Hollywood Hunter

The producer of the original "Terminator 2" was Hollywood's famous waste film industry, Arnold Schwarzenegger not only received Hollywood's first high fixed salary of 15 million US dollars in this project, the film also became Hollywood The first film with a production cost of more than $100 million.

In my memory, the film "Terminator 2" is over a million feet long, and the final material used is less than 1%, which proves how wasteful the film is.

More than one million feet of film actually means a huge expenditure for the film crew to shoot these shots. Once a film crew is started, it will cost tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. A set of shots that could have been shot in three days took six days, and the budget naturally doubled.

From "The Abyss" to "Terminator 2" and then to the famous "Titanic", a series of James Cameron's films have never been completed on time. This is why Cameron has to burn more money than other directors in making movies. The root cause.

Simon and Joe Rose discussed it, only to make sure that Fox continues to keep in touch with Cameron, and can add extra weight to the screenwriter to make the other party a producer. As for Cameron, directing himself is the last resort. At the same time, this project will temporarily not be included in the 10 film plan until all aspects are finalized, so as to avoid the main players from creating prices.

After talking about the matter, Simon returned to the Santa Monica Daenerys Entertainment headquarters. Amy Pascal was already waiting for him with another middle-aged man in his forties and wearing glasses.

After receiving Simon’s advice, Amy has been looking for the heads of Daenerys International and Daenerys Home Entertainment during this time.

Daenerys International has confirmed that Mark Belford, who has been promoted from within the company, will serve as president.

Mark Belford is about the same age as Amy. This young man in his early thirties has not gone to college. After graduating from high school at the age of 18, he was in Hollywood with some family connections.

After joining Daenerys Entertainment last year, Mark Belford accidentally caught Simon's attention, and then performed well in the release of many films such as "Scream" and was quickly promoted.

Hollywood media have different attitudes towards Mark Belford's rocket promotion. Some people commented on Simon's daring to employ people, while others criticized Simon for being too rash. Daenerys Entertainment also inevitably criticized this.

However, less than a month after taking office, Mark Belford quickly took over Daenerys Entertainment's overseas business. During this time, he basically worked as a trapeze in various countries around the world.

In the dispute between Daenerys Entertainment and Alista Records, the suspension of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack album not only did not affect the overseas distribution of the film, but the film’s box office and popularity in various overseas ticket warehouse countries increased against the trend. It is not unrelated to Mark Belford's marketing operations in overseas countries for a month.

This alone made Simon confirm that his choice was correct.

The person in charge of Daenerys International confirmed that the person Simon will meet today is the person in charge of Daenerys Home Entertainment.

Morris Coman, in his forties, is slightly fat, and wears a pair of rimless glasses. He has nothing to do with the king of Hollywood B movies, Roger Coman. He has been working in Columbia Pictures before, and his position is marketing. vice president.

After Sony completed the acquisition of Columbia Pictures, this period of time can be described as a frequent move. It purchased the original MGM Studios in Culver City, merged with Peter Cooper and John Peters’ Cooper-Peters production company, and bought Dissolve all the shares of its subsidiary Samsung Pictures, cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment, sell TV station assets and so on.

At the same time, the original management of Columbia Pictures has also been replaced by Sony.

It was against this background that Maurice Koman resigned, and Daenerys Entertainment officially opted in after a few weeks of negotiations. The position is the president of Daenerys Home Entertainment Company and is mainly responsible for Daenerys Entertainment's Daneli Distribution of video tapes and TV broadcasts of films produced by the two major brands of Silk Film and New World Films.

The determination of the heads of Daenerys International and Daenerys Home Entertainment also means that the power that originally belonged to Robert Rem has been divided into three, and Robert Rem will continue to be in charge of Daenerys in the next two years Domestic distribution of films produced by Film and New World Pictures.

The gap between the two sides has been deep, and Simon has not communicated much with Robert Rem on this matter. The reason why he has not been fired is because of his contribution to Daenerys Entertainment in the past year. Simon is not a person who likes to slay the grind and kill the donkey.

However, this is also on the basis that Robert Rem must complete his work for the next two years with due diligence. If he feels resentment because of the diversion of power and even deliberately messes up Daenerys Entertainment's movie project, Simon will definitely not hesitate to rush people.

In fact, after confirming that Rem's power was divided into three, Simon told Amy to focus on the company's issuing department.

At the end of the meeting with Maurice Koeman, Simon and Amy discussed about Ella Deutschman again.

Ella Deutschman’s one-year probation period is about to end. Although Gaomen Pictures is directly responsible to Simon, Amy will come forward to discuss the formal post-employment salary plan with Deutschman.

After several communications, it was roughly confirmed that Ella Deutschman’s official contract period was 5 years and the basic annual salary was US$300,000. At the same time, Deutschman can also get 5% of the annual net profit of Gaomen Films as a bonus. According to Deutschman’s performance in the past year, Simon’s promised entry bonus last year was also confirmed to be $2 million.

