Hollywood Hunter

From April 9th ​​to April 15th, the box office of the first week and seven days of "Anti-Wisdom Fighting 2" reached 43.67 million US dollars, easily topping the single-week box office champion.

After being strongly impacted by Yiqi Juechen in "Wisdom Fighting 2", the second-placed "Legend of the Sands" had a box office of only 7.63 million US dollars in its first week.

New Line Films’ high hopes for "Xin Menggui Street", the box office number of the first seven days of the painting was 5.31 million US dollars.

In the new week on April 16, the North American theaters once again released three new films, namely Warner Bros’s "Boiling Point", MGM’s romantic comedy "Bonnie and Joan", and Gaomen Pictures’ drama "Mong Manzao" sea".

Warner's "Boiling Point" starred by the black star Wesley Snipes, with 1,425 screens, is a typical police action film.

MGM’s "Bonnie and Joan" tells the story of a pair of brothers and sisters in frustrated backgrounds who met their true love. The film starred Johnny Depp, with 861 screens.

Gaomen Films' "A Sea of ​​Algae" is adapted from the novel of the same name, and it is also the prequel to the famous "Jane Eyre". The original novel tells the story of the mad woman in the attic in "Jane Eyre". The film has 505 screens.

Because the heroine in the "Large Sea of ​​Algae" script is set as a girl with a dark complexion, Simon personally selected a heroine, Catherine Zeta-Jones. 'Old Man Killer' last year replaced the former Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise co-starring in "Earth Ambition" and after a scandal, although the box office of "Earth Ambition" was tepid, Zeta Jones did Is the rise in fame.

The pre-screening of the film worked well, so it was put on the Easter time.

After the opening of the three new films, "The Sea of ​​Algae" really won the highest overall media rating of 8.2 points during Easter.

However, many people are still paying more attention to the "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Stars 2" which opened last week. The box office trend of the next week determines the final box office of these films in North America.

In the past few years, the opening of the first week exceeded 40 million U.S. dollars. It is almost a seeded player at the 200 million box office in North America. With the rise of full-scale distribution, the box office in the first week is getting higher and higher, quickly squeezing the commercial of a movie. Potential, the subsequent decline is often very deep.

Even so, the $43.67 million in the first week of "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Stars 2" was beyond many people's expectations. As long as the decline in the next week is not too bad, the film is even expected to exceed the North American gross of $120 million in the first episode.

In the end, from April 16 to April 22, the box office of "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Stars 2" fell by 39% the next week, and received another $26.61 million, continuing to rank first in the weekly box office list.

In two weeks, Daenerys Entertainment originally predicted a comedy movie with a gross box office of 60 million U.S. dollars. The total box office in North America has reached 70.28 million U.S. dollars. The decline in the next week is controlled within 40%, which means that the film’s box office trend is quite good. The total domestic box office is expected to be between 130 million US dollars and 150 million US dollars, surpassing the first episode's 120 million US dollar box office results, and becoming Daneli Silk Entertainment's first domestic film with a box office of over 100 million yuan in 1993.

When the box office came out the following week, although only two film contracts were signed with Mike Myers, New World Pictures executives began to discuss the feasibility of developing the third film with the other party.

Now that the film has successfully broken through the sequel of this type of comedy, Simon has no objection to the development of the sequel, but requires that the cost of the third part must be controlled within US$40 million. As compensation, Simon agreed to provide a profit sharing contract for a main creative.

The box office of two consecutive movies exceeded 100 million. It stands to reason that the third sequel has doubled to 60 million US dollars. However, if $60 million is really needed, Simon would rather give up the project.

The budget cost is 60 million US dollars, and at least 20 million will be needed for future publicity.

The $80 million project is already a blockbuster level, and considering that the overseas box office potential of the "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Star" series is very small, the local box office will have to reach 150 million U.S. dollars to be able to pay back.

The second and third North American box office of "Powers Ace" both reached 200 million US dollars. Simon has no such confidence in "Anti-Wisdom Fighting". US$150 million is probably the limit of this series of local box office.

Although things are not absolute, as the box office of the sequel here is far beyond what was originally expected, Simon does not intend to take risks.

The key is that Daenerys Entertainment does not lack other projects.

