I’m in Hollywood

Since 1984, the Elderly Street series, which has been produced at a frequency of one per year, has accumulated a considerable number of regular fans. When Firefly announced that the founder of the Elderly Street series, Wes Craven, will return to shoot the series finale. After that, it immediately attracted the attention of a large number of fans.

On November 1, Halloween, The Death of Freddy was released in more than 1,200 theaters in North America. It earned $13 million at the box office in its first three days, and also received considerable praise. Although the final box office of the film will probably stay at around 50 million US dollars, compared to the production cost of less than 15 million, Firefly can still make a small profit in North America.

In addition to the small start of Firefly's end-of-year schedule, Disney's Dreads, which cost as much as 48 million US dollars, was announced as Eric imagined that it was postponed to the next summer season. The reason given by Disney was to be optimistic about the film. I hope the film can give full play to its commercial value. But people with a little industry knowledge scoff at this statement.

Although the film was postponed, the creators either kept silent or talked nonsense when confronted by reporters. But then The Hollywood Reporter's interview with former heroine candidate Nicole Kidman seemed to reveal something to the public. Nicole did not comment on the film, but said vaguely that a good friend did not recommend her to take the film.

As one of Eric's gossip girlfriends, most people can easily guess who Nicole's good friend is who can easily influence her movie selection. As soon as the news came out. The media, big and small, immediately hyped it up, and directly attributed Boldness to the ranks of bad films, and Disney's distinction became useless.

but. This turmoil did not have much impact on Disney's stock price. Since Firefly announced its public acquisition of Disney, Disney's stock has been slowly climbing for several months. At the beginning of November, Disney's market value has reached 4.7 billion US dollars. Month-to-month growth of 34%.

Amid the close scrutiny of Wall Street and Hollywood and others, Nov. 4. Viacom Group, which is competing with Firefly for Disney, has officially made a $4.9 billion offer to Disney.

It happened to be Monday, and Firefly had already gotten some news before that. Eric came to the Firefly headquarters early to discuss countermeasures with the acquisition team.

During the three months of Redstone's fundraising, in addition to the tug-of-war negotiations with Disney's management and Disney shareholders, Firefly has successively won 4% of Disney's stock at a high price. The current stake in the hands reached 15%, becoming Disney's second largest shareholder.

If the acquisition remains in a stalemate for a long time, Firefly can still ask for re-election of Disney's board of directors at the next shareholders meeting, thereby intervening in Disney's management and even further seizing Disney's control.

and,

Even if the worst happens, Firefly is defeated in this acquisition battle, and at Disney's current stock price, Firefly cashes out the shares in its hands. Also earn no less than $300 million in profits.

After Eric arrived at the conference room, Bernie Sanders, the head of the Morgan Stanley team, spoke first: According to the information we have obtained, Summer Redstone has divested his theater business. Viacom The fund raised by Mu is currently around 5 billion US dollars. In addition, Viacom Group also holds a small share of Blockbuster. Redstone is lobbying Blockbuster in an attempt to obtain financial support from the other party. Com has no less than $7 billion in his hands.

Eric listened. While opening the information about Blockbuster in front of him.

Blockbuster is the largest video rental company in North America with more than 2,000 locations. Most importantly, Blockbuster, as a video rental company similar to a retailer, has a huge cash flow in its hands, which is what worries Eric the most.

In memory, the hostile takeover battle between Redstone and Barry Diller in 1994 was that after the acquisition of Blockbuster, they obtained 10 billion US dollars of funds in the form of asset mortgages, and finally annexed Paramount.

Thinking of this, Eric asked: Bernie, is it possible that Viacom will first buy Blockbuster with the funds in hand, and then use Blockbuster as a mortgage to get more funds to join. acquisition.

Bernie Sanders thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, Although it is a very effective method at this time, the possibility is extremely low. Since Blockbuster changed hands in 1987, it has been adding 500 new stores every year. The speed of expansion is rapid, and the annual growth rate of market value exceeds 30%. As long as shareholders keep their shares in their hands, they can double in less than three years. In this case, it is impossible to sell.

Eric was a little relieved. Although he still didn't know why Viacom was able to acquire Blockbuster in a few years, Bernie Sanders' analysis was correct.

