Chapter 836： Oligarchic

The theme of the "Titanic" exhibition, the best venue is undoubtedly the Rosarito film studio in Mexico.

However, after the discussion, everyone agreed that this would not work.

Not to mention the visa issue, most fans can't travel to a country for a filming venue.

What's more, the security of the Mexican-American border is also a big problem. Eric's trip to Mexico last year was deeply felt. If tourists were robbed or kidnapped during the visit to the "Titanic" studio, they even lost their lives. The fireflies will be very passive. This kind of thing is very common in Mexico, where drug dealers are gangsters. Cameron’s good friend is also the Mexican director Gilmore del Toro, who first introduced and assisted him in the construction of the Titanic in Rosarito. When I first mixed up in Hollywood, the old father of my hometown immediately suffered a kidnapping.

But Los Angeles is different. According to statistics, in recent years, Los Angeles has more than 30 million visitors from all over the world. Los Angeles is a movie sanctuary in the hearts of fans all over the world. Most visitors come to Los Angeles and basically visit movie-related attractions such as Universal Studios and Disney World. This provides ample visitors to the theme exhibition "Titanic". Source guarantee.

After an afternoon of discussion, Eric finally decided to put the "Titanic" theme exhibition in the Los Angeles Firefly Studios, and build the Titanic ship model in Rosarito. It will also be dismantled and shipped back to Los Angeles. Assembled and completely remodeled, and opened pavilions, restaurants and other areas for visitors to better visit. Although this will cost a lot of money, compared to the huge profits that the Titanic will bring to the fireflies, the money is not worth mentioning.

At the beginning, Eric purchased 100 hectares of land in Prea Vista. Although the cinema has been expanded over the years and the land purchased has already consumed more than half of it, it is more than enough to open a section for the Titanic. As a legendary system destined to be included in the history of world cinema, Titanic is also worthy of such treatment.

The group has a dedicated team that builds and maintains several of the world's largest Disney parks and is known as a fantasy engineer.

The plan determines that the next work will be handled by this experienced team.

During the discussion of the meeting, there was also a proposal from the top of the group to imitate the model of Universal Studios and directly expand the Firefly Studio into a tourist attraction.

This proposal made Eric quite heart-warming. However, if it is not Disney's brand resources, there are not many projects that the fireflies have accumulated to provide tourism resources for the cinema in these years. It is not enough to prop up a theme park. It can only be temporarily suspended, but "Titanic" is undoubtedly a good start. As long as it can be successful, Firefly will not be suitable for Disneyland's movie projects. It can open up attractions in Firefly Studios and accumulate to a certain extent. The conversion of Firefly Studios into a tourist attraction will also be a matter of course.

In order to complete the "Casino Royale" as soon as possible, Eric did not rest on the weekend, the last two days, completely ended the film's late stage, the next film rating work and the previous publicity work, he does not need to worry too much.

In the new week, Eric hopes to be able to rest for a few days, but the various things he has come to make him unable to relax.

On March 16th, on Sunday evening, FFM TV's elaborate "Skull Family" officially began to air. Eric had great expectations for this TV series, but in addition to personally intervening in the casting process, The selection of the protagonist identified James Gandolfini in the original time and space. He did not intervene in other aspects. Eric also told Wayne to give as much power as possible to the main creator of the TV series, David Chess.

The reason why "The Shu Road Family" was rated as TV drama NO.1 by many media in the original time and space is that this film completely broke the traditional TV drama mode and created a new and meticulous narrative mode. If they are indiscriminately involved in the management of traditional production thinking mode, the "Shudao Family" is likely to flow in the traditional form, losing the features it should have.

Although there is a slight difference from the original, the subject's production ideas have not changed.

Therefore, after the first episode of "The Shu Road Family" was broadcast, it attracted the attention of many film critics.

"Entertainment Weekly" directly gave a score of nearly perfect scores, and evaluated "The Shudao Family" as a TV show full of surprises.

A famous film critic of the Boston Globe gave an enthusiastic commentary.

“The Shudao Family is a surprisingly special new series.”

