Hollywood Hunter

A private airport south of Chicago.

After Daenerys Entertainment’s Falcon business jet landed, Robert Iger and Ira Docman eagerly sent a couple off the plane. The company is here to assist John Hughes in filming "Uncle Buck "The team also specially sent a car to pick up the people, and it seemed meticulous.

After the couple left, Iger and Deutschman boarded the plane again, and the Falcon continued to fly east after taking off.

In the cabin, when the plane stabilized, Ella Deutschman took out a thick list of Oscar judges from his briefcase, opened it, found a name, and noted a few words in the back.

Today is January 23, Monday.

In the previous weekend, Deutschman not only talked about the right to adapt six stage plays, but also hosted a reception aimed at awards and public relations for three consecutive days starting from Friday.

The couple who had just got off the plane and whose husbands were judges of the Oscar Photography Awards stated at the reception on Saturday that they were going back to Chicago today, and Ella Deutschman readily invited them to board the company's private jet.

This kind of small favor does not cost much, but it can leave a very deep impression on the couple.

This year's Oscar nomination has not yet been announced, but Daenerys Entertainment's public relations offensive has already begun.

Robert Rem is busy expanding the overseas distribution channels of Daenerys Entertainment. The nature of the business of Gaomen Films is destined to rely on major film awards to survive. Simon gave the company the award public relations task of several films last year. Ichman.

Fighting for the defeat of "Sex, Lies, and Videotapes", Ira Deutschman realized that his original strategy of buying as many films as possible for distribution would not be so smooth. While adjusting the plan, the public relations results of this awards season will be successful. The key to whether he can be recognized by Simon during the one-year trial period.

During my last trip to the UK and this time on business trip to New York, Ira Deutschman did not forget to visit the award-related contacts accumulated over the years, and at the same time, he was also a professional PR company employed by a remote control company. Working with the awards marketing team can be described as a multi-pronged approach.

The Golden Globe, which is the weather vane of the Oscars, will be held this Saturday, and the corresponding public relations work has also ended. His next focus is on Oscars.

Speaking of, with the current reputation of "Rain Man", under normal circumstances, this movie is destined to be the big winner of the awards season.

However, Simon does not want the director of "Rain Man" Barry Levinson and the actor Dustin Hoffman to win, but he wants to ensure the best film, and also hopes that "Death Poetry Society" can get the best director award. , This is the biggest difficulty of this public relations.

Both Iger and Deutscheman agreed with Simon’s collaborative cooperation mechanism and worked hard for it. Therefore, they get along very well. The three-day wine on weekends will be held at Iger’s house for two days.

The two chatted all the way to work. Two hours later, the Falcon business jet landed again. This time it was still not Los Angeles, but Salt Lake City, Utah.

The 5th Sundance Film Festival opened last Friday. Although knowing that any film the company currently sees may be scrambled by other studios, Deutschman still intends to see if there are any outstanding films at this festival. The film or the cutting-edge filmmaker worthy of winning.

Moreover, there should be no shortage of Oscar judges who can contact each other in person.

Simon's explanation to Deutschman is step by step.

More than 3,000 Oscar judges, one by one wins, one by one public relations, one by one to establish contact, one day they will be able to fully understand.

The reason why the Weinstein brothers in the original time and space were invincible at the Oscars was not because the brothers put a lot of energy into public relations every year. The most important thing was the deep-rooted strong connections and deep influence accumulated over the years.

The Falcon business jet finally arrived at Los Angeles Santa Monica Airport around 11:30.

Iger sent the two entourage employees to Burbank, and came to Daenerys Entertainment headquarters by himself. Amy's assistant Vanessa was already waiting for him.

After a brief greeting, Vanessa said: "Please come with me, Mr. Iger, Ms. Pascal is attending a meeting, and she said you can go directly to the meeting room after you come."

Iger was a little unsure, so he followed Vanessa to a small meeting room in the company's office building.

