Movie Master

For the matter of the blacklist, what level do you want to achieve now? Set up a screenwriting department from the beginning to be responsible for related work; or do you want to test the waters first, and start preparing after the first issue of the blacklist is released? After listening to Lance's thoughts, Ian immediately had countless thoughts, but he summed it up in the simplest way and asked Lance for his opinion.

In the management of Chaos Films, Lance is in charge of ideas and creativity, and Ian is in charge of company operations. The division of labor and cooperation is very clear.

Lance didn't answer right away, but pondered for a while, So, all the work you're doing now is over, and it completely belongs to Chaos Film Industry?

Ian raised his hands, I belong to you now. This made Gawain chuckle beside him, while Lance rolled his eyes helplessly, And Theo, he has already Completely resigned. Gao Wen and Lance both looked at Theo, and Theo nodded calmly, The work handover is over.

After three years of integration, the management of Chaos Shadow finally saw the model.

I want to separate the functions of the various departments of the company. We now need to attract a large number of talents, preferably in the second half of this year, or next year, so that the company has the ability to shoot two or even three works at the same time. Lance He had a rough idea, but he didn't know how feasible it was, so he needed to seek Ian's opinion, Of course, it's not a big production, just a small production within our ability. For example, 'City of God' The scale, of course, it is best to have one that can reach the scale of 'Murder with a Borrowed Knife'... At this point, Lance paused slightly, looking at Ian hesitantly, Do we have such capabilities now?

Funding, personnel, equipment, etc., hardware and software facilities, Chaos Films are all in their infancy, but at the same time they are also in a vigorous development stage. The success of three consecutive works has allowed Chaos Films to occupy a place in Hollywood. Under the attention of the public, along with the pressure, there are also opportunities.

Ian gently closed his jaw, We will develop to that point. To put it more directly, it is not available now. For the blacklist, can you prepare it now?

Lance thought about it seriously, Give me a month? What's wrong?

I mean, after 'Sin City' is over, we have a lot of options. Other than Warner Bros. and Disney. Ian's mind raced, If we can, we can do both and win for the company. More development opportunities.

The Superman project and Pirates of the Caribbean may both succeed in negotiation and let Chaos Pictures choose; maybe both works fail to negotiate and let Chaos Pictures' efforts go to waste. But no matter what the result is, Chaos Films pins all its hopes on these two projects, which will make the company passive.

However, if the blacklist can be released smoothly, it also means that Chaos Films can have countless other possibilities - such as selecting scripts suitable for Chaos Films from the blacklist and putting them into production.

Lance understood in a blink of an eye, I will speed up. Not only for multiple preparations, but I also need some help when I am fighting for the Warner Bros. cooperation project.

Then this week's Oscar nominees lunch, you must attend. Ian has gradually become familiar with Hollywood's operating model. The so-called Oscar nominees lunch, as the literal meaning says, is before the annual Oscars are officially held. , the luncheon where all the nominees gather together, on the one hand, is to promote the upcoming Oscars, and on the other hand, it is a social occasion for high-level people.

Obviously, Lance has already begun to speed up. If the matter of the blacklist goes well, then Chaos Pictures will enter a stage of rapid development. Ian has already begun to gear up, but his emotions have not been revealed, but he has become more and more calm After coming down, he changed the subject calmly, By the way, Theo has learned a lot about Disney's internal information.

During last week's board meeting, Disney's internal affairs were torn apart. Roy-Disney (Roy-Disney) and Michael Eisner yelled at each other, swearing, and almost got into a fight. Theo simply said In one sentence, the tension and chaos inside Disney were described. This time, the Disney shareholder's case against the board of directors was brought up again. The Delaware court decided to arraign Michael. There is no room for maneuver in this matter. Now the board of directors has also begun to divide.

I thought they were all high-quality civilized people. Lance was a little surprised. In the past two lives, he watched the changes and rise and fall of these big companies as a bystander, and he lamented more about the vicissitudes of the shopping malls. Seeing the tip of the iceberg of the true face, I can't help but be amazed.

Ian said with a smile, Believe me, as long as there are enough interests, their bottom line will shock your world. A joke made Theo roll his eyes helplessly.

