Hollywood Hunter

Simon and Jack Welch reached a basic transaction framework for New World Entertainment, and the detailed contract terms will require further negotiations between the two parties.

With the acquiescence of the major shareholders of New World Entertainment and General Electric, Daenerys Pictures quickly began to intervene in the operation of this company in the next few days, and asked New World Entertainment CEO Robert Rem to temporarily stop all film and television projects. For production and distribution, any expenditure over US$50,000 must be approved by Daenerys.

Due to the long and uninterrupted paparazzi around Simon, news of his meeting with Jack Welch and others appeared in the newspaper the next day, and the media immediately sorted out the ins and outs of the matter.

However, this time, there was no recurrence of the rush of capital at the beginning of the year.

In half a year, things have changed too much.

At the beginning of the year, Simon's sudden richness through the operation of the stock index futures market has just been exposed. It is the fat sheep in the eyes of many people.Moreover, the Hollywood screenwriter strike had not yet occurred, and the crisis of New World Entertainment was not as serious as it was at this time.

Now, due to the strike of the Hollywood screenwriter, the TV production business of New World Entertainment, which is quite reliant on, is almost shut down, which further deteriorates the operating conditions of companies that have already fallen into financial crisis.Simon also expressed his attitude through the operation at the beginning of the year,

Therefore, the transaction is progressing quite smoothly.

The next day Simon and Jack Welch met on July 4, American Independence Day.

After four consecutive days of vacation, Daenerys Pictures, New World Entertainment and General Electric jointly released an announcement and officially released relevant information to the public.

Daenerys Pictures plans to acquire all shares of New World Entertainment after the debt-to-equity swap operation of General Electric for $250 million.Through this transaction, GE can recover US$225 million in funds, and the original shareholders of New World Entertainment will receive a total of US$25 million in compensation, which is equivalent to one-sixth of the stock price before the transaction.

Although some shareholders expressed dissatisfaction with the transaction, all parties know that this is actually the best result.

Without this transaction, New World Entertainment will either go bankrupt and liquidate, or sell assets to pay off debt, and both options will only leave shareholders empty-handed.

After finalizing these, Simon began to let James Rebold organize the team to conduct asset and financial audits of New World Entertainment.

In addition to the financing loans on the bright side, many companies will accumulate certain hidden debts by means of false reporting of operating income or arrears of payables. The worse the operating conditions of the company, the easier it is.Once the purchaser ignores this, it is often necessary to bear this part of the expenditure after the transaction.

Hidden debt is more common in Hollywood, where accounting systems are complex.

Simon did not choose to first buy the debt in GE's hands, and then carry out the debt-to-equity swap operation on his own. He was worried that New World Entertainment would suddenly make a large amount of hidden debts, which caught Daenerys film industry by surprise.Let General Electric conduct debt-to-equity swaps in advance, and as long as no contract is formally signed, the risks in this regard will still be on the side of General Electric and New World Entertainment.

The pre-auditing work will take about a month, and in addition to the financing of the acquisition of New World Entertainment, Daenerys Pictures may not officially take over the company until August.

In such a busy time, a new week has passed.

Due to the four consecutive days of the Independent Day holiday, the overall box office in North America for the week from July 1 to July 7 exceeded the $100 million mark to reach $117 million.

Paramount Pictures produced Eddie Murphy's somewhat melodic film "The Journey to the United States," with the opening of 2065 screens in the first week, and received 36.15 million US dollars, becoming the highest box office film in the first week of this summer.Previously, Paramount's "Crocodile Dundee 2", with 2,837 screens, was only $30.17 million at the box office in the first week.

Disney's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" after the box office of $21.65 million in the first week, supported by fiery word of mouth and four days of vacation,

Sandra starred in the black comedy "A Fish Named Wanda", which ranked third in the first week of the show, with a box office of $13.96 million.Although the start is not amazing, relative to the film’s production budget of only $8 million, this film will be enough to recover all the production and distribution costs next week, and the word-of-mouth and topical heat shown by the film is enough to support it to walk out of a very beautiful Long line.

