Fast forward to Thursday, July 21st.
Michael Eisner woke up early in the morning in his suite at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, New York. He rushed to the East Coast yesterday to persuade Sid Bass, the current head of the Bass family, to give up the idea of selling Disney.
Although the Bass family originated in Texas, many members of the family have preferred to live in New York over the years.
We made an appointment to have breakfast together today. After getting up, Michael Eisner took care of himself and was about to leave the hotel suite when the doorbell suddenly rang.
The slightly urgent ringing of the doorbell gave Michael Eisner an inexplicable premonition.
Opening the door, there were two middle-aged men standing outside the suite. They were Sandy Litwatt, vice president and head of the legal department of Disney, and Bill Michanik, president of the home entertainment department.
These are the two executives Michael Eisner has handpicked to take over as Disney's next president and studio president after Jeffrey Katzenberg's sudden departure and Michael Ovitz's stay on the sidelines.
Michael Eisner knew very well that in order to persuade the Bass family to reject Vivendi's acquisition, Disney must stabilize internally as soon as possible.
Although Ovitz was not invited to join, the two candidates in front of him were not randomly picked by Michael Eisner to make up the numbers.
The Legal Department has always been one of the core departments of the Disney Company that focuses on copyright operations. Disney's "Copyright Mania" and "California Pizza Hut" are ridiculing names, and the story about drawing a Mickey Mouse after living on a desert island can attract Disney's special plane to save his life. The joke is caused by the lawsuits filed by the Disney Legal Department.
Sandy Littlewater, as the head of Disney's legal department with the title of vice president, has always reported directly to Eisner himself.
Not only that, the current president, Frank Wells, also happens to be a lawyer. He has cooperated with Eisner tacitly over the years. Now that Sandy Litwatt has taken over Frank Wells' position, he is very important in front of the Disney board of directors and major shareholders. Easily gain recognition.
Another Bill Michanick can be described as Michael Eisner's 'direct descendant'. Bill Michanik followed Eisner when he switched jobs from Paramount to Disney and has been in charge of Disney's home entertainment department over the years.
When he first joined Disney, Eisner and other management valued the entire Disney film library at only $200 million. However, under the management of Bill Michanick, the re-released Disney classic animated movie video tapes continued to sell well. Among them, the "Cinderella" video tape alone sold 6 million boxes, with revenue as high as 180 million US dollars.
Disney's rapid recovery in the late 1980s was largely due to the large amounts of cash provided by video sales.
Therefore, Bill Michanick is equally qualified to take over the position of president of Katzenberg Studios.
Seeing the two subordinates appearing in front of him with solemn faces at this time, Michael Eisner wanted to pretend to let the two people into the room easily, but before he could speak, Sandy Litvatt had already put one of them into the room. A newspaper was handed over: "Michael, you might want to take a look at this."
Michael Eisner raised his hand and took the newspaper.
This is the "Hollywood Reporter". As one of the most popular professional film newspapers in the industry, the "Hollywood Reporter" is also on sale in New York, the East Coast film center.
Without any special guidance from Litwat, Michael Eisner saw the bold headline on the front page of the newspaper at a glance: "Daenerys Entertainment is about to launch a European Universal Studios plan."
Just after reading the title, Michael Eisner felt his heart tighten slightly.
Disneyland Paris, which has been open for more than two years and has shown no improvement, is currently Disney's biggest weakness.
Stimulated by the success of Tokyo Disney that year, the initial US$1 billion Euro Disneyland project snowballed to US$5 billion. It also suffered from the loss of Tokyo Disneyland, which only received royalties and did not participate in investment. Disney accounted for 40% of the Euro Disneyland project. Half of the equity share, with most of the funding coming from borrowing.
Disney currently has a total debt amount of US$5.3 billion, of which US$2.5 billion is brought by Disneyland Paris.
If Disney can maintain the same growth momentum as it did in the late 1980s, this part of the debt may not be a big deal. Now, Disney's movie business is sluggish, and several of its major theme parks that lack fresh IP injection are also implicated. The interest generated by the huge debt every year is already a huge burden for Disney.
Because it owns shares in multiple Disney parks, Disney's net assets have reached US$12.8 billion, but its current market value is only half of its net assets. This is largely dragged down by Disneyland Paris, which is struggling in the quagmire.
The operating situation of Disneyland Paris is already unsatisfactory. If there is another movie theme park from Hollywood in Europe, and it is Daenerys Entertainment Group, which has produced many classic blockbusters in recent years and has rich IP resources, the result will be diversion of Disneyland Paris. The number of tourists has made Disneyland Paris even worse.
