I’m in Hollywood

After discussing the two films, the time was approaching noon, and the three were planning to go out for lunch together. Just after walking out of the conference room, Eric met Tina Fey, whom he had not seen for a long time. `

After Huahua Pictures broke away from Firefly, Tina Fey changed from Drew's assistant to the management of Huahua Pictures, responsible for the script editing and review of Huahua Pictures. The work was fixed, and Eric rarely worked at Xiao Nizi. I saw Tina Fey beside me. Although the two sides had several dewy love affairs, Eric did not intend to keep Tina Fey by his side for a long time, but since they met, Eric also invited Tina Fey to have a meal together.

There is a good restaurant near the office building of Huahua Pictures. A few people sat down together and ordered lunch. Eric smiled at the somewhat restrained Tina Fei: Tina, are you still writing the script recently?

Tina Fei didn't expect to see Eric suddenly today. She hasn't been in contact for a long time. Some of her feelings for Eric have faded a lot, but she feels that this man is getting more and more dazzling, and he is getting more and more distant from herself. Yuan, at this time, hearing that Eric was still talking to himself in the casual and familiar tone that he used to be, Tina Fei's prudence dissipated a little, and said, I have some thoughts, but I have been too busy recently. There isn't much time to write it down.

Drew suddenly said: Tina, didn't you tell me last time an idea based on your high school life, tell Eric what he thinks?

Eric raised his head with a smile when he heard the girl's words, but he thought of Mean Girls written by Tina Fey, but he also knew that Mean Girls was based on a book by Tina Fey called Mean Girls. It was adapted from the novel The Queen Bee and the Followers, but at this time, I was a little curious about what kind of high school script Tina Fey would come up with.

Seeing Eric, Drew, and Amy all looking at him with interest, Tina Fey smiled embarrassedly and said, Actually, I was the kind of person who was very annoying in high school. The girls are a little crazy and always dress like a tomboy, but I actually envy those beautiful girls who can dress themselves up. This idea is roughly a story of a girl's transformation...

Tina Fey's script was conceived in Eric's opinion with many similarities to that Mean Girls, a somewhat rustic high school girl trying to adapt to a new life environment, in order to attract the attention of the boy she likes. So I worked hard to turn myself from an ugly duckling into a swan story, which is still inseparable from the friendship, love, trust and other elements between teenagers. In fact, this kind of coincidence is not difficult to understand. The script style of a screenwriter must be closely related to factors such as personal character and life experience. Although the original Mean Girls script was changed from a novel, it is a screenwriter. Tina Fey must have added a lot of private goods to it.

Since there are so many things in common between the two stories, Eric said, Tina, take the time to write this story down. I'll help you see it then, and maybe shoot it.

Because there is a complete Mean Girls image in my memory,

Eric can obtain the original author's information from the subtitles. As long as he checks the relevant information and confirms that there will be no infringement, Eric can ask the screenwriter to transform Tina Fey's script into Mean Girls in the original time and space. script.

Hearing Eric's words, Tina Fey's eyes suddenly lit up, in Eric's current identity. Since she was asked to write the script, the possibility of this script being made into a movie is almost 100%. Amy Pascal, who was sitting next to him, also moved slightly and said with a smile, Eric, Tina is now from Flower Pictures. You can't dig your feet in front of me and Drew, can you?

Eric shook his head and said with a smile: That's true. Speaking of which, Tina's script is quite suitable for you to operate. After Mission Impossible, Huahua Pictures will definitely have sufficient cash flow. .It's time to increase the scale of production.

There are actually a lot of jokes in what Amy Pascal just said. If Eric likes a script, any other company may compete with Firefly, but Flower Pictures will definitely not do this. `After all, Eric has given Huahua Pictures enough high-quality copyrights. Therefore, Amy Pascal was a little surprised to hear that Eric took the initiative to push Tina Fey's script to Flower Pictures so quickly.

Eric watched the change in Amy Pascal's expression and explained: Actually, Firefly is currently planning to gradually streamline the production business. We plan to compress the annual production of films to about 15 in the next few years. , so, we may not have much energy to estimate the opening of this youth campus comedy.

