I’m in Hollywood

Easter just passed, and because he was too busy, Eric didn't go back to New York to spend Easter with the children, but promised the women that they would be back in East Hampton before April 10, and the two little guys will be four years old soon.

In a restaurant in Firefly Studios, on a new Monday, Eric and Katzenberg had breakfast together and discussed the topic of three recent animated films for the summer.

The Lion King 2 was launched at the same time as Paramount's Pocahontas released last year. Although it has been three years, the influence of The Lion King is still there. Roger Ehlers used After three years of crafting this film, the quality of the animation must not be much inferior to the first one, and the only thing we can do is to create obstacles for Paramount in terms of publicity.

Katzenberg introduced the recent situation, took a sip of juice, and continued: I have had several phone calls with Mr. Murdoch, and during the next two months of publicity, Firefly's ABC television network, Disney Channel On all TV platforms, there won't be any trailer commercials for The Lion King 2, viewers will only see information from Finding Nemo and Ice Age. News Corp, Fox Network, Fox Family, etc. The same goes for platforms. We'll try to compete for trailer spots on both networks as much as possible. According to the propaganda department, when these deployments are fully implemented, Paramount's propaganda budget will be at most half of its usual effect.

Commercial competition has never been warm. During the promotion of Titanic at the end of last year, Viacom's MTV TV station, which mainly targets young audiences, once refused to release a trailer for Titanic due to the tight advertising space. As full-scale distribution becomes more common, the importance of film promotion to the box office becomes more apparent, as can be seen from the increasing proportion of film promotion budgets to total investment costs.

This time, whether it is a counterattack against Viacom's actions a few months ago, or out of competition, it is very necessary to completely block The Lion King 2 in the Firefly system.

Viacom Group's highest-quality TV asset at this time is only one MTV station. As for the Nickelodeon channel, which is positioned in the same way as Disney Channel, the number of users is completely different from that of Disney Channel. Since the Internet has just emerged in recent years, the current mainstream methods of movie promotion are still TV trailers, print media advertisements and posters in a large number of public advertising spaces. Among them, the role of TV trailers in advertising is undoubtedly the most important. , especially for animated films. After all, a large portion of the audience of animated films does not read newspapers or magazines.

The joint ban of the ABC TV network and the FOX TV network will mean that The Lion King 2 will lose at least half of the TV advertising platforms in North America. Viacom's own TV resources are quite limited, and it is the same to obtain advertising space on these external platforms. With the competition between Firefly and Fox, Paramount Pictures will definitely pay a higher price for the promotion of The Lion King 2, but the final marketing results will be far from Finding Nemo and Finding Nemo. Looking for Nemo.

Eric had finished the breakfast in front of him, slowly drank a glass of hot milk, listened to Katzenberg, and asked, Have you considered that Viacom might provoke The Lion King 2 in the media Was it blocked?

Of course, the way to deal with it is very simple. Unless necessary, we will try to ignore it as much as possible. This will also prevent Paramount from using this topic to hype. This matter was discussed at last week's meeting, If Viacom made similar remarks in the media, there would be no public response from any department of Firefly. Also, we did not have any violations in doing so, and if anyone questioned, we could come up with enough evidence, It proves that all the commercial slots on our TV station have been sold out, Katzenberg spread his hands, showing a somewhat shriveled Totoro grin, and made a very vivid metaphor: If there is no opponent to take over,

A person who punches empty into the air will only make people feel funny.

Eric also laughed and said, I guess after this incident, Redstone will definitely make up his mind to attack again.

General Electric won't sell NBC at all in recent years, and as for CBS, at its current market value, Viacom will probably spend more than $30 billion to buy it now. With the public television network constantly being eroded by cable TV market share , let alone $30 billion, even if the price is halved, I don’t think it’s worth it. When we bought the Metropolis/ABC, if we didn’t have shares in the TV network, it must have been uneconomical now.”

Eric said: But Redstone certainly doesn't think so. His concept is still at the peak of the public television network twenty years ago.

In memory, the former Viacom finally spent a huge sum of US$46 billion in order to annex the CBS TV network, but after the deal was reached, CBS began to fall into a long loss due to the impact of the cable TV industry. Years later, Viacom had to divest CBS from its lucrative cable business, such as MTV, in order to avoid being dragged down by the CBS network.

Redstone is a very enterprising person, no doubt about that. However, perhaps due to the limitations of the times, his vision has always been a little worse. Although Viacom has grown larger and larger in the consolidation tide of the media group, it has been proved after the fact that no matter whether it is a blockbuster videotape The acquisition of chain stores or the acquisition of the CBS TV network is an extremely unsuccessful business. After the new century, Viacom has gradually reduced from a first-tier media giant to a second-tier media group.