You know, Kim Carey’s "Detective Plane" and "Ghost in Disguise" have been established. This comedy star with a distinctive personal style is not only as good as Mike Myers at the local box office, but also can get Recognition in overseas markets.

After the first place, MGM’s "Bonnie and Joan" relied on a good reputation and earned US$8.77 million in the first week, ranking second, and the museum also exceeded the US$10,000 sales level, exceeding the production level. Factory expectations.

Therefore, MGM quickly increased the film’s response scale from 861 to 1363 in the second week.

After that, Fox Pictures’ "Legend of the Sands" ranked third. .

This baseball-themed youth film dropped only 28% in the box office the next week, and received another $5.56 million.

If you only look at the decline figures, "Legend of the Sands" is better than "Anti-Wisdom Multi-Star 2". Of course, this is mainly because the starting box office volume is not high.

The cumulative box office of the two weeks is 13.19 million US dollars, and the box office curve is very stable. The total box office of "Legend of Sand" in North America is expected to reach between 20 million and 25 million US dollars.

Warner Bros.'s police action film "Boiling Point" ranked fourth, with a box office of $5.12 million in the first week.

Taking into account that the production cost of "Boiling Point" is only 9 million US dollars, the first week of the income is 5.12 million US dollars, and the total domestic box office is expected to be around 10 million US dollars, which basically meets Warner's expectations. Through subsequent operations, it can basically recover costs and realize small profits.

Gaomen Pictures' "A Sea of ​​Algae" ranked fifth on the list.

This literary drama adapted from a literary masterpiece relies on its excellent reputation and the precise publicity strategy of Gaomen Films. In the first week, it relied on 505 screens to receive 4.65 million U.S. dollars, and the museum was close to 10,000 U.S. dollars.

Taking into account the long-term nature of literary and artistic films, although the first week of "Large Sea of ​​Algae" is only 4.65 million US dollars, the total box office in North America is very promising to exceed 15 million US dollars, and even hit the 20 million US dollar mark.

The production cost of the film is 3 million US dollars, and the total project budget is only 5 million US dollars after the announcement.

With box office expectations of 15 to 20 million U.S. dollars, Gaomen Pictures can achieve good profits only through the distribution of local cinema chains.

New Line’s high hopes for "New Ghost Street", after the first week was far below the expected box office of 5.31 million US dollars, the next week’s box office decline remained at a fairly good 36%, but it was also destined to be unable to bring this second-line film company. Come too much reversal.

The next week’s box office was 3.38 million U.S. dollars, and the total for two weeks was 8.69 million U.S. dollars. The total box office is estimated to be 12 million U.S. dollars. The new line will be distributed through all channels such as overseas and follow-up video tapes. However, the new line obviously has not enough time.

After the disappointing box office in the first week of "New Haunted Ghost Street", the stock price of the film company that went public in 1986 has continued to fall.

When the box office is released the next week, the stock price of New Line has fallen by 27% in half a month compared to the time before the release, and the market value is only $46 million, which is more than $200 million from the peak period of the previous years. 75%. The total debt scale of the new line reached 72 million U.S. dollars. After this heavy hit, it was completely insolvent at this time.

After trying to find a buyer or debt restructuring to no avail, on April 23, Newline founder Robert Shea formally filed for bankruptcy.

After Miramax, another studio that was supposed to be very dazzling in the 90s in the original time and space announced its withdrawal from the Hollywood stage.

Except for Simon, Hollywood doesn't have much sorrow about the bankruptcy of the new line.

In the 1980s, driven by the government's support and the rise of the video tape industry, a large number of studios sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, and they have been dying out in the harsh federal economic environment these years. Compared to the very ambitious companies such as Canon Pictures and De Laurentiis Group, apart from owning the "Meng Ghost Street" series, the new line has not been too conspicuous in the industry.

Now, this company started from "Most Ghost Street" and finally "Most Ghost Street", like a reincarnation.

Even the more sensitive people in the industry have not experienced Daenerys Entertainment's continuous targeting of Miramax and the new line. After all, suppressing latecomers is basically what the seven major Hollywoods are doing.

