Before Eric could say anything else, Aniston reached out and snatched the girl's laptop, deleted the audition video in twos and twos, and warned Eric while turning off the phone: "You are not allowed to have any thoughts about this woman .”
Eric looked at the nervous look on the little girl's face, smiled and hugged her waist, and comforted her: "I promise, to be honest, she's not as pretty as my Jenny."
Aniston felt Eric's warm big hands caressing the skin around her waist, and just about to relax, she noticed the playful eyes of the other girl, and immediately said: "You are not allowed to bring her to Eric , or I'll never end with you."
Naturally, the girl couldn't care about the chick's threat, instead she said with a smile: "That's not necessarily the case, maybe I can make her even more popular than you."
Although the actual control of MGM is completely in Eric's hands, it is still the largest shareholder of the company in name. It is really easy for a girl to make one or two actors famous.
Thinking of this possibility, Aniston was lifted up again in an instant, her body was still in Eric's arms, but her two little hands had already scratched towards Drew, and the girl naturally started to fight back.
Eric had no choice but to separate the two kittens from the fight with a helpless face. Seeing Aniston in his arms who was not going to give up and fight the girl desperately, he had to make a big move and stretched out his hand to grab some thin pieces of the little girl's body. The cloth was torn off, and he took advantage of the trend to move towards his arms.
The chick who was about to grab the lace of the girl's swimsuit suddenly widened her eyes, struggled slightly and babbled twice, then lay softly on the side of the swimming pool, her small mouth still unforgiving: "Eric, you, um, you are really bastard."
After spending the weekend in San Simeon, Eric returned to Los Angeles with his two girls, and the box office of "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" was officially released the next weekend.
Compared with the first weekend, the three-day box office of the film’s second weekend fell by only 31%, and it collected another US$56.9 million. The cumulative box office in ten days reached US$193.08 million. There is almost no suspense to break $200 million in two weeks.
Stimulated by "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace", the North American film market's total weekly box office figure exceeded 270 million US dollars last week. Although it will drop slightly this week, it can easily remain above 200 million US dollars.
Therefore, although "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" took a large part of the box office, due to the substantial increase in the overall number of viewers driven by the Star Wars series, other films on the market in the past two weeks have had very good box office Performance.
New Line Cinema's "Tea Boy" finally earned US$53.26 million at the box office in the first week. Although it was hit by Star Wars in the second week, the box office dropped by 53% to only US$25.03 million, but the cumulative box office in the two weeks still reached US$78.29 million. Entering the third week, as the momentum of Star Wars began to slow down, the decline of "Tea Boy" also narrowed to 37%, and it received another US$11.02 million.
The 2D animated film "Mulan" released by Paramount Pictures and "Tea Boy" at the same time also suffered a big drop last week under the impact of the Star Wars prequel, and the box office decline also began to narrow this weekend.
However, the three-day weekend box office of "Mulan" has also fallen to within the tens of millions of US dollars of US$8.29 million. The total box office in North America for the week can only be between US$80 million and US$90 million.
Although relying on overseas distribution and future peripheral operations, Paramount can still achieve profitability, but compared with 3D animated films that can usually break the box office curve of blockbusters, 2D animated films that are mainly aimed at children and rely on long-term screenings to gradually accumulate box office have already Obviously no longer adapt to the market form in recent years.
In addition, two other new films released this week, Columbia Pictures' warm family comedy "Kiss Little Mom" and Universal Pictures' fantasy romance "The Sixth Sense of Life and Death", also won 1914 awards in the first three days of the first weekend. Although it is still far behind "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" with an opening score of more than 10,000 US dollars and 15.01 million US dollars, it cannot be compared with the same period of "Tea Boy" two weeks ago. But judging from the genre of the two films, this kind of box office start is not bad.
Firefly Studios.
In a small screening room, Eric, Katzenberg, Frank Wells, "Iron Man" director Joss Whedon and others looked at the big screen in front of them.
