Hollywood Hunter

After the U.S. Department of Justice officially approved Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, the merger of the two companies, which was already in progress, began to accelerate.

Daenerys Entertainment continued to announce various news about corporate finance and personnel in the following week, which made people dizzy, so few people realized what these news actually meant.

At the press conference on the day that the acquisition was approved, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal announced that Daenerys Entertainment’s equity transfer to MCA shareholders will be completed before the end of February.

At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment's funds for the acquisition of MCA will all be obtained through loans.

The next day, Daenerys Entertainment announced again that it will collaborate with legendary Hollywood director Steven Spielberg on two projects at the same time, namely the dinosaur science fiction film "Jurassic Park" and the story of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II. "Schindler's List" from the past.

Although Daenerys Entertainment is not a listed company, the announcement of this cooperation has made the industry more optimistic about the new Daenerys Entertainment Group, which has suddenly shouldered a huge debt of 7 billion US dollars. This is not just because of the collaboration between Daenerys Entertainment and Steven Spielberg, but also the other meaning behind the "Schindler's List" project.

Subsequently, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal, who was about to expire in March this year, announced the renewal.

The Hollywood power woman who assisted Simon Westero to build the Daenerys Entertainment Group in just a few years, the renewal clause became the focus of the media's most attention, and all kinds of speculation were attracted for a while.

After a lot of disturbing discussions, the entertainment information section of the Igreat portal finally revealed the answer.

Amy Pascal’s new contract has a period of three years, the basic salary is increased to 750,000 US dollars, and the sharing terms are consistent with the 1987 agreement.

Also belonging to the Westeros system, the news from the Igreat portal is actually equivalent to an official announcement.

However, the interpretation of this contract has not stopped.

Most media originally predicted that Amy Pascal’s contract this time was likely to be the usual five-year contract of Hollywood executives. The top Hollywood studios, Michael Eisner, Peter Cooper, and Snow Li Lansing and others have contracts like this.

Therefore, the 3-year period is very interesting.

The media in the industry do not think this is a sign that Amy Pascal may leave Daenerys Entertainment. Otherwise, Westeros simply cannot give Daenerys Entertainment even its scale has expanded countless times. This female executive had a salary contract with the same 5% corporate net profit and the same amount of equity awards four years ago.

You should know that the profit dividend ratio of the helms of the various studios in the industry is usually only 2%.

Even if Daenerys Entertainment will face great debt pressure in the next few years, resulting in reduced profits, a salary contract that amounts to 10% of the company's net profit is definitely a big deal.

So, look back at Pascal’s contract period.

3 years.

It probably means another node.

As we all know, before a company's IPO, the contracts of company executives need to be readjusted.

Daenerys Entertainment has just merged with MCA. It is not wise to start the IPO plan in the short term. The three-year digestion time seems just right.

At the same time, several in-depth cooperation agreements between Daenerys Entertainment and Panasonic also appeared in the media, and the outside world finally learned why Panasonic had simply withdrawn from the MCA bidding.

In a series of hot news, negative news is naturally inevitable.

Before the acquisition was approved by the US Department of Justice, Daenerys Entertainment had 3,000 employees. The two companies had similar revenues in the past fiscal year, but MCA had more than 12,000 employees worldwide.

The reason why Westeros chose not to lay off employees after acquiring Bell Atlantic is mainly because the rapid expansion of the telecommunications industry in the fields of mobile communications and the Internet can naturally digest Bell Atlantic's excess human resources.

Moreover, because Bell Atlantic did not know too much about the telecommunications industry, and Bell Atlantic did not need to lay off employees and reduce expenses to solve the debt problem, Simon finally chose not to move as well.

MCA is different.

Because Daenerys Entertainment and MCA have a large number of overlapping functional departments, MCA, under the management of Lou Vasalman, who is no longer energetic, will inevitably have serious redundancy problems common in large companies.

Therefore, layoffs are inevitable.

The "Hollywood Reporter" first exposed Daenerys Entertainment's possible massive layoff plan of up to 3,000 employees for the new company after the merger is completed.

Employment issues have always been a focus of American society.

