On the night of the 69th Oscar Awards Ceremony, in addition to the more than 50 million viewers who watched the awards ceremony directly through ABC TV station in North America. According to subsequent statistics, worldwide, the number of viewers following the results of the "Titanic" awards through overseas TV broadcasts, Internet news live broadcasts and various other means exceeded a staggering 1 billion.
Therefore, the news that "Titanic" won 13 awards at the 69th Academy Awards Ceremony, breaking the Oscar's history of winning records, quickly spread around the world almost at the moment when the results were announced that night.
Controversial or not, the fact that "Titanic" created the Oscar myth is a foregone conclusion in this winner-takes-all world.
Stimulated by the news that "Titanic" won the Oscars, during the week from March 21st to March 27th, the box office numbers of "Titanic" in North America and even the world's film market rose across the board.
In North America, the box office of "Titanic" in the 14th week rebounded again compared to the 13th week, and it closed at 25.1 million.
The performance of the overseas box office is even more impressive. This week, the number of overseas box office of "Titanic" has increased significantly to 68 again. The box office figures of the box office countries have shown a significant rebound, and the box office figures of the overseas box office countries that have been released in the past two weeks have been even more impressive.
According to preliminary statistics, the overseas box office of "Titanic" reached 236 million this week.
At the same time, the global box office figure of "Titanic" also reached an astonishing 1.332 billion US dollars, which directly increased the global movie box office record from 1 billion to 1.3 billion US dollars. how many.
Easter in 1997 was March 31, which means that in the following week, most Western countries will usher in the Easter holiday.
Although the length of the Easter holiday varies in different countries, there is no doubt that this popular schedule will once again boost the global box office of "Titanic". Even though the North American box office will drop significantly after the Oscars, the strong overseas box office is likely to push the global box office of "Titanic" to a height of US$1.5 billion in the next week.
While "Titanic" continues to attract the attention of hundreds of millions of people, after more than a month of intensive publicity, the date when Firefly Electronics will release the world's first MP3 player Fireflyer on April 2 is also approaching.
Although it is a brand-new music player product that is completely unfamiliar, under the publicity of Firefly Electronics' generous distribution of 10,000 Fireflyers for free, this MP3 player has already generated strong repercussions all over the United States. After the fireflyer trial lottery ended, users who still want to get this player posted their buying information on the newly emerging trading platforms on the Internet. Some people even raised the price of a Fireflyer to 12 million US dollars.
Traditional music player manufacturers have naturally seen the strong threat that Fireflyer players pose to players such as Walkman and CD players. While obtaining Fireflyer prototypes through various channels for dismantling research, under the instigation of some traditional manufacturers, many The media also began to publicize the threat of Fireflyer, a device that is easy to spread pirated music, to the record industry, and even called on the Recording Association of America to sue Firefly Electronics and directly ban the production and sales of MP3 players.
Under such circumstances, after the Academy Awards ceremony, American pop star Madonna Ciccone started negotiations with Warner Music on the digital distribution rights of her personal records, which instantly attracted the attention of countless media.
Subsequently, the news of Madonna's contact with Eric at the "Vanity Fair" party quickly spread, which also let Warner Music understand the intention of Madonna and Eric who was hiding behind her.
Prior to this, the Yahoo Music Store had not obtained online music sales rights from any of the five major record labels.
Therefore, the major record giants also have a premonition that if Madonna is allowed to succeed, many of their first-line singers will make similar demands. At that time, Yahoo will be able to adopt a strategy of defeating these singers who independently hold digital distribution rights, and the record company will fall into an extremely passive situation.
Warner Music immediately rejected Madonna's application for negotiating digital distribution rights. Roger Eames, President of Warner Music, even stated in a press conference that in order to prevent digital music sales, which are extremely easy to spread, The bad behavior of piracy, Warner Music will do whatever it takes to prevent some singers from attempting to claim digital distribution rights. Digital distribution rights for music should not exist.
But while Warner Records has a tough stance on the surface, it's far from being the case in private.
In 1992, Madonna's career was in full swing. Therefore, although the Cowboy Records Company she established that year was still affiliated with Warner Music Group, she herself had a lot of independent control, and at the same time held all of Madonna's assets for a few years. Distributorship of the record.
In other words, even if Warner Music Group does not agree or even recognize the concept of digital distribution rights, with Madonna's control over Cowboys, the company can still independently authorize the Yahoo Music Store to sell the records released by Madonna under Cowboys in recent years.
The reason why Madonna started negotiations with Warner Records was to get back the digital distribution rights of her multiple records from her debut to 1992, because the copyright of these records did not belong to Cowboy Records, but still held In the hands of Warner Music Group.
The resolute and rough attitude of Warner Records also aroused the rebellious psychology of this stubborn and hot singer.
On the day that Warner Music President Roger Eames made a statement, Madonna publicly stated that she would cooperate with the Yahoo Music Store to sell the three albums held by Cowboy Records online. File a lawsuit.
If it is an ordinary first- and second-tier singer, Time Warner may also use threats such as refrigeration to make them quit.
But at Madonna's level, because the two parties are almost completely in a position of peer-to-peer cooperation, and the relevant contract has little restraint on Madonna, so these tricks against ordinary singers are already very difficult for her. . Warner Music's executives could only sing red faces and white faces in turn, trying to make Madonna dispel the idea of cooperating with the Yahoo Music Store.
Of course, Firefly Electronics and Yahoo will not be indifferent. Under Eric's instruction, Firefly Electronics and Yahoo are also very active in offering various favorable conditions to Madonna.
While keeping a close eye on the music industry, after the Oscars, Eric's work became busy again.
Although there are still two months before the summer file, the promotional work of the summer file has already started in full swing.
This year's summer vacation is not destined to be peaceful. In addition to a series of high-profile live-action blockbusters such as "Casino Royale 007" and "Jedi Men 2", this summer vacation will have three animated films released at the same time, which are produced by Pixar. "Finding Nemo," Blue Sky Studios' "Ice Age," and Paramount Animation's "The Lion King 2."
Obviously, these three major animation films are all closely related to the Firefly Group, and, as the first sequel to "The Lion King" that created a miracle of 900 million US dollars in box office worldwide, "The Lion King 2" is undoubtedly one of the three films. The most powerful one.
When the schedules of the three animated films were announced one after another, Viacom Chairman Summer Redstone even publicly declared with confidence that "The Lion King 2" will kill all "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age". (To be continued.)