Chapter 1499

When summer came and the children arrived, the Westeros moved to the east coast again in June and lived in the Westeros building in Manhattan.

There are guests in recent days.

Anthony Johnston's family came from Australia and also lived in the building. Anthony, of course, came for business. Instead, Rebecca, Anthony's youngest daughter, was the happiest and could be with her cousin every day. When Melbourne returned from Australia after the last new year, the little girl was sad for a long time, mainly worried that her cousin would like other girls.

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With many people, breakfast is very lively.

Simon and Anthony, who want to talk about things, can only leave the chattering restaurant and eat in the small hall next door.

The topic is about the negotiations on stock exchange between the investment representative teams of African governments who recently arrived in New York and Westeros. What Africa can do is resources. Therefore, Johnston holdings needs to be in the middle of coordination and take charge of the follow-up.

"A major problem in Africa is that the political situation in most countries is very unstable. We can cultivate our own forces in Africa and even elect our spokesmen to power at a critical moment, but there are still variables, which requires an institutionalized model to ensure our interests. State owned enterprises are a good idea, while foreign investment is sovereign investment, which is best managed by the government We are responsible for escrow. In this way, no matter how the local regime changes, as long as the winner is not too stupid and helps the other party take over the relevant assets, our interests can be protected to the greatest extent. "

The Kosovo war was earth shaking, and the world's mainstream media scrambled to follow up and report. However, most people seem to forget that there is still a big scuffle in Africa, which has been going on all the time. No one cares how much damage it has caused, and how many casualties it has caused.

In fact, until more than ten or twenty years later, the situation in Africa has not changed much, and there will be news of coups in three or two days.

Therefore, if you want to gain a firm foothold in Africa, you can't just do business honestly. At least, the cost will be very high. Hundreds of millions of billions of investment may disappear because of a regime change. If you are not rich enough and take all kinds of money improperly, you need to have enough means to ensure your own interests.

Simon and Anthony are only talking about one idea at this time, and it is not an innovation, the usual means of Western consortia.

Anthony knew that this was a cooperation tone set by Simon for the replacement transaction of the investment representative teams of seven countries in Africa, such as Angola and Rwanda. He nodded and agreed, and said: "South Africa, Simon, the private capital planned to withdraw from South Africa has also reached the level of tens of billions of dollars. We can't adopt the same approach to them?"

Nelson Mandela has been in office for five years and has completely completed the democratization process in South Africa. He will complete his first term of office in the middle of this month and will no longer pursue re-election.

There is little else to say about South Africa, but the huge capital flowing out of South Africa in recent years is definitely a piece of fat that all countries are competing for.

Most of those who can leave lightly have run away, and now the rest are not so easy to withdraw. It happens that the stock exchange plan launched by Westeros gives some people a way out.

Simon thought for a while, but there was no good way. He could only say, "you and Jim can discuss this. The key is that we only need the best quality assets, and the price is also pressed harder to minimize the risk."

Anthony nodded, that's all.

After all, doing business is risky. If it's safe, others won't exchange it.

Simon remembered one thing and explained: "in addition, Australia can accept more high-quality immigrants from South Africa. We should take the initiative to do this. Otherwise, they must prefer Britain and the United States."

"I know."

Anthony promised again, talked about a few details, and then talked about another thing: "Simon, I read the document related to sodium ion battery you turned over. If sodium ion battery is really expected to become the mainstream in the future, do we still need to continuously reserve lithium resources?"

"Of course," Simon said decisively, "lithium batteries will be the mainstream in the next ten or even twenty years."

"I also understand this," Anthony said. "The problem is, if we bet too much on the lithium battery industry, it may not be easy to turn in the future?"

"It won't be too difficult," Simon thought differently: "We are now players, not chess pieces we can't help ourselves. Even if we put down heavy bets now, we can give ourselves enough time to reduce holdings and cash out of relevant industries and transfer risks. In addition, I always believe that it's better to eliminate ourselves than to be eliminated by others. Therefore, if we have to turn in the future, even if we can't achieve enough profits Cash out, what should be abandoned should be abandoned decisively, otherwise we may be abandoned by the times. Finally, regardless of the future industrial trend, I will never dislike that we have more resources. Even if lithium-ion batteries are eliminated in the future, the scarce lithium resources will have other uses. Tony, you know my layout idea very well. "

Of course Anthony knows.

