I’m in Hollywood Chapter 928: 4200
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Basically, the data collected by Carolyn and Melanie in the past few days have been brought on the plane.
After listening to the suggestions of the two of them, Eric asked them to bring the materials, and the three discussed in more detail.
As the North America movie market has become more and more prosperous in recent years, the total number of screens in North America ’s major cinemas has exceeded 36,000 in 1997, an increase of almost 10,000 compared with ten years ago. As a result of various problems such as market saturation and intensified competition, small theaters with inferior strength have merged and integrated with several theater giants.
Up to now, the top three North America cinema lines, Regal Entertainment, AMC and Cinemark, after years of expansion, have more than 14,000 screens with the highest commercial value of North America, becoming the three most competitive commercial centers in United States Line group. Although other small theaters, art theaters, or local theaters still have far more screens than the sum of these three, these second- and third-rate theaters basically have remote locations, outdated equipment, and insufficient film sources. Various reasons.
If Firefly Group wants to enter the cinema industry, if it puts aside the Big Three and initiates acquisitions of other small cinemas, it may even be better to build a chain of theaters from scratch. Even the top three cinema lines have more or less various problems due to the over-expansion over the years. Although the number one Regal Entertainment has more than 7,000 screens, among the top three, The business situation is the worst, and there is even a risk of bankruptcy in the next few years.
On the surface, Regal Entertainment seems to be the best M & A target of Firefly Group, but if Firefly Group really does, it will take more than 7000 screens distributed in the golden areas of North America major cities. The entire Hollywood, Firefly system All Film Studio is estimated to be restless. The other two, although the number of screens are around 3,000 or 4,000, but if Firefly wants to intervene, they will still face the problem of antitrust.
In the study, Melanie showed a piece of information to Eric, saying: "Eric, you see, the three major cinema entertainment groups have several sub-brands, just like Regal Entertainment, which has three sub-brands. , Regal-Cinemas, Edwards-Theaters-UnitedArtistsTheaters. In fact, we can take this sub-brand penetration method and cooperate with one of the top three cinema lines. I think the best is Regal Entertainment, which was completed a few years ago. After another big merger and acquisition, although the number of screens has expanded to more than 7,000, due to rising debt ratios and chaotic management of cinemas, it has been in a loss for the past two years. What we have to do is to go from their cinemas. A group of screening halls were selected, and Firefly Group injected capital and held shares to transform into a sub-brand dedicated to playing 3D movies. "
The biggest reason why Eric hopes to enter the cinema industry is that it wants to promote 3D movies in advance and find a new profit growth point for the Firefly system. On the other hand, he also hopes to lead the promotion of 3D movies.
In the past history, the promotion process of 3D movies can only be described as chaos.
In the early stage of "Avatar", many Hollywood blockbusters already have 3D versions. However, compared with the huge movie market of North America, the source of 3D movies has always been described as scarce. Without enough 3D film sources, the number of North America 3D screens has been unable to develop. The insufficient number of 3D screens has also curbed the motivation of filmmakers to produce 3D versions of their films.
After "Avatar", driven by huge profits, North America several major Film Studio and major theaters began to produce 3D movies and remodeled 3D theaters.
This swarming trend has naturally caused the quality of 3D film sources and cinema 3D projection systems to be uneven. Even the quality of most 3D film sources and 3D cinemas is very poor, which has caused the audience not only to not further accept 3D movies Instead, he gradually became disgusted with this film mode again.
As long as the 3D film source and theater projection system meet the standards, the visual experience of 3D movies is absolutely shocking. At the same time, it can also trend towards viewers who are watching movies on TV or online platforms to re-enter the cinema .
What Eric wants to do now is to put the promotion of 3D movies into a benign development track, instead of being used by those movie theaters and filmmakers who are excessively pursuing profits to use low-quality projection systems and rough source of film production. Gradually destroy this brand-new film form.
