Chapter 970 I Forgive You

Most of the members of the "Iron Man" crew are on weekends off, but Eric can't be idle at all.

Firefly's only blockbuster this summer, "The Day After Tomorrow", although a trailer was released at the Super Bowl in January, the film has only recently completed the final cut, and will be sent for review and grading and will begin to release TV trailers. Ke deliberately took time to watch the finished film with Katzenberg and others.

In addition, he also checked the production progress of several projects such as "Midnight Bell", "Teddy Bear", "Sleepy Hollow" and even the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy filmed in New Zealand.

"Midnight Bell" has already started filming, and it is expected that the summer file will be released smoothly. Casting for Teddy has also ended, and the motion-capture technology, which requires heavy use, is being tested.

"Sleepy Hollow" has just completed the budget plan and is about to enter the casting and scene stage.

After the success of "Monsters, Inc." late last year, Disney's animation division has been preparing a new story script for several months.

Some Disney veterans such as Katzenberg hope to continue the tradition of Disney fairy tale feature films, and Eric does not want Disney Animation Studio to become another Pixar that is exactly the same, not to mention, the original time and space Disney has also proved the correctness of this path. Naturally he would not object to the proposals of Katzenberg et al.

So, among several ideas provided by studio management, after discussions with Eric and Katzenberg, among others, Rapunzel was chosen.

As for the explosive "Frozen", Eric still hopes that the studio will continue to hone it through one or two projects before taking it out.

The original version of "Rapunzel" was seriously out of control due to script revisions and high-level turmoil. The production cycle dragged on for six years, burning Disney's $260 million, making it the most expensive 3D animated film in history.

In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes as much as possible, although the Disney animation studio has come up with a very detailed story script, Eric still let them spend another three months to polish the script in detail to ensure that after the project starts, there will be no such thing as the past. that kind of situation.

As for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy filmed as far away as New Zealand, Eric can only watch a batch of samples airlifted in by the crew for the time being, and held a remote video conference with Peter Jackson.

Katzenberg has flown to New Zealand twice in the past few months, and a vice president of Firefly Pictures is one of the producers of "The Lord of the Rings" himself, based in Australia, plus Peter Jackson himself Focusing on the "Lord of the Rings" series, Eric is very reassured about this project.

Breaking the time into minutes and working for two days, Eric finally regretted appearing in "Iron Man" himself. These tasks could have been done little by little during the working day, but they were all concentrated in these two days. Weekend break.

Moreover, this is also because Eric is completely a hands-off shopkeeper for many things.

This year, Eric himself made the decision and will be released within the year. There are only three films, "The Day After Tomorrow", "Teddy Bear" and "Midnight Bell". The Firefly Group's huge film production and distribution system naturally cannot have only these three films. .

Not counting the two animation studios with long project cycles, Firefly Pictures, Disney Pictures, and New Line Pictures, as the main film production labels of the Firefly Group, have already confirmed more than 20 films this year.

Although Eric rarely directly intervenes in the production of these projects in the past, most projects, even ultra-low-cost films with a budget of two or three million, are information such as genre, budget, cast, schedule or box office prospects. , he can actually do what he knows.

But this year, "Iron Man" in the first half of the year and "Gravity" in the second half of the year, the two movies will split most of his energy. Eric wants to do this again, it is impossible. In addition to other businesses, Eric can devote very little energy. As for some MGM or Fox movies,

Eric just didn't care about it anymore.

On the Firefly Investment side, Eric is only paying some attention to Yahoo's side, and the rest is fully handed over to Chris.

"Eric, this is the first draft of the second Harry Potter book from the UK. HarperCollins hopes that the second book will be released during the summer vacation," Firefly Burbank headquarters, It was already Sunday afternoon when Caroline knocked on the door and placed a sample book on his desk.

Eric signed a budget document for Firefly Studios, and then raised his head to take the book and glanced at Caroline inadvertently. The girl's eyes suddenly showed panic, and she quickly avoided it.

"Have you done something to make me sorry recently?" Eric asked casually without looking up when he opened the catalog page of the novel.

This girl doesn't know what's wrong. Every time I see him these days, I look like a guilty conscience.

Hearing Eric's sudden question, Caroline subconsciously took a step back and shook her head: "No, no."

"Hey, it doesn't matter, I forgive you. So, don't be like this anymore, work hard, or your salary will be deducted."

Caroline listened to Eric's slightly mocking and gentle tone, her bright eyes blinked a few times quickly, and resisted the urge to nod her head. Seeing that Eric still didn't look up at herself, she didn't escape. .

After turning a few pages, Eric closed the book, looked up at Caroline, and asked, "How much is the first volume of Harry Potter?"

Caroline answered accurately without thinking: "The global sales statistics last week were 13.5 million copies."

Eric nodded with satisfaction. Although the "Harry Potter" series has not yet reached its peak state, under the promotion of the Firefly Group, the global sales volume has reached 13.5 million since the first volume was released in September last year. a miracle.

"It's up to them to decide when Harper Collins wants to release the second volume, as long as they maintain the rate of one volume a year," pushing the manuscript to Caroline, Eric added: "In addition, put Three copies of the novel were sent to East Hampton, and the little ones loved it."

"Okay," Caroline nodded, picked up the first draft in her arms, and added: "Also, an email has just been sent from New Line, and they have already negotiated with Chris Tucker. Rush Hour 3, $20 million. Jack Cheng still hopes to get a share on the basis of the salary.”

Eric waved his hand: "I don't care about this matter. Let them talk about it themselves. If they want to share, the basic salary cannot exceed 10 million. This is the rule of Firefly. If you can't negotiate, don't shoot."

