Chapter 385

After listening to Simon's talk about cooperation, Akio Guei's expression didn't change much, but in his mind came the draft of cooperation sent by danielis entertainment.

The first is in-depth brand cooperation, including the priority of danilisi Entertainment's future audio-visual products on Panasonic's electronic hardware platform and the advertising placement of Panasonic brand in danilisi Entertainment's film and television content.

This is actually the main purpose of Panasonic's acquisition of MCA. The second item of

is the joint construction of Universal Studios in Osaka.

Osaka Universal Studios in the original space and time was completed before and after the new millennium.

Relying on the Japanese admiration for American culture, Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983, was a great success that year. The $1 billion investment has been fully recovered in just a few years, which makes Disney Company regret that it only authorized the brand and did not participate in the investment.

Simon's Universal Studios in memory of Osaka, though not as successful as the Disneyland in Tokyo, is also very popular.

Universal Studios, as long as they can successfully take MCA, and rely on the experience of universal studios for years and Danny's resources, Simon's next important goal is to build Osaka Universal Studios ahead of schedule.

said Universal Studios in Osaka, but in fact, once the film city is completed, potential visitors will cover the whole of Asia, which will be of great advantage to the promotion of danireis entertainment brand in Asia.

Simon will not be able to make the Osaka Disney World's 10% ticket revenue and 5% brand authorization fee for the construction of Tokyo Universal Studios. However, he does not intend to invest alone. As an outsider, it is almost inevitable that he will encounter all kinds of difficulties and twists and turns in the future if he no longer finds a local snake to cooperate with.

The headquarters is in Matsushita, Osaka, which is undoubtedly the biggest local leader.

Moreover, compared with Tokyo Disneyland's partner, Japan's Oriental Park Company, Panasonic, which is not involved in the studio park business, will not fight for control with Denise entertainment.

Finally, a five-year convertible bond worth $1 billion.

Denise entertainment will issue a US $1 billion convertible bond to Panasonic. It is agreed that once Denise entertainment has an IPO within the term of the bond contract, Panasonic can convert the money into shares of Denise entertainment, so as to further deepen the cooperation between the two sides.

The $1 billion bond amount is also well thought out.

Simon is confident that as long as the MCA can be successfully digested in the next few years, the market value of daenerys entertainment will not be less than $20 billion when it goes public. The $1 billion bond was converted into Denise entertainment shares, which is exactly equivalent to about 5% of the shares.

The 5% shareholding ratio is not only the minimum reporting limit of the securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, but also the maximum shareholding limit of the United States for overseas investors in some restricted industries.

If the U.S. government still does not lift the industry restriction that overseas investors are not allowed to hold American TV stations, it only needs to control Panasonic's shareholding ratio within 5%, and only exists in the form of investors who have no voice, it will not touch the relevant ban.

In fact, the potential value of each of the three cooperation projects has reached the level of US $1 billion.

The total value of the $3 billion cooperation program is almost half the size of the MCA acquisition. It can be said that Simon has shown great sincerity.

As Takeo Guei was silent, Simon stopped lobbying and began to enjoy the food in front of him.

After a few minutes of silence in the box, Akio Gujing finally spoke again and said, "Simon, if Panasonic still doesn't want to take the initiative to quit?"

"Daenerys entertainment will not take the initiative to quit either," Simon said, looking back at Akio Gujing without hesitation, then smiling again: "Gujing, I remember that the Japanese like a book called romance of the Three Kingdoms very much?"

C girl beside Simon obviously didn't know the romance of the Three Kingdoms. After looking at her boss, she could only translate it according to her own judgment.

"Simon, do you know the Three Kingdoms?"

"Actually, I can speak very good Chinese." Simon nodded, poured some sake into a dish, dipped his finger on the table, and quickly wrote a standard regular script: the general trend of the world, once separated, once united, once separated.

