Hollywood Hunter

Giant-level corporate mergers are very cumbersome. Early financial and legal feasibility assessments, detailed acquisition plan negotiations after the official launch, corporate assets and debt review after the agreement is reached, etc., usually take at least several months or even It takes one or two years to complete it.

Panasonic began contacting Michael Ovitz after Sony acquired Columbia Pictures at the end of last year, and also hoped to acquire a major Hollywood studio.

The Japanese stock market has fallen by more than 30% in the past six months. However, Panasonic, which has accumulated large amounts of US dollar cash in these years, did not dispel the idea of ​​acquisition.

For half a year, in order to keep it as confidential as possible, when Michael Ovitz led the team to and from Tokyo and Los Angeles many times, he even prohibited the staff from revealing the specific business trip itinerary to his family. One of his deputy returned from Tokyo to bring one for his wife. The kimono had to be pretended to be bought in London.

Unexpectedly, after a hundred secrets were sparsed, the matter was still leaked out in advance.

The CAA headquarters in Century City.

Michael Ovitz had a busy day yesterday, venturing with Panasonic, looking for reasonable excuses, contacting the media, and agreeing with the team members, confirming the plan to deny the report of the Los Angeles Times, and finally personally reviewing the media bulletin, it was late at night.

I still arrived at the company before eight o'clock today.

After finishing the regular new week high-level meeting, and discussing today's media feedback and next steps with the members of the acquisition team, the time has come to 9:30.

Back in his office, Michael Ovitz browsed today's work schedule and asked his assistant if he had arranged lunch with Dustin Hoffman at noon.

Last year, due to the pressure of Westeros, Ovitz had been trying to help a few people to maintain their careers, and it was free, which greatly reduced the impact of the contract. The negative impact caused by CAA.

Dustin Hoffman's ability to join "Captain Hawk" this time, as well as Terry Semel and Peter Cooper's personal talk about the project, are the results of Ovitz's operation behind the scenes.

Of course, the four people who terminated the contract last year actually saved only three.

Westeros suppressed Meg Ryan at all in order to kill the chickens and the monkeys on the long-term contract, and Ovitz had nothing to do about it.

Talking about lunch arrangements, Ovitz was about to start other work today, and the assistant handed him a box office report for the past weekend and said: "Mr Ovitz, maybe you should look at this."

Michael Ovitz took the box office report, sent the assistant away, looked down at it, and quickly showed a look of surprise on his face.

In the past weekend, because the two new films "Presumed Innocence" and "Prince of the Forest" did not perform well at the box office, the second week of the painting, "Total Memories" dropped 41% year-on-year, but still sold $15.06 million at the box office. Easily won the average position of the box office list for the three days of the weekend.

Ten days after its release, the cumulative box office of "Total Recall" also broke the 50 million mark in one fell swoop, reaching 51.14 million US dollars.

Of course, such data does not surprise Ovitz.

What Michael Ovitz didn't expect was the second-place name on the list, "Human and Ghosts Are Coming."

The opening of the painting entered the second week, the first week of the first week of the release, the word-of-mouth and box office did not meet many people's expectations. Daenerys Entertainment's summer opening film "Human and Ghosts Are Coming", not only did not appear in the box office the following weekend. Fell sharply, but rose against the trend.

Compared with the $12.19 million in the first week's three-day box office, the box office of "Human and Ghosts Is Coming" dropped 2.7% in the next three days at the end of the week, and received another 12.52 million dollars.

2.7%, this number seems insignificant, but Michael Ovitz is very clear that media reputation is only general, it is very difficult for a movie to achieve a reverse decline.

"Human Ghost Love Is Not Over" did it.

Again.

In the same period last year, "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural", due to the explosion of word-of-mouth and super-high topicality, it was only natural for the next week to achieve a decline.

Now, what's going on in "Human Ghost Love Is Not Yet"? !

Michael Ovitz's doubts are probably a problem that the entire Hollywood is paying attention to early this morning.

You know, just such a seemingly inconspicuous reversal, the box office curve of "Human Ghosts Are Not Over" was directly pushed up. This movie, which was predicted by many media to only have a local box office of 60 million US dollars, is almost certain to hit the billion-dollar box office club.

Even, it may eventually surpass "Total Recall".

This is really surprising.

