Chapter Seven Hundred and Ninetieth Less than Expected Conditions

The shooting countries of "007 Casino Royale" include the United Kingdom, Italy, the Czech Republic and the Bahamas, and the detailed shooting locations are more than 60, which is also where the 007 series has always been generous. {This site has a new URL, shorthand method:,]

Eric set off in early April to survey all the filming locations, and returned to Los Angeles on May 6th, which was Monday, which happened to be the fifth week of the release of "Seven Deadly Sins".

After "Seven Deadly Sins" accumulated a box office of 60.43 million US dollars in four weeks, it once again made 7.12 million US dollars at the box office in the third weekend of the fifth week, which is still only a slight 17% drop compared to the previous week. Next is the summer season. Although the filming of "Seven Deadly Sins" will be squeezed by then, but with the high level of attention, the attendance rate of the film will definitely rebound at that time, and there is no suspense in the total box office of over 100 million.

As for "First Degree Fear", with its box office of $1.63 million in the fifth weekend and three days, it is estimated that it will be completely drawn from North America after next week.

"First Degree Fear" is not a film that Paramount focuses on, and neither film is a hit film, so Firefly won so easily this time.

In the next summer blockbuster, it is not so easy for a company to manipulate word-of-mouth communication. Even word of mouth is not the most important thing. Some movie critics have extremely bad word of mouth, but they can't stop the audience from buying tickets enthusiastically.

"Titanic" is still slowly doing post-production, and is expected to be completed by the end of July.

Firefly has only two main movies this summer, "The Matrix" released on May 31 and "Brave to the Dead Island" released on June 14. Because of the absence of "Titanic", the new line inserted the completed "Death Is Coming" into the original "Titanic" schedule, which is scheduled for June 28.

"007 Casino Royale" is scheduled to officially start on June 2. However, Eric could not arrive on the set that day. In order to match his schedule, the premiere of "The Matrix" was moved forward to May 27. As for the premiere of "Brave Island", Eric had to be absent.

Back in Los Angeles, Eric didn't even have time to rest due to jet lag, so he had to devote himself to the preparatory work of the three jointly cooperating ffm pay cable stations.

After several months of preliminary work, in addition to the original cable station in the hands of telecommunications, the three have successively acquired several smaller paid cable stations from operators such as cablevi private, with a total of about 4 million users.

Eric originally wanted to take shotime from Viacom. This paid cable TV station in the previous life was second only to H-wave in terms of scale and fame. Now the number of users is only about 500,000.

Because the scale is still small, this TV station is completely optional in the Viacom system. However, after Katzenberg called to express his interest in the acquisition, Summer Redstone chose to refuse without hesitation. Eric estimated that Redstone would definitely study why Firefly would take shottime in private. Interested, but this kind of behavior is destined to be useless. The only thing Eric is interested in at this time is the hundreds of thousands of users of shotime.

Since Redstone refused to sell shotime, Eric focused his energy on the several TV stations he had already acquired.

According to the original historical trajectory, in addition to H-wave, other major media companies have missed the fat of paid cable stations. When the paid cable stations such as shotime and starz later caught up, the era of online streaming media has come. At that time, in order to fight against Time Warner's old premium cable station business and the emerging online streaming media business, Fox, Disney and Comcast jointly established an online streaming media platform Hulu. However, the development ideas of the three companies were in Hulu. There were differences in the previous consensus, and neither had absolute control over the platform. In the end, they broke up unhappily. Even the management stepped away to find another place. It is impossible to talk about competition with platforms such as h wave and li.

Hu Lu's cooperation method is very similar to the ffm that is currently in preparation.

In the preliminary plan, ffm's equity distribution is 30% of Firefly, 30% of News Corporation, 20% of MGM, and the remaining 20% ​​of the shares are held by cable TV operators such as telecommunications and cablevi private. MGM United, 50% of the equity is enough for Eric to fully control the company, but if you want to cooperate for a longer time, the TV station must reach an agreement on the development trajectory and profit model from the very beginning.

