Chapter 782 Best Stage

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Elizabeth is only one step away from the president at Fox, and with the special status of Murdoch's daughter, she has a lot of real power. However, large projects that the company invests more than 50 million US dollars must still need the approval of the board of directors. The chairman of Fox, of course, is her old man.

Eric's suggestion to let Fox participate in part of the investment in "Titanic" is actually to fine-tune Murdoch, and by the way, secretly fight for more power for Elizabeth.

He knew that Murdoch, as a standard businessman, would never agree to throw money into a bottomless pit like "Titanic". In his previous life, because Fox was too shrewd, in order to avoid risks, he used a mere $60 million to sell North America The distribution rights were sold to Paramount, and as a result, the North American box office of "Titanic" was 600 million, and all Fox cried.

This time, if "Titanic" is not a big success, that's fine. Once the film hits the box office like the original, Murdoch will definitely pay more attention to Elizabeth's advice in the future. Elizabeth has correspondingly more decision-making power in the company.

The next day, when Eric was in the office, he received a call from Elizabeth, and the outcome was completely unexpected.

After the Oscars, "Forrest Gump" won six heavyweight awards including best picture and best director from thirteen nominations, especially Tom Hanks' re-election, which immediately became the focus of the media. For example, the box office of the film that is still showing in hundreds of theaters in North America has rebounded significantly again. In the ninth month of the film's release, it still received a box office of more than 3 million US dollars in a single week, and obtained the North American distribution rights of "Forrest Gump". The copyrighted Firefly has also begun the next phase of the film's distribution plans.

Firefly Studios, the time is Friday. After a period of research, Katzenberg came up with the evaluation plan of 3D and imax technology.

"According to the detailed investigation of the strategic planning department, everyone thinks that the current 3D technology may still have the possibility of promotion, but imax will not work. There are too many restrictions on this technology, and there is no possibility of large-scale promotion at all."

The two were still sitting in a cafe in the studio at this time. Eric pushed the coffee aside, flipped through the materials that Katzenberg had sorted out, and asked, "What's the main reason?"

Between 3D and imax, Eric actually prefers the latter, which may be the result of being poisoned by too many fake 3D movies in his previous life.

"The main thing is the cost," Katzenberg obviously did a lot of homework, and blurted out without reading the materials, "Just taking the cost of the theater renovation, for 3D, most theaters only need to replace one set of projection systems. The price of an advanced polarized 3D movie projector is only about 100,000 US dollars. With other hardware such as 3D eyes, the total renovation cost will never exceed 150,000 US dollars. However, the imax is different. Five stories high,

Ninety-nine percent of movie theaters in the U.S. and Europe are not eligible for conversion. If you want to build an imax theater, you can only start from scratch. The venue construction plus projection equipment, the complete set, will cost about 1.5 million US dollars, which is ten times the cost of 3D theater renovation. "

Listening to Katzenberg's explanation, Eric suddenly understood why the mainland would become the area with the fastest development of imax technology in his previous life. Because the popularization of imax and the explosion of the film industry were almost simultaneously carried out, a large number of newly built theaters started from one to the other. From the beginning, you can determine the imax specification reads(); Li Xiang's Northern Song Dynasty. However, North America and Europe are different. In these regions, the film industry has developed for a hundred years, and the supporting cinemas have long been finalized. The screening halls of these cinemas basically do not meet the imax reconstruction standards. In the face of such a high cost of imax theaters, the enthusiasm of traditional theater chains to rebuild imax theaters will certainly not be too high.

After reading the information in hand, in addition to the cost of the theater line transformation, if you want to popularize imax, from film shooting to film conversion, almost all are accompanied by very high cost requirements. Relatively speaking, the difficulty of popularizing 3D technology is much lower. At present, imax technology cannot support a complete movie duration of more than 90 minutes, but 3D technology has been roughly mature. Lack of cinemas. Even, the current "reputation" of 3D technology is not very good, because many theaters with 3D equipment are showing **** movies that give people a sense of curiosity.

Eric is not a blind idealist, many things need to be done step by step, after thinking about it for a moment, he said: "I see that imax is recently developing a dmr reset technology for converting ordinary film to imax film, you should pay attention to it , the other party's financial situation doesn't seem to be very good, we can invest a sum of money in. In addition, on our own side, we set up a special 3D technology research and development department in the digital field, um, when I finish filming "Casino Royale", the next part The film might try 3D."

Katzenberg nodded, and he generally considered Eric's suggestion, but after Eric finished speaking, Katzenberg continued: "Eric, I also think that 3D technology is definitely the future of the film industry. It's a brand new development area in 2018, so don't you think this is a great driver for us to enter the cinema industry?"

"Cinema?" Eric raised his eyebrows unexpectedly, but he didn't think about it.

In the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, the federal government gradually loosened its control over the entertainment industry. The Paramount Act, which stripped film companies from theater chains, has now existed in name only. Viacom, Time Warner, Universal Each has its own cinema chain, among which Viacom has the largest cinema chain, with a super-high 3,000 screens in the United States.

However, Firefly’s development and rise was relatively late, and it had not had time to get involved in the theater business. Being bound by the deep-rooted concept of the Paramount Act, Eric also subconsciously did not consider this matter.

At this time, after being reminded by Katzenberg, Eric realized that in recent years, it is indeed the best time for Firefly to get involved in the theater business. Although many people think that "Avatar" is the beginning of the rise of 3D movies, in fact, 3D movies have already appeared in the new century. The well-known "Spider-Man" and "Harry Po" "Special" and other films, all have 3D versions, but because of various constraints, these films have not reached the powerful influence of "Avatar".

Both 3D technology and imax have been around for more than 30 years. Therefore, the promotion of these technologies is not technically difficult. The difficulty is only the lack of strong institutions to promote them.

Then, at this time, it is not bad for Firefly to be such a "pioneer". After all, according to the historical trajectory, the North American film market reached saturation around 2000, and the market growth for more than ten years in the following years was only driven by the increase in ticket prices. If 3D and imax can be popularized, it will undoubtedly break through the market. Saturation constraints, prompting further growth in the industry.

After thinking for a while, Eric put down the empty coffee cup and said, "Jeffrey, this matter can be added to Firefly's next development plan, but I hope you can be very cautious. I have always hoped that Firefly can be more Powerful, but also worried that fireflies will become dull and bloated due to blind expansion, you understand?"

"Of course, without 100% certainty, I wouldn't do this lightly."

Eric nodded, picked up the coffee pot and filled himself with a cup of coffee, and said, "Do you know what Steve and the others are doing?"

"David also talked to me and hoped that I could help, but I refused," Katzenberg said without concealing, "They will officially announce the news about next month, but I don't know the details. Clear."

David Geffen and Katzenberg have always been good friends, and Eric also knows that, but the friendship factor is unlikely to drive a determined business elite to change schools. Katzenberg was nothing else. Choice, at this time, he obviously understands that fireflies are the best stage for him to stretch his talents. (To be continued.)

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