Simon's Thoughts on the future development of Westeros system have two very clear and complementary contexts. In short, one is to occupy more resources, and the other is to build a global production system controlled by Westeros system.

About resources, land, fresh water, forests, minerals and so on, all are.

The resources that human society can use on this planet are definitely not as abundant as people living in safe and rich countries imagine. In fact, they will never be enough.

To occupy more resources is to occupy the future of mankind.

Secondly, build a global production system absolutely controlled by Westeros system, which is set based on the short board trend of American economic development.

For the United States, the hollowing out of manufacturing industry is an increasingly serious problem that this seemingly powerful country will face after the new century. Or, more accurately, all developed countries that tend to high-end service industries often have similar problems.

At present, the world is in a relatively peaceful period that is very rare in human society for thousands of years. Therefore, all aspects of material production do not pay much attention to it. Subconsciously, they feel that if there is a lack of demand, they just spend money to buy it.

However, throughout human history, the real peace period has always been short.

Therefore, we must plan ahead.

For Westeros system, it has mastered enough basic resources and a production system that can convert these basic resources into modern social manufactured products such as clothing, food, housing and transportation. If it is coupled with sufficient self-protection strength, it will basically control the world in the future.

What else?

After all, it's not difficult to find that those who have power are often just controlling the most common food or fuel.

This is actually the essence of the power structure of this society.

For a person who has mastered enough resources and controlled everyone's job, he is the king of the world.

It's simple.

After breakfast, everyone was busy with their own affairs. Simon and Anthony did not go to the headquarters of Westeros in the middle city, but danilis east coast headquarters on 66th street in the upper west district.

Today's work is mainly in media and entertainment.

This is June 9th.

Wednesday.

In the summer season in North America, the Star Wars Prequel: the phantom threat, which attracted much attention and disappointment, has entered its third week. The film was screened from May 28 to June 3. The next week earned US $82.67 million, a year-on-year decrease of only 17%, and the cumulative box office reached US $222.86 million.

In the past weekend, compared with the previous weekend, the film's year-on-year decline expanded to 36%. Such a decline trend is basically sure that it will not pose a great threat to the upcoming new box office week, danilis's first blockbuster Godzilla this year.

On the west coast, the world-famous monster film led by danilis will hold a global premiere this afternoon local time, and the ban is expected to be lifted tomorrow.

This is also a sign that daenerys has more confidence in this new version of Godzilla.

Compared with the Emmerich version that once made the king of monsters into a mutant Tyrannosaurus Rex, the new Godzilla, first of all, the monster image basically refers to the prototype of Japan's Dongbao series and will not be greatly modified. Secondly, in terms of plot, Simon also abandoned the former Emmerich version and adopted the Warner version in 2014.

In short, it is to learn from each other.

Setting often deviates from reality. However, after investing a huge amount of $120 million higher than the first song of the Star Wars prequel, even with Simon's more critical eyes, we can give 8 points to the upcoming new version of Godzilla, so everyone is full of confidence.

In addition to the upcoming Godzilla, Simon also pays more attention to several projects in Asia.

The first is South Korea. After the "life and death spy change" at the beginning of the year, the second ten million dollar investment level blockbuster "common security area", which is also the theme of the confrontation between South Korea and North Korea, was painted on June 4.

It was a run.

Further on, "Star Wars Prequel: the phantom threat" was synchronized in South Korea and opened on May 19. However, even if South Korea's westernization is serious, the influence of the Star Wars series is not too great. From the market feedback in the previous two weeks, the total number of film viewers in South Korea is about 2 million. Although it is still a box office, it is far lower than that at the beginning of the year The 8 million year old crown of espionage.

Star Wars prequel can't reach the phenomenon level in South Korea, so it won't put too much pressure on the common guard area.

Speaking of, the pressure is mainly after.

It's just that danilis's three super blockbusters, Godzilla, the apocalypse and the matrix, with the penetration of Westeros system into South Korea and the support of sufficient publicity resources, can basically lock the top ten box office positions in South Korea in 1999.

Because the three blockbusters span the whole summer, although they do not lack some big scenes, they can only be regarded as a conventional action drama "common alert area", which can only be released first.

