Upstate New York, in a manor outside Greenwich.
The time is January 7th.
The New Year has passed and 1993 has officially entered.
Just the day before yesterday, Time Warner Group formally confirmed its new management through an extraordinary shareholders meeting. Gerald Levine will serve as the new chairman of Time Warner Group after Steve Ross. Steve Ross’s two Direct descendants, Robert Daley and Terry Semel, jointly serve as co-CEOs of Time Warner.
Although the official management has been confirmed on the surface, in fact, this power arrangement after mutual compromise still leaves the Time Warner Group in disarray.
Although he is nominally the top leader, Gerald Levin can only control the business that originally belonged to the Time Company system. The two co-CEOs still firmly control the various Warner Bros. companies.
The Wall Street Journal published an article commenting on the company's 'synergies' the day after Time Warner's new management was confirmed.
The key to the original merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. was the corporate 'synergy' that the management of the two companies vigorously promoted, claiming that once merged, Time Warner would significantly increase its business through business cooperation in film, television, magazines, etc. The company's competitiveness and overall revenue.
However, the fact is that in the three years since the merger in early 1990, the synergies that shareholders hoped to see have not appeared, Time Warner is still in disarray, and there has even been a conflict between HBO and Warner Bros. Pictures over the TV broadcast rights of movies. In contrast to the tit-for-tat situation, this management change has been equally turbulent.
Not only that, Time Warner as a whole has been unable to get out of the heavy debt quagmire because of the original merger.
All in all, according to the Wall Street Journal, the original merger was a complete failure and only satisfied the personal ambition of Time Warner management to blindly expand the scale of the company.
Faced with criticism from the Wall Street Journal, Time Warner officials immediately publicly refuted it, but failed to prevent the company's stock price from falling further.
At the beginning of the new year, Simon is still staying in New York due to various things.
Watching the Wall Street Journal's sudden criticism of Time Warner with a cold eye, Simon discovered that this small public opinion storm will have another important impact on Warner.
During several contacts at the end of last year, Terry Semel revealed to Simon that he hopes to further expand the diversity of Warner Bros. Pictures’ production areas.
In fact, it is to imitate the operating model of the three current Daenerys Entertainment brands and get involved in the thriller genres such as literary and art films that New World Pictures and High Gate Pictures are good at.
For Warner Bros., the easiest way to do this is undoubtedly an acquisition.
The group management has been replaced. Even if there is not much change in power, the new executives still need to make some achievements, even if it is a face-saving project, to show the new attitude of the new people.
In the original timeline, it happened to be 1993, when Time Warner acquired the thriving New Line Cinema, and in the following years, it won super-blockbusters such as the "Rush Hour" series and the "Lord of the Rings" series. New Line Cinema The sub-label even once directly caught up with the development of the main label.
This time, due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment, New Line Cinema lost its first blockbuster series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with a domestic box office of over 100 million, and was forced by New World Pictures in the field of thriller and horror that it is good at. They were retreating steadily, and their strength was far less eye-catching than in the original time and space.
Compared with the original timeline, which had to sell itself to Time Warner, which monopolized Hollywood film distribution channels, in order to further expand, New Line now seeks buyers mainly to survive.
Therefore, the appeal of this second-tier label is not as great as that of the original time and space. In addition, the "Wall Street Journal" article accused Time Warner Group's last merger of being a blind expansion. In order to avoid more criticism, the acquisition of New Line or other The plans of second- and third-tier film companies to increase the diversity of their productions will definitely be shelved.
Lacking a successor, New Line Cinema, which has been in operating difficulties due to over-expansion in the past two years, may not survive this year and will go bankrupt.
Affected by the parallel success of Daenerys Entertainment's three labels, other Hollywood studios are more or less following suit. Simon can't stop this. However, suppressing a second-tier film company that is in trouble is a big deal for Dan. For Nelis Entertainment, it’s easy.
Whether it's New Line, Miramax, or even Orion Pictures, which is still struggling to survive, under Simon's watchful eye, these companies basically have no hope of getting projects that are likely to be big hits.
In recent years, "Silence of the Lambs", "The Crying Game", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", etc. should have belonged to these companies, but they were all successfully cut off by Simon, and they used New World Pictures and Gaomen Films in advance. The two major labels in the industry occupy the niche film field that mainstream studios did not care about in the past.
New Line's fate is destined to change, and Simon has also successfully solved another company in recent days.
Miramax.
Hollywood's second- and third-tier film companies, like Daenerys Entertainment in its early stages of development, largely rely on bank loans to maintain operations.
In recent years, the bank that provided funding for Miramax has also become famous on Wall Street, Chase Manhattan Bank. I remember this bank merged with Morgan Bank around 2000.
Of course, it’s just Chase Manhattan’s film investment arm specifically geared toward Hollywood.
The Weinstein brothers have run Miramax through many twists and turns over the years, and have accumulated a debt of about $15 million to Chase Manhattan Bank.
15 million US dollars is completely worthless to the current Daenerys Entertainment, but it is a huge sum of money for a small studio-style film company that can only release some low-cost literary films.
Moreover, according to the investigation, in addition to Chase Manhattan, the largest creditor, Miramax also has other arrears, with a cumulative liability of US$23 million.
Around the New Year, the Westeros System began to discuss some cooperation projects with several major banks in the United States, mainly the loan financing required by each subsidiary for further development, as well as further cooperation between Internet payment tools and physical banks.
For major banks in the United States, the subsidiaries of the Westeros system are undoubtedly the best lending targets, and each bank will naturally strive for them.
Chase Manhattan is one of them.
In order to form as many interests as possible, the Westeros system also habitually chooses more partners.
During Verizon's negotiations with Chase Manhattan for a $300 million loan, Simon asked James Raybould, who was involved in the negotiations, to propose a proviso to Chase Manhattan: pursue debt from Miramax in advance.
