hunt hollywood

For a while, the phones of Daenerys entertainment executives including Simon, Amy, Robert Rehm, Ella Deutschman and even Robert Iger from the east coast were all ringing off the phone. Reservations such as seminars and receptions also flocked to the crowd.

As the final decision maker of this plan, Simon is naturally the focus of everyone's attention.

However, Simon just let Jennifer push all the invitations. Although he didn't fly to Australia on the weekend, he quietly rushed to San Francisco.Mainly for rest, by the way to check the development progress of various projects of Eaglet.

The weekend was over when the Hollywood-like media found out about Simon.

August is also coming quietly without knowing it.

Although realizing that it is likely that the WGA's sudden attack triggered Daenerys Entertainment's plan to cooperate with 10 films, some people in the circle feel that Westeros' reaction is a bit of a fuss. However, in the new week, the originally menacing WGA seems to have suddenly lost some support, and its attitude has softened significantly.

George Cogo, president of the Western Chapter of the Writers Guild of America, also stated in a statement last week that the WGA will set up a special investigation committee for Daenerys Entertainment's violation of the agreement.Over the weekend, this so-called committee seems to be forgotten by everyone, only the WGA legal department is still following up tepidly.

Obviously, relative to the WGA's Daenerys Entertainment survey, everyone agrees that those 10 movie projects are the most important.

The seven major Hollywood film companies, after careful calculation, have no irresolvable conflicts with Daenerys Entertainment.Well, maybe one or two projects have been robbed, maybe one or two talents have been robbed, maybe a lawsuit is being prepared, but these are just normal business practices, not personal grievances.

As long as everyone has a positive attitude and takes the initiative to get a share of these 10 movies, the possibility is still very high.

As a result, when the WGA investigation was about to come to an end, major studios also began to show their favor to Daenerys Entertainment.

Orion Pictures, whose performance has been sluggish for more than half a year, contacted Amy Pascal immediately, claiming that the company had recently recovered a sum of money and could pay Daenerys Entertainment's due share on "Pulp Fiction".It's just that I hope that the two sides can sign another film contract.

Amy was also unambiguous, insisting that Orion pay the share first, and then talk about other things.

MGM just stated last week that it would insist on filing a lawsuit. On Monday, it changed its tone directly and sent a batch of scripts over with a shy face.

The person in charge of Columbia's Samsung Pictures also transferred a message to Simon through Jonathan Friedman. Samsung Pictures decided to cancel the film contract with Matthew Broderick called "The Godfather of Lizards".

Simon and Matthew Broderick's entanglement is no secret in Hollywood.

Matthew Broderick made the jump from the WMA to the C's a few months before Norman Broca left. "The Godfather of the Lizard" was originally a movie that Samsung Films was quite interested in. The story is set to have two male protagonists. In addition to Matthew Broderick, the other male protagonist is the famous and veteran Hollywood actor Marlon Brando.

After signing the contract and then canceling the contract, Samsung Pictures has to pay liquidated damages.

This is indeed very sincere.

Everyone in the circle realized that after this incident, Matthew Broderick's career in Hollywood was completely over.

Originally conscious of having no interest in Daenerys Entertainment, other studios did not have much scruples about using Matthew Broderick.Now, everyone is fighting for Daenerys Entertainment's 10-movie contract. Samsung Pictures will not hesitate to pay liquidated damages to draw a clear line. The attitude is so obvious. If other studios cooperate with Matthew Broderick again, That is simply a provocation to Simon Westeros.

After all, there is only one Westeros, and there are plenty of Hollywood niches who could replace Matthew Broderick.

It is conceivable that Matthew Broderick will not be able to get any role from mainstream first- and second-tier Hollywood film companies in the next few years, even if he wants to switch to the TV industry.A few years later, the male star would only be completely forgotten by Hollywood.

Daenerys Entertainment announced the details of the two scripts of "Scream" and "The Sixth Sense", because the announcement of 10 foreign cooperation film plans has attracted the attention of Hollywood, and no other forces have come forward to oppose it. The media trend is disrupting the situation, and public opinion is almost one-sided in supporting Simon.

For the sake of its own face, the Writers Guild of America did not end the investigation of Daenerys Entertainment as soon as possible, but just delayed it calmly.

However, because of good public opinion control, the script incident of "The Sixth Sense of Spirituality" basically had little impact on the box office of the film. "Fu Xing and Fu Jiang", "NO.7 Friday 28" and "Heaven The three new films of "Movie Theater" also did not pose a threat to "The Sixth Sense".