Pushing the door in, Nancy saw Iger in front of the slideshow, paused to explain temporarily, and said hello: "Good morning, Bob."

"Good morning," Iger nodded to Nancy, then shook hands with Amy who had gotten up, and sat down beside her, and said to Nancy: "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Nancy, please continue."

Vanessa handed a piece of information to Iger, and Nancy continued: "Two years ago, Blockbuster won the game leasing lawsuit with Nintendo and gained the right to sell and rent game cassettes. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" "After the development is completed, we can also use Blockbuster’s channels to distribute goods, and we will be able to take the initiative in North American channels and marketing."

After listening to Nancy's introduction, Iger quickly flipped through the information that Vanessa had handed over.

It turned out that this is a Nintendo fc game platform "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video game development plan. Seeing this, Iger couldn't help but think of the Atari collapse a few years ago.

Atari was originally a game console and software development company under Warner Bros. In 1977, the Atari 2600 game console launched by Atari quickly became popular in the United States. At its peak, it even reached one Atari game for every three American families. The popularity of the machine.

However, after the success of Atari 2600, Warner began frantically squeezing profits from this game platform, unrestrainedly allowing various types of game manufacturers to develop a large number of low-quality games. Countless low-quality games flood the market and continue to consume the patience of users.

In the end, the "Alien et" video game developed by Warner in 1982 in 6 weeks became the fuse that triggered a collapse.

Users who continue to be devastated by various low-quality games originally thought that the reputation of "Alien et" and the games produced by Warner's official brand must have quality assurance. As a result, the quality of "Alien et" was so low that it was horrible, even There are many low-level bugs that will not appear in the most inferior games.

As a result, only 1.5 million copies of the 4 million cassettes Warner prepared for "Alien et" were sold, and the rest were sent to the garbage dump for direct destruction.

But this is not the most serious.

After that incident, users completely abandoned Atari.

The sales of Atari game consoles and software showed a cliff-like decline in the following years. The game market scale of more than US$3 billion in the early 1980s even shrank to US$100 million in the coldest period of 1985.

Some analysts believe that it will take at least 20 years for the North American video game market to recover.

However, after the short ‘ice period’ in the market, Nintendo, which learned the lessons of Atari’s collapse, gradually filled the North American market vacancy left by Atari’s collapse through a series of restrictive measures to strictly control game quality, such as the royalty system.

In recent years, the North American video game market has resumed its recovery. Of course, this field has unfortunately become the world of Japanese companies.

Nancy in front of the stage ended the introduction, discussed a few words with Amy, and humbly asked Iger's opinion.

The total budget that I started with was only 2 million U.S. dollars, but I made a full 28-page planning plan. Iger thought about it and asked: "Nancy, it takes 200,000 to buy the video game development rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". US dollars, but you only plan to make this game with a budget of 500,000 US dollars. Can the quality be guaranteed?"

Of the total budget of 2 million U.S. dollars, 200,000 U.S. dollars is used to purchase the video game development rights of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", 500,000 U.S. dollars for production, 300,000 U.S. dollars to maintain the company's daily operations, and the final 1 million U.S. dollars is after the game development is completed. Production and marketing expenses.

Nancy nodded earnestly, and said: "The main expenditure for video game development is labor. Since the field of video game development is involved for the first time, I only planned to set up a studio with about 10 people in the early stage. The budget of $500,000 is sufficient."

Iger asked: "Marvel’s "Spider-Man", "Fantastic Four" and other superheroes are also very suitable for adaptation into games, and they are more famous than "Teenage Ninja Turtles", why choose "Ninja God" "Turtle"?"

Nancy shook her head and said, "I tried to talk to Simon, and he said no."

Iger was puzzled: "Huh?"