The three of Amy are a little surprised. After the merger with Disney, Firefly's film production and number of lines have remained at the scale of 25 to 25 films in recent years, and suddenly compressed to 15, which is almost half of the production. If it was MGM, Columbia, and other big film companies that were not in a good position to announce production cuts, everyone would not be surprised, but Firefly Group, which has been in the limelight in recent years, suddenly announced production cuts, which is too surprising.

Amy Pascal was stunned for a few seconds, and still asked in disbelief, Eric, are you sure you're not joking?

Of course not, Eric nodded and said seriously: This is the result of careful discussion by the company's management, because the effect of our current large-scale film production strategy is not so obvious, but it wastes the internal resources of the group. Take last year as an example. By the end of last year, Firefly, Disney Studios, Disney Animation, Firefly Pictures, New Line Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar Animation, Black Ant Productions, and other brands introduced through external channels. For some films, the total number of films in the line is 29, and the cumulative box office of the year is 15.5 billion US dollars, accounting for 258% of the total North American box office of 100 million US dollars in 1994...

Just as he was talking, the waiter brought up the dinner ordered by several people, and Eric had to pause the narrative, but Amy Pascal was amazed at the series of numbers that Eric casually reported. Unconsciously, Firefly's box office market The share has already accounted for a quarter of the total North American box office. If it continues, Firefly may really want to reproduce the dominance of MGM in the golden age of Hollywood, which makes her even more puzzled why Firefly is here. Under such a good situation, it was suddenly decided to reduce production.

After the waiter left, Eric continued: Although this market share is very high on the surface, in many films, Firefly has already made a loss. Firefly's total domestic box office revenue in North America this year is 15.5 billion US dollars. But just Saving Private Ryan, True Lies, The Lion King, Running Bride, and Changing Faces accounted for $7.5 billion in those five-billion-dollar films. Half of the total box office, if the scope is expanded, in addition to these five films. Several medium-sized productions such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and King of Fighters received box office ranging from 10,000 to 10,000 respectively, and Firefly's annual box office The cumulative sum of the top ten films reached US$1.1 billion, accounting for % of the total box office share, and the profits brought by these ten films accounted for more than 85% of the total profits of the film business. Next, the remaining 19 films The film only brought in 4.5 billion US dollars in box office revenue for Firefly. The average box office revenue of each film is only 10,000 yuan, while the average production and production cost of these 19 films is 10,000 yuan. Although they are operated through overseas sales and video tapes, these 19 films are still It can bring some profits to Firefly, but the overall input and output are very uneconomical.”

After listening to Eric, Amy Pascal nodded and said to Eric: According to your analysis, the behavior of Firefly's compressed production plan is definitely very sensible, but Eric. If Firefly does this, it may lose its No. 1 market share in the box office. If it were other film companies, I don’t think they would be willing to give up the title of No. 1 market share.”

Eric smiled and said, It doesn't make much sense to fight for the first place in box office revenue, and it is easy to be hated by others. Firefly pursues the first place in net profit. Firefly is now a comprehensive company. As a media group, our future focus in the film business will be to produce better films, and at the same time, we will focus more resources and energy on the development of value-added services around films, so that every outstanding film can be realized in the whole industry chain. Maximize profit.”

In fact, Eric made this decision. It is also the result of a detailed reference to the subsequent Disney exhibition strategy. In the original time and space, after the new century, Disney's annual number of productions is not high compared to other studios, but because of the high-quality strategy, it can rush out a few box office dark horses almost every year. Therefore, although the number of films produced by Disney is only more than ten, Disney's profits have always been among the best among several major studios by virtue of its excellent operation of the whole industry chain.

After a while, Amy Pascal asked again: But, Eric. Don't you think there's a lot of risk in that too, and if you cut the production to half the size, Firefly might miss some box-office dark horses. And once some key projects fail, Firefly's annual financial data will definitely be very ugly.

Eric said: The dark horse of the low-cost and high-box office accounts for less than 1% of the films that hit Hollywood's six theaters every year. This slim chance is not enough to keep Firefly in a high-load line. Strategy, as for possible failures in major projects, even if there is no production reduction, this risk still exists. But now, the failure of one or two major production films will not have much impact on Firefly, and Firefly is not a listed company. , we don’t have to rack our brains to prepare beautiful financial reports for investors, we can completely run the company according to our own ideas.”

