A private airport on Chicago's south side.
Robert Egger and Isla Deutschman enthusiastically escorted a couple off the plane after landing on a Falcon executive jet owned by Daenerys Entertainment, where the company was assisting John Hughes in filming "Uncle Buck." 》The team also specially sent a car to pick up the people, which seemed to be very considerate.
After the couple left, Egger and Deutschman reboarded the plane, and the Falcon took off and continued flying east.
In the cabin, after the plane reached a stable state, Ella Deutschman took out a thick list of Oscar judges from her briefcase, opened it, found a name, and made a few remarks at the back.
Today is already Monday, January 23rd.
Over the previous weekend, Deutschman not only negotiated the rights to adapt six stage plays, but also hosted receptions for three consecutive days starting from Friday for the purpose of award publicity.
The couple whose husbands are Oscar photography award judges just got off the plane said at Saturday's cocktail party that they were going back to Chicago today, and Ella Deutschman readily invited them to take the company's private jet.
This kind of small favor doesn't cost much, but it can leave a very deep impression on the couple.
This year's Oscar nominations have not yet been announced, but Daenerys Entertainment's public relations offensive has already begun.
Robert Ream is busy expanding Daenerys Entertainment's overseas distribution channels. The nature of Gaomen Pictures' business is destined to rely on major film awards to survive. Simon has given the award public relations tasks for several of the company's films last year to Doraemon. Ichiman.
After losing the bid for "Sex, Lies and Videotape", Ella Deutschman realized that her original strategy of buying as many completed films as possible for distribution would not go so smoothly. While adjusting her plan, the public relations results of this awards season became This is the key to whether he can be recognized by Simon during the one-year probation period.
During her last trip to the UK and this business trip to New York, Ella Deutschman did not forget to visit the awards-related contacts she had accumulated over the years after work. At the same time, she also visited the professional public relations company hired by Remote Control Company. Working with the awards marketing team, it can be described as a multi-pronged approach that spares no effort.
The Golden Globe Awards, which are the benchmark for the Oscars, will be held this Saturday. The corresponding public relations work has also been completed. His next focus is on the Oscars.
Speaking of which, with the current reputation of "Rain Man", under normal circumstances, this movie is destined to be a big winner during the awards season.
However, Simon does not want "Rain Man" director Barry Levinson and leading actor Dustin Hoffman to win, but he wants to ensure the best picture. He also hopes that "Dead Poets Society" can win the best director award. , this is the biggest difficulty in this public relations.
Iger and Deutschman both agreed very much with the collaborative mechanism proposed by Simon and practiced it, so they got along very well. Two of the three-day weekend receptions were held at Iger's house.
The two chatted about work, and more than two hours later, the Falcon business jet landed again. This time it was not Los Angeles, but Salt Lake City, Utah.
The 5th Sundance Film Festival opened last Friday. Although he knows that any film the company chooses now may be competed by other studios, Deutschman still plans to see if there are any outstanding films at this film festival. films or emerging filmmakers worth wooing.
Moreover, there should be no shortage of Oscar judges at the film festival who can connect with each other in person.
Simon's instruction to Deutschman was to proceed step by step.
There are more than 3,000 Oscar judges. They are wooing one by one, building public relations and establishing connections one by one. One day they will understand everything.
The reason why the Weinstein brothers are so invincible at the Oscars is not that the brothers invest a lot of energy in public relations for everyone every year. The most important thing is the deep-rooted and powerful connections and deep influence accumulated little by little over many years of business.
The Falcon business jet finally arrived at Los Angeles Santa Monica Airport around 11:30.
Iger sent the two accompanying employees to Burbank and arrived at Daenerys Entertainment headquarters. Amy's assistant Vanessa was already waiting for him.
After a brief greeting, Vanessa said: "Please come with me, Mr. Egger. Ms. Pascal is attending a meeting. She said you can go directly to the conference room after you come over."
