Chapter 496 MGM to Be Auctioned

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Chapter 496

Fifteen million is the current salary limit for Hollywood stars. There are not too many stars who can get this salary figure. Moreover, under normal circumstances, it is the salary price blindly offered by those foreign investors with deep pockets, such as At the beginning, the remuneration of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stallone and others was raised by European film investors led by German investors, because these action stars have extraordinary fame and box office appeal in Europe. , The Japanese consortium that has mastered Columbia and Universal has become more and more bold in the price of star remuneration. The local forces in Hollywood simply hate this kind of blind price hike, but they are powerless to stop this trend.

"15 million is too high, he is not worth so much, although the box office of "Greek in Disguise" is good, but this movie should be an exception. Although Jim Carrey's other movies still have overseas box office appeal, they are absolutely It can’t reach the level of double the domestic box office overseas, so let’s talk about it after the release of Detective Plane, and you can’t put all your energy on Jim Carrey alone.”

Drew nodded and agreed: "Well, I think so too. Anyway, he signed the option contract, and no one will redeem him. Besides, we have not treated him badly. If he doesn't know what to do, Then go away."

The option contract signed by Jim Carrey is very interesting. The liquidated damages of 100 million US dollars are not difficult for other major studios to take out. With the box office appeal shown by Jim Carrey, he cooperated with tg The company's first two films each earned the company more than $100 million in profits.

However, there is a difficult problem to solve here. If other film companies are interested in Jim Carrey's box office appeal and want to redeem him, then after the redemption, everyone else will give out 100 million US dollars, and Jim Carrey has almost no choice. , you must sign the option contract with the sponsor again. And in order to get back the compensation of this hundred million dollars, the conditions of the option contract will definitely not be much more favorable than those given by tg, otherwise, even the shareholders of those film companies will not agree. As long as Jim Carrey wasn't sick, he wouldn't choose this path.

Drew said something about his own side, and then began to curiously ask Eric about the situation on the French side. After dinner, he chatted very late. The two fell asleep.

...

The next day, when the sky was slightly bright, Eric woke up and gently moved the little girl wrapped around him. Eric dressed lightly and went downstairs. After leaving Los Angeles for a few months, Running around, Eric's biological clock became a little chaotic. He looked at his watch and it was only 5:40 in the morning. Wake up earlier than usual.

After a morning run in the manor for half an hour, Eric returned to the villa, made breakfast slowly, reserved a copy for the little girl, and started to eat while reading the newspaper.

The entertainment section of many newspapers,

Still following the latest developments in Viacom's competition with Paramount, Martin Davis estimates that he also feels that he may not be able to keep Paramount, and he doesn't want the company to fall into the hands of his original subordinates. So at the beginning of September, an equity preferential transfer agreement was signed with Viacom. However, it immediately filed documents with the Federal Exchange Commission, suing Paramount and Viacom for violating federal transaction laws over the related contracts signed, and the two sides have been wrangling over the matter this month.

Flip through some newspapers. Eric soon saw another interesting thing, about MGM, one of the seven majors. After the casino tycoon Kirk Kerkorian sold out the property assets of MGM, he started again. Played the capital game with MGM's intangible assets as a bargaining chip, two years ago. Kirk Kerkorian sold MGM to an Italian consortium headed by Giancarlo Paredi, again making a fortune, though Giancarlo was recently charged with fraudulently taking money from investors Gaining control of MGM, from the analysis of the article, the possibility of Giancarlo Paridi losing the case is very high.

Once Giancarlo loses the case, MGM will be auctioned off by the bank in order to repay the creditors deceived by Giancarlo.

Eric stared at the report and thought for a moment, but decided to stay on the sidelines. Although MGM's performance this year was terrible, the skinny camel was bigger than the horse, and winning MGM would certainly make Firefly Pictures' film library at least Double the expansion, but if you want to completely annex this company, you will definitely exhaust all the liquidity in your hand. This is not a cost-effective thing. After all, there are more and more valuable opportunities waiting for you.

After breakfast, Eric was not in a hurry to go to the company, but still read the newspaper slowly.

Hearing the doorbell, Eric got up and walked to the living room.

Tina Fei was holding a stack of documents in her hands, wearing a neat black OL suit, with her iconic black-framed eyes, and standing slenderly outside the door on small high heels.

"Morning, Tina," Eric was a little surprised: "Why are you here so early?"

When Tina Fei saw Eric, she didn't know what to think. She lowered her head slightly, and gestured for the information in her hand: "Dru said that he will not be going to the company today, so let me bring the materials over to the office. Look here."

Eric turned to let the girl in, and said, "It doesn't have to be so early, it's only eight o'clock now."

"I... I don't have anything to do either," Tina Finane replied, seemingly embarrassed.

Eric also realized the girl's emotions, and did not ask any further, and walked into the restaurant with Tina: "Have you eaten breakfast, I made some?"

"Not yet," Tina Fei replied in a low voice, putting the document in her hand on the dining table, watching Eric walking towards the kitchen, and staring at the man's back in a daze, then she remembered something, and hurriedly followed. Past: "I'll do it myself."

"Well, there is milk and juice in the refrigerator, you can choose it yourself," Eric explained, walking towards the restaurant.

Tina Fei came over with a breakfast and sat down opposite Eric, eating like a cat, chatting with Eric from time to time. After Eric flipped through the newspaper in his hand, he inadvertently saw the documents that Tina Fei put aside, and asked, "What are these, can I look at them?"

