hunt hollywood

After several months of planning and preparation, the overall design of the studio has been completely completed, the land in the depression has also been leveled, and the road to the studio has been widened.The project will start in mid-May, and the construction period of the main building and the later decoration will be six months. It is expected to be officially settled in June next year.

At noon, I had lunch with Angela Ahrendts, the president of Gucci's US branch, who came here specially from New York.

Simon has a lot of information about Angela Ahrendts in his memory, so he looked at her differently in the pile of resumes provided by Sofia Fishy.

In the original time and space, Angela Ahrendts once served as the CEO of the famous British luxury brand Burberry. Because of leading this century-old classic luxury brand back to the top, Ahrendts received Apple's attention and successfully joined The world's largest electronics company by market value became Apple's senior vice president in charge of retail business, and was once rumored to be Tim Cook's successor.

The current Angela Ahrendts is only 28 years old, but after a few months in office, her work performance has made Simon and Sofia very satisfied.Sophia now also plans to adopt some of Ahrendts' business ideas to reform Gucci stores in Europe and Asia, and privately revealed to Simon that Ahrendz may be able to take charge of the entire Gucci operation in two or three years.

Santa Monica.

Throughout lunch at a seafood restaurant in Venice Beach, Angela Ahrendts gave Simon her ideas on the company's customer experience, financial management, and marketing initiatives.

Simon just listened carefully and occasionally asked a few questions.

With the rapid expansion of the business territory of the Westeros system, Simon now only needs to have a general understanding of some business operation concepts, so that he can know it well. He does not need to be proficient in specific and micro operations, nor does he have the time and energy.

Lunch lasted until two o'clock in the afternoon.

Near the end, Angela Ahrendts mentioned another thing: "Simon, regarding the 'Gucci Night' event at the Cannes Film Festival, Sophie still hopes that you can go to France in person."

After the Oscars in March, Sofia decided to replicate the campaign at the Cannes Film Festival in May following the success of Gucci's 'Gucci Night' with Daenerys Entertainment.This year's Cannes Film Festival kicks off on May 3, and the 'Gucci Night' over there is scheduled for May 5, the second Saturday of the festival.

Simon heard Sofia talk about this when he was in Melbourne, and he didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but said that it would depend on his schedule.

Hearing Angela mention it again at this time, Simon asked, "Do I have to go there?"

Angela Ahrendts nodded and said, "If you can't show up, many of the guests we hope to invite may not be there."

Simon considered his work schedule.

Because the post-production time of "Batman" is very loose, and many jobs don't need to be watched all the time. He basically spends half of his time in the post-production of "Batman" and half of the time taking care of the company's management.Although he was busy, it was not to the point that he couldn't leave completely.

Daenerys Entertainment's run during the filming of "The Batman" also proved that the company was on the right track and didn't need his constant attention.

So he nodded in agreement.

Seeing that the time was about the same, Simon called the waiter to check out, and then asked Angela Ahrendts, "Do you have any arrangements for the afternoon?"

Angela Ahrendts froze for a moment, then shook her head.

Simon noticed the hesitation in Ahrendts' eyes, realized what she had misunderstood, and explained: "Daenerys Entertainment has set up a data analysis company to support Blockbuster's operations. I'm going to check it out this afternoon. Some ideas put forward by the person in charge of this company have a lot of overlap with what you just explained, maybe the two of you can exchange ideas."

Hearing Simon's explanation, Angela Ahrendts was a little embarrassed by the flash of her thoughts just now, nodded and said, "Nancy, we know each other."

Daenerys Analysis Company is located near Santa Monica Beach. The two left Venice Beach and arrived at their destination less than two kilometers north.

Looking at another branch of Daenerys Entertainment living in a small three-story building, Simon looked forward to the completion of Daenerys Studios as soon as possible.

Nancy Brill was already waiting for him, and she was obviously very happy when she saw Angela Ahrendts' appearance. She pulled her and whispered, almost instantly forgetting the existence of Simon, the boss.

Angela Ahrendts didn't dare to ignore Simon casually like Nancy did. She just chatted with her a few words and said, "Simon said that we want to see the results of your work together."

"Let's go upstairs," Nancy nodded upon hearing Angela's reminder, and said to Simon, "I happened to find something recently, and I just wanted to discuss it with you."

The three went upstairs together.

The second floor is the office area for data analysts, and the surrounding area is a bit messy, with various forms hanging on the walls. Some employees who are still working can't help but look over curiously when they see the big boss Simon appearing.Simon didn't act too indifferent, he greeted everyone warmly, and then began to listen to Nancy's explanation.

