Chapter 1030 Chaos

Against the background of popularity and topicality without the slightest cooling trend, the audience who entered the theater to watch a ghost crawling out of the TV was still in an endless stream.

In the fifth weekend, the total North American box office of "Midnight Bell" has reached 171 million US dollars.

Early on Tuesday morning, Michael Eisner was sitting in a restaurant in Beverly Hills, carefully reading an analysis article on "Variety" on why "Midnight Bell" became a dark horse at the box office, put down the newspaper, His eyes fell on the script called "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the dining table again.

Another pirate movie.

Michael Eisner has now been able to face the big somersault he planted on Cutthroat Island very calmly. After leaving Disney and making a comeback with Universal, he has also reflected on his original working experience at Disney in recent years. In the last few years, he has indeed become too blind and self-willed, and he now regards the experience a few years ago as a transformation in his career.

This summer, the two films "The Mask of Zorro" and "The Scorpion King" released by Universal Pictures have achieved very good box office results, especially "The Scorpion King", a spinoff of the "Mummy" series. The success indicates that Universal Pictures has also begun to have its own 'movie universe', even if it can't be compared with MGM's two consecutive global box office blockbusters of 1 billion spy movie universe, but this is enough to make several other films. Big film companies are envious.

As Universal Pictures prospered, Michael Eisner's position in Hollywood and the Seagram Group became more and more stable. However, the sudden appearance of "Pirates of the Caribbean" has caused some ripples in Michael Eisner's already settled state of mind.

Michael Eisner was in a trance when Edgar Bronfman, the current CEO of Seagram Group, hurried over, greeted him casually, sat down opposite Michael Eisner, and waved impatiently. The waiter comes.

Michael Eisner glanced at Edgar Bronfman's slightly manic behavior with a slight frown, but said nothing.

Although the situation of Universal Pictures is very good, during this time, the situation of the parent company Seagram Group can only be described as bad.

Last year, Seagram Group just merged Polygram with a huge sum of 10 billion US dollars, and has not yet completed the integration with Universal Music. This year, the situation of the entire record industry has turned sharply.

Affected by the rapid proliferation of pirated music resources on the Internet, the record sales performance of the world's major record giants in the first half of the year generally plummeted by about 30%, and the situation of Universal Music and Polygram, which are in the period of business integration, is even worse. , Other record companies are still only in decline in performance and can still maintain a profitable state, but Universal Music has suffered huge losses.

Michael Eisner had to admire Eric Williams' foresight again.

He has been paying close attention to the development of the Firefly Group. He clearly knows that the top management of the Firefly Group intends to expand the company's record business in the past two years. It is rumored that the first person to be approached by PolyGram Records was the Firefly Group. This is just this proposal. It was rejected by Eric Williams without hesitation.

Although Firefly Group still acquired Virgin Records last year, the scale of Firefly Group's record business at this time is still far from being comparable to that of several major record companies.

Perhaps it is this attitude that the boat is small and easy to turn around. In the first half of the year, the performance of several major record companies plummeted. Although there is no public financial report, judging from many public record sales data, the performance of Firefly Records has definitely increased.

Firefly's strategy of focusing on teen pop also seems promising. In the entertainment industry, young people's money is undoubtedly the best to earn.

After taking a few sips of the soda brought by the waiter, Edgar Bronfman said angrily again, "Doug Morrison is such an idiot,

PolyGram actually discovered another hidden debt of $600 million. Counting the losses in the first half of the year, the record group will have to write down at least $1 billion in assets. "

Michael Eisner heard Edgar Bronfman blame Universal Music's current bad situation on the Universal Music CEO, his lips moved, but he didn't say anything. In fact, the current situation of Universal Music, in addition to the impact of Internet pirated music, the biggest reason is that Edgar Bronfman is too eager to acquire PolyGram.

However, breaking these points would not have any practical effect except to make Edgar Bronfman angry, and Michael Eisner simply kept his mouth shut.

Edgar Bronfman said what he just said, and seeing that Michael Eisner neither agreed nor refuted, his expression became a little embarrassed. Since he can become the head of the Seagram Group, he naturally cannot be mediocre and incompetent. Generation, he still knows well the root cause of Universal Music's problems.

Seeing a script-like manuscript in front of Michael Eisner, Edgar Bronfman took the initiative to change the subject and said, "Michael, is this our company's new movie script?"

Michael Eisner handed over the script for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and said, "No, this script was only spread in Hollywood yesterday. It is said that Eric Williams personally took a fancy to it, and Firefly Group has made an offer. "

Edgar Bronfman took over the script, glanced at the cover, and said, "Pirate films, don't you say that pirate films are a restricted area in Hollywood?"

Speaking of which, Edgar Bronfman also glanced at Michael Eisner pointedly. Some of the embarrassment in his heart just now dissipated a lot. Michael Eisner was in "Cut Throat Island". "The upside down is definitely tragic.

Michael Eisner didn't seem to notice the change in Edgar Bronfman's eyes at all, and said, "That's why this script is more likely to be picked by Eric Williams himself, and others won't. Touch this subject easily.”

Edgar Bronfman could hear the intention in Michael Eisner's tone, and couldn't help but persuade: "Michael, although I am absolutely relieved to hand over Universal to you, but we can't touch this subject. Still don't touch it."

"I've asked the production department to make a budget, this movie, if you are more cautious, should be able to get $80 million," Michael Eisner said to himself without taking Edgar Bronfman's words: "Also, although This story is a bit old-fashioned as a whole, but it fits the idea of ​​a high-concept movie very well. Coupled with the fantasy plot of the cursed pirates, making it into a special effects blockbuster is still very promising at the box office.”

