Hollywood Hunter

When Akio Furui heard Simon talk about cooperation, his expression did not change much, but the cooperation draft from Daenerys Entertainment came to mind in his mind.

The draft is roughly divided into three items. The first is in-depth brand cooperation, including the priority of Daenerys Entertainment’s future release of audio-visual products on the Panasonic electronic hardware platform and the Panasonic brand’s advertising in Daenerys Entertainment’s film and television content. Implant and so on.

This is actually the main purpose of Panasonic's acquisition of MCA.

The second item is the joint construction of Universal Studios Osaka.

The Universal Studios Osaka in the original time and space was completed around the new millennium, and there is still nothing to be seen right now.

Relying on the Japanese admiration of American culture, Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983, was a huge success. The $1 billion investment was fully recovered in just a few years. This made it only for brand authorization and no investment. The Disney Company regretted it.

The Universal Studios Osaka in Simon’s memory, although not as successful as Tokyo Disneyland, is also very popular.

As long as it can successfully win the MCA, based on Universal Studios' years of operating experience and Daenerys Entertainment's rich content accumulation, Simon's next stage of expansion is a very important goal is to build Osaka Universal Studios in advance.

It is said to be Universal Studios Osaka, but in fact, once the studio is completed, potential customers will cover the entire Asia, which will be of great benefit to the promotion of Daenerys Entertainment's brands throughout Asia.

Simon's construction of Universal Studios Osaka will of course not commit Disney's mistake of only getting 10% of the ticket revenue and 5% of the brand license fee in Tokyo Disney. However, he does not plan to invest alone. As an outsider, if you no longer find a local snake to cooperate, you will encounter various difficulties and setbacks in the future.

Matsushita, headquartered in Osaka, is undoubtedly the biggest local snake.

Moreover, compared to Tokyo Disney’s partner Japan Oriental Land Company, Panasonic, which is not involved in the movie theater park business, will not fight for control of Daenerys Entertainment.

The last cooperation is a five-year convertible bond worth $1 billion.

Daenerys Entertainment issued a convertible bond worth US$1 billion to Panasonic. Once Daenerys Entertainment conducts an IPO within the agreed bond contract period, Panasonic can convert the money into shares of Daenerys Entertainment. In order to further deepen the cooperative relationship between the two parties.

The $1 billion bond amount is also carefully considered.

Simon is confident that as long as it can smoothly digest MCA in the next few years, Daenerys Entertainment's market value will not be less than 20 billion US dollars when it goes public. The conversion of $1 billion in bonds into Daenerys Entertainment stock is exactly equivalent to about 5% of the shares.

The 5% shareholding ratio is not only the lower limit of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for reporting, but also the upper limit of the U.S.'s shareholding for overseas investors in some restricted industries.

If the U.S. government still has not lifted the industry restrictions that foreign investors are not allowed to hold U.S. television stations, it only needs to control Panasonic’s shareholding ratio to less than 5%, and only exist in the form of investors who have no right to speak. Related bans.

The potential value of each of the three cooperations actually reached the level of 1 billion US dollars.

The total value of the US$3 billion cooperation program is almost half the size of the MCA acquisition. It can be said that Simon has shown great sincerity.

Seeing that Akio Furui fell silent, Simon also stopped talking temporarily, and began to enjoy the food in front of him.

After a few minutes of silence in the box, Akio Furui finally spoke again and said, "Simon, what if Panasonic still doesn't want to quit?"

"Daenerys Entertainment will not take the initiative to quit either," Simon looked up again, looking at Akio Furui without hesitation, and then smiled again: "Furui, I remember the Japanese likes a book called "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms." ?"

The C girl beside Simon obviously didn't know "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". After looking at her boss, she could only translate it according to her own judgment as much as possible.

Akio Furui listened to his translator to explain a few words in a low voice, with an unexpected expression on his face, and asked, "Simon, you also know the Three Kingdoms?"

"Actually, I can speak very good Chinese." Simon nodded, poured some sake in a plate, and quickly wrote a standard regular script on the table with his fingers: Must be divided.

Japanese and Chinese have too much in common, almost without translation, Akio Furui recognized the most famous sentence in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and read it in Japanese, looking at the beautiful Chinese font in the vertical line. Looking up in surprise, he said, "Simon, I have to say, you surprised me again."