Patiently discussed with Melanie and Carolyn, Eric finally said: "So, this sub-brand is called RealD."
Both women showed puzzled eyes: "RealD?"
Eric nodded, RealD is actually the most popular 3D movie projection system in the original time and space.
The biggest problem with 3D movie screening is usually brightness.
Unlike 2D movies, 3D movies, 3D projectors, big screens, and 3D eyes will also cause a significant reduction in the brightness of movies during the projection process. There is a special unit for the brightness of the movie screen, called FL (f00t-Lamberts). Traditional 2D movies, because there are not too many attenuation factors, the brightness can easily reach 14FL, but after 3 stages of attenuation 3D movies, the usual brightness is Only about 4.5FL is left. In order to extend the life of projector high-pressure xenon lamp bulbs, many theaters even deliberately reduce the brightness, which further reduces the brightness of 3D movies and gives the audience a dark feeling.
In the face of the chaotic situation in the 3D movie market, RealD not only developed a special RealD projection system, but also launched a set of special RealD certification standards, the most important of which is to stipulate that theaters play 3D movies. The brightness should not be lower than 6FL.
What Eric wants to do at this time is to establish a set of special 3D movie certification standards from the beginning. For this reason, he also checked the status of RealD Company, but found that this company was not established at all. In this case, Eric took the name without hesitation.
"RealD, you can understand the meaning of real 3D," facing the doubts of the two women, Eric picked up the pencil next to him and wrote the brand-new word RealD in the blank space of the document in front of him, and then said: "Not only For this sub-brand, I hope that the 3D movie projection system developed in the digital field will also use this name. At the same time, we must set a set of 3D movie playback standards in advance. In the future, if you want to get a copy of the Firefly system 3D movie, the relevant theater must Pass our standard certification. "
After listening to Eric, Melanie immediately nodded pretentiously and smiled, "This is a good way."
She thought that Eric did this, mainly because she wanted to monopolize the 3D movie market.
Carolyn apparently thought that Eric was such a thought, and there was also a small guilty expression on his face that did something bad.
However, Eric doesn't actually have such a plan.
In the early stage of 3D movie promotion, as long as the quality of 3D movies and cinema playback standards are well controlled, the Firefly system can naturally enjoy exclusive profits for a long period of time by virtue of the technology in hand and the advantages of cinema resources. However, in these extremely open movie markets in Europe and America, other Film Studio will see the benefits of Firefly and will naturally follow suit.
Furthermore, Eric does not want Firefly to monopolize the benefits in this respect. If you eat for a long time, you will definitely lose your motivation. Introducing competition is the best choice to keep the Firefly system alive for a long time.
Unconsciously discussed for several hours. At dinner time, Eric kept its promise to prepare food for everyone. Carolyn and Melanie stayed in the study room to continue to collate the results discussed by the three people. After Eric intends to get off the plane, Discuss the detailed implementation plan with Los Angeles group management.
Not only from the 3D projection system to the RealD certification standard for theaters, Eric also initially discussed a plan with the two girls named ‘4200’. Eric hopes that in the next two to three years, Firefly Group will establish 2,000 standard-certified 3D screens in North America and overseas. This is 4000 in ‘4200’. As for 200, it is another IMAX theater plan.
At present, the entire North America has a total of 54 IMAX screens, which are basically distributed in museums or science and technology museums in major cities. Moreover, within the range of global, the number of IMAX screens now does not exceed 100.
Two years ago, after watching the IMAX documentary at the Natural History Museum of New York, Eric contacted the IMAX company of Canada to urge them to speed up the development of the technology for the conversion of ordinary 35mm film to IMAX film. The duration has always been limited to about forty or fifty minutes.
According to the information that Carolyn and Melanie obtained from IMAX company a few days ago, the DMR (Digital Original Reproduction) technology that IMAX company has been developing can realize the conversion of normal-length movies into IMAX movies at the latest.
