After discussing the release of the two films, it was almost noon, and the three of them were planning to go out for lunch together. As soon as they walked out of the meeting room, Eric ran into Tina Fey who hadn't seen him for a long time.
After Huahua Films left Firefly, Tina Fey changed from Drew's assistant to the management of Huahua Films, and was responsible for the script editing and review of Huahua Films. After the work was fixed, Eric seldom worked in Xiaonizi again. I saw Tina Fey beside me. Although the two parties had sex several times, Eric didn't intend to keep Tina Fey by his side for a long time, but since they met, Eric also invited Tina Fey to dinner together.
There is a good restaurant near the office building of Huahua Films. A few people sat down together and ordered lunch. Eric smiled at Tina Fey who was a bit reserved: "Tina, are you still writing scripts recently?"
Tina Fey didn't expect to see Eric suddenly today, and she hasn't been in touch with him for a long time. Some of the feelings she had for Eric at the beginning have faded a lot, but she feels that this man is getting more and more dazzling, and he is getting more and more distant from her. Far away, at this time, hearing Eric still talking to herself in that casual and familiar tone, Tina Fey's restraint dissipated a little, and said: "I have some ideas, but I've been too busy recently, Didn't have much time to write it down."
Drew suddenly said: "Tina, didn't you tell me about an idea based on your high school life last time, tell Eric and see what he thinks?"
Eric heard the girl's words, raised his head with a smile, but thought of "Mean Girls" written by Tina Fey in his heart, but he also knew that "Mean Girls" was based on a book called "Mean Girls" by Tina Fey. It was adapted from the novel The Queen Bee and the Follower, but at this time, I was a little curious about what kind of script for high school students Tina Fey would come up with.
Seeing Eric, Drew, and Amy looking at her with great interest, Tina Fey smiled shyly and said, "Actually, when I was in high school, I was the kind of person who was very annoying." The girls here are a little crazy and always dress like a tomboy. However, I really envy those girls who can dress themselves up beautifully. This idea is roughly a story of a girl's big transformation... "
In Eric's opinion, Tina Fey's script concept has many similarities with that of "Mean Girls". A somewhat rustic high school girl adapts to the new living environment and makes herself noticed by the boy she likes. So I tried my best to change myself from an ugly duckling to a swan, which is still inseparable from the friendship, love, trust and other elements between teenagers. In fact, this kind of coincidence is not difficult to understand. A screenwriter's script style must be closely related to factors such as personal personality and life experience. Yuan Shikong's "Mean Girl" script was changed from a novel, but as a screenwriter. Tina Fey must have added a lot of 'private goods' to it.
Since there are so many similarities between the two stories, Eric said, "Tina, take the time to write this story down, and I'll help you take a look at that time, maybe it can be filmed."
Because there is a complete image of "Mean Girls" in his memory, Eric can obtain the original author information from the subtitles. As long as he checks the relevant information to make sure that there will be no infringement, Eric can let the screenwriter put Tina Fey The script of "Mean Girls" was transformed into the script of "Mean Girls" in the original time and space.
When Tina Fey heard Eric's words, her eyes lit up immediately, in Eric's current identity. Since she was asked to write the script, the possibility of making the script into a movie is almost 100%. Amy Pascal, who was sitting next to her, also had a slight expression, and said with a smile: "Eric, Tina is now a member of Huahua Pictures, you can't poach the wall in front of me and Drew, can you?"
Eric shook his head and said with a smile: "That's true. Speaking of which, Tina's script is quite suitable for you to operate. After "Mission: Impossible", Flower Pictures will definitely have sufficient cash flow. .It's time to scale up the production."
What Amy Pascal said just now was actually a lot of jokes. If Eric takes a fancy to a script, any other company may compete with Firefly, but Flower Pictures will definitely not do so. After all, Eric has given Huahua Pictures enough high-quality copyrights. Therefore, Amy Pascal was a little surprised to hear that Eric took the initiative to push Tina Fey's script to Flower Pictures so quickly.
Eric watched the change of Amy Pascal's expression and explained: "It's actually like this. Firefly is currently planning to gradually streamline the production business. We plan to compress the number of films produced each year to about 15 in the next few years. , Therefore, we may not have much energy to estimate the development of this kind of youth campus comedy."
