I’m in Hollywood Chapter 534: Feelings
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Eric raised his eyebrows slightly, did not answer, but asked: "What do you think the purpose of a company going public?"
"Funding funds to make enterprises develop better."
"So, Firefly is not short of funds now, and the development status is obvious to all, so do you think Firefly is still necessary for listing?"
The reporter was not discouraged and immediately asked again: "Mr. Williams, are you satisfied with the status quo and do you plan to continue to expand the Firefly Pictures territory?"
"Of course not, but if you want to expand the layout of Firefly Pictures, there are many ways to obtain funds, and it is not necessary to be listed. I have my own complete plan for the development of Firefly, and some development ideas may even cause a lot of controversy. But I do n’t want to waste every time I make a decision after going public, to explain the reason to the Wall Street masters. Everyone is in the news, and it should be very clear how difficult that group of people is. Well, this is the problem. So far, let us return to the topic of today ’s press conference. "
Listening to the slightly ridiculous tone of Eric, the reporters present all chuckled.
They all know the meaning of Eric. Although the relationship between Hollywood and Wall Street is quite close, in fact, the game between the two parties is more than cooperation. Wall Street pursues a company ’s high operating indicators. Growth rate and high rate of return, most investors often do not value long-term development, just want to see beautiful financial reports, speculative component is very large. The company's operators tend to pay more attention to long-term development, and many times will sacrifice short-term benefits for this purpose, which is in conflict with the concept of Wall Street.
If a company is not listed, Wall Street is of course no dog bite hedgehog. I don't want your money, and you don't want to intervene in my site. If you choose to go public, even if the control is still in the hands of the enterprise operator, as long as the company's development footprint deviates from the track Wall Street envisaged, it will still be fingered by Wall Street investors all the time. Today, this investment bank published a bearish article. Tomorrow, the Wall Street tycoon made some fierce criticisms. In the face of the resulting stock price shocks, if a company does not compromise, don't want to stop.
The most extreme example is of course Marvel Entertainment Inc., which Eric has been silently paying attention to. The business condition of Marvel Comics in the 1980s has been very good. It even nearly annexed DC Comics in the hands of Warner. However, since the comic company fell into the hands of Wall Street investor Ron Perelman in the late 1980s, it has ushered in a life of disaster and hardship. Ron Perelman is only keen on capital operation and has no intention of operating until now. Ron Perelman has taken hundreds of millions of USD profits from Marvel Entertainment, but Marvel Entertainment's operating conditions have been declining all the way, and it has almost come to the brink of bankruptcy.
Wall Street speculators like Ron Perelman are innumerable. In some memories of Eric previous life, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Film Industry finally got rid of the casino tycoon Kirk.Kerkorian after 2005, but soon after, became another Wall Street speculative tycoon Carl Icahn The 'toy' in the hand, Metro Goldwyn Mayer repeatedly faced bankruptcy crisis in the following years. The business situation has not improved at all, but Carl Icahn has made a lot of money.
All this information makes Eric have a deep fear of Wall Street. Firefly Pictures is the foundation of Eric. It is also his most passionate career, so Eric has never planned to list Firefly Pictures.
Some high-tech enterprises that Chris helps him operate are the capital that Eric has prepared to expand its territory in Hollywood. No one knows the development prospects of Cisco, AOL, Yahoo and other companies better than Eric. If Firefly Pictures needs a large amount of capital in the future For expansion, Eric can completely sell shares of companies such as Cisco or list companies such as Yahoo. Get a lot of development funds, and. Even if the control of these companies is lost in the future, Eric is not too concerned. As a rising industry, the Internet has a very large bubble component. It is the wisest option to cash out the market in time, and there will still be numerous investment opportunities for the Internet in the next two decades.
After Eric finished these words, he directly handed the microphone to Ed Carmore on the other side. After the reminder from Eric, the next reporter did not continue to ask about Jurassic Park and Firefly Pictures, but focused on the focus. Firefly software company.
The press conference quickly generated a huge response in the media inside and outside Hollywood. Many people know that this is the first counterattack in the digital field to the recent corner-digging behavior, and the purpose is to prevent Autodesk from entering special effects. Software market and maintain the industry's leading position in the digital field.
After the press conference, Chairman of the Board and CEO Carol Bartz of Autodesk said in an interview that Autodesk will not give up the pace of entering film and television special effects software. However, in the next few days, news came out that Autodesk's Board of Directors's strategy for entering the film and television special effects software market There have been differences. Because the killing power of Firefly is too great, although Autodesk only needs half a year to launch mature special effects software, it is estimated that Firefly software has occupied 90% of the market in this half year.
And the Firefly software also has the advantages that Autodesk does not have, that is, the special effects industry giant in the digital field. The cost and technical advantages of these two companies through close cooperation are absolutely Autodesk, which can only produce 'tools' But there is no company in its own "test field" that cannot be compared. Although Autodesk has reached some cooperation intentions with Industrial Light & Magic before, the two parties are ultimately two companies, and it is impossible to cooperate as intimately as Firefly software and the digital field.
Subsequently, Industrial Light & Magic's approach also confirmed Autodesk's concerns. Only one week after the Firefly software conference, Industrial Light & Magic announced the decision to adopt Firefly software products. The day of the news was accompanied by George Lucas and Firefly software CEO Ed Carmore Intimate handshake photos.
