The Indian girl Aaliyah and the two maids entered the master bedroom of the Shell Villa with clothes in their hands. They found that their boss was lying on the big bed with the word "big" written on it. When they entered the door, they happened to roll over.
Not daring to ask any more questions, he just stepped forward silently and said, "Boss?"
Simon, who had already washed himself, was not embarrassed to see what they were going through. He sat up and chose a sports suit held by a waitress, waiting for his morning exercise.
As for just now, mainly because I recently came back from Asia, and my woman and children are on the East Coast, I decided again to rest and recuperate, mainly sleeping alone. So, when I woke up early this morning, I suddenly felt pretty good, and I felt a little younger for the first time in a long time.
After putting on a close-fitting sports vest and shorts, seeing Aaliya take the initiative to kneel down and help him put on his sneakers, resting on the Indian girl's elastic thighs, Simon remembered something and asked: "Aaliya, you should be very happy now." You have money, don’t you plan to leave?”
They participated in the creation of Instagram together. As an initial investor, and helped introduce IT technical talents from India, Aaliyah obtained the initial 5% equity.
Now Instagram has been acquired by Yigrit and has become a member of Yigrit’s social product matrix. The Indian Girl’s original equity has also been exchanged for Yigrit shares. Simon doesn't know exactly how much, but as Yigret's stock price continues to rise, the Indian girl must have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Aaliyah carefully tied her boss's shoelaces. After hearing this, she shook her head and said, "I'm used to my current life, and..." After a pause, the Indian girl didn't say more. She just said, "Besides, the boss and The madam is very kind to me, and I want to stay here forever.”
Simon nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
However, from Aaliyah's simple answer, Simon also figured out something. Her husband and wife were very kind to her, but correspondingly, someone was probably treating her badly. Considering the serious state of male superiority and female inferiority in India, and the fact that Indian girls have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars, and they obviously have a tendency to harbor hidden gems, it is not difficult to imagine some things.
After half an hour of morning exercise, I took a shower, changed my clothes and went to the restaurant. It was seven o'clock in the morning.
Girl A has prepared breakfast and sent a latest weekly box office data report.
This is July 9th.
Friday.
Simon picked up the tableware and browsed the box office data of the past week while eating breakfast.
Unsurprisingly, the first place on the list was taken by "The Unforgettable Tribulation". This was expected, and there was neither surprise nor shock.
From July 2 to July 8, a complete box office week spanning the Independence Day holiday, the box office of "The Last Day" in its first week finally amounted to US$87.39 million. Behind "Godzilla" and "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace," it is temporarily ranked third in first-week performance in 1999.
If it were ten years ago, this result would naturally be amazing.
At present, saturated distribution is becoming more and more mature. Relatively speaking, such a super blockbuster with a total investment of 180 million U.S. dollars in production and promotion is also the most popular independent holiday slot in the popular summer schedule. It did not break through in the first week. 100 million, which is somewhat unsatisfactory.
Failure certainly doesn't count.
After all, it was close to 90 million in the first week, so there is no problem for "The End of the World" to reach Simon's original expected local pass level of 200 million. Such special effects science fiction blockbusters often achieve better results overseas than at home, and it is not surprising that the global box office has reached 500 million. The break-even line of "The Last Day" is 400 million worldwide. If it can get 500 million at the box office, it can achieve a gross profit of tens of millions of dollars just through theatrical distribution.
However, people are afraid of comparison, and so are movies.
Based on the global calculation of 500 million for "The End of the World", 200 million locally and 300 million overseas. After the division, excluding the total production and publicity cost of 180 million US dollars, the gross profit at the theater stage is only about 30 million.
The comparison is "Godzilla" from the same period.
After just finishing its fourth week of screenings, "Godzilla" continued to earn $26.36 million, ranking third on the list, behind "Armageddon" and another new film from Warner Bros. However, the cumulative box office of blockbuster special effects blockbusters of the same type here has reached a high of US$243.53 million.
The local 300 million is certain.
Overseas, according to feedback during this period, the overseas performance of "Godzilla" also exceeds that of the mainland. According to the current trend, even overseas alone is expected to hit 500 million in revenue, and the final global box office may be around 800 million US dollars.