The two then talked about the distribution of several other films in the summer, and at the end, Katzenberg hesitated for a while, but said: Eric, regarding the recent digital music distribution rights, Barry Weiss and I Talked once, and he felt very uneasy. I also think that your digital distribution strategy for Firefly Records is too aggressive.

Barry Weiss was a senior official hired by Firefly from JIVE Music, a subsidiary of Sony Records, and currently serves as the president of Firefly Records.

In the past two years, the Backstreet Boys team created by Barry Weiss has quickly become one of the first-line pop singers, and last year created the first album with global sales exceeding 20 million.

In addition to the backbone of Backstreet Boys, other singers under Firefly Records rely on the rich media resources of Firefly Group, and their development is also quite stable. Christina, Britney, Justin Timberlake and other former MMC members, after several years of training, all released test singles last year, and received good market feedback, Firefly Records has launched a tailor-made for them. album plans.

Eric is therefore also very satisfied with the success of Barry Weiss' work in the past two years.

At this point, Eric was not surprised when he heard Katzenberg's retelling, but said, Jeffrey, you should have seen the digital distribution plan I gave to Firefly Records, right?

Katzenberg nodded and said: It feels a lot like the staged release of a movie. A three-month physical record release cycle, and three months later it will land on the Yahoo Music Store for digital album release. Although the three-month window is short It's a bit more, but it's acceptable. But then, six months after the album is released, it will be split into singles and sold separately, which Barry says will hit record sales the hardest.

For many albums, unless you're a die-hard fan, most people tend to like only one or two of the best songs.

In fact, this is also what record companies do deliberately in order to save resources and maximize profits. It is definitely easier to make a mediocre song than to create a classic music, and it can also cost less money and energy. If the record were to be split, it would directly lead to a large number of mediocre songs that would not be heard, which would certainly threaten the existence of the record company for many years.

Jeffrey, I won't mention the pros and cons of this solution for the time being, Eric said, taking out the one he often carried recently from his pocket, and said, You must already know this player very well, so, Let's make an assumption, if this player is completely developed by your own company, and you have no entanglement with the record industry, then, in order to promote this machine as much as possible, what would you do?

Katzenberg is also aware of the possibility of having an alternative to the traditional portable music player market these days.

In the current portable music player market, Sony's still dominates the market, with annual sales of about 15 million units. The sales figures of other CD players, MD Walkmans and other devices are probably in this order of magnitude. That is to say, the annual market capacity of portable music players is about 30 million units. If you can fully occupy this market, according to the net profit margin of electronic equipment is usually about 15%, the net profit of the price of 299 US dollars is about 45 US dollars. A year's sales of 30 million units will bring in a net profit of 1.35 billion US dollars, which is enough to squeeze into the top 100 of the global corporate profit list.

Katzenberg is also not a person with a particularly strong sense of morality. In the case of empathy, considering the terrifying business opportunities contained in this player, he will naturally choose the most favorable promotion and sales method at all costs. Even secretly and deliberately condoning the spread of online pirated music, as for the life and death of the record company, what does it have to do with him.

According to this line of thinking, if he were to be in charge of Firefly Electronics Company now, he would not hesitate to completely abandon the interests of Firefly Records. Although Firefly Records has developed well in recent years, the profits it provides to the group every year are still Less than $100 million, even if it grows to the size of the five major record companies, is still not enough to compare the profits that may be created. After all, the output value of the music industry is far from comparable to that of movies, and none of the world's top five record companies can make more than 1 billion in annual profits.

After working together for so long, Eric knew Katzenberg's character very well. After seeing his brief thoughtful expression, he just grinned and didn't speak. Eric could roughly guess what he was thinking, and said: There is never a shortage of smart people in this world. The MP3 audio format was initially launched five years ago. During these five years, I can definitely guess that traditional music equipment manufacturers must have produced similar audio players. idea. But, in order to protect their own huge vested interests in their own player products and surrounding industries such as CDs, tapes, etc., they must instinctively block such projects. But this outcome is not the worst, as I just assumed In that case, if similar player products are produced by electronic manufacturers that have nothing to do with the record industry, in order to obtain more benefits, they will certainly ignore the interests of record companies as much as possible, not to mention that, as I am now, exhausted Mindfully pull the record companies in. They just need a high-sounding excuse, like, our players can only copy music from genuine CDs, and then they can mass produce and promote this product, as for where the user gets the music, Do you think they would care?

