The production process of American TV dramas is very standard and complicated, and the competition is extremely fierce. Often only one script out of a hundred can be selected, and many American TV dramas that have entered the filming stage will pass rigorous screening again after the pilot episode is produced. Screening process, rinse the next part. According to the usual practice, the new American TV series that can finally enter the TV station will only book six episodes first. After the first broadcast stage before Thanksgiving is completed, if the ratings are good, the follow-up part will continue to be produced. If the ratings are too bad , or even directly cut in half.
Even Murdoch would not be able to buy all the first seasons just because it was produced by his daughter's production company. At most, he would only give some preferential terms after the produced TV series performed well in ratings.
And now, "Buffy" has not even produced the pilot episode, and Fox has booked a complete first season. Except for himself, the producer who has a name but has actually done nothing, Eric can't think of anything else. There are other reasons.
Seeing that Eric hadn't spoken for a while, Kapoor tentatively asked, "Eric, are you still there?"
"Well, I was just a little surprised."
"Hehe, you are the most powerful person in Hollywood right now. So, about that incident just now, do you want to find some time to meet ↗, meet that girl, didn't you also say that she has great potential?"
Eric smiled and joked, "I'm a little suspicious now, whether you owe that Michelle Simmons a favor or a romantic debt."
"Hey Eric, stop joking. My son is in middle school."
"Okay, okay. If that's the case." Eric stroked his chin and thought for a while, then said, "I'll find time to meet that girl. To be honest, I really thought of a good idea just now."
"About the movie?" Kapoor asked.
"Yeah, I just thought about doing an action series with a female protagonist, and the girl is eighteen years old, there are still benefits, at least if the movie does well in the future. Could do a few more sequels."
"How can the box office of the movie you make be poor," Kapoor complimented from the bottom of his heart, and then smiled half-truthfully: "At that time, just leave a few more actors for icm."
"Of course no problem," Eric said, "That's all for today. When I get some time, Alan will contact you."
After hanging up the phone, Eric just turned around when he saw the little girl who was eavesdropping behind him jumping over and holding Eric's arm: "Eric. What girl, what movie?"
"It's the girl in the afternoon. Kapoor was asked to call," Eric pinched the girl's face: "Speaking of which, you are also eighteen years old, and the copyrights reserved by Huahua Films can be used for you Once you’ve honed in, let’s start with that female action movie I just talked about.”
Drew has long been aware of the copyright 'little treasury' that Eric had reserved for himself: "You mean the movie version of "Charlie's Angels"?"
Eric took Drew into the restaurant again and said after sitting down: "Yeah, the previous two years, "Thelma and Louise" and "Hot Hands" performed well both at the box office and word of mouth, and last year's "The League of Pink", these are enough to prove that female-themed movies have great potential."
The little girl who was always joking was a little nervous at this time, looked at Elizabeth and the girls, and said, "But, Eric, I don't know if I can do it well, and what about tg?"
Eric said: "This is not something that will happen for a while, and I think there is no problem in handing TG over to Liz."
Hearing Eric's recognition of her, Elizabeth was a little proud at first, and then she became dissatisfied: "I don't want it, tg was originally established by myself, Drew and Julia, why should work overwhelm me now?" From me, the two of them easily get dividends."
"Then I'll sell you the shares of TG," Drew said without hesitation.
Elizabeth was stunned, not knowing how to answer, and Julia, who had been hugging Emma all the time, also became uneasy: "How about, I, I also give up the shares of tg."
Julia's words obviously have a guilty conscience. TG has been established for so long, and she has basically not helped to do anything. It was just that she invested several million dollars when the company was established, but she has already received money from TG in the past two years. More than ten times the dividend, it was because of this money that Julia became lazy and became less interested in acting in movies, and even the Avenue of Stars that Eric described for her was no longer interested. interest.
Hearing what Drew and Julia said, Elizabeth became embarrassed: "I... I didn't mean that, I was just talking, and I didn't mean to ask you to sell the shares."
Eric tapped on the table lightly, interrupted the words of several women, and said, "Actually, I have an idea, you can listen to it. The film business of Twentieth Century Fox has not been ideal in the past two years. I remember Liz You told me that Mr. Murdoch wanted to buy TG, right?"
Seeing Elizabeth nodded, Eric continued: "In this case, you can consider selling TG to 20th Century Fox as a whole. As for whether you three want to replace Fox's shares or cash, that's up to you It's decided. Next, Drew can get away and come back to run his own Flower Pictures. Liz, you can go to Fox. With the strength you have shown in the past two years, I think you can at least get a vice president of 20th Century Fox. Location."
Eric stopped here, and he didn't say the next few words. As long as everything goes well, Elizabeth can slowly climb up the Fox system and eventually take over the Murdoch family's News Corporation. Although Murdoch has always preferred his son to take over, if his daughter's performance is too eye-catching, far from Even if Murdoch still wants to hand over power to his two sons, Eric believes that other shareholders of News Corporation will not agree. After all, although News Corporation is firmly controlled by Murdoch in hand. But in fact the Murdoch family does not have an absolute controlling stake in News Corporation. And investors are definitely more inclined to hand over the investment to the more capable person.
Eric finished these words. Drew immediately nodded in agreement, Elizabeth also showed a thoughtful look, Tina Fey seemed like an outsider, sipping the dinner in front of her, only Julia opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say what about me
Eric cleaned up the dinner on the plate in twos and twos, and then gave Julia a look at the dazed eyes: "As for you, we'll talk about it later."