"Blockbuster's data management system will not be upgraded until September. However, according to the data accumulated in the past, the analysis company has started to cooperate with Blockbuster, and has provided many suggestions on logistics, warehousing, management, etc. ,” Nancy said, took out a document from the filing cabinet by the wall and handed it to Simon, saying, “For example, this, this is what I just wanted to tell you.”

Simon opened the file and found that it was an analysis report on the types of rental and sales of videotapes in the Blockbuster chain store, which listed the rental and sales data of various types of movies in detail.

Flipping through the documents in his hand, Simon asked: "Actually, the idea is not the most important thing. The key is, how can you ensure that Blockbuster can implement these suggestions without compromise?"

Nancy said: "I'm watching it myself now, of course they won't."

Simon raised his head: "You stared at it yourself?"

"Yes," Nancy nodded, and said, "Besides the director of the board of directors, I am still a senior operation consultant of Blockbuster."

Simon wondered: "Why don't I know?"

Nancy was even more puzzled: "Do you need to know?"

"Okay," Simon was speechless, remembering the last time Nancy forced the management of Blockbuster, and he reminded helplessly with a chuckle from Angela Ahrendts next to him: "When do you want to send Wayne Huey Zanga stepped down and became the chairman himself, remember to remind me."

Nancy said solemnly: "According to Blockbuster's current expansion progress, by the end of next year, Blockbuster's chain stores will exceed 1000, and Huizenga's capabilities will be somewhat insufficient."

Simon defeated: "I was just joking."

Nancy still said seriously: "I haven't."

Simon looked at the little woman who was a bit shorter than himself in the sky-high dress with a guilty conscience, and asked carefully: "Well, Nancy, did you also kick Simon Westeros from the stage? plan?"

Nancy shook her head: "No, you are the 100% controlling shareholder of Daenerys Entertainment, and doing so will only lead to my being driven away."

Simon breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good."

Chapter 259 Timing of Layout (Revised)

Nancy Brill rolled her eyes at Simon amidst Ahrendts' uncontrollable chuckle again, and the three of them went to a conference room next door.

Sitting down, Nancy flipped the document to the end and showed it to Simon, "According to the statistical results of the analysis team, among the video rental and sales revenue of Blockbuster chain stores, the North American box office list released in the last year Sales of the top 37 films accounted for only 29% of the total revenue, because film studios have to take a higher share from popular new films, and the share of gross profit brought by this part of content is even lower, only [-]%.”

Simon looked at the documents in front of him and noticed that Angela Ahrendts was also coming over. He moved the folder towards her and asked Nancy, "What do you want to express?"

Nancy stretched out a slender index finger and scratched at the key data, saying: "These data show that the 20/80 rule that 80% of the popular movies in the theater market account for 20% of the box office is invalid in the video tape market. With the further expansion of Blockbuster and the continuous enrichment of content, the corresponding data will be reversed, and the 20% of films that can provide [-]% of the box office revenue for theaters will still bring [-]% ​​of the revenue to the video industry."

Simon recalled it carefully, and there were indeed some similar vague memories in his mind, so he looked up at Nancy, waiting for her to continue.

Nancy continued: "The proportion of North American households owning VCRs was only 1980% in 2, and now it is close to 70%. The industry predicts that more than 80% of North American households will own VCRs in the next few years. In addition, the output value of the North American videotape industry is also It is growing rapidly, and it just surpassed the local box office three years ago. Last year, the scale of revenue reached 83 billion US dollars, almost twice that of the box office. Although the video market in North America will reach saturation in the next few years, its total revenue The scale will be at least 2.5 times that of the domestic box office, and the potential of the global video tape market should be comparable to that of North America."

After listening to Nancy, Simon nodded and asked, "So?"

"Therefore, I suggest that the company enrich Daenerys Entertainment's movie library resources through acquisitions. Because the videotape industry is rising too fast, the home entertainment distribution of many classic movies is still full of commercial potential. Just like Universal's "Alien" Human ET", this film was released in 1982, and the video tape was released in October last year. It is only six months now, and the global sales have exceeded 10 million boxes. I think Orion Films is a very suitable acquisition target. It Owning the copyright of hundreds of film and television works, and the content quality is very high. Accumulating a batch of excellent film and television resources, combined with Blockbuster’s retail channels, we can regularly plan and actively plan marketing activities for these contents just like Disney’s continuous re-screening of classic animations push."

