I’m in Hollywood

Before Eric could say anything else, Aniston reached out and grabbed the girl's laptop, deleted the audition video three or two times, and warned Eric while shutting down: You are not allowed to have any thoughts about this woman. .

Eric looked at the nervous look on the chick's face, smiled and hugged her waist, comforting: I promise, to be honest, she is not as beautiful as my Jenny.

Aniston felt Eric's warm big hand caressing the skin around his waist, and just about to relax, he noticed the playful eyes of the other girl, and immediately said: You are not allowed to bring her to Eric. , or I'm not finished with you.

Naturally, the girl couldn't care about the chick's threat. Instead, she said with a smile, That's not necessarily true. Maybe I can make her even more popular than you.

Although the actual control of MGM is completely in Eric's hands, it is still the company's largest shareholder in name.

Aniston thought of this possibility, and was lifted up again in an instant. He was still in Eric's arms, but his two little hands had already scratched at Drew, and the girl naturally began to fight back.

Eric had no choice but to separate the two kittens for a fight. Looking at Aniston in his arms, he didn't intend to give up and want to fight with the girl. He had to make a big move and stretched out a few thin sheets on the girl's body. The cloth was torn off, and it was brought into his arms.

The little girl who was about to grab the tie of the girl's swimsuit suddenly widened her eyes, struggled slightly and murmured, then lay softly on the edge of the swimming pool, her mouth still unforgiving: Eric, you, um, you really are A bastard.

After spending the weekend in San Simeon, Eric returned to Los Angeles with the two girls, and the next weekend box office of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was officially released.

Compared with the first weekend, the film's box office dropped by only 31% in the next three days, and received another 56.9 million US dollars. The cumulative box office in ten days reached 193.08 million US dollars. It is foreseeable that after the next working day, this Star Wars blockbuster will be released. There is almost no suspense about breaking $200 million fortnightly.

Stimulated by Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the North American film market's total weekly box office figure exceeded 270 million US dollars last week. Although it will drop slightly this week, it can easily remain above 200 million US dollars.

Therefore, although Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace took a large part of the box office, due to the substantial increase in the overall number of moviegoers driven by the Star Wars series, other movies on the market in the past two weeks have had very good box office. Performance.

New Line Cinema's Tea Boy finally earned $53.26 million at the box office in the first week. Although it was hit by Star Wars in the next week, the box office dropped by 53% to only $25.03 million, but the total box office for two weeks still reached $78.29 million. Entering the third week, as the momentum of Star Wars began to slow down, the decline of Tea Boy also narrowed to 37%, and it collected another 11.02 million US dollars. The total box office reached 89.31 million US dollars, and it is just around the corner.

The 2D animated film Mulan released by Paramount Pictures and Tea Boy at the same time also suffered a big drop last week under the impact of the Star Wars prequels, and this weekend's box office decline also began to narrow.

However, the three-day weekend box office of Mulan has also fallen to within the $10 million area of ​​$8.29 million. The total box office of the film in two and a half weeks is only $63.56 million, far less than Paramount's expectations. Weekly North American box office totals can only be between $80 million and $90 million.

Although Paramount relies on overseas distribution and future peripheral operations, Paramount can still achieve profitability, but compared with 3D animated movies that usually can get out of the box office curve of blockbusters, 2D animated movies that mainly target children's audiences and rely on long-term screenings to gradually accumulate box office have already been released. Obviously no longer adapt to the market form of recent years.

In addition, the other two new films released this week, Columbia Pictures' warm family comedy Kissing Little Mom ​​and Universal Pictures' fantasy romance The Sixth Sense of Life and Death, also won 1914 for the first three days of the first weekend. The opening results of more than 10,000 US dollars and 15.01 million US dollars are still far behind the Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and they cannot be compared with the same period of Tea Boy two weeks ago. But judging from the genre of the two films, this kind of box office start is not bad.

Firefly Studios.

In a small screening room, Eric and Katzenberg, Frank Wells, Iron Man director Joss Whedon and others looked at the big screen in front of them.

