After Barry Diller resigned from Fox, he received dozens of cooperation invitations in a short period of time, but he rejected them all. In the end, he chose qvc because he was optimistic about the prospects of TV shopping. The most important thing was that qvc agreed. Conditions for Barry Diller's shareholding.
Hearing Barry Diller say the phrase 'will not sign another employment contract' again, John Malone just shrugged: "Okay, Barry, I will cancel the plan of Telecom to acquire Paramount, and I will do my best. Support your side, but how do you plan to deal with the current situation?"
Barry Diller glanced at John Malone, and said indifferently: "When I want to do something, I only need to provide support through remote communication."
John Malone hummed, waiting for Barry Diller to continue, but Barry Diller just threw out this sentence, and then looked down at the document in front of him. John Malone also quickly realized that Barry Diller had lost his trust in him, so he smiled embarrassingly, knowing that he would gain nothing if he stayed any longer, stood up and said, "If that's the case, then I'll wait for your information."
After John Malone left the conference room, Barry Diller patiently read through the documents in his hand, tapped his fingers on the desktop and thought for a while, and then pressed the call button on the phone on the desktop: "Jack, help me book a copy for summer vacation." ≯, air ticket to Hawaii."
"Okay, Mr. Diller," the assistant's voice came quickly from the speaker.
After Barry Diller gave the order, he was about to end the call. After thinking for a while, he suddenly said, "Forget it, let's go to Los Angeles first."
"No problem, Mr. Diller." The assistant responded again. There was a pause. He didn't hear Barry Diller continue talking, so he asked, "Is there anything else?"
"No, for the time being," Barry Diller cut off the call, falling into consideration of the current situation again.
Although unwilling to admit it, Barry Diller also had some pessimistic premonitions about the prospect of acquiring Paramount. Barry Diller had known John Malone as early as the early 1980s. He is very clear that John Malone is a person who has no position at all, and is good at adapting to the wind.
That is to say, wherever there is benefit, John Malone will choose which side without hesitation. If it wasn't for the series of actions by Redstone and Martin Davis that made him see that the chances of Telecom's acquisition of Paramount alone were slim, Barry Diller was sure that John Malone wouldn't be in his office today.
Sighing softly from the bottom of his heart, Barry Diller opened the documents in front of his eyes again. This was the relevant evaluation of the film cooperation between Firefly and the two film companies when the Japanese acquired Columbia and Universal successively.
Among them, "Instinct", which cooperated with Universal, did not cause too much hindrance to Panasonic, but it also had a positive impact on the stock price of MCA, Universal's parent company. And before that, Sony issued a wholly-owned acquisition offer to Columbia until the deal was completed. It just spanned the release period of the two high-grossing films "Home Alone" and "Dark Wars", and during this period, Columbia's market value soared from 2.2 billion to 5.5 billion. Which played a very important role.
Thinking of Eric, Barry Diller always felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart. He spent more than 20 years chasing the pinnacle of power in Hollywood, but in the end he went around and broke away from that circle. He wanted to go back schemingly, and the success rate was so low that it was powerless, but that young man had all this easily in just four years. Moreover, judging from the shooting plan of a series of special effects blockbusters of Firefly, he has no intention of stopping expansion and waiting for his opponents to catch up.
…
"...Michael Lynn, CEO of Firefly Pictures, said at a recent press conference that he had no comment on the news that Paramount will cooperate with Firefly Pictures. However, according to sources, Eric Williams Smith and Martin Davis are already negotiating on the final cooperation details, which will be announced in the near future.”
"... It is rumored that Firefly is planning to cooperate with Paramount in the "Star Trek" series of big movies. The two parties intend to use the advanced cg special effects technology of Firefly's digital field special effects company to create an interstellar legend that surpasses "Star Wars."
"...Summer Redstone publicly stated that he would acquire Paramount in the near future, and said that Viacom is bound to win this acquisition."
"... Barry Diller, who was rumored to have quit Hollywood, suddenly appeared in Los Angeles and had lunch with Bruce White, one of Paramount's shareholders. The purpose of the little-known qvc media's acquisition of Paramount is clearly revealed."
"..."
Martin Davis put down the thick stack of newspapers in his hand, with a worried expression on his face. He has been on Kauai Island for more than a week. The line has risen by 5.7%, and since he disclosed the news of the cooperation between the two parties to the media, some of Paramount's shareholders who were about to move have also sided with him. The overall situation looks good, but Martin Davis It is very clear that if the cooperation between Paramount and Firefly cannot be negotiated, the stock price that has improved will definitely fall again, and those shareholders who have just leaned towards him will definitely be eccentric again.
On Eric's side, although Martin Davis had handed over the relevant project information to the other party, he hadn't received any response for a long time. He could see that Eric was not enthusiastic about this cooperation. Martin Davis was not like the two helmsmen of Columbia. An act of drinking poison to quench thirst.
Although many people who don't know the inside story are envious of Columbia's five-film contract with Firefly Pictures, Martin Davis knows how much Columbia has paid. It can be seen only from Firefly's "Terminator 2" and "Tornado" in 1991 and 1992 at the same time.
It took Firefly Pictures half a year to complete the overseas release of "Terminator 2" last year. It was originally a summer movie, and many countries with European ticket warehouses did not release it until the end of the year. Although the quality of "Terminator 2" is good enough, But the long release process and the onslaught of piracy. And the weakness in sharing negotiations. The benefits that Firefly Pictures should have received have shrunk a lot.
