Although he will lean towards the interests of the Firefly system as much as possible, Eric does not have the ambition to completely monopolize the 3D market, which is actually impossible.
After all, polarizing 3D is really not a difficult technology. Apart from Imax, there are other forms of giant screens in the industry.
If the Firefly system attempts to monopolize, the result will only result in the emergence of other different 3D and giant screen formats. The competition of different standards will undoubtedly consume the resources of Hollywood as a whole, and it is also not conducive to the benign development of 3D and giant screen movies.
Therefore, during this period of time, Firefly Group has already made preliminary pricing on opening 3D conversion and Imax conversion to other production companies in the future.
In order to raise the threshold of the industry and achieve the goal of filtering out low-quality film sources as much as possible, realD will charge 30,000 US dollars per minute for conversion of ordinary 2D movies to 3D movies. The minute is $10,000, and the 3D version charges double to $20,000.
This means that, based on the calculation of an average 2-hour Hollywood film, if you want to release a 3D and 3D-Imax version, the cost of the early conversion will reach 6 million US dollars.
Although in the future, film companies can largely save expensive 3D and Imax film copying budgets by reducing the scale of 3D and Imax film production and reusing copies at home and abroad, but the conversion costs in the early stage cannot be saved.
At the same time, due to the potential barriers of dual-D certification, it will be difficult for other 3D production companies to squeeze into the film source conversion market, and the Firefly system can actually control the development trend of the entire 3D and Imax film industry from the source.
Katzenberg had to rush back to the headquarters of the Burbank Group. The two 'communicated' for a while, and then parted ways in the corridor between the administrative area and the studio area. Eric turned back to his office in the administrative area.
Turning on the computer casually, sitting down behind the desk, Eric opened the box office prospect evaluation report of the year-end film that the company's distribution department had just completed. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two most popular films. It is only after a series of film test screenings and audience evaluations gradually revealed that the distribution department has come up with relevant reports.
Today is already November 9th.
Before that, New Line Cinema's and Universal's were released two weeks before and after Halloween on October 29 and November 5, respectively.
As a classic horror film brand of New Line, it maintains the consistent style and standard of the series, so the box office is quite stable. With a production cost of 25 million US dollars, the box office reached 25.71 million US dollars in the first week. It is expected that the total North American box office will exceed 50 million US dollars, and there is not much suspense at the global box office breaking 100 million.
In contrast, Universal Pictures starred black superstar Denzel Washington, but the production cost was as high as 73 million U.S. dollars. The three-day box office from November 5th to November 7th was only 16.72 million U.S. dollars in the first week. The estimated box office is only 23 million U.S. dollars, which is about 2 million U.S. dollars lower than that.
Eric flipped through the files in his hand, and found that from the beginning to the last day of the year on December 29, Universal Pictures will release five films at the end of this year.
Also starring Denzel Washington, this disaster-movie-named film is actually a biopic, costing $38 million.
Universal Pictures' positioning of this film is an award-winning film. However, judging from the reactions of some other film festivals in the early stage, the quality of the film is obviously not satisfactory, and Eric doesn't have much award-winning information for this film in his memory.
In addition to and, Universal Pictures will also launch three films starring Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey and Ethan Hawke.
Combined with some recent trends of the Seagram Group, it is clear that Michael Eisner arranged such an intensive distribution plan in order to maximize the performance of Universal Pictures in 1999 and to maintain his position in the process of Universal Pictures changing ownership. Increase the stakes.
It's just that, whether it's based on Eric's own memory or the evaluation of Firefly's distribution department, none of the five films before and after have much potential for box office hits. Moreover, judging from the details of the production costs of 73 million US dollars and 38 million US dollars, Michael Eisner is obviously trying to control the cost as much as possible, but the effect is obviously not ideal.
Among them, Schwarzenegger's production cost still soared to 100 million U.S. dollars, and Jim Carrey's also "spent" 82 million U.S. dollars. Eric has never heard of the Ethan Hawke romance film, and the budget of 35 million US dollars also seems a bit outrageous.
