Eric originally thought that the news that "Jurassic Park" broke the historical record of the global box office would appear on the entertainment section. To his surprise, the "New York Times" actually published this news on the front page of the current affairs section. , the accompanying picture is still the photo of the Tyrannosaurus rex that many newspapers mentioned about "Jurassic Park".
From the beginning of June to the present, after sixteen weeks of screenings, "Jurassic Park" broke the 1982 "et Alien" with a total global box office of 430 million in North America and 470 million overseas, with a total of 900 million US dollars. "Created a global box office record of $890 million. Although many professional box office analysts tend to mention the ticket price gap between 1982 and 1993, for ordinary people, the most intuitive figures are often more eye-catching than those professional analysis, so the "New York Times" does not The impact of inflation factors has not been rendered.
Although there is still a gap of 100 million US dollars from the one billion global box office that Eric called out at the beginning, according to the current trend, although it is difficult for the North American box office to surpass the local record of 460 million US dollars of "Star Wars", in the next few months In China, it is not a problem to earn about 20 million box office piecemeal, and the box office potential of overseas box office countries is far from exhausted. Eric glanced at the box office data of major box office countries published in the newspaper, At this time, the Japanese box office of "Jurassic Park" was equivalent to more than 80 million US dollars, and the Japanese box office definitely exceeded 100 million US dollars in memory, so according to the current trend, it is only a matter of time before the global one billion.
Firefly doesn't have much ties to the Salzberg family, which owns The New York Times, other than a few advertising partnerships. After reading all the news on the entire page, Eric finally understood why the "New York Times" published the record-breaking news of "Jurassic Park" on the headlines of the current affairs section of the newspaper with great fanfare.
The "New York Times" used several very high-quality analysis articles on the front page, combined with the global box office of "Jurassic Park", the overseas box office growth rate of the seven major Hollywood film companies in recent years, and the new signing of the upcoming TO The analysis of the impact of factors such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade fully exaggerates a very important message: the global rise of Hollywood.
Joanna noticed that Eric was concentrating on reading the newspaper in his hand, frowning and thinking from time to time. He also leaned over curiously to look at the newspaper in Eric's hand. Eric rested his chin on the woman's head and sniffed the faint fragrance of her hair. He asked, "Did you see anything?"
Joanna gently pressed her cheek against Eric's, feeling his strong heartbeat. He said with some reluctance, "Are you going back to Los Angeles?"
"No," Eric put his arms around Joanna's soft body, and said, "The New York Times won't tout the rise of Hollywood for no reason. There should be someone behind it."
"You call Jeffrey and ask them, it will be clear."
Eric took the watch over and took a look. It's not yet six o'clock, and it's three in the morning in Los Angeles. If you call at this time, you will definitely be nailed as a villain.
"I don't think it's a public relations article on the company's side. The box office potential of "Jurassic Park" in North America has almost been exhausted. Although it will be able to reap some box office in the next few months, according to the step-by-step agreement, the company and The share ratio of theaters is 1:9, so there is no need for marketing at all.”
Joanna reached out and stroked Eric's frowning brows because of thinking, as if to smooth out the fine lines there, and said: "I don't understand these things, don't you always think about so many things every day , I'll be tired, why don't you sleep a little longer?"
"Forget it. It's time to get up."
Eric put the newspaper aside and stopped thinking about it, actually. This kind of thing is not too complicated. Those who can benefit from today's news are probably the manipulators behind it.
Because of the news that "Jurassic Park" broke the box office record, in the following days, related calls kept making calls to the East Hampton manor, and Eric quickly figured out the reason why the "New York Times" published those news .
On the day when the "New York Times" passed the global record-breaking box office of "Jurassic Park", after the opening of the New York Stock Exchange, the stocks of the film and television media sector collectively rose, and even the stock prices of many film companies with good potential soared by 30%. . Reaching the NYSE daily gain cap.
Of course, most companies only get some benefit from the book value of their shares. Because of the extreme instability of profits in the film industry, these are the benefits gained from stock appreciation. It is very likely that someday in the future, it will suddenly evaporate.
But Paramount Communications, which is being bid by Viacom and QV in Hollywood, can get more direct benefits. In the following days, the stock price of Paramount Communications, the parent company of Paramount Pictures, rose by 17%. In that time, the share price of Paramount Communications had doubled, and the market value of Paramount Communications was close to 9.5 billion US dollars.
Eric remembers that in the original time and space, Redstone spent US$10 billion to acquire Paramount Communications, but according to the current situation, whether it is Barry Diller or Redstone, they want to acquire Paramount Communications for US$10 billion Meng, it is no longer such an easy thing.
During the call with Eric, Michael Lynn and others mentioned this matter with regret. If Firefly Pictures chooses to go public, then in this wave of collective rise in media stocks, Firefly Pictures will is the biggest beneficiary.
But Eric doesn't think so. In his opinion, the par price of a stock and the actual value of the company are two concepts. Although the stock price often reflects the actual value of a company to a certain extent, most of the time, the stock price The price is not equal to the value of the company.
For example, this time, if Firefly chooses to go public, the stock price of Firefly Pictures will hit a whole new level as the box office of the summer film "Jurassic Park" and other films explodes, but this height is not necessarily equal to that of Firefly Pictures. The actual value, unless shareholders sell their stocks at this time, otherwise they can't get too much benefit as the stock price rises.