Simon picked up his chopsticks again and said, "I am not writing this sentence to surprise you. This is actually my opinion on the development trend of the American media industry. Hollywood followed the famous Paramount Act of 1948 as The demarcation point was the era of big studios. Big film companies firmly controlled Hollywood through a vertical management system from agency companies, studios to theaters. It was an era of'combination'. After the Paramount Act, studios were no longer allowed to engage in talent agency, and at the same time they had to divest their cinema chains. Coupled with the rise of the television industry, many new small and medium-sized film companies began to emerge, as opposed to the traditional major studios. Competing, counting, it should have been until the stock market crash in 1987. The economic boom in the 1980s in the United States ended, and the capital-intensive film and television industry fell into depression. Second and third-tier film companies such as Canon Pictures and De Laurentiis Entertainment. Bankruptcy, this era of'dividing' has ended."

Akio Furui listened carefully to the real-time explanation by the translator beside him, and finally couldn't help but glance at the trace of the Chinese character written by Simon on the desktop, and said: "Simon, what do you mean is that Hollywood has now reached another 'The era?"

"Yes," Simon nodded and said, "The merger between Time and Warner Bros. completed in January of this year is a very obvious sign. However, this time is not the vertical integration of many years ago, but Horizontal integration. Large Hollywood film companies are driven by film and television content, and through expansion into music, television, paper media, retail and other fields, they achieve synergies through diversified operations. Compared with the vertical management system of the era of large studios, horizontal integration After the completion of diversified operations, through a full range of industrial barriers, it is easier to suppress the rise of latecomers. It will be difficult for Hollywood to have too much room for survival of second- and third-tier film companies in the future, and the major giants will continue to interact with each other. The annexation eventually formed a few large media oligarchs."

Akio Furui didn't wait for Simon to explain more deeply, but his face showed some clarity.

Simon further pointed out: "Furui, if you follow the recent trends in public opinion in the United States, you will find that the call to restrict Japanese companies from buying Hollywood studios is very strong. Even if you can depress Daenerys Entertainment on the price, this The acquisition may not be successful. On the other hand, even if you insist on getting MCA at a very expensive price, the first thing Panasonic has to do is to sell MCA’s TV stations in accordance with the restrictions of U.S. law. I believe the future will be very long. Time, the federal government will not lift this ban. On the contrary, in order to prevent more Hollywood companies from being acquired by overseas giants, the federal government has recently been considering lifting the legal restrictions on the mutual merger of television networks and studios. I think this is An inevitable trend. At that time, the horizontal integration of the American media industry will be further accelerated, and it will have more and more industrial advantages. Panasonic bought MCA, which would have been rejected by Hollywood as an outsider and restricted by American law. You are destined to not be able to follow up the pace of horizontal integration in the media field, and multiple disadvantages are superimposed. Apart from exiting again, I don't think Panasonic has a second way to go in the future.

Simon did not rush to finish this, and finally added: "Moreover, Daenerys Entertainment will not easily withdraw from this bidding, because Daenerys Entertainment must be involved in this horizontally integrated media industry trend. Take the lead. In addition, when it comes to funds that can be used, I believe that my company is no worse than Panasonic. However, I don’t want to start a bidding war with Panasonic. The current price tag is relative to the value of MCA itself. It is already very expensive."

"But, Simon," Akio Furui said quickly: "Panasonic bought MCA for its own diversification."

Simon couldn't help shaking his head, and said: "Furui, Panasonic is now sufficiently diversified. With the current economic situation in Japan, what you should do is pruning and cutting leaves. During the economic downturn, try to ensure that you are in some core industries. Advantages, and develop emerging markets as soon as possible in the context of the tightening of Japan-US trade, instead of blindly expanding into areas that you have never set foot in."

After hearing these words from Simon, Furui fell into a longer silence.

After eating lunch for nearly two hours, Simon and Akio Furui rushed to a private house on the Osaka waterfront. The two discussed the cooperation draft and many other topics for more than two hours.

So until the evening, Simon rejected Akio Furui's invitation to stay overnight and boarded his private plane to return to Los Angeles again.

