As a world-class financial center, Wall Street is like a giant capital distribution port. Retirement, insurance, investment funds and capital from overseas countries from various states in the interior of the United States influence and even control the United States through investment banks and major exchanges. and the world economy.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Wall Street controls the U.S. economy. Most of the top 500 companies in the United States are controlled by Wall Street capital through listing. It is almost the instinct of all Wall Street capital forces to infiltrate the economy of the United States and even overseas to achieve the purpose of control.
Therefore, the Firefly Group, which has risen rapidly in recent years but is completely out of control, is particularly conspicuous in Hollywood, which is basically controlled by Wall Street.
For the shareholders of a company, unless they have a speculative attitude, no company will easily choose to go public for financing and transfer its control to Wall Street step by step.
Eric admits that he had a strong speculative mentality in the first few years, but with the rapid expansion of the Firefly system and the continuous expansion of his personal horizons, his impetuous thoughts have long since disappeared. Although he still will not easily let go of the opportunity to quickly grab profits such as the Asian financial crisis and the Internet bubble, but for his most important foundation, the Firefly Group, even a long time ago, Eric never thought of letting it go public for financing , as the Firefly Group becomes stronger, this kind of idea will no longer exist.
However, Wall Street obviously will not easily let go of its efforts to infiltrate Firefly Group, and promoting the listing in the digital field should be a test conducted by Wall Street.
Since it is impossible to promote the listing of Firefly Group as a whole, it should be dismantled step by step and gradually realize the connection with the capital market. This may be the mind of some capital forces on Wall Street.
Katzenberg has been focusing on the operation of Firefly Group in the past few years. Therefore, he may not have noticed David West's special intentions in promoting the listing in the digital field, but Eric has paid far more attention to the capital market than Katzenberg.
After thinking for a moment, Eric said: "Jeffrey, have you ever thought about it, if we agree to let the digital domain go public this time, then, next, maybe Pixar Animation, and then, New Line Pictures, Firefly Pictures , Disney Group... In the end, maybe one day when you suddenly wake up, the Firefly Group has once again become a pawn in the hands of Wall Street. At that time, it will be difficult for us to operate this company with our own will. Seven big Hollywood , why only Firefly has cultivated the digital field, because we can invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the research and development of CG special effects technology regardless of the cost for several years, regardless of the temporary gains and losses in the financial report. But other companies, in order to satisfy Wall Street , In order to make their annual or even quarterly financial reports more beautiful, they dare not and cannot do so at all, otherwise, even if they are making long-term plans for the company, it will still be difficult for them to be recognized by capital."
"Okay, I see," Katzenberg grinned. Eric did not directly reject the proposal to list the digital domain, but analyzed the pros and cons to him in detail. Of course Katzenberg knew that Eric Ke is scruples on his personal feelings. Actually, he thinks that Eric doesn't need to do this at all. After all, in most cases, if he himself thinks that some of his subordinates' suggestions are bad, he will basically simply throw out a sentence of '****' in the past, And he rarely explained anything to the other party, looked at the "Financial Alchemy" that Eric had always kept at hand, and Katzenberg said half-jokingly: "Perhaps, I should also find time to read some of these books. "
"If you're interested," Eric smiled and handed over the book at hand, and said, "I'll give this to you. I bought several."
Katzenberg accepted it bluntly, thanked him, and asked, "I've seen you read this book a lot recently. What's it about?"
"Soros's investment diary," Eric explained simply: "If you don't have three or five years of experience in foreign exchange investment, most people basically can't understand it, so I suggest you skip the previous theories directly. , read the following case directly, don’t need to deliberately understand those obscure foreign exchange operation skills, just get a feel for Soros’s way of thinking, this is a guy with a real big picture in his chest, even reminds me of the Far East A famous saying."
Katzenberg secretly remembered Eric's words. He was not well-educated. He entered the society and started working before graduating from high school. on the seat. Just as he was about to put the book away, Katzenberg asked curiously after hearing Eric's last words: "Oriental, what famous saying?"
"This explanation is meaningless, just like if the sonnet is translated into other languages, it will be difficult to have any charm. In short, it is my evaluation of Soros just now. By the way, I wrote it on the title page."
Katzenberg turned the pages of the book with great interest, and saw two lines of unfamiliar characters written in pencil appear on the title page.
Heaven and earth are furnaces, good fortune is work.
Yin and Yang are carbon, and all things are copper.
Although Katzenberg couldn't understand the flamboyant cursive script, he could still feel a wonderful sense of beauty.
Throughout the 1980s, based on the reflexive theory he created, Soros took the global financial market as his own laboratory, and practiced his own theory through large-scale financial operations that had a profound impact on many countries in the world . Therefore, this book is called "Financial Alchemy".
If you don't start from the point of view of good and evil, and consider Soros's destructive destruction of the economic systems of many countries, such a financial tycoon who can turn his hands into clouds and influence the direction of the world economy is completely worthy of the "Peng Niao Fu". An evaluation of eighteen characters.
Skipping this simple episode, Eric said: "So, don't mention the plan to go public in the digital field. However, since this matter is mentioned, let's talk about our next development plan for the digital field." .”
…
On January 19, the 54th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was held. Miramax's "Shakespeare in Love" and Firefly Films' "Red Alert" led the Golden Globe Awards this year, and won the music awards respectively. Best Picture Comedy and Drama.