A small Hollywood company that is always on the verge of bankruptcy is completely worthless to Chase Manhattan.
It is unlikely to recover all the debt owed from this struggling film company. Chase Manhattan is actually already engaged in debt collection and is already prepared to take on another bad debt.
The additional requirements of the Westeros system, in Chase Manhattan's view, it seems that this small company has angered Daenerys Entertainment in some way. The potential cooperation between both parties is far more than a $300 million financing, and it is a smooth sailing. , of course I am happy to sell a favor casually.
So, on the same day that the Wall Street Journal criticized Time Warner for overexpansion, a third-tier film company headquartered in New York officially filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District Court of New York.
Although the development of the Westeros system has been smooth sailing, Simon has always understood that business competition has never been gentle.
Cruelty is the essence of business.
He didn't have any burden in his heart when he casually wiped out a film company that should have been successful in the original timeline.
In the reception room of the manor villa, after lunch, the Simons, James Raybould and Verizon Chairman and CEO Raymond Smith were discussing the next step of the Westeros system in the telecommunications field.
A week before Christmas last year, the U.S. Congress officially passed the lifting of the ban on telecommunications operators from getting involved in equipment manufacturing.
Although it is a bill passed by Congress, to a large extent it can be regarded as an approach by the Bush administration to accumulate as much political legacy as possible before the official transfer of power. Bush Sr. is destined to step down, and Bush Jr. will also officially enter the American political stage.
Speaking of which, in the last few months of the election, the Bush administration has also been trying to push for the passage of some bills related to the new technology industry.
However, because the "Information Highway Act" is ahead of the curve and this bill has also entered the final stage of discussion, it is impossible for the Bush administration to regard the bill proposed by Clinton's running mate as its own political achievement. Therefore, in the field of new technologies, the White House In the end, it seems to be a bit ineffective.
Of course things need to be done step by step.
The ban on telecom operators not being involved in equipment manufacturing has been lifted. The next step is for Nokia to enter the North American market.
In the original timeline, Nokia's share of the North American market was actually not high. The main reason was that the North American telecom equipment market was too closed and sales channels were monopolized by telecom operators. Until many years later, when the iPhone appeared, U.S. telecom operators still relied on The bundled sales model with telecom packages monopolizes more than 90% of the telecom equipment market.
This time, with the cooperation of Verizon, Nokia's pace of opening up the North American market will no longer be as difficult as it once was.
AOL has been conquering the Internet service provider field in the past two years. While cooperating with AOL to develop its Internet business, Verizon has also been vigorously deploying its own mobile communication network.
With the best markets on several continents along the eastern seaboard of the United States, Veri has not hesitated to lock in the second-generation GSM format. It does not hesitate between different telecom standards like other operators, or even activate different formats at the same time in an extremely wasteful manner. Sen's layout in the field of mobile communications also far exceeds that of other peers.
Next, while deeply cultivating the mobile communications business in its own market, Verizon's next goal is to expand.
Of course, if you want to do this, you must also resolve the antitrust restrictions that existed when AT-T split up in 1984.
This is actually just a matter of course in the next few years.
Whether it is public media or private lobbying, the Westeros system has been promoting the concept of 'three networks in one' as much as possible in the past two years.
Internet broadband, cable TV, and home phones. If these three major networks can be combined into one, it will greatly save operators' operating costs and at the same time bring cheaper services to users.
Antitrust in the United States is mainly to prevent monopoly in the telecommunications industry from causing excessive prices that harm the interests of consumers.
Now, the integration of three networks into one can not only save social resources to a large extent, but also provide consumers with cheap communication services to the greatest extent. Therefore, this concept has become very popular in both media platforms and American politics.
Continuous deregulation of the telecommunications industry is beneficial to all major telecommunications giants.
The concept proposed by the Westeros System was quickly recognized by the telecommunications industry.
AT-T even published a report, believing that once the telecommunications industry is deregulated and the three networks are promoted into one, the US telecommunications industry can save hundreds of billions of dollars in costs every year. These cost savings can be passed on to consumers to the greatest extent. By.
We spent the afternoon discussing Verizon and Nokia's entry into North America.
In the evening, James Raybould and Raymond Smith were sent away, and the Simons officially boarded the plane back to the West Coast.
The next day is Friday, January 8th.
The first box office week of 1993 is officially over.
During the seven days from January 1st to January 7th, due to the working day, movies in North American theaters experienced a sharp drop.
"Jurassic Park", which was in its third week of release, saw a single-week decline of 35% and continued to earn $46.91 million.
At the same time, the cumulative box office of this overwhelmingly popular dinosaur movie in North America also exceeded the US$200 million mark, reaching US$210.46 million.
Another film "Home Alone 2" released by Daenerys Entertainment at the end of the year also fell by 43% in the first week after the New Year. The single-week box office was only US$5.66 million, and the cumulative box office was US$147.69 million.
Unlike the two commercial films that plunged sharply after entering the working day, Daenerys Entertainment's award season flagship film "Scent of a Woman" has a relatively good box office trend, with a drop of only 28% in the first week of the new year. Another film "Crying" The decline curve of "Game" also shows signs of slowing down.
At the same time, the box office ranking list for the year 1992 that has just passed as of December 31, 1992 has also been released.
Daenerys Entertainment's summer release of "Wonder Woman", with a huge box office of US$371 million, undoubtedly became the annual box office average in 1992.
Although "Jurassic Park" still has strong box office momentum, it is generally difficult to overtake "Wonder Woman". Both within the company and outsiders predict that the local box office of "Jurassic Park" will be around US$350 million. . However, judging from the market performance of overseas box office openings, it is difficult to say who will win the overseas box office of the two films.