Ella Deutschman’s 5% of Gogate’s net profit sharing seems to be the same as Amy’s, but the difference between the two is actually the difference between a movie’s box office net profit sharing and omni-channel net profit sharing. Moreover, Deutschman's clause does not involve equity awards.

Unknowingly, it was another busy day.

At six o'clock in the afternoon, Simon was about to leave work, and Nancy Brill came to his office.

Put a box of game cassettes on Simon's desk, Nancy sat down opposite, and said: "The game team has adjusted some details again, Simon, you can try it again to see if there is any improvement. "

Blizzard Studio was officially established in February at the beginning of the year, and it has been 8 months.

The normal development time for a game in this era is 3 to 5 months. It’s completely messy to make a game in just 6 weeks like "Alien et", but Blizzard Studio took 8 It took just a month to grind out a game, which also gave Simon a feeling of naming it the wrong way.

The genuine Blizzard is famous for its ticket skipping.

Moreover, the game development plan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was divided into two, one action role-playing type and one fighting type. At this time, Nancy came up with an action role-playing game similar to the Konami version in Simon’s memory. Another fighting game took three months from the initial setting and is still under development.

Bounced tickets naturally means budget overruns.

The original production budget of the two games was 500,000 US dollars. Now, the production budget of this action role-playing game is close to 1 million US dollars. The other combat fighting game, if released early next year, will have a budget of at least 120 Ten thousand dollars, all doubled.

Because it is determined that the action role-playing version will be officially released in early November, Nancy Brill is also promoting it recently, and plans to launch it in Japan and North America at the same time. According to Nintendo’s royalty system, the cost of future game cassette production is also Daenerys Entertainment needs to bear it personally.

Taken together, Daenerys Entertainment's total investment in this game has exceeded 2 million U.S. dollars, which is not counted as other aspects of Blizzard Studios expenditure.

If it weren't for confirming that the quality of the two games was excellent during several trials, Simon would definitely stop the project.

In recent months, it has been used as a "guinea mouse" for trial play more than once. Seeing that Nancy brought another cassette that would obviously not change much, Simon shook his head quickly and said, "There are only three weeks left. It’s released, can I edit it now?"

"The 100,000 cassettes produced in the first batch cannot be changed, but the subsequent ones can be improved."

Simon gestured casually: "Actually, you should try this game with the consumer group, not me."

"Of course, the potential consumers of 8-22 years old are all within the scope of my test, now, you are 21 years old."

Simon interrupted: "How old are you?"

"It's rude," Nancy gave Simon a blank look, got up and pushed the cassette toward Simon, and said, "Anyway, you try again, I'll get off work first."

Simon watched Nancy leave, put the box of game cassettes in his briefcase, and left the office.

In the next few days, Simon was still busy working on various projects, and the undercurrents in the US junk bond market became more and more turbulent.

Friday, October 13th.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, United Airlines held a press conference, announcing that the company was unable to pay off a US$1.5 billion corporate bond on time due to a shortage of cash flow. The management is urgently negotiating all possible financing options and will ensure maximum assurance. The interests of investors.

Of course, the financial market would not believe that United Airlines ensures the interests of investors, so they rushed to sell United Airlines stocks and bonds, which triggered a series of chain reactions.

The long-accumulated crisis in the US junk bond market officially broke out.

Calculating carefully, compared to the sudden Black Monday in 1987, this Black Friday'small collapse' has too many pre-warning signs.

Beginning in the first half of this year, Dechung Securities, where Michael Milken once worked, has been in crisis.

This Wall Street financial giant, which has issued more than $80 billion in junk bonds in the previous ten years, was greatly injured by the various insider trading scandals involving Milken. Many corporate groups that have been working closely with Dechon Securities have also It is no longer possible to obtain capital to support operations through repeated junk bond financing like drinking poison to quench thirst,

At the same time, the market’s enthusiasm for junk bond investment after the 87-share disaster has also dropped significantly. The federal government’s supervision of junk bond financing has become more stringent in the past two years. All these factors are driving the final collapse of the junk bond market.

After the announcement of United Airlines, during the last two hours of trading on Friday, the stock prices of a large number of companies in the North American stock market took a sharp turn. The Dow Jones index plummeted 217 points within two hours, creating October 19, 1987. The second largest one-day decline after 508 points on the day of the Japanese stock market crash.

The S&P 500 index also plummeted by 32 points in the next two hours following the collapse of the market, compared with 286 points at the opening of the day, a drop of 11%. It directly triggered the 10% limit on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's S&P 500 index futures.

As of the close of the day, the stock price of United Airlines at the center of the storm plummeted 21% within two hours, and the price of United Airlines' bonds fell by 27%.

In addition, many other companies, banks and other institutions that issue or hold a large number of junk bonds have also plummeted.

