After dinner, the two left the restaurant in no hurry. After ordering two cups of coffee, Eric chatted about setting up a digital branch in Australia.
"The annual turnover of the digital field is close to 1 billion US dollars, right?" Elizabeth asked enviously after listening.
Eric nodded: "However, because most of the orders are made within Firefly, the profit margin is not high, only 10%."
In order to prevent the outflow of excellent special effects artists under the digital field, Eric offers these people very generous salaries and bonuses, thus ensuring that the talents under the digital field are still very scarce even when the entire industry is in short supply. Low churn rate.
High labor costs have therefore greatly reduced the overall profitability of the digital field. However, Eric did not expect this special effects company to bring too much profit to Firefly. The main role of the digital field is to assist in the production of Firefly's films and to allow Firefly to maintain a strong position in the field of special effects.
Elizabeth also understands some of the key points, saying: "Fortune magazine published last month's Fortune 500 companies in the United States, the entry-level company's receivables are only 2.2 billion U.S. dollars. With the current tightness of the special effects industry, as long as the digital field continues to expand , when the time comes to go public independently, you will definitely be able to easily join this list. Why do you want to set up a branch in Australia? Although you can get some discounts, but staying away from Hollywood, many things will become very inconvenient."
"Now there are more and more special effects companies in Hollywood. You can definitely find this. Therefore, the biggest factor restricting the development of special effects companies in the future will no longer be technology, but cost. I am preparing in advance. .”
Elizabeth nodded half-understood, stirred the coffee in front of her with a spoon, and said after a while: "I have rarely returned to Australia these years. I am not familiar with things there. If you want to contact the Australian government, you should Talk to my dad about it."
"Your old man is a ghost. I don't want to deal with him."
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and said, "You mean, I'm easier to deceive."
"Well," Eric nodded solemnly, and joked, "However, your comprehension is still fine."
Elizabeth threatened to raise the spoon in her hand, then put it down, and said, "Even if I want to, I really can't help you." After a moment of hesitation, she continued, "Dad has already started training Lachlan and James to be in charge of the newspaper." Most of our family’s business in Australia is paper media business, and it’s not convenient for me to intervene there.”
Although News Corporation's newspaper media spread all over the world, Australia is the home base of News Corporation. News Corporation controls more than 70% of Australia's media resources, which is much higher than the 40% in the UK.
Although Eric is well aware of the future decline of paper media, Murdoch obviously doesn't think so. And he has always regarded the print media business as the foundation of News Corporation.
Eric could hear from Elizabeth's short words that Murdoch still prefers to let his son take over the business until now. Otherwise, the two of them would not be allowed to be in charge of the basic business of News Corporation, but only let the daughter be in charge of the film business.
At this time, with a large number of newspapers in the world, more than 50% of the profits of News Corporation come from the paper media business. In addition, there are some TV stations in Australia, the Far East and the United Kingdom. Although Fox has developed in recent years Very good, but in the entire News Corporation system, it is not the most important.
However, if this situation develops. It will be lively in the future.
In memory, News Corporation experienced a split after more than a decade. It was re-split into News Corporation, which is mainly based on paper media business, and Fox Group, which is mainly based on film and television businesses. At that time. Due to the decline of print media, the market value of the new News Corporation is only more than 2 billion US dollars, which is only 2% of the market value of the Fox Group of more than 80 billion.
So, as long as Elizabeth can firmly control Fox, she will actually inherit the entire News Corporation.
When the time comes, tsk tsk...
"What are you thinking, smiling so badly?" Elizabeth's voice rang in her ears.
"No, it's nothing," Eric shook his head immediately, and said, "I think, since your old man arranges this way, then you can run Fox's business with peace of mind. Well, you don't have to worry about the digital field branch. Now, I'll find time to talk to him in person."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and looked at Eric for a moment, curled her lips, and said, "I always feel like you're thinking of something bad."
"Liz, you have to firmly believe that I have always been toward you."
"Is this 'lure' singular or plural?"
Eric did not hesitate: "Singular number."
There was a smile on the corner of Elizabeth's mouth, but she still said: "It's strange to believe you."
Now that he has made up his mind to let Elizabeth run Fox with peace of mind, Eric no longer talks about the digital branch. After drinking coffee, he looked at his watch and said, "It's still early, let's take you to the movies."
"Oh..." Elizabeth dragged her voice slightly, slightly dissatisfied: "How many times have you invited me to watch a movie?"
"Could it be the first time? It seems that I still have to pick and choose. How about "Independence Day"?"
"I don't want to watch your movie, but go to "Liarguide"."
"She's such a good girl who cares about her family. She always thinks about her own family when watching a movie," Eric handed the credit card to the waiter to check out, and boasted by the way.
Elizabeth raised her chin proudly: "Yeah, it doesn't look like you."
In the next few days, Eric personally communicated with Murdoch about the relevant matters. Murdoch was naturally very willing to help, but he still put forward conditions, hoping that News Corporation could take a stake in the Australian branch of the digital field.
Eric did not hesitate, and readily agreed to give News Corporation a 30% stake in the branch.
Under Murdoch's matchmaking, Stan Winston quickly rushed to Australia with the management team to negotiate with the local government. The Australian government is of course aware of the benefits of a large special effects company tycoon settling in the country, and they are also quite eager to do so. With the mediation of the Murdoch family, the local tycoon, they quickly came up with a ten-year tax relief plan.
At the same time, in order to attract more films, the Australian government came to shoot. A financial subsidy of US$7.5 million was also given to "The Matrix" to be filmed in Australia, which is equivalent to 10% of the filming budget of "The Matrix".
