I’m in Hollywood

After Barry Diller resigned from Fox, he received dozens of invitations for cooperation in a short period of time, but he rejected them all. In the end, the reason why he chose qv was not only optimistic about the prospects of TV shopping, but the most important thing was that qv agreed with Barry. The terms of Diller's shareholding. △,

Hearing Barry Diller's 'no more signing' words on his lips again, John Malone just shrugged, Okay, Barry, I'm going to cancel Telecom's plan to buy Paramount and fully support you here. Side, but, what are you going to do with the current situation?

Barry Diller glanced at John Malone, and said indifferently, When I have to do something, I just need to support the remote communication.

John Malone hummed and waited for Barry Diller to continue, but Barry Diller just threw out the sentence, and then looked down at the document in front of him. John Malone also quickly realized that Barry Diller had lost his trust in him, he laughed embarrassingly, knowing that he would not gain anything if he stayed, stood up and said, In that case, then I will wait for your news.

After John Malone left the conference room, Barry Diller patiently read through the documents in his hand, tapped his fingers on the table to think for a while, and then pressed the call button on the phone on the table, Jack, help me book a plane ticket to Hawaii.

Okay, Mr. Diller, the assistant's voice came quickly from the loudspeaker.

After Barry Diller finished his instructions, he was about to end the call. After thinking about it, he suddenly said, Forget it, let's go to Los Angeles first.

No problem, Mr. Diller. The assistant responded again. Paused for a moment. Without hearing Barry Diller continue, he asked, Anything else?

No, for the time being, Barry Diller cut off the call, once again thinking about the current situation.

Although reluctant to admit it, Barry Diller also had some pessimistic premonitions about the prospect of acquiring Paramount. Barry Diller had known John Malone as early as the early 1980s. He knew very well that John Malone was a man who had no position at all and was good at seeing the wind.

That is, where the benefit can be obtained, John Malone will choose which side without hesitation. Barry Diller is sure that John Malone would not be in his office today if it wasn't for the series of actions by Redstone and Martin Davis that made him see the slim chance of Telematics acquiring Paramount alone.

With a sigh in the bottom of his heart, Barry Diller once again opened the information in front of his eyes. This is the evaluation of the cooperation between Firefly and the two film companies when the Japanese acquired Columbia and Universal.

Among them, Instinct, which cooperated with Universal, did not cause too much hindrance to Panasonic.

However, it also had a positive impact on the share price of the global parent company a. Further down the line, Sony made a wholly-owned takeover offer to Columbia until the deal was completed. It just straddled the release period of the two high-grossing movies Home Alone and Dark War, and during this period, Colombia's market value soared from 2.2 billion to 5.5 billion. Anyone can see that the two movies are in which played a very important role.

Thinking of Eric, Barry Diller always felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart. He spent more than 20 years in pursuit of Hollywood's peak of power, but in the end, he got out of that circle and tried his best to To want to go back, the success rate is also low and people are powerless, but the young man has only four years to have all this easily. Moreover, judging from the shooting plan of a series of special effects blockbusters for Firefly, he has no intention of stopping expansion and waiting for his opponent to catch up.

...

...Firefly Pictures e Michael Lynn said at a recent press conference that Paramount would be partnering with Firefly Pictures. However, Eric Williams said, according to sources. The final details of the partnership are already being negotiated with Martin Davis and will be announced in the near future.

...It is rumored that the project Firefly intends to cooperate with Paramount is the Star Trek series.

...Summer Redstone has publicly stated that it will acquire Paramount in the near future, and said that Viacom is bound to win this acquisition.

...Barry Diller, who is rumored to have retired from Hollywood, suddenly appeared in Los Angeles and had lunch with Bruce White, one of Paramount's shareholders. The purpose of the little-known qv media's acquisition of Paramount is obvious.

...

Martin Davis put down the thick stack of newspapers in his hand, with a worried expression on his face. He has been on Kauai for more than a week, although during this period, Paramount's stock price has been affected by his trip to Hawaii. Up 5%, and since he disclosed the news of the cooperation between the two parties to the media, some of Paramount's original shareholders have also sided with him. The overall situation looks good, but Martin Davis is very clear , if the cooperation between Paramount and Firefly cannot be reached, the stock price that has improved will definitely fall again, and those shareholders who have just tended to him will definitely be centrifuged again.

On Eric's side, although Martin Davis had already handed over the relevant project information to the other party, he had not received any response for a long time. He could see that Eric was not eager for this cooperation. Martin Davis was not like the two helms of Columbia. Even if he had to choose to sell in the end, he would not be able to do something like drinking poison to quench his thirst in Colombia. move.

While many people who don't know the inside story envy Columbia's five-film deal with Firefly, Martin Davis knows how much Columbia has paid. Just look at Firefly's 1991 and 1992 contemporaneous Terminator 2 and Tornadoes.

Last year, Firefly Pictures took half a year to complete the overseas release of Terminator 2. It was originally a summer movie, and many European ticket warehouse countries were not released until the end of the year. Although the quality of Terminator 2 is good enough, But the long distribution process and the onslaught of piracy. and weakness in share negotiations. The benefits that Firefly Pictures should have shrunk a lot.