Moreover, Eric also talked with Chris about the market value of Firefly Pictures, if Firefly Pictures chooses to go public at this time. The market value will definitely be able to break through 20 billion US dollars very safely. But in Eric's heart, because of the reborn Golden Finger, the value of Firefly Pictures is more than 20 billion US dollars.
While these things are happening. At the end of September, Fox officially aired Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With the lead of the fourth season of "File" whose ratings are at a peak of 20 million, the premiere episode of "Buffy" has more than 15 million ratings. Although this rating was not too impressive in 1993, even the top ten ratings of the annual drama series may not be able to reach it, but for the Fox TV network that has just experienced the withdrawal of Firefly Pictures, it is a very good one. Good news, this means that the Fox TV network really owns a hit TV show with completely exclusive copyright, coupled with the good news of media dividends brought about by "Jurassic Park" breaking the global box office record at the same time, News Corporation has recently been Fluctuating stock prices have finally stabilized.
After "Buffy" aired. Perhaps it was signaled by Murdoch, or with some other thoughts, Elizabeth, who was far away in Los Angeles, came to East Hampton to visit Eric in person.
After greeting Joanna and the two little ones, Elizabeth came to Eric's study and said, "The scenery here is nice, and I'm looking for a manor nearby when I go back."
Seeing the girl unceremoniously occupying his place, Eric went to the small bar to drink coffee and said, "I bought a few other places. If you're interested, the key is with Joan."
Elizabeth flipped through a pile of documents that Eric had placed on the desk. She raised her head and gave him a blank stare: "If you gave it to me personally, I could still accept it with difficulty, but you actually asked me to ask your woman for something. It's really dishonest."
"Forget it, I still feel bad for giving you millions of things like this."
"Bah, you bastard," Elizabeth spat lightly, waved the folder in her hand, her eyes flickered with undisguised cunning: "These TV drama planning projects, which one do you like, I will help you." Take a look."
Eric poured two cups of coffee without haste. He walked to the desk and handed the girl a cup, saying, "We are competitors now. Seduction won't work for me."
In fact, Eric hadn't had time to look at it at all.
"The ghost wants to seduce you." Elizabeth threw another roll of her eyes at Eric: "Besides, your vision is not very good, the ratings of "Buffy" are only 15 million, which is worse than I imagined many."
Eric pulled a chair and sat down opposite the desk, holding a coffee cup and laughing: "Is it two or three million more viewers, overjoyed?"
Elizabeth seemed to be choked, but did not refute. The TV series "Buffy" naturally has two restrictions. First, as a youth school drama, the audience is directly restricted to teenagers. Secondly, the theme of the TV series is supernatural power. This once again limits people who are not interested in paranormal phenomena. The two combined, and the 15 million viewership ratings did exceed the expectations of the Fox network.
Seeing that the habitual bickering with Eric was once again at a disadvantage, Elizabeth had to shift her attention, looked at the big head monitor on the desktop, looked down, found the computer host, and pressed the power button.
Seeing the login interface appear on the monitor, Elizabeth rubbed her little hands, placed them on the keyboard, and asked, "Hey, what's the password?"
Eric took a sip of coffee and said casually, "haaii (Hawaii)."
Elizabeth curled her lips to enter the password, and did not forget to tease habitually: "When your daughter grows up, she will definitely be overjoyed by the name his father gave her."
"I think Emma will be even more pleasantly surprised when she grows up and finds out that she has a long list of surnames."
"Hmph, Emma has been calling you daddy. You've been in New York for so long, but you don't know how to visit the little guy. It's really irresponsible."
"I've always wondered if Emma knew what the word 'dad' meant when she called me."
Elizabeth laughed twice, and said, "I'm also quite curious. Emma only calls you daddy, and she doesn't respond to other men, women, cats, dogs, or cats like this. It seems that you can be classified as a special species." , a creature named 'Daddy', tsk tsk..."
When Eric watched the girl speak, he didn't forget to clatter on the keyboard for a while, and quickly reminded: "Don't mess up the files I saved."
"I've been studying for a year," Elizabeth raised her chin, and then exclaimed, "Wow, why is your computer different from other people's... It's so big, 1000m hard drive, how did you get it out? "
Although computer performance has begun to soar according to Moore's Law at this time, ordinary personal computers still only have two to three hundred megabytes of storage space. It is very common, and this kind of computer has a very fake name, assembly machine.
However, it is not so easy to assemble a personal computer at this time. If you want to exceed the general performance limit, you can only start from the motherboard for private customization.
"This is a customized version, if you are interested, I can give you a call," Eric explained, and then said: "Okay, don't mess around, you suddenly ran over, what is it for, say Bar?"
"Can't I just come to see you?"
"Now that I see it, do you want me to see you off in person?"
"Okay, really," Elizabeth said after typing hard on the keyboard a few times, "Didn't I serve as the vice president of Twentieth Century Fox?"
"Um?"
"Then, last week, I took down Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" project, with a salary of 18 million US dollars, plus 10% profit sharing," Elizabeth said, seeing Eric become The solemn face immediately turned into tears: "Is the price too high? Anyway, you have to help me. If this project loses money, I, the vice president, will definitely pack up and leave."
Eric asked with some helplessness: "What is your budget for the production?"
Elizabeth said: "Including Mel Gibson's salary, the total is 70 million."
Eric sighed: "You should have greeted me in advance, this project is actually not very profitable, what I see is its Oscar prospect, I think it should be able to win several important Oscars The award is ready to win it."
"Then what do we do now?" (To be continued.)