Chapter 991： Open door

The last big production film at the end of May was "The World of Truman" starring Kim Kerry, produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Next, it will be the "After the Day" of Firefly Films. Therefore, Eric is very concerned about this film by Kim Ricky.

Despite the failure of "Cable TV Repairman", Kim Kerry has been sitting in the front line in Hollywood in recent years. Even if it is biased towards the literary world of Truman, Kim Kerry still got 1200. For the first-line payment of 10,000 US dollars, due to this high pay, the "World of Truman" has also been piled up into a large production cost of 60 million US dollars.

On Monday, fly to New York on the plane.

Eric relaxes sitting in the porthole and looks at the box office report in the weekend.

"The World of Truman" had a box office of $31.19 million for the first three days of the weekend, which was comparable to the "Fatal Weapons 4" and "Patriot" in the previous two weeks. It is expected that the box office in the first week will be around $50 million.

As long as you can maintain a good box office curve, Paramount can still make a small profit. As for the other "Fatal Weapons 4" and "Patriot", due to the average 40% drop in a single week, it has not threatened the "After the Day" that will be released this Friday.

The new version of "The Day After" is directed by Michael Bay, and Eric has already seen it as a film. Because it is a script he personally wrote, compared with the Roland Emmerich version, the new version is no longer dragged down like the original version in the plot. Moreover, the explosion of the visual experience is more shocking to the entire frozen picture of North America. In addition, this is the only blockbuster of the Firefly Group's summer file this year, which concentrates most of the company's marketing resources. No one doubts that this special effects blockbuster will become the explosion of the entire summer file.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Eric's Boeing 767 landed at MacArthur Airport in central Long Island, and Carolyn and Meyer were sent to Manhattan as usual, and Eric rushed to East Hampton. He plans to spend two weeks in New York, one week to deal with business, and a week to accompany women and children.

However, although I wanted to take a break, the next day, Chris rushed over from Manhattan.

In the morning, on the lawn of the manor, the weather is not bad today.

When Chris led Joanna to the backyard lawn, she saw that Eric was carrying insect specimens with three children. Kevin and Emma played with great interest, and Hawaii was obviously absent-minded. When I saw my mother coming with Chris, Hawaii immediately got up and said hello sweetly: "Good morning, Uncle Chris, are you going to talk to Dad?"

The little girl blinked her eyes and said, ‘Uncle Chris, you are taking my dad away,’.

With a smile on his face, Chris shook his head in a serious manner: "No, I came over to accompany you to make insect specimens."

Hearing this answer, Hawaii frowned, very distressed, how can these adults be bored to this extent, what is even more abominable is that they have to pull themselves.

Eric put down the tools in his hands and got up and hugged with Chris. He said to Joanna, "Joe, let's play with them."

Joanna nodded and watched Eric and Chris leave, only sat down in the position of Eric, and touched the uneasy daughter, saying: "Summer, you promised my mother, To get along with Dad, don't always be so impatient."

"But, Mom, these things are really boring. Can I go back to the book now?"

Joanna shook her head and said, "No, I have said hello to Manny. She won't come over to help you in class this week. I have collected all your books, oh, and Steve sent you. Keypad. You have already scared your father, so at least this week, hey."

"Well."

Just five years old, the delicate little girl with beautiful big eyes snorted and lazily squatted on the table full of handmade props, and she felt that life was boring.

On the other hand, Chris followed Eric back to the villa living room, sat down on the sofa, and smiled and asked: "Is there a surprise again this time?"

"If you mean seeing a five-year-old girl holding a book about Differential Topology," Eric shrugged and smiled and nodded. "It's true, if it's not the summer tutor." Explain to me what is differential topology, I don't even know what my daughter is reading. Although, well, even if she explained, I still don't know what it is."

"Haha," Chris couldn't help but smile. After a while, he said, "I really look forward to seeing how Xia Xia grew up. Well, maybe I should let Danieldo get along with Xia Xia now, good future. I am going home to be a daughter-in-law."

Eric still smiled helplessly. He certainly expected his child to be very smart, but now it seems to be overdone.

Talking a few words, the two quickly turned to the topic.

"Accounting for our original shareholding, firefly investment in the first half of the year, and the purchase of the clover fund, we now hold 35.7% of AOL's shares. Currently, AOL's outstanding shares have basically been cleaned up by major investment funds. However, our shareholding ratio is unlikely to increase. During this time, I have been in contact with other shareholders of AOL, but the results are not too good. The results of Steve Case are obvious to all. Some shareholders are more inclined to the development strategy of the existing management."

Since its inception, AOL has been financing various investment companies until the initial investment in fireflies, and AOL’s shareholding structure has basically stabilized. The current situation is that AOL's management, including Steve Case, holds less than 10% of AOL's total shares. Except for the major shareholder of Firefly, other equity is concentrated in the hands of major investment funds.

According to yesterday's closing price, AOL's current market value has reached 39.6 billion US dollars, compared with the beginning of the year, the market value increased by 1.77 times. That is to say, every 1% of AOL’s shares now has a value of nearly $400 million. Even if major investment funds are willing to continue to transfer AOL’s shares, Firefly will not be able to make enough money to buy it.

Finger gently tapping on the arm of the sofa, Eric thought for a while and asked: "If we showdown now, what is the probability of taking control of AOL?"

Chris thought about it and said: "50%, now there is the voice of AOL Time Warner. If the news confirms, the possibility of our loss is greater, many people are very happy to see AOL merges with Time Warner."