"Well," Caroline nodded and continued: "In addition, the copyright department has already contacted Nancy Collins' agent for the right to adapt the short story of "Monster Love", and the other party is willing to sell it. It's just that , we can only get the film and television adaptation rights. The other party has sold the game adaptation rights to White Wolf Games in advance. The copyright department sent an email to ask us if we need to take back the game adaptation rights. White Wolf Games has not started production yet. The game adaptation of this novel, as long as the price is right, the other party should be willing to change hands.”

Since 1993, the annual output value of the world's video game industry has been comparable to the film industry. Movie-based games are also increasingly valued by several major movie giants. Firefly also has an entertainment and interactive division that makes video games, but Eric is not optimistic about the prospects of this division at all.

Video game production and film have many similarities, and they are both creative-first fields.

A great video game must have a creative core creator, just like a film director and producer. Like the entertainment interaction department, hiring a group of programmers to develop games according to the software development process is like asking a group of photographers, lighting engineers and other pure technical personnel to make a movie, and can come up with high-quality products. The probability is very low.

Therefore, before the advent of the era of online games, Eric did not intend to be too involved in the game field.

Even if online games appear in the next few years, Eric is more inclined to use Yahoo's huge user base as a game agent. As for online game production, the studio model is still the best method. Of course, Yahoo can also take the mode of capital injection or acquisition to gain actual control of these studios.

Thinking of this, Eric shook his head and said, "No, as long as you get the film and television adaptation rights. Is there anything else?"

Melanie has encouraged herself to invite Eric to dinner more than once in the past few days, but Caroline knows how busy Eric is these two days, so this is obviously not the right time. What's more, Eric has already made arrangements tonight.

She quickly found a reasonable reason for herself, Caroline hesitated a little, then shook her head and said, "No more."

Eric raised his hand and looked at his watch, and said, "Then you and Mei should get off work early and go back to rest. Today is the weekend, so you can play more at night. I'm going to get off work soon."

Tomorrow is the Oscars, and Eric is going to the Oscars eve party tonight, not for fun, but to take the opportunity to chat with Harvey Weinstein about ffm TV.

Half a month ago, the second season of "Black Road Family" was officially launched, and the number of viewers for the first episode of the second season reached 5.16 million, which is more than double the average viewership of the first season, and even broke the pay cable station. viewership records.

With the popularity of "Black Road Family" and other original series and high-quality movies launched by ffm TV station, the total number of subscribers of ffm TV station has also successfully exceeded the 10 million mark. Compared with last year's "Black Road Family" before the broadcast, it has achieved an increase of more than 120%.

Since the Firefly system lacks a cable television operating system like Warner Cable, after the previous outbreak, the growth rate of the number of subscribers of ffm TV station will definitely start to slow down significantly. The ffm TV station also needs to make appropriate adjustments in its operation strategy.

After Caroline left, Eric flipped through the documents for a few more minutes, and it was five o'clock in the afternoon.

Looking at the other pile of documents waiting to be processed, Eric could only give up.

Although tomorrow is the day of the Oscars, the filming of "Iron Man" will continue, but Eric's role is not arranged, and he can still continue to work for a few hours during the day.

Leaving the Burbank headquarters, the car followed the mountain road to the Beverly Hills mansion of Elizabeth and Julia.

Julia went to Paris to shoot an ad and won't be attending the Oscars tomorrow, and only Elizabeth is in the mansion wearing a gown with the help of two stylists.

Eric walked into the villa and looked at the three busy people in the living room. He just nodded and leaned comfortably on the sofa.

"Eric, how about this dress?" After a while, Elizabeth came over with the skirt of the big red one-shoulder dress, turned around a little, and asked.

Eric has always liked one-shoulder dresses. He always felt that this dress was inexplicably playful and sexy, and the women around him seemed to gradually realize his preference.

After looking up and down for a while, Eric nodded, just looked at the skirt that was almost dragged to the ground, and said, "It's very beautiful, but tonight is a party, not an awards ceremony, so you're not afraid of tripping yourself. ?"

"I haven't worn high heels yet, it won't be like this with high heels," Elizabeth raised her skirt again, revealing two small fair feet, and then pointed to the two large boxes on the coffee table in the living room, " By the way, I also ordered a suit for you, as well as leather shoes, you can try it on quickly. Lisa is here, if it doesn't fit, you can change it temporarily. "

"I'm too tired, I don't want to change clothes, I'm going to wear this," Eric leaned on the sofa again, he didn't want to be tossed again, and said: "Besides, I'm hungry, if I don't eat, I will be low in the past. The blood sugar faints, you can figure it out."

Elizabeth looked at Eric's shameless appearance, and kicked him lightly on his leg, bowed her head, dragged his two leather boots down, and threw them away, with a savage tone: "Come on, if it wasn't for you, I would also I'm too lazy to dress so formally."

Eric raised his leg: "How about you help me wear it?"

"You want to be beautiful," Elizabeth rolled his eyes at him, and walked back to the two stylists who tried to pretend they didn't exist when they saw this scene, and asked them to help organize the dress.

Eric felt Elizabeth's threatening gaze for a while, and had no choice but to get up and hold the two boxes containing clothes and shoes, and walked towards the upstairs bedroom.

After getting dressed and going downstairs, the two stylists had already started to help Elizabeth with her hair.

It's basically impossible for a woman to get dressed for an hour or two, so it was not until half past six before the two finally left the Beverly Hills mansion.

Although Elizabeth didn't plan to eat dinner, she didn't want Eric to accompany her to go hungry. She went to a restaurant and ate something with Eric before they rushed to the Oscar eve party at seven o'clock. Place.