On September 5, with the release of Warner Bros.' action film "Muzzle Down" starring Steven Seagal, the 1997 summer vacation officially came to an end.
Overall, this summer has had a miserable start, crushed by "Finding Nemo" and "Casino Royale", two blockbusters with a box office potential of more than 300 million US dollars. Paramount Pictures' "The Lion King 2," which barely broke through $200 million at the North American box office, is by no means a success.
However, entering July, the chaos in the film market has also begun to calm down. Fox's "Ice Age", MGM's "Scream 2", Universal's "Air Force One" and other films have achieved very good box office results.
Among them, the performance of "Ice Age" is undoubtedly the most eye-catching.
This is not only because "Ice Age" finally earned a box office of more than 176 million US dollars in North America at a cost of 59 million US dollars, and this 3D animated film is also the first animated feature film of Blue Sky Animation Studio.
Although it is well known that Blue Sky Studios has received the full technical support of Firefly, as a debut film, it can reap good reviews in North America and a box office that exceeds three times the production cost, which still gives great stimulation to other film companies.
You know, apart from "Casino Royale", the most eye-catching box office performances in this summer are "The Lion King 2", "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age". Just for these three animated films, the total box office of the summer period is close to 600 million US dollars, which is almost a quarter of the total box office of the entire summer period.
Before "Ice Age", although several major Hollywood film companies began to establish their own animation film departments, due to the influence of the concept that 2D animation was monopolized by Disney and 3D animation was monopolized by Pixar, coupled with the long production cycle of animation films, these Film companies all feel that it is very difficult to make a successful animated film.
But now, whether Blue Sky Studios has broken the influence of traditional thinking or is driven by powerful interests, several other major Hollywood film companies have begun to increase investment in their own animation departments.
On the other hand, the brutal fight in June also made Hollywood realize that it can no longer stick to the traditional practice of placing key films before the July 4th American Independence Day, which will only cause very serious internal friction.
The box office performance in overseas markets has further attracted Hollywood's attention.
This year's two billion-dollar box office seeds "Finding Nemo" and "Casino Royale", no matter which one, the overseas box office has obviously surpassed that of the United States, while many media are still thinking about the North American box office of "Casino Royale" breaking the box office record in the first week. When I was amazed, the film's overseas first-week box office has easily reached a height of 13.6 billion US dollars.
In its 13th week of release, "Finding Nemo", whose North American box office has accumulated more than US$3.3 billion, has an overseas box office of US$3.9 billion. At the same time, many overseas markets have not yet been released, and there is still at least US$200 million in box office potential to be tapped in the future. , It is far from entering the mop-up period like North America.
If we push forward further, entering September, "Titanic", which has been completely downgraded worldwide, eventually reached an astonishing figure of US$1.6296 billion in overseas box office, and the film's global total box office finally broke through. an unprecedented $200 million.
The Paramount Act in 1948 and the subsequent rise of the television industry completely ended the prosperous American film industry in the golden age of Hollywood.
However, in recent years, as Hollywood films have frequently created box office miracles around the world, the entire Hollywood has gradually realized that for the American film industry, another new golden age is coming. Moreover, this is an era accompanied by the rapid development of high technology and the ever-changing era of economic globalization. If you cannot catch up with these changes, you are doomed to face the fate of being eliminated again.
Among them, the biggest change is undoubtedly the rapid integration of several major media groups in North America.
I have to say, this is actually a very ironic thing.
The Paramount Act back then was designed to prevent a monopoly giant from having a negative impact on the entire industry. But the result of this move was to severely damage the American film industry. In recent years, the Paramount Act has existed in name only, and several major media giants have even extended their hands to the theater industry that was originally banned, but Hollywood has thus shown a rapid recovery.
With the end of this summer vacation, Hollywood once again started a major event related to the integration of the two major media groups.
Viacom acquired the bs television network, and Seagram acquired the European music giant Polygram.
Viacom's acquisition of bs is almost a well-known thing in Hollywood.
Summer Redstone has been expanding Viacom's TV business non-stop since the 1980s. Firefly and News Corp. jointly suppressed the announcement of "The Lion King 2", resulting in a $300 million North American box office. Unfortunately, the potential 2D animation film finally stopped in the early 200 million, which further stimulated Lei Shidong, making the other party finally determined to start the acquisition of bs.
For Viacom to swallow bs, Eric is very happy to see it.
Public TV stations in North America have already shown signs of decline. In recent years, more and more cable TV stations have continuously robbed a large number of market shares. At the same time, due to the impact of the wave of new technologies, the market value of bs has also been inflated several times. It can be said that at this time Viacom swallowed bs. Will be a big liability for Viacom.
However, Seagram's acquisition of PolyGram was beyond Eric's expectations.
This incident was uncovered only after a reporter from a European newspaper accidentally took a photo of Seagram eo Edgar Bronfman meeting with PolyGram executives.
When Seagram acquired Universal's parent company A, Seagram already owned Universal Music, which is very strong in North America. If Polygram, the largest record company in Europe, is acquired again, Universal Music's strength will far exceed that of the world's top record company Several other record labels.
"Okay, I'll send a plane to Brisbane to pick you up, but don't make too much noise, and, should I give you a kiss... Well, it's good, but it seems to be kissed on the feet, come again... Haha, okay, Don’t make trouble.” In the meeting room of Firefly Studios, Eric had his feet up on the desk and was leaning on the boss’s chair, talking on the phone with Miranda Kerr who was far away in Australia. The office door was pushed open. Elizabeth came in without knocking on the door: "Well, that's it, I have a guest, hang up first, goodbye."
