Among them, although it belongs to the third sequel, compared with the great success of "The Mummy 3", "The Matrix 3", which Amberlin Pictures took over from the Firefly Group, had a total North American box office of only 139 million U.S. dollars. It barely broke through 400 million US dollars, and both data have created a series of new lows.
The total production and publicity cost of "The Matrix 3" exceeded 200 million U.S. dollars, and the global box office of 400 million U.S. dollars was not enough for Amberlin Films to recover the full budget cost. Spielberg and others can only look forward to the film's follow-up DVD and TV peripherals make up for the loss.
Although this summer, another medium and low-cost production of Amberlin Films "American Beauty" won a North American box office of 130 million and a global box office of 350 million at a production cost of 15 million US dollars, which can be said to be a great success. However, the overall film business of Amberlin Films including "The Matrix 3" still showed a serious loss, which once again accelerated the parting of several partners of Amberlin Films.
Additionally, this summer, "Mad About Mary" and "Running Daddy," from comedians Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler, respectively, were unexpected box-office successes.
With a production cost of 23 million U.S. dollars, "I'm Crazy About Mary" created an outstanding box office performance of 170 million U.S. dollars in North America.
Although the production cost of "Dad Going Forward" is slightly higher than "I'm Crazy About Mary", reaching 34 million US dollars, the film's North American box office still reached 160 million US dollars, which is also small and big.
The success of the two films also announced the rise of two other Hollywood comedians after Jim Carrey.
Judging from the box office performance of various film companies, Firefly Group's "Iron Man" and "Cars" have a cumulative North American box office of more than 500 million US dollars, easily ranking first.
Fox and Universal followed closely behind. Fox's "Mad About Mary" and "Shrek" had a cumulative North American box office of 430 million U.S. dollars. Although Universal's "The Mummy" broke through 300 million U.S. dollars at the North American box office, another major hit The box office of the romantic film "Notting Hill" has just exceeded 100 million. The North American box office of the two films has accumulated a total of 420 million US dollars, which is slightly worse than that of Fox.
The next four major studios, Warner, MGM, Paramount, and Columbia, have cumulatively dropped to less than $300 million in the North American box office of films released during the summer.
Moreover, unlike in previous years when there were always one or two independent production company films on the list in the most popular schedules in North America, this year only Amberlin Films has accumulated a box office of US$2.6 in North America with two films "The Matrix" and "American Beauty". , becoming the only independent studio that can barely rank with the seven major film companies.
The reason for this situation is not unrelated to the fact that overseas film capital has gradually tightened investment in Hollywood in recent years, and it is also the result of the integration of the seven major film companies and various media groups to further monopolize film publicity and distribution resources.
It is conceivable that after the disbandment of Amberlin Films, the monopoly of the seven major film companies in Hollywood will also be completely formed, and it is impossible for a latecomer to break it in the short term.
With the end of the summer schedule, the year-end schedule is no longer far away.
"Gravity" directed by Eric will be released on November 19th, and it is only two months away from now. The first eight-second concept trailer of the film has been released at the end of August.
The renovation work of IMAX and 3D theaters distributed all over the world has also entered the final debugging stage.
Counting additional expenses such as some real estate purchases and peripheral software updates, Firefly Group has invested more than US$1.9 billion in the entire '4200' plan.
Although the purpose of the Firefly Group is to promote 3D and IMAX film formats, from the outside world, this is more of a "willful move" made by Eric, the boss of the Firefly Group, for his new work.
After all, the public does not know the detailed promotion plan of Firefly Group, and the media often likes to use more eye-catching words to attract readers. For a film with a production cost of only US$100 million, a huge investment of US$1.9 billion has been invested. No matter how you look at it, it can be associated with words like squandering. Therefore, the outside world is generally not optimistic about Firefly Group's move to promote 3D and IMAX.
However, such a huge expenditure still easily attracted a lot of attention for "Gravity", making this film the most anticipated film of 1999.
After staying with Cindy for a few days on Martha's Vineyard, Eric returned to Manhattan.
At this time, it is already the second week after the Firefly system filed a lawsuit against At-Home and Microsoft.
