Chapter 534 Feelings
Eric raised his eyebrows slightly and did not answer, but instead asked: "What do you think the purpose of a company's listing is?"
"Financing funds to allow enterprises to achieve better development."
"So, Firefly is not short of funds now, and its development is obvious to all. So, do you think Firefly still needs to go public?"
The reporter was not discouraged, and immediately asked again: "Mr. Williams, are you satisfied with the status quo and do not plan to continue to expand the territory of Firefly Pictures?"
"Of course not, but if you want to expand the territory of Firefly Pictures, there are many channels for obtaining funds, and it is not necessary to go public. I have my own complete plan for the development of Firefly, and some development ideas may even cause a lot of controversy. I don’t want to waste my time explaining the reasons to the old men on Wall Street every time I make a decision after the listing. Everyone is doing news, and they should be very aware of how difficult those people are. Well, this issue ends here, Let's get back to the subject of today's press conference."
Listening to Eric's slightly mocking tone, the reporters present chuckled.
They all know what Eric means. Although the relationship between Hollywood and Wall Street is quite close, in fact, there are more games between the two parties than cooperation. Wall Street pursues the high growth of various business indicators of a company. Most investors don’t pay attention to long-term development, they only want to see beautiful financial reports, and the speculative component is very large. The company's operators tend to pay more attention to long-term development, and often sacrifice short-term interests for this purpose, which is inconsistent with the concept of Wall Street.
If a company is not listed. Wall Street, of course, is where a dog bites a hedgehog and has nowhere to go. I don't want your funds. You don't even want to meddle in my territory. And if you choose to go public, even if the control is still in the hands of the business operator, once the company's development footprint deviates from the track envisioned by Wall Street, it will still be under the finger of Wall Street investors all the time. Today, this investment bank published a bearish article, Tomorrow, the Wall Street tycoon will come with some fierce criticism. Faced with the resulting stock price volatility, if a company does not compromise. Don't stop thinking about it.
The most extreme example is, of course, the Marvel Entertainment Group, which Eric has always been silently paying attention to. In the 1980s, Marvel Comics' business situation has been very good, and even almost annexed the comics in Warner's hands. But since the comic company fell into the hands of Wall Street investor Ron Perelman in the late 1980s, he has ushered in a troubled life. Ron Perelman is only interested in capital operation and has no intention at all. Operation, until now, Ron Perelman has extracted hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from Marvel Entertainment, but the operating conditions of Marvel Entertainment have been declining all the way, and it has almost come to the brink of bankruptcy.
Wall Street is full of speculators like Ron Perelman. In some memories of Eric's previous life,
MGM Pictures finally got rid of casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian after 2005. But soon after, it became a 'toy' in the hands of another Wall Street speculative tycoon Carl Icahn. In the following years, MGM faced bankruptcy crises several times, and its business conditions did not improve at all, but Carl Icahn made a lot of money. Full bowl.
All of this information makes Eric deeply jealous of Wall Street. Firefly Pictures is the foundation of Eric's career and his most enthusiastic cause, so Eric has never listed Firefly Pictures. Intend.
And some of the high-tech companies that Chris helped him run were the capital Eric prepared for his expansion in Hollywood. No one knew better than Eric the development prospects of Cisco, America Online, Yahoo and other companies. If Firefly Pictures needs a lot of money to expand in the future, Eric can get a lot of development funds by selling shares in companies such as Cisco or listing companies such as Yahoo, and even if he loses control of these companies in the future, Eric doesn't care too much. The Internet, as a sunrise industry, has a very large component of bubbles. It is the wisest choice to cash out and leave the market in time. Moreover, there are still countless investment opportunities in the Internet in the next 20 years.
After Eric said these words, he directly handed the microphone to Ed Carmore on the other side. After Eric's reminder just now, the next reporter did not continue to ask "Jurassic Park" and Firefly Pictures. Instead, the focus is on Firefly Software.
The launch soon had a huge impact on the media inside and outside Hollywood, and many knew that it was the digital first to fight back against the recent poaching in an effort to stop Autodesk's foray into special effects software. market and maintain industry leadership in the digital space.
After the press conference, Carol Bartz, chairman of Autodesk's board of directors, said in an interview with reporters that Autodesk would not give up the pace of entering special effects software for film and television. However, news came out in the next few days that Autodesk's The board of directors has been divided on the strategy to enter the special effects software market for film and television. Because this trick used by Firefly is too lethal, although it only takes half a year for Autodesk to launch mature special effects software, it is estimated that Firefly software has occupied 90% of the market in the past six months.
Moreover, Firefly software also has the advantage that Autodesk does not have, that is, the special effects industry giant in the digital field. It is incomparable to a company that does not have its own 'experimental field'. Although Autodesk has reached some cooperation intentions with Industrial Light and Magic before, the two parties are two companies after all, and it is impossible to cooperate as closely as Firefly Software and the digital field. .
Subsequently, ILM's actions also confirmed Autodesk's concerns. Just one week after the Firefly software conference, Industrial Light and Magic announced its decision to use Firefly Software's products. An intimate handshake photo of Lucas and Firefly's Ed Carmore.
George Lucas's approach is of course helpless. Although ILM also had a set of independently developed software tools before this, its performance is completely incomparable with ILM. If this time give up the cooperation with Firefly Software. Then ILM's CG special effects production level is likely to be inferior to those of third-rate special effects studios that use tools such as maya. In that case, Industrial Light and Magic Industrial Light and Magic will definitely decline rapidly.