Originally, he planned to let his two subordinates enter the room first, but because of his inner worries, Michael Eisner stood directly at the door and started reading the news in the "Hollywood Reporter".
The press release features a striking picture of Daenerys Theme Park President Bruce Peck leading a team on a tour near the Colosseum in Rome, the capital of Italy.
The Westeros system has had many layouts in Italy over the years, and all political and business circles have close ties. It is completely expected that Italy will be first considered for the location of Universal Studios Europe.
The news article begins with an introduction to the fact that Bruce Peck and his party suddenly appeared in major European cities in recent days to conduct on-the-spot inspections to select locations for Universal Studios Europe.
Not only that, after a reporter from the "Hollywood Reporter" called Daenerys Entertainment's media public relations department, although the other party did not reveal much, they gave a positive answer regarding the European Universal Studios project. Daenerys Entertainment does intend to Build a movie theme park in Europe.
Subsequently, the "Hollywood Reporter" simply contacted several core executives of Daenerys Entertainment, and obtained a brief telephone interview opportunity with Mark Belford, Vice President of Global Operations of Daenerys Entertainment, to briefly talk about some European matters. Universal Studios thing.
Mark Belford said that the overall movie market in Europe far exceeds that of Japan. Due to various considerations such as brand marketing, it is imperative for Daenerys Entertainment Group to build its own movie theme park in Europe.
Of course, reporters will not forget to talk about Disneyland Paris.
Mark Belford did not criticize the extremely failed Disneyland Paris. Instead, he said that the number of visitors to Disneyland Paris in each of the past two years has exceeded 10 million, which is enough to prove that Europeans also like movie theme parks. The failure of Disneyland Paris was largely due to Disney's failure in planning and management.
Mark Belford also said that Daenerys Entertainment's Universal Studios Europe will try its best to avoid making the mistakes of Disneyland Paris. For example, first of all, in terms of location selection, this time it will definitely choose the Mediterranean coast where spring is always present. This is not the case in Paris, which can only open for half a year due to the climate.
It is of course an exaggeration to only be open for half a year every year.
However, Paris, which has four distinct seasons, enters the off-season for theme parks in winter, and the number of visitors decreases significantly. This was indeed a major mistake in the initial site selection process.
Disney actually considered this issue during the initial site selection stage.
It's just that Disney did not conduct more detailed research, but rigidly applied the successful experience of Tokyo Disney to Paris Disney.
Tokyo also has four distinct seasons, but Japanese people are willing to queue up in the cold wind to visit Disneyland.
Therefore, Disney's planning team took it for granted that Europeans would also be willing to continue visiting Disneyland Paris in the cold winter.
In the two years since its opening, the fact that winter attendance at Disneyland Paris has dropped significantly proves that Disney’s original idea was wrong.
Due to France's strict labor and social security laws, the number of tourists dropped significantly in winter, but Disneyland Paris was unable to lay off a large number of redundant employees during the off-season, resulting in severe staff redundancy. This is also an important reason for Disneyland Paris' continued losses in the past two years.
Michael Eisner has regretted more than once in the past two years why he did not locate Euro Disneyland on the Mediterranean coast.
The Mediterranean coast is the birthplace of the most authentic Mediterranean climate and is very suitable for tourism and consumption all year round.
Of course regretting it now won't help.
In the headline article at hand, although Daenerys Entertainment did not talk much about the failure of Disneyland Paris, Michael Eisner could almost imagine that with the news that Daenerys Entertainment is about to build a movie theme park in Europe , the most direct impact must be Disneyland Paris.
There was no need to wait for other media outlets to add insult to injury. The headlines were immediately followed by an article from The Hollywood Reporter detailing the failures of Disneyland Paris.
There were serious mistakes in early planning, the budget was out of control because of the success, the arrogance and tyranny of the management caused numerous cultural incompatibilities, Disney's decline in recent years has caused a lack of new projects in the theme park, and the playability has been seriously reduced, and so on.
Standing stiffly at the door of the hotel suite, Michael Eisner read two articles in a row. A thin layer of sweat broke out on Michael Eisner's forehead.
If it were any other time, Daenerys Entertainment's news of the upcoming construction of a movie theme park in Europe would at most only impact Disney's stock price, and perhaps cause the media to jump out and comment on Disneyland Paris.