"The actor Tony Seprano is the leader of a gang in New Jersey, but his gang does not have the same arrangement as the Corleone family in The Godfather, but a small group of five or six people. It’s just the collection of the protection fee. The biggest industry may be just the **** club. Even in this gray status, he is also a normal middle-aged man who has suffered from a middle-aged crisis, two restless children. The mother of personality and his wife brought him all kinds of troubles, which made him have to resort to a psychiatrist."

“So, it’s almost impossible to find any highlights from the characters of the film. But this creative drama is just under this ordinary appearance, which opens up a new layer of progressive narrative. The pattern, the narrative structure of the drama, is not inconspicuous, and the master's control of the plot structure is perfect, and people can't help but look forward to the next episode."

Eric did not know too much about the process of the Shudao Family from the beginning to the heat. Therefore, he originally thought that this drama would be as good as the later "Breaking Bad". However, the response of the film after the first season broadcast far exceeded Eric's expectations. In the conversation with Harvey Weinstein, Eric also asked the media like Harvey whether he did it specifically. As a result of the tackling, Harvey gave a negative answer with a smile.

At the same time, in the early stage of good publicity, the first broadcast of "The Shudao Family" also created a good audience of 1.76 million, close to 40% of the total number of FFM TV subscribers. As a paid cable station, every viewer of the FFM TV station is effective. Subscribers, plus programs don’t insert any ads, and don’t need to count people between the ages of 18 and 49.

The good start of "The Shu Road Family" almost immediately aroused the vigilance of the main rival HBO, and in the new week, once again announced that the production of homemade drama will be started. The reason why it is said 'again' is mainly because HBO has also announced that it will make homemade TV dramas from last year, but the slow execution efficiency in the Time Warner system has been delayed until the "Buddhist Family" is launched. There has not been a list of official self-made dramas announced.

Eric certainly remembers HBO's first self-made drama, not "Wuwang City", nor "Shudao Family", but a "Prison Storm" that is not too high-profile but of the same quality.

Since the HBO reaction is so slow, the project of "Prison Storm" is of course impossible to fall into the hands of HBO. FFM has already bought the script at the beginning of the year, as long as the "Shudao Family" broadcasts a good response, "Prison Storm" Production will also start soon.

On the weekend, although Eric went to work as usual, Christina did not leave, but stayed in the sharp corner manor. Shantou, who had planned to come to the manor for the weekend, heard the news and only complained to Eric on the phone.

Monday, early morning.

Eric hung up the phone with Harvey Weinstein and walked into the restaurant to look at today's newspaper.

Christina wore a navel t-shirt and jeans with an apron around her waist that wrapped her petite body. The little bee ran around and took the breakfast to the dining room before she was opposite Eric. Sit down, but this Nizi’s expression today is a bit strange. It looks like worship or awe, which makes Eric feel a bit incomprehensible.

Taking a sip of hot milk at hand, Eric asked half-jokingly: "Why do you suddenly look at me with this kind of look, or do you find out that I am so handsome today?"

"No," Christina smiled, looking down at the stack of newspapers in front of Eric, raising her hand to point to something, but stayed and stood up, inexplicably saying: "I remember, morning I Look at it in advance and it should fall on the sofa next to the curtain wall."

Eric curiously watched Christina run out of the kitchen and soon returned with a magazine.

It turned out to be the Forbes magazine this month. It’s only to be remembered that the new issue of Forbes magazine should be released today. Oh, this issue also has the list of 400 richest people in the United States. No wonder this Nizi will show up just now. The expression of Eric has reached $67.7 billion last year. Before the release of Forbes magazine, most financial media predicted that his worth this year would exceed 80 billion US dollars, 80 billion, most people come. Said, still quite shocking.

This year, in addition to the steady growth of the Firefly Group, companies such as Cisco, Yahoo, and AOL, which are invested by Firefly, have achieved almost double growth. Just like Cisco, the market value of this time last year was only over 10 billion, but according to the recent stock price, Cisco's market value has increased to 33.2 billion. The market value of AOL has also grown to $15.3 billion compared to the size of less than 10 billion last year.

"Come on, let me see, how much money I have now," with a smile on his face. Eric took the magazine from Christina. The cover was not unexpected. It was his close-up photo, just sweeping it. At a glance, Eric immediately opened his eyes in surprise and said: "They really want to put me on the fire."

