Many years later, when recalling the summer vacation in 1998, a series of blockbuster films such as "Charlie's Angels 3", "The Matrix 2", "The Day After Tomorrow" and so on may be inescapable topics, but for most people, The first thought that came to their minds was almost always the scene of the extremely frightening wraith crawling out of the TV.
The three-day box office of "Midnight Ring" in the first weekend is not too good, only 26.68 million US dollars.
However, as the word-of-mouth of this classic horror film spread rapidly, the box office of the film reached 43.88 million US dollars in the first seven days.
On the surface, the figure of 43.88 million US dollars does not seem to be comparable to most of the top-selling films in the summer. But don't forget that the production cost of this film is only 30 million US dollars, which is much lower than any of the summer blockbusters.
Moreover, comparing the three days of the first weekend, it is not difficult to find that the box office figure for the first four working days of "Midnight Ring" was 17.2 million US dollars, which is equivalent to 39% of the first week's box office, far exceeding the 30% of most films' working days in the entire week. % of the average box office ratio. Combining this, coupled with feedback from a large number of media and movie fans, New Line Films keenly judged that the word-of-mouth of "Midnight Bell" is continuing to ferment, so it decisively increased the number of screens released from 2161 to 2395.
Subsequently, in the first week of August, the box office of "Midnight Ring" fell as expected, only a very weak 9.7%, and it received another 39.65 million US dollars. "The X-Files", which was released in the same week, had a box office of less than two million dollars higher than that of "The Ring", and barely won the box office champion of the week.
Under such circumstances, New Line once again greatly increased the screening scale of "Midnight Ring", bringing the film's North American screens to 2,775. At the same time, after half a month of fermentation, the word-of-mouth and popularity of "Midnight Ring" has reached a peak. There is even a trend among young people who regard watching "Midnight Ring" as a challenge. More Under the influence of the media and the public, passer-by audiences began to walk into the cinema.
In the third week, "Midnight Ring", which was suppressed by "The Scorpion King" and "X-Files" for two consecutive weeks, finally won the top spot in the box office rankings for the week, with a single-week box office drop of only 11.2%. Another $35.19 million was collected.
Unknowingly, many people suddenly discovered that the accumulative box office of an unremarkable medium-budget horror film in three weeks had already reached 118.75 million US dollars, even surpassing "Lethal Weapon 4" and " The total North American box office of such big-budget films as The Patriot and The Truman Show, and, judging from the current situation, the box office potential of The Ring is far more than that.
With the help of the Firefly Group, the fan group of "Midnight Ring" that has gradually formed began to pay more attention to the box office of this film. The growing popularity and a new wave of publicity have also attracted more new audiences.
So, in the fourth week, the box office decline of "Midnight Ring" was only a negligible 1.7%, yes, it was 1.7%, not 17%.
The box office of US$34.59 million in a single week also pushed the total North American box office of the film to US$146.97 million. This box office figure directly made "Midnight Ring" rush to the sixth place in the North American box office list in August 1998. The location, followed by "Charlie's Angels 3", "The Day After Tomorrow", "The Matrix 2", "The Scorpion King" and "Ace Powers 2" in the Easter schedule. And, every other film on the top 10 box office list cost at least twice as much to make as The Ring.
At this time, all the media that originally predicted that the Firefly Group would have a quiet summer vacation were dumbfounded. Even Eric himself did not expect that "Midnight Ring" would have such a strong box office potential.
According to the current box office trend, "Midnight Ring" is likely to have a box office potential of no less than 100 million US dollars, and the film's total North American box office will even surpass "The Day After Tomorrow", which is the main hit of Firefly's summer program. Faced with such an outstanding North American box office, the film's overseas box office will naturally not be inferior, especially in Japan. Considering various reasons, just this overseas box office is enough to bring Firefly no less than 100 million US dollars overseas. box office.
With two films appearing in one summer session, enough to break into the top five annual box office charts in North America, who dares to say that this is the low period of the Firefly Group's film business
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, almost the same week that "The Ring" was released, the economic crisis finally erupted in Russia.