But only a year has passed. Integrating the overseas distribution resources of Columbia and Disney, "Tornado" has appeared on the screens of European countries in less than a month since it was released in North America. Not only that, "Tornado" even got a release at the end of the summer in the closed Japanese market. Schedule, this is definitely the treatment that most Hollywood movies envy and hate.
So far, the overseas box office of "Tornado" has reached 180 million US dollars, while the overseas box office of "Terminator 2" in the same period last year can even be ignored.
These things are being considered. Danny Coker, Martin Davis' assistant, hurried into the coffee shop: "Mr. Davis, something happened."
Martin Davis subconsciously wanted to reprimand the assistant for his gaffe, but in the end he suppressed the thought and frowned slightly.
Danny Kirk noticed Martin Davis's expression, quickly put away his flustered expression, took a deep breath silently, and said calmly: "That's right, the news revealed by Viacom, Lei Shi Dong has already planned to make a first offer to the company."
Martin Davis did not doubt the accuracy of Danny's news, but asked, "How much?"
"Six and a half billion dollars." Danny Kok gave a number.
Martin Davis sneered: "Where did Lei Shidong want to fall, so he just got up from where?"
Danny Kirk froze for a moment. Not knowing how to answer, I just stood quietly aside.
The figure of 6.5 billion US dollars happens to be the transaction amount of Firefly's acquisition of Disney.
After the failure of the acquisition of Disney, Redstone learned a lesson and reformed Viacom's shareholding structure again, confirming that there will be no internal opposition in the next acquisition.
At the same time, Redstone did not repay the investors for the financing obtained for the acquisition of Disney in the early stage, but turned to start the acquisition negotiation with the video rental giant Blockbuster. As a video rental company similar to commodity retail, Blockbuster The biggest advantage of Starstar is its abundant cash flow, which can provide a lot of funds for Viacom to acquire Paramount.
Although pure Paramount Pictures is definitely not worth 6.5 billion US dollars, the target of Viacom's acquisition is not pure Paramount Pictures, but Paramount Pictures' parent company Paramount Communications, the main assets of Paramount Communications include not only Paramount Pictures, but also a series of assets related to television, publishing, music and other fields. The sum of these assets is much larger than that of Disney.
Martin Davis didn't get an answer from the assistant, and didn't pursue it. He signaled Danny Kok to pay the bill, and he left the coffee shop in the small town of Lihue.
The time is approaching noon, and "Jurassic Park" is still closed for shooting. Although Martin Davis knows that if he really goes to the set, he will not be stopped outside, but doing so will show his own urgency. Leave Williams with something to negotiate.
But it has been so long, and Eric has not given any cooperation intention. Viacom is about to make a move, and Martin Davis also knows that he cannot continue to spend in Hawaii.
The driver drove the car over, and Danny Coker opened the door for Martin Davis and asked, "Mr. Davis, where are you going now?"
"Get someone to book a plane ticket back to Los Angeles, the sooner the better, now we go to the set of Jurassic Park."
"Okay, Mr. Davis," Danny Kirk agreed, closed the car door for Martin Davis, signaled the driver to drive to the destination, drove another car by himself, and hurriedly booked the ticket.
…
Eric was watching the footage just now through the monitor with Nicole, when a staff member hurried over and said to Eric, "Director, Mr. Davis is here."
"I see, let's take him to the rest area, and let's keep it informed, the crew will have lunch early," Eric ordered skillfully as if he had expected it long ago, and then discussed the camera with Nicole as if nothing had happened.
Five minutes later, Eric appeared in the rest area temporarily opened by the crew, and got into a tent.
"Sorry, Mr. Davis, to keep you waiting," Eric said.
Martin Davis still had a smile on his face. Hearing this, he couldn't help saying pointedly: "It's been a while, Eric, I might be going back soon, so I have to live Come."
"Mr. Davis, why don't you continue playing in Hawaii for a while?"
"Haha, if you keep playing, Paramount will become someone else's," Martin Davis said flatly.
Eric also realized that the old guy's patience had been completely exhausted, so he ordered his assistant to bring over two lunches, and then sat down around a table with Martin Davis, explaining half-truthfully: "It's true. I'm sorry, Mr. Davis, as you know, I've been too busy lately."
"It's okay," Martin Davis shook his head, he didn't want to hang around with Eric anymore, and he didn't have the time: "Eric, I just want you to give me an accurate answer."
"Now?" Eric asked.
Martin Davis nodded firmly: "Now!"
Eric hesitated for a moment, as if he couldn't bear to disappoint the old man, but finally said: "Mr. Davis, I have read the materials Paramount gave me, but, to be honest, it is not There are no projects that I think have great potential."
"Sixty-five carefully selected scripts, none of them?" Martin Davis showed an unbelievable expression.
Eric nodded honestly, and Paramount gave him relevant information on sixty-five reserve projects, but there was indeed no movie project that Eric remembered would sell well. In fact, this is also understandable. Throughout the 1990s, Paramount's box office performance has not been so good.
Although some of these projects did not appear in memory, Eric seems to have a very potential script, but without memory references, the prospects of the movie are completely unpredictable. After all, there are too many movies that seem to have great potential, but ended up failing badly at the box office, not to mention that Eric himself is not too interested, so he has no intention of taking risks.
Seeing Eric's determined expression, Martin Davis looked a little embarrassed. Of course, he couldn't think that all those projects were rubbish, but thought that Eric might be perfunctory himself, or he had taken a fancy to some Project, wanting to wait until Paramount gave up, then Firefly took action to snatch it, this kind of thing has not happened in Hollywood. (To be continued..)