On the cover of the magazine, what surprised Eric most was not the $98.7 billion, which is more than the billions of dollars in the media forecast. But under the string, Forbes magazine used a very sensitive Title: "The Rise of the Media Oligarchs."

The word ‘ oligarch’ is definitely not a derogatory term in the West. Although almost all capital forces have the ambition to become an industry oligarch, even if this goal is achieved, few people will publicize it in a big way. The so-called oligarchs, in the consciousness of Westerners, also mean monopoly and profiteering, as well as exploitation and crushing.

Just like the early 20th century, although the Rockefeller family created an unprecedented myth of wealth, but because of the use of mercenaries to suppress a series of bad behaviors such as miners, until even a hundred years later, the Rockefeller family bears a bad reputation, some want The descendants of the Rockefeller family who participated in the administration will even be questioned by reporters. 'Do you want to control the United States? ’.

Of course, even if you don't care about the reputation of the outside world, if you associate it with the word 'oligarch', you will often face anti-monopoly investigations that all companies do not want to encounter. This is the most troublesome thing.

However, Eric quickly discovered something different. The title used by Forbes magazine is ‘the rise of the media oligarch’, rather than the simple “oligarchic rise” and a vocabulary. There must be a big difference.

Realizing this, Eric quickly opened the magazine and found related articles.

"As we all know, Hollywood film companies have always been in a state of development in the course of a century. Because of the strong uncertainty of the creative industry, it is difficult for a company to have a big company in Hollywood. However, recently In the year, with the federal government's step-by-step opening of the media industry, Hollywood studios are no longer limited to content production, so the relatively balanced situation is being quickly broken. In the new round of reshuffle in the media industry. The strongest development momentum is undoubtedly the Firefly Group, which has been established less than a decade ago."

"Although the Firefly Group has not released the 1996 financial report for the time being, however, based on a large amount of public information, it is not difficult to predict that the Firefly Group's overall revenue data for 1996 is likely to exceed the unprecedented figure of 30 billion US dollars, even if it is five years. In the past, there were very few companies in the media industry with annual revenues exceeding $10 billion."

"The firefly group's explosive revenue data is attributed to its mergers and acquisitions since the 1990s. Although Time Warner, Viacom and other media groups also have corresponding mergers and acquisitions, only the Firefly Group, After the continuous merger of New Line Pictures, Disney Group, Metropolitan ABC Group and other companies, Firefly Group is perfectly realized through the forward-looking vision of Eric Williams and the powerful and efficient executive management team within the company. The rapid integration between different companies after the merger and the continuous rapid development of related businesses."

"In contrast, Time Warner, who lost Steve Ross, can almost use a loose sand to describe it. Viacom's Samuel Redstone, although old and strong, has a clear lack of keen judgment on the fast-growing media industry. After the merger of the Baishida videotape chain store and Paramount Pictures, Lei Shidong, who is conservative in his personality, did not effectively reorganize and integrate the two companies. Baishida’s business has already experienced a significant recession. The film business of Mengying has not seen any improvement."

“Theoretical analysis makes it difficult to see the difference between the three local media giants, so the annual performance reports of the three companies can clearly show this.”

"Based on known information, we can see that in fiscal 2007, Time Warner's annual revenue was only $10.1 billion, and it lost another $191 million for the year. The downturn led to the market value of Time Warner Group with a fixed asset of $35 billion. In 2004, Viacom’s revenue reached US$12.1 billion, with an annual net profit of US$1.2 billion and a market value of US$28.8 billion. Although it has turned against Time Warner and became the second largest media group in North America, the gap from the Firefly Group is Quite obvious."

“With the excellent performance of its media network, film and television entertainment, theme parks, peripheral products and special effects companies, the annual revenue of the Firefly Group has reached 30 billion US dollars, compared with the average net profit margin of the Firefly Group in the past 11%, Firefly Group The annual net profit should be around $3.3 billion, as the various businesses of the Firefly Group continue to maintain strong growth. According to the standards of listed companies, the market value of the Firefly Group should reach $85 billion."

“Therefore, whether it is in terms of annual profit, revenue data or market value, the Firefly Group has already opened up a huge gap with competitors in the same industry, showing a unique oligarch.”