Unlike the long tug-of-war in Southeast Asian countries, the fragile Russian economy is almost helpless in the face of the attacks of major hedge funds. The country's foreign exchange reserves of more than 10 billion US dollars are not enough to repay the huge foreign debt. Not to mention effective intervention in currency exchange rates.
Therefore, in just two weeks, the Russian central bank, which basically did not do any effective resistance, announced to the outside world that it would completely abandon the protection of the ruble exchange rate.
The ruble, which has just stabilized for less than three years, plummeted, depreciating by more than 50% in just one week.
However, the opponent lay down completely before the fight started, and the attacker who gathered enough strength to punch out would not have a good result.
Russia's practice of completely letting the ruble depreciate has also brought huge losses to international financial speculators.
After all, foreign exchange futures is a zero-sum game. Only when someone takes over the order can both parties in the bet win and lose. The international financial speculators who bought a large number of rubles in the early stage and planned to establish a short position were targeting Russia’s foreign exchange reserves. lost heavily.
In addition, capital such as Soros' Quantum Fund, which was optimistic about Russia's economic recovery in the early stage and invested heavily in its stock market and bonds, was also trapped in the economic quagmire of Russia. It is just that the Quantum Fund, after cutting its flesh and leaving the market, expects losses It may exceed 3 billion US dollars.
It has to be said that compared with those countries in Southeast Asia that have been sheared twice in a row, although the economy is also collapsed, Russia's fighting nation like you want me to finish the game and everyone can finish it together is still undoubtedly revealed.
The rapid collapse of Russia, an emerging economy, accurately confirmed the speculation given by Morgan Stanley more than a month ago. Under the further advocacy and guidance of Morgan Stanley, more and more capital has begun to pay more attention to the Nasdaq technology stock market.
In one month, the Nasdaq Index not only was not affected by the Russian economic crisis, but broke through the high of 2100 points firmly, and almost all mainstream technology stocks were in the red.
On August 22, Saturday, Eric set off from Los Angeles to New York early in the morning.
Today is the day when Firefly Investment signed an equity transfer agreement with several other major shareholders of America Online. Although Saturday is not a working day, "Gravity" is in the intense filming period, and Eric only has time on weekends Well, New York can only match his schedule.
Over the past month, without the pressure of the firefly investment to reduce holdings, AOL's stock price has reached a peak of 49.6 billion US dollars, and it is just around the corner to break through the 50 billion US dollar mark.
Although AOL's stock price rose by nearly 20% in a month, Eric did not make any adjustments to the agreed transfer price in order to avoid further disturbances.
In many cases, only by giving up greedy thoughts can we get more. If Eric raises the price again at this time, the confidence that investors have just established in AOL will definitely be hit hard again, and Firefly Investment's plan to reduce its holdings in the first phase of AOL stock will also have side effects.
Since Eric gave the same price for the other 15% of the shares that Firefly Investment will reduce through Morgan Stanley, at this time, Morgan Stanley's underwriting plan has not yet started, and a large number of investors have frequently Contact Firefly Investment and Morgan Stanley to try to get more subscription shares.
Although according to the agreement and the SEC's regulations, the stocks bought at this time will have a six-month lock-up period, but even if AOL's stock price remains unchanged for the next six months, they will still get 20% at that time. profit.
With the good economic situation in the Nasdaq market and the impressive growth rate of AOL itself, most investment institutions have gradually changed their original cautious attitude, thinking that the possibility of losing money in this transaction is very slim.
On the plane to New York, Eric was leisurely leaning on the sofa with a box office analysis report of "Midnight Ring" in his hand. Caroline and Mayer sat beside him, but they reported another story. thing.
"Last month, Warner Music, Sony Records, BMG and EMI released their second-quarter financial reports one after another. Compared with the same period last year, the performance declines were 27%, 33%, 29% and 26% respectively. Still with Polaroid The performance of Universal Records, where Jin has integrated businesses, has seen a 36% decline in performance, with a single-quarter loss of US$320 million."
