MTL - I’m in Hollywood

Eric returned to Los Angeles on June 10, and the second film of the Firefly Group's summer program, "The Cars", has just completed its first week of screening.

Compared with other works of Pixar Studio, "Cars" has maintained a consistent level of production, but it is generally considered by the critics that the film story is too young and unfriendly to the adult audience.

In the first week of the show, "Car Racing" box office reached $83.32 million, slightly lower than the expectations of the issuing department.

However, the car toys developed around "Cars" have been very popular with the release of the film, and even far beyond the expectations of the Firefly Group.

In just one week, the sales of "Car Racing" broke through 200 million US dollars, easily surpassing the sales data of the Star Wars around the same period last year, "Star Wars Episode 1: Ghost Threat".

The Firefly Group's Consumer Products Division even made a very bold report, predicting the sales of peripheral products in the entire operating cycle of "Cars", probably next to the "Star Wars" series.

According to the sales data for the first week, just this year, the sales of peripheral products of all aspects of "Cars" will reach between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. Coupled with the success of the box office, the surrounding products are also very rich in "Iron Man", the firefly group consumer products business this year's revenue scale is expected to double, reaching about 6 billion US dollars.

Based on an average net interest rate of around 15%, sales of $6 billion in peripheral products will bring a net profit of $900 million to the Firefly Group.

According to the financial data of the first half of the year, even if the huge non-operating profit brought by the clover fund is not counted, the annual net profit of the Firefly Group will exceed the $4 billion mark for the first time in 1999.

In this way, only the Consumer Products Division will contribute more than 20% of the net profit share to the entire Firefly Group, which is usually only around 10% in previous years.

Although the Firefly Group is holding on to the thoughts of making a fortune, there is no such thing as a big publicity about the hot sales around Car Racing. However, this matter was quickly discovered by the media, and even the media of the savvy and powerful media received the forecast report of the Group's Consumer Products Division.

Last year, in order to gain more initiative in the merger with AOL, Time Warner Group's well-designed annual financial report only made the annual profit scale more than 1.9 billion US dollars.

Now, the Firefly Group is just a consumer product division, and the profit contribution is close to half of Time Warner Group last year. How can this not make the whole Hollywood look hot?

Although Pixar Animation Studio also established software technology barriers similar to those in the digital domain, Pixar's core creators quickly became the target of the headhunting company, and even John Lasseter was in contact with the conditions. Eric himself has some 'hearts'.

In order to avoid brain drain, the Firefly Group had to launch another round of salary increases for Pixar Studios.

In the original time and space, Eric always had a doubt, why studios such as blue sky animation and lighting entertainment could maintain the cost of animated film production at a low level of 60 million US dollars, and Pixar’s production budget reached 200 million US dollars. .

Now I understand it thoroughly.

The main investment in animated films is the cost of labor. The same 500-person production team, a two-year production cycle, an average annual salary of $100,000 and a team with an average annual salary of $50,000 can directly open the production budget. Doubled.

Pixar Studio not only scales the animation team far more than other small animation studios, the average annual salary of the staff is far more than other homes, the production cost of animated films is naturally high.

In addition to "Toy Story", "A Matrix 3" by Ann Berlin Pictures finally selected the release date on Wednesday, June 9.

There is a very common unspoken rule in the release date of Hollywood movies. If some films choose a non-Friday release date, it usually means that the producers do not have much confidence in the box office of the movie, so they will pass the first week. The cycle, in order to obtain a higher box office at the beginning of the release.

"Matrix 3" apparently did not escape the shackles of this rule. Last year's "Matrix 2" has consumed a large part of the glamorous atmosphere. The film has not chosen to release the final article as soon as the end of last year, but it has been dragged to this year. The summer file, waiting for one year, once again made many viewers lose interest in this series.

With the side of the "Matrix 3" released after the poor evaluation, the first week of the two days of the harvest was still a good $ 35.15 million box office, the film's subsequent box office curve all the way down, and finally June 11 to June 17 In the second week, the box office was only 62.53 million US dollars. In the following third week, the box office fell by 67%. It is expected that the total cost of production in North America will not reach 150 million.

The failure of "Matrix 3" has also become the last straw to let An Berlin's film industry fall apart.

According to some news from the industry, David Geffen, Spielberg and George Lucas have begun to discuss the spin-off. Microsoft, which invested heavily in the film of Ann Berlin, also stopped this last year. Funding support for the film company.

The film company, which was once considered to have the potential to replicate the miracle of the Firefly Group and become another major studio in Hollywood, ended in failure and made many people realize that in the future, Hollywood will obviously not be able to compete with the current seven. The juxtaposed latecomers appeared.

In addition to a series of new films, "Iron Man" is still steadily acquiring the box office.

In the seventh week of the release, the film box office in North America received another $10.6 million, with a cumulative box office of $309.91 million.

Although it will fall below 10 million US dollars next week, the nearly $360 million North American box office is close to Eric's last 370-dollar North American box office.

However, according to the current box office curve, "Iron Man" is unlikely to hit the US$400 million local box office in North America.

400 million US dollars seems to be a threshold.

Of course, even so, no one feels too much disappointment.

At the same time, with the increasing number of ticket warehouses, Iron Man's overseas box office figures have easily broken through 500 million US dollars, although the same into the closing period, but in the next few months, counted in North America, "Iron Man The global box office broke through $1 billion without any suspense.

Unconsciously, many people suddenly discovered that although Iron Man is the starring work of Eric, it is the first of his own participation in Jurassic Park and Royal Casino 007. Three global box office films reached $1 billion.

A filmmaker made a global box office that broke through $1 billion and he will immediately be promoted to Hollywood.

