I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 1226

[Chapter 1191 This river is mine]

Although he will tend to the interests of the Firefly system as much as possible, Eric does not have the ambition to completely monopolize the 3D market, which is actually impossible.

After all, polarized 3D is indeed not too difficult a technology. In addition to IMAX, there are other giant screen forms in the industry.

If the Firefly system attempts to monopolize, the result will only result in the emergence of other different 3D and giant screen formats.

The competition of different standards will undoubtedly consume the resources of the entire Hollywood, which is also not conducive to the healthy development of 3D and giant-screen movies.

Therefore, during this time, Firefly Group has made preliminary pricing for opening 3D conversion and IMAX conversion to other production companies in the future.

In order to raise the threshold of the industry and achieve the purpose of filtering low-quality film sources as much as possible, RealD’s fee for converting ordinary 2D movies into 3D movies will be 30,000 US dollars per minute. For IMAX, the 2D version of IMAX format conversion is 10,000 US dollars per minute. USD, the 3D version charges double to $20,000.

This means that, based on the average Hollywood film length of 2 hours, if you want to release 3D and 3DIMAX versions, only the initial conversion cost will reach 6 million US dollars.

Although in the future, by reducing the scale of 3D and IMAX film layout and reusing copies at home and abroad, film companies can save expensive 3D and IMAX film copy budgets to a large extent, but the initial conversion cost is absolutely unavoidable.

At the same time, due to the potential barriers of double-D certification, it will be difficult for other 3D production companies to squeeze into the film source conversion market, and the Firefly system can actually control the development trend of the entire 3D and IMAX film industry from the source.

Katzenberg had to rush to the Burbank Group headquarters. The two exchanged for a while, and they parted on the corridor between the administrative area and the studio area. Eric turned to his office in the administrative area.

Turning on the computer and sitting down behind the desk, Eric opened the box-office prospect evaluation report for the year-end film that was just completed by the company’s distribution department.

The films on the two popular schedules of Thanksgiving and Christmas have long been determined, and it was only with the gradual disclosure of a series of film previews and audience evaluations that the distribution department came out with relevant reports.

Today is November 9th.

Before that, New Line Cinema’s Reaper 3 and Universal’s Human Bones were released two weeks before and after Halloween on October 29 and November 5, respectively.

As a classic horror film brand of the new line, Death Comes 3 maintains the consistent style and standard of the series, and the box office is therefore quite stable.

With a production cost of US$25 million, the box office reached US$25.71 million in the first week. It

is expected that the total box office in North America will exceed US$50 million, and there is not much suspense at the global box office.

In comparison, Universal Pictures’ Human Bone Puzzle, starring black superstar Denzel Washington, cost as much as $73 million to make, but only $16.72 million at the box office during the first weekend of November 5th to November 7th. Zhou is also expected to make only $23 million at the box office, which is about $2 million more than Death Comes.

Eric flipped through the documents in his hand and found that from the human bone puzzle to the hurricane on the last day of December 29RB, Universal Pictures will release five films by the end of this year.

The Hurricane, also starring Denzel Washington, is actually a biopic with a somewhat disaster-like name, costing $38 million.

Universal Pictures positioned the film as an award-winning film.

However, judging from the response from some other film festivals in the early stage, the quality of the hurricane is obviously not satisfactory, and Eric does not have much information about the award-winning film in his memory.

In addition to the Human Bone Puzzle and Hurricane, Universal Pictures will also launch three films in succession: The Devil’s Doom starring Schwarzenegger, The Man on the Moon starring Jim Carrey and Ethan Hawke’s Snowflake in Love in the Cedar Tree.

Combined with some recent movements of Seagram Group, it is clear that Michael Eisner arranged such an intensive distribution plan in order to maximize the performance of Universal Pictures in 1999 and to maintain his position in the process of changing owners of Universal Pictures. chips.

However, whether it is based on Eric’s own memory or the assessment of Firefly’s distribution department, the five films before and after do not have much potential for box office hits.

Moreover, judging from the details of the production cost of $73 million for the human bone puzzle and $38 million for the hurricane, Michael Eisner is obviously trying to control the cost as much as possible, but the effect is obviously not ideal.