Of course, George Lucas is also a helpless move. Although Industrial Light & Magic had a set of software tools developed by itself before, but its performance is completely incomparable with the digital field, if this time give up cooperation with Firefly software. Then the CG Special Effects production level of Industrial Light & Magic is likely to be even worse than those of third-rate special effects studios that use tools such as maya. In that case, Industrial Light & Magic will definitely decline quickly.
When the news of the cooperation between Industrial Light & Magic and Firefly software came out, Autodesk ’s Board of Directors directly rejected the management ’s proposal to establish a film and television special effects software department.
At the same time as the formation of Firefly software, the management of Eric and Firefly also began to make efforts to retain employees in the digital field, and adopted a series of measures to increase salaries and benefits. For the employees who insist on leaving, the digital field has not been prevented. Instead, these employees are encouraged to set up their own special effects studios and attach themselves around the digital field in a hooked way. A certain number of outsourcing projects can be received from the digital field. This measure can disguise these people in the digital field in disguise and weaken the opponent's competitiveness on the other hand.
This measure is very attractive to many people. Going to other companies to continue to work as an employee is not as easy as being a Boss, even if it is just a small Boss in a studio. After the implementation of this measure, some small and special effects companies that had nothing to do with the digital field have also expressed their wish to join the camp of the digital field. In anticipation of obtaining corresponding discounts, the digital field has also selectively accepted a batch.
Because these small and micro effects companies that are affiliated with the digital field have too many places to rely on the digital field headquarters in technology and projects, Eric does not worry that there will be another giant that threatens the digital field, and this This approach has accelerated the expansion of Firefly special effects software tools.
After more than a week, this departure in the digital field has finally subsided and was stimulated by this event. In order to ensure that the company will not have similar incidents in the future, Eric began to brew equity incentive plans among all Firefly Pictures member companies . Through covering the entire company's equity incentive program, Firefly Pictures employees deepen their sense of belonging and cohesion of Firefly.
In this process, Pixar Film Industry's second part 3D animation "A Bug's Life" was also officially released on more than one screen in North America2500. This insect-themed cartoon attracted a large number of audiences of all ages with interesting characters and plots suitable for all ages. It got 33 million USD Box Office in the first three days of the weekend. It is expected that Box Office will reach 50 million USD in the first week, It can't be compared with the first week of "Jurassic Park" Box Office, but the results of "A Bug's Life" have been able to rank among the best-selling blockbuster.
And the cost of this 3D animation is only about 70 million USD, according to North America Box Office trend. Relying on the release of the North America market, you can basically recover the cost. As a cartoon, the profit around "A Bug's Life" is the biggest profit. In just three days after the movie was released, the peripheral products that were simultaneously listed in hundreds of Disney stores on entire US generated a turnover of nearly 12 million USD.
By the way, the peripheral products of "Jurassic Park" also began to be sold at the same time as the movie was released through the Disney store channel. In the past month, the turnover of the surroundings also successfully broke through 100 million USD, and Eric originally deliberately imitated original In the movie, I gave some clear close-ups of the surrounding products of "Jurassic Park", and the history seems to be strikingly similar, because the granddaughter Rex, the granddaughter of Dr. Hardmond, has a series of pig team friend plots in the movie. The image of the doll has become the most popular product among the surroundings of "Jurassic Park". Eric forgot to remind this thing, which led to the Disney's toy foundry producing a batch of Lex character dolls in advance. As a result, the dolls of other characters were sold out several times, but the Lex character dolls did not even have half of the original batch. sell away.
Staying in Los Angeles means being busy. Often the things in hand are not finished, and other things will come in rush.
Of course, most of the things are film. Although the direct profit of Firefly in Film Industry business is getting lower and lower in the company ’s total profit, no one can take it lightly. Film Industry business is like Film Studio Only if the engine's horsepower is strong enough can it lead other businesses to develop rapidly together.
After deciding to abandon the acquisition of Miramax, Firefly Pictures re-launched its Black Ant label and established a special art film investment department. After a period of screening, some scripts were also sent to Eric.
After Quentin Tarantino became famous after "Reservoir Dogs", he happily played soy sauce in many B movie for two years, and finally remembered that he still had something to do. After being urged and ordered by Eric, Quentin finally came out with "Pulp Fiction" The script and Eric also gave some suggestions according to the original memory, such as the candidate of male & female leads, and that period is called the classic twist dance.
Maybe after watching "Pulp Fiction", many people do n’t understand where the classic twist dance between John Travolta and Uma Thurman is. However, when the movie was first released at North America, I saw this screen, Many North America viewers who experienced the hot days of that year will have a tearful feeling.
Things need to start from 1978. In that year, Paramount Pictures released a very anti-traditional song and dance film "Grease". The actor of the movie is John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction", and once the film is released, it will immediately It caused a sensation among North America teenagers, and at that time, only half of the fare of the 1990s won the Box Office of North America 170 million USD, and won the Box Office championship that year without suspense. Moreover, this movie also led to a sensational disco wave, and set a record for the original soundtrack of the movie for many years.
In "Grease", there are many John Travolta actors playing in the discotheque, and many years later, "Pulp Fiction" through John Travolta and Uma Thurman participated in the twist dance competition in the ballroom, reproduced ten The classic scenes in "Grease" many years ago produced the same effect as the brothers appeared on the screen again in the image of wearing a windbreaker and a toothpick after "A Better Tomorrow" for many years. If you use a vulgar vocabulary to describe it, this feeling is called ‘feelings’. (To be continued)