Chapter 907 Actually, I Just Arrived

"Rainbow Media's assets mainly include Bravo Channel, which is wholly-owned, New York Sports Channel, which holds 70% of the shares, RB Channel, which holds 50% of the shares, Fuse Music Channel, which holds 45% of the shares, and Huahua, which holds 30% of the shares. Gongzi Channel, through asset evaluation, the total market value of this company is about 1.8 billion US dollars. Δ』Basic Cable Co. insists on selling a maximum of 30% of the shares to MGM at an asking price of 600 million US dollars. At the same time, we will also obtain the operation of Bravo Channel. right."

In the office, Amy Pascal, who came from Century City, reported to Eric the final negotiation result with the Basic Cable Company.

Eric looked at the preliminary trading plan in his hand, and there was always a feeling that something strange was mixed in. He raised his head and smiled and asked Amy, "Playboy Channel?"

Resisting the urge to give Eric a roll of eyes, Amy explained: "This is a premium cable station created by Basic Cable in 1986 in partnership with the Playboy Group. It mainly provides adult programming such as pornographic movies."

"Oh, okay," Eric nodded, not continuing the topic that would easily embarrass the lady, and said, "That's it, but the other TV stations are fine. After the transaction is completed, you should persuade Rainbow Media Management as soon as possible. Layer sells the stake in Playboy Channel."

Amy hesitated and said, "Eric, the profitability of the Playboy Channel is still very good. Moreover, Rainbow Media only holds shares. The management rights of the TV station have always been in the Playboy Group, and it will not affect us. what impact."

"You're probably mistaken, Amy, I'm not asking you to sell Playboy Channel for any reason like the company's reputation. There are more and more free ********s on the Internet these days, physical colors. The love industry will definitely decline in the next few years, and if you don’t sell it now, this asset will definitely shrink significantly in the future.”

"Well, I will remember this," Amy nodded and continued: "There is also the issue of bonds, we have also reached an agreement with Morgan Stanley, they will assist Morgan next month. Many foundations, including State Street Global, have already expressed their intention to subscribe for the US$500 million corporate bonds from Goldman Group, and our financing scale is not large, so it will definitely go smoothly.”

Having said that, Amy looked at Eric with more complicated emotions in her eyes.

MGM's initial planned bond financing was $100 million. However, because Eric took the production rights of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the global sale of "Casino Royale" brought a lot of cash flow to MGM, and in the end the company only needed to issue half of the bonds for TV business expansion plans.

Although the outside world is generally optimistic about MGM's steady expansion strategy, and most media praised MGM's decision to abandon the high-risk "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Amy felt vaguely that losing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy The production rights of the episode, as well as the film and television rights to Tor King's other two works, "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion," are definitely a very heavy loss for MGM.

Amy even affirmed in his heart that Eric did this as a punishment for MGM's swaying attitude from shareholders to management in the Pierce Brosnan incident.

It was only until the first installment of the "Lord of the Rings" series was released that she understood how severe the punishment was.

Eric felt some changes in Amy's eyes to some extent, but he didn't bother to think about it. He closed the transaction plan in his hand and continued: "Since you have won two TV stations at one time, have you considered a detailed business strategy? ?"

"Yes," Amy replied, "e! Entertainment and Bravo's original market positioning have some overlaps. My plan is to first clearly differentiate the content positioning of the two TV stations. e! Entertainment focuses on entertainment and fashion. , the audience is determined to be young men and women around the age of 18, so the content needs to be more avant-garde. In this regard, I think the reality show idea of ​​"Beverly Girls" is very good. In addition, the management has already started to prepare an e! Entertainment news station,

Specializing in broadcasting gossip news in the entertainment and fashion circles, we also intend to continue to promote this plan. As for Bravo, we plan to focus on the housewife audience. In this regard, Bravo has already laid a good foundation. What we need to do is to continue to launch suitable TV programs and consolidate the market position of Bravo TV in this audience group. "

"Housewife," Eric repeated a word that Amy had just said, and almost instantly the name of a TV series appeared in his mind, "Desperate Housewives".

For a TV station geared towards housewives, "Desperate Housewives" is literally tailor-made.

The reason why the former aBc TV station has become more and more known as a women's station is mainly due to the influence of the high-rated drama "Desperate Housewives". Now, Firefly Group already owns a TV station for urban women, and now there is a Bravo TV station for housewives, so Eric will definitely not allow aBc to develop in the direction of women's TV.

In this case, it would be more appropriate to put the killer of "Desperate Housewives" on Bravo.

Amy didn't hear the words in Eric's mouth, and asked suspiciously, "Eric, what did you just say?"

Eric came back to his senses, shook his head, and didn't plan to say this idea for the time being: "I just came up with some ideas, and I'm not mature enough. I'll tell you in a few days, you should focus on taking over and integrating the two. It's about TV."

In the past "Desperate Housewives", he only watched a few episodes on and off. It is not realistic to copy the whole story. All he can do is to rewrite the script according to the general idea of ​​this TV series. It's hard to predict how popular it will be. However, this is actually good. After all, it would still be a pity if the original version of "Desperate Housewives" was broadcast on the cable station of Bravo, which is far inferior to the aBc TV network. Now it's like remaking a TV series, it doesn't matter if it succeeds or fails.

Amy nodded, the matter was almost finished, she was about to leave, she remembered another thing, and said: "By the way, Eric, regarding "Beverly Girls", Ms. Jenna has already selected four girls , the script is almost finished, do you want to take time to read it?"