As a result, the media and other Hollywood studios began to pay attention to why this happened.

The plot of "Human Ghosts Are Unending" brought countless viewers to tears...

"Unrestrained Melody" resonated with countless people...

Another transmission effect...

all in all.

The audience loves this movie!

This is the most important and direct reason, the reason why countless filmmakers can't ask for it.

The media swarmed up and began to report on the spectacle of "Human and Ghost". When Hollywood was looking for ideas similar to this movie, many people thought of their initial mentality when "Human and Ghost" was released, and they laughed at themselves. Nelise Entertainment, deep in my heart can not help but produce a sense of powerlessness as your uncle or your uncle.

On Sunday, I discussed with Daenerys Entertainment's senior executives about how to deal with MCA's acquisition of MCA in advance. As CAA denied the matter in the media, Simon's mind turned to other issues in his hands.

However, despite CAA's public denial, starting on Monday and in the following days, MCA's stock price rose to a high of $52. Obviously, a lot of capital has already begun to enter the market at this time.

If Daenerys Entertainment has no plans to acquire MCA, Cersei Capital can now start to absorb the company's stock on a large scale. After Panasonic's acquisition of MCA is completed, it will definitely make a lot of money.

Now, such an opportunity can only be given up.

Speaking carefully, as long as no one is serious, this is not actually insider trading. However, Cersei Capital is already too eye-catching in the eyes of many people. Simon believes that if this is done, someone will definitely treat Cersei Capital ‘really’.

Over there in Silicon Valley.

Because the number of AOL access users exceeded expectations in May, AOL management predicts that only in the second half of this year, the number of users accessing the World Wide Web through the company may reach 500,000.

Moreover, other ISPs outside of the US Online Services area have begun to contact Eaglet, which holds the core patents of the World Wide Web. After accumulating for so many years, the base of Internet users across the United States is actually very large. If all of them switch to the World Wide Web, the number of World Wide Web users nationwide will definitely be far more than 500,000 by the end of this year.

Therefore, both AOL and Eaglet began planning to expand their own data centers and line networks.

Eaglet’s current two data centers on the east and west coasts can only carry 400,000 user visits. This time, Eaglet plans to build two 300,000 user-level data centers on the east and west coasts respectively, making the company The number of visits that the server can carry extends to millions.

The main expansion of AOL is its own basic line network.

Although it is impossible to build a nationwide network transmission channel without a billion-dollar investment, it is just investing in the backbone optical network of the east and west coasts, and AOL's own funds are still sufficient. Simon does not plan to inject capital to dilute other shareholders' equity in the short term. If necessary, AOL's next phase of financing will be in the form of loans.

In terms of Internet cafes, after confirming the Internet cafe model and business model, 100 Internet cafes are expected to open one after another around the end of July.

AOL owns 60% of its subsidiary'InternetBar', and the basic cost of each Internet cafe is more than US$100,000. However, AOL’s own investment is actually only US$3.5 million. Others have sponsors and IBM. Subsidiary investment funds undertake.

Daenerys Studios in Malibu.

The time is Wednesday, June 13.

"Human Ghost Love Is Unexpected" sold out at the box office unexpectedly. Although the previous weekend's three-day box office still fell the first place in "Total Memories" for nearly 3 million US dollars, after entering the working day, "Human Ghost Is Unexpected" Because of the further increase in media enthusiasm and audience reputation, the single-day box office has achieved a surpassing "Total Recall".

Simon did not relax.

Daenerys Entertainment's first of the 10 film plans last year, "Sleep with the Enemy", will be released on June 15. However, in the previous consecutive internal trial screenings of this film, the evaluations given by the media who participated in the viewing were very low, and the trial screening by the general audience did not generate too good feedback.

Daenerys Entertainment's 10 film plans are very much anticipated by Hollywood and ordinary audiences.

Now, Daenerys Entertainment's "Human and Ghosts", which is solely operated by Daenerys Entertainment, has shown signs of big sales. If the external cooperation of "Sleep with the Enemy" fails at the box office, not only the audience will lose the follow-up films of the 10 film plans It is expected that other Hollywood studios will inevitably have different ideas.

Of course Simon can't control the audience's feedback on the film.

However, many Hollywood studios have been tied to the same boat by 10 film plans. This time, manipulate the media's evaluation of "Sleep with the Enemy" to ensure an evaluation above the passing line. The problem remains Not big.