Amy Pascal nodded enviously, but Tina Fei suddenly said: Hey, have you guys now, the dark horses at the box office these years seem to have come from Fireflies.

When Tina Fey said this, the three women suddenly realized that this was the case. From the first Home Alone to the subsequent Pretty Woman, as well as the peak Jurassic Park, last summer's Lion King, speaking, since Eric's sudden rise, all Hollywood The film that can be called a dark horse at the box office seems to have long legs and gathers under the banner of Firefly.

Looking at the curious and suspicious eyes of several women, Eric spread his hands and said with a smile: This is my personal talent. If you really want a reason, have you watched Men in Black?

Haha, Tina Fei couldn't help laughing, poked the little girl who was also overjoyed next to her, and stretched out her hand to make a tentacle shape on her head, and asked, Drew, Eric's blood What color is it, is it sky blue?

The girl picked up the napkin and wiped her mouth with a bad expression, and then mysteriously suppressed her small voice: White. I have tasted it, and it is a little salty.

Forehead.

what?

Pfft...cough...

Tina Fei was stunned for half a second, her face was instantly covered with a layer of red, and she reached out and pinched the girl's ribs.

Amy Pascal showed a puzzled look. But he quickly covered his mouth and laughed lightly.

Eric couldn't hold back a mouthful of red wine, and spit it out. Fortunately, he immediately turned his head and walked around the table, but because he endured the breath, he was choked up and coughed again and again. Looking at the little girl holding the napkin, she came over weakly. Eric was not confused by the girl's expression at all, and knocked on her forehead unceremoniously: Never make this kind of joke again in the future.

Remember, I will never tell anyone that you are from Pandora.

Don't play stupid, you know that's not what I'm talking about.

Mmmmmmm...

The waiter came over quickly and hurriedly cleaned up, but none of them were interested in continuing to eat, so they paid the bill and left the restaurant.

Just like the Twilight series at the peak of the original time and space, and the Hunger Games series of Lionsgate, for the second and third-tier film companies, it is a big blockbuster series. Often it can rise. Although it is still a pure production company, a Mission Impossible, which is expected to reach $500 million at the global box office, can continue to bring hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow to Huahua Pictures. In the early stage of the three films of Mission: Impossible, Night at the Museum and Forrest Gump, Huahua Pictures still needed to rely on cooperation with other film companies or external financing, but after Mission: Impossible, even if the cash returned It will take some time, but Huahua Pictures has no pressure on funding.

In this case, expansion is almost imperative. In addition to the idea of ​​the youth campus film that Tina Fey had improvised at lunch, Eric, together with Drew, Amy and others, studied some scripts recently collected by Huahua Films that afternoon, Huahua Films assisted Ai The copyrights of the superheroes that Rick recovered have been returned to Marvel Entertainment, and the other copyrights such as The Lord of the Rings and The Bourne Bourne have not yet been opened. So if you want to start a new project, you can only choose yourself for the time being.

However, it is true that good scripts are hard to come by. Several people gathered around the script agent and sent a bunch of scripts to study for an afternoon. Neither good enough, nor more familiar in Eric's memory.

I have been busy after get off work, because tomorrow morning I will go to Burbank to attend the high-level meeting of Firefly. Eric did not go back to Malibu, but planned to spend the night at Xiao Nizi's mansion in Beverly Hills.

The twins drove the car onto the highway, and the little girl who was sitting in the back row with Eric lay softly on Eric: I'm exhausted. Eric, picking a script is so troublesome, why don't you just directly Write a few to us.

Eric pinched the girl's face on his lap and smiled, You really think I'm a Pandora star.

Drew turned his baby face, looked up at Eric and said, You clearly wrote so many scripts before.

Eric explained: It's different now and I don't have as much time to think about the script.

After getting along for so long, Xiao Nizi can of course see that Eric is not sincere, but she has no intention of getting to the bottom of it. She believes that Eric is lying to herself, and there must be a reason for lying to her.

Eric looked at the little girl with bright eyes in his arms, smiled, and didn't say anything, but what Tina Fei inadvertently said in the afternoon was what Tina Fei said in his heart: The dark horse at the box office all these years has come from Firefly. flag. This casual remark made Eric vigilant, because Tina Fey's words were inaccurate. To be precise, the dark horses at the box office these years came from Eric himself. Yes, I wrote it myself.

