The Best Entertainment Era

? With the distribution support of Embassy Pictures, the three films achieved high revenue.

The Blair Witch grossed $181.2 million, Kingsman grossed $28.2 million, and Reaper grossed $118.1 million.

Due to the sale of overseas copyrights, among the revenues of the three films, North American revenues accounted for the bulk.

These calculations are all outright overseas copyright income, not the total overseas income in the hands of Sony Columbia.

In fact, the overall overseas box office of the three films is also very good.

The Blair Witch earned US$113.51 million overseas, Kingsman earned US$16.7 million, and Reaper earned US$72.64 million.

These are all online revenues, and Sony Columbia Pictures, as the distributor, has not disclosed the offline revenue data at all.

In the face of overseas markets, the former Embassy Pictures could only sell out overseas copyrights, and at least half of the overseas revenue fell into the hands of overseas distributors.

Fortunately, even if the overseas copyrights of the three films were sold out, they would still be distributed by the Embassy Pictures. As the distributor, the Embassy Pictures could justifiably extract distribution fees from the sales.

These three films, including online and offline, have taken a total of US$111.55 million from Embassy Pictures.

Of course, the profit of the embassy film industry is not so high. This is only the total income, excluding labor, taxes, operations, legal fees, accountant fees, channel fees represented by video storefronts, relativity loan interest, and overseas channel expansion. Net income was $28.3 million.

The income of Shahai Entertainment is much lower. The major source of income is The Blair Witch purchased by Relativity Entertainment. The only films belonging to Sandhai Entertainment are Reaper and Kingsman.

Moreover, after the relevant income is in hand, part of it has to be settled with investors such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Hassan, and the operating income is only 41.2 million US dollars.

As a producer, it is also the main spender of various expenses, such as union fees for the film, post-production bonuses for the main creators, market research fees, and so on.

Sandsea Entertainment’s net profit after deducting a series of expenses was only US$8.64 million.

This is just the number on the report. In fact, a lot of funds, such as the share of Hassan and others,

They will stay with Shahai Entertainment for a long time.

The one with the highest profit is Relativity Entertainment. At the beginning, Ronan purchased The Blair Witch as Relativity Entertainment. After the embassy film industry deducted the commission of various revenues and various channel business fees, there was still nearly 100 million US dollars included in it. On Relativity Entertainment's account.

Compared with the high income of The Blair Witch, the cost paid by Relativity Entertainment is too small, and the sum of the copyright purchase and the box office bonus of the main creative team is only more than a few hundred thousand dollars.

In addition, Relativity Entertainment also has US$4 million in interest income from loans to two subsidiaries.

These did not count Ronan's income from investing in the stock market. Since Ronan fully controlled the three companies, he had let Mary go through legal procedures to transfer the income from the stock market to his personal name.

The funding was as high as $48.5 million.

During these two years, Ronan still had a lot of personal income, especially in 1999, as the president of three companies, the first producer of two films, and the planner of the publicity and marketing plan for one film, he had For the corresponding income, the annual salary, screenwriter's fee, producer's salary, producer's share, etc. during the period totaled as high as 12 million US dollars.

That's not counting producer fees for While Turning and The Purge 2.

Just like the crew of The Purge of Humanity back then, even if it was a company that Ronan absolutely controlled, he would not lose a penny of the remuneration that should be paid.

Among other things, this can also dilute the profitability of the film.

For a medium-to-high-scale production like The Bourne, Ronan's producer salary is as high as $3 million, the screenwriter's salary is $50,000, and he has a 1.5% box office share.

This is the producer's legitimate income.

Ronan is the producer of the films, The Purge and Reaper, one with a box office of over 100 million in North America and one with a global box office of over 100 million. The salary of the producer has naturally increased.

Although producers can't get 20 million US dollars in salary alone like first-line directors and stars, gold medal producers like Jerry Bruckheimer can earn as much as 10 million US dollars for a single film, and there are various later incomes. into.

Investments are tax-deductible, and Ronan set aside $50 million from his personal income to wait for an opportunity to invest.

The tax filing season in April is coming soon, there are professionals to do the work in this area, and Ronan doesn't need to pay too much attention, but he keeps reminding him not to evade taxes.

Various legal tax avoidance methods can be used, but measures that are too risky are not suitable for the time being.

Relativity Entertainment's current ability to resist risks is too weak. If it gets into trouble with the IRS, it might be over.

Ronan worked hard for two years, stood and danced on the wire several times, even at the expense of cheating, and finally got a harvest.

At the beginning, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority offered to invest US$100 million and inject US$300 million in exchange for most of the shares in his hands, but he rejected it. Now even if it is doubled, Ronan will refuse without hesitation.

