"While Hollywood has grown stronger over the years, it seems to me that Hollywood is also losing its creativity, whether it's high-budget blockbusters or low-budget horror and comedy, it's becoming more and more like an assembly line. Of course, no one can deny that this assembly line model is very successful commercially. But at the same time, the high industrialization of Hollywood also makes the survival space of those alternative, rough and anti-traditional films more and more Small, but there is actually a huge market demand for this type of film. My Lionsgate film company focuses on the production and distribution of these films."
In the banquet hall of the Sunset Tower Hotel, after a brief greeting, Frank Gusta began to talk about his development plan for Lionsgate Films.
After a brief surprise, Eric also returned to normal, just listening to Frank Gusta express his views with great interest, and occasionally discussing a few words with the other party.
After chatting for a while, feeling that the young man in front of him didn't seem to show too much interest in his film company, Frank Gusta concealed his disappointment and politely left.
After Frank Gusta walked away, the girl asked, "Eric, what do you think?"
Eric nodded in approval and said: "A person with a lot of ideas, if he develops according to his ideas, the company in his hands is likely to have a place in Hollywood."
"I think so too. I talked with Amy and John just now, and everyone thinks his idea is very good. So, Eric, how about we buy this film company, so that MGM We have a subsidiary like New Line and Miramax. You also said that we need to expand the production department of MGM.”
Eric recalled the past development of Lionsgate, and shook his head without thinking about it: "No."
In the past, Lionsgate has grown into a rising star of Hollywood step by step according to what Frank Gusta just said as "alternative, rough, and anti-traditional".
However, the rise of Lions Gate has been full of intense controversy.
From the early anti-religious "Rage of Heaven", to "Irrevocable" which was later banned by most countries in the world, to "Fahrenheit 9/11" which caused fierce confrontation with the Bush administration, the so-called anti-tradition of Lionsgate is completely It is based on offending most mainstream value groups.
If Lionsgate is a small company that has always remained independent, it can still face the pressure from all parties to release these controversial films with a very bachelor posture.
But if MGM incorporates it, by then, these pressures will be magnified tenfold and a hundredfold on MGM, the parent company. It can be said that this kind of Lionsgate is completely an 'uncertain time bomb' for major studios.
Of course, after the compilation, under the control of MGM, Lionsgate may also be able to give up these too slanted film production and distribution ideas. But in this case, Lionsgate will lose its own characteristics, and it will be difficult to develop much.
The girl never objected to any of Eric's decisions. Hearing that he denied his own ideas without hesitation, without asking the reason, she said, "That's it, then forget it."
Eric looked at the girl next to him holding a glass of orange juice and sipping it like a kitten. He smiled and helped her tidy up the slipped shoulder straps of the dress, and said: "A small company like Lions Gate may be a little bit deviant, but Mi GM cannot do this, nor can it allow its subsidiaries to do so. However, cooperation is possible, and we can hand over those alternative films that have good commercial potential but are not suitable for our own distribution to such small companies.”
In my memory, "Fahrenheit 9/11" was transferred by the Weinstein Brothers to Lionsgate Films for distribution under the opposition of Disney executives.
The film set a global box office record of $200 million for a documentary, but most of the profits still go to Disney. At the same time, Disney did not bear the political risks caused by this film.
Meeting Frank Gusta, the boss of Lionsgate Films, was just a very inconspicuous episode. In the later chat, Eric knew from the girl that the other party was her last time for E! When the entertainment sub-channel went to Washington, it was introduced by Clinton. Frank Gusta was one of Clinton's campaign finance supporters.
On the second day after the celebration party, Eric's mind changed again to the modification of the astronaut's helmet in "Gravity".
Eric originally only planned to remove the glass cover, and later added it through CG special effects.
But during the transformation process, Eric discovered again that the glass cover is embedded in the helmet. If you just remove the glass cover, it will still be very cumbersome to embed the CG glass cover into the helmet later. In reality, it is also possible to disassemble the parts around the glass cover and put the glass cover in, but in the process of special effects in the later stage, it is impossible to 'disassemble' the helmet in the picture and directly put the CG model in it. Prone to blemishes.
In order to solve this problem, Eric and Robert Byron also removed several sealing parts around the glass cover, and performed CG modeling on the parts around the glass cover to form a complete CG module together with the CG glass cover.
These tasks sound cumbersome, but in fact, the helmet was disassembled, the sensors were installed, and the CG modeling test was carried out. With the strong technical support of the digital field, these tasks were basically completed in only two days.
Entering the working day, filming of "Gravity" restarted without any delay, and after a brief break-in, Jodie Foster and George Clooney quickly adapted to the new equipment.
Erik almost turned a deaf ear to the filming of "Gravity". However, for the North American media and ordinary people, there have been a lot of news related to the Firefly system during this period.
The new week has just begun, and Firefly Investment and AOL’s board of directors held a press conference, announcing that AOL’s major shareholders will jointly invest in buying 16.5 million shares of Firefly Investment at a price of US$4 billion, accounting for 10% of AOL’s total share capital. .
At the same time, John Mark also announced at this press conference that Morgan Stanley will underwrite another 24.75 million shares in the hands of Firefly Investment.
After the completion of the two plans, Firefly Investment's shareholding in AOL will be reduced to 7.6%. With the increase in holdings of former AOL shareholders such as Vanguard Group and Goldman Sachs, Firefly Investment will withdraw from the major shareholder of AOL by then. The ranks of the top five.
Chris also publicly stated at the press conference that after the reduction of 25% of AOL shares, Firefly Investment will not have any plans to reduce AOL shares within the next year.