The total production and promotion cost of "Godzilla" is US$150 million. Based on the domestic box office data of US$300 million and overseas box office of US$500 million, the film will achieve a gross profit of approximately US$200 million in the theater stage alone.
"Armageddon" VS "Godzilla", 30 million versus 200 million, the gap immediately became apparent.
Even if "Godzilla" is a joint project between Daenerys and Toho Corporation of Japan, excluding Toho's 30% interest share, Daenerys' profit from this project will still far exceed that of "Godzilla" "Heavenly Tribulation".
What's more, as the core of the project, after successfully helming the "Jurassic Park" series, Simon also gave Michael Bay a very high salary package, with a maximum salary of US$15 million, plus a 10% share of global box office gross profits. Therefore, excluding the share for Michael Bay, Daenerys actually won’t even get an initial profit of 30 million in the theatrical stage.
Basically we can only look forward to follow-up channels.
Looking at the first week box office results of "The Last Day", Simon quietly made the decision that the collaboration between Daenerys and Michael Bay could come to an end. It's time to let this commercial film director whose cost performance is gradually becoming uneconomical go out to spend some time.
As for when it will be activated again, it's simple, Transformers.
Thinking of this, Simon also suddenly remembered that it was time to take down Hasbro.
Speaking of which, this toy company is also the former employer of the small female executive. Simon had originally determined an idea when Nancy Brill joined Daenerys, but the time was not yet ripe.
Now, it's just right.
The main issue is "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace," which was released in May. Due to the sluggish sales of peripheral products, toy manufacturers such as Hasbro and Lego that have spent a lot of money to cooperate with Lucasfilm will not have very good financial reports this year. The stock price has also been falling steadily.
As for the film and television rights of "Transformers", it seems that there is still some entanglement with some company in Japan. However, these are also minor problems, and Simon does not need to intervene personally now.
In addition to "Armageddon" and "Godzilla", another film produced by Daenerys, "The Walking Dead 2" is still going strong. Despite the impact of new films such as "The Last Day", "The Ghost Story 2" still earned US$16.01 million in its third week, a well-controlled decline of 45%, and the cumulative box office reached US$91.57 million.
It is expected to exceed 100 million next week.
We no longer expect the same 200 million local revenue as the first film. After all, the first film took all the dividends of creating a new genre.
However, even if the global box office is only US$200 million this time, taking into account the total production and promotion costs of US$25 million for "The Ghost Chronicles 2", the gross profit in the theater stage will reach more than US$60 million, which is equivalent to "The Last Days". 》Twice that, which makes people unable to wish for more.
…
After breakfast, we arrived at the company and had a meeting with Amy Pascal. After discussing the box office data of the past box office week, Simon mentioned the acquisition of Hasbro.
In fact, this matter is best left to Nancy Brill.
However, Nancy, who was eight months pregnant, took leave last month to prepare for the birth. It was Simon who forcibly interrupted the work of the small executive. Otherwise, this little woman seemed to plan to work until the child was born, even if she was a mother. Come on, you have to think about your children, right
At that time, the woman also went to New York. Janet invited her, saying that it would be convenient to take care of the child when it was born.
Speaking of this matter, the pregnancy of a small female executive will inevitably cause a lot of discussion in the circle after it gradually becomes apparent. After all, Nancy is not married, and it is really easy to guess who the child belongs to. .
Therefore, it is inevitable for many people to have a bit of a spectator mentality.
The related emotions dissipated after Janet personally came out and went in and out of the studio several times with Nancy in an intimate manner.
If there is no excitement to watch, there will naturally be nothing to discuss.
There were also some gossip media who wanted to cause trouble, but they were easily suppressed by the media and public relations team of the Westeros family. Of course, it's not that Simon is afraid of outsiders knowing, it's just that he wants to protect his family's privacy.
If it is exposed, it will inevitably cause some hidden dangers to the future safety of women and children.
After explaining in the morning, Simon got some basic information about Hasbro at noon.
Just before the release of the first Star Wars prequel, Hasbro's market value once reached a high of US$5.4 billion thanks to the benefits of having the peripheral toy license of this super phenomenon-level blockbuster. However, with the release of the first Star Wars prequel, The loss of word-of-mouth resulted in the sales of peripheral toys seriously falling short of expectations. Hasbro's stock price has also fallen all the way during this period. It has now shrunk to US$4.3 billion, a cumulative decline of nearly 21% in less than two months.