Iger was a little confused, so he followed Vanessa to a small conference room in the company's office building.
After pushing the door open and walking in, Nancy, who was in front of the slide screen, saw Iger. She temporarily stopped explaining and said hello: "Good morning, Bob."
"Good morning," Iger nodded towards Nancy, shook hands with Amy who stood up, sat down next to her, and said to Nancy: "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Nancy, please continue."
Vanessa handed a piece of information to Iger, and Nancy continued: "Two years ago, Blockbuster won the game rental lawsuit against Nintendo and gained the right to sell and rent game cartridges. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" "After the development is completed, we can also use Blockbuster's channels for distribution, and we can take the initiative in local channels and marketing in North America."
Iger listened to Nancy's introduction and quickly read through the information handed over by Vanessa.
It turns out that this is a development plan for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video game for the Nintendo FC game platform. Seeing this, Iger couldn't help but think of the Atari collapse a few years ago.
Atari was originally a game console and software development company owned by Warner Bros. In 1977, Atari launched the Atari 2600 game console, which quickly became popular in the United States. At its peak, there was even an Atari game in every three American households. The popularity of the machine.
However, after the success of Atari 2600, Warner began to frantically extract profits from this game platform, and allowed various types of game manufacturers to develop a large number of inferior games without restraint. Countless inferior games flood the market and continue to consume users’ patience.
In the end, the "ET" video game, which Warner had hastily developed in six weeks in 1982, became the trigger for a collapse.
Users who continue to be tortured by various inferior games originally thought that the reputation of "ET" and the official brand of Warner games would guarantee the quality. As a result, the quality of "ET" is so low that it is even shocking. There are many low-level bugs that would not appear in the most inferior games.
As a result, only 1.5 million of the 4 million cassettes prepared by Warner for "ET" were sold, and the rest were sent to the garbage dump for direct destruction.
But that's not the worst part.
After that incident, users completely gave up on Atari.
Sales of Atari game consoles and software fell off a cliff in the following years. The game market, which exceeded US$3 billion in the early 1980s, even shrunk to US$100 million during the most deserted period in 1985.
Some analysts believe it will take at least 20 years for the North American video game market to recover.
However, after the short-lived market 'ice age', Nintendo, which learned from the lessons of Atari's collapse, gradually filled the vacancy in the North American market left by Atari's collapse through a series of restrictive measures such as the royalty system to strictly control game quality.
In recent years, the North American video game market has begun to recover again. Of course, this field has unfortunately become dominated by Japanese companies.
Nancy in front of the stage finished the introduction, discussed a few words with Amy, and humbly asked Egger for his opinion.
Looking at the 28-page plan with a total budget of only 2 million US dollars, Iger thought for a while and asked: "Nancy, it costs 200,000 to buy the video game development rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" US dollars, but you only plan to make this game with a budget of US$500,000, can the quality be guaranteed?”
Of the total budget of $2 million, $200,000 was used to purchase the video game development rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", $500,000 was used for production, $300,000 was used to maintain the company's daily operations, and the final $1 million was spent after the game development was completed. Production and marketing expenses.
Nancy nodded seriously and said: "The main expenditure in video game development is labor. Because it is my first time to get involved in the field of video game development, I only plan to set up a studio of about 10 people in the early stage, and a budget of US$500,000 is enough."
Iger asked again: "Marvel's "Spider-Man", "Fantastic Four" and other superheroes are also very suitable for adaptation into games, and they are more famous than "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Why choose "Ninja Gods"? Where is Turtle?"
Nancy shook her head and said, "I tried talking to Simon and he said no."
Egger was confused: "Huh?"
Nancy was a little helpless: "Simon seemed to be very fond of Marvel and gave me no room for negotiation. I also talked to him about "The Lord of the Rings" and was rejected, as well as "Run Lola Run", and he has already sold the peripheral products to him. The rights were packaged and sold. It just so happened that the company had recently approved a live-action movie for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". After research, I found that its character settings were very suitable for adapting into a side-scrolling fighting game. After contacting Mirage Studios, they I bought the game development rights for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before they were sold."
