Faintly feeling that someone was staring at her, Christina Aguilera opened her eyes and happened to notice Eric sitting on the edge of the bed with a smile on her face.
All kinds of images from last night quickly flooded into my mind. Feeling the unhindered contact between the body and the big bed under the thin quilt, Christina pulled the corner of the quilt with a blushing face, and whispered hello: "Morning, Eric."
"Seeing that you are sleeping so soundly, I don't know if I should wake you up," Eric stretched out his hand, and gently brushed away a strand of messy hair on the girl's cheek. Seeing her slightly nervous expression, he asked : "Are you still uncomfortable?"
"Well, it feels like there's something..." Christina's eyelashes drooped, and she stopped in embarrassment halfway through her speech.
"Then just rest here for a few days. Your place is definitely not as good as here. I ordered breakfast for you. When you wake up, call the customer service. They will send it over. If you have other needs, you can also give it to me. Assistant called," Eric said, putting a small card on the bedside table: "This is his number."
Christina looked at Eric with some disappointment, and said, "Are you going to work?"
"Yeah, it's already eight o'clock, and hundreds of people are waiting for me."
Christina nodded, and said obediently: "Well, then, goodbye."
"Goodbye," Eric leaned over and kissed the girl's cheek. Christina boldly raised her head and kissed back, and playfully licked Eric's face with the tip of her tongue.
Eric didn't mind either, and said with a smile, "It's really like a kitten."
Christina also giggled and said, "Eric, you seem to like cats very much."
"No, I don't like cats. I like women who are like cats. They are docile, lazy, and mysterious. Of course, occasionally they are wild and unruly."
Christina blinked quickly and said, "Then can I be your kitten?"
"No problem," Eric smiled, pinched Christina's face, stood up and said, "Then I'm going to work, well, I'll take you to play again when I have a rest this week, where do you want to go?" ?”
Christina showed an excited expression on her face, but said again: "I'm not familiar with Venice, Eric, I'll go wherever you go."
"This is not possible. The Venice Film Festival is about to start, and we are filming here again, so there are too many reporters in Venice recently. If we play here, we will definitely be chased and intercepted. We have to run a little farther. How about Paris?"
Christina didn't turn her head around, of course she wanted to go to Paris, what girl wouldn't yearn for Paris, but, the crew only had one day off a week, could they travel that far
Eric guessed what the girl was thinking from Christina's little confused expression. He pinched her face without explaining, and said with a smile: "Then Paris, I'll go to work first, you can continue to sleep, think Wake up anytime."
He waved his hand at Eric, saw the figure of the man disappear, waited patiently with his little ears sideways, and finally heard the slight closing sound of the door in the living room.
After lying on the bed for a while, Christina finally got up, but first called her assistant, Miria, and explained vaguely that she stayed in the hotel where Eric was last night, and did not say anything about it. She believed that the female assistant also knew it well, and told the other party to do whatever she wanted these days. Christina hung up the phone and called the room service to order breakfast to fill her stomach. The girl threw herself on the big bed again and fell asleep quickly. go.
When I woke up again, it was already evening, and there was almost no light coming in from outside the thick curtains.
There was a faint voice in the living room. Christina put on her clothes lightly, went to the door and opened it, only to find that Eric was on the phone in the living room, and then she came out.
Eric saw Christina walking out of the bedroom, nodded to her, and pointed to the sofa opposite him.
Christina came over and sat down on the sofa. She was only wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans, and she was barefoot. Although the floor in the room was clean, there was no carpet. Shrinking his calves, curling up on the sofa with a pillow in his arms, he quietly listened to Eric's phone call.
"If this is the case, we can accept the price of 300 million U.S. dollars," Eric held the phone in one hand, flipped through the blue folder on his lap, and discussed with the other side: "However, we Can't make any concessions. If Amberlin wants the copyright of "The Matrix", he must pay the full amount as soon as possible after signing the contract. It's only 300 million US dollars, Jeffrey. With the strength of Microsoft behind Amberlin, as long as they really want to To make this deal, it’s definitely going to be available.”