The Weinstein brothers originally went to the Oscars, but because of the strong promotion of "Titanic", Harvey Weinstein clearly realized that "Shakespeare in Love" would be difficult to make a difference at the Oscars, so Resolutely gave up, but the focus of public relations was on the Golden Globe Awards, and won five awards in one fell swoop: Best Musical Comedy Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Screenplay. In comparison, "Red Alert" is inferior. Although the best film in the drama category, it lost to "Shakespeare in Love" in terms of best director and best screenplay. However, although Firefly has no hype, the media It is still impossible for movie fans not to notice that this is the second duel between Cameron and Catherine. Correspondingly, "Red Alert" has gained more attention than "Shakespeare in Love" which the Weinstein Brothers worked hard to hype Some.
After the Golden Globe Awards, both "Shakespeare in Love" and "Red Alert" have greatly increased their film schedules, and the box office has also begun to climb.
Three days after the Golden Globe Awards Ceremony, on January 22, the nominations for the 69th Oscars were announced. Without any suspense, "Titanic" became the most watched film of this year's Oscars with 14 nominations. All the nominations of "Titanic" can be said to be well deserved. Therefore, when 14 nominations are released, the media will inevitably turn around and mock the just past Golden Globe Awards.
Stimulated by the successive announcements of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony and Oscar nominations within a week, the box office of "Titanic" in the fifth week of its release once again achieved a miraculous decline, with a single-week box office reaching 42.62 million US dollars and a cumulative box office of 252 million US dollars. .
A week ago, in the face of the second week of "Titanic"'s miraculous decline and the subsequent continuous weak decline, the North American media only predicted that this film might reach the heights of "Star Wars" and "Jurassic Park", but When the fifth week's box office data came out, another downturn made all the media cautious.
After waiting patiently for a week, in the sixth week, "Titanic" had a single-week box office of 32.83 million, once again achieving a weak single-week box office drop of 22%.
As a result, the media, which was in a cautious wait-and-see state, finally began to speak out, saying that "Titanic" may become the highest-grossing film in North American film history, but at the same time, no one is going to predict how much the final box office of "Titanic" will reach.
In six weeks, the North American box office was 285 million U.S. dollars, and the overseas box office was 147 million U.S. dollars. The global box office of "Titanic" reached 432 million U.S. dollars. Therefore, Firefly has been able to get a share of 200 million U.S. dollars and recover a total of 265 million U.S. dollars. The cost is also just a matter of time.
At the same time, many media have also discovered that the five major box office countries in Europe, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the West, are only released in the UK and Spain at this time, and Germany, France and Italy, whose box office potential does not belong to the UK at all, have not yet been released. However, Japan, the largest box office market in Asia, also has not been released. In addition to the Latin American and Southeast Asian markets that are also in the release stage, the overseas box office of "Titanic" may reach a terrifying figure far exceeding that of North America.
The box office shock of "Titanic" has not yet fallen, and another explosive news came out from the Firefly Group.
After completing the existing film and television special effects orders in hand, Firefly's digital field special effects company, including three branches in Los Angeles, Florida and Sydney, will no longer accept Firefly Group and its partners MGM Pictures, 20th Century Instead of orders for film and television special effects from these three companies, Fox will focus on the production of film projects within the Firefly Group and its cooperative allies. However, Firefly Software, which is mainly responsible for the development of basic tool software for the digital field and Pixar animation, will continue to sell Maya, 3Dmax and other special effects software and special effect solutions to the outside world. Excess special effects outsourcing orders under the Firefly Group.
As a non-listed company, Firefly Group simply published an announcement on the Yahoo portal.
But the sensation caused by this news in the industry far exceeds the box office miracle of "Titanic".
Before the release of "Titanic", because of the unprecedented production cost of 215 million US dollars for this super blockbuster featuring CG special effects, the media and the industry have been reflecting on the large-scale production trend that has emerged in recent years. Many people predicted that the newly emerging CG special effects Technology is likely to enter an 'ice age' that lasts for several years. But after the box office of "Titanic" broke out, all the original arguments disappeared without a trace. Even since the box office of "Titanic" fell in the second week, some film companies have already started looking for project scripts for blockbuster special effects films. There are countless film companies that can't wait to discuss cooperation with the digital field.
Before "Titanic", the attitude of accepting external orders in the digital field has always been quite positive. Other film companies have also realized that the digital field will implement this open cooperation strategy out of the need for technology accumulation. Therefore, No one expected that after "Titanic", the attitude of the Firefly Group would suddenly undergo a 180-degree change.
How strong is the technical advantage of the digital field, and there is no need to compare it, because in recent years, all major productions in Hollywood that involve CG special effects have basically cooperated closely with the digital field, and those in charge of the digital field often These are the most difficult special effects in these films.
Therefore, when the digital field suddenly closes the cooperation gate, it is almost conceivable that without the technical support of the digital field, in the next few years, even if the other major Hollywood film companies are willing to spare no effort in funding, it is impossible to Catch up on the technology gap with the digital realm.
Without the support of top-notch special effects technology, several other major Hollywood film companies are destined to usher in a window period of several years for special effects movies. Of course, Hollywood does not lack other special effects companies, such as Industrial Light and Magic. However, if you make Compared with the films of Firefly Group in terms of special effects, there is almost a gap visible to the naked eye. In this case, the audience is not stupid, so how can they buy it.
One day after the news was announced, the ringing of the phones of almost all the core executives of the Firefly Group basically did not stop, and the media, like sharks smelling blood, frantically explored the deep meaning of the decision of the Firefly Group. (To be continued.)