There are so many similarities between Japanese and Chinese that there is almost no need to translate them. Akio Gujing recognized the most famous sentence in the romance of the Three Kingdoms, and then read it in Japanese. Looking at the beautiful vertical lines of Chinese characters, he looked up in surprise and said, "Simon, I have to say that you surprised me again."

Simon picked up his chopsticks again and said, "I didn't write this to surprise you. This is actually my view on the development trend of American media industry. Hollywood took the famous paramount act of 1948 as the dividing point. Before that, it was the era of blockbusters. Big film companies firmly controlled Hollywood through a vertical management system from brokerage companies, studios to cinemas. That was a "combined" era. After the paramount act, studios were no longer allowed to act as talent agents, and at the same time, they had to divest theaters. Coupled with the rise of the television industry, many new small and medium-sized film companies began to emerge to compete with the traditional studios. It should be until the stock market crash in 1987, the end of the economic boom in the 1980s, and the capital intensive film and television industry fell into a dilemma In the depression, second - and third tier film companies such as Canon pictures and de Laurentiis entertainment closed down one after another, and the era of "separation" came to an endAfter listening carefully to the real-time explanation of the interpreter beside him, Akio Gujing finally glanced at the trace of the Chinese characters Simon had written on his desk and said, "Simon, do you mean that Hollywood has come to an era of" harmony "

"That's right," Simon nodded. "The merger of time and Warner Bros., which was completed in January this year, is a very obvious sign. However, this time, it is not the vertical integration that many years ago, but the horizontal integration. The major Hollywood film companies, driven by film and television content, expand to music, television, print media, retail and other fields, and realize synergy through diversified operation. Compared with the vertical operation system in the era of big studios, the diversified operation after the completion of horizontal integration can more easily suppress the rise of the latecomers through all-round industrial barriers. In the future, it will be difficult for Hollywood to have too much room for second and third tier film companies to survive, and the major giants will continue to merge with each other, eventually forming a few large media oligarchs. ”

without Simon's further explanation, Akio Gujing's face showed some brightness.

Simon further pointed out: "Gujing, if you pay attention to the recent trend of public opinion in the United States, you will find that the voice of restricting Japanese enterprises to buy Hollywood Studios is very strong. Even if you can beat Denise entertainment on the price, this acquisition may not be successful. On the other hand, even if you insist on getting MCA at a very expensive price, the first thing Panasonic has to do is sell MCA's TV stations according to the restrictions of American law. I believe the federal government will not lift this ban for a long time to come. On the contrary, in order to prevent more Hollywood enterprises from being acquired by overseas giants, the federal government has recently considered lifting the regulatory restrictions on the merger between television networks and studios, which I think is an inevitable trend. At that time, the horizontal integration of American media industry will be further accelerated, and it will have more and more powerful industrial advantages. When Panasonic bought MCA, it was going to be rejected by Hollywood as an outsider and restricted by American laws. You are doomed to be unable to follow the pace of horizontal integration in the media field, with multiple disadvantages. In addition to withdrawing again, I can't think of Panasonic's second way to go in the future. "

Simon said this without hesitation, and finally added: "besides, Denise entertainment will not easily withdraw from this bidding, because Denise entertainment must take the lead in this horizontal integration of the media industry trend. In addition, speaking of the available funds, I believe that my company is no worse than Panasonic. However, I don't want to start a bidding war with Panasonic. The current price is very expensive relative to the value of MCA itself. "

"But, Simon," Akio Gujing quickly said, "Panasonic bought MCA for its own diversified development."

Simon could not help shaking his head and said, "Gujing, Panasonic is diversified enough now. According to the current economic situation in Japan, what you should do is to prune and cut leaves, ensure your advantages in some core industries as much as possible during the economic downturn, and explore emerging markets as soon as possible under the background of tightening trade between Japan and the United States, instead of blindly expanding into areas you have not been involved in at all. "

After listening to Simon's words, Akio Gujing fell into a longer silence.

After lunch for nearly two hours, Simon and Akio Guei rushed to a private house on the coast of Osaka. They discussed the draft cooperation and many other topics for more than two hours.