Although many Wall Street analysts have reservations about Morgan Stanley's stock underwriting plan, they believe that AOL's stock price is high and investment risks are great. However, no one doubts whether the powerful Morgan Stanley can absorb the $6 billion worth of stock sales contracts.
Therefore, the stimulus to AOL's share price from this press conference seemed immediate.
With the convening of the press conference, the shadow of Firefly's investment reduction that had been hanging over AOL for more than half a month finally dissipated. AOL’s stock price rebounded strongly by 5.6% on Monday, the single-day trading volume of the stock exceeded 1 billion US dollars, and the market value of AOL also broke through the 46 billion US dollar mark in one fell swoop. The entire Nasdaq index was under the strong rebound of AOL’s stock price There has been a clear uptick.
On the other hand, many people have also noticed that once the reduction of 25% of AOL's stock is successfully completed, this transaction will bring $10 billion in cash to Firefly Investment.
As a pure equity investment company, even considering the cost of holding reduction and the capital gains tax of up to 20% in the later period, the cash reserves that Firefly Investment will hold in the future will reach an amazing level.
You must know that even among the world's top 500 corporate giants, there are very few companies with nearly US$10 billion in discretionary cash reserves.
Take Wal-Mart, which many people think of as a rich cash flow, the cash flow of the retail industry is naturally very large, but at this time, Wal-Mart’s annual turnover has just exceeded 100 billion US dollars. Due to its huge purchase cost and millions of employees The human resources cost expenditures need to consume a lot of cash, and the cash reserves maintained by Wal-Mart are actually less than 5 billion US dollars.
In comparison, the cash reserves held by Firefly Investment are more valuable than other corporate giants with cash reserves of the same size, because the debt ratio of Firefly Investment is 0, there is no debt, and all its subsidiaries are operating very well. Good, there is no need to reserve emergency funds, which means that Firefly Investment can use this huge amount of funds at will according to its own wishes.
When all kinds of media, ranging from Wall Street professional economic magazines to gossip tabloids, are actively helping Firefly Investment to 'advise' how to spend the money, on Wednesday, Century City, Los Angeles, MGM also announced "Charlie's Angels" News of the series trio signing with the company for two more sequels to the Agent movie universe.
Many people still remember the salary dispute between Pierce Brosnan and MGM last year, and no one thought that the "Charlie's Angels" series, which might have had a salary storm, was like that. The dust settled quietly and quietly, and it did not cause the waves that many people imagined.
Although MGM did not announce the detailed terms of the contract, Hollywood professional media can also predict that, according to Eric Williams' character, if the salary conditions offered by the trio are too high, MGM will not accept it anyway. Impossible to agree.
Therefore, most people guess that in this salary negotiation, the trio of "Charlie's Angels" must have taken the initiative to make concessions.
Some well-informed media people even inquired about some details of what happened at the celebration party of "Charlie's Angels 3", but, when it comes to Eric Williams, these gossip news must not be published in the press openly.
However, in any case, it is an indisputable fact that the "Charlie's Angels" series has successfully passed the curse of the Hollywood trilogy.
After breaking through 200 million US dollars in two weeks, under the pressure of "The Scorpion King", "Charlie's Angels 3" finally locked in a 46% box office decline in the three-day weekend of the third week, and received another 28.11 million US dollars, and the cumulative box office reached 232 million US dollars.
After "The Scorpion King", during the entire summer, except for the movie version of "The X-Files" at the end of July, there was no major production released. Therefore, according to the word-of-mouth and box office trends of "Charlie's Angels 3", this It will be very easy for this film to break through the $300 million mark at the North American box office.
The North American box office is pointing at US$300 million, and the world is expected to hit the US$1 billion mark. The three heroines have completed their contract renewals, and the film has successfully passed the curse of the trilogy... This series of good news, like a shot of a shot in the heart, strongly stimulates MGM stock price.
Throughout the third week of the release of "Charlie's Angels 3", MGM's stock price rose rapidly almost along with the film's box office. In just a few days, the market capitalization of MGM has reached USD 25.3 billion at its highest level. The shareholders of MGM are naturally overjoyed. In just over three years, he has reaped a return of more than 400% from MGM stock.
Amid all the attention, many media outlets suddenly discovered that Drew Barrymore, a girl less than 25 years old, who holds a 33.56% share of MGM's stock, based on MGM's market capitalization of more than 25 billion US dollars, Unknowingly, his personal worth has reached 8.5 billion US dollars.
8.5 billion US dollars, even if it cannot enter the top ten list of the world's richest people, this wealth can definitely make this young girl the richest woman in the world.
In addition to envy and amazement, doubts are naturally inevitable.
Even though the Firefly Group has a pivotal position in the North American media industry, there are still various commentary articles questioning the legitimacy of the girl's wealth in many North American media. Whether it is pursuing equality, everyone knows that the whole world is still just a patriarchal society. If a man creates such a miracle, he may get more praise, but a woman who is too outstanding will almost inevitably encounter various speculations and doubts.
Firefly Studios, the time has come to Friday again before you know it.
It was already nightfall, and most of the studio's employees had already left work. In the restaurant on the big ship, Elizabeth and Eric were sitting opposite each other, holding the menu in their hands and casually flipping through it. Elizabeth said unforgivingly: " 8.5 billion dollars, our family has only been around for so many years, if you give her so much, aren't you afraid that one day this girl will suddenly turn against you and find a good-looking boy to marry and make you angry?"
Eric smiled and ordered a few dishes and dismissed the waiter who was holding back the smile, saying: "Actually, if you want, I can give you so much."