Although it is the largest shareholder of AOL, with a 35.7% stake, but in the case of a good online situation in the US, Firefly wants to initiate a shareholder vote to oust the existing management, the possibility of failure is indeed very Big. Because most of AOL's shareholders are institutional investors, and the number is not too large, it is very easy to screw up a rope to fight against the big shareholder of firefly investment.

Of course, fireflies are not without their own killers, that is, using stocks to sell stocks to threaten other shareholders to stand on their side. The AOL stocks held by the Firefly system, once sold off, are enough to bring AOL's share price to collapse.

However, it is absolutely impossible for Eric to use this method. This is not good for anyone, and may even have a chain reaction, causing the entire Nasdaq market to fluctuate.

The Nasdaq index is now close to 2000 points, which seems to be far from the previous 5,000-point high, but in fact, this stock index is already full of bubbles.

Take the most representative Microsoft on the NASDAQ market. In 1995, when the Nasdaq index remained at around 1000, Microsoft’s market capitalization was only over $40 billion, but now the Nasdaq index is up. By 2000, Microsoft’s recent market capitalization has exceeded 250 billion, which is more than six times that of three years ago.

If Firefly Investments wants to give up to US online shareholders, it really sells AOL shares. As the leading star in the Nasdaq market, Eric is worried that the decline in AOL's stock price will become the trigger for the early collapse of the Nasdaq market. Once this is the case, the fireflies may face the hostility of Wall Street. .

As for why the company insisted on letting the United States take the development route of network service providers online, Eric has discussed with Chris in detail.

The number of users of AOL has grown very rapidly in recent years. It is estimated that by the year 2000, the number of broadband installation users of AOL will reach 20 million. This data far exceeds several traditional network service operators such as AT-T and Verizon.

Therefore, Internet basic services are the foundation of AOL. As long as they have 20 million users, these users will generate $7.2 billion in stable revenue for AOL every year at an average monthly rate of $30.

Under such a good situation, if we can go further and annex a traditional telecom operator, further consolidate its position in the industry and expand other basic services, even if the Internet bubble bursts, AOL can sit on the Diaoyutai.

However, according to Steve Case's development ideas, AOL has become the largest Internet media giant in the United States, which is equivalent to completely shunning.

The past history has also proved this point. When the Internet bubble burst, the Internet media empire bubble that AOL piled up quickly vanished. The various personnel and financial crises caused by the bursting of the bubble, the internal lack of attention to basic network services, and the joint strangulation of several traditional giants, AOL's more than 20 million network users also quickly flowed to several other. In the end, when Time Warner sold AOL again, the Internet giant with a market capitalization of $180 billion had only a poor $40 billion.

In fact, Eric feels that the previous transaction, AOL shareholders are very fortunate, they converted the stock in their hands into the stock of 'AOL-Time Warner' at the highest point of the company's stock price, so When the US online disappeared, they actually had the shares of Time Warner, and they were not empty. As for the shareholders of the original Time Warner, hehe.

Speaking of this, if the AOL acquisition of Time Warner's transaction can still be achieved this time, even if it is in accordance with the ratio of May 5th, by the time, the firefly investment will be close to 18% of Time Warner's shareholding, this is definitely a new 'America online - Time Warner's first major shareholder is also in line with Eric's ambition to expand throughout Hollywood.

However, abandoning the opportunity to become the largest Internet service provider in the United States, in exchange for the 18% stake in Time Warner Group, is absolutely a big loss business, Eric does not want to see this expansion anyway.

"50% is 50%," and finally, Eric said: "Time Warner has been in contact with AOL at very high levels, so we must come up with a decision as soon as possible, and we can't delay it."

Chris nodded and said: "So, Eric, it’s good to succeed, but if it fails, what are you going to do?"

Eric did not hesitate too much this time, saying: "If it fails, then we will gradually withdraw from now, how many stocks can be sold and sold."

Chris naturally knows what Eric is saying. The Nasdaq market will have a day after the crash. Once the stock market crashes, AOL's Nasdaq market star stocks will definitely bear the brunt. Fireflies can only sell as much cash as possible before this date.

As for the future shareholders of the new AOL-Time Warner, Eric is not interested at all.

Once the Nasdaq market crashed, Time Warner became a mudslide. Even if Time Warner's market capitalization is calculated at $50 billion, 18% of the shares will be worth only $9 billion. Even now, the value of the Firefly system's 35.7% stake in AOL has far exceeded this figure. What's more, 18% of the shares are not enough to take control of Time Warner.

The two unknowingly chatted for a morning, and after lunch, Chris hurried away and began preparing for the showdown at the end of the month. By that time, Eric might come back to New York.

When Eric stayed in East Hampton to stop his daughter from becoming a good man, the weekday workday soon passed.

On June 5th, Friday, the first special effects blockbuster "The Day After" was officially launched on the 3,370 screens in North America.

The first day of the film was closed at $23.5 million. Eric’s carefully revised script combined with the visual effects of Michael Bay’s expertise made the film’s word of mouth equally popular. Most of the media gave an evaluation of about 8 points, far more than the previous one. Roland Emmerich version.

After the opening day of the first day of 23.5 million US dollars, the film won the 73.75 million US dollar box office in the first three days of the weekend, becoming the first summer movie to cause the movie. According to the box office data for the first three days of the first weekend, Michael Bay will also be able to obtain his first first-week box office.