After the acquisition of Disney, Firefly Pictures already had its own music department, but compared to other major film companies, the music department obtained from Disney was much smaller. Eric only released the single And the establishment of New Territories Records is even more negligible.
Right now, Firefly Pictures is thriving, and the company's revenue and profits are making the other majors jealous. Except for Eric, a traveler who can see the future, perhaps all other executives of Firefly will be like Katzenberg, In favor of expanding Firefly's music division.
Hearing what Katzenberg said just now, Eric did not dampen his enthusiasm, saying: "Jeffrey, Geffen Records is not suitable for us, and we should put all our resources and energy on the acquisition of the TV network right now. If you want to eat too much in one breath, you will often choke."
Of course Katzenberg understood this truth. He nodded on the surface, but he was slightly disgusted in his heart. Although he didn't know much about New York investment companies, he was also very aware of how distracted his boss was. In the process, this man also went to Finland on a whim to acquire a mobile phone company.
To be honest, Katzenberg didn’t even know where the small country of Finland was until he heard about it.
At this time, it was past the off-duty time, and David Geffen was sent away, and Eric had no intention of returning to the office, because while watching "Interview with the Vampire", he thought of things like online music platforms, Eric I planned to go back immediately to check the relevant information.
However, thinking that there was still a large group of people in the office when the two left, Eric pointed to the meeting room and asked, "Jeffrey, what's going on with them?"
If it's just Firefly's employees working overtime, Eric doesn't think it's strange, but he remembers that Neil Jordan, Cruise and others didn't leave the conference room.
Katzenberg explained: "The company arranged a small reception for them to celebrate the completion of the film. It's in a nearby hotel. David Geffen will definitely show up in the evening."
Westerners hold parties just like Eric remembers the college dormitory friends gathering for various reasons. Eric was not surprised, nor did he intend to participate. After bidding farewell to Katzenberg, Eric returned to Malibu.
When Eric is not in Los Angeles. Drew often doesn't live here either. There are not many people in the Angle Manor except for some basic maintenance personnel.
Carrying the suitcase alone, I walked into the empty and quiet hall of the villa. Eric couldn't help but took a deep breath.
This is his country, a man's country.
Eric is a person who likes to enjoy solitude very much. He put his luggage into the bedroom quietly, called and ordered a takeaway, and after dinner, the sky in Los Angeles was completely dark. Eric got into the study and turned on the computer. , and began to sort out some thoughts that came to mind in the afternoon.
The Yahoo! Portal was built with Eric's tireless input. The content is very rich. Eric even found an online music sharing site in the website directory, much to his surprise.
Because of the strict copyright protection system in the West, this website called "Internet Underground Music Archive" only has more than a hundred pieces of music to share, but Eric found something he was interested in. The Internet underground music archive sites use the mp2 audio format, which, of course, must have been the predecessor of mp3.
After sorting out some of the queried information into documents, Eric opened the mailbox. Started writing emails to Steve Mitnick, the person in charge.
Through the network communication during this period, Eric has a relatively deep understanding of the browser company, Yahoo and the heads of the three companies. The merger was carried out, and the person in charge he chose was this Steve Mitnick who had not met so far.
After sending the email, Eric stood up and stretched, walked to the bookshelf and took out a novel at random. I made another pot of coffee for myself, turned off the overhead light in the study, and sat under the desk lamp by the window to read quietly.
The sound insulation in the study is very good, and the sound of the waves cannot come in. Occasionally, when you look up, you can see the sea covered with a layer of silver scales under the reflection of the lights on the shore of Malibu.
After an unknown amount of time, there was a beep from the computer speakers. Eric got up and went to the desk, turned on the monitor, and saw that Steve Mitnick had already replied.
Steve Mitnick had a low opinion of the mp2 audio format, and he sent a lot of jargon in the email that Eric couldn't understand.
However, the two finally agreed to buy the patent of the mp2 audio format for technical improvement.
At the end, Eric suddenly remembered the instant messaging software that the two of them talked about back then. Steve Mitnick said that he could finish it in three months, and it was almost three months now.
However, after asking, the other party bounced the ticket as usual, saying that there are still some details that need to be improved. Eric has experienced this once in the development process, and he was not surprised. At the meeting, Eric didn't urge him, anyway, this matter wasn't too urgent, so let the other party toss about it.
After talking about things, Eric got up and planned to read a book for a while before going to bed. Suddenly, he found Drew sitting cross-legged on the sofa behind him, holding a book and reading it attentively.
Seeing Eric standing up, Xiao Nizi threw away the book in her hand and rushed towards Eric.
Embracing his soft body, Eric fell back into the leather chair again.
Eric put his arms around the girl's swaying body and asked, "When did you come back? You scared me."
Drew sat on Eric's lap, rubbing it habitually, and said with a smile: "Ten minutes ago, I saw that you were busy, so I didn't bother you."
"Oh, my girl suddenly became sensible, what have I been going crazy while I'm not in Los Angeles?"
"It's not crazy. They have been building Huahua Pictures. I rented a three-story office building in Venice Beach, which is very close to the firefly base in Playa Vista. How about it?"
After Twentieth Century Fox acquired TG, Drew received 42 million US dollars with a 30% stake. According to his own arrangement, Eric sold Flower Pictures to Drew for a symbolic price.
"Not bad. You can use the resources of the studio base nearby, which is much better than the Firefly headquarters. Burbank's headquarters is too far away from Playa Vista."
"Hehe, and what else, guess who I recruited to be in charge of Huahua Pictures?"