Mayer briefly introduced the current situation, looked at Eric's expression, and continued: "According to the statistics of the major record companies and the media during this period, the sharp drop in the revenue of the five major record companies was mainly caused by the end of last year. A group of free MP3 music sharing websites. Among them, only one music sharing website called Napster has more than 7 million registered users in just over half a year, and the number of free music on this website has reached more than 1.6 million First, Napster was a registered member of the Yahoo Advertising Alliance in the early days. However, in March, with the rapid growth of Napster, considering the legal risks involved, Yahoo terminated its cooperation with Napster and other pirated music websites in time. But This time, Yahoo is also included in a batch of lawsuits filed by the five major record companies. The reason they sued is that Yahoo has contributed to the growth and spread of Napster. The engine proactively blocks websites that distribute pirated music content."
Yahoo's IPO is approaching day by day, and the large-scale lawsuits of the five major record companies will bring Yahoo along with it, obviously wanting to ask Yahoo, the number one portal platform on the Internet, to give sufficient cooperation in combating online music piracy.
At this juncture, in order to avoid complications, Yahoo also had to make a compromise and settle out of court with the five major record companies as soon as possible. Just as the five major record companies proposed to Napster for compensation of US$100,000 for each pirated music, the US$100 million compensation against Yahoo must not even be considered, but Yahoo must also agree to the five major labels during the out-of-court settlement process. The company has more conditions.
"They have learned to be smart this time, and they must save the enemy if they attack," Eric just smiled. After hearing Madonna's reminder in England a few months ago, he asked several companies to do the preparations for this. Now I wasn't worried that Yahoo would be unable to handle it, so I continued to ask, "What about Firefly Electronics?"
Mayer shook her head and said, "The five major record companies have not yet taken actions against Firefly Electronics. However, they should file a lawsuit to request Firefly Electronics to strengthen restrictions on audio copying."
Last year, after the lawsuit brought by Sony Records and several other companies was directly dismissed by the San Francisco Federal Court, the five major record companies obviously knew that their attempts to continue to ban MP3 players would not succeed, and they could only start from other aspects this time.
"After this time, record companies should be able to see the situation clearly. The trend of digital music is inevitable, and the Yahoo Music Store just happens to be able to fight for more licensed music." Eric said, not wanting to bother too much, looking up Caroline and Mayer ordered: "Send an email to remind Yahoo to pay attention to the public opinion campaign in this area. If someone still can't see the situation clearly, we will help them see clearly."
For several months, the global monthly sales of Fireflyer players have remained at more than 2 million units, and have shown a steady growth trend. The trend of portable digital music players replacing traditional music players has become irresistible. In this case, if record companies continue to resist and resist digital music players, it will only cause more Internet pirated music resources to appear.
Talking about these things, the private jet has reached the east coast without knowing it.
The equity transfer signing ceremony was confirmed to take place at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. It was close to one o'clock at this time. The private jet did not fly to MacArthur Airport in central Long Island this time, but landed at JFK International Airport, which is very close to New York City.
As soon as Eric got off the plane, Chris, John Mark and others greeted him, including several AOL executives including Steve Case. Although the two sides almost completely broke each other some time ago, this time At that time, facing Eric, AOL did not dare to ignore due etiquette.
Everyone left the airport together after exchanging pleasantries. Eric and Chris got into the dispatch car of the Firefly Group. When the car was running smoothly, they remembered John Mark's expression on inviting him to his car just now, and asked the person next to him. Chris said, "What happened to John?"
Chris glanced at the BMW sedan that was following nearby, and said, "He probably wants to explain to you in advance. You are on the plane, and I haven't had time to tell you. At the luncheon, Philip Pousse Er told me that Morgan Stanley had confirmed that the 15% of AOL shares had over 70% of the subscription quota. However, John Mark withdrew this information from us, perhaps to claim credit or to have other intentions. In addition, Philip Purcell should have forcibly intervened in this project, you know, Dian Witt was originally engaged in the stock distribution and retail business, and their resources and channels in this area are much stronger than the original Morgan Stanley."
Eric was not very interested in the fight between the CEO and the president of Morgan Stanley. He just told him: "You should put more thought into it. If their internal fighting affects our interests, we need to be cautious in future cooperation." Some."
Chris nodded seriously, and said, "I understand, by the way, over there, the box office of "Midnight Ring" is really surprising."
The topic became lighter, Eric also smiled and said: "This is really an accident, I didn't expect this horror movie to be so successful."