What about Viacom, although Redstone currently holds the control of Viacom, the shareholders of Viacom should not let Redstone do whatever they want?

Bernie Sanders nodded: Redstone may have raised more than $7 billion, but when the offer for Disney exceeds $6 billion, Redstone will experience increasing resistance from within Viacom. The bigger it is. Once the offer exceeds the psychological limit of other shareholders, Viacom will even have infighting, and then we can easily win the acquisition. But what the limit is, we do not know.

There was a low voice of discussion in the conference room, and Eric also quickly thought about whether there was a way to make Redstone take the initiative to withdraw from the competition. But after a moment, Eric was disappointed to find that this seemed impossible. Redstone is a typical dictatorial tyrant, with a strong personal will and will not listen to the opinions of others at all, not to mention that the two sides are still competitors now.

When he made a hostile takeover of Viacom a few years ago, Redstone stubbornly squeezed everything he had, increasing his bid for Viacom from $2.25 billion to $3.4 billion. after the acquisition is complete. Facing resistance from Viacom's management, Redstone did not hesitate to pay a high severance package to replace all of Viacom's top management. This shows his arrogant character.

Once such a person makes a decision, unless he is at the end of the road, the chance of voluntarily giving in is basically zero.

On the day of Viacom's offer, Firefly immediately increased the price to $5 billion, a shortfall of only $100 million, leading followers of the acquisition to speculate that this was just a test between Firefly and Viacom.

For the next week, neither side seemed to be doing anything. But only those who were personally involved in it would know. During this time, Viacom and Firefly's acquisition team has become more frequent contact with Disney.

At the same time, many people are aware of it. The Thanksgiving season in the next two months will play a decisive role in this acquisition. This is mainly because Disney's management has never given up the idea of ​​lobbying shareholders to boycott this acquisition. If Disney's performance has improved in these two months. change. Or if something goes wrong with Firefly, Disney management is likely to win considerable shareholder support again.

Although the total box office of the end-of-year period is much lower than that of the summer period, the competition is not weak at all.

November 22, the first week of the year-end holiday season, will be led by Fox's Home Alone 3, including Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Firefly's Dumb and Dumber, Paramount's The Addams and Universal's American Rat Story 2 was released on a large scale with five new films at the same time.

Although no sequel has been developed for a year in between, the momentum of Home Alone 3 has not diminished at all. In the first weekend, it won more than 27 million box office in more than 2,500 theaters in three days, and won the three-day box office championship without any suspense. This achievement surprised Eric, but he did not regret transferring the development rights of the sequel to Fox. after all. The sequel cost more than $50 million, and Fox didn't have much room for profit.

Hot on the heels of Home Alone 3 was Paramount's The Addams Family, a family fantasy comedy that grossed $24 million in more than 2,400 theaters.

Firefly's road comedy Dumb \u0026 Dumber came in third, with Eric arranging 1,900 theaters for the film, which just hit 20 million in its opening weekend.

Although this achievement is far inferior to the previous two works, both Home Alone and The Addams Family have accumulated a lot of fame through their previous works or TV series. And Dumb and Dumber is a completely new work without any accumulation of popularity. Coupled with the very low cost of the film, the results achieved have attracted more attention.

On the day the results of the first weekend were released, Hollywood studios began researching the film in an attempt to find the successful elements of the comedy to imitate. They also quickly found the key, which was the movie's leading actor, Jim Carrey. However, when they learned about the contents of the contract signed by Jim Carrey and tg, most people broke their minds.

In addition to these three films, although Disney's Beauty and the Beast has won a good reputation, it is limited to less than 1,000 screenings, and it only ranks fifth at the box office, even behind Universal Pictures' Beauty and the Beast, which has been released for a week. Cape Fear, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro.

As for Universal's other American Rat Story 2 co-developed with Spielberg's Abelin Pictures, it only received a pitiful $3.4 million at the box office in 1,700 theaters, becoming the first box office dud in the year-end schedule.

Facing the infighting with Viacom and the small moves made by Disney management from time to time, Eric did not rest throughout Thanksgiving, and even ate Thanksgiving dinner with Jeffrey and others.

