News spread fast last week that Long Danni, CEO of eeMedia would be leaving the company for Shanda entertainment. This gave us all a series of heart attacks, because eeMedia was chaotic until she was hired last year and took over, and in the past year she’s accomplished so much by overseeing eeMedia’s first drama production, Meteor Shower, making Supergirls a nationwide hit, organizing the music department, etc. We couldn’t believe that a woman with such a strong vision would just leave the foundation she had worked hard to create.

And she didn’t. Well,  not technically. Instead the real story behind the news points to an alliance that will only stretch the boundaries of eeMedia and Hunan TV further, not topple the company.

Shanda Interactive (Shanda) and Hunan Broadcasting Systems (Hunan) held a press conference today announcing the formation of a new entertainment company. The new company, Shengshi (Glorious Times) Film and TV, with an initial investment of 600million yuan, will be a Shanda-Hunan joint venture focused on film and drama productions as well as artist management.

Current managing director of eeMedia Long Danni will act as Shengshi’s president. It’s first projects include the remake of Huan Zhu Ge Ge, which is currently holding Super Girl-esque auditions all over China. The only other announced project is a film adaptation of online novel “Xing Chen Bian/星辰变/Change of Fate.” “XCB” was first published on Shanda Literature’s website qidian. The fantasy novel has also been picked up as an online game by Shanda earlier this year.

The Benefits of Partnering with Shenshi – Capital

Shenshi currently seems to have everything going for it. Shanda Literature has one of the largest original story collections to draw from for screenplays. Shanda also happens to be a private company with plenty of capital, something that Hunan has needed to carry out its creative outlets. Hunan offers one of the best avenues of advertising possible as well as a wealth of artists. The only uncertainty is how Long Danni will split her time and energy between the two companies, and how much the two will work with each other. Also present at the press conference were eeMedia literary director Guo Jingming and artists Zhang Han and Jiang Yingrong.

This will be Hunan’s fourth major film and drama production company. Others include Huaxia ( HZGG 1-3, Dreams Link, Always Smile!), Nesound Intl ( major historical dramas & Ugly Wudi) and eeMedia (Super Girls/Boys, Let’s Watch Meteor Shower Together). This summer, Shenda brought 51% of the shares of the Hurray Group!, which owns Huayi Music (Laure Shang and Chen Chusheng) and Seed (Kenji Wu, Wen Lan, Wang Yuexin), among other music companies. Shanda seems to be spreading itself to all sectors of entertainment, from its original video game origins to literature, music and then TV and film. Meanwhile, Hunan is simply looking for new capital and connections to produce its TV series. Long Danni, meanwhile, seems to be set on her entertainment empire that she has been setting in motion since taking over eeMedia last year. Shengshi will be an interesting pairing between a state-owned company and a public company.

Interestingly, as Shanda is moving past video games into film and drama, Hunan is also tapping into the video game sector with the launch of interactive video games on its website. Will Shanda also lend a hand in this endeavor by Hunan, too?

source: Shanda Interactive