Christina stuck out her tongue when she heard Eric's understatement of 300 million US dollars. She also knew that Firefly was selling the copyright of the sequel to "The Matrix", but she didn't expect the copyright of this movie to be so valuable, 300 million US dollars.
Eric happened to notice Christina sticking out her tongue and thought the girl was being naughty, so he waved at her to signal not to be funny.
Christina shrank her neck and smiled at Eric.
"There's one more thing," Eric continued after talking about "The Matrix" with Katzenberg, "I've already seen the finished film of "Titanic", except for the ending song, there is nothing else Question, Jim has already flown back to Los Angeles this morning to finalize the new ending song. I wrote the song myself. Please ask the record department to cooperate and try to get it done before the opening ceremony of the Venice Film Festival. Also, the publicity work is now It can be launched, and I don't plan to compress the finished film, so you ask the distribution department to discuss the corresponding publicity plan."
"..."
""Bad Boys 2"?" Eric hesitated for a while, thought for a while, and said: "It's better not to be in the same period as "Titanic". I know you don't have much confidence in this film. We have no plans for other companies. The right to interfere, but Firefly can't snipe itself, so let's postpone it and put it in the summer file next year, this sequel should also have the strength to support the summer file... Well, that's it."
After hanging up the phone, seeing Christina listening with her little ears sideways, Eric smiled and waved to her.
Christina hugged the pillow and got up and sat down beside Eric, curled her legs and leaned against Eric lightly, looked at the document on his lap, and said, "Eric, what is this? "
Eric knew that the girl was not really interested, but just wanted to find a topic, and said, "It's nothing, some copyright transfer contract information."
Christina glanced at the document for a while, but didn't read it carefully, and asked, "Is it "The Matrix"?"
"Yeah," Eric nodded, and turned to the first page of the information on the folder, intending to read it again, feeling Christina's small body rubbing against him from time to time, and said with a smile: "Look at you It should be all right the way it was just now, right?"
"Ah," Christina was stunned, and soon begged for mercy pitifully: "Well, Eric, tonight, it's... not good.
Eric smiled, his eyes were still on the document in front of him, but he changed the subject and said, "What do you want to eat tonight?"
Christina was still worried about whether Eric would torment herself again at night, and in that case, she felt that she might be broken. Hearing Eric change the subject, he replied absent-mindedly: "I don't know either, the morning one, um, it's not bad."
"That's breakfast," Eric said, "Forget it, you call the room service and ask them to send you a menu, and you can choose what you want."
"Well," Christina nodded, thought for a while, and gently pulled the short sleeve of Eric's T-shirt, with a small look of hesitating to speak.
Eric turned his head, saw Christina's pitiful little expression, remembered what she said just now, and understood.
I have to say that the current Christina can be said to be the best period of her life. She has a sweet face, is petite, and has a slender figure. Coupled with the pitiful expression of "Don't bully others", she is really very capable. Arouses the desire to ravage men.
"Don't think about it, just take a good rest these days," Eric smiled, reached out and pinched the girl's face, and said, "If you don't want to live here, you can go back to the hotel on the street."
Hearing these words, remembering Eric's generally gentle behavior last night, Christina also felt relieved, and smiled sweetly: "I'm not leaving, um, I'm going to call and ask for the menu."
As the girl said, she jumped off the sofa and reached for the mobile phone that Eric had just put down, and started dialing.
Eric smiled and turned his attention to the document in his hand again.
Because he was far away from Hollywood, Eric didn't personally experience all the turmoil in Hollywood recently, especially the copyright sale of "The Matrix".
Undoubtedly, as Eric guessed at the beginning, the one who wants the copyright of "The Matrix" the most is Amberlin Films, which is backed by Microsoft. Of course, several other major film companies have also participated in more or less In this copyright competition.
Of course, Firefly will not sell the copyright of "The Matrix" in a simple and rude manner. In fact, a large part of the high-level executives don't want to sell "The Matrix" at all. Therefore, Firefly's attitude is also quite firm, and it will not give an inch when negotiating with film companies that intend to purchase the copyright of "The Matrix".
Under such circumstances, Paramount and other companies with relatively conservative management styles have withdrawn one after another, and in the end only Warner, Universal and Amberlin are still persisting.