Before leaving, Akio Furui promised that Simon would give him a definite answer within three days.

All the way back to the United States, due to the jet lag, when I arrived in Los Angeles, it was still Monday morning on the west coast.

The Halloween schedule has already begun during Simon’s busy time. Prior to October 26th, there were three major new films released in North American theaters, namely "Ten Days in Crisis", a collaboration between Universal Pictures and Daenerys Entertainment. Ramon’s "The Cemetery Restricted Area" and Columbia Pictures’ "Speaking Not Whisper by Pillow".

From October 26th to November 1st during the first week of its release, "Ten Days in Crisis", which was well received by the media and invested enough in publicity, won the first week seven days with an opening scale of 1,639 screens. The box office of 17.16 million US dollars far exceeds the total box office of the other two new films in the first week of less than 10 million US dollars.

However, in the next three days of the next weekend, "Ten Days in Crisis" also dropped by 33% compared to the first weekend, and collected another 7.19 million US dollars, with a total box office of 24.35 million US dollars in ten days.

Because of the relatively large decline in the next weekend, the estimated North American gross box office of "Ten Days of Crisis" is between 60 million and 80 million US dollars. This can be said to be the most successful of the 10 film plans of Daenerys Entertainment that have been released. The bad one.

Of course, this is only relative.

The total North American box office of more than 60 million U.S. dollars is considered a big seller in this era. Moreover, the total cost of production and announcement of "Ten Days in Crisis" is only about 20 million U.S. dollars. It only depends on the local box office in North America. Silk Entertainment and MCA will be able to recover all costs and achieve profitability.

In addition, compared to the original version, the new heroine Susan Sarandon used the "Hollywood Reporter" to appraise the "chilling" performance, which is very hopeful to win next year's Oscar best like Casey Bates in the original time and space. Heroine. After the film was released, both publishers have begun to build momentum for Susan Sarandon's best actress for the sake of subsequent channel revenue.

After a quiet and secret trip to Japan, Simon focused on the announcement of Daenerys Entertainment's two major films at the end of the year in the following days. Before rushing to Japan, an additional US$20 million was prepared for the announcement budget. Of course, this money cannot be spent aimlessly, and it must be as effective as possible.

On the other hand, the negotiations between James and Bell Atlantic are also progressing smoothly.

Many things are always planned to fail to keep up with the changes. Before leaving Japan, Simon had already noticed Akio Furui's retreat, and the news of the Bell Atlantic acquisition was no longer so anxious to announce, which would also allow the two parties to reserve more time for negotiations.

This continued until November 8, the last day agreed by Simon and Akio Furui.

I haven't heard any news for three consecutive days. I thought it would be news that Panasonic will further increase its offer for MCA. In the evening, I attended a community reception with Janet after the official establishment of the Malibu city. The couple just returned to Du Mui. At the villa on the west side of the cape, Claire C, who was guarding the villa, reminded Simon that there was a call from the Japanese side half an hour ago and hoped that Simon would reply after returning from the reception.

Simon dialed the number reserved by the other party and was quickly transferred to Akio Furui.

On the phone, Akio Furui did not make too much detours, saying that Panasonic is willing to withdraw from the MCA acquisition, provided that the two parties must first complete the signing of the cooperation plan. Moreover, Panasonic hopes to obtain more concessions from Daenerys Entertainment on some detailed terms.

The two re-discussed some details over the phone for more than an hour. The basic contract framework did not change. Simon also made some concessions on some terms, and finally reached an agreement quickly.

The next day was Friday, Simon went to Japan again, this time with a whole team of Daenerys Entertainment.

Because a lot of preparations have been made in advance, this time only an overall cooperation agreement is signed, and many follow-up details need to be adjusted in real time. Therefore, after two days of negotiations over the weekend, the two sides quickly signed a formal agreement.

Both Simon and Amy appeared in Japan and had frequent contacts with Panasonic high-level officials. It is difficult to keep the relevant news from hiding. Both inside and outside Hollywood are speculating about what happened.

immediately.

On Monday, November 12, Panasonic suddenly held a press conference at its headquarters in Osaka, Japan, officially announcing the abandonment of the acquisition of MCA.

The news was announced, and the media on both sides of the ocean were in an uproar.