"Michael Eisner?" Eric held back a smile and deliberately showed a surprised expression. Gently patted on the girl's leg: "Well done, I have long since disliked him. Since it has fallen into your hands, then take good care of him."
Drew was dissatisfied with Eric's little joke, and twisted his waist vigorously: "I spent a lot of effort, no, guess again!"
"There are no hints, how do you let me guess."
Drew said: "It's a woman, you know her."
woman
Eric thought for a while, and said in surprise: "Could it be Paula Wagner?"
Eric can think of a manager who matches the strength of Flower Pictures is Paula Wagner of Cruise & Wagner Production Company. He had planned to ask Nicole to poach Cruise's corner, but Xiao Nizi took the lead.
but. From Drew's momentary blank expression, Eric realized that he must have guessed wrong.
Drew also quickly thought of Paula Wagner's identity, and said with some disdain: "No, she is worth my effort to dig out."
Only then did Eric realize that although Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise established themselves a few years earlier, they did not produce such outstanding works as "Mission: Impossible". In the past two years, Cruise's production company can only say that it is not blustery, and its performance has not had any bright spots. It seems that it is really not worth the girl to poach people: "Okay, don't play charades, just tell me who it is."
"It's Amy Pascal."
Eric is really surprised now, although Amy Pascal is only a vice president of Columbia. But even if Peter Guber can't keep up with the smog in Columbia, with Amy Pascal's years of experience in Hollywood, it would be very easy to jump to any other major film company to continue as a vice president. , I didn't expect to be fooled by Xiao Nizi into Huahua Films, which has nothing.
However, the two are really destined. In the original time and space, the "Charlie's Angels" series was filmed smoothly only with the support of Amy Pascal.
"Tell me. How did you lure Amy into your shell company that doesn't have anything yet?"
"I promised her that after three years, I would let her serve as Columbia's."
"Oh... ah, is this too much to say?"
Xiao Nizi blinked innocently: "You asked me to separate Huahua Pictures, don't you want me to annex a big film company?"
"That's Columbia. The target I picked for you is MGM?"
You know, even if Sony realizes that Peter Guber has disabled Columbia two years later and wants to get out, given the rapid upward trend of the Hollywood industry, the price will definitely not be much lower than when it acquired Columbia from a wholly owned subsidiary.
In order to avoid the monopoly, Eric asked Xiao Nizi to leave Firefly with Huahua Pictures, originally aiming at MGM. Compared with the huge Columbia, the dilapidated MGM Pictures can easily win it with more than one billion US dollars.
"MGM sucks, I don't want it," Drew shook his head in dissatisfaction, and then began to change the subject: "Eric, I still have more than 40 million in my hand. Are you ready to start filming?"
Eric sensed Xiao Nizi's intention to change the subject, so he didn't bother anymore. Anyway, pulling Amy Pascal over has only advantages and no disadvantages. As for the girl's promise, I think Eric can consider it, Amy Pascal can also consider that since the other party chooses to jump from Colombia to help Drew, then she must have her own ideas.
After so long, Eric almost forgot how many copyrights Drew collected back then. After asking this question, Xiao Nizi got up from Eric, ran to the bookshelf to find a folder and handed it to him : "Hey, it's all here."
Just as Eric was about to flip through the pages, the girl squeezed against Eric again. Fortunately, the leather chair was big enough, and the girl was also petite, so it didn't look crowded when they leaned together.
Erikla held the leather chair with the legs propped up on the floor and moved towards the desk, took a pencil over, opened the folder, and the two of them looked at a list of copyright materials together.
Eric wrote a lot at the beginning, but some of them were snatched away because of the leak of information in the middle, and some of the copyrights also disappeared. There are not too many names on the current list.
In addition to the "Charlie's Angels" series that has been transferred to DreamWorks, Eric listed several copyrights with the most commercial potential.
"Mission: Impossible", "Bourne", "Forrest Gump", "Lord of the Rings"...
When he saw "The Lord of the Rings", Eric was surprised to find that Xiao Nizi took the copyright of all Tolkien's works including "The Silmarillion", which is a good thing.
In my memory, the original copyright of "The Lord of the Rings" was obtained by the Weinstein brothers of Miramax in the early 1990s. On screen, the whole process took a full decade.
However, because New Line's series of hidden income, withholding of distribution and other behaviors angered the copyright owner of the "Lord of the Rings" series, after filming "The Hobbit", because the Weinstein brothers did not get "The Silmarillion "The copyright of this series finally ran aground. Although the copyright owner of "The Silmarillion" gave a series of high-sounding reasons, in Eric's view, after all, the distribution of benefits was not settled.
In addition to these four copyrights with huge commercial potential, Eric also saw the copyright of the original novel "The Shawshank Redemption". Although this movie is an absolute classic, it is not a blockbuster at the box office and can only be used to hit Oscars.
In addition to these, the other copyrights are not interesting, and they were all brainstormed by Eric at the time.
The two leaned together to discuss for a while, and Eric felt that the potential brought by these copyrights alone was definitely not enough to win Columbia.
After pondering for a while, thinking of Sony, Eric quickly thought of Sony's comeback work "Spider-Man" in the original time and space, and now "Spider-Man" and some other famous superheroes of Marvel still have the film and television adaptation rights of those lesser-known superheroes. In the hands of small film companies, if these can be taken down, it will not only increase the bargaining chip of Huahua Films, but also get the copyrights of these superheroes who are living outside in advance. In the future, when acquiring Marvel, there will be no need to risk those small companies to sit on the ground and raise prices risk to recover the copyright. )