In terms of the development of ffm, Eric and Murdoch, the two main decision makers, did not have much disagreement. MGM naturally stood on Eric's side, and several other major operators also promised not to participate in the company's operations. Therefore, As long as Eric and Murdoch negotiate, everything can go smoothly.

In order to prevent the respective managements of the three companies from affecting the development of ffm, Eric and Murdoch unanimously decided to set up a brand new limited TV company, which is specially responsible for the operation of ffm. The management of the company directly reports to Eric and Murdoch. A few people are in charge and are not restricted by the respective managements of the three major groups.

With the content support of Firefly, News Corporation and MGM, ffm wants to grow and develop, and there is not much restriction in content. The main problem of ffm is the lack of background. There is no brand accumulation that has been in operation for more than 20 years. Therefore, in order to make ffm grow as soon as possible, a manager who knows how to manage word of mouth with a small and broad is essential. Eric immediately thought of a certain fat man.

Beverly Hills is still the open-air restaurant that Eric has been to several times.

It was the afternoon, and Eric and Murdoch occupied a terrace alone, chatting about ffm. Murdoch lives in New York most of the time, and occasionally goes to London. This time he made a special trip to Los Angeles for ffm.

"H-wave has been developing for several years from 1973 to the present, and it has a very solid reputation among the audience. If ffm wants to grow and develop in this brand new market, the most critical issue is brand building, so that the audience can develop and grow in the shortest possible time. In this regard, although we have richer film resources than Time Warner, it is impossible for the audience to know these, and the power of habit is very powerful, so we can only find another way.”

Eric said here, and Murdoch, who was sitting next to him, continued: "You mean, reality shows like "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway"?"

Lietime TV became famous with these two reality shows, and it has become a classic case in the industry.

Eric shook his head and said, "No, although everyone knows that reality shows are not so real, they carry the word 'true' after all. The reality show of paid cable channels wants to attract the attention of the audience, and the scale must be far beyond that. Basic cable stations and public stations, if you are not careful, will touch the tolerance limit of social ethics and even the law, this is a minefield, and we definitely shouldn’t touch it.”

"That's a self-made drama like "Wanted City"," Murdoch immediately understood, and shook his head slightly: "However, a TV drama can never be as well-made as a movie, and the basic cable stations will be repaid. Getting viewers to pay more to watch premium TV shows is not that easy."

"Then, we will use the standard of making movies to make TV series. In fact, Firefly has such a project. It was my idea after "Saving Private Ryan". I originally planned to invest about 100 million US dollars to make a movie about A large-scale mini-series of World War II, but unfortunately this project was not suitable for abc TV, so it was stranded."

Murdoch lightly rubbed the coffee cup in his hand, leaned back in his chair, and asked, "$100 million, do you think we might recover the cost?"

"If this project is put on abc, it will definitely not be able to recover the cost. It is absolutely impossible for advertisers to pay advertising fees that far exceed other TV programs. After broadcast on public stations, the income from syndicates and video tapes will also be greatly reduced. However, in the paid cable It’s not certain after the broadcast, first, we can get a subscription revenue, and secondly, as long as these miniseries can be famous enough, we can fully recover the cost and profit on the follow-up videotape and syndicate distribution.”

Murdoch showed a clear expression and said, "I understand, that's why you want Weinstein to run this TV station, right?"

Eric nodded with a smile.

If a self-made drama with a paid cable station wants to become famous, in addition to the necessary word of mouth, other methods are similar to the film produced by an independent film company if it wants to get a high box office, it needs to be similar to the marketing operation of Xiaoboda. .

Once H-wave, the biggest gimmick to show its well-made works is the hundreds of Emmy nominations that are often mentioned by the media. And as long as there are enough outstanding works, in terms of operating awards, there is no one who wants to surpass the Weinstein brothers in recent years. This year's Oscars swept the Quartet in "Forrest Gump", Miramax still stole two heavyweight performance awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.

When Eric was still in Europe, he talked to Harvey Weinstein a few times on the phone, and Weinstein was also very interested in taking over ffm TV, which is why today's meeting was born.

Eric looked at his watch, the appointed time was coming soon, he waved to the waiter and ordered a new pot of coffee.

