Chapter 1022： Untimely bomb

"But Hollywood has become stronger and stronger over the years, but in my opinion, Hollywood is losing its creativity. Whether it is a high-budget blockbuster movie or a low-cost horror film and comedy film, it is more and more like an assembly line. Of course, no one can deny that this pipeline model is very successful in business. But at the same time, this high degree of industrialization in Hollywood makes the living space of alternative, rough, anti-traditional films more and more Small, but this type of film actually has a lot of market demand. My Lions Film Company focuses on the production and distribution of these films."

In the banquet hall of Sunset Tower Hotel, after a brief chill, Frank Gusta began to talk about his development plan for Lionsgate Film Company.

After a brief surprise, Eric returned to normal as usual, just listening to Frank Gustair's own opinions and occasionally discussing a few words with each other.

After chatting for a while, I felt that this young man did not seem to show too much interest in his film company. Frank Gustta disguised his disappointment and politely left.

When Frank Gustard walked away, Shantou asked: "Eric, what do you think?"

Eric nodded and acknowledged: "A person who is very thoughtful, if he develops according to his ideas, the company in his hand is likely to have a place in Hollywood."

"I think so too. I just took him and Amy and John. They all talked about it. Everyone thinks his idea is very good. So, Eric, how about we bought this movie company, so MGM I have a subsidiary like New Line and Miramax. You don’t mean that we need to expand MGM’s production department.”

Eric recalled the development of Lions Gate and thought that he would not want to shake his head: "No."

In the past, Lionsgate Films has grown into a rising star of Hollywood in accordance with the idea of ​​“alternative, rough, anti-traditional” that Frank Gustha just said.

However, the rise of Lions Gate is full of controversy.

From the early anti-religious "Rage of the Sky" to the "irrevocable" that was later banned by most countries in the world, to the "Fahrenheit 911" that caused a fierce opposition to the Bush administration, the so-called anti-tradition of Lions Gate is completely Built on the basis of offending most of the mainstream values.

If Lions Gate is a small company that always maintains its independence, it can also face the pressure from all parties involved in the release of these controversial films with a very bachelor's attitude.

But if MGM has incorporated it, by then, these pressures will be magnified ten times to the parent company of MGM. It can be said that such a Lions Gate is completely an 'untimed bomb' for a large studio.

Of course, after the compilation, under the control of MGM, Lions Gate may also give up the idea of ​​film production and distribution that is too far from the sword. But in this case, Lions Gate has lost its own characteristics, and it is difficult to develop too much.

Shantou never objected to any decision of Eric. He heard that he did not hesitate to deny his thoughts and did not ask the reason. He said: "This way, then forget it."

Eric looked at her head and holding a glass of orange juice like a kitten. She smiled and helped her sort out some slippery shoulder straps. "The small company like Lions Gate may be able to deviate some, but meters." Gao Mei can't do this, and can't let his own subsidiary do it. However, cooperation is ok, we can give other small companies with good commercial potential but not suitable for our own."

In memory, "Fahrenheit 911" was transferred to Lionsgate Films by the Weinstein brothers under the opposition of Disney's top management.

The film created a global record of 200 million US dollars in documentary box office, but most of the profits are still owned by Disney, while Disney did not bear the political risks caused by the film.

When encountering Lionsgate movie owner Frank Gusta is just a very inconspicuous episode, Eric’s later chat from Shantou knows that the other is her last time for e! When the entertainment sub-channel went to Washington, Frank Couston was one of Clinton’s campaign supporters.

On the second day after the party was celebrated, Eric’s thoughts shifted again to the transformation of the Astronaut’s helmet.

Eric originally planned to remove the glass cover and later added it through g effects.

However, during the transformation process, Eric once again found that the glass cover was embedded in the helmet. If only the glass cover was removed, it would be cumbersome to insert the g glass cover into the helmet later. In reality, it is also possible to disassemble the components around the glass cover and put the glass cover into it. However, in the later special effects process, it is impossible to 'open the helmet' in the picture, and the g model is directly inserted into the image. It is prone to paralysis.

In order to solve this problem, Eric and Robert Byron removed several sealing parts around the glass cover, and g-modeled the parts around the glass cover to form a complete g module together with the g glass cover.

These jobs sounded cumbersome, but in fact, the helmet was disassembled, the sensors were installed, and the g modeling test was performed. These work were basically completed in two days with the powerful technical support of the digital field.

On the working day, the filming of Gravity was restarted without delay. After a short break, Judy Foster and George Clooney quickly adapted to the new equipment.

In order to shoot "Gravity", Eric is almost out of the window. However, for the North American media and the general public, the news related to the firefly system during this time is actually a little more.

Just the beginning of the new week, Firefly Investment and AOL’s board of directors held a press conference, announcing that AOL’s major shareholders will jointly invest $14.5 million in firefly investment for $4 billion, accounting for 10% of AOL’s total share capital. .

At the same time, John Mark also announced plans at the press conference that Morgan Stanley will underwrite the additional 24.75 million shares in the firefly investment.

After the completion of the two projects, the shareholding ratio of Firefly Investment to AOL will be reduced to 7.6%. With the increase in the former AOL shareholders such as Pioneer Group and Goldman Sachs, Firefly Investment will withdraw from AOL's major shareholders. The top five ranks.

Chris also publicly stated at the press conference that after reducing the holding of 25% of AOL shares, the firefly investment will not have any plans to reduce the AOL stock in the next year.