Iger was not familiar with the field of video games. Since Nancy had already considered all the issues that he could think of in a short period of time, he did not put forward any opinions rashly.
Everyone chatted for a few more words, and it was already noon, so they rushed to a nearby restaurant to have dinner.
Having recently completed the investment in Blockbuster, Nancy quickly came up with another plan, which once again put a lot of pressure on Amy.
Amy had actually considered getting involved in video game development, but had no time to push it forward.
Now, Nancy has come up with this plan. The game studio after establishment will also be affiliated with the consumer products department, rather than directly under the company's departments such as Daenerys special effects and Pixar animation. If it succeeds, Nancy will definitely have the most credit. Even if it fails, the loss of 2 million US dollars is really insignificant to Daenerys Entertainment now.
So, at lunch, although she tried not to show it, Amy inevitably felt a little closer to Egg.
Iger, who has a gentle personality, is far less energetic and aggressive than Nancy.
Obviously, Amy cannot know what Simon expects from Egg.
The revenue scale of the consumer products department under Nancy's management is far less than that of the television department. Moreover, the consumer products department is located in Los Angeles and is destined to be under the control of the parent company at all times. Iger, who is in charge of the television department on his own from the east coast, is completely a "frontier official" level existence.
We chatted for a while, and even though we were having a meal, we soon talked about work.
Daenerys Entertainment's TV series are mainly produced on the West Coast. With the arrival of the spring TV season, Iger has to start flying to Los Angeles every week for work. This time, in addition to the preparations for several TV series, there are more important things.
"About "Who Will Be a Millionaire", Tom had a detailed discussion with me when he invited me to dinner yesterday. He said that if we are not willing to make concessions, ABC will have to cut the number of episodes in the second season and adjust the screening time. ," After Iger finished speaking, he noticed Nancy's doubtful eyes and explained: "ABC Chairman, Tom Murphy."
Nancy nodded and didn't answer.
Amy asked: "What are the conditions?"
Egger said: "The price quoted for each issue is halved, and ABC also participates in the revenue sharing of advertising placement within the program."
Amy frowned immediately and said, "Simon probably won't agree to this."
Nancy looked around and couldn't help but ask Iger: "Bob, how much profit did we make on "Who Will Be a Millionaire"?"
As the head of the consumer products department, Nancy is very aware of the peripheral product revenue data of "Who Will Be a Millionaire". However, the company's annual financial audit had not yet been completed, and she did not know the total revenue of the popular reality show.
Faced with Nancy's inquiry, Iger did not hide anything and said: "According to last year's financial data, it was about 180 million U.S. dollars. If we calculate the entire first season, it would be about 250 million U.S. dollars."
Nancy's eyes couldn't help but widen a little, and her red lips opened slightly.
She felt that she might have heard wrong, or that Iger had explained it wrong, so she asked, "Total revenue?"
Iger shook his head: "Net profit."
Nancy always thought she wouldn't be surprised by anything, but this time she couldn't help but take a deep breath.
She slowly exhaled a big breath, but she still didn't believe it. She stared at Iger and said, "250 million US dollars, how is this possible?"
Being able to make a beautiful woman show a surprised expression is very satisfying for a man's vanity. With a smile on his face, Iger explained patiently: "Compared with TV series that only have 13 or 26 episodes per season, "Who Will Be a Millionaire" There are 69 issues in a season, and the transaction price of each issue is 2 million US dollars. For the first season of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", according to the settlement rules we negotiated with ABC, after the winter break, ABC has paid us 8,300 for the first season. The purchase fee of 10,000 U.S. dollars, including the 30 million U.S. dollars for the additional 15 issues before the season, only this part of the revenue reaches 110 million U.S. dollars. In addition, the total revenue from in-program advertising is 56 million U.S. dollars, and syndicated distribution and overseas licensing revenue is about 27 million U.S. dollars. Dollar."