"Pulp Fiction" slipped to fourth place this week, with a 17% drop at the box office and another $12.53 million.Within five weeks of its release, the movie's cumulative box office reached US$95.79 million, which is destined to break 100 million next week.

"Flying Over the Future" starring Tom Hanks is also entering the fifth week, and the box office received another 9.24 million US dollars. This movie has never received a weekly box office champion. Unconsciously, it has accumulated a total of 55.46 million US dollars at the box office. , The trend can be called strong.

On July 8, the North American cinema launched four new films from mainstream studios at once.

However, judging from the three-day box office data on the weekend, the four new films basically ended in failure.It is expected that the best film-making comedy "Driver's License" will have a box office of only about $7.5 million in the first week, and no one can make it to the top five of the list.

At the same time, "Instinct" also opened the sprint publicity in the last week before the release.

On the other hand, after only a week of stalemate, ABC Television Network began to contact Daenerys again.

As Simon had previously judged, ABC did not have enough confidence to abandon a TV show that could earn US$1 million per issue for the TV network.What's more, this TV show has three times as many episodes per season as a traditional one-hour TV show.

Restarting the negotiations, Daenerys still insisted on a quotation of US$2 million per issue, but also made some concessions in other aspects, agreeing to provide 15 additional episodes for ABC for the next period before the fall file, to make up for The strike caused a shortage of TV network programs.

Counting the previous week’s pilot episode, this additional total of 22 episodes, ABC will pay $30 million for Daenerys.

ABC wants to get this extra part of the show, more in order to get more TV viewers before the fall, which is actually the reason why ABC is willing to compromise so quickly.In comparison, although the contract with Daenerys Pictures was also signed soon, NBC's "Survivor" failed to play this role.

In "Survivor", Daenerys Pictures and NBC also signed a binding clause similar to ABC.

However, because it was not possible to pre-test the broadcast status in advance, Daenerys Pictures only received a one-time buyout price of US$1.2 million per issue in the first quarter.After the program is broadcast, the two parties can renegotiate the quotation thereafter according to the specific viewing status.

Simon actually wanted to get a share contract, but was firmly rejected by NBC.

He later learned that this is more because the TV network does not want to expose its financial data to the outside world. The TV network also has an accounting system similar to the Hollywood book, and it is more opaque.

Compared with the "Who Will Be a Millionaire" that has a standard of 69 issues per season, Daenerys has only 13 issues for the first season of "Survivor", which may be adjusted according to the broadcast schedule in the future. But it will basically be controlled within 20 issues per season.

The estimated production cost for the first season is about $5 million, which is much more expensive than "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

Therefore, the benefits of "Survivor" cannot be compared with "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

Even if the price is renegotiated in the second season, Simon expects that the show will only get a quotation similar to "Who Will Be a Millionaire".However, the screen life of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is much shorter than that of "Survivor", even though Daenerys Pictures actively controls not to let this show be too flooded, but at most three to five years, Once the audience is fatigued, the show will end.

In comparison, according to the production schedule of two seasons each year, "Survivor" can be maintained on the TV screen for more than ten years.

Moreover, although it cannot be compared with "Who Will Be a Millionaire", the return rate of "Survivor" is still unmatched by traditional TV programs.

As long as this show can be as successful as the original time and space, two seasons per year, the number of episodes is appropriately expanded, calculated according to the 30 episodes of the two seasons, plus the revenue of the advertising placement in the program that Daenerys Pictures also retains, "Survival "People" can bring Da Ni Lisi film industry income of not less than 60 million US dollars every year.

In short, these two reality shows are actually like box office dark horses with low cost and high box office.Daenerys Pictures wants to develop its TV business for a long time and needs to produce various types of mainstream TV programs.

The city of Santa Monica.

Daenerys film headquarters, the time is July 12.

In Simon's office, he was sitting opposite a middle-aged man in his fifties at this time. Even if he was sitting, he could see that the other person was definitely taller than one and nine meters tall.

This is Robert Rem, the current CEO of New World Entertainment.

The trading plan between the two parties has been finalized. In recent days, Robert Rem has been very active in keeping in touch with Simon, and Simon has also carefully inquired about the professional history of this middle-aged man through the connections in the circle.

