Hollywood Hunter

After the first week, because New Year's Day on January 1, 1990 is the same as the previous Christmas, Monday is a US legal holiday. The weekend of the second week of "Batman" is also four days.

In this week's new film, "Rocket Expert" starring Tom Cruise and Meg Ryan cost $45 million to produce, and Paramount used the less glorious means to get the project from Daenerys , Can be described as full of confidence, so it also invested 20 million US dollars in publicity.

However, in the case of a clear public relations component, the Rocket Expert’s media scores are still just barely passing, and many mainstream paper media platforms such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and The Washington Post have also relentlessly given A bad review.

According to Simon's understanding, in order to make time for "Rocket Expert", Paramount will also be Tom Cruise's starring Oliver Stone's "Born on July 4", which will be adjusted to Easter next year.

However, the total investment of 65 million US dollars, the hottest Christmas season, starring Tom Cruise and Meg Ryan, all these positive factors did not allow the "Rocket Expert" to gain market recognition, and the audience did not like it. This nondescript retro sci-fi style movie.

Coupled with the strong impact of "Batman: Moment of War", from December 29 to January 4, "Rocket Expert" only won $11.98 million at the box office for the first seven days of the week, although it ranked second in the weekly box office list. Be far away from "Batman: Moment of War".

Another new film, Steven Spielberg's "Forever", tells the story of a pilot who returned to his girlfriend in a ghost state after the plane crash and started another life.

That's right, this idea is very similar to "Human Ghost Love", of course, the plot is very different.

In the first week of painting, this fantasy comedy received only $7.18 million at the box office under the same tepid reputation, ranking fourth in the weekly box office list.

The third place on the list is still occupied by Easter Flyover's Infant Childhood. The film fell another 11% this week, accounting for 9.68 million US dollars and a cumulative box office of 133.57 million US dollars.

As for "Batman: The Moment of War" at the top of the weekly box office list, this movie has a box office of the next week because of the record breaking box office of $82.39 million created in the first week and the film itself is much wider than Simon's first two works. Not only did it not fall, but there was an 8% contrarian increase, and another $88.87 million was recorded.

In two weeks, Batman: Moments of War fought at the box office at an unprecedented speed of $17.118 million.

Such a two-week box office score means that "Batman: The Moment of War" will easily break through the local $400 million box office mark.

The once phenomenal movies of "Star Wars" and "ET Aliens" haven't experienced repeated replays. Therefore, "Batman: Moment of War" is expected to be the first local box office movie in North America history to break the $400 million box office. .

With the exclamation of the media and the cheers of fans, the major Hollywood studios also reacted for the first time, quickly turning their attention to the superhero comics that may be adapted for the movie.

Then, most people finally found that the two major comic manufacturers in the United States, Marvel and DC, had no room for them to intervene.

Even more disappointing is that these two manufacturers are almost in the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.

Marvel has long become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment, and DC's core Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have also been bought by Simon Westero, which is equivalent to blocking DC's throat.

Not to mention that Marvel’s undeveloped gold mine, according to the box office results of "Batman: Moment of War", is just the DC movie universe plan recently announced by Daenerys and Warner Bros.

You know, not only at the box office, but also from other channels such as video and TV broadcasts that can be expected, the sales of derivatives for Batman: Moment of War continues to be $150 million in the following week after the $130 million in the first week.

According to industry statistics, according to the sales data of the last two weeks, the sales of various types of derivatives in Batman: Moment of War may reach $2 billion in the next year.

Relying on the high premium brought by the brand image, the terminal sales price of movie derivatives can usually reach about 10 times the production cost, and the gross profit is very high.

Even after multiple concessions by manufacturers, channel distributors and retailers, depending on the type of derivatives, the revenues obtained by copyright owners can usually reach 10% to 20% of sales.