Although the big sales of "Run Lola Run" and "Pulp Fiction" still failed to stop the decline of Orion Pictures, but as Nancy said, the quality of the film and television copyrights held by this company is indeed very high.

Since its establishment more than ten years ago, Orion has not only released a large number of films with double box office awards such as "Mozart" and "Platoon", but also has such hot sellers as "Terminator", "RoboCop" and "First Blood". The copyright of commercial films, Woody Allen is also cooperating with Orion in several recent films.

This supposedly thriving studio is in trouble for complex reasons.

Blindly expanding the scale due to the over-eager pursuit of standing shoulder to shoulder with the traditional Hollywood studios, the increase in the number of films released by the company has led to unstable box office performance, the senior management is proficient in film production but not good at business management, the company's financial system is chaotic, and production costs are out of order Follow, and even the overall deterioration of the entertainment industry environment and so on.

The lesson of Orion is right in front of us. If it weren't for the stable income brought by many blockbuster movies and reality TV shows last year, Simon would definitely strictly limit the pace of expansion of Daenerys Entertainment.

Moreover, Simon's strict control over Daenerys Entertainment's financial aspects, emphasis on marketing, and management of company culture are all trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of Orion and other companies as much as possible.

conference room.

Simon also very much agrees with Nancy's suggestion on expanding the resources of Daenerys' entertainment film library.

In the early 80s, Hollywood studios did not pay much attention to film library resources. When Michael Eisner first joined the company in 1984, his valuation of Disney’s film library was only US$2 million.

However, with the rapid rise of the video tape industry, just a few years ago, the classic animation "Cinderella" in 1950, which sold more than 700 million boxes, brought Disney more than 2 million US dollars in revenue, and the value of Disney's film library also increased. So it skyrocketed tenfold.

In the original time and space, because of the success of "Sleepless in Seattle", a 50s romance film "Jin Yumeng", which was repeatedly mentioned in the film, also benefited unexpectedly. It sold 200 million video tapes beyond everyone's expectations. It was a windfall for filmmakers.

Moreover, not just videotapes, the films in these libraries can continue to earn huge returns through re-releases, remakes, cable broadcasts, and other channels.

It can be said that the film libraries held by major Hollywood studios are actually precious gold mines.

Closing the document in front of him, Simon said: "I will seriously consider this matter, Nancy, and some important data reports from the analysis company can be sent to my office in the future. Now, take me to see the movie you are preparing database."

Nancy did not pursue Simon to promote this matter this time, and she also knew the current financial situation of Daenerys Entertainment.

Although the company's cash flow is very abundant, it has not reached the level of the acquisition of Orion. The reason for this proposal is that she is convinced that Simon is continuing to make large profits in the Japanese financial market, and that money should be enough by then. .

After talking about this matter, the three of them came to the third floor together.

This is where the Movie Profile Database team lives.

The movie data database planned by Nancy is of course not a traditional paper database, but a computer electronic file.

"I have assigned some efficient students in Los Angeles to complete the statistical work of film materials on a part-time basis, which can save a lot of cost," Nancy led the two through the office area and visited the SUN workstation in the computer room on the third floor. From the computer room After coming out, Nancy couldn't help complaining to Simon: "According to your request, we adopted Oracle's database software, and the result was really terrible. That Larry Ellison is simply a big liar, not only the software always Every time a technician calls to ask for a solution to a bug, he always argues that the problem has been found there and is being improved. I think that if we hadn’t put forward our opinions, he would have no idea how bad his software quality is. That guy I also want to get some orders for Blockbuster's database software, and I have been calling to harass me recently."

Simon didn't expect his female executives to see through Larry Ellison's 'essence' so easily, and nodded in relief, saying: "However, sometimes liars are always easier to succeed than ordinary people."

Nancy and Simon walked side by side. Hearing this, she raised her face slightly and gave him a disdainful glance, as if she was classifying her boss.

Angela Ahrendts, walking on the other side, noticed this subtle little interaction between the two, and it was very interesting.

Although she only had lunch with Simon, Angela Ahrendts could still feel the indifference and alienation of her young boss towards others, but for Nancy, he showed an obvious connivance.

Just like the Blockbuster thing.

Angela felt that if she did not get acquiescence or authorization, she would not dare to interfere in the management of a subsidiary at will, and she believed that Simon was definitely not the kind of person who liked the way her executives did.But Nancy quietly 'appointed' herself as Blockbuster's senior operations consultant, but Simon just laughed it off.