In order to make enough market space for the common security area, danilis also took the initiative to postpone Godzilla, which could have been synchronized, for one week, which ensured that the common security area had room to play for at least two weeks.

The publicity and distribution team of "common security area", which has mastered the current mentality of Koreans, has also done very well this time. In the past three days of the first weekend, the film has won 1.53 million film viewers in Korea, and it is expected that the number of film viewers in the first week is expected to reach about 2.3 million.

In addition, due to the excellent reputation, according to the decline of about 30% in the next week, the cumulative number of film viewers in the two weeks of "common alert area" is expected to be about 4 million.

In the future, it depends on the specific play.

Considering the fierce competition in the summer, this "blockbuster" is a huge investment based on the volume of the Korean market. The local box office in South Korea is expected to be about 6 million. It is not as good as the new year's spy change. The local cinema still loses money in the release stage, but it can easily make a profit in the follow-up.

In general, the current film market in South Korea is more suitable for small and broad.

The three blockbusters in the plan are necessary to activate the market, but the relevant film and television companies controlled by Westeros system will still focus on small and medium-sized investment films in the future.

Then there is China.

Recently, one of the main things is that Simon has invested in the production of Tianlong Babu because of his personal interest and entered the release stage.

At the beginning, Simon only gave a budget of US $15 million, equivalent to more than 120 million yuan. Combined with the resources provided by Hong Kong TVB and mainland CCTV, the total investment was 150 million yuan.

So the problem came.

Finally, the TV series of 40 episodes was determined. The brocade Book wanted to be elongated. It was directly interfered by Simon and severely rejected, so it was still 40 episodes.

In short, each episode needs to sell 3.75 million to get back.

However, the average price per episode of TV series trading in mainland China is only 80000 yuan in the whole market. Although there is no shortage of episodes, and hundreds of thousands or even millions of single episodes have been sold at sky high prices, no one can afford 375 episodes.

The final plan is to explore the long-term operation mode.

In fact, this is also Simon's expectation of China's TV drama market. After all, the reason why the TV drama market was so impetuous was that it completely ignored all kinds of follow-up efforts. One of the reasons was that it was too one hammer.

If, like Hollywood, a "friends" can sell hundreds of millions of dollars after many years, the industry may be able to produce several more boutiques.

In addition, although CCTV participated in the release, even if it was Dad, one family still couldn't eat it. Therefore, it cooperated with several other satellite TV again. For the first round of broadcasting rights in the two-year period, five companies jointly offered a price of 1 million for a single episode.

This is also the limit.

After calculation, only 40 million investment was recovered initially, with a difference of 110 million.

Outside the mainland, because it is a cooperative project, first of all, TVB in Hong Kong directly took away the local permanent broadcasting right, which was the original condition. As for Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and other regional markets, they will recover another 10 or 20 million at most. Therefore, the brocade book also focused on North America.

Simon also made the decision himself again.

$1 million, won the omni channel copyright in Europe and America.

Blockbuster and DHO can be jointly distributed, one for video and the other for late night drama. After all, after crouching tiger, hidden dragon and hero, martial arts film and television dramas still have a small market in the West.

Moreover, I have to say that Robert Shea of the new line is a very thoughtful person. He confirmed that the big boss had made the project himself, but it would not work if he didn't agree. So he took the initiative to propose that several TV and film versions could be cut. After all, 40 episodes of a martial arts drama produced at the top level may be too long, but there are many action segments that make western audiences feel amazing, It's definitely more potential than releasing the full version. It works properly. Maybe the previous investment can be doubled and earned back.

Simon also agreed and approved another $1 million in late stage expenditure, and asked the new line to contact Jinshu to find a Chinese screenwriter as a consultant, or directly carry out the late stage in China. In short, don't fool around.

Then, "to our lost youth", the Chinese schedule is also set for release on July 9.

After the great success of "Party A and Party B" and "shining girl" in the new year's file, this is also a new type of campus youth film created by the Jin book department in cooperation with China film, which is also highly expected.

Simon also took time to watch the film, not to mention several episodes such as the finishing touch level "you at the same table", and the quality of the film itself is also above the standard. As long as the marketing strategy of Jinshu during this period is appropriate and the current Chinese youth still maintain the general literary and artistic model, it is no problem to add another 100 million yuan box office masterpiece to the Chinese film market this year.