Among them, the production cost of Schwarzenegger’s Doomsday still soared to 100 million US dollars, and Jim Carrey’s Man on the Moon also spent 82 million US dollars.

The Ethan Hawke romance film Love Snowflakes in the Cedar Trees, which Eric had never heard of, had a budget of $35 million that seemed outrageous.

A few months ago, Universal Pictures, with its big-selling Mummy 3 and Notting Hill, was almost on par with Fox in terms of box office share in the summer season, and second only to Firefly Group.

But it is clear that these five films that seem to be in a hurry at the moment are likely to drag down the overall performance of Universal Pictures this year.

Speaking of which, this state actually has a lot to do with the Firefly system.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Denzel Washington are obviously superstars with very low cost performance in Hollywood.

In recent years, due to the Firefly system’s strong suppression of superstar remuneration and cost-control production strategies, many A-list stars who insist on their worth can only turn to Warner when they cannot reach cooperation with Firefly, Fox, MGM and most recently Columbia Pictures. , Universal and Paramount, as well as some other independent production companies with capital strength.

After all, the concept of star core system that has been formed in Hollywood for a long time cannot be changed overnight. The prosperity of Hollywood in recent years has also made film financing very easy.

As a result, the other three and some of the capital that entered the Hollywood gold rush also took all the stars who turned to themselves.

Continue to provide them with huge salaries, and continue to produce films of varying quality but high cost.

In addition to these films from Universal, as far as Eric knows, due to the great success of Dad’s rush to the box office in the summer, Warners directly offered $20 million plus box office share for Adam Sandler’s new film The Devil’s Successor. Huge paycheck and a production budget of $85 million.

The production cost of Will Smith and Warner’s Raiders has also begun to overrun, and Tom has maintained the position of the highest paid brother of Paramount in recent years.

Speaking of which, in the past, even after many years, although cases have proved that superstars with outrageous remuneration are not indispensable, Hollywood has not completely changed the concept of chasing superstars at all costs.

While flipping through the documents in his hand, he was thinking about these questions when someone knocked on the door of the office. Eric responded, and Mayer walked in with a document in his hand.

Handing a blue folder to Eric, Mayer said: “Eric, there is news from Canada that the Nokia team has officially negotiated an acquisition agreement with RIM, and the transaction price is 200 million. $60 million, which is about the same price as the beginning of the year, but 27% higher than RIM’s current market value.”

RIM was naturally the brand-holding company for BlackBerry, and in Eric’s memory, RIM did not sell the company until many years later. The name is unified with the BlackBerry.

During this period of time, the Firefly system was basically implementing the buy-buy-buy model. For RIM’s acquisition of less than $300 million, the expansion plan of the entire Firefly system was not even worth mentioning.

However, due to Eric’s emphasis on BlackBerry, Nokia is also very concerned about this acquisition.

With the departure of Yoma Ollila last year, Eric has also been strengthening his control over Nokia to prevent Nokia from continuing on the old path.

Opening the document, Eric read the terms of the deal between Nokia and BlackBerry, noticed Mayer’s slim figure across the desk, looked up at the girl, and said, “So, you really don’t think about staying with me anymore. Are you there?”

Mayer stared at the man across from the desk with a hint of reluctance in his eyes.

With the explosion of gravitational word of mouth, during this period, Eric once again became the focus of many media and theories.

Or, this man has always been so dazzling, just like the sun, many people usually don’t look at the sky, but occasionally look up, they can always notice a flash of light.

After a moment of silence, Mayer continued: “I have discussed with Mr. McNally, I will first go to the YOS system R&D department to work as a software engineer for a period of time, re-familiarize myself with all technical details, and transfer to it in three months. Go to the hardware department.”

Listening to Mayer’s well-organized career plan, Eric understood that the girl had made up her mind, so he stopped persuading him, but still smiled: “I’m not reconciled, I really want to keep you tied to my side. ”

You,” Mayer paused, and said, “You can find another one.”