Robert Rem is 53 years old and as early as 16 years old, he used to be a receptionist in a local theater.After graduating from college, Robert Rem has worked in a series of film and television entertainment work, with over thirty years of experience in film and television production and distribution.

Before serving as CEO of New World Entertainment, Robert Rem was the vice president of marketing and marketing for Universal Pictures. His previous work was also more inclined to film distribution.

This also happens to be urgently needed by Daenerys.

It is obvious that middle-aged people see this as well, so they will behave so positively.

After all, according to his curriculum vitae, there is still a long way to go to grab the chair of the big studio.If Daenerys Pictures left after completing the acquisition of New World Entertainment, he is more likely to become an independent producer, and may be able to receive invitations from other second and third-tier film company executives, but those jobs are obviously Can not be compared with the rapid development of Daenerys Film.

You know, just in the first half of the year, the expected benefits of "When Harry Meets Sally", "Pulp Fiction", and the recently successful "Who Will Be a Millionaire" have exceeded all the generally poor operating conditions in Hollywood. Second-tier film companies are even comparable to the profitability of the bottom seven ranking companies.

Simon actually intends to keep the other party in office, but he must also determine Robert Rem's attitude.

After all, compared with Robert Rem, Amy Pascal's qualifications in Hollywood are much shallower, and she is still a woman.However, Simon did not let Amy give up the idea of ​​being the leader, he has always been very satisfied with Amy.If Robert Rem is unwilling to take the second place and wants to replace Amy, Simon can only regret.

The main purpose of Robert Rem's arrival today is to send Simon information on various projects in the hands of New World Entertainment.

In 1983, when Larry Coupin acquired New World Entertainment from Roger Coman, Roger Coman retained the copyright of all films before 1983.However, in recent years, due to continued large-scale expansion, New World Entertainment has quickly accumulated the copyright of nearly a hundred movies and TV series through its own production and agency distribution.

Simon is most concerned about the company's TV programs.

According to the data in hand, several major TV networks announced from New World Entertainment last year that the scheduled projects include "Ultimate Police Network", "Santa Barbara" and other five TV series with very good viewing conditions.This spring, just before the Hollywood screenwriter strikes, New World Entertainment also launched another highly acclaimed new play, "The Age of Innocence."

However, due to the strike of the Hollywood screenwriter, the TV network announced that the renewed programs are temporarily stranded.Without the acquisition of Daenerys Pictures, even if the TV network still needs it, New World Entertainment will still have to cut most of the projects due to funding and other reasons.

As for the movie.

Inheriting the production style of Roger Coman, the films produced and released by New World Entertainment in recent years are generally low-cost B-level films, and most of them directly flow to the video tape market.

Compared with last year's eight production lists, New World Entertainment's production plan for this year is only three, and there are several projects with obvious futures in the pipeline.

As for distribution, in the first half of the year, New World Entertainment launched a total of seven films, of which four films that entered the theater line ended in failure.In early May, I wiped a "Zombie SWAT" that was released on the edge of the summer file. The production cost was 5 million US dollars, and 1012 screens were opened. In the end, it only recovered 3.59 million US dollars at the box office. This is the best result of the four cinema films. The other three films were only released on video, which shows how bleak the movie business of New World Entertainment is.

Simon didn’t let Robert Rem wait too long. He quickly glanced at the information in his hand. He looked up and said, "Bob, after completing this acquisition, I will integrate New World Entertainment into Danielle. Among the silk film industry, Daenerys Film Industry was reorganized into Daenerys Entertainment, and the subsidiary was established according to the model of New World Entertainment. In a short time, I do not intend to lay off this company, but according to the practice, you personally Except. However, I also understand your mind. So, be honest, would you like to be Amy's deputy?"

Robert Rem was of course reluctant at heart. Before he came to Daenerys, he had thought of persuading Simon to make himself the leader.However, Simon spoke of this as a prerequisite, and he also realized Simon's attitude.

For a moment, Robert Rem nodded: "No problem, Simon. However, I can serve as Ms. Pascal's deputy in my post, but I hope to report directly to you personally and not be under Pascal's jurisdiction."