Elizabeth glanced suspiciously at Eric's face who had hung up the phone in a hurry, but found nothing unusual, curled her lips, and sat opposite to herself, holding the pile of documents on Eric's desk into her arms Look inside.
Putting the mobile phone on the desk, Eric sat up straight and looked at Elizabeth who was flipping through a thick stack of documents: "Are you blatantly doing commercial espionage?"
Without raising her head, Elizabeth said, "Hmph, I won't hold you accountable for talking on the phone with those little foxes, yet you dare to be so righteous."
"Recently, I'm planning to take being upright as my motto or something." Eric smiled and took out a pencil from the pen holder, correcting a script in front of him, and said.
The script in his hand was "Desperate Housewives" that he just remembered a few days ago. Eric spent a few hours and briefly wrote a script idea, and then threw it to Mark Che, the original screenwriter of "Desperate Housewives". profit.
Now Mark Cherry is just a very inconspicuous little person in Hollywood. Naturally, he worked hard, and soon wrote the complete story outline of the first season and the script of the first three episodes.
Just after writing a few lines on the script of "Desperate Housewives", Elizabeth burst out laughing on the opposite side.
Eric raised his head: "You are so scary, what if you scare me out of a horror movie script, I have to work hard to write it."
Elizabeth threw the stack of documents in her arms back to the desk, leaving only one file folder, she raised her hand, still with an uncontrollable smile on her face, and said, "This, the script of "Teddy Bear", is really amazing. It's vulgar, who wrote it?"
Eric pointed to himself with a pencil: "Recently, I have a burst of inspiration, and I can't stop it."
Elizabeth subconsciously rolled her eyes, raised the folder in her hand, and said, "I want it."
"Come here and lie down on the table, I'll give it to you."
"Ah bah, you bastard, you don't think of anything good, no wonder you wrote such a vulgar script," Elizabeth picked up a small ornament next to the monitor and threw it at Eric.
Eric reached out to catch the "Resident Evil" Ada Wang figurine holding a crossbow, put it away carefully, and said: "This is out of print, if it breaks, I can only put you on the table as compensation. "
Elizabeth snorted again, shook the "Teddy Bear" script in her hand, and stopped asking for things, just said: "Teddy bear is a plush toy that many children like, you just scribble , is the copyright owner willing?"
"Generally, there are only two reasons why the copyright owner is unwilling. One is that the money is not enough, and the other is that the money is not enough," Eric explained: "Anyway, Firefly has signed a contract with them. After the copyright agreement, how we want to write the script has nothing to do with them."
"Hmph, I don't need to think about it. They must have been tricked by you, thinking that you were going to make "Teddy Bear" into a Disney-style children's feature film. If they knew in advance that the script would be so vulgar, they probably wouldn't kill them." selling."
Eric smiled and said: "That's not necessarily true, it depends on whether the money is paid enough. However, this is a movie made, and it must be rated R. Children can't watch it at all, so they won't be affected. Okay. Now, what's the matter with you, you won't suddenly think that I can't extricate myself and run over here, if I remember correctly, we just met the night before yesterday?"
"Who would miss you?" Elizabeth curled her lips, and took out a file bag from her handbag and handed it over: "This is the script of "Shrek" that Chris Wedge and the others just finished, please help me read it."
Eric reached out to take it, opened it, and said, "Why don't you just send it to my mailbox, how convenient?"
"Everyone is in a hurry. Who knows when it will be sent by e-mail. I don't plan to leave this afternoon. You can read it for me and give suggestions for revision. Well, that's it."
"Okay," Eric nodded with a smile: "Then make me a cup of coffee first, add a piece of sugar, and put more milk."
Elizabeth grabbed the Ada Wang figure again, then stood up and walked out of Eric's office.
After a while, she put the coffee in front of Eric, and she said: "Didn't you say that Seagram is going to buy Polygram recently, don't you feel it at all?"
Eric took the pencil and twirled it in his hand, and asked casually, "How does it feel?"
"I said yes, you have never thought of snatching Polygram. Recently, there have been more remarks saying that irelyer players condone piracy?"
"I only know that the performance of Firefly Records will rise by more than 50% this year. Although the digital music revenue only accounts for 10%, they are smarter and they should know where the future trend is. For new technologies, forcibly blocking only It would kill itself. Perhaps Siemens wants to sell Polygram now because of the rise of digital music in the next few years.”
"Then Seagram is a fool, can't they see this?"
"It's not a question of being stupid or not. Edgar Bronfman can take the position of Seagram eo from his family. I don't think he is too stupid. Of course, I don't think he is too smart. But, just Like Lei Shidong, many people only see the immediate short-term benefits, and are unwilling to think too long-term."
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully, and smiled again: "You are thinking in the long term. Firefly has not expanded in the past two years, and I am afraid that the annual growth rate will soon decline."
Eric approved another line of words on the script in his hand, and continued: "Even if the performance of Firefly Group stops growing, it will be enough for other Hollywood film companies to catch up for several years, not to mention, it is not certain whether it will stop growing. Recently You are not unaware of the economic bubbles of several years. Firefly is not a listed company and cannot enjoy the dividends brought by too many bubbles. Therefore, it is unwise to expand now. After two years, the bubble bursts , is the time for the fireflies to flex their muscles."
"Then what do you think of Seagram's acquisition of PolyGram?"
Eric thought of the original time and space, the integration of the media group was completed, and only the Universal Group continued to change owners in the new century, and said: "Well, I can only say that once Seagram completes the acquisition of PolyGram, in the future This company will become a hot potato, and whoever takes over will be unlucky.” (To be continued.)