not use the characters of "Kara" in Fate, but directly pushed Fate to the world-class IP.
As a result, the characters of the "Kara no Kyoukai" series have become somewhat dispensable in the eyes of the current employees of "Erque Studio". Many of them think that the appearance of characters such as Ryougi Shiki and Aozaki Touko in the Fate series is simply a compliment to them.
Now the only purpose that they [Erque Studio] have for owning these characters is to expand the copyright library of their own studio.
However, Mr. Ryutani Nobuyuki saw another side of Nana's thoughts, because he had read the plan for the Type-Moon Video Universe that Nanaya submitted to Kiritsugu.
At that time, Kiritsugu thought that developing a new IP was too risky, so he did not agree.
And everyone knows what happened next.
Mr. Nobuyuki saw a business opportunity in this old plan. He hoped to obtain Nanaya's authorization and the right for the Fate characters to appear in "Kara no Kyoukai".
In this way, using the Fate IP might allow the "Kara" series to enter the North American market - after all, "Kara" is indeed a big IP in Japan, but its potential in the region has almost reached its limit, and it is difficult to move to the next level.
Moreover, the old man's idea is not just speculation, but is supported by data.
Since last summer, the audience for "Magical Girl Illya" on offline rentals and the [See Moon] website in North America has suddenly increased dramatically.
Everyone knows that this special drama is the original plan of the Fate series, and even the big boss Gilgamesh appeared in this TV series.
Countless moonologists began to study this TV series, trying to analyze the plot of UBW.
And those casual fans of Fate hope to know more about things related to Fate.
Therefore, since the second half of last year, "Magic Illya" has been among the top in terms of clicks on the anime series [See Moon] and offline DVD and videotape rental charts.
This gave Mr. Ryutani Nobuyuki a lot of inspiration. Since "Magic Girl Illya" can ride on the popularity of Fate, there is no reason why "Kara" cannot.
After all, when Nanaya was designing it, Fate and "Kara no Kyoukai" were stories that took place in the same world view.
Even if the "Kara" series cannot become as popular as Fate in North America, it can at least gain a group of loyal fans.
The North American market is much larger than that of Japan, and Lin Bao can make a good living by just scraping out a little bit of profit.
In fact, the old man has been thinking about Lin Bao's next strategy since the end of the Japanese Oscars.
Judging from the current situation, Lin Bao will definitely not be able to regain his position as the leader of the Japanese film industry in a short period of time.
Putting aside other things, the current size gap between Lin Bao and Washimine cannot be easily made up.
But life has to go on. Even if Lin Bao cannot defeat Washimine, it does not mean that Lin Bao will be directly cast down to the mortal world.
Compared to other Japanese film producers, Lin Bao is the only one among them who can last two rounds under Washimine.
At least, in the competition with Washimine, Lin Bao still won a screenplay award, while the films of other manufacturers all won participation awards at this Japanese Olympics.
At present, a pattern of one super and many strong companies has been formed in the Japanese film market, and Washimine, as the "super", has already possessed a certain dominant position.
But what's interesting is that Washimine was not particularly interested in the Japanese market. From the beginning to the end, Washimine's focus was always on Europe and the United States because that's where the bulk of their industry profits come from.
This gave Lin Bao an opportunity. Now Lin Bao was no longer a ruler, but a pursuer.
Having lost its throne, it can instead look further ahead.
At present, many small Japanese film companies have flocked to Washimine, after all, it is nice to be under the shade of a big tree.
Small factories are willing to join the Washimine Group, but are large factories willing?
When faced with Washimine, the new boss, the first reaction of big companies like Toei, Kadokawa, and Shochiku must be to be on guard.
Because Washimine is so huge, so huge that all of them are afraid of being swallowed up.
Although Washimine had no intention of swallowing them up, this group of people did not know this fact. They were only focusing on the Japanese market and would naturally think that once they got to that position, they would definitely take action against these second- and third-tier giants.
Lin Bao's investigators soon discovered this situation, and the experienced Ryutani Nobuyuki immediately realized that this was a good opportunity to recruit these old opponents.
Take advantage of their fear of Washimine and form an anti-Washimine alliance with Lin Baolai as the leader.
After all, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. Although Lin Bao was defeated by Washimine, there is no problem for him to defeat Toei and the others in return.
Of course, if Lin Bao, who had already lost a round to Washimine and whose prestige had been greatly reduced, wanted to secure his position as the leader of the Anti-Washimine Group, they would definitely have to do it as soon as possible.
Achieve some results to stabilize the morale of the troops.
Using fate characters as guest appearances to enter the North American market and achieve results that no one else has achieved, this is Mr. Ryutani Nobuyuki's plan.
The old man was cunning enough not to explain the causes and consequences of these things clearly to Nanaya, but he revealed this meaning between the lines.
Basically, as long as I act as a good spy for Washimine and pretend to be a traitor, I can help you deal with those traitors in Toei, so that Washimine can enter the North American market without any worries.
That being said, Nanaya believed that if any problem occurred in Washimine, Lin Bao would definitely be the first to defect.
If it were someone else, they would probably refuse directly, but after thinking about it for a while, Nanaya agreed to the old man's request.
If we want to convince audiences around the world that the Moon World is a real world, it won't be enough to rely on programs produced by Washimine's company alone.
After all, once the shop becomes big, it will be difficult to take care of all aspects.
In the previous life, Marvel licensed some third-line characters such as Iron Fist and Luke Cage to Netflix, asking Netflix to help it produce web dramas to expand the MCU territory.
Although the licensing method is very limited, Netflix can only allow the Avengers Building to appear in the poster, and not even a brick can be seen in the series.
However, the outcome of the cooperation between the two parties was not good. After David Dizi and Marvel and other MCU empires were officially established, they directly destroyed the bridge after crossing it and took back all the copyrights given to Netflix at once.
This led to major changes in Netflix's online drama department at the time, and it was not until they re-produced a batch of online dramas such as "The Boys" that they were able to stabilize their position again.
Nanaya certainly doesn't intend to go so far, but it's possible to rely on these popular characters to control Lin Bao. You, Lin Bao, can go up to the house to get the ladder, but I have the power to pull out the ladder at any time.
As long as Lin Bao doesn't do anything out of line, Nanaya won't follow Disney's example and burn his bridges after crossing them.
And if Lin Bao dares to play any tricks, Nanaya believes that Washimine's legal department will not be a pushover.
However, even though he agreed, Nanaya would of course have to think carefully about which characters to give to him. He definitely couldn't even think about first-line characters like Artoria, Tohsaka Rin, and Emiya Shirou. He could let Lin Bao borrow minor characters like Fujimura Taiga and Sera.
"Old man, I agree in principle to this cooperation. Please arrange for someone to discuss the details with Washimine's employees. I will notify them."
Nanaya would definitely not be at the forefront of the negotiations. The two previous unpleasantnesses with Lin Bao were because he had direct face-to-face communication with Ryutani Nobuyuki and Emiya Kiritsugu. There was no room for easing after the quarrel.
Nanaya, who has learned his lesson, plans to hide behind the scenes this time and let his subordinates negotiate the matter.
"Of course, I understand." Nobuyuki laughed, "Then I'll have to trouble Nanaya boy to help Lin Bao with his revival."
"Sure, sure."
The two foxes, one old and one young, both had ulterior motives, but they laughed at the other end of the phone.