Since the patent evidence provided by the two companies of the Firefly system is unmistakable, At-Home's stock price has continued to plummet for more than a week, and the original market value of 7.6 billion US dollars has fallen to only 2.6 billion US dollars now.
In the face of Yahoo's lawsuit, the board of directors of At-Home, after a period of chaos, turned to Microsoft for help and released news that Microsoft was about to acquire At-Home.
However, Microsoft, which was still in contact with At-Home, denied the news of the acquisition immediately this time.
After all, both parties are well aware that this is a collision between Microsoft and Firefly. If Microsoft buys At-Home at this time, it will be tantamount to completely taking the burden of At-Home.
Yahoo's claim against At-Home is $1 billion.
Although it has a market value of billions of dollars, even if At-Home is squeezed dry, it will never make up a billion dollars.
However, if Microsoft buys At-Home at this juncture, it would be like a fat sheep getting into the tiger's mouth. Microsoft can easily come up with $1 billion.
As for Firefly Electronics' lawsuit against Microsoft's upcoming Zune player, although the trial of the case could not be completed overnight, a week after Firefly Electronics filed the lawsuit, the San Francisco District Court issued an injunction to Microsoft, requiring Microsoft to hear the case. No Zune players may be sold until the close.
Although Microsoft raised objections at the first time, it temporarily canceled the TV commercials for the Zune player that were originally planned to be placed on various TV stations in North America.
As a company that also often relies on patent monopoly to suppress competitors, Microsoft obviously understands that if they want to develop their search engine and digital music player businesses, they must absolutely not get around the patent barriers of the Firefly system.
Therefore, Microsoft executives quickly contacted the Firefly system, hoping to reconcile.
Bill Gates clearly didn't want to deal with Eric at first, but instead had Microsoft President Steve Ballmer talk to Eric on the phone several times. There were no results for several times in a row. Damen obviously understood and had to fly to Manhattan again.
In the Upper West Side, led by Eric's bodyguards to an ordinary apartment, Bill Gates couldn't help looking at this obviously not very upscale building, wondering why Eric had a residence here For this reason, I even despised him a little in my heart.
However, when the door of the apartment was opened, looking at the beautiful girl who was still taller than him even wearing flat slippers, with a beautiful face always smiling and long straight legs, the classmate who had just risen from the door The joy was instantly dissipated.
"Hello, Mr. Gates," the girl didn't mean to introduce herself, she just turned her body slightly and said, "Eric is already waiting for you."
Gates didn't know that Carmen Kess was used to being alienated from strangers in his bones, and coupled with the compliments he had received all these years, he naturally regarded the girl's attitude as neglect, and then naturally expressed his resentment Move to Eric.
Walking into the apartment, looking at Eric who was leisurely sitting on the sofa in the living room and flipping through magazines, Damen student wanted to step forward and kick someone.
Of course, he can only think about this kind of thought, not to mention maintaining his demeanor in front of beautiful women. Given the age and physical strength gap between him and Eric, he will only be unlucky if he conflicts with the young man in front of him. Own.
"Hi, Bill," Eric just got up and shook hands with Gates, then gestured towards the opposite side, and said, "Sit down."
Having said that, Eric saw that Carmen Keith was going to the kitchen, and stopped him: "Carmen, no need, Bill will leave soon."
Carmen Kath stopped in her tracks, hummed lightly, and then took the initiative to turn to the bedroom, avoiding the conversation between the two.
Bill Gates listened to Eric's words, and his expression was obviously not very good-looking. Is this because he doesn't even want to do superficial work
Having learned the lessons from the previous two times, Eric is still really too lazy to do superficial tricks anymore.
Can't drink anyway.
As Carmen Keith disappeared, the atmosphere was deadlocked for a few seconds, and it was Gates who spoke first: "Eric, what do you want?"
Eric put down the magazine in his hand, looked at the opposite side, and said, "Bill, it's actually what you want. On Microsoft's side, Firefly has expressed his goodwill unreservedly, and I have always hoped to be able to cooperate with Microsoft." Maintain a cooperative relationship, but what is the result? I helped Microsoft solve the biggest trouble you faced, and what Microsoft returned to Firefly was to tear up the contract."