Eric originally estimated the conservative box office of Dumb and Dumber at about 80 million. As long as this result can be achieved, Eric will be satisfied. After all, before this, vulgar comedy has not cultivated enough audiences in Hollywood. But the potential shown by this movie has a full hope of breaking 100 million, and even Eric is no longer too worried about the box office of the next Hot Hand Police Flower.

However, although Dumb and Dumber achieved dazzling results, it was attacked by Disney. On the second day after the release of Dumb and Dumber, Disney accused the film's vulgar style and Disney's business ideas. If the two companies merged, the sleazy comedy would undoubtedly damage Disney's healthy and uplifting brand image.

In the face of Disney's accusations of being a bit rambunctious. Eric directly let people make a tough counterattack. After the completion of the acquisition, Disney will become a brand and a subsidiary of Firefly. It’s not that Firefly is dominated by Disney, so the accusations made by Disney’s current management are completely nonsense. The works developed by different subsidiaries will not affect each other. After all, Disney’s Touchstone Pictures has also produced in recent years. A fair amount of R-rated movies.

After four weeks of Thanksgiving, Home Alone 3 has grossed $80 million at the box office, because Christmas is next. Fox estimates that the film's follow-up response will still get the same box office amount because of the same type of competition in Home Alone 3. Beauty and the Beast grossed just over $30 million at the box office in four weeks. Although the film has a good reputation, it is not destined to do much at the box office. The box office of Dumb and Dumber has reached 65 million, and there is no suspense at all when the box office exceeds 100 million.

Spielberg is destined to be a hurdle that no one in Hollywood can get around. While most of the attention was on Firefly and Disney's films, Captain Hawk, which Sony Pictures had high hopes for, boldly set a December 6 release date.

Although the script of this movie was greatly revised with the participation of Eric, and the role of the little fairy played by Nicole was added, it still failed to save the reputation of the movie. Two weeks before its release, it was welcomed by the media To the boos, Sony Pictures had expected the film to gross more than $40 million in its first week, but in fact, the film only made $17 million in its first week. While the weekly box office has increased as Christmas approaches, no week has ever crossed the $30 million mark. The $70 million mega-production was destined to pay for itself by consuming Spielberg's personal reputation.

Dances with Wolves, which was released at the same time as Captain Hawk, is even more inconspicuous. Although the small-scale film was well-received, the four-hour length of the film also blocked most of the audience from the door.

On December 20, the first week of the Christmas season, Firefly's Hot Police Flower and Disney's New Father-in-law were released in 1,900 theaters at the same time. As a remake, New Father-in-law relies on the fame accumulated by the original Elizabeth Taylor, although the original is a classic work. It has been 40 years since it was now, and its influence is long gone. Therefore, the film only received more than 14.4 million box office in its first week.

Compared with the old-fashioned comedy style of New Father-in-law, Spicy Police Flower, which takes the same vulgar comedy line as Dumb and Dumber, has caught the eyes of a large number of audiences, although the film has a bad reputation among film critics. But it still took in $21 million at the box office over the first three days. Nicole's serious but cute female detective and Rosie O'Donnell's brutish and fat policewoman are paired with each other, bringing 100 minutes of piss-free hilarious movie viewing to the audience who walked into the cinema. And Nicole's subversive performance in Hot Police Flower even made many people interested in the little fairy played by Nicole in Captain Hawk, and unknowingly drove the box office of Captain Hawk, but most of the In an interview, fans also expressed their preference for Nicole's performance in Hot Hand Police Flower.

The last day of 1991 passed quickly. With the arrival of the new year, the total box office statistics of Hollywood's major film companies in 1991 were also released one after another, and it seemed to imply a final competition.

Although some movies are still being released, according to the accumulated box office and audience reputation, the final box office of most of the movies released can be roughly calculated. Because of the war, compared to 1990, the total North American box office in 1991 was only $4.8 billion.

Time Warner is still firmly in the status of Hollywood's big brother, with 21 films released throughout the year, with a cumulative box office of 750 million US dollars, and a market share of 15.6%.

Even if they don't want to admit it, everyone can see that the name of Firefly appeared very dazzlingly in the second place. With Terminator 2, Toy Story, The Death of Freddy, For the five films, Dumb and Dumber, and The Firefly, Firefly earned a total of $660 million at the box office, occupying a 13.7 percent market share in North America.