The three entered an office, and Nancy called an employee who was on duty on weekends to demonstrate the details of the database to everyone.

Simon had previously provided Nancy with a memo based on the IMDB website model, but the movie database in front of him was quite different from the IMDB in his memory.

The creation of this database has only one purpose - practical.

Therefore, there are no tidbits, comments, message boards and other functions mentioned by Simon in the memo. The film information only lists the story outline, film type, core creators, box office data, media ratings, etc., which can be provided to Daenerys Analysis Company. Help related data.

In addition, although the database interaction window has made a graphical interface similar to the web browser in memory, the movie data is in full text mode, without a single picture.

In addition to the basic movie data, the technical team responsible for the creation of the database also plans to develop a set of comprehensive analysis software based on the feedback information regularly submitted by Blockbuster's terminal data management system.

All in all, Nancy Brill has no intention of replicating an IMDB that serves the masses.Her purpose is very clear, which is to combine this series of resources to achieve the ultimate goal of improving Blockbuster's operating efficiency, reducing operating costs, and strengthening corporate competitiveness in her original report.

Compared with the convenience that websites can directly access data and analyze user behavior through the background in the era of big data, the method Daenerys Analytics is using now is still very primitive in Simon's view.However, this concept has gone far beyond its contemporary competitors.

Listening to Nancy's explanation of the increase in sales of Stephen King's horror film driven by the release of "Pet Cemetery" last month and the small case of Blockbuster's timely response and layout based on terminal feedback data, Simon couldn't help but think of "Jin Yumeng" again.

One of the biggest functions of Daenerys Analytics is that it can promote more refined allocation of film and television resources, and this is achieved at a much faster response speed than its peers.

It is conceivable that if "Sleepless in Seattle" is released as scheduled in the next few years and drives the sales of the videotape of "Jin Yumeng".

When competitors in the same industry have not responded, Blockbuster can quickly complete the purchase and distribution of the "Jin Yumeng" videotape through the user demand feedback given by Daenerys Analysis Company.

At that time, among the potential demand for 200 million boxes of "Jinyumeng" videotapes stimulated by "Sleepless in Seattle", Blockbuster will definitely be able to seize the largest part of the cake by virtue of its first-mover advantage.

Not only that, when consumers gradually find that Blockbuster can always provide the content resources they want in the first time, this company will definitely gradually become the first choice for users when they want to buy rental video tapes.Blockbuster's competitiveness will also be improved in this subtle way.

In the final analysis, the saying that details determine success or failure is also applicable to business operations.

Simon spent an afternoon at the headquarters of Daenerys Analysis Company. In addition to analyzing the company's work results to make him confirm that the money he invested would be worthwhile, inspired by the movie database, Simon also realized that now It is already time to plan the Internet in advance.

Speaking of which, Simon's layout in this area should be regarded as already started.

Most of the technology companies in which the Westeros Corporation owns shares are full of ties to the coming Internet age.

Moreover, in addition to Microsoft and other listed companies, James Raybould had previously completed an investment in Cisco, with a shareholding ratio of 15%.Recently, Quantum Link, the predecessor of America Online, which held 25% of the shares, was successfully promoted to officially change its name to American Online.

One of Cisco and AOL is a network equipment provider, and the other is a network service provider, which can just provide basic technical support for the rise of the Internet.

What is missing now is the network content provider, and the global Internet concept that unifies all three.

If memory serves me correctly, the founder of the Internet concept, Tim Berners-Lee, will formally propose the concept of the World Wide Web (WWW) this year.

Then, the electronic computer network, which has been brewing continuously since the 1960s, will officially take off.

After the weekend, on Simon's first day at work, he asked Jennifer to help him collect various information related to the computer network.

Now that network equipment providers and network service providers have emerged, the next thing Simon has to do is to take the lead in network content.

……

Burbank.

Renee Russo drove away from Universal Studios, thinking of the hints given to her by the nearly 70-year-old director who had just auditioned, and couldn't help feeling sick.

He obviously doesn't have the right to make a decision, but he still wants to eat free food.

Being an old lady is so deceiving.

I don't even look at how stupid I am.

Today is May 5th, another Friday.

A week had passed before she knew it, but many details of that night became clearer in her mind.

and.

Touching the Gucci Floral silk scarf still tied around his neck, he inexplicably felt a strong resentment.

I originally thought that the experience of that night could improve my situation in Hollywood, but I didn't expect everything to remain the same.

nasty man.

Scum!