7月28日到8月3日，又一周过去，《灵异第六感》的票房跌幅继续控制在非常良好的23%，再收2396万美元。

At the same time, "The Sixth Sense" has accumulated a total box office of 1 million U.S. dollars in five weeks, and it has also surpassed "Raiders of the Lost Ark 7398", which was originally ranked first in the year.

In its ninth week of release, "Raiders of the Lost Ark 9" had a cumulative box office of $3 million, nearly $1 million behind "The Sixth Sense".Moreover, the single-week box office of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 7216" has fallen to less than 200 million U.S. dollars. Whether it can break through 3 million U.S. dollars in the next few weeks depends on luck.

In comparison, the weekly box office of "The Sixth Sense" is still above 2000 million US dollars. Based on the box office trend shown by the film, it is definitely not a problem to collect another 1 million US dollars in North America.Whether it can break through 3 million US dollars may also depend on luck, but compared to "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3", this kind of luck is only enviable and jealous.

Disney's "Fortune and Fortune," starring Tom Hanks and Michael Fox, ranked second at the box office with $1912 million in its first week.

Warner Bros.' "Lethal Weapon 2" received another US$1568 million, ranking third, with a cumulative box office of US$9412 million in four weeks, showing great stamina.

The eighth part of Paramount Pictures' classic horror film "NO.13 Friday" series "NO.13 Friday 8" ranked fourth with a box office of 848 million US dollars in the first week.

Disney's "Honey, I Shrunk the Child" slipped to No.5 this week, and it received another US$761 million, with a cumulative box office of US$9847 million.

Outside of the top five on the list, "Cinema Paradise" released by Universal Pictures did not have the luck to reproduce the "Sex, Lies and Videotape" in early July.

The box office of "Sex, Lies and Videotape" in the first week of its release at the beginning of the month was finally US$631 million.

According to this box office trend, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" can almost safely break through the $3000 million box office mark before it goes down.

Universal, by contrast, struggled to improve on the re-editing and English-language dubbing of the film because it was too eager to get Cinema Paradiso to theaters.

"Cinema Paradise" won the Palme d'Or in Cannes, but the re-cut and dubbed version in North America has a poor reputation. Even the director Giuseppe Tornatore publicly stated that this is already another movie.

The word-of-mouth failed, and it lacked commercial attributes. In the first week, "Cinema Paradise" had 553 opening screens similar to "Sex, Lies, and Videotapes", but it only earned 186 million US dollars at the box office, and the average price of a single theater was only a little over 3000 US dollars.If the start fails, the long-term is naturally out of the question.It is estimated that the two-week contract period will end, and the theater will withdraw the film. The total box office of the film in North America is only about 300 million US dollars.

"Paradise Cinema" lost both in terms of media reputation and box office, and Universal Pictures is doomed to be unable to win the best foreign language film award for this film like Miramax in the original time and space.

In order to obtain "Cinema Paradise", Universal only paid $500 million in advance for the rights to the film studio, and also promised a sharing clause. Recently, it has invested no less than $200 million in promotional expenses. To lose everything.

Universal can certainly bear the loss of millions of dollars. However, for many people who are looking forward to "Paradise Cinema" because Daenerys Entertainment is optimistic, it is extremely disappointed.

Not only Universal, Giuseppe Tornadore, who intends to hit the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film after the Cannes Palme d'Or and is trying to further break into Hollywood, seems to have been hit with a sap.The producers who snatched the production rights of Tonadore's new film at a high price because of Daenerys Entertainment's move are no longer so confident.

After "Cinema Paradiso" was released at the North American box office, the French producer TF1 Film Production Company, which had snatched the investment rights for Tornatore's new film, re-contacted Daenerys Entertainment to test whether there is any possibility of cooperation between the two parties.

Simon has read the script of "Family Journey" before. Although he doesn't have much impression of the original Italian version, he remembers that this film was remade into the American version in the original time and space, with Robert De Niro, Kate Beckinsale Stars include Drew Barrymore and Drew Barrymore.The French film studio took the initiative to show favor, and Simon did not let Ella Deutschman refuse, and asked the other party to participate in the capital injection to win the North American distribution rights of "Family Journey".