A film company with an annual revenue of more than 300 million US dollars can barely be classified as a medium-sized film company in Hollywood.

The key point is that Relativity Entertainment has distribution channels that ordinary medium-sized film companies cannot touch!

As long as overseas distribution channels are established and two or three films can be successfully distributed overseas, the value of Embassy Pictures alone will exceed US$500 million!

But Ronan will not sell, and the distribution will bring continuous income.

Relativity Entertainment is not listed and does not need to disclose performance statements, and Ronan has no plans to make it public. The success of The Blair Witch is the key to having such a high income in 1999.

However, he believes that as the company grows in size and produces or distributes more films, its revenue will increase each year thereafter.

The successful release of The Blair Witch has even brought more income than investing in the stock market during the same period.

Subsequent and continuous investment in video tapes and DVD offline, the total investment of this film is less than 24 million US dollars, in exchange for 181.2 million US dollars in revenue.

Excluding those small companies that invest $100,000 a year to make two films, but hit their luck and earn less than a million dollars in the video tape and DVD market, among all film companies above the medium scale, Ronan feels that the profit of Relativity Entertainment is The rate can be ranked in the top few.

The net income of the six major Hollywood companies is high, but the profit margin has always been low. In the 1980s, it was 15 percent. By the mid-to-late 1990s, the profit margin had dropped to about 5 percent.

This is the data released by the six major companies. They are all listed companies. Ronan doesn't know if there is any trick in it. I am afraid that only the core personnel of the six major companies will know.

Relativity Entertainment holds a large amount of funds in its hands. In addition to reserving the necessary working capital, the rest of the funds can be invested in order to realize the maximum value.

Today, Embassy Pictures has preliminarily owned online distribution channels, and Ronan's eyes have fallen on offline distribution.

The most important offline distribution is broadcasting on TV stations, rental and sales of video tapes and DVDs, and development of peripheral derivatives.

Today, all the large-scale TV stations in North America have long been owned by large groups, and their value ranges from billions of dollars to tens of billions of dollars. For example, Disney’s acquisition of ABC TV station cost as much as 19 billion U.S. dollars.

Of the other three major TV networks, CBS is owned by Viacom, NBC is controlled by General Electric, and the Fox network is owned by Twentieth Century Fox, which is a subsidiary of News Corporation.

Others like MTV, Disney TV, Warner TV and HBO, etc. also have their own home.

These traditional TV stations are not what Ronan can expect now.

Recklessly reaching out to the domain of these traditional media groups, it is estimated that he and Relativity Entertainment will be beaten all over the place.

In terms of peripheral derivative product development, in fact, only Disney is the only one that has done a good job in Hollywood. Most other companies adopt the method of licensing, licensing characters or other copyrights to other manufacturers, getting a valuable licensing fee, and then from the later stage. A cut of sales revenue.

Ronan has no other way for the time being, but can only take this road with a successful model.

Then there is the rental and sale of video tapes and DVDs, which is Ronan's next goal.

Today, the largest videotape and DVD rental and seller in the United States is Blockbuster, the same company that Ronan sold the Jedi to finance his first trip to Abu Dhabi.

Ronan has done enough to understand.

Blockbuster is the largest video tape and DVD rental chain brand in the United States, and is currently owned by Summer-Redstone's Viacom Holdings.

This is also one of the offline distribution partners of Embassy Pictures.

Ronan has no idea about Blockbuster and is powerless. His real goal is Netflix, which has been stared at all the time.

This company has developed for more than a year, but its scale has always been limited. Despite the speed of Internet development in North America, the penetration rate is still not high enough.

In addition, due to financial constraints, Netflix has never obtained a large-scale film authorization, and the number of films it can provide is limited.

The investigation company hired by Ronan sent him relevant reports every week. Although Netflix had built a framework during this period, it was really hard work.

Without sufficient video licenses, it will be impossible to attract large-scale users. Without a large number of users, it will not be able to attract investment from investors. Without investment, Netflix will not be able to buy more video licenses.

Now that the stock market has begun to fluctuate, as a typical Internet company, Netflix will inevitably be severely impacted, and life will be even more difficult.

Ronan told people to keep an eye on Netflix and wait for the most suitable opportunity.

In March 2000, the Nasdaq Composite stock price index experienced a big drop, and then it plummeted, and countless investors lost their money.

Ronan couldn't help but think of the lines from the movie Wall Street.

Money is a bitch who will never fall asleep. She is naturally jealous. If you treat her carelessly, when you wake up in the morning, she may have disappeared forever.