Leo Ku Signs Contract for $80 Million; Contract Price On Par With Nicholas Tse

Leo Ku (古巨基) brought forward plans to renew his 3 years contract with Emperor Entertainment Group (EEG) for a “heavenly king” price of $80 million HKD. This meant that Leo Ku was on par with the contract price of his company mate, Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒), and even on his way to dominate the movies and music industry!

Ever since joining EEG in 2009, within two years of releasing of albums, shooting of movies and advertisements, performing for corporate events and other endless jobs, “gold earner” Leo Ku managed to earn an impressive amount of more than $80 million HKD. The result was considered exceptional! Leo would be staging a strong concert performance at the Coliseum in October,  pledging to break his personal best record and win the “Most Popular Male Singer” award for the fourth time.

It was known that Leo Ku still had many years to go before his original contract expired. However, in order not to let this opportunity slip away and benefit their competitors and to retain this golden egg laying goose, EEG had anxiously carried forward plans to discuss a contract renewal with him.

Pledged to Take Home the “Most Popular Male Singer” Award for the Fourth Time

Because the records industry hasn’t been doing too well, the respective record companies have been keeping a tighter grasp over their significant money-generating artistes. As a three-time consecutive winner of the “Most Popular Male Singer” award, Leo Ku naturally set his sight on receiving this award again.

According to reliable sources, in a bid to retain Leo Ku, EEG extravagantly threw a “heavenly king” price of $80 million HKD contract for a period of 3 years, or $26.67 million HKD per year. This was on par with the earlier contracted price of Nicholas Tse, which was an amount of $300 million HKD for a period of 8 years, or
$37.5million HKD per year. This also meant that Leo and Nicholas would be of equal footing.

According to sources, EEG also promised to pull all stops to help Leo Ku be the fourth consecutive winner of the “Most Popular Male Singer” award. This would then match the “Principal” Alan Tam’s (譚詠麟) record of being crowned “King” four times in a row.

Although the music awards presentation will only be unveiled more than five months later, the respective record companies have already been trying hard to clinch an award for their artistes. Amongst all the awards, the “Most Popular Male/Female Singer” awards were the most highly sought after. Besides that, the four big record companies have yet to finalize royalties talks with TVB and given that Leo Ku’s biggest nemesis was Eason Chan (陳奕迅), it was still too soon to see whether Leo Ku had a chance of winning the award. However, judging by the current situation, it was highly likely that Leo Ku could have a chance of being crowned “King” for his fourth consecutive win of the “Most Popular Male Singer” award.

The Oriental Daily reporter sought to verify this with the Director of EEG’s Records and Artiste Management Unit, Mani Fok (霍汶希). Ms. Fok admitted their success in getting Leo to continue his contract with them, “After joining, Leo Ku helped our company to earn lots of money and won many awards. In the past when Leo Ku had a back problem, he was still willing to sit out the long bus journey to Mainland for work. Thus, our boss really dotes on Leo Ku and is even planning to start a movie and to let Leo be the first main male lead. This movie would need at least a minimum investment of $30 million HKD and would be directed by Director Kwok Chi Kin (郭子健)”

Tens of Millions Invested in October’s Coliseum Concert

Mani Fok also expressed, “Around October, we will organize a concert for Leo. Since this is Leo’s first concert after joining our company, EEG will invest tens of millions in production fees and would spare no efforts in helping Leo gain a speedy success.” Leo Ku would be staging his concert, starting from the first night on October 7th, at the Coliseum. The concert would be called “Leo Ku’s Amazing World, World Tour Concert 2011.”

Leo Ku personally conceptualized on the idea of “Amazing World” and planned to turn the concert venue into a theme park. The record company also specially invited Forest Sun (林海峰) and photographer Wing Shiya (夏永康) to join forces and create Leo Ku’s concert promotional poster. Dressed in a prince charming look, Leo Ku looked set to give his fans a refreshing feeling.

Source: Orientaildaily.on.cc

This article was translated by Ah K, a Contributing Writer at JayneStars.com.

Ah K: I have no idea why they even called Leo Ku’s contract price to be on par with Nicholas Tse’s when there is a huge disparity of 10.83million per year between their prices.

And wow, I didn’t know Leo Ku would be worth that much money, hope EEG wouldn’t turn out to be placing the wrong bet as no doubt Leo Ku is an excellent singer but with the Cantonese music industry being less lacklustre and thriving than before, maybe it would be better to tighten the purse strings and cut back on unnecessary spendings or budgets.

And besides, I cannot remember seeing Leo Ku in any movie except for the one with Cecilia from a long long time, “My Kung-Fu Sweetheart”, and it wasn’t that memorable at all, perhaps he is still far from being able to conquer the movie industry.