"Sex, Lies, and Videotapes" and "Cinema Paradiso", one hit, the other hit the street, the two films ended in very different ways, and the executives of Hollywood studios gradually realized a certain fact: Daenerys Entertainment The most important projects may not be [-]% successful. Obviously, the key to the matter is the participation of Simon Westero himself.

Chapter 279 Financial Report for the First Half of the Year (Revised)

When the 10-movie project made the entire Hollywood boil, Daenerys Entertainment's mid-year financial audit also quietly ended.

In addition to taking care of other jobs, Simon spent three days studying the dozens of pages of financial reports compiled by the company's financial department.

Overall, the revenue focus of Daenerys Entertainment in the first half of the year is still the four films "Scream", "Steel Magnolia", "Dead Poets Society" and "Rain Man" at the end of last year.

From January 1st to June 1th, in six months, the domestic box office of the four films continued to earn 6 million US dollars, and Daenerys Entertainment received 30 million US dollars from this part of the box office.The reason why the box office sharing ratio is lower than the average 2.63% is mainly because of the ladder sharing scheme for theater screenings. After a movie is released, the box office sharing ratio gradually decreases.

Overseas, the total revenue brought by the four films was 3.56 million U.S. dollars, of which "Scream" was 9515 million U.S. dollars, "Steel Magnolia" was 1237 million U.S. dollars, "Dead Poets Society" was 8632 million U.S. dollars, "Rain Man" " was 1 million U.S. dollars.

This box office data will increase in the second half of the year, but the potential is already very small.

Compared with the data in the original time and space, the overseas box office of the four films has shrunk significantly. Except for "Steel Magnolia", which has a huge gap between overseas and domestic box office, it is because the overseas audience of the theme is too small. The shrinkage is mainly due to the lack of overseas distribution capabilities of Daenerys Entertainment and the fact that many overseas ticket warehouse countries have not yet opened up the film market.

Moreover, even though most overseas box office countries have opened up the film market in this era, they still implement various restrictions on Hollywood films in order to protect the domestic film industry's low score, high taxes, delayed schedules and other restrictive measures. The average share of Daenerys Entertainment's overseas box office The proportion is only 33%,

In addition, for some overseas ticket warehouses that are too small or have stricter policy restrictions, Daenerys Entertainment can only conduct a one-time sale. Although the box office will still be included in the total overseas box office data, it will not participate in the share.

In Simon's memory, this situation would improve rapidly after the 90s.

Calculated, these four movies contributed a total of $1.16 million in overseas box office receipts for Daenerys Entertainment.

As for the new films released this year, as of June 6, the six films in the first half of the year including "Blue Angel" and "Metropolitan" had earned a total of 30 million U.S. dollars. "The Sixth Sense" released on June 1.23 was excluded from the list. In addition to this statistics, the cumulative income of the six new films is 6 million US dollars.

In terms of home entertainment business, "When Harry Met Sally" released at the end of last year, the sales volume of video tapes in the first half of the year was 293 million boxes. According to the unit price of video tapes of 29.9 US dollars, the sales volume reached 8760 million US dollars.

Although the film company counts 80% of the videotape income as the cost in the basic agreement with various labor unions, and only the remaining 20% ​​is shared, but in fact, the gross profit obtained by the studio from the sale of each videotape can generally reach the sales cost. 40% to 50% of the unit price, and the gross profit ratio of popular new films like "When Harry Met Sally" will be even higher.

Therefore, the videotape release of "When Harry Met Sally" alone brought Daenerys Entertainment more than $4600 million in gross profit.

Counting some other fragmented project revenues, comprehensive statistics show that Daenerys Entertainment’s operating income attributable to Daenerys Entertainment itself was 9% of the nearly 3.95 million U.S. dollars in total industry output value generated by Daenerys Entertainment’s film business in the first half of the year. One hundred million U.S. dollars.

Behind the huge revenue, it also means huge expenses.

In the first half of the year, Daenerys Entertainment had more than ten films in various stages of formal production. Among them, only "Batman" had a budget cost of 5000 million US dollars. In addition, "Bodyguard", "The Sixth Sense", "Barker Uncle, "Scream 2" and other projects also require large expenditures.

At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment has also invested a large amount of publicity and distribution expenses in the theater distribution of local and overseas movies.

Finally, considering a series of large expenditures such as the construction of Daenerys Studios in Malibu, the establishment of many overseas branches, the repayment of some due loans, and the equally important tax factors that need to be borne by the company as a whole, Dani In the first half of the year, the net profit of Liz Entertainment's film business was only US$5119 million, and the net profit rate was less than 13%.

television business.