Edgar Bronfman was a little dissatisfied with Michael Eisner's independent decision, and wondered if helping Michael Eisner to drive Michael Ovitz out of Universal was the right decision. The development of the world is indeed getting better and better, but Edgar Bronfman can clearly feel the weakening of his control over the world.

Because of the bad situation of Universal Music, in order to prevent the whole group from falling into turmoil, he does not dare to have too many thoughts of taking back the power of Universal Pictures from Michael Eisner.

After Michael Eisner finished talking about his plan, he noticed the slight change in Edgar Bronfman's expression, smiled, and said, "However, I can only think about it, Universal will follow the offer, But after all, we don't know what Eric Williams thinks about this script, so we won't charge an outrageous price, and the possibility of getting this script is very low."

...

It's past ten o'clock in the morning in New York, and Warner Bros. CEO Richard Parsons and Steve Case have been talking for hours about the merger of the two companies, rejecting Steve Case's lunch Invited and hurried to East Hampton by car. These days, Gerald Levine, the vice chairman of Time Warner Group, has been spending the summer in East Hampton. The two agreed on lunch and chatted about Richard Parsons and Steve Case's negotiation progress.

Now, the merger negotiation between AOL and Time Warner is almost on the bright side. Firefly Investment sold 25% of AOL shares in one fell swoop, which also makes the prospect of this merger clearer. Otherwise, even if the two sides reach a merger intention , still must be subject to the intention of Firefly Group and the consequent anti-monopoly review issues.

After leaving the AOL headquarters, the assistant handed over a script as soon as he got in the car.

Although a large part of this time has been focused on the merger case, Richard Parsons has not let go of his management of Warner Bros.

In a company with serious infighting like Warner, once power is released, it is even more difficult to take it back.

"Is this the script that came out yesterday?" Richard Parsons asked uncertainly after turning a few pages.

The assistant nodded: "Firefly Group made an official offer for this script yesterday. You know, few people have made pirate films in recent years. This script is also a typical high-budget special effects blockbuster template. In Firefly Group, except for Eric Williams himself, other high-level decision-makers are obviously unlikely to be interested in this type of script."

"You mean, these are just speculations, not confirmed?"

The assistant nodded and said, "We can only make speculations. It is obviously impossible for the Firefly Group to reveal confirmation information to us."

Richard Parsons hesitated for a moment. In the past two years, Warner's film business has been tepid, and it desperately needs a series that can explode. Especially now, if the film business can turn around, Warner and the United States You can gain a lot of initiative in the online negotiation process.

"In this way, you rush back to Los Angeles in person, and I will give you three million dollars to try to grab the script. If it can be confirmed that Eric Williams himself liked the script, you can raise the price to five One million U.S. dollars."

...

As soon as they walked into the office early in the morning, Terry Lucio and Ted Elliott were notified that Ms. Shirley Lansing wanted to talk to them.

Since yesterday afternoon, the two young screenwriters of the Paramount Animation Studios have felt the attention they have never received in their life, and various inquiries and invitations have been entangled in the two for a whole night.

At this time, the two big men both had dark circles under their eyes, and they didn't feel the slightest sense of excitement in their hearts, because both of them realized that they might have played too big.

If this script incident was just an oolong and Eric Williams didn't even know the pirate movie script in their hands, then, it is conceivable that once the matter is exposed, the two of them will never want to hang out in Hollywood for the rest of their lives. .

Outside Shirley Lansing's office, the secretary went in to report. Terry Lucio, who was standing outside, finally recovered, and asked Ted Elliott beside him in a low voice, "Wait a minute. What do you say?"

Ted Elliott was slightly more awake than Tri Rucio, and said in a low voice, "Reject, first, and wait for Firefly's response."

Terry Lucio nodded and understood a little bit in his heart. Only when the Firefly Group gave a further response would their guess be settled. If the Firefly Group will no longer take any action on this script, then this matter obviously has nothing to do with Eric Williams, and the acquisition of the script of "Pirates of the Caribbean" is just a very common copyright hoarding behavior.

At that time, Firefly does not need to publicly deny it, as long as it shows its attitude, other major Hollywood studios will realize that they have been deceived. In that case, even if they can get a huge sum of millions of dollars now, there is no hope in this life.

A few million dollars, excluding the broker's fee, paying the tax, and dividing it equally between the two, is basically not much, and it is impossible for them to support their family for the rest of their lives.

Although the current job is not too high, it is stable enough, and more importantly, they can always write scripts and look for opportunities. Once the label of a liar is swept out by Hollywood, the rest of his life is estimated to be out of touch with the media industry. Both are literature graduates, and they are unlikely to find any other decent jobs other than playing with a pen.

The secretary soon came out to inform the two that they could go in.

Walking into Shirley Lansing's office, the female head of Hollywood, Paramount, was wearing a pair of delicate silver-rimmed glasses and looked down at the documents. When she saw two people walking in, she let go of the folder in her hand and got up politely. Come over and shake hands with the two of them.

After some mutual introductions and greetings, Terry Lucio and Ted Elliott sat down on the sofa in the reception area together with Shirley Lansing.

After the secretary left with a few cups of coffee, Shirley Lansing smiled and looked at the two of them and said, "I have specially read your script suggestions for the animation studio's recent animation films, which are excellent. Speaking of which, you all It is an employee of Paramount, if there is a good script, you can directly contact the company's script procurement department."

Of course, the two of Terry Lucio had contacted the Paramount script procurement department, but the other party lost interest as soon as they saw that it was a pirate type script. However, at this time, the two of them just respectfully responded to Shirley Lansing's words, without the slightest excuse.