Eric looked at his schedule on the computer monitor, nodded and said, "If I'm free in the last few days, someone will call her."

After sending Amy away, Eric invited Peter Jackson to have dinner at the restaurant on the Titanic at noon.

Peter Jackson has been preparing for the "Lord of the Rings" series for so many years, and finally entered the official production stage. I didn't expect to encounter a sudden change in the production side.

Naturally, Eric would not allow such a situation to occur, and for this reason, he deliberately came forward to appease the other party.

Except for the next "Death is Coming 2", there are no other films to be released in the summer of Firefly Group, and Eric's energy has also begun to turn to other projects under the company.

"Iron Man" is scheduled to start shooting early next year, and casting has recently begun. Although the preparations for "Spider-Man" have been very slow, the casting work has also begun. Although there are no less than ten movies under Firefly Group that are in various production stages at the same time, Eric originally needed to pay attention to these two masterpieces in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, since the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was brought over, Eric had to devote a large part of his energy to this project.

The former "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, with a production cost of less than 300 million US dollars, has mobilized a huge box office of 300 million US dollars worldwide, and the return rate is even higher than that of "Titanic". Eric naturally needs to be careful. .

In order to make the entire project run more smoothly, while transferring the production rights to Firefly, Eric also simply pried over the production team that MGM had initially built up and continued to cooperate with Peter Jackson in the preparation of the film.

"The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the biggest difficulty in the early preparations, in fact, is the casting.

Due to the grand story background, the trilogy also has an unusually large number of characters, which means that plans to bring well-known actors to participate basically do not work.

Although he is very optimistic about this project, Eric has no intention to increase the budget for it. Therefore, most of the characters in the movie will be second- and third-tier newcomers. Although the most important thing in Hollywood is actors, it is not so easy to pick out the right candidates in the vast crowd. In addition to asking for the two roles of Queen Elf and Princess Arwen, and intending to hand them over to Nicole and Diane Kruger, Eric did not intend to intervene too much in the casting, but set the remuneration for Peter Jackson Budget constraints, and then hand over these tedious affairs to the other party with confidence.

The casting of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is good to say, the advantages of many characters mean that even if the film fails to choose one or two characters, it will not affect the quality of the whole film. On his 16th birthday, Stuart Runkel also agreed to a six-part deal with Marvel, leaving only Iron Man.

After rejecting Tom Cruise, Marvel Entertainment CEO Avi Allard took a fancy to Matthew McConaughey. The male star's bohemian temperament indeed echoes the image of Iron Man Tony Stark. However, after starring in "The Seven Deadly Sins" and "Contact in Time and Space" in succession, Matthew McConaughey has been promoted to the Hollywood front line. Unwilling to sign a long-term contract with Marvel, Eric still inexplicably disliked the actor, so he did not continue to talk with him.

As a result, as a large-scale production with a production cost of more than 100 million US dollars, it is usually limited to a small circle of male protagonists, and eventually becomes an audition for all Hollywood actors.

Although Firefly's harsh long-term contract conditions were unavoidably ridiculed by some media, and even turned into a downturn in the prospects of the entire project, as Eric said in the Brosnan incident, if you want to get this Characters can still be lined up from Malibu to Burbank.

Firefly Studios.

The time has come to the last day of July, and today happens to be Friday.

Kris Jenner drove into Firefly Studios, parked the car in the parking lot, but did not get out of the car in a hurry, took out her vanity mirror and took care of her makeup before opening the car door. She got the news last Wednesday, and Eric would take time to read the script of "Beverly Girls", but it took more than a week to get the news. However, she did not dare to have any complaints in her heart.

Recently, due to the box office explosion of "Casino Royale", followed by Brosnan's replacement incident, Eric's personal influence has further increased in Hollywood to an unattainable level. For such a big man, Kris Jenner, who is instinctively in awe of power, feels that even if she makes herself wait for a month, it doesn't seem to be a big deal. As long as she can maintain some relationship with the other party, it is enough to keep her in her own small circle. Li raised his eyebrows.

During this time, her life was indeed very beautiful. For the project of "Beverly Girls", she moved back to Los Angeles with her whole family. She originally thought that some old friends would be estranged because of the years she left, But when she learned that she was going to be in charge of the reality show project conceived by Eric Williams, all those people rushed forward, much more eagerly than when she was in Los Angeles.

All the way to the door of Eric's office, he politely greeted Eric's secretary in the outer room, and the other party asked her to wait for a while, and Kris Jenner sat honestly in the reception room of the outer room.

"Don't blame me for not reminding you for the last time, Bridget, when you get this role, we may call you Pepper when we see you again." After a while, Eric's office door opened, a man and a woman Walking out of it, the man is naturally Eric, but the girl is Bridget Fonda, who used to be the heroine in "The Ghostly Love", and Kris Jenner remembers that since "The Ghostly Love" After "Final", the other party doesn't seem to have any outstanding works in recent years. However, listening to Eric's tone, she seems to have another important role, and it is enough to change an actor's popularity in the audience. The important role of the impression in the mind.

She couldn't help being envious. She had fantasized about becoming an actress at the beginning, but unfortunately she never had such an opportunity.

Bridget Fonda also noticed Kris Jenner sitting in the drawing room, nodded to her, said a few more words to Eric, and left politely.

Eric watched the other party leave, and then waved to Chris Jenner: "Sorry, Ms. Jenner, I kept you waiting for a long time, please come with me."

"It doesn't matter, I just arrived," Kris Jenner hurriedly got up, picked up her satchel and walked over. (To be continued.) 8 More wonderful novels, welcome to visit everyone's school