The title of Firefly Pictures flashed by, and then there was a shot of Tony Stark, played by Eric, building armor in the cave, accompanied by the iconic comic page turning sound of Marvel Pictures, and then Cut to Tony Stark's tech-savvy studio, and Colonel Roddy's voice-over: Tony, what the hell are you working on
The voice of Colonel Roddy fell, and the rhythm of the screen switching began to speed up in the dynamic rock soundtrack, until Tony Stark flew into the sky in the silver Mark2 armor, and the 30-second short film stopped abruptly, giving people a strong feeling. Feeling unfinished.
"Iron Man" has been officially scheduled for May 7 next year.
Although there are still some finishing details that need to be dealt with, the preheating publicity work has already started. For the next period of time, the most important thing is naturally the annual Super Bowl in the United States. Since Eric used the Super Bowl to promote "Tornado" and achieved amazing results, over the years, the Super Bowl advertising has become a must for the seven major film companies.
What everyone was watching at this time was the Super Bowl commercial of "Iron Man".
After New Line Films achieved amazing box office results this year relying on a series of low- and medium-cost productions, it will once again enter the year of Firefly Group's blockbuster next year.
From Easter next year to the end of the year, Firefly Group's five heavyweight films of "Public Enemy", "Iron Man", "Cars", "Gravity" and "Lord of the Rings 1: Fellowship of the Ring" Blockbusters will be lined up.
However, after various considerations, only "Iron Man" and "Lord of the Rings 1" will be recorded in the Super Bowl trailer this year. "The preview is 15 seconds.
The main work of several executives such as Eric and Katzenberg today is to review the trailers of the two movies.
In the morning, everyone has already discussed the trailer of "The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings". Since there is still about a year before the release, the Super Bowl preview of "The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings" is more inclined to a concept preview , mainly a large panoramic shot of a glimpse in the film, accompanied by a small amount of dialogue. The entire trailer revealed little information, was full of suspense, and was limited to 15 seconds in length.
Relatively speaking, the trailer of "Iron Man" reveals a lot of information.
This is mainly because this year's Super Bowl is held on January 31, and there are only three months left before "Iron Man" will be released on May 7. Immediately after the Super Bowl, "Iron Man" will enter the final stage of large-scale publicity, so there is no need to hide it like "Lord of the Rings", but to maximize the advertising effect as much as possible.
After playing the most recognized trailer several times, everyone also took out several other edited versions for a detailed comparison and discussion, and it was already five o'clock in the afternoon to finalize the final plan.
Everyone got off work one after another, but Eric and Katzenberg came to the next meeting room together.
"Eric, the total value of Clover Fund's stocks has exceeded 27 billion US dollars. I heard from my friends on Wall Street that many investment institutions have confirmed that all technology stocks will be liquidated before 3000 points. Is it right here? , um, at least cash out the funds invested at the beginning?"
Eric picked up the coffee that Mayer handed over and took a sip, feeling the unease that rarely appeared in Katzenberg's tone, and said with a smile: "Are you scared too?"
Katzenberg touched his bald head in embarrassment, but nodded honestly.
In fact, he was not only afraid, but more worried.
According to Eric's original promise, if he can cash out all the shares held by the Clover Fund at this time, the profit dividend he can personally get will exceed 400 million US dollars.
$400 million.
Even with Katzenberg's current salary level, it is difficult for him to remain indifferent to the $400 million that almost fell from the sky. Moreover, the current precarious state of the Nasdaq index also made him worry about gains and losses every day, for fear that he would wake up one morning and hear the news of the collapse of the Nasdaq index.
You must know that there is no limit to the rise and fall of North American stock markets. Once the Nasdaq collapses, the $400 million is likely to evaporate in just a few days.
Eric leaned on the leather chair with a coffee cup in his hand, and said, "Jeffrey, do you remember what I said when I invested in technology stocks?"
Katzenberg laughed: "We seem to have a lot of conversations about this?"