Now the three of Amy were a little surprised. After merging with Disney, Firefly’s production and distribution of films in recent years has been maintained at a scale of 25 to 30 films, but it was suddenly reduced to 15 films, which is almost half of the production. If MGM, Columbia and other major film companies that are not in a good position announce production cuts, everyone will not be surprised, but Firefly Group has been in the limelight in recent years, and suddenly announced a production cut, which is too surprising.
Amy Pascal was stunned for a few seconds, and still asked in disbelief: "Eric, are you sure you're not joking?"
"Of course not," Eric nodded, and said seriously: "This is the result of careful discussion by the company's management, because we found that the effect of the large-scale film release strategy every year is not so obvious, but excessively wastes the group's internal resources. Let’s take last year as an example. As of the end of last year, Firefly, Disney Studios, Disney Animation, Firefly Pictures, New Line Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar Animation, Black Ant Productions and other labels introduced through external channels For some films, the total number of released films is 29, and the cumulative box office for the whole year is 1.55 billion US dollars, accounting for 25.8% of the total box office of 6 billion US dollars in North America in 1994... "
Just as he was talking, the waiter brought up the dinner ordered by several people, Eric had to suspend the narration, but Amy Pascal was amazed at the series of numbers that Eric reported at random, unknowingly, the box office market of Firefly The share has already accounted for a quarter of the total box office in North America. If it continues, Firefly may really want to reproduce the dominance of MGM in the golden age of Hollywood. This makes her even more confused about why Firefly is here. Under such a good situation, it suddenly decided to cut production.
After the waiter left, Eric continued: "Although this market share is high on the surface, Firefly has already made a loss on many films. Firefly's total box office revenue in North America this year is 1.55 billion US dollars. But just five films with more than 100 million box office grosses, "Saving Private Ryan", "True Lies", "The Lion King", "Runaway Bride" and "Face Changing" accounted for 750 million US dollars of that, almost Half of the total box office, if the scope is expanded, except for these five films. The sequels of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "The King of Fighters" and other medium-sized productions respectively received box office ranging from 50 million to 90 million. The cumulative sum of the top ten films at the annual box office reached 1.1 billion US dollars, accounting for 70% of the total box office share, and the profits brought by these ten films accounted for more than 85% of the total profit of the film business. Next, the remaining The next 19 films brought Firefly $450 million in box office revenue. The average box office revenue per film was only 23 million, while the average production and distribution costs of these 19 films were 27 million. Although they were operated through overseas distribution and video tapes, These 19 films can still bring some profits to Firefly, but the overall input and output are very uneconomical.”
Amy Pascal nodded after listening to Eric, and said to Eric: "According to your analysis, it is absolutely wise for Firefly to compress the production plan, but Eric. If Firefly does this, it may lose its No. 1 box office market share in the future. If it is other film companies, I think they will definitely not willingly give up the title of No. 1 market share.”
Eric smiled and said: "It doesn't make much sense to compete for the first place in box office revenue, and it is easy to be hated by others. Firefly pursues the first place in net profit. Firefly is now a comprehensive company. As a media group, our focus in the future development of the film business is to produce more excellent films, and at the same time, we will devote more resources and energy to the development of value-added services around films, so that every excellent film can realize the development of the entire industry chain. Maximize the benefits."
In fact, Eric made this decision. It is also the result of detailed reference to Disney's development strategy later. In the original time and space, after the new century, the number of Disney's annual productions is not high compared to other studios, but because of the high-quality strategy adopted, it can almost break out several dark horses at the box office every year. Therefore, although the number of Disney's films produced is only a dozen or so, thanks to its excellent operation of the entire industry chain, Disney's profits have always been among the top among several major studios.
After a while, Amy Pascal asked again: "But, Eric. Don't you think that the risk is also great. If the production scale is reduced to half, Firefly may miss some dark horses at the box office. And once some key projects fail, Firefly's annual financial data will definitely be very ugly."
Eric said: "The low-cost and high-gross box office dark horses account for less than 1% of Hollywood films that land in theaters every year. This slim chance is not enough for Firefly to maintain a high-load distribution strategy." , As for possible failures in major projects, even if there is no production cut, this risk still exists. But now, the failure of one or two large-scale production films will not have a big impact on Firefly, and Firefly is not a listed company. Instead of racking our brains to prepare beautiful financial reports for investors, we can run the company in a leisurely manner according to our own ideas.”