The old god Murdoch was waiting for the waiter to leave, and suddenly changed the tone of the elder with a serious tone and said, "Eric, you will be twenty-six soon, right?"

Eric's heart skipped a beat, how could this kind of lines seem familiar.

What's the drama next?

Eric was thinking about how to interrupt the past when a chubby figure appeared in time to avoid a possible embarrassing scene. Eric has always been a single person. In his previous life, when his parents were forced to marry every festive season, coupled with the influence of traditional Eastern concepts, he chose to get married at the age of 30. In this life, Eric doesn't want to be bound any more, not to mention that the situation around him is a bit complicated, and it is not suitable for marriage at all.

"Good afternoon, Rupert, Eric, I hope I'm not late," Weinstein walked up to the two of them and warmly hugged the two who stood up.

"Of course not, it's just that we arrived a little early," Eric let go of Weinstein, saying that you were too timely.

Murdoch is also helpless. Although he can be as cunning as a fox in the shopping mall, in front of his children, Murdoch can't do the same thing as Red Stone. I grew up and started a family, but unfortunately, one of the children is more worried than the other, and the second daughter and the eldest son will not talk about the trivial matter. The younger son James was racing with others some time ago, and he happened to be caught by the police. It’s okay No accident.

Weinstein felt that Murdoch's expression was a bit strange, and took the initiative to get up and took the coffee pot brought by the waiter, poured it for the three people, and gave Eric a questioning wink.

Eric can only ignore it, it can't be explained at all.

Fortunately, Murdoch didn't feel melancholy for too long, and took the initiative to say: "Harvey, how are you thinking about that matter?"

Weinstein said quickly: "Of course I really hope to take over ffm, but I still have some questions."

"Tell me?"

Weinstein sorted out his thoughts and said, "If I manage ffm, I absolutely only need to be in charge of you and Eric, um, and MGM?"

Murdoch looked at Eric.

Eric replied: "Of course, ffm operates completely independently. The management of the three companies has no jurisdiction over you, but I still hope that you can cooperate with them."

Weinstein got Eric's personal promise. Rest assured, Miramax has developed very well in the past two years, but after all, it is only a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, and it is separated from the parent company News Corporation by two levels. Weinstein also hopes to gain a greater platform and power in the media industry. With the importance of the three ffm TV stations, he is of course sensitively aware that this will be a very good opportunity.

"Also, about the salary issue..."

Speaking of which, Weinstein rubbed his hands honestly and seemed a little embarrassed.

Eric, however, would not be confused by Weinstein's expression, and told the other party about the plan he had negotiated with Murdoch, saying, "Rupert and I hope you can sign a five-year contract with an annual salary of $250,000, with an annual salary of $250,000. 1 million stock options."

Relying on Miramax's outstanding performance, Weinstein has received more than 10 million bonuses and dividends each year in the past two years. However, he did not feel that the annual salary of 250,000 US dollars was too low. Even Katzenberg's annual salary was only 750,000 US dollars. In Hollywood, what everyone looks at is actually only bonuses and dividends. That is the big money, as long as the company The performance is good, and the annual income of Hollywood executives can range from millions to tens of millions.

Weinstein also knew that the focus of this salary was on the 1 million share options, so he asked: "Eric, what is the total share capital of ffm?"

Eric thought for a while and said, "After the company's integration is completed, it will be about 400 million shares."

The so-called stock option is that the shareholders propose a lower selling price to the management, and within a certain period of time, the management can choose whether to buy the corresponding number of shares of the company at this price. If the company's performance and market value do not grow, or even fall, management is definitely not willing to cash in options at high prices. But if the company's stock price doubles or even higher, and the management buys the stock at that time, it is equivalent to giving it away at half price, which is actually a company incentive mechanism.

Weinstein has also seen some materials before. The current approximate market value of ffm is about 1 billion US dollars, and 5 million options are equivalent to 1.25% of the total share capital. It only takes more than 10 million US dollars to cash out, and he takes the money himself. come out.

However, even if the market value of ffm doubles in five years, the income he gets from this option will only be more than ten million US dollars, which is far lower than his expectation. (To be continued.)