For politicians, the employment rate is the performance of their performance. For companies, guaranteeing employment is also a reflection of corporate image and social responsibility.

Suddenly, 3000 people may lose their jobs, and the whole of Hollywood will start to agitate.

The three major unions that were forced to abandon Daenerys Entertainment’s acquisition of MCA came forward immediately and condemned Daenerys Entertainment’s possible layoffs. The North American media and various labor protection organizations in California have also begun to pay close attention to this matter.

The development of the matter to the end, the new governor of California who took office at the beginning of the year and several California members of Congress expressed their concerns about this matter.

Facing the pressure of public opinion, after a few days of silence, Daenerys Entertainment quickly clarified that there is no plan to lay off as many as 3,000 people.

However, because the merger of the two companies has brought many duplicate jobs, Daenerys Entertainment had to make a choice, but it can be guaranteed that the scale of layoffs will be strictly limited to 1,000 people.

At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment also promised that it will recreate at least 1,000 jobs through its own business expansion in the next three years.

The number of layoffs has been reduced from the rumored 3,000 to 1,000. Although the accusations are still inevitable, the outside world is obviously more receptive.

While the merger continued to advance, the Valentine's Day schedule in February in North America also quietly opened.

Last year’s Valentine’s Day was a dark box-office horse like "Pretty Girl". This year, Daenerys Entertainment’s film also received extra attention from the media.

However, compared to "Pretty Girl in Wind and Moon", Daenerys Entertainment's film released on Valentine's Day this time is much more non-mainstream, and it is called "Anti-Wisdom and Many Stars".

Moreover, the most watched movie in North American theaters is still "Home Alone" from Christmas last year.

As of February 7, the week before the Valentine's Day schedule, the seventh week of "Home Alone" had once again won $12.93 million at the box office. After being released for seven weeks, this phenomenal children's comedy has a cumulative box office of 191.59 million U.S. dollars.

On February 8th, Valentine’s Day began. Daenerys Entertainment’s New World Pictures produced and released "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Stars", which opened on the scale of 1,739 screens. In the same period, Warner Bros’s production of George · Miller's high-cost fantasy adventure film "Demonstry 2" and the romance film "LA Story" produced by Samsung, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures.

The fantasy adventure feature film "The Great Demon" based on the famous German children's book was invested in a huge budget of 26 million U.S. dollars in the first film in 1984. Although the North American box office was not too successful at the time, it was only in the early 20 million years, but because of the excellent special effects scene, it recovered about 100 million US dollars in the box office worldwide.

Warner invited George Miller to direct this "Demon Domain 2", and once again invested a huge budget of 36 million US dollars, which can be described as the most favorable box office contender for this Valentine's Day schedule.

However, the box office performance of several films on this Valentine's Day has surprised many people.

From February 8th to February 14th, the first week of the Valentine's Day schedule, the one that tops the box office rankings for a single week is not George Miller's "Devil Domain 2" nor the "LA Story" that fits the Valentine's Day atmosphere very well. , On the contrary, it is the non-mainstream non-mainstream nonsensical vulgar comedy "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Star".

In the first week of the painting, the "Saturday Night Live" TV star Mike Myers starred in this vulgar comedy with a lack of mainline plot and scattered, and it even got 21.7 million US dollars in the box office in seven days.

Even under Daenerys Entertainment’s consistently excellent publicity campaign, many film critics gave positive reviews such as fresh and interesting after the film was released, but everyone still did not expect that this film lacked selling points. The box office of comedy movies can exceed $20 million in the first week.

Inside Daenerys Entertainment, although many people know that this project was personally selected by Simon, even Danny Morris, the president of New World Pictures, who is responsible for the production of "Anti-Wild Stars", believed that before the film was released. If this movie can get 50 million US dollars at the North American box office, it can be called a miracle. Several project leaders have set up a small bet for this.

Then, Danny Morris naturally became a loser, but he was also happy to lose.

The surprise box office of 21.7 million US dollars in the first week, coupled with the film’s media reputation and good topicality, means that "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Stars" is very much looking forward to a beautiful long-term box office.

The 50 million local box office may be just a guarantee.