What about you, Katzenberg asked suddenly, Eric, do you care?

Eric smiled, leaned back in the chair relaxedly, and said honestly, No, I don't care either.

Katzenberg said: Then why are you doing this?

Eric thought for a while and said, Because I hope to gain the initiative, or, more bluntly, I just hope to be the maker of the rules. Instead of standing still, waiting for others to make rules or even be eliminated. So, Jeffrey, if you pay more attention to Yahoo Network, you should find that on the basis of MP3 audio format, Yahoo has been further developing the MP4 video format. The IT industry will continue to develop according to Moore's Law, and it will take less than ten years. Hollywood will face a similar situation to the record industry at this time. The easiest way to survive is to be a rule-maker, not to blame others in vain or blindly resist emerging technologies.”

Katzenberg has always admired his young boss's outstanding vision in the film and television industry and investment, but he also always felt that Eric's character lacked the desire for control that a superior should have, even in many things. Too mild and not aggressive.

But now, in the small restaurant of Firefly Studios, Katzenberg suddenly discovered that the pattern in Eric's mind was many times wider than his. He not only already had the present, but even planned to control the future.

Katzenberg even realized that maybe he was just a chess piece in Eric's ambitious layout for the future. After all, the chess piece could not see the entire chessboard layout. And self-righteously pointed at a certain move of the chess player.

Would you like to be a pawn?

Katzenberg couldn't help but ask himself, but his heart quickly gave an answer, why not?

How many people in this world dare to say that they are not pawns? But there are too many people, maybe in a lifetime, who have no chance to connect with people who play chess. And now, not only does he have such an opportunity, but he can even consciously create a future with a chess player, which is much luckier than those who live their lives without knowing what to do.

Eric, I have a good relationship with Geffen, maybe, I can make a call and invite him to the press conference in San Francisco on April 2, what do you think?

David Geffen's record company was once a very important subsidiary of Warner Music Group, and its music copyrights were almost equal to Firefly Records. Katzenberg and David Geffen have always been very good friends. When David Geffen just left Time Warner, Katzenberg also suggested that Eric buy David Geffen's record company, but Eric didn't agree.

Eric didn't know what happened to Katzenberg's state of mind in such a short period of time, but he was willing to take the initiative to match up, and Eric would naturally not refuse.

Of course, if he wants, um, then, everyone can get together.

After breakfast was over, and after chatting for a while, Katzenberg had to rush to Burbank headquarters for the weekly meeting, and the two separated.

Eric also has a very busy work schedule today.

In the morning, I will check out the rough cut dailies of Jurassic Park 3, and discuss the next post-production special effects work with director Joe Johnston and the digital field post-production team. Had dinner with Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay at noon to discuss the The Day After Tomorrow project in the disaster film series. After all, this project can't be dragged on like this. Eric doesn't plan to direct himself, and the company can't wait forever. It happened that after Michael Bay finished Jedi Boys 2, he didn't want to shoot Jedi Boys 3 again, but wanted to Trying the special effects theme, Jerry Bruckheimer proposed to hand over the direction of The Day After Tomorrow to Michael Bay. In the afternoon, I have to rush to the Fox studio to participate in the final round of auditions for the heroine of Doomsday******. Eric has lost much interest in appreciating and even hunting beautiful women through auditions. What kind of woman does he want now? There is no need for such a complicated routine. But since he took the initiative to take this errand, he had to show it off symbolically.

Since Jurassic Park 2's box office performance is almost on par with the first, Joe Johnston still offered to get more money in Jurassic Park 3 despite signing the option contract ahead of time , the two parties took three months to reach an agreement during the negotiation, and the script writing and team formation of the third film were not as smooth as those of the second film. Therefore, the planned two-year production cycle was extended to two and a half years. Jurassic Park 3 can only miss the summer season and is scheduled for the Christmas season at the end of the year.

Jurassic Park 3 was just finished on the eve of the Oscars, and Jerry Bruckheimer was still the producer. The original appointment was noon, but in order to gain some understanding of the special effects production process, Michael Bay followed Jerry in the morning. · Bruckheimer came to Firefly Studios together to listen to the discussion of the post-production plan of Jurassic Park 3. Everyone's success will not be a fluke. Eric is also very satisfied with Michael Bay's attitude. After completing the morning's work, he has put aside his hesitation and decided to hand over The Day After Tomorrow to him for production. Everyone is in the restaurant at noon. Here, he directly discussed the production plan of The Day After Tomorrow. (To be continued.)