Compared with movies, the TV business in the first half of the year was somewhat lackluster. Daenerys TV's revenue focus is still on the four reality shows.Since the beginning of this year, the TV department has successively signed three new production contracts with TV networks, but last year's two dramas were also cut due to the low ratings after the end of the spring season.

According to such statistics, Daenerys TV Company currently operates a total of exactly 10 TV projects, of which six are TV dramas and four are reality shows.

Because the income and profit figures of reality shows, which are the main income, are basically determined. In the first half of the year, the total revenue of Daenerys' entertainment TV business was 2.32 million US dollars.Also after apportioning a large amount of expenses, the net profit of the TV department was 3682 million US dollars, and the net profit rate was also only a not too high 16%.

The business side of comics.

Although the launch of the "Batman" project drew the industry's attention to Marvel Entertainment, in the first half of the year, the comic company still maintained a low-key operation. The overall impact is not significant.

However, in the financial report for the first half of the year, there is not no bright spot, and that is the consumer goods department led by Nancy Brill.

After several adjustments, Daenerys' entertainment and consumer goods department is currently mainly responsible for the development of peripheral products for a series of film and television projects of the company, the distribution of original sound records and part of the advertising business.

Of course, Daenerys TV Company is still solely responsible for the sponsorship and advertising operations of several reality shows such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire", which belongs to the advertising department of Daenerys TV Company, and the consumer goods department only undertakes the advertising of several reality shows. Peripheral product development, the so-called advertising business is mainly the product placement cooperation of movies and TV series produced by Daenerys Entertainment.

The energetic little woman led the investment in Blockbuster in the first half of the year, established the Daenerys Analysis Company, and started the Blizzard Studio.

Through the operation of the peripheral products of the two key projects of "Scream" and "Beverly Housewives", the peripheral product business of the consumer goods department has opened up the situation in one fell swoop. Two targeted retail channels, one for teenagers and one for housewives, these two groups happen to be the two groups with the greatest consumption potential.

After the successful operation of the peripheral products of "Scream" and "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", the development of peripheral products of other films of the company has also been carried out more smoothly.

In terms of original soundtracks, although the original soundtracks such as "Dead Poets Society" and "Rain Man" released by the record department are far from reaching the height of the original soundtrack album of "Bodyguard", they have achieved fairly good sales. The sales data of the original soundtrack of "Rain Man" has exceeded 6 million copies as of June 30, which is already very rare for a pure music record.

Finally, in the advertising business, in order to avoid the blind placement of advertisements in the company's film and television dramas and cause audience disgust, Simon is very cautious in this regard.

Nancy Brill did not blindly pursue inappropriate ad placements. However, due to the success of Daenerys Entertainment's series of films last year, there are too many companies that want to cooperate with the company, and the prices are very generous. , Nancy Brill, under the premise of implementing Simon's premise to avoid the flood of advertisements, still gave the brand cooperation through the brand cooperation of "Batman", "Angel", "Pretty Woman", "Ghost Love" and other projects. The company has brought in a lot of money.

As a result, the consumer goods department, which had not made much revenue last year, had a revenue figure of 6 million US dollars in the six months of the first half of the year.

However, because Nancy Brill pursues long-term business development rather than short-term profits, a large amount of money has been invested in product production, channel construction, publicity and marketing, etc., and the company has even unknowingly China owns a toy factory in Rhode Island on the east coast, and the consumer goods department also needs to share other expenses of the company, so the profit margin is even lower, only 9.5%, and the net profit is 1971 million US dollars.

In the end, overall, Daenerys Entertainment's total revenue for the first two quarters of this year was $8.73 million, and its net income was $1 million.

Compared with the huge gains that Cersei Capital has just gained from the Japanese financial market, Daenerys Entertainment's net profit of 1.1 million US dollars seems a bit insignificant.However, Simon has always been very clear that this company is his foundation, and opportunities in the financial market cannot be available every year. As he becomes more and more prominent, it becomes more and more difficult to make profits in the financial market. big.Investment in the field of science and technology generally takes ten or twenty years to see the final results.

The lower profit scale of Daenerys Entertainment is mainly due to the rapid expansion of Daenerys Entertainment.

Moreover, the net profit of 1.1 million US dollars in half a year is definitely not low.This level of profitability can easily squeeze into the top 500 list of "Forbes" North America's top [-] companies in this era.