In the power structure of unitary companies like Europe and the United States, the CEO, as the head of the management, actually controls the core power of the company, especially in the United States. Among the top 100 companies in the United States, they have a little relationship with the European financial management system. They are more advocating the centralism of the board of directors, encouraging the company's management to snatch the power of the shareholders' meeting, and the management and the board of directors are linked to further consolidate the position of the CEO.

Under such a concept, many companies have emerged a power center model of the troika, that is, the chairman, the company president, and the CEO who are in charge of the company's power supervision, coordination, and execution. But in fact, the operation of the tripartite power interaction structure often results in the following results: the role of the chairman is weakened, the president is emptied, and the power of the chief executive reaches its peak.

Disney is such a typical example. As the CEO, Michael has actually controlled Disney for 20 years, and the president and chairman of the company have been under his shadow for a long time.

And Michael's personality is an absolute dictator, and he must firmly control everything in his hands, even the color of the paint on the exterior wall of Disneyland. In the past few years, those major decisions about the future development direction of Disney were almost made by Michael alone, including the removal of Jeffrey Katzenberg directly from the company and the 140 million severance compensation. Creative Artists Agency CEO Michael-Ovitz's poaching and other decisions, none of which have been approved by the board of directors.

It turns out that these decisions were huge mistakes.

All this earned Michael the title of tyrant, and Disney was even shown by many universities as a negative case - as a case of the CEO's rampant power leading to the demise of the company, even within Hollywood, Disney is also hailed as management Worst company ever. In 2003, the general meeting of shareholders directly took Disney's board of directors to court, which also opened the curtain of Disney's internal power struggle.

Now, apparently the drama has reached its climax, Roy-Disney is the nephew of founder Walt-Disney and one of the largest shareholders, Roy and Michael are completely tearing each other up, and things are clearly lost control.

It was against this background that Eric went to Austin to visit Lance himself. Perhaps, Eric's behavior has nothing to do with the company's internal turmoil. After all, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel is just a small movie project of the Disney empire; but the greater possibility is that this movie project involving $500 million, Has been unknowingly involved in the power struggle among the top Disney.

2004 was a very bad year for Disney. In the year-end list, although National Treasure and The Incredibles were among the top ten works, Mysterious Village and Princess were highly expected. Diary 2, King Arthur, and Around the World in 80 Days all suffered from Waterloo. What's more frightening is that the animation department that Disney relies on for survival has further slipped into the abyss-The Incredibles was created by Pixar, and Disney Animation The department's original Mulan 2, The Three Musketeers and Winnie the Pooh all failed miserably. If you add The Legend of the Bear and The Jungle Book 2 in 2003, Disney's animation department has rarely encountered five. Losing streak.

In other words, Disney's animation division hasn't made any money since 2002's Lilo and Stranger.

This is also one of the fuses that triggered Disney's internal war. Michael's poor employment and decision-making failure accelerated the demise of the tyrant dynasty.

The launch of the Pirates of the Caribbean project was also severely criticized by the entire board of directors. Almost no one wanted to believe that this pirate project could make money. Michael followed his usual independent and professional style and gave Jerry Bruckheimer all the way After giving the green light, there is the amazing Captain Jack Sparrow in the world. Now, in the face of huge box office pressure, Michael once again put forward the Pirates of the Caribbean project.

For the outside world, the schedules of the three leading actors could not be matched, which is why the two sequels were filmed in one go; but inside Disney, people knew that this was Michael's hard work, and he needed the support of Jerry and others. , He needs a big project like 500 million sequels to boost morale.

Even for a big company like Disney, a project involving an investment of 500 million yuan attracts much attention.

So, we have become pawns. Lance said, this is an affirmative sentence, not a question sentence. Chaos Films had been involved in this power struggle unintentionally since Robert Iger came to the door. Of course, for Disney, Chaos Films is just cannon fodder and can't stir up more waves at all, but for Chaos Films, they don't want this project to cause their own disaster.

Ian and Theo exchanged glances, and then saw Ian tilt his head slightly, If you don't want to, it's too late to quit this game now.