Dechong Securities was the first to bear the brunt. The stock price of the company, which has been declining for the past six months, plunged 19% in just two hours. The share price of Colombian Savings and Credit Bank, which has a long-term close relationship with Dechong Securities, also fell sharply by 16%. .

Gillette Holdings, U.S. Newspaper Group, General Resources, Uniform Oil and Gas, and Reynolds-Nabisco, which just set a record for leveraged buyouts at the beginning of this year, and a long list of well-known American companies have plummeted in stock prices. It shocked countless investors.

Everyone felt that another stock market crash had come.

Fortunately, this time is Friday.

Everyone has two days to discuss coping strategies.

However, compared to two years ago, the federal government’s rescue measures this time were obviously not so strong. The hope of the top U.S. federal leaders who originally thought that they would be able to get funds for emergency response under such a crisis has just been ignited, and it was raised by the Secretary of the Treasury. The statement that the federal government will not pay for highly indebted companies is doomed.

At the same time, more negative news about the junk bond market broke out in two days of the weekend.

The front page of The Wall Street Journal on Saturday is a comprehensive statistical report from the junk bond market. The article pointed out that in the past ten years, the comprehensive yield of junk bonds has increased by only 145%, while the North American stock market's yield has increased by 207% during the same period. Even the US Treasury bond has grown by 177% in the past decade.

Not only that, in the previous ten years, among the 100 randomly selected companies in North America that had issued junk bonds, 24 companies went bankrupt or were unable to meet their repayment obligations like United Airlines. This ratio was five times that of other companies.

The article concluded that the high-risk, high-yield junk bond theory that Michael Milken has been proclaiming for the past ten years is simply wrong.

Therefore, junk bonds actually have no investment value. Many companies are just using a repeated financing method similar to a Ponzi scheme to maintain their apparent prosperity. The debt default of United Airlines was only the beginning of the collapse of the junk bond market after the 10-year boom. In the coming months, more companies and institutions will be dragged down by a large number of worthless junk bonds.

In addition to the "Wall Street Journal"'s overall depreciation on the market level, a lot of negative news about the issuance or holding of a large number of junk bonds has also been exposed.

Dechong Securities was disclosed by the New York Times that its cash flow had fallen from US$1.5 billion at the beginning of the year to less than US$300 million. This Wall Street financial giant, which itself holds a large number of junk bonds and requires a high proportion of funds for turnover, may collapse at any time .

The Columbia Savings and Credit Bank was also exposed by the New York Post that it holds up to $1 billion in United Airlines bonds and is the largest creditor of United Airlines.

As the United Airlines crisis continues, it is conservatively estimated that this bond asset will shrink by more than 50%, and in the worst case, it will even be completely cleared.

The Washington Post also pointed the finger at Reynolds-Nabisco.

After the start-up record of US$25 billion in mergers and acquisitions, Reynolds-Nabisco’s stock price not only did not rise as expected, but it fell by 33% over the past year. The company's market share in the tobacco market has also shrunk sharply, and its market share has shrunk by 8% in less than a year.

Moreover, the merger of Reynolds and Nabisco, both of which were originally profitable, is only expected to lose more than $1 billion this year. In recent months, the company has also laid off 2,300 employees in order to save money. Some High-quality assets have to be sold at low prices because of debt pressure.

All in all, the Reynolds-Nabisco merger was completely a disaster, and only the financial companies that were involved in it had gained huge profits. Commissions paid to Wall Street companies such as kkr, Dechon Securities, and Merrill Lynch Bank for the entire transaction exceeded US$1.5 billion.

Although there is no lack of support for the junk bond market, all these negative reports have severely hit countless investors' confidence that is not so firm under the intensive public opinion bombing.

After the weekend, the media remained noisy, and the North American stock market fell again after the opening on October 16.

The financial market probably also felt the "spearhead" of this crisis. Therefore, in addition to the continued decline in stock prices and bond prices of companies such as United Airlines, the overall situation of the US stock market has stabilized.

As a result, companies such as United Airlines, Dechon Securities, Columbia Savings and Credit Bank are like old, weak, sick and disabled who have been abandoned only from the flock. Cersei Capital and other capital forces behind the scenes continue for several months. After the layout, he began to harvest his hunting results.

Simon knew that this small crash would not last long, so he urged Janet to liquidate the stock index futures contract held by Cersei Capital as soon as possible.

In the following week, only the liquidation of more than 32,000 S&P 500 index futures contracts brought Cersei Capital more than 500 million U.S. dollars in profit, and the delivery of other large stocks and bonds short positions brought gains as high as 1.1 billion U.S. dollars. .

Moreover, the size of this batch of short positions is less than half of all positions of Cersei Capital.

In the next few months, as the domino effect of the North American junk bond market continues, Cersei Capital will continue to make more profitable profits.