The title of Firefly Pictures flashed by, and the scene of Tony Stark, played by Eric, building armor in the cave immediately appeared in the picture, accompanied by the iconic comic page turning sound of Marvel Pictures, and then the scene followed Cut into Tony Stark's tech-savvy studio, and Colonel Roddy's voiceover: Tony, what the hell are you making?

Colonel Roddy's voice fell, and in the dynamic rock soundtrack, the rhythm of the screen switching began to speed up, until Tony Stark soared into the sky in silver Mark2 armor, and the 30-second short film came to an abrupt end, giving people a strong feeling. Unfulfilled feeling.

Iron Man has been officially set for May 7 next year.

Although there are still some finishing details to be dealt with, the warm-up publicity work has already started. In the next period of time, the most important thing is of course the annual Super Bowl in the United States. Since Eric used the Super Bowl to promote Tornado and achieved stunning results, over the years, Super Bowl commercials have become a must for the seven major studios.

At this time, everyone was watching the Super Bowl commercial of Iron Man.

After New Line Pictures achieved amazing box office results this year by relying on a series of low-cost productions, it will once again enter the year of the Firefly Group's blockbuster next year.

From Easter next year until the end of the year, the Firefly Group's Public Enemy, Iron Man, Cars, Gravity, The Lord of the Rings 1: The Lord of the Rings five heavyweights of various types Blockbusters will be lined up.

However, after considering various aspects, only Iron Man and The Lord of the Rings 1 will be registered for the Super Bowl this year. The trailer of Iron Man is 30 seconds, and The Lord of the Rings 1: The Lord of the Rings The trailer is 15 seconds.

Several executives, including Eric and Katzenberg, were mostly working on reviewing trailers for the two films today.

In the morning, everyone has discussed the trailer of The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings. Since there is still about a year before the release, the Super Bowl trailer of The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings is more inclined to be a concept trailer. , mainly the large panoramic shots of the film, accompanied by a small amount of dialogue. The entire trailer revealed little information, was full of suspense, and was limited to 15 seconds in length.

Relatively speaking, the announcement of Iron Man is very rich.

This is mainly because this year's Super Bowl will be held on January 31, and there are only three months left before Iron Man will be released on May 7. Immediately after the Super Bowl, Iron Man will enter the final large-scale publicity stage, so it does not need to be half-covered like The Lord of the Rings, but to maximize the advertising effect as much as possible.

After playing the most recognized trailer several times, everyone also took out several other edited versions for a detailed comparison and discussion, and it was five o'clock in the afternoon when the final plan was finalized.

Everyone got off work, but Eric and Katzenberg came to the next conference room together.

Eric, the total value of the stocks in the Clover Fund has exceeded 27 billion US dollars. I heard from my friends on Wall Street that many investment institutions have confirmed that all technology stocks will be liquidated before the 3000 point. Are we here? , um, at least cash out the money that was invested in the first place?

Eric took the coffee that Mayer handed over and took a sip, feeling the unease that rarely appeared in Katzenberg's tone, and said with a smile, Are you scared too?

Katzenberg touched his bald head in embarrassment, but nodded honestly.

In fact, he was not only afraid, but more worried.

According to Eric's original promise, if he can cash out all the stocks held by the Clover Fund at this time, the profit and dividend that he can get personally will exceed 400 million US dollars.

$400 million.

Even at Katzenberg's current salary level, it's hard for him to remain indifferent to the nearly $400 million that fell from the sky. Moreover, the current shaky state of the Nasdaq makes him worry about gains and losses every day, for fear of waking up one morning and hearing the news of the collapse of the Nasdaq.

You know, the North American stock market has no limit on the range of ups and downs. Once the Nasdaq crashes, the $400 million is likely to be evaporated in just a few days.

Eric leaned back on the leather chair with the coffee cup in his hand, and said, Jeffrey, do you remember what I said when I invested in technology stocks?

Katzenberg laughed: We seem to have a lot of conversations about this?