However, many people also realize that the competition in Hollywood has become fiercer, and it has become increasingly unfriendly to second- and third-tier film companies that lack capital and channel resources.

It's not just the new line that just filed for bankruptcy. Orion Pictures, which was previously funded by the Canadian Seagram Group, can only be described as lingering in the past two years. It is no longer the scene of consecutive Oscar awards in the 1980s. Some other independent studios can only play a little bit.

Established for more than two decades, the most valuable part of the new line is undoubtedly the film library with hundreds of film rights.

Danny Morris specifically mentioned this with Simon some time ago.

However, after consideration, Simon decided that Blockbuster would participate in the next new line asset auction.

After it was determined to quietly build Blockbuster into an independent media company similar to Netflix later, in recent months, Blockbuster has quietly registered and established Blockbuster Entertainment, responsible for personally participating in investment in film projects.

Prior to this, Blockbuster had quietly bought the rights to dozens of movies accumulated by Miramax over the years after the bankruptcy for 13 million US dollars.

The price of the new line film library is obviously much higher than Miramax.

After all, it is only the "Magic Street" series. Whether it is through video tapes or other channels or continues to flop, it has good commercial potential. Moreover, compared to Miramax, most of which are only very incomplete partial areas or single-channel copyrights, there are a lot of fully copyrighted films in the new line film library.

The Blockbuster team made an assessment and wanted to obtain this part of the assets from many competitors who are interested in the new line film library, at least 60 million US dollars.

The bankruptcy of the new line only occupied a small section on the more professional "Hollywood Reporter".

On April 26, the news that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley formally signed a US$1.5 billion capital injection agreement with Eaglet, but it almost occupied the front page of a series of mainstream studios in the following days.

After more than a month of negotiations, the price of 1.5 billion US dollars has not changed, but the Westeros system has also made huge ‘concessions’.

For the US$1.5 billion in the transaction, Westeros will no longer withdraw a point, but will inject all the funds into Eaglet’s account in the form of additional issuance financing for the company’s development in the next few years.

Additional corporate issuance financing and shareholder selling of stocks are two completely different operations.

One of the most important differences is that the latter is subject to capital gains tax, and the federal capital gains tax at this time is still as high as 29%. In order to avoid paying huge capital gains taxes, Simon had no intention of drawing funds from the equity transfer.

Many media have actually seen this, but they still admire Simon for being able to give up $1.5 billion in cash.

You know, this is 1.5 billion US dollars in cash after all.

At this stage, even the billionaires on the Forbes global rich list, few can come up with $1.5 billion in cash in one go.

In addition to the 1.5 billion US dollars injected into Igreat as a financing, Westeros also agreed that Igreat will conduct IPO operations in the next three years. At the same time, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley also jointly obtained the future IPO underwriting rights of Igreat.

After the conclusion of the transaction, apart from the heated discussion in the media, the most direct consequence is the rise of the Nasdaq technology stocks again.

A company like Eaglet, which has only been established for 4 years, has obtained a valuation of 15 billion U.S. dollars. Coupled with Cisco and AOL, finally some hesitant investors have also begun to participate in the operation of technology stocks.

On the other hand, the acquisition of Christie's in Europe has also progressed smoothly.

Even if the British media called on the British government to strictly censor to prevent a British iconic company with a long history from falling into the hands of foreigners, in the end the British government did not come forward to obstruct it.

Of course, it is not that MPs who have not tried to gain more support are planning to try.

However, Melisandre is backed by the Westeros system, and the relationship between the Westeros system and News Corporation has always been very good. News Corporation, which controls a large number of media in the UK, cannot be provoked by one or two members.

Sofia was recommended by the senior management of News Corporation and participated in several opportunities in the British political circles. The acquisition of Christie's was successfully approved by the British authorities.

After the transaction was concluded, Melisandre also publicly promised that Christie’s headquarters will still be located in London. Melisandre will not reorganize Christie’s on a large scale in the short term and will maintain this long-standing auction at the same time. Line the existing traditional corporate culture.

Britain is no longer the empire that the sun never sets, and the pound crisis in the past year has even more discouraged this old empire.

Melisandre has made such a statement, no matter what it is privately, it is only on the surface that the British media feels that it has retained some dignity and has not pursued this matter.