"Well," Eric said, "that is, I remember I said that most of the stocks bought by Clover Fund are of long-term holding value, such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Verizon, etc. Even if The Nasdaq collapsed, but because these companies have formed a very solid market position, their stocks will definitely rise again in the future. If we hold it for a long time, we can still get a very generous dividend income every year. Therefore, if the Nasdaq is before the liquidation of the clover fund In the event of a crash, we only lost some book profits in the short term, or some stocks with serious bubbles did bring us some losses, but in the long run, we can still maintain very considerable profits.”
Although he understood that what Eric said was very reasonable, Katzenberg still said: "However, Eric, if this is the case, the company's investment of 7 billion US dollars from the beginning will be locked in these stocks." , $7 billion can do a lot.”
"Fireflies are not short of money now, are they? Besides, what I just said is just the worst assumption. In fact, I am still very confident in my personal judgment. Wall Street may think that the Nasdaq 3000 is the end point, but But I think the Nasdaq 3000 is just the beginning." Eric said, seeing that Katzenberg still didn't approve, he smiled and said, "Okay, Jeffrey, I know you are worried about yourself. However, you are not short of money now, are you? If you calculate, if you sell now, you can only get about 400 million US dollars. But if the Nasdaq exceeds 3000 points, or even 4000 points, 5000 points , Maybe one day, you suddenly realize that you have become a billionaire."
Katzenberg looked forward to the scene Eric described, subconsciously shook his head and said, "Eric, this is crazy."
Eric spread his hands slightly, and joked: "Since the Nasdaq 2000 point, there are not many normal people on Wall Street. Since everyone has become crazy, why is it impossible to be more crazy?"
The trading team of the Clover Fund is solely responsible to Eric personally. Although he can see some data of the Clover Fund, he has no right to dispose of these assets at all. Seeing that the persuasion was ineffective, Katzenberg had no choice but to give up and move on to another topic.
"Eric, there is just another thing. Didn't you plan to buy Hasbro?"
Eric nodded and said, "Yes, but now is probably not a good time, and we must wait for this wave of stock market bubbles to pass."
The madness of the Nasdaq technology stock market has also driven the entire North American stock market. Although it has nothing to do with technology companies, Hasbro's stock price has almost doubled in recent years.
Eric remembers the data that he accidentally scanned a few days ago, and the market value of Hasbro has exceeded 5 billion US dollars. Three years ago, when Firefly won the copyright of "Transformers", Hasbro's market value was only more than two billion US dollars. In the past three years, Hasbro's annual profit level is still fluctuating around 200 million US dollars, and the skyrocketing market value cannot naturally be the result of increased performance.
Katzenberg said: "It is true, but Hasbro is now in trouble, and it is definitely a big trouble."
Eric was puzzled for a moment, then suddenly thought, and said, "You mean, Star Wars?"
Katzenberg didn't expect Eric's reaction to be so quick and precise. A surprised expression flashed across his face, and he explained: "That's right, the company's team happened to be negotiating with the other party at the Hasbro headquarters in Rhode Island during this period. Peripheral product licensing next year. They sent back a piece of news last Friday that in the first week of Star Wars, Hasbro’s licensed toy sales revenue was only 23 million US dollars, not even half of what was expected. Hasbro had They paid 100 million US dollars just to buy the toy license of the Star Wars prequel series. They originally hoped that the Star Wars prequels would bring the company 300 million US dollars in toy sales within three months of its release, and 500 million US dollars for the whole year. The above sales revenue. But judging from the current situation, the first week should have been the hottest moment for toys, but they only sold 23 million US dollars. In three months, let alone 300 million, not even 200 million US dollars Possibly. Because of the optimism about Star Wars peripherals, Hasbro’s early distribution efforts are very strong. Once the toys are unsalable, these products can only be recovered and destroyed in the future. In addition to the huge licensing fees paid in the early stage, Hasbro will It will definitely be a huge loss.”
Firefly Group also operates a large-scale peripheral product department. After so many years, Eric certainly understands what kind of situation Hasbro is about to face.
Moreover, what's more serious is that if Hasbro's huge losses catch up with this year's stock market bubble burst, the situation, tsk tsk, makes people feel sour when they think about it.