More than 50 kilometers away from the coastline of Los Angeles, a luxury yacht with a length of more than 60 meters is moored quietly on the sea level.

The time is July 8rd, Sunday.

This weekend, Simon did not work continuously, but chose to rest again.

However, this time it was not just a simple rest.

James Raybould came from New York in the last few days. While discussing company matters, he had to help Simon introduce some people, to be precise, some politicians.

The location is arranged on this yacht.

Simon did not intend to use illegal means in the process of expanding his political contacts, and everything was carried out in accordance with the "Federal Election Act" and other public rules.However, he also hopes that this matter can be carried out as low-key as possible. At least, he does not intend to publicly appear on the newspaper media page with a certain politician.

In two days, including David Dinkins, who was making final preparations for the New York mayoral election at the end of the year, Simon met with six politicians in total, all of whom the Westeros Corporation had confirmed would provide financial support.In addition to David Dingkins, the other five people are a senator from the California Senate, two members of the California House of Representatives, a senator from New York State, and a congressman from California.

These people are also Democrats. Now that they have decided to stand in line, Simon does not plan to bet on both sides in the short term.

Moreover, Simon did not choose those celebrity politicians who received a lot of attention. The few people he chose were basically potential stocks with good abilities after careful investigation and without a confirmed background.Congressional elections in the United States are held every two years, which seems to be very frequent, but in fact, congressmen have a very high chance of being re-elected, and some 'evergreen' politicians can even be re-elected for more than ten terms.

Simon does not seek these people to bring him immediate rewards.

The first batch of 'investments' in the early stage were mainly to establish contacts, so as to prevent Daenerys Entertainment from being blindsided by the high-level federation once something happened.

In the long-term vision, as long as these people can provide support for the expansion of Westeros Corporation in three to five years, it is considered good. After ten or eight years, if someone can enter the core of federal power and still stand by Westeros Corporation , that is a big profit.

In the evening, Simon finally concluded the last meeting of the weekend.

After personally sending the New York State senator to leave by helicopter, Simon and James walked to the table and chairs on the top terrace of the yacht next to the tarmac and sat down.

As the sun sets, the fiery clouds in the sky cover the horizon, rendering a magnificent view of the sea and sky.

Jennifer personally delivered a pot of coffee to the two, but walked to another set of tables and chairs and sat down, quietly reading a magazine with her head down.

James glanced at his daughter, sighed slightly in his heart, and continued to talk to Simon: "I will send you some other candidate lists when I find time, and there is also a consulting company that provides election surveys and campaign plans for parties. Not long after it was established, it was called Schlapp Consulting and was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, near New York. Although it was just established, the founder of the company, Joseph Schlapp, and his family have very deep political experience and connections. I think This is a great opportunity, Simon, for us to set up a dedicated fund for long-term funding of this company."

It is impossible to seek direct monetary returns for political investment, and the establishment of non-profit funds can also convert capital investment into tax-avoiding capital to the greatest extent.

"I'll take a look at the information first." Simon didn't nod immediately, and said again: "In addition, this time, we can transfer another 5000 million US dollars from Daenerys Entertainment to you. It's useless."

"5000 million US dollars is already very good. I also recently reviewed the company's finances. In the first half of the year, the technology companies we invested in contributed about 3700 million US dollars in dividends, which is a bit lower than last year. The main reason is Microsoft, which we hold heavily. Several companies did not implement dividends, but, counting the original accumulation, the money is enough to maintain the company's operations." James said, then remembered something, and said: "In addition, the remaining three companies can reduce their holdings at any time. In the company, AMD’s stock price has been falling recently, and its market value is now 50% lower than when we bought it two years ago. I think there is no need to stay.”

AMD is naturally Intel's 'little friend'.

After all, I still can't help it up.

I remember that when I bought AMD two years ago, the company's market value was about 9 million US dollars, and the total investment was about 4500 million US dollars.Simon hasn't paid attention to this matter recently. Listening to what James said at this time, AMD's market value may have fallen to 6 million US dollars, compared to Intel's market value of 60 billion US dollars...

Well, there is simply no comparison.

However, thinking about how AMD can survive for more than 20 years, there is no need to cut the meat and leave the market now. Maybe when the light comes back, the losses will be made up.

Simon shook his head with a smile, and said, "Our current funds are not tight, so let's continue to hold them."

James nodded in agreement.

After finishing the business, he casually chatted about the recent big news of Daenerys Entertainment.