The memory of rebirth is Eric's greatest wealth and his biggest secret. This is a society where the strong eat the weak. Eric will not feel any guilt for taking out the script in his memory for himself, but he Don't want to let this go on and make people really think of him as an alien or something. Moreover, now that he also has wealth and power, he no longer has to do everything himself. As long as the excellent films in his memory reappear according to the historical trajectory, Firefly has enough strength to win these projects, and those copyright owners will definitely be more inclined to be like Firefly. Cooperation with powerful large companies.

The car unknowingly drove into the narrow mountain road of Beverly Hills, and the slight bump pulled Eric from his thoughts into reality. Smiling, she reached out and touched the girl's eyelashes, and her smart eyes opened immediately.

I haven't had dinner yet. Are you sleepy?

Drew's little head rubbed against Eric's body, and said greasy: I just want to sleep in your arms.

Oh, by the way, I just remembered. About the sequel to Mission: Impossible, have you contacted Kevin Costner?

Well, he wants a $10,000 salary and a % of the North American box office.

Eric made a simple calculation in his mind, if the sequel could achieve the department's results. Kevin Costner will probably take about 10,000 yuan from this project. This is really a lion's mouth. In my memory, although Tom Cruise took more than 10,000 yuan from a Mission: Impossible, people are good. Also participated in the production and investment.

And then what? Eric asked again.

Xiao Nizi squeezed Eric's shirt and tugged lightly, saying, What else is there? Give him %, and the merchants will take another 15%, and we only have % left. The local box office is divided into movies. The fastest way to return funds, we are not those big film companies that can slowly recover funds through long-term operations. How could it be possible to give this piece of money to him, so everyone broke up as soon as they got in touch. He should be shooting that movie in Hawaii now Future Water World, huh, I just found out, it seems that the filming of that film was not very smooth, the scenery they chose was too windy, and the multi-million dollar set, a big wave came, and it was scrapped with a slam, and then It has to be rebuilt. Now the budget is big.”

The inertia of history is really strong enough, and Eric has a smile on his mouth. Perhaps, the biggest budget film before Titanic will also be born on schedule.

He patted the girl's excited little face. Eric said: Then let's put it down for the time being. If Future Water World fails, plus the Law Enforcement Warriors that was released last summer, Kevin Costner will be on his back. There are two films that have caused huge losses for investors, but there are only three things to do, and he will definitely take the initiative to contact you at that time.

The little girl who was leaning on Eric laughed. He hummed a few more times, as if some bad idea was brewing.

The car quickly entered the Trousdale estate in Beverly, and after a while, it stopped outside Drew's mansion. Little Nizi just sat up, and the twins sitting in the front passenger seat turned their heads and pointed to the door of the mansion, and said, Boss, look.

Eric and Xiao Nizi looked over together. At this time, the sun had already set. In the dim light, a girl in a small white trench coat and jeans was standing quietly in the open space outside the gate of the mansion with a schoolbag on her back. The girl was very tall. It's petite and obviously doesn't grow long. Seeing the car stopped, the girl hesitated before walking over carefully.

Eric was a little puzzled, how did Christina Aguilera appear at the doorman of Drew's house, and while opening the car door, he looked at the little girl inquiringly, and the girl just shook her head.

Seeing Drew get out of the car, all of Christina's hesitation disappeared, and she ran over obviously a little excitedly, noticing Eric who got off the other side of the car, her face even more joyful.

Although she paused after seeing Eric, Christina quickly walked towards Xiao Nizi and said excitedly, Dru, I thought you wouldn't be back today.

The little girl warmly embraced Christina in her arms. Although the girl was not tall, Christina seemed even more petite. After a while of intimacy, the girl let go of the girl and said with a smile, Long time no see. Ah, why did you come to me all of a sudden?

Christina was about to speak, when she saw Eric walking over, she turned around and greeted obediently: Hello, Mr. Williams.

Eric just smiled and nodded, looked at Drew, Christina also turned her attention to the little girl, and said with a little sadness in her tone: Dru, I, I'm here to say goodbye. (To be continued.)

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