Amy Pascal nodded enviously, but Tina Fey suddenly said, "Hey, have you noticed that the dark horses at the box office these years seem to be all from Firefly."
When Tina Fey said this, the three women suddenly realized that this was actually the case. From the beginning of "Home Alone", to the subsequent "Pretty Woman", and the pinnacle of "Jurassic Park", last summer's "The Lion King", speaking, since Eric's sudden rise, all Hollywood Movies that can be called dark horses at the box office gathered under the banner of Firefly as if they had grown legs.
Looking at the curious and suspicious eyes of several women, Eric spread his hands and said with a smile: "This is my personal talent. If you really want a reason, have you seen "Men in Black"?"
"Hehe," Tina Fey couldn't help laughing, she poked the little girl next to her who was also overjoyed, and reached out to make a shape of tentacles on her head, and asked, "Drew, Eric's blood What color is it, is it sky blue?"
The girl picked up the napkin and wiped her mouth with a grim expression, then said in a mysterious voice, "It's white. I tasted it, and it's still a bit salty."
"Forehead."
"ah?"
"Puff...cough cough..."
Tina Fey was stunned for half a second, her face was instantly covered with a layer of blush, and she stretched out her hand to pinch the girl's ribs.
Amy Pascal showed a puzzled expression. But he quickly covered his mouth and laughed lightly.
However, Eric couldn't hold back a sip of red wine and sprayed it out. Fortunately, he turned his head around the table immediately, but because he endured that breath, he was choked and coughed again and again. Seeing Xiao Nizi approaching with a weak expression while holding the napkin. Eric was not confused by the girl's expression at all, and knocked on her forehead unceremoniously: "Never make such jokes again in the future."
"Remember, I will never tell anyone that you are from Pandora."
"Don't play dumb, you know that's not what I'm talking about."
"Ummmmm..."
The waiter came over quickly and tidied up in a hurry, but the few of them lost interest in continuing to eat, paid the bill and left the restaurant.
Just like the "Twilight Saga" series, which was the pinnacle of the original time and space, and Lionsgate's "Hunger Games" series, for second- and third-tier film companies, it is a big hit series. It can often make it rise. Although it is still a purely production company, a "Mission: Impossible", which is expected to reach a global box office of 500 million US dollars, can continuously bring hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow to Huahua Pictures. In the early stage, Huahua Pictures launched the three films "Mission: Impossible", "Night at the Museum" and "Forrest Gump" and still needed to rely on cooperation with other film companies or external financing, but after "Mission: Impossible", even if the cash returned It will take some time, but Huahua Pictures has no pressure on funding.
In this case, expansion is almost imperative. In addition to Tina Fey's idea of the youth school film that was improvised by Tina Fey during lunch, Eric studied some scripts recently collected by Huahua Films with Drew, Amy and others that afternoon. The superhero copyrights that Rick took back have been returned to Marvel Entertainment, and the copyrights of "Lord of the Rings" and "Bourne Shadow" have not yet reached the time for development. So if you want to develop new projects, you can only choose by yourself for the time being.
However, good scripts are hard to come by, and several people sent a bunch of scripts around the script agent to study for an afternoon. I didn't find a good enough one, nor did I find a familiar one in Eric's memory.
He has been busy getting off work, because he will go to Burbank early tomorrow morning to attend the firefly high-level meeting. Eric did not go back to Malibu, but planned to spend the night at Xiao Nizi's mansion in Beverly Hills.
The twins drove the car onto the road, and the little girl who was sitting in the back row with Eric lay softly on Eric's body: "I'm exhausted. Eric, it's so troublesome to pick a script, why don't you directly Write us a few."
Eric squeezed the face of the girl who was pillowed on his lap, and said with a smile, "You really think I'm a Pandora star."
Drew turned his baby face, looked up at Eric and said, "You obviously wrote so many scripts before."
Eric explained: "Now it's different from before. I don't have so much time to think about the script."
After getting along for so long, Xiao Nizi can certainly see that Eric is insincere, but she doesn't mean to get to the bottom of it at all. She believes that Eric lied to herself, so there must be a reason for lying to herself.