But only one year has passed. Integrating the overseas distribution resources of Columbia and Disney, Tornado has been released in North America for less than a month, and it has been on the screens of European countries. Schedule, this is definitely a treatment that makes most Hollywood movies envy and hate.

So far, the overseas box office of Tornado has reached 100 million US dollars, and the overseas box office of Terminator 2 last year can even be ignored in the same period.

These things are being considered. Martin Davis' assistant, Danny Cocker, hurried into the cafe Mr. Davis, something happened.

Martin Davis subconsciously wanted to reprimand the assistant for his gaffe, but finally suppressed the thought and only frowned slightly.

Danny Cock noticed Martin Davis's expression, quickly put away his flustered expression, took a deep breath silently, and said calmly, That's it, the news revealed by Viacom, Redstone has planned Make your first offer to the company.

Martin Davis did not doubt the accuracy of the information given by Danny, but asked How much?

Six and a half billion dollars. Danny Cock gave a number.

Martin Davis sneered, Does Redstone want to fall from where he wants to get up?

Danny Cock froze. I didn't know how to answer, I just stood there quietly.

The figure of 6.5 billion US dollars happens to be the transaction amount of Firefly's acquisition of Disney.

After the failed acquisition of Disney, Redstone learned a lesson and reformed Viacom's shareholding structure again, confirming that there would be no internal opposition when the next acquisition was made.

At the same time, Redstone did not repay the investors the financing obtained for the acquisition of Disney in the early stage, but turned to start the acquisition negotiation with the video tape rental giant Shishi. The advantage is abundant cash flow, which could provide a lot of money for Viacom's acquisition of Paramount.

Although the pure Paramount Pictures is definitely not worth $6.5 billion, the object of Viacom's acquisition is not the pure Paramount Pictures, but Paramount's parent company Paramount Communications. The main assets of Paramount Communications include not only Paramount Pictures, but also a series of assets related to television, publishing, music and other fields. These assets combined are much larger than the original Disney.

Martin Davis didn't get an answer from the assistant, didn't pursue it, motioned Danny Cock to check out, and left the coffee shop in Lihue City.

The time is approaching noon, and Jurassic Park is still in closed shooting. Although Martin Davis knows that if he does go to the set, he will not be stopped outside, but doing so will also appear to be his own eagerness. Williams left the negotiating table.

But after so long, Eric has not given any cooperation intentions. Viacom is about to take action, and Martin Davis knows that he cannot continue to spend it in Hawaii.

The driver pulled over and Danny Cocker opened the door for Martin Davis and asked, Mr. Davis, where are you going now?

Have someone book a flight back to Los Angeles, the sooner the better, and now we're going to the set of Jurassic Park.

Okay, Mr. Davis, Danny Cocker agreed, closing the car door for Martin Davis, motioning the driver to drive to the destination, driving another car and hurriedly booked the ticket.

...

Eric and Nickel were watching the footage just now through the monitor. A staff member hurried over and said to Eric, Director, Mr. Davis is here.

I see, take him to the rest area, and inform the crew ahead of time, Eric instructed skillfully, as if he had expected it, before discussing the scene with Nickel as if nothing had happened.

Five minutes later, Eric appeared in the rest area temporarily opened by the crew and got into a tent.

Sorry, Mr. Davis, for keeping you waiting, Eric said.

Martin Davis still had a smile on his face. Hearing this sentence, he couldn't help but point out, It's been a while, Eric, I may be going back soon, so I had to come here.

Mr. Davis, why not play in Hawaii for a while?

Haha, if you keep playing, Paramount will be someone else's, Martin Davis said calmly.

Eric also realized that the old guy's patience was completely exhausted, and ordered his assistant to get two lunches before sitting down at a table with Martin Davis, explaining half-truths, I'm so sorry, You know, Mr. Davis, I've been too busy lately.

It's okay, Martin Davis shook his head, not wanting to go around with Eric anymore, and he didn't have the time. Eric, I just want you to give me an accurate answer.

Now? Eric asked.

Martin Davis nodded firmly Now!

Eric hesitated for a moment, as if he couldn't bear to disappoint the old man, but finally said, Mr. Davis, I have read the information Paramount gave me, but, to be honest, I didn't let him down. I think it's a very promising project.

Sixty-five carefully selected scripts, don't you have one? Martin Davis showed an unbelievable expression.

Eric nodded honestly, and Paramount gave him relevant information on sixty-five reserve projects. However, there were indeed no movie projects that Eric remembered that would sell well. In fact, this is also understandable. Paramount's box office performance was not so good throughout the 1990s.

Although some of these projects did not appear in memory, Eric seemed to have a very promising script, but in the absence of memory reference, the movie prospect is completely unpredictable. After all, there are too many movies that seem to have great potential but fail at the box office in the end, not to mention that Eric himself is not too interested, and he has no idea of ​​taking risks.

Seeing Eric's determined expression, Martin Davis looked a little embarrassed. Of course, he couldn't think that all those projects were garbage, but thought that Eric was probably perfunctory, or he took a fancy to some projects. , I want to wait until Paramount gives up, and Firefly will snatch it again. This kind of thing is not unheard of in Hollywood. (To be continued..)