Chapter 1022 Time Bomb

“While Hollywood has grown stronger over the years, it also seems to me that Hollywood is losing its creativity and becoming more rigid and rigid. Whether it’s high-budget blockbuster movies or low-budget horror and comedy Films are becoming more and more like commodities on the assembly line. Of course, no one can deny that this assembly line model is very successful commercially. But at the same time, the high industrialization of Hollywood also makes those alternative, rough, The living space for unconventional films is getting smaller and smaller, but there is actually a huge market demand for this type of film. My Lionsgate Film Company focuses on the production and distribution of these types of films.”

In the banquet hall of the Sunset Tower Hotel, after a simple chat, Frank Gusta began to talk about his development plan for Lionsgate Films.

After a brief surprise, Eric also returned to normal, just listening to Frank Gusta express his views with interest, and occasionally discussing a few words with the other party.

After chatting for a while, he felt that the young man in front of him did not seem to show too much interest in his film company. Frank Gusta concealed his disappointment and politely left.

When Frank Gusta walked away, the girl asked, "Eric, what do you think?"

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

"I think so too. I took him to chat with Amy and John just now, and everyone thinks his idea is very good. So, Eric, how about we buy this film company, so that MGM can We have a subsidiary like New Line and Miramax. You also said we need to expand MGM's production department."

Eric recalled the past development of Lions Gate, and shook his head without thinking, "No way."

In the past, Lionsgate has grown into a rising star in Hollywood step by step according to the idea of ​​"alternative, rough, anti-traditional" that Frank Gusta just said.

However, the rise of Lionsgate is full of intense controversy.

From the early anti-religious "Raging Against Heaven" to "Irrevocable", which was later banned by most countries in the world, to "Fahrenheit 9/11", which caused a fierce confrontation with the Bush administration, the so-called anti-tradition of Lionsgate is completely It is based on offending most mainstream value groups.

If Lionsgate is a small company that has always maintained a state of independence, it can also face the pressure of releasing these controversial films with a very bachelor attitude.

But if MGM incorporates it, at that time, these pressures will be magnified tenfold to the parent company of MGM. It can be said that such a Lions Gate is a complete "time bomb" for the big studios.

Of course, after the compilation, under the control of MGM, Lionsgate may also be able to give up these too sloppy film production and distribution ideas. But in this case, Lionsgate will lose its own characteristics, and it is difficult to develop much.

The girl never objected to any of Eric's decisions. Hearing that he denied his own ideas without hesitation, without asking why, he said, "That's it, then forget it."

Eric watched the girl beside her holding a glass of orange juice and sipped like a kitten, smiled and helped her straighten the shoulder straps of her dress, which had slipped a little, and said, "A small company like Lionsgate may be a little more deviant, but Mi Gaomei can't do that, and can't let its subsidiaries do it. However, cooperation is possible, and we can hand over alternative films that have good commercial potential but are not suitable for our own distribution to such small companies."

In my memory, "Fahrenheit 911" was transferred by the Weinstein Brothers to Lionsgate for distribution under the opposition of Disney executives.

The film made a $200 million documentary worldwide, but Disney still owns most of the profits, and at the same time, Disney did not take the political risk the film caused.

Meeting the boss of Lionsgate, Frank Gusta, was just a very inconspicuous episode. Eric knew from the girl in his later chat that the other party was her last time for e! Introduced by Clinton when the entertainment sub-channel license went to HSD, Frank Gusta was one of Clinton's main campaign finance supporters.

The day after the celebration party, Eric's mind turned again to the modification of the "Gravity" astronaut helmet.

Eric originally only planned to remove the glass cover and add it later through cg special effects.

However, during the transformation process, Eric once again found that the glass cover is embedded in the helmet. If the glass cover is only removed, it will still be cumbersome to embed the cg glass cover into the helmet later. In reality, it is also possible to disassemble the parts around the glass cover and put the glass cover inside, but in the later special effects process, it is impossible to 'disassemble' the helmet in the picture. Easy to wear.

In order to solve this problem, Eric and Robert Byron also removed several sealing parts around the glass cover, performed cg modeling processing on the parts around the glass cover, and formed a complete cg module together with the cg glass cover, This perfectly solves the above problems.

These tasks sound like a lot of trouble, but in fact, dismantling the helmet, installing sensors, and performing cg modeling tests, these tasks were basically completed in only two days with the strong technical support in the digital field.

Going into the workday, the filming of "Gravity" restarted without delay at all, and after a brief run-in, Jodie Foster and George Clooney quickly adapted to the new equipment.

Eric almost turned a deaf ear to filming "Gravity."

However, for the North American media and the public, there has been a lot more news related to the Firefly system during this time.

As soon as the new week started, Firefly Investments and AOL’s board of directors held a press conference, announcing that AOL’s major shareholders would jointly buy 16.5 million shares of Firefly Investments at a price of $4 billion, accounting for 10% of AOL’s total share capital. .

At the same time, John Mark also announced at the conference that Morgan Stanley will underwrite another 24.75 million shares of Firefly Investments.

After the completion of the two plans, Firefly Investment's shareholding in AOL will be reduced to 7.6%. With the increase in holdings of former AOL shareholders such as Vanguard Group and Goldman Sachs, Firefly Investment will withdraw from AOL's major shareholder. Top five ranks.