A few months ago, Universal Pictures, with its big-selling film and television show, ranked almost as high as Fox in the box office share of the summer file, second only to Firefly Group.
But it is clear that these five films, which seem to be eager for quick success, are likely to drag down the overall performance of Universal Pictures this year.
Speaking of which, this state actually has a lot to do with the firefly system.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, and Denzel Washington are obviously Hollywood superstars with very low cost performance.
In recent years, due to the Firefly system’s strong production strategy of suppressing superstar remuneration and controlling costs, many first-line stars who insist on their social status can only turn to Warner when they cannot reach cooperation with Firefly, Fox, MGM and most recently Columbia Pictures. , Universal and Paramount' and some other independent production companies with capital strength.
After all, the concept of star-core system that Hollywood has formed for a long time cannot be changed overnight. The prosperity of Hollywood in recent years has also made film financing very easy.
As a result, the other three major companies and some capital that entered the Hollywood gold pan also accepted all the stars who turned to themselves. Continue to provide them with huge remuneration, and continue to produce films with varying quality but high cost.
In addition to these films from Universal, as far as Eric knows, due to the success of the summer box office, Warner directly offered Adam Sandler a huge remuneration of US$20 million plus box office share and US$85 million for Adam Sandler's new film. Make a budget. The production cost of Will Smith's cooperation with Warner has also begun to overrun, and cruise has still maintained the position of the highest paid brother under Paramount in recent years.
Speaking of it, in the past, even many years later, although case after case have proved that superstars with outrageous pay are not indispensable, Hollywood still has not completely changed the concept of chasing superstars at any cost.
While flipping through the documents in his hand, while thinking about these issues, someone knocked on the 'door' of the office room, Eric responded, and Mayer walked in holding a document.
Handing a blue folder to Eric, Mayer said: "Eric, there is news from Canada that the Nokia team has formally negotiated an acquisition agreement with rIm, and the deal has been concluded." ' At $260 million, the price is about the same as it was at the beginning of the year, but 27% higher than rIm's current market cap."
rIm is naturally the brand holding company of the BlackBerry mobile phone. In Eric's memory, it was not until many years later that rIm merged the company name with the BlackBerry mobile phone.
During this period of time, the Firefly system was basically implementing the buy-buy-buy model. For rIm's acquisition of less than 300 million US dollars, the expansion plan of the entire Firefly system was not even worth mentioning.
However, due to Eric's own emphasis on BlackBerry, Nokia is also very concerned about this acquisition. With the departure of Jorma Ollila last year, Eric has also been strengthening his control over Nokia to prevent Nokia from continuing on the old path.
Opening the file, Eric read the terms of the deal between Nokia and BlackBerry, noticed Mayer's slim figure across the desk, looked up at the girl, and said, "So, you Do you really stop thinking about staying by my side?"
Mayer stared at the man across the desk with a hint of reluctance in his eyes.
With the explosion of word of mouth, during this period, Eric once again became the focus of many media and discussions. Or, this man has always been so dazzling, just like the sun, many people usually don't look at the sky, but when they look up occasionally, they can always notice a round of light shining.
After a moment of silence, Mayer still said: "I have already discussed with Mr. McNairy. I will first go to the Yos system R&D department to work as a software engineer for a period of time, and re-familiarize with various technical details. Three After a month, transfer to the hardware department' department'."
Listening to Mayer's clear career plan, Eric understood that the girl's mind was determined, so he stopped persuading her, but still smiled: "I'm not reconciled, I really want to keep you by my side."
"You," Mayerton nodded, and said, "You can find another one."
"I won't look for it anymore," Eric shook his head and said with a smile, "I'm still a nostalgic person, so I'll let Carly stay with me alone in the future. Of course, when you want to come back, just let me know." .”
Mayer hesitated, nodded slightly, but said nothing.