However, because the conditions offered by Firefly are relatively harsh, they are only willing to sell the production and distribution rights of the sequel of "The Matrix", but they still retain all the non-film peripherals of "The Matrix" such as comics, games, toys, etc. The development rights, plus the asking price It was too high, and Warner and Universal also withdrew one after another. In the end, only the Amberlin family was left and agreed to Firefly's request.
According to the preliminary agreed agreement, Amberlin Films will purchase the film and television production and distribution copyrights of "The Matrix" for 300 million U.S. dollars in cash. To restart the series, Firefly will not object. Of course, most fans who pay attention to the "Matrix" series know the trilogy script of this series. Presumably, after this storm, it is impossible for Amberlin to revise the script under pressure.
However, the agreement also stipulates that Firefly retains the right to develop peripheral copyrights such as "The Matrix" series of comics, games, toys, etc., including the peripheral development rights for characters related to the sequel of "The Matrix". Firefly will not participate in any theater, DVD, video tape and other distribution revenue sharing of the "Matrix" sequel series of film and television products, but at the same time, Amblin Pictures has no right to participate in the peripheral revenue sharing of the "Matrix" series.
Although Amberlin Films is ambitious, it has just been established after all. Right now, the most important task of the other party is to improve its own distribution network. It has not yet involved the ability to develop peripherals, so the other party will agree to this plan, and the development of peripheral products, But it is precisely what the Firefly Group is best at.
Judging from the cumulative global box office data of the first part of "The Matrix" of about 600 million, Firefly's net income from theater screenings and videotape distribution alone is more than 300 million US dollars.
However, even if the sequel of "The Matrix" does not follow the old path of the previous life, Firefly will not lose money in this business, because the overall recovery of the US economy has recovered 300 million US dollars in cash a few years in advance, regardless of whether the money is invested in the entertainment industry or the high-end industry. In the technology industry, Eric has enough confidence to double the money several times in the next few years.
Although in the eyes of outsiders, the profits of Firefly in recent years have been horrific, but only Eric himself knows that the past few years of the Firefly system have been burning money crazily, and most of the annual profits are quickly turned into investments again. , Injected into various companies under the Firefly system.
In order to reduce the tax burden as much as possible, Eric has even begun to consider directly investing in companies under Firefly Investment in the name of Firefly Group. Although this will indirectly cause about 27% of Firefly’s small and medium shareholders to enter the Internet industry of the Firefly system, But it can save a lot of taxes in the middle link.
If the surplus funds are directly transferred to project investment, the pre-tax gross profit of Firefly Group will be greatly reduced, but this will also allow Firefly to reduce the amount of corporate income tax paid. With the scale of Firefly, the income tax ratio of pre-tax profits will reach 35%, which is comparable to 27% of small and medium shareholders is much higher. Moreover, distributing benefits to small and medium shareholders in the form of investment will definitely gain greater favor from these shareholders, increase Eric's control over Firefly, and the representatives behind these shareholders Forces support Firefly. But if it is handed over to the Internal Revenue Service, Firefly will not get any substantial benefits.
Thinking of this, Eric also made up his mind. Next time, he will discuss with Katzenberg about the Clover Holdings Company, which originally belonged to the Disney Group. This is an investment company left over from the Disney period, but the scale has always been It's so small that most people wouldn't even notice the existence of this investment company if they didn't peruse Firefly Group's balance sheet.
Although Disney developed rapidly at the beginning, it did not have much energy to involve external investment. The largest external investment project of Clover Holdings was to assist in the construction of the Disney Concert Hall in the Los Angeles Music Center, with an investment scale of 20 million US dollars. But that project has not made much profit so far, because the project was initiated by the Disney family at the beginning, and its main purpose was to expand the influence of the Disney family, and its public welfare nature is very large.
However, at this time, this investment company can be used as a window for Firefly Group to directly invest abroad. The corporate law in the United States is very loose, and it does not stipulate that a company can only operate certain industries, just like Berkshire Hasa controlled by Buffett. Wei, originally just a textile factory, has now become a comprehensive holding group, whose business fields involve insurance, books, beverages, candy, entertainment and other industries. (To be continued.)