Julia shrank her neck guiltily. Lifting Emma in her arms: "I... I'm going to sleep with Emma tonight."
The little guy didn't know why his aunt lifted him up, but the kid obviously liked it, giggling, and waving his little hands excitedly.
Eric took out a tissue from the box and wiped his hands, got up and walked to the little guy, and hugged Emma from Julia's arms: "Come on, Emma, let's watch TV."
"TV, TV," the little one called. He didn't seem to recognize him at all, and stretched out his small hand to grab Eric's collar.
Eric was walking. He asked again: "Little guy, I'm going to talk to your aunt about something tonight. Do you want to sleep with Aunt Liz or Aunt Drew? Oh, and Aunt Tina is fine too?"
Although the two-year-old was able to understand Eric's words, he turned his head for a while before saying, "Auntie."
"Well, that's not okay," Eric shook his head with a smile, picked up the remote control to turn on the TV, and sat down with the little girl in his arms: "Choose another one."
Emma, who was sitting on Eric's lap, stared at him for a moment, then said suddenly, "Dad."
"Forehead… "
"Hehe," upon hearing the crisp 'Daddy' from the little girl, the laughter of several women immediately rang out in the restaurant.
Eric pinched the little girl's face with a smile, turned to several people in the restaurant and asked, "What's going on, why did she call me daddy again?"
Elizabeth had already considered Eric's suggestion just now, and when she heard him speak, she said in a sour tone: "You're going to be a father anyway, so what's wrong with multiple daughters, don't you want to?"
"No, it just feels weird." Eric shook his head, remembered something again, and asked, "Hey, speaking of it, I remembered, what was the name you registered for the little guy? "
"Emma," Elizabeth replied.
Eric felt that Elizabeth's tone was a bit strange, and asked: "I mean the last name."
There was a moment of silence in the restaurant.
Eric had a bad premonition in his heart, these women wouldn't really mess around.
In the end, Drew whispered, "Eric, don't you know?"
"I know?"
"Yes, it is said that it is still your opinion."
Eric felt his temples twitch a few times, and asked, "What the hell is it?"
"Emma Roberts Murdoch Barrymore Williams!"
Flutter—
Tina Fey, who didn't know why at first, laughed out loud when she heard the long list of surnames, and the remote control in Eric's hand fell to the floor with a snap.
After a while, Eric said to Elizabeth: "I seem to remember that I asked about this. At that time, someone swore that he would never add my surname after the little guy. What is going on? thing?"
Facing Eric's questioning, Elizabeth crossed her waist unconvinced: "We can add it if we want. The surname Williams is not exclusive to you, and we can't use it yet."
"Yeah," Julia murmured under her breath, but soon slipped into the kitchen to do the dishes.
Drew sat down next to Eric, and betrayed Elizabeth without hesitation: "Liz is so scrupulous that using the surname Murdoch will cause misunderstandings, and I'm just joining in the fun."
Eric knocked on Drew's forehead habitually, speechless: "This can also join in the fun!"
…
The day after Eric had just talked with several women about the disposal plan for TG, Murdoch, who was far away in New York, eagerly called Eric.
Although tg's shares have no direct relationship with Eric, according to the contract signed when tg was established, Firefly, which owns all tg's North American distribution rights and peripheral operation rights, is still the biggest beneficiary of tg.
These two parts of the profits can be divided into more than half of the profits of the movies produced by TG. Fox, on the other hand, only owns a relatively low-profit overseas distribution right, and in addition to giving tg a share, Fox's profit is only 15% of the total profit generated by tg movies, while Elizabeth, Drew and Julia Share about 30% of the total profit.
If Fox acquires TG but cannot get back the distribution rights from Firefly, it will be the same as if there was no acquisition, and Murdoch obviously will not do such a thing.
The valuation of tg is also a matter that requires long-term negotiations. This is similar to the situation of Miramax, which is also seeking to sell. Due to the over-expansion of the business, he fell into a huge loss and had to find a backer. However, the Weinstein Brothers offered 500 million US dollars, while several major studios or investment institutions that were interested in acquiring only gave Miramax about 50 million. The valuation, the price difference is ten times. The most important bargaining chip for Miramax is the Oscar public relations resources in the hands of the Weinstein brothers. This kind of "intangible asset" is really difficult to estimate. As for Miramax's film library and distribution channels, to be honest, several major Hollywood producers The studios don't pay much attention to it. Besides Eric's support, the most important bargaining chip in tg's hands is undoubtedly the three-year option contract signed with Jim Carrey. In the past two years, Jim Carrey's three consecutive low-cost comedies have all box office With the momentum of breaking 100 million, even if one film is produced every year in the remaining three years, it is conservatively estimated that it can bring about 300 million US dollars in profit to the producer.
Although the two parties got along more and more unhappy because of the conflict of interests, and it was even reported that Jim Carrey contacted a lawyer in an attempt to file a lawsuit to get rid of the option contract, but relevant people in the industry knew very well that Jim Carrey had no There is a way to get rid of the contract with a liquidated damages of up to 100 million US dollars, otherwise, with the box office potential shown by Jim Carrey, several major studios would have already started poaching the wall.
In addition, if the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" that TG is developing is as successful as the original time and space, it will be another very important bargaining chip for future negotiations.
TG's business plan for 1993 has been determined in advance. Even if the acquisition negotiations are to start, it must start in the second half of the year. answer. (To be continued..)