Well, Eric said, that is, I remember I said that most of the stocks that the Clover Fund bought are of long-term holding value, such as Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Verizon, etc. Even if The Nasdaq crashed, but because these companies have formed a very solid market position, their stocks will definitely rise again in the future. If we hold it for a long time, we can also get a very good dividend income every year. So if the Nasdaq is before the Shamrock Fund liquidation Crash, we only lost some paper gains in the short term, or some stocks with serious bubbles will indeed bring us some losses, but in the long run, we can still maintain a very considerable profit.”

Although he understood that what Eric said made sense, Katzenberg still said: However, Eric, if this is the case, the 7 billion US dollars invested by the company from the beginning will be tied up in these stocks. , $7 billion, but can do a lot.”

Firefly isn't short of money right now, is it? Also, what I just said was a worst-case scenario. In fact, I'm pretty confident in my personal judgment. Wall Street may think the Nasdaq 3,000 is the end, but But I think the Nasdaq 3,000 is just the beginning. Eric said, seeing Katzenberg's still unapproved look, he smiled: Okay, Jeffrey, I know you're worried about yourself. However, you are not short of money now, are you? You calculate that if you sell now, you can only get about 400 million US dollars. But if the Nasdaq exceeds 3,000 points, or even, 4,000 points, 5,000 points , maybe one day, you suddenly find that you have become a billionaire.

Katzenberg looked forward to the scene depicted by Eric, and subconsciously shook his head: Eric, this is crazy.

Eric spread his hands slightly and joked: Since the Nasdaq 2000, there have been few normal people on Wall Street. Since everyone has become crazy, is it impossible to be crazy?

The trading team of the Clover Fund is solely responsible to Eric personally. Although he can see some data of the Clover Fund, he has no right to dispose of this part of the assets. Seeing that the persuasion was ineffective, Katzenberg could only give up and move on to another topic.

Eric, there just happens to be another thing. Didn't you plan to buy Hasbro?

Eric nodded and said, Yeah, but now should not be a good time. We must wait for this wave of stock market bubbles to pass.

The madness of the Nasdaq technology stock market has also driven the entire North American stock market. Although it is completely unrelated to technology companies, Hasbro's share price has almost doubled in recent years.

Eric remembers the data he accidentally scanned a few days ago, Hasbro's market value has exceeded five billion US dollars. Three years ago, when Firefly won the rights to Transformers, Hasbro’s market value was just over $2 billion. In the past three years, Hasbro's annual profit level has still fluctuated around US$200 million, and the skyrocketing market value cannot be the result of increased performance.

That's true, but Hasbro is starting to get into trouble right now, and it's definitely in big trouble, Katzenberg said.

Eric was puzzled for a moment, and suddenly his thoughts flashed, and said, You mean, Star Wars?

Katzenberg didn't expect Eric's response to be so quick and precise, and a surprised expression flashed on his face, explaining: Yes, the company's team happened to be negotiating with the other party at Hasbro headquarters in Rhode Island at this time. Next year's peripheral product licensing issue. They sent back a piece of news last Friday that in the first week of Star Wars' release, Hasbro's licensed toy sales revenue was only $23 million, not even half of what was expected. They paid $100 million just for the toy licenses for the Star Wars prequel series. They had hoped that within three months of the Star Wars prequels’ release, the company would bring in $300 million in toy sales and $500 million for the year. The above sales revenue. But judging from the current situation, the first week should have been the most popular time for toys, but only 23 million US dollars were sold. In three months, let alone 300 million US dollars, not even 200 million US dollars Possibly. Because of the optimism about Star Wars peripherals, Hasbro's early distribution efforts are very strong. Once the toys become unsalable, these products can only be recovered and destroyed in the future, plus the huge licensing fees paid in the early stage, Hasbro this year It will definitely be a huge loss.”

Firefly Group also operates a large-scale peripheral product department. After so many years, Eric certainly understands what kind of situation Hasbro will face.

Moreover, what is even more serious is that if Hasbro's huge losses catch up with this year's stock market bubble burst, then the situation, tsk tsk, makes people feel sour.