Gates retorted: "Microsoft didn't tear up the contract. Every Windows system now still has Yahoo browser pre-installed."
"That's because Microsoft's attempt failed." Eric stared at Gates and said, "So, are you going to deny that the hearing suddenly initiated by the Department of Justice has nothing to do with Microsoft?"
Gates hesitated, but said, "Steve presided over this matter."
Eric shrugged: "I don't care about these, so it doesn't matter who you pull out to top the tank."
Gates also wanted to learn from Eric to make some free and easy gestures, but in the end he just straightened his waist and said, "Okay, Eric, let's talk about how to deal with this matter?"
Eric asked directly: "So, what about Microsoft's conditions?"
"At-Home and Zune have obtained the corresponding patents, and in return," Gates paused, with a determined expression, and said: "Microsoft can not pursue the infringement of Microsoft's software patents on the operating system of the Yahoo Mini Music Store device." , we can also authorize Yahoo to a certain extent.”
After hearing what Gates said, Eric couldn't help laughing, and said, "So, that's all?"
"Eric, you have to know that the tablet device that Yahoo is developing, in terms of the operating system, absolutely cannot avoid Microsoft's patents anyway. So, this is a win-win thing."
In Eric's memory, Microsoft did charge various patent fees to the Android operating system. This is mainly because the software patent pool accumulated by the Microsoft Windows system is too huge. Basically, any software operating system cannot avoid Microsoft's operating system patents.
Of course, there are exceptions to this, and that is Apple.
Apple's graphical interface operating system appeared earlier than Microsoft's. Coupled with a series of black history such as plagiarism, Microsoft rarely troubles Apple with patents.
"If that's the case," Eric said with a clear sneer on the corner of his mouth, "Bill, congratulations, you have successfully exhausted my last ounce of patience. I thought you would bring some sincerity by coming here in person. conditions, you are only threatening me. So, Firefly System is not going to settle with Microsoft, you can go back to Seattle now, prepare to file a lawsuit against the mini music store, again, I promise you, whether it is the search engine field, or the digital In the field of music players, Microsoft can't even think about getting involved."
When Eric said this, Gates obviously lost his temper, and said in a more emphatic tone: "Then Microsoft can also ban the sale of Firefly Electronics' tablet computers, Eric, you should think about the consequences."
"You seem to have forgotten one thing," Eric said: "In terms of operating systems, although Windows is already the dominant company, Windows is not the only operating system in this world. No matter how whitewashed it is, Windows will eventually copy Apple. Therefore, without Microsoft, Firefly Electronics can also obtain the patent authorization of the operating system from Apple. It just so happens that Firefly Investment still holds a large part of Apple’s equity. If necessary, I can even buy Apple in its entirety. .”
"Apple has long been obsolete," Gates raised his voice and retorted: "You should know why Microsoft wants to keep this company. If Firefly buys Apple, Microsoft can attack this company immediately."
"I just need to get the patent." Eric still responded in a flat tone, with some smiles, and said: "And if Firefly really bought Apple completely, then Microsoft can also be said to be It is also necessary to use the patent of the firefly system."
"What about Jobs, do you think that rock would be willing for you to buy Apple?"
"Jobs was kicked out of Apple once. If necessary, he can leave Apple for a second time. After so many years, he should understand that he is nothing in front of capital. I appreciate Jobs' talent, but if If necessary, Firefly will definitely put its own interests first," Eric said, pointing to the door again, and said, "So, Bill, you can leave now."
Gates has never been a good-tempered person. He stood up abruptly when he heard the words, but he still paused and said, "Eric, what you do is not good for everyone."
"If I compromise with Microsoft, will it be beneficial?" Eric looked at Gates mockingly, and said, "Your attitude just now made me fully realize one thing. Firefly reached a settlement with Microsoft this time. Then , next time, even if we have cooperation, Microsoft will attack the Firefly system again, in the final analysis, Microsoft is a company that is not very trustworthy."