However, because the content of the film involves too many paragraphs that only Americans can understand, the distribution team did not expect much of the film's overseas box office.

After "Wisdom Fighting", it is not two new films that ranked second on the weekly box office list, but still "Home Alone".

In the eighth week of its release, "Home Alone" lost its weekly box office championship position for the first time, but its box office drop still remained at a very good 21%, with another $10.22 million.

At the same time, the total box office of the film in North America officially broke through the 200 million US dollars mark, reaching 201.81 million US dollars.

According to the phenomenal box office momentum of "Home Alone", the total screen life of this film can usually reach about 25 weeks.

It is not difficult to predict that after eight weeks of painting, "Home Alone" will probably be able to stay in North American theaters for four months.

Although starting next week, the box office of "Home Alone" will fall to less than 10 million U.S. dollars, but the subsequent four-month screening will also experience Easter, a popular schedule that is also suitable for family fun. It is not difficult to accumulate another US$80 million in the box office, and it is still expected to reach the US$280 million box office in North America in the original time and space.

With a production budget of 18 million U.S. dollars, only North America can get 280 million U.S. dollars in the box office. The crazy rate of return makes Hollywood feel jealous.

Because of the recent series of events and the approach of a certain date, Simon, who has been trying to reduce his personal exposure, has once again inevitably become the focus of media attention.

February 22.

Simon Westero's 23rd birthday.

Although during this period of time, there is no lack of media speculation that the debt of the Westeros system of tens of billions of dollars may drag down Westeros personal wealth. However, the fact is that the Gulf War broke out in a month, because of the continual victories of the multinational forces, as the leader of this war, the US stock market quickly got rid of the haze of the war and began to rebound.

In just one month, the Dow Jones Index has risen by 23% compared to the pre-war period, and the S&P 500 index has also rebounded by 25%.

Look back at this time.

Simon Westeroka decisively and quickly completed the acquisition of Bell Atlantic and MCA at the time before the war broke out.

If the two acquisitions were delayed after the outbreak of the war, and only increased according to the standard of the market, it would be impossible for Westeros to win the two companies at the original price.

After all, Westeros’ original offer to Bell Atlantic had a premium of only about 30% of the previous share price. Although the premium for the MCA acquisition is higher, it is also because MCA has been severely dragged down by the stock price of the U.S. economic downturn over the previous year.

You know, two years ago, CAA President Michael Ovitz replaced Sony to test MCA, and Lou Vasalman offered as much as $8 billion.

As for Bell Atlantic, Daenerys Entertainment has picked up a great deal. If it is delayed until after the war, Simon may have to pay an additional $2 billion for Bell Atlantic.

Now, just the natural rebound of the value of these two companies along with the overall economic situation in the United States has brought huge potential benefits to Simon.

If necessary, Simon can easily alleviate the debt pressure faced by the Westeros system by selling part of the shares of these two companies.

What's more, Simon doesn't actually need to do this.

After more than a month of financial review, Daenerys Entertainment's 1990 financial report was finally released.

Throughout the 1990s, Daenerys Entertainment's net profit for the whole year of last year reached 1.12 billion U.S. dollars, which was less than the initial estimate of 1 billion U.S. dollars through the huge profits from movies, TV, games, consumer products, and soundtracks. It is about 100 million dollars higher.

Although Daenerys Entertainment’s income last year was basically quickly evacuated and used as other investments in the Westeros system, but then, relying on the follow-up of a series of blockbuster movies in the previous years, it only calculated Daenerys Entertainment before the merger of MCA, the company's revenue in 1991, can still reach the level of 1990.

Therefore, only the income contributed by Daenerys Entertainment is enough to pay off the due debts of the entire Westeros system.

With the continued rebound of the US stock market and the expiration of the original three-year non-reduction pledge of technology stocks, Westeros can also cash out huge amounts of funds from the technology stock market at any time if necessary.

What's more, the two giants of Bell Atlantic and MCA acquired this time can continue to generate huge cash flow and profit.

Since tens of billions of dollars of debt does not pose a threat to the Westeros system, it is not difficult to imagine that Simon Westero's personal wealth will not shrink as the overall economic situation in the United States recovers, but is more likely to continue. increase.