Eric had previously discussed in detail several times about rIm's arrangement with Nokia CEO Oli Karassuou, and even involved the details of renaming rIm directly to BlackBerry.
Therefore, after carefully reading the acquisition agreement between Nokia and Blackberry, and signing the direct name, Eric temporarily let go of this matter, and Nokia will naturally complete the layout of Blackberry mobile phones according to the established plan that has been discussed. .
Elizabeth called before, saying that the design draft of Eric's manor in Tasmania, Australia has been completed. After Eric got off work, he rushed to Elizabeth and Julia's mansion on top of Beverly Hills.
During this time, although both Eric and the girl have returned to Los Angeles, Eric's agent in Australia has been responsible for contacting him to acquire the land in Tasmania.
Compared with Eric's current net worth, the land in Tasmania, Australia, which is not of high economic value in all aspects, can be said to be extremely cheap. The 200 square kilometers previously purchased by Eric is equivalent to about 50,000 acres of land, and the cumulative expenditure is less than 60 million US dollars.
After several months of continuous acquisitions, Eric has more than 1,000 square kilometers of land in Tasmania.
However, except for a small number of pastures, most of the others are native forest lands in Tasmania, and even have a bit of virgin forest. It is said that there are wild platypus in the woodland. Although the only oviparous mammal found on the earth has very high biological research value, it is actually not considered an endangered species, and its distribution is fairly common across Australia.
After buying a large number of plots, it is naturally impossible not to carry out development and transformation at all.
In many people's minds, Australia seems to have very strict requirements on environmental protection, but in fact it is just the opposite.
If it hadn't been bought by Eric, the large tract of primary forest adjacent to Eric's pre-purchased land had even been included in the logging plan. In comparison, Eric, who hopes to maintain a complete virgin forest, is more like an environmentalist. In fact, Eric is indeed an environmentalist in his bones, but it is not extreme.
Although the land will not be remodeled on a large scale, after discussing with the 'women', Eric decided to build a holiday estate of the Williams family in the local area.
As the leader of Australia, Eric unceremoniously entrusted this matter to Elizabeth, asking her to help him contact designers and engineering teams locally.
"Look, the address they chose is here. Arthur hB is to the south and there is a hill, and the interstate highway is two kilometers to the west. Here are the photos of the surrounding area, as well as some design drafts." Back at Elizabeth's house, Julie Ya prepared dinner for everyone, while Eric and the girl sat in the living room and looked through a large stack of materials from Australia. After a brief introduction, Elizabeth still said: "Actually, if you want to buy land, Queensland is the best choice. Even Victoria is good. Why choose Tasmania? There are not many lands there. personal?"
"There are not many people in the whole of Australia, right?" Eric flipped through the designer's draft of the manor, and said, "Besides, I hope that the more open the place with fewer people, the better."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at Eric and said, "If you really lived there for a while, you would definitely not think so."
"No one thought about living there permanently, as long as the land belongs to me. Well, you can go there to play at any time."
Elizabeth pretended to be disdainful and said, "What's the fun."
Eric thought for a while, pointed to the map on the coffee table, and said with a smile: "Look, here, this river is mine, well, I plan to buy the mountain on the east side as well. And your Lanai Island Compared to, this island belongs to me, this mountain belongs to me, listen, which one is more imposing?"
Elizabeth smiled and slapped Eric, and said, "Actually, Dad doesn't want that island very much anymore, and he doesn't necessarily go there once in a few years."
Eric remembered some things later, and said: "Then sell it. However, I will definitely not buy it. I am not interested in small islands at all. If it is Tasmania, I can still consider it. "
Speaking of which, the news that Lanai was bought by Larry Ellison in memory was heavily hyped. But in fact, Lanai originally belonged to the Murdoch family. It's really interesting to think about the corporate attributes between News Corporation and Oracle, and the contrast between the low profile of the Murdoch family and the high profile of Larry Ellison.