Nancy was a little helpless: "Simon seems to be very fond of Marvel and didn't give me any room to discuss. I also talked to him about "Lord of the Rings" but was rejected, and "Lola Run", he has The copyright was packaged and sold. It just so happened that the company recently set up a live-action movie "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". After researching, I found that its character setting is very suitable for adapting to a horizontal version of a fighting game. After contacting Mirage Studios, they Before I sold the game development rights for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I bought it."

Iger is not familiar with the field of video games, and since Nancy has considered all the problems she can think of in a short time, she didn't rush to make any comments.

Everyone chatted a few more words, it was noon, so we rushed to the nearby restaurant to have dinner together.

Just recently completed the investment in Blockbuster, Nancy quickly came up with another plan, which once again brought a lot of pressure to Amy.

Amy has actually considered getting involved in the development of video games, but has no time to promote it.

Now, Nancy has come up with this plan, after the establishment of the game studio will also be linked to the consumer goods department, rather than the direct departments of companies such as Daenerys Special Effects and Pixar Animation. If successful, Nancy's credit will definitely be the greatest. Even if it fails, the loss of 2 million US dollars is really irrelevant to Daenerys Entertainment.

Therefore, at lunch, although trying not to show herself, Amy inevitably gets closer to Iger.

The gentle Iger is far less energetic and aggressive than Nancy.

Obviously, it is impossible for Amy to know what Simon expected of Iger.

The consumer goods department managed by Nancy is far from comparable to the TV department in terms of revenue. Moreover, the consumer goods department is located in Los Angeles, and is destined to be under the control of the parent company at all times. Iger, who alone controls the TV department on the east coast, is completely at the level of a ‘frontier official’.

I chatted for a while, although I was dining, I quickly talked about work.

Daenerys Entertainment's TV series are mainly produced on the West Coast. With the advent of the TV spring season, Iger will start flying to Los Angeles every week. This time, apart from the preparation of a few TV series, there are more important things.

"About "Who Will Be a Millionaire", Tom invited me to dinner yesterday at noon. He said that if we are unwilling to make concessions, ABC can only reduce the number of episodes in the second season and adjust the screening time. ," Iger finished, noting Nancy's puzzled eyes, and explained: "ABC Chairman, Tom Murphy."

Nancy nodded and did not answer.

Amy asked, "What about the conditions?"

Iger said: "The quotation for each issue is halved, and abc will also participate in the revenue sharing of the advertising placement in the program."

Amy frowned suddenly and said: "This, Simon should not agree."

Nancy looked around and couldn't help asking Iger, "Bob, how much profit do we make on "Who Will Be a Millionaire"?"

As the head of the consumer goods department, Nancy is very clear about the revenue data of peripheral products of "Who Will Be a Millionaire". However, the company's annual financial audit has not yet ended, and she does not know the total revenue of this phenomenon-level popular reality show.

Faced with Nancy’s inquiry, Iger did not hide it, saying: “According to last year’s financial data, it was about 180 million US dollars. If you calculate the entire first quarter, it’s about 250 million US dollars.”

Nancy's eyes widened a little, her red lips slightly open.

She felt that she might have heard it wrong, or Iger had explained it wrong, so she asked: "Total revenue?"

Iger shook his head: "Net profit."

Nancy always felt that she would not be surprised by anything, but this time she couldn't help taking a deep breath.

Slowly exhaling a big breath, she still didn't believe it, staring at Iger intently and said: "250 million dollars, how is this possible?"

Being able to make a beautiful woman show a surprised expression is still very satisfying for a man’s vanity. Iger showed some smiles on his face and patiently explained: “Compared to the TV series with only 13 or 26 episodes per season, "Who Will Be a Millionaire" There are 69 issues in one season, and the transaction price for each issue is 2 million US dollars. In the first season of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", according to the settlement rules we negotiated with abc, after the winter break, abc has paid us 8300 for the first season Ten thousand US dollars in purchase costs, including the additional 15 pre-season of 30 million US dollars, but this part of the revenue reached 110 million US dollars. In addition, the total revenue of in-program advertising placement is 56 million US dollars, and the syndicate distribution and overseas licensing income is about 27 million US dollars."