Therefore, just after the new week, Simon began to contact Daenerys Entertainment's media contacts accumulated over the past few years, and also asked Fox and even the participants of the other 10 film projects to work together. Everyone knows that "Sleep with the Enemy" is unfavorable, and the other 10 film projects that have already produced a brand effect in the minds of the audience will be affected.

Conference room on the top floor of Office Building No. 1 on the fifth floor of the administrative district.

This is what the publishing teams of Daenerys Entertainment and Fox Pictures are discussing. Simon, Amy Pascal, and Fox’s Joe Rose all participated in the meeting.

After the busy days in the past few days, with the help of Daenerys Entertainment and other connections in Hollywood, Fox’s distribution team has completed the “Los Angeles Times”, “New York Times”, “Chicago Tribune” and “San Francisco Chronicle”. The trend of film reviews in four mainstream newspapers on the east and west coasts.

The two professional media "Hollywood Reporter" and "Variety Show" also agreed to give a relatively loose evaluation.

In addition to these influential paper media platforms, the team also contacted a group of well-known film critics such as Roger Albert, and these people have also accepted it.

In general, there will be no evaluations that are too high, but a passing score of 6 or more is absolutely fine.

Simon doesn't worry that this manipulation of film reviews will leak out. To put it bluntly, this is actually a kind of public relations, and it is not the first time that it has happened in Hollywood. Moreover, although he is still a new Hollywood player, Simon knows that this kind of thing must not be abused.

Therefore, before "Sleep with the Enemy", other films produced by Daenerys Entertainment have not conducted similar public relations.

Occasionally, as long as it is not too ordinary, in fact, newspapers and film critics are also very happy to give the Hollywood giant a face. Even if it is exposed, because it does not involve substantial money transactions, there is no shady inside story, but the tacit understanding formed by people drinking coffee or talking on the phone will not cause much disturbance.

There are a large number of paper media platforms in the United States, but only those with great influence. Small and medium-sized paper media platforms are actually very susceptible to the wind of large paper media.

The "Los Angeles Times", "New York Times" and other large-scale media have been dealt with, and the "reputation" of "Sleep with the Enemy" is guaranteed.

In the trivial busyness, another week passed quickly.

June 8th to June 14th.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Total Memories" recorded a 41% drop in the box office for the entire week, closing in another $21.32 million, still ranking the top of the weekly box office rankings, and the cumulative box office quickly reached $57.4 million in two weeks.

However, compared with "Human Ghost Love Is Not Over", whose reputation and popularity have risen against the market, the advantage of "Total Recall" is already very weak.

In the second week of its release, "Human Ghosts Are Coming" had a weekly decline of 4% and received another $20.55 million. The gap with the weekly list champion "Total Memories" was only $1 million. In two weeks, the cumulative box office of "Human and Ghosts Is Coming" has reached 40.31 million US dollars.

Because of the unexpected box office performance of "Human and Ghosts", Daenerys Entertainment responded quickly to increase the number of screens in the third week of the film's opening to 1,866, a one-time increase compared to the 1,521 screens that opened. With more than 300 screens, it is expected that the box office of the film will not drop much in the third week.

Two other new films.

"Presumption of Innocence" starring Harrison Ford ranked third, with a box office of 11.71 million US dollars in the first week, and all the museums regretted that they failed to break 10,000.

The fourth-placed "Back to the Future 3" received another 10.84 million US dollars in the third week of its release, and the cumulative box office reached 52.72 million US dollars.

Disney's "The Prince of the Forest" re-screened ranked fifth, and it made $7.7 million in the first week, which is not bad.

In addition to the top five, "Firebird Strikes", which was released at the same time as "Back to the Future 3", had its box office plummeted from $1.78 million in a single week in the third week of its release. In three weeks, "Firebird Strikes" accumulated only There are 12.01 million U.S. dollars. It is expected that most of the screens will be removed after the release next week. The final box office can only stay at about 15 million U.S. dollars.

In the new week on June 15th, the North American theaters will still have two new films released at the same time. They are "Sleep with the Enemy" co-operated by Fox Pictures and Daenerys Entertainment, and Disney Pictures will be released by Warren Bee The movie "The Supreme Detective" starring Di and Madonna.