However, at this time when Vivendi is preparing to acquire Disney, this kind of news suddenly comes out. It is conceivable that this incident will inevitably seriously affect the confidence of many shareholders in Disney.
Furthermore, Michael Eisner also thought that once Disney is acquired, Vivendi Group will definitely not keep him as the 'culprit' that the media calls Disney's decline and turmoil.
After 10 years at the helm of Disney, Michael Eisner's foundation rests entirely on this film company. If he leaves Disney at its lowest stage, unless he sets up his own business like Jeffrey Katzenberg, the entire Hollywood will be in trouble. There will no longer be a place for him, which means that his career will be completely over.
Michael Eisner is still only 47 years old this year. He is not Frank Wells, who is over 60 years old. In his prime, he is unwilling to experience retirement life now.
Thinking of the bleak prospects he might face, Michael Eisner felt the suffocation in his heart getting stronger and stronger, a stinging pain came from his chest, his vision began to blur, and the voices of the two subordinates in front of him also suddenly made tinnitus. became vague and uncertain.
Sandy Litwat and Bill Michanick realized something was wrong and quickly stepped forward to help. When they looked again, they saw that the pale-faced Michael Eisner had fallen into a coma.
Simon immediately received the news that Michael Eisner had suffered a heart attack and was in coma.
At the time, he was at his Woodside Mountain Villa in the Bay Area.
Robert Egger called from New York. It was not yet five o'clock in the morning on the West Coast, and there was just some light in the morning outside.
After standing by the master bedroom window and making the phone call, Simon didn't know what to say for a moment.
Michael Eisner has a family hereditary heart disease. Simon has known this for a long time. In his memory, around 1994, Michael Eisner underwent a life-or-death heart surgery. Because the risk of the surgery was very high, Eisner Sina had even made a will in advance.
did not expect.
Is this history repeating itself
However, with Katzenberg leaving, Welles about to retire, and now Michael Eisner suddenly falling ill, plus Daenerys Entertainment has just added another hit, Simon doesn't believe that many Disney shareholders still have confidence. Continue to hold shares in this company.
If you don’t sell it now, Disney may become less and less valuable in the future.
A petite figure behind him came over silently like a cat, hugged his waist, rubbed his cheek against his, and asked sleepily: "Simon, what's the matter?"
This is little Jenny.
Having agreed to abstain from sex this week, Simon's persistence is not lacking.
Last night, even those who had been in San Francisco recently rushed to the guest room, but the little fairy said that she was still a child and didn't understand anything. She was just scared to sleep alone at night, blah blah, in short, her success depended on Simon's side.
Simon was not too insistent on this little goblin that he could handle with just one finger.
Turning around, he picked up the girl's light body and took her back to the big bed. Simon said, "Let's sleep a little longer. It's still early."
The little goblin, who was wearing a pink pajamas and looked like a doll, saw Simon go to the bathroom to wash up first, then started to get dressed when he came out, and then got out of bed. He helped out diligently and said expectantly: "Simon, let's go out together. Running?"
Simon tapped her head lightly: "It's me. If I'm found with you, I'll be in trouble."
The little fairy looked innocent and fake: "It doesn't matter, I'm just a little girl."
Simon couldn't help but pinch her cheek and said with a smile, "That would only make things worse."
With that said, he put on his sports vest and shorts, and enjoyed the Japanese-style kneeling service deliberately made by the goblin. He let her put on his sneakers. Simon left the villa and took two bodyguards with him to start a morning jog in the mountains. .
For safety reasons, Neil Bennett and Ken Dixon, who are responsible for the security affairs of the Westeros family, had previously not recommended that Simon go on similar morning jogs, but Simon did not agree. If he did not even have this freedom, What else is there in life
If you are worried about safety, then make the environment safer.
The Westeros family has so many people now, and it's not just for this.
Therefore, in addition to the two groups of eight-person bodyguards stationed in Simon's villa in the Woodside Mountains, there are also five additional groups distributed in several other properties in the mountains, three groups in the light and two groups in the dark. Around Simon's morning jogging route, the Westeros family's security team quietly installed cameras and other surveillance equipment to ensure that no one would approach this area rashly.
Simon didn't feel it was a waste at all.
The Westeros family does support a lot of people now, whether openly or secretly.
On weekdays, Simon sent out a lot of seemingly meaningless tasks such as 24-hour monitoring of Gralf, his mother and his daughter. The main purpose was to prevent these people from feeling slack due to having nothing to do. Simon firmly believes that only by maintaining smooth operation at all times can any team avoid losing vitality to the greatest extent.