However, this is still the highest market value of Hasbro in recent years.
In the first half of the 1990s, affected by the downturn in the global economic environment, Hasbro's market value has been hovering between two and three billion US dollars.
The reason why it has reached a peak of more than 5 billion US dollars is that on the one hand, it is due to the United States entering a new bull market cycle, and on the other hand, Hasbro has been an agent for many popular film and television toy peripherals in recent years.
Not only Star Wars, but also Daenerys, the "Jurassic Park" series, Pixar 3D animation series, etc., both parties have certain cooperation.
Furthermore, with the rise of the new technology industry, even after a brief collapse, Hasbro still followed suit and invested, creating the 'Hasbro Interactive' department, which mainly develops electronic games derived from its own brand toy series.
With the return of the U.S. dollar after the Asian financial crisis spurring an overall rise in U.S. stocks, the technology stock market has also recovered rapidly, and the electronic game industry is booming again under the concept of the Internet. Even if the games launched by Hasbro Interactive have not yet had a hit, they are actively Hasbro's stock price, which follows new technology concepts, is still benefiting from this trend.
Obviously, if Simon wants to acquire Hasbro at a lower price, wait patiently for a year or two until the technology stock bubble bursts again, and at the same time use the influence of the Westeros system in Hollywood to push various companies to continue to reduce their relationship with Hasbro. Cooperation, if the time comes to take action, it will still only require two to three billion US dollars.
It's just that with Daenerys's ability to entertain the moment, there is no need for this.
Of course, Simon will not give too high a premium.
Hasbro's revenue in the past three years has remained at around US$3 billion, with annual profits floating between US$150 million and US$200 million. Referring to the recent stock price, the upper limit of the quotation given by Simon Project is US$5 billion. It is lower than the high of US$5.4 billion before the release of the first Star Wars prequel, and it will use stock exchange acquisition transactions as much as possible.
For a non-growth traditional company, a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 30 times is actually very impressive.
If the deal cannot be concluded, Simon will not be taken advantage of.
Just wait.
After all, even if the family has a big business, it cannot be squandered casually. At that time, all the means that should be used, such as cutting off cooperation, encircling and sniping, will also be used.
After briefly discussing the matter with Amy again during lunch, Simon rushed to Pixar on the second floor of the studio in the afternoon.
Another Pixar 3D animated feature film is basically completed. It is still scheduled to be released on Thanksgiving at the end of the year. In the afternoon, we will discuss the editing and modification of the final version.
This is Pixar's sixth animated film. During the original selection process, Simon interfered and finally decided that the animation studio's sixth work would be "Cars". The previous "Cars" was not released until 2006. , and compared with projects such as "Finding Nemo" and "Toy Story", the box office of "Cars" is not outstanding.
Simon chose this one mainly because of the surroundings.
In the original time and space, if a sales ranking of Hollywood movie peripheral products were listed, people with a little knowledge of this would probably be able to name the number one spot, the "Star Wars" series.
But who is second
Some people may think of "Jurassic Park", or Pixar's "Toy Story" series, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe series after the millennium... In fact, it is none of them.
Ranked second is "Cars."
Simon once saw a ranking data, which of course is only real-time data as of a certain period of time. The cumulative sales of peripherals of the "Star Wars" series are 30 billion US dollars, and the second place, the "Cars" series, is later than the Star Wars series. After nearly 30 years of existence, sales have reached an astonishing US$10 billion, equivalent to one-third of the "Star Wars" series.
Going forward, other "Jurassic Park" series, "Toy Story" series, etc. that the public is familiar with are only a few billion dollars in size.
This shows the strength of "Cars".
In this case, even if the box office was relatively mediocre, Simon still produced this series before other animations he liked more. After all, seven years earlier than before, that means you can make seven more years of money.
It just so happens that the plan to acquire Hasbro is not only to lock in the copyright of the "Transformers" series in advance, but also because of the consideration that "Cars" will be released at the end of the year.
Let’s talk about US$10 billion in sales of peripheral products. For “Cars”, of course, it’s mainly toys. You get a share through authorized agents. Compared with a toy company that directly produces and sells itself, you can ultimately get a share of the profits. Definitely two concepts.