When the news of the cooperation between Industrial Light and Magic and Firefly Software came out, Autodesk's board of directors directly rejected the management's proposal to establish a film and television special effects software department.
At the same time as the establishment of Firefly Software, Eric and the management of Firefly also began to make efforts to retain employees in the digital field, and adopted a series of measures to increase salaries and benefits. For employees who insisted on leaving, the digital field did not stop them, but instead These employees are encouraged to set up their own special effects studios, anchored around the digital realm. And promised that these studios can not only get special effects software at a preferential price, but also receive a certain number of outsourcing projects from the digital field. This measure can disguisedly keep these people in the camp of the digital field. On the other hand, weaken the competitiveness of the opponent.
This measure is very attractive to many people. If you go to other companies and continue to work as employees, you will not have the freedom to be your own boss, even if it is just a small boss of a studio. After the implementation of this measure, some micro and small special effects companies that had nothing to do with the digital field also expressed their desire to join the affiliated camp in the digital field in order to expect corresponding discounts, and the digital field also selectively accepted a batch.
Because these small and micro special effects companies attached to the digital field camp rely too much on the digital field headquarters in terms of technology and projects, Eric is not worried that there will be another behemoth that threatens the digital field. In this way, it has also accelerated the expansion of firefly special effects software tools.
After more than a week, the departure storm in the digital space finally subsided. Stimulated by this incident, in order to ensure that similar incidents will not occur in the company in the future, Eric began to brew equity incentive plans among all member companies of Firefly Pictures. A sense of belonging and cohesion to fireflies.
In the process, Pixar's second 3D animation "A Bug's Life" was also officially released on more than 2,500 screens in North America. This insect-themed animation attracts people with interesting characters and plots suitable for all ages. A large number of audiences of all ages received a box office of 33 million US dollars in the first weekend and three days, and the box office is expected to reach about 50 million US dollars in the first week. Although it cannot be compared with the box office of "Jurassic Park" in its first week, " The results of A Bug's Life have been fully able to rank among the best-selling blockbusters.
And the cost of this 3D animation is only about 70 million US dollars. According to the North American box office trend, relying on the release in the North American market, the cost can basically be recovered. As an animation, the profit from licensing around "A Bug's Life" is the profit. The biggest head of the movie, just three days after the movie was released, the peripheral products that were simultaneously put on the shelves in hundreds of Disney stores across the United States generated a turnover of nearly 12 million US dollars.
By the way, the peripheral products of "Jurassic Park" also began to be distributed through the Disney store channel at the same time as the movie was released. In nearly a month, the turnover of the surrounding area also successfully exceeded 100 million US dollars. It also deliberately imitated the original in the movie to give a few clear features of Jurassic Park's peripheral products, and the history seems to be surprisingly similar, because Dr. Hadmond's granddaughter Lex has a series of pigs in the movie. In the plot of teammates, the figure of the girl's figure has become the most unpopular product in the vicinity of "Jurassic Park". Eric forgot to remind this at the beginning, which caused Disney's toy foundry to produce a batch of Lex's character dolls ahead of schedule. As a result, the dolls of other characters were sold out several times, but Lex's character dolls were not even in the original batch. Half were not sold.
Being in L.A. means being busy, and more often than not, things at hand are not done before other things are coming.
Of course, most things are related to movies. Although the direct profit generated by Firefly in the movie business has a lower and lower share of the company's total profit, no one can take it lightly. The movie business is like the engine of a movie company. , Only the horsepower of the engine is strong enough to lead other businesses to develop rapidly together.
After deciding to abandon the acquisition of Miramax, Firefly Pictures reactivated its Black Ant label and established a dedicated art film investment department. After a period of screening, some scripts were also sent to Eric.
After Quentin Tarantino became famous through "Reservoir Dogs", he happily played soy sauce in many B-rated films for two years, and finally remembered that he still had work to do. After Eric's urging and advice, Kun Tingcai took out the script of Pulp Fiction, and Eric also gave some suggestions based on his memory in the original, such as the candidates for the male and female protagonists, and the classic twist dance.
Maybe many people after watching "Pulp Fiction" don't understand what the classic twirling dance of John Travolta and Uma Thurman is. However, when the movie was originally released in North America When seeing this picture, many North American audiences will have a feeling of tears in their eyes.
Things have to start from 1978, that year, Paramount Pictures released a very unconventional musical film "The Prodigal Son", the film's male protagonist is "Pulp Fiction" John Traver Tower, and once the movie was released, it immediately caused a sensation among North American teenagers. It won the North American box office of 170 million US dollars with half the ticket price of the 1990s at that time. Box office champion. Moreover, the film also led the boom in the disco trend, and created a movie soundtrack sales records that could not be broken for many years.
"The Prodigal Son" happens to have a lot of scenes where John Travolta's male protagonist dances with people in a disco, and years later, "Pulp Fiction" has John Travolta and Uma. The way Thurman participated in the twirling dance competition in the ballroom reproduced the classic scene in "The Prodigal Son" more than ten years ago. The image on the screen is just as impressive. If I use a word that was later vulgar to describe, this feeling is called 'feeling'. (To be continued..)
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