Although many Wall Street analysts have reservations about Morgan Stanley's stock underwriting plan, it believes that AOL's stock price is high and investment risks are high. However, no one doubts whether the powerful Morgan Stanley can digest this $6 billion stock sales contract.

Therefore, the release of the US online stock price will also appear to be immediate.

With the launch of the conference, the shadow of the firefly investment that has been on the US online for half a month has finally disappeared. AOL's share price once again rebounded strongly by 5.6% on Monday, the stock's single-day trading volume exceeded $1 billion, and the US online market value broke through the $46 billion mark. The entire Nasdaq index rebounded under the strong US online stock price. There has been a clear rise.

On the other hand, many people have also noticed that once the successful acquisition of 25% of AOL's shareholding in the shareholding, the deal will bring $10 billion in cash to the firefly investment.

As a pure equity investment company, even considering the cost of holdings and the capital gains tax of up to 20% in the later period, the cash reserves that Firefly Investment will hold in the future will reach an amazing degree.

You know, even among the world's top 500 corporate giants, there are very few companies with nearly $10 billion in discretionary cash reserves.

In the case of Wal-Mart, which has a lot of people with a lot of cash flow, the cash flow in the retail industry is naturally very large, but at this time Wal-Mart’s annual turnover has just exceeded $100 billion, due to its huge purchase cost and millions of employees. The cost of human resources needs to consume a lot of cash, and Wal-Mart's cash reserves are actually less than $5 billion.

In comparison, the cash reserves held by Firefly Investors are more valuable than other corporate giants with the same size of cash reserves, because the debt ratio of Firefly Investment is 0, there is no debt, and all of its subsidiaries are operating very well. Good, no need to reserve emergency funds, which means that firefly investment can freely control this huge amount of funds according to their own wishes.

When the media from the Wall Street Professional Economics magazine to the gossip tabloids are actively helping the fireflies invest in 'out of ideas' how to spend the money, on Wednesday, Los Angeles Century City, MGM also announced the "Charlie's Angel" The series trio signed a message with the company about two other sequels to the movie cosmic universe.

Many people remember the dispute between the 007 series actor Pierce Brosnan and MGM in the past year. No one has thought that the series of "Jiaojiao", which might have once again caused a wave of resurgence, is like this. The whispering dust settled, and it did not cause waves that many people imagined.

Although MGM did not publish detailed contract terms, Hollywood professional media can also predict that according to the character of Eric Williams, if the three-person group pays too much, MGM anyway It is impossible to agree.

Therefore, most people have speculated that in this film negotiation, the "Jiaojiaowa" trio will definitely take the initiative to make a concession.

Some well-informed media people even heard some details about the "Gengjiao 3" celebration party, but it involved Eric Williams, and these gossip news must not be in the newspapers.

However, in any case, the "Charlie's Angel" series has successfully passed the Hollywood trilogy spell, which is already an indisputable fact.

After breaking through 200 million US dollars in two weeks, under the pressure of "The Scorpion King", the third quarter of the third week of "Jiaojiao 3" fell to 46% at the box office, and then received 28.1 million US dollars, the cumulative box office reached 232 million US dollars.

After the "Scorpion King", the entire summer file, in addition to the "Archives" movie version at the end of July, no longer a heavyweight production release, therefore, according to the "Golden Angel 3" to show the word of mouth and the box office trend, this It will be very easy for the film's North American box office to break through the $300 million mark.

North American box office directly refers to 300 million US dollars, the world is expected to hit the $1 billion mark, the three heroines have renewed their contracts, and the film has successfully passed the trilogy of the trilogy. This series of good news, such as the same needle, is a powerful stimulus. MGM's share price.

In the third week of the release of "Charlie's Angel 3", MGM's share price rose rapidly with the box office of the film. In just a few days, MGM's market value has reached a maximum of 25.3 billion US dollars, MGM's shareholders are naturally ecstatic, compared with the market value of less than 5 billion US dollars when they just completed the acquisition integration, they are short In just over three years, it has gained more than 400% of the return from MGM stock.

In this episode, many media also suddenly found that according to MGM's market value of more than 25 billion US dollars, Drew Barrymore, who holds 33.56% of MGM shares, is a girl under 25 years old. Unexpectedly, the personal value has reached 8.5 billion US dollars.

With $8.5 billion, even if it is impossible to log on to the top ten list of the world's richest people, this wealth will definitely make this young girl the richest woman in the world.

When envy is amazed, doubts are naturally inevitable.

Even though the Firefly Group has a pivotal position in the North American media industry, there are a variety of media articles in North America that have questioned the legitimacy of Shantou's wealth. Whether it is the pursuit of equality, but everyone knows that the whole world is still only a patriarchal society. If a man creates such a miracle, perhaps more is just a compliment, but a woman who is too good will almost inevitably suffer from various kinds of guesses and doubts.

Firefly Studios, time has come to Friday again.

Time is already coming at night, most of the employees in the studio have already got off work. In the restaurant on the big ship, Elizabeth and Eric are sitting opposite each other, holding the menu in their hands and turning carelessly, but Elizabeth’s mouth is not forgiving: 8.5 billion US dollars, our family is probably so many years, you give her so much, isn't it afraid that one day this Nizi suddenly turned face with you, looking for a little white face to marry you?"

Eric smiled and ordered a few dishes to send away the waiter who laughed and said: "In fact, if you want, I can give you so much."