Since the production of "Gravity", Eric will naturally not miss the IMAX screening that can maximize the visual charm of this epic space movie.
Therefore, while building 4000 3D screens, Eric also plans to build 100 IMAX theaters in North America and overseas.
Finally, when the plane landed at London, Eric's residence at London Kensington Garden Street discussed the two plans of 'RealD' and '4200' with Firefly executives via video conference, far away from Katzenberg and Frank · Wells of Los Angeles People can't help but secretly talk.
In the Eric plan, the RealD projection system that needs to be developed in the digital field must abandon the current stand-alone 3D projector, and adopt a dual-machine 3D projection mode that can greatly increase the brightness and reduce the audience's dizziness, which means that each The reconstruction cost of the 3D projection hall may eventually reach 300,000 USD. The cost of retrofitting a single projection hall is of course nothing, but the transformation of 4,000 3D projection halls worldwide requires at least 1.2 billion USD, not to mention the later operating costs.
Similarly, 200 IMAX screening halls were built from scratch. Even at the cost of each 2 million USD, this is also a 400 million USD expenditure.
Think of it this way, in order to promote 3D and IMAX, the total investment that Firefly Group needs to pay will definitely not be lower than 1.6 billion USD, not to mention, the later operating costs are also huge.
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Moreover, Eric does n’t want Firefly to monopolize the benefits in this respect. If you eat for a long time, you will definitely lose your motivation. Introducing competition is the best choice to keep the Firefly system alive for a long time.
Unconsciously discussed for several hours. At dinner time, Eric kept its promise to prepare food for everyone. Carolyn and Melanie stayed in the study room to continue to collate the results discussed by the three people. After Eric intends to get off the plane, Discuss the detailed implementation plan with Los Angeles group management.
Not only from the 3D projection system to the RealD certification standard for theaters, Eric also initially discussed with the two women a plan code-named ‘4200’. Eric hopes that in the next two to three years, Firefly Group will establish 2,000 standard 3D screens in North America and overseas, which is 4000 in ‘4200’. As for 200, it is another IMAX theater plan.
At present, the entire North America has a total of 54 IMAX screens, which are basically distributed in museums or science and technology museums in major cities. Moreover, within the scope of global, the number of IMAX screens now does not exceed 100.
Two years ago, after watching the IMAX documentary at the Natural History Museum of New York, Eric contacted the IMAX company of Canada and urged them to speed up the development of technology for the conversion of ordinary 35mm film to IMAX film. Prior to this, IMAX ’s The duration has always been limited to about forty or fifty minutes.
According to the information obtained by Carolyn and Melanie from IMAX a few days ago, the DMR (Digital Original Reproduction) technology that IMAX has been developing can achieve the conversion of normal-length movies into IMAX movies at the latest by next year.
Since I want to produce "Gravity", Eric will naturally not miss the IMAX screening that can maximize the visual charm of this epic space movie.
Therefore, while building 4000 3D screens, Eric also plans to build 100 IMAX theaters in North America and overseas.
Finally, when the plane landed at London, Eric's residence at London Kensington Garden Street discussed the two plans of 'RealD' and '4200' with Firefly executives via video conference, far away from Los Angeles's Katzenberg and Frank · Wells, etc. People can't help but secretly talk.
In the plan of Eric, the RealD projection system that needs to be developed in the digital field must abandon the current stand-alone 3D projector and adopt a dual-machine 3D projection mode that can greatly increase the brightness and reduce the audience's dizziness, which means that each The reconstruction cost of the 3D projection hall may eventually reach 300,000 USD. The cost of retrofitting a single projection hall is of course nothing, but the transformation of 4,000 3D projection halls around the world requires a combined cost of at least 1.2 billion USD, not to mention the later operating costs.
Similarly, 200 IMAX screening halls were built from scratch. Even at the cost of each 2 million USD, this is also a 400 million USD expenditure.
(To be continued.)