In this way, until the evening, Simon refused the invitation to stay in and boarded his private plane to return to Los Angeles.

Before leaving, Akio Gujing promised Simon a definite answer in three days.

All the way back to the United States, due to the time difference, when I arrived in Los Angeles, it was still Monday morning on the west coast.

On October 26, three new films were released in North American Theaters, including "ten days in danger" by universal pictures and Denise entertainment, graveyard forbidden zone by paramount, and pillow by Columbia Pictures.

From October 26 to November 1, in the first week of its release, critical day 10, which received excellent media evaluation and enough publicity, won $17.16 million in the first seven days of the first week with 1639 screens, far exceeding the total box office of the other two new films, which was less than $10 million.

However, over the next three days of the weekend, crisis 10 also dropped by 33% compared with the first weekend, and closed at $7.19 million, with a total box office of $24.35 million in ten days.

Due to the relatively large decline trend over the next weekend, the estimated North American box office of "danger 10" is between 60 million and 80 million US dollars, which can be said to be the worst one of the ten danilisi entertainment films that have been released.

Of course, this is only relative.

The total box office in North America, which is more than 60 million US dollars, is a big sale in this era. What's more, the total cost of the production and promotion of "ten days in danger" is only about 20 million US dollars. Only by relying on the local box office in North America, Denise entertainment and MCA can recover all the costs and make profits.In addition, compared with the original version, Susan Sarandon, the heroine of the new version, commented on her "chilling" performance by the Hollywood Reporter, which is very promising to win the Best Actress Oscar next year, just like Kathy Bates in the original time and space. After the release of the film, both sides of the distribution have begun to build momentum for Susan Sarandon's best actress for the sake of subsequent channel revenue.

After his quiet and secret trip to Japan, Simon spent the next few days focusing on the publicity of two major films of danielis entertainment at the end of the year. Before going to Japan, we prepared an additional publicity budget of US $20 million. Of course, this money can't be thrown down aimlessly. We must make the most of it.

On the other hand, the negotiation between James and Bell Atlantic is also progressing smoothly.

Many things can't keep up with the changes. Before he left Japan, Simon had already noticed the withdrawal of Akio Guei, and the news of Bell Atlantic acquisition was no longer in such a hurry to announce, which can also reserve more sufficient negotiation time for both sides.

So it went on until November 8, the last day of the agreement between Simon and Akio Gujing.

I didn't hear anything for three days in a row. I thought Panasonic would further increase its offer for MCA. In the evening, I attended a community reception with Janet after the official establishment of Malibu city. As soon as the couple returned to the villa on the west side of domay Cape, Claire, the C girl in bieshu, reminded Simon that there was a phone call from Japan half an hour ago Come, and hope Simon will return a call after the reception.

Simon dials according to the number reserved by the other party and quickly transfers it to Akio Gujing.

Akio Gujing didn't make too many detours on the phone. He said that Panasonic was willing to withdraw from the MCA acquisition on the premise that the two sides must complete the signing of the cooperation plan first. What's more, Panasonic hopes to get more concessions from Denise entertainment on some details.

The two discussed some details over the phone for more than an hour. The basic contract framework did not change. Simon also made some concessions on some terms, and finally reached an agreement soon.

The next day was Friday, and Simon went to Japan again, this time with a whole team of Daniels entertainment.

Because we have made a lot of preparations in advance, this time we just signed an overall cooperation agreement, and many subsequent details need to be adjusted in real time. Therefore, after two days of consultations over the weekend, the two sides quickly signed a formal agreement.

Simon and Amy are both in Japan and have frequent contacts with Panasonic executives. It's hard to keep relevant information secret. Both inside and outside Hollywood are speculating about what happened.

Immediately.

On Monday, November 12, Panasonic held a news conference at its Osaka headquarters in Japan and officially announced that it would give up the acquisition of MCA.

News release, the media on both sides of the ocean are in an uproar.