Nancy listened attentively and quickly reported the final statistics: "The total revenue is 196 million U.S. dollars, and the net profit is 180 million U.S. dollars, which is indeed very reasonable. Oh my god, no wonder our little boss is so squandering, Daenerys Entertainment's financial situation But I’ve always been healthy, and it’s so profitable.”
Moreover, as she thought further, Nancy immediately discovered the problem.
As far as she knows, NBC is the best-run television network among the four major television networks.
The fiscal year cycles of the four major television networks are basically calculated from the last quarter of each year.
According to General Electric's public financial data, affected by last year's writers' strike, the NBC television network's total revenue in the 1987-1988 fiscal year was US$3.3 billion, but its net profit was only US$310 million, compared with US$3.8 the previous year. 100 million US dollars fell sharply, with a profit margin of less than 10%.
After careful consideration, one season of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" can bring a net profit of US$250 million to Daenerys Entertainment, but there is no problem.
The network operates seven days a week and has a total of about twenty or thirty prime-time programs.
However, just like the films produced by Hollywood studios every year, a small number of these TV shows are bound to make a profit or loss, and most of them basically break even. Coupled with the huge basic operating expenses of a national television network, it is very rare to be able to earn $310 million a year like NBC.
Let's look at "Who Will Be a Millionaire"? This program occupies the eight o'clock slot on the three most golden days of the seven days a week, and it is a one-hour program. Because of the phenomenal ratings data, the scale of its advertising revenue is completely equivalent to the studio's most profitable hit movie with a box office of over 100 million every year.
Compared with ABC's comprehensive investment in operating a national television network, as a producer, Daenerys Entertainment only needs to bear a total production cost of only about US$20 million and a small amount of early marketing expenses.
Taken together, the revenue scale of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is only equivalent to 10% of the TV network's total revenue, but like a low-cost, high-box-office hit movie, the profit margin of this program exceeds 90%.
Therefore, by occupying the best resources and taking away the most generous profits, without having to share the huge operating expenses and loss-making project costs of the ABC TV network, Daenerys Entertainment naturally makes money.
Thinking of this, Nancy immediately asked Iger: "Bob, how much can ABC earn from this project?"
Iger thought for a while and said: "If we only count this program, it will be about 80 million US dollars."
When Nancy heard this, her eyes wandered between Amy and Iger, and she opened the corner of her mouth and made a strange face.
Amy and Egg also looked at each other speechless.
Daenerys Entertainment made a crazy profit of 250 million. As the platform owner, ABC, which should be in a strong position, only has a profit margin of 80 million US dollars, less than one-third of Daenerys Entertainment. Anyone who changes it will be upset. .
Tom Murphy was able to patiently start negotiations with Daenerys Entertainment mainly because ABC really couldn't do without "Who Will Be a Millionaire".
Although the average viewership data of a single program is firmly suppressed by "Survivor", compared to "Survivor" which has 13 episodes per season, "Who Will Be a Millionaire" has 3 episodes per week.
With the super high ratings of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", ABC, which was originally only slightly better than the emerging FOX among the four major TV networks in terms of comprehensive ratings share, has gone through last year's autumn season and has already ranked first The NBC TV series vaguely showed a go-ahead attitude.
Under such a good situation, ABC will never dare to abandon "Who Will Be a Millionaire" rashly.
But at the same time, if Daenerys Entertainment is unwilling to make compromises and the distribution of interests is seriously unbalanced, as long as ABC management has a little foresight, the TV network will definitely try to get rid of the "Who Will" at all costs. Become a Millionaire.
Everyone was silent for a moment, and Amy finally said: "This matter still needs to be decided by Simon himself. Bob, you can talk to ABC again, and then write a report and send it to Melbourne."
Egg nodded, it was a big deal, and that was all it could do for now.