Chris also publicly stated at the press conference that after reducing its 25% stake in AOL, Firefly Investments will not have any plans to reduce its AOL stock in the next year.

Although many Wall Street analysts have reservations about Morgan Stanley's stock underwriting plan, they believe that AOL's stock price is too high and the investment risk is high. Still, no one doubts that the mighty Morgan Stanley will be able to digest the $6 billion contract for stock sales.

Therefore, the stimulation of this conference on AOL's stock price also appears to be immediate.

With the convening of the press conference, the shadow of the firefly investment reduction that shrouded AOL for more than half a month finally dissipated. AOL's stock price rebounded strongly again by 5.6% on Monday. The daily trading volume of the stock exceeded 1 billion US dollars. AOL's market value also broke through the US$46 billion mark in one fell swoop. The entire Nasdaq index was under the strong rebound of AOL's stock price. There was a clear uptick.

On the other hand, many people have also noticed that once the reduction plan to occupy 25% of AOL's stock share is successfully completed, this transaction will bring $10 billion in cash to Firefly Investments!

As a pure equity investment company, the cash reserves that Firefly Investments will hold in the future will reach an astonishing level, even taking into account the cost of reducing holdings and the capital gains tax of up to 20% in the future.

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

Take Walmart, which has a huge cash flow in the impression of many people, the cash flow of the retail industry is naturally very huge, but at this time Walmart's annual turnover has just exceeded 100 billion US dollars, due to its huge purchase cost and millions of employees. All human resources costs require a lot of cash, and Wal-Mart actually maintains less than $5 billion in cash reserves.

In comparison, the cash reserves held by Firefly Investments are more valuable than other corporate giants with cash reserves of the same size, because the debt ratio of Firefly Investments is 0, there is no debt, and all its subsidiaries are in very good operating conditions. Good, there is no need to reserve emergency funds, which means that Firefly Investments can dispose of this huge amount of funds at will.

When all aspects of the media, ranging from professional economic magazines on Wall Street to gossip tabloids, are taking the initiative to help Firefly invest 'idea' how to spend the money, on Wednesday, in Century City, Los Angeles, MGM also announced "Charlie's Angels". News that the series trio has signed with the company for two more Agents Cinematic Universe sequels.

Many people have vivid memories of last year's pay dispute between James Brosnan and MGM.

No one would have thought that the "Charlie's Angels" series, which might have caused a remuneration storm again, would settle so quietly, without causing the waves that many people imagined.

Although MGM has not announced the detailed contract terms, professional Hollywood media can also expect that, according to Eric Williams' character, if the salary conditions offered by the trio are too high, MGM will no matter what. Impossible to agree.

Therefore, most people speculate that in this remuneration negotiation, the "Charlie's Angels" trio must have voluntarily made concessions.

Some well-informed media people even heard about some details of the "Charlie's Angels 3" celebration party, but when it comes to Eric Williams, these gossip news must not be published in the press, only It circulates privately as gossip.

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

After breaking the $200 million fortnightly, under the pressure of "The Scorpion King", the box office drop of "Charlie's Angels 3" in the third weekend and three days of the third week was still locked at 46%, and it collected another $28.11 million, bringing the cumulative box office to $232 million. .

After "The Scorpion King", throughout the summer, except for the film version of "The X-Files" at the end of July, no major blockbuster production was released. Therefore, according to the word-of-mouth and box office trends shown by "Charlie's Angels 3", it will be very easy for this film to break the $300 million mark at the North American box office.

The North American box office is pointing at 300 million US dollars, and the global box office is expected to hit 1 billion US dollars. The three heroines have completed their contract renewals. MGM stock price.

Throughout "Charlie's Angels 3"'s third week, MGM shares rose almost as quickly as the film's box office. In just a few days, MGM’s market value has reached a maximum of 25.3 billion US dollars. The majority of MGM’s shareholders are naturally ecstatic. Compared with the market value of less than 5 billion US dollars when they just completed the acquisition and integration, they are in short In just over three years, a return of more than 400% has been reaped from MGM stock.

In the midst of this attention, many media also suddenly discovered that according to MGM's market value of more than 25 billion US dollars, Drew Barrymore, who holds 33.56% of MGM's shares, this girl under the age of 25, Personal net worth has reached 8.5 billion US dollars unknowingly.

8.5 billion US dollars, even if it can't be listed in the top ten list of the world's richest people, but this wealth can definitely make this young girl the richest woman in the world.

In addition to envy and admiration, doubts are naturally inevitable.

Even though the Firefly Group has a pivotal position in the North American media industry, various commentary articles questioning the legitimacy of the girl's wealth have appeared in a large number of media.

No matter how much equality is pursued, everyone knows that the world is still only a male-dominated society. If a man creates such a miracle, he may get more than just admiration, but a woman who is too outstanding will almost inevitably be subject to all kinds of guesses and doubts.

Firefly Studios, time has come to Friday again before you know it.

It was already night, and most of the studio's staff had already left work. In the restaurant on the big ship, Elizabeth and Eric were sitting opposite each other, casually flipping through the menus in their hands, but Elizabeth was unforgiving: "85 The billion dollars, our family probably only has so much money, if you give her so much, aren't you afraid that one day this girl will suddenly turn against you and find a little white face to marry you or something?"

Eric ordered two dinners directly, waved the waiter who was holding back a smile away, and said, "Actually, if you want, I can give you as much."