Nancy listened attentively, and quickly reported the final statistics: "Total revenue totals 196 million U.S. dollars and net profit 180 million, which is really reasonable. Oh my God, no wonder our little boss is so splurge, Daenerys Entertainment's financial situation But it’s always healthy, it’s so profitable."

Moreover, as thinking further deepened, Nancy also immediately discovered the problem.

As far as she knows, the nbc television network is the best operating among the four major television networks.

The fiscal year cycles of the four major television networks are basically calculated from the last quarter of each year.

According to General Electric’s public financial data, affected by the screenwriter’s strike last year, the nbc television network’s total revenue for the 1987-1988 fiscal year was 3.3 billion U.S. dollars, but its net profit was only 310 million U.S. dollars, compared with 3.8 in the previous year. 100 million US dollars fell sharply and the profit margin was less than 10%.

After careful consideration, the season of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" can bring Daenerys Entertainment a net profit of 250 million US dollars, but there is no problem.

The TV network operates seven days a week, and the total number of prime time programs is about 20 or 30.

However, just like the movies produced by Hollywood studios every year, these TV shows are definitely a small part of profit or loss, and most of them basically keep balance. Coupled with the huge basic operating expenses of a national TV network, it is very rare to be able to earn 310 million US dollars a year like nbc.

Look at "Who Will Be a Millionaire" again. This program occupies the most golden three-day eight o'clock of the seven days a week, and it is a one-hour program. Because of the phenomenon-level ratings data, its advertising revenue scale is completely equivalent to the studio's most profitable box office hits of 100 million yuan each year.

Compared with abc's comprehensive investment in operating a national television network, as a producer, Daenerys Entertainment only has to bear a total of only about 20 million US dollars in production costs and a small amount of early marketing expenses.

Taken together, the revenue scale of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is only about 10% of the total revenue of the TV network, but like a big, low-cost and high-box office movie, the profit margin of this show exceeds 90%.

Therefore, to occupy the highest quality resources and take the most generous profits without sharing the huge operating expenses and loss-making project costs of the abc TV network, Daenerys Entertainment is naturally making money and making money.

Thinking of this, Nancy immediately asked Iger again: "Bob, how much can ABC earn on this project?"

Iger thought for a while, and said: "If you only count this program, it's probably $80 million."

Upon hearing this, Nancy glanced around between Amy and Iger, and pulled the corners of her mouth to make a weird face.

Amy and Iger also looked at each other speechlessly.

Daenerys Entertainment has earned 250 million yuan. As a platform owner, abc, which should have been in a strong position, has only $80 million in profit margins, which is less than one-third of Daenerys Entertainment's. Anyone who changes will turn his face. .

Tom Murphy was able to negotiate with Daenerys Entertainment patiently, mainly because ABC is really inseparable from "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

Although the average viewing data of a single program is firmly suppressed by "Survivor", compared to the 13 issues of "Survivor" each season, "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is 3 issues a week.

With the ultra-high ratings data of "Who Will Be a Millionaire", in terms of TV network's comprehensive ratings share, abc, which was originally only stronger than the emerging fox among the four major TV networks, went through last year's autumn file and has already ranked first. The nbc TV series faintly showed a go-ahead attitude.

Under such a good situation, abc absolutely dare not abandon "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

But at the same time, if Daenerys Entertainment is unwilling to make compromises and the distribution of benefits is severely unbalanced, as long as the abc management has a little foresight, the TV network will definitely get rid of the "Who Will" at all costs. "Become a millionaire" dependence.

Everyone was silent for a moment, and Amy finally said: "Simon will decide this matter personally, Bob, you can talk to abc again, and then write a report and send it to Melbourne."

Iger nodded, it was a big deal, and it can only be so right now.