Eric looked at the bright-eyed little girl in his arms, smiled, and didn't say anything else, but what Tina Fey said unintentionally in the afternoon: All the dark horses in the box office these years came out of Firefly flag. This inadvertent remark made Eric vigilant, because Tina Fey's words were not accurate. Yes, I wrote it myself.
The memory of rebirth is Eric's greatest wealth and his greatest secret. This is a society where the weak prey on the strong. Eric will not feel guilty for taking out the script in his memory as his own, but he I don't want this situation to continue, so that people really think of him as an alien or something. Moreover, now that he also has wealth and power, he no longer has to do everything himself. As long as the outstanding films in his memory reappear according to the historical track, and Firefly has enough strength to win these projects, those copyright owners will definitely be more inclined to be like Firefly. Strong cooperation with large companies.
The car has driven into the narrow mountain road of Beverly Hills unknowingly, and the slight bumps pulled Eric out of his thoughts into reality. Looking at the little girl who was leaning on his arms and had already narrowed her eyes, Eric Smiling, she reached out and touched the girl's eyelashes, and her nimble eyes opened immediately.
"Haven't had dinner yet. Are you sleepy?"
Drew rubbed his head against Eric, and said in a tired voice, "I just want to sleep in your arms."
"Oh, by the way, I just remembered. Regarding the sequel of "Mission: Impossible", have you contacted Kevin Costner?"
"Well, he wants $20 million and 20% of the North American box office."
Eric simply calculated in his heart, if the sequel can achieve the results of the first one. Kevin Costner probably took about 60 million from this project. At any rate, they also participated in the production and investment.
"And then?" Eric asked again.
Xiao Nizi pinched Eric's clothes and tugged lightly, and said: "What else? Then, give him 20%, and the publisher will take another 15%, and we will only have 20% left. The local box office Sharing is the fastest way for movies to return funds, and we are not those big film companies that can slowly recover funds through long-term operations. How could it be possible to give this share to him, so everyone broke up as soon as they contacted. He should be in Hawaii now Let’s make that "Future Water World", hehe, I just inquired about it, it seems that the filming of that film did not go well, the location they chose was too stormy, the set cost more than 5 million US dollars, when a big wave came, it crashed immediately It was scrapped, and then it had to be rebuilt. Now it’s way over budget.”
The inertia of history is really strong enough, and Eric has a smile on his lips. Perhaps, the film with the largest budget before "Titanic" will also be born as scheduled.
Patted the girl's excited little face. Eric said: "Let's put this matter aside for the time being. If "Future Water World" fails, coupled with last summer's "Law Enforcement Titans", Kevin Costner will carry the burden on his back. There are two films that have caused huge losses to investors, but there are only three, and he will definitely come to contact you when the time comes."
The little girl leaning on Eric laughed. He hummed a few more times, as if he was brewing some bad idea.
The car quickly entered the Beverly Tlausdale Manor area, circled around for a while, and stopped outside Drew's mansion. Xiao Nizi just sat up, the twins sitting in the front co-pilot turned their heads and pointed to the door of the mansion, and said, "Boss, look."
Eric and Xiao Nizi looked at the past together. At this time, the sun had already set. In the dim light, the girl wearing a small white windbreaker and jeans was standing quietly on the open space outside the gate of the mansion with a schoolbag on her back. It is petite and obviously not grown. Seeing the car stop, the girl hesitated for a while before walking over carefully.
Eric was a little puzzled, why did Christina Aguilera appear at the doorman of Drew's house, and opened the car door while looking at Xiao Nizi inquiringly, the girl just shook her head.
Seeing Drew getting out of the car, all of Christina's hesitation disappeared, and she ran over with obvious joy, noticing Eric who got out of the car from the other side, and her face was even more joyful.
Although she paused after seeing Eric, Christina quickly walked towards Xiao Nizi and said excitedly, "Drew, I thought you wouldn't be back today."
Xiao Nizi warmly hugged Christina in her arms. Although the girl was not tall, Christina looked even smaller. After a burst of intimacy, the girl let go of the girl and said with a smile: "Long time no see." Ah, why did you come to me all of a sudden?"
Christina was about to speak, but when she saw Eric approaching, she quickly turned around and said hello obediently: "Mr. Williams, hello."
Eric just smiled and nodded, looking at Drew, Christina also turned her attention to Xiao Nizi, and said with a little sadness in her tone: "Drew, I, I'm here to say goodbye." (To be continued.)