Because most of its resources were bet on Cutthroat Island, Disney released only 12 films throughout the year, and the most highly anticipated Cutthroat Island box office fiasco, resulting in Disney's annual box office of only 380 million US dollars. Market share slipped to a five-year low of 7 percent.

Not only that, but Disney posted a $120 million loss on a $2 billion debt to pay interest and principal due. Stimulated by this data. Disney shares fell for the first time in more than five months.

Disney shareholders, who originally held a glimmer of hope for Disney management, finally gave up completely and began to take the Firefly and Viacom acquisitions seriously.

Sorry, Mr. Bass, it's a pity that we couldn't reach an agreement. I hope we have the opportunity to cooperate next time, Eric said goodbye to the two middle-aged people in front of him while standing in the parking lot of the Sharphorn Manor.

The two people who were about to get in the car and leave were named Sid Bass and Roy Disney. Sid Bass is the current helm of the Bass family that owns the most shares in Disney, and Roy Disney needless to say. A member of the Disney family, Walt Disney's nephew.

Hopefully, Sid Bass took a deep look at Eric again and got into his silver car. Roy Disney moved his lips, as if he wanted to say something, but eventually followed him into the car.

After waiting for the other party's car to leave the Sharphorn Manor, Chris, who had been standing quietly beside Eric, couldn't help but said, Eric, I think the other party's conditions are not bad, if you agree, Viacom will It's no longer a threat to us.

The visit of Sid Bass and Roy Disney represents a large part of Disney's shareholders, hoping to take the shares in their hands. In exchange for a stake in Firefly's combined Disney company, not a lump sum of cash.

This part of Disney's shareholders will band together as long as Eric agrees. Help Firefly complete the acquisition, but Eric still chooses to refuse.

Hearing Chris' words, Eric glanced at Bernie Sanders on the other side: Boney, what do you think?

Bonnie Sanders shrugged and said, I'm just referring people. In fact, when Sid Bass contacted me, I didn't report any hope. I know you've already made up your mind.

Eric smiled and walked back with the two. Said: You should have heard that Barry Diller will be leaving Fox in February.

The two nodded at the same time, both of them paying close attention to news from Hollywood during this time.

The news of Barry Diller's impending departure caused a great shock in Hollywood. As an outsider, Murdoch's main energy was still on the operation of the newspaper industry in Australia and the United Kingdom. Without the assistance of Barry Diller, Murdoch would never have entered the mainstream Hollywood circle, and the development of the Fox network would have been impossible to talk about. Therefore, the inside story of Barry Diller's sudden departure from Fox has become the object of many people's speculation. Eric met Elizabeth over Christmas and asked the question, and the girl didn't hide it from her.

Eric said: Barry Diller is a very talented person, and Barry Diller has taken most of the credit for Fox's rise over the years. Mr. Murdoch also retained it, but it was probably last September. , Barry Diller said to Murdoch, he doesn't want to be a worker anymore, he wants to be a master, do you know how Murdoch answered?

Both Chris and Bernie looked curious.

Eric didn't give a shit, and said, Murdoch said that Fox can only have one owner.

Chris both fell silent.

Eric added: The same is true for Firefly, there can only be one owner. Murdoch must have realized that Barry Diller's departure would have a great impact on Fox's development, but he did not consider the second option at all. , even if that choice would in no way affect his control over Fox.

Many investors always instill the concept of business owners that they cannot eat alone and share profits in order to develop. In fact, this is just an excuse for them to seize control of the business, and those who sell their shares in exchange for development funds are often the same. Just people who don't have many options.

If there were sufficient funds, I don't think the owners of Microsoft, Oracle, or Cisco would choose to go public for financing. After most people succeed, they are desperately trying to increase their holdings in an attempt to achieve the purpose of regaining control. Firefly is more fortunate. I just have enough funds to take a path completely different from other entrepreneurs. Although it is a little more difficult and the price to pay is a little more, I think it is worth it. I will never choose the path that is relatively easy but lays many hidden dangers for the future of Firefly. (To be continued)

ps: The website server crashed, hey, it used to be just the client, now even the main site is like this, the upload is late, sorry.