"Of course, some scripts, and others," Tina Fey nodded.

Eric opened the folder and raised his eyebrows unexpectedly, because he saw a familiar name, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

After opening. Eric only found out that this turned out to be a development plan for a TV series, but there was only a simple outline of five or six pages in the document. Eric had never watched much of the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", so he didn't know the difference between this synopsis and the original TV series. However, he was quite surprised, and he just mentioned it to Elizabeth. The girl can think of this, and she also got the TV adaptation rights of that movie to tg.

Thinking about it again, this incident is not too unexpected. The peripheral development value of a movie, in addition to the remake and the development of the sequel, is probably the development of the TV series version, and the box office of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" should not be very good, so the sequel is basically There is no need for it, and the remake is even less valuable, so there is only one thing left to develop the TV series version.

The original "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" didn't start airing until 1997. It is five years ahead of time now, and since there are basically not many original versions to refer to, Eric has not given me a clue as to whether this TV series will be successful. However, there are a lot of classic American dramas in his mind anyway. Eric didn't feel much when he saw a few girls want to toss "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

Showing the document in his hand to Tina Fei, Eric asked, "Are you planning to do a TV series?"

Tina Fei nodded, and asked unexpectedly: "Isn't this your opinion?"

"No, I just said something casually. I didn't expect Liz to come here. What are you going to do?"

Tina Fei paused for a while to eat, sorted out her thoughts and said, "We have discussed and plan to adapt this film into a fantasy adventure film for teenagers."

Eric recalled the memory of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in his mind, and the version starring Sarah Michelle Gellar is indeed aimed at the teenage market. Then the idea of ​​several women is not wrong: "This idea is fine, but it's better not to be too hasty, spend more time on the script, the audience still wants to see a good story in the end, I just read this outline, and agree It didn't feel anything special."

Tina Fey suddenly blushed and lowered her head. Because this outline was written by her, hearing Eric say this, the girl inevitably took some small blows in her heart.

Eric immediately understood when he saw Tina Fei's expression: "You wrote this outline of the story?"

"Well, I just tried to write one."

"Haha, it doesn't matter, as you are a novice, it is not bad to write such a story. It will be good to practice more in the future. In fact, I have a feeling that you will become a good screenwriter." Eric smiled. encouraged.

"Thank you, Eric," Tina Fei of course knew that Eric was encouraging herself, and whispered gratefully.

He briefly looked at the other materials that Tina Fei brought, and made some suggestions of his own, Eric got up and said: "I'm going to work, Drew will get up later, you stay first Here it is, just right, there is a fax machine on the east side of the curtain wall, if there are documents, you can help me receive and organize them."

Tina Fei nodded quickly: "No problem."

Seeing Eric walking out of the restaurant, Tina Fei subconsciously put down the tableware in her hand and followed.

Eric went back to the study to get some documents, changed his clothes, and when he left the villa, he saw Tina Fei following him all the way like a little home woman, he couldn't help hugging the girl and kissing her on the lips Kiss: "I'm going to work, will you leave today?"

Tina Fei didn't object to Eric's kiss. Hearing the man ask this, she shook her head shyly: "No, no, no."

"Oh, then stay tonight."

"Okay... okay," the girl replied in a husky voice.

...

It is about to enter October, and there are less than two months before the festival schedule at the end of the year. Several of Firefly's main films at the end of the year, "Speed ​​of Life and Death", "Detective Plane" and Disney's cartoon "Aladdin" have basically been completed. , has entered the early stage of publicity, and the "Mrs. Smith" cooperating with Columbia is also in the final post-production stage.

In the past few days back in Los Angeles, after Eric participated in several high-level meetings of Firefly Pictures, he was basically busy with a few movies, although the direct box office profits of the movies accounted for the proportion of the entire film industry chain. It's getting lower and lower, but the movie is still in an important position of a locomotive. If the horsepower of the locomotive is not strong enough, then this huge machine will definitely have a problem, so any film company still puts the movie at the most important. seat.

After handing over the script of "Speed ​​of Life" to Jane Debont, Eric did not intervene too much in this project. The script of "Speed ​​of Life and Death" was written by him and handed over to the director of the original time and space. , plus this project plays a very important role in whether Jane Debont can transform from a photographer to a director, Eric believes that the other party will definitely be very cautious about this movie.

After participating in the test film of "Speed ​​of Life and Death", Eric has no more doubts. Compared with his memory, the charm of this film has not changed much, and the rhythm of the story is quite compact. The actor is still Keanu Reeve. Si, except that the heroine has changed, there has not been much change. After seeing the sample of this movie, the executives of Firefly have also given positive comments and made the most gorgeous publicity scale.

In contrast, "Mrs & Mrs. Smith" has some small problems. John Wu is from Hong Kong after all. Although he has made many movies, the shooting style is very different from Hollywood after all, and there is one more point, John Wu He started out by shooting comedy films, so even though many of his classic shootout films often contain too many comedy elements, Eric had to personally participate in the later stages of "Jurassic Park". Edited by "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", although this film is not lacking in comedy plots, the theme is still a film about the relationship between husband and wife in the guise of a shootout.

However, one thing that satisfies Eric is that the Hong Kong action director team brought by John Wu has designed the action of "Mrs. Smith" very gorgeously, even exceeding the style of the original. However, one thing that satisfies Eric is that the Hong Kong action director team brought by John Wu has designed the action of "Mrs. Smith" very gorgeously, even exceeding the style of the original. To be continued.

...