Of course Hollywood reciprocated, announcing after The Matrix. The special effects of Thor King's "Lord of the Rings" series will also be entirely in charge of the Australian Digital Domain branch.
These things happened at the same time, in August. Another piece of news that shocked the world occurred in the United States.
On August 24th, Microsoft officially released the indos95 window system at its headquarters in Seattle. With better user experience and overwhelming publicity, indos95 achieved sales of 1.4 million copies in the first week of its release. Unlike Yahoo's free browser, indos95 has a price tag of $210, which is definitely not cheap even after twenty years, so. The sales of 1.4 million copies in the first week created nearly $300 million in sales for Microsoft, and Microsoft's stock price rose again.
Because the operating system of the competitor Apple is getting older and older, there has not been much innovation in these years, and because of various problems in the new p film recently released by Apple, the sales have suffered a lot. Therefore, after the release of indos95, it immediately showed There is a trend of dominating the rivers and lakes, but Apple is far behind. While indos95 was selling well, the sales of Apple Computer also ushered in a cliff-like Waterloo.
Of course Eric also received the invitation letter for the indos95 press conference, but he didn't go to Seattle to join in the fun.
after all. Although indos95 was selling well, Bill was not in a good mood.
Because in the following weeks of research, the most popular software on the indos95 operating system is the latest Yahoo browser bundled and released by Yahoo at the same time. After the browser, it is still not Microsoft's own software, but Yahoo! Its yr chat tool, after that is Microsoft's own office software suite.
The indos95 system greatly reduces the difficulty for ordinary people to use computers. But Bill Gates had an idea of making wedding clothes for others. There is no doubt that the capital market is also very sensitive to this change. While Microsoft's stock soared, Wall Street's highest valuation for Yahoo has been raised to $5.6 billion. Many investment institutions have begun to contact Yahoo frequently, hoping to participate in the investment.
Stimulated by this, a week after the release of indos95, Microsoft hastily launched the msn portal website that Jeff Locke was in charge of.
Although Jeff Locke was also responsible for part of the research and development work in the early stage of Yahoo, he has been in charge of website operation since then. It is conceivable that msn can only be regarded as superficial, and it is far from being comparable to Yahoo Portal in terms of content and user experience.
Eric only browsed the msn portal interface a few times, and completely put aside his worries. In the current form of the msn portal, even if it develops for a few years, it may not be able to catch up with Microsoft. What's more, Yahoo is also developing rapidly. progressing.
The time has entered September, and the North American summer schedule is completely over. Although several major film companies are at the end of the summer schedule, because Firefly and MGM have no new films to be released, they have somewhat regained some market share. But throughout the 14-week summer vacation, Firefly and MGM still accounted for more than 50% of the market share.
Sony-Columbia has the worst performance in this summer's summer file. Because it lost the distribution rights of "Forrest Gump" and "Night at the Museum", Sony can only rush to buy a few movies to fill the gap, but these movies are generally popular. It only has a box office of 10 to 20 million US dollars, and the highest box office is only 31 million US dollars. In the entire summer, the total box office of Sony Pictures is even less than 100 million US dollars.
Because of the support of "Batman Forever", Time Warner's summer film box office share is not low, but because of the super high cost disadvantage, Warner's film business is facing a larger loss than several other Hollywood companies.
Apart from Firefly and MGM, only Universal and Fox performed better. Paramount originally had a new Tom Cruise film, but due to the bombardment of summer movies, the schedule was postponed to New Year’s. Therefore, the performance is not blustery, and the results are only slightly better than Sony.
The Firefly Headquarters is still cheering for the still good box office results of this summer, but Eric has already rushed to New York again.
Entering September, the summer file is over, but the autumn file of TV dramas has already begun.
The production of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" has come to an end, and Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista have even let go of this project and temporarily put it into the new year's Victoria In preparation for the secret show.
Eric came to New York, in addition to paying attention to these two reality shows, mainly for a short break.
In East Hampton, the weather in September is already very cool. Eric sat lazily on the lawn of the manor and flipped through the script in his hand. Joanna sat quietly beside him, peeling an apple.
After a while, a peeled apple was handed over. Eric took a bite, but didn't accept it.
Joanna smiled and asked, "How about this script?"
"There are still some areas for improvement, but overall, I am very satisfied." Eric said, turning another page.
Joanna said: "Seeing how much you care about this script these days, are you moved?"
Eric twitched his eyebrows, nodded and said, "Yeah, it's almost time to start my next movie, but the main reason is that I like this script better."
The script in Eric's hands is "Casino Royale 007" that he and the MGM screenwriting team have been preparing.
The original "Casino Royale", the timeline is set after 2010.
After a while, a peeled apple was handed over. Eric took a bite, but didn't accept it.
Joanna smiled and asked, "How about this script?"
"There are still some areas for improvement, but overall, I am very satisfied." Eric said, turning another page.
Joanna said: "Seeing how much you care about this script these days, are you moved?"
Eric twitched his eyebrows, nodded and said, "Yeah, it's almost time to start my next movie, but the main reason is that I like this script better."
The script in Eric's hands is "Casino Royale 007" that he and the MGM screenwriting team have been preparing.
The original "Casino Royale", the timeline is set after 2010.
Eric twitched his eyebrows, nodded and said, "Yeah, it's almost time to start my next movie, but the main reason is that I like this script better."
The script in Eric's hands is "Casino Royale 007" that he and the MGM screenwriting team have been preparing.
The original "Casino Royale", the timeline is set after 2010. (To be continued.)