“No more,” Eric shook his head and smiled, “I’m quite a nostalgic person. Let Carly follow me alone, of course, let me know when you want to come.”

Mayer hesitated, nodded slightly, but said nothing.

Eric has already discussed in detail several times about RIM’s arrangement with Nokia CEO Oleklars Suou, and even involved the details of changing RIM’s name directly to BlackBerry.

Therefore, after carefully reading the acquisition agreement between Nokia and BlackBerry, and signing the direct name, Eric will temporarily let go of this matter, and Nokia will naturally complete the layout of the BlackBerry mobile phone according to the established plan that has been discussed.

Elizabeth called to say that the design draft of Eric’s estate in Tasmania, Australia, had been completed.

After Eric got off work, he rushed to Elizabeth and Julia’s mansion on the top of Beverly Hills.

During this time, although Eric and the girl have already arrived in Los Angeles, Eric’s agent in Australia has been in charge of contacting him to acquire the Tasmania land parcel.

Compared with Eric’s current net worth, the land in Tasmania, Australia, which is not of high economic value in all aspects, can be said to be extremely cheap.

The 200 square kilometers previously purchased by Eric is equivalent to about 50,000 acres of land, and the cumulative expenditure is less than 60 million US dollars.

After several months of continuous acquisitions, Eric’s land in Tasmania has exceeded 1,000 square kilometers.

However, with the exception of a few pastures, most of the others are native woodlands in Tasmania, and even have a hint of virgin forest.

It is said that there are wild platypus in the woodland.

Although the only egg-laying mammal found on earth has very high biological research value, it is not actually an endangered species, and it is relatively common in Australia.

After buying a large number of plots, it is naturally impossible not to carry out development and transformation at all.

In many people’s minds, Australia seems to be very strict with environmental protection requirements, but in fact it is just the opposite.

If it hadn’t been bought by Eric, the large area of virgin forest adjacent to the land that Eric had purchased in advance would have even been included in the logging plan.

In comparison, Eric, who prefers to maintain a complete virgin forest, is more like an environmentalist. In fact, Eric is indeed an environmentalist in his bones, but he is not extreme.

Although the land would not be extensively remodeled, after discussions with the women, Eric decided to build a Williams family holiday estate there.

As a local snake in Australia, Eric also unceremoniously entrusted this matter to Elizabeth and asked her to help him contact the designer and engineering team locally.

“Look, the address they picked is right here, with Arthur HB to the south and a hill to the west, and the interstate two kilometers to the west. Here are pictures of the surroundings, and some drafts,” to Elizabeth’s house, Julia While preparing dinner for everyone, Eric and the girl sat in the living room looking through a large stack of materials from Australia.

After a brief introduction, Elizabeth still said: “Actually, if you want to buy land, Queensland is the best choice, even Victoria is good, why choose Tasmania, there are not many there Individuals?”

“There are only a few people in Australia, right?” Eric looked at the draft of the designer’s manor and said, “Also, I hope that the less people are, the more empty the better.”

Elizabeth lost Ai Rick rolled his eyes and said, “If you really lived there for a while, you would never think so.”

“No one has ever thought about living there forever, UU reading www.sonicmtl.com The land belongs to me. Well, you can go to play at any time.”

Elizabeth pretended to be disdainful: “What fun.”

Eric thought for a while, pointed to the map on the coffee table, and smiled: “Look, Here, this river is mine, well, I’m going to buy that mountain to the east as well. Compared to your Lanai, this island is mine, this mountain is mine, listen, Which is more imposing?”

Elizabeth slapped Eric with a smile and said, “Actually, Dad doesn’t want that island much anymore, and he doesn’t necessarily go there once in a few years.”

Eric remembered some of the later The matter, said: “Then sell it. However, I will definitely not buy it. I am not interested in the island at all. If it is Tasmania, I can consider it.

” The news that Nye was bought by Larry Ellison was heavily hyped.

But in fact, Lanai originally belonged to the Murdoch family.

It’s interesting to think about the corporate attributes between News Corp and Oracle, the contrast between the low profile of the Murdoch family and the high profile of Larry Ellison.

)!!

[End of this Chapter]