However, a filmmaker who continuously produces three global box office movies of $1 billion, can only be described as miracles.

Moreover, with the continuous disclosure of information on all aspects of Gravity, many people are gradually realizing that this is likely to be another $1 billion box office miracle of Eric Williams.

Hurrying to New York to participate in the celebration of the merger of AOL and Time Warner, returning to Los Angeles, Eric put most of his energy into the final editing of Gravity.

"Geo-gravity" adopts the mode of making and converting. In the post-production process, the 3D conversion studio in the digital field has simultaneously transferred the corresponding 2D lens into a 3D image, and even includes the conversion of IMAX-3D. .

Eric did this in order to continually hone the 3D transformation team during the film production process, and further optimized the 3D and IMAX technologies based on some of his experiences.

Now, the 3D transformation of Gravity has been completed synchronously, and the digital domain team has begun to produce the 3D version of The Legend of the Night.

Although the 2D film of "The Lord of the Rings" has been completed, Eric hopes that the conversion team will be transformed into the "The Lord of the Rings" after the "Dream of the Night" exercise. The release date of The Lord of the Rings is December 17th, and the time is also very abundant.

Just so busy, time has come to the end of June without knowing it.

Near noon, Bill Gates got off at the parking lot of Firefly Studios. Although he didn't expect anything, he saw that Eric's blond female assistant was waiting at the parking lot. Some are not happy.

"Hello, Mr. Gates," Meyer did not notice the look of Bill Gates, politely shook hands with him, and said: "Please come with me."

As Meyer walked out of the parking lot, Bill Gates couldn't help but say: "Is Eric very busy?"

Meyer nodded: "The boss is currently cutting his new movie."

Bill Gates listened to Meyer's corporate tone, remembering that he had just planted a woman on a woman, and he didn't talk about it. I couldn't help but think that Eric Williams's chances of planting a head with a woman should obviously be much bigger than her own. Why didn't this guy encounter a bad thing like himself?

All the way to the studio of the digital field, Bill Gates under the guidance of Meyer, just sat down in the lounge, Eric and a few others laughed and walked in.

Bill Gates hesitated, still stood up, with a smile on his face and ushered in the past.

"Bill, I am very happy to see you again," Eric and Bill Gates shook hands and introduced the person next to him: "This is Jim, Michael, you must know, and Peter, he is the Lord of the Rings." The director of the series."

Microsoft has always had the ambition to enter Hollywood. Although it has just returned without success in Bill's film, Bill Gates has not given up on this idea.

At this time, watching James Cameron and Michael Bay, the hottest Hollywood directors, he also shook hands with everyone, and sneered a few words before jokingly asked: "Eric, you are this Is there any big move?"

Eric sat down with everyone and said: "It's still about 3D movies. There are some new technological breakthroughs in the digital field, so let everyone come and see."

In fact, in the past six months, in order to further lay out the 3D-IMAX film technology, a series of scorpion directors of the Firefly system often appear in Firefly Studios. Eric also personally approved a budget of up to 20 million US dollars, specifically for the core director of the firefly system to shoot 3D short film to familiarize with all aspects of 3D and IMAX technology.

The core technologies of 3D and IMAX are in the hands of the digital field, and Eric is not worried that these directors will switch to other homes after mastering the 3D-IMAX technology application.

Everyone had a cup of coffee and talked casually for a while, knowing that Eric and Bill Gates were sure to have something to talk about, and Cameron took the initiative to leave.

Eric took Bill Gates to the restaurant on the big ship.

After the meal, the two quickly transferred to today's topic.

Five years ago, in order to make Yahoo browser the default browser of Microsoft and a series of other cooperation conditions, Yahoo and Microsoft signed a forward equity subscription contract. After five years, Microsoft can acquire Yahoo for up to 30%. Shares.

The expiration date of this contract is next month. Subsequently, Microsoft has a three-month hesitation period to decide whether to execute this subscription right.

Bill Gates originally thought that he would first acquire a 30% stake in Yahoo, and then, through open market absorption and other means, step by step to increase Yasha’s shareholding and ultimately control the company.

But now, the changes in the situation have far exceeded the original imagination.

With the continued outbreak of Nasdaq technology stocks, Microsoft's current market capitalization has reached 560 billion US dollars, while Yahoo's recent market capitalization has also rushed to 170 billion US dollars.

The original contract stipulated that Microsoft could choose to convert or cash in any equivalent form.

But now, Yahoo's 30% stake is worth more than $50 billion, and Microsoft can't make such a cash anyway. In the case of a share swap, although on the surface, Microsoft only needs 10% of the shares, it can get a 30% stake in Yahoo, which seems to be a big deal for Microsoft.

But in fact, many people understand that Microsoft, which already has a monopoly position in the industry, has a gold content that far exceeds the value of Yahoo's 30% stake.

Moreover, once the share swap is acquired, the Firefly system will become the second largest shareholder of Microsoft, and will soon become the largest shareholder with Bill Gates' continued reduction of Microsoft.

Microsoft did not adopt a dual-equity structure. Once the Firefly system became Microsoft's largest shareholder, it would probably threaten Bill Gates' own control of Microsoft.

In comparison, even if Yahoo's 30% stake is transferred, Yahoo's equity directly held by Firefly's investment is still over 48%. As long as the firefly system is willing, it can always hold absolute control over the company, so unless Eric Kenk takes the initiative to let go. Otherwise, Microsoft will not be able to gradually take control of Yahoo as it was originally envisioned by Bill Gates.

So, the current situation is that the original forward equity subscription contract has become a chicken rib for Microsoft.