"Batman: Moment of War" is expected to generate $2 billion in derivative sales in the next year, calculated at a discounted commission rate, and will bring about $300 million in revenue for Daenerys Entertainment and Time Warner.Moreover, this part of the income is basically net income before tax because it does not require much upfront investment.

Because of the huge profits expected from all aspects of "Batman: Moment of War", Time Warner's management experienced a short excitement and soon began to regret after the movie's box office explosion.

Even though it was understood that it was Simon Westero's personal control that created the box office miracle of "Batman: The Wartime", but Warner had the opportunity to participate in the investment of this movie.

Now, according to the original contract, Warner Bros. Pictures can only draw a 15% commission from the distribution of the film channels.The huge derivative income, Time Warner, which has been merged, can only obtain a 10% profit share in the name of its subsidiary DC Comics.

Although only these two parts of income may bring Time Warner an income of not less than 200 million US dollars in the next few years, however, how much Daenerys Entertainment will earn from this project, Time Warner is almost afraid to calculate .

More and more sad!

Moreover, if it is other Hollywood second- and third-tier film companies, Warner Bros. Films, which holds the omni-channel distribution right, can also squeeze its partners’ share of profit as much as possible through the usual Hollywood financial means, more extreme, or even directly tear The contract reclaimed the copyright of "Batman".

However, for Daenerys Entertainment, Warner cannot do this.

Since the launch of Batman: Moments of War, Daenerys Entertainment has sent a dedicated accounting team to follow up the entire project, which makes it difficult for Warner to do financial work.

Of course, it may not be impossible, but Warner dared not do so.

Daenerys Entertainment's handling of disputes over the division of the original bodyguard of "Bodyguard" made the entire Hollywood remember deeply.

Alistar Records tried to engulf the share of record sales that Daenerys Entertainment deserved. Simon Westero completely disregarded the huge loss that may be caused by the out-of-stock of a phenomenal record and directly stopped the sale of this record.

In the end, Alistar Records not only failed, but instead paid a fine of double the amount of engulfment, the president of Alistar Records also lost his job.

If Warner Bros. Pictures did the same, Terry Semel felt that Simon Westero might also not hesitate to stop the subsequent development of the entire DC movie universe until Warner spit out everything he swallowed.

Perhaps, in the end, someone will have to take responsibility. He, the CEO of Warner Bros. Pictures, is obviously the most suitable scapegoat.

Now that it has become an established fact, Time Warner’s goal now is to promote the follow-up development of the DC movie universe as soon as possible.

Santa monica.

In the conference room of Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, the time is already Friday, January 5, 1990.

Throughout the day, the two company teams headed by Amy Pascal and Terry Semel were discussing the future cooperation between the two parties and the DC movie universe plan.

The initial contract terms determined that the two parties could renegotiate many details after the first episode of "Batman", such as the commission rate for the subsequent film Warner.

The 15% commission for all channels is actually very high.

Because the entire DC film universe plan involves too many benefits, for a whole day, in addition to a list of ten films in the next five to seven years, the two parties have only initially determined the subsequent distribution commission ratio.

Terry Semel did not make too many concessions in this regard, but only made certain concessions after subdividing the local, overseas, video and television broadcasting platforms.

After consultations, the follow-up films cooperated by the two parties and released by Warner Bros. Pictures, the local distribution commission ratio was reduced to 12.5%, the overseas distribution commission ratio was reduced to 10%, and the total income commission ratio for video and TV broadcast platforms was also 12.5%.

Of course, the advertising costs of each channel must be deducted separately after being included in the cost.However, because of the strict financial supervision of Daenerys Entertainment in this area, it is difficult for Warner to do so.

In addition, in the future, some projects undertaken by Daenerys Entertainment for distribution will also be drawn based on this distribution ratio.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the meeting ended.

Terry Semel and Amy Pascal walked out of the meeting room and asked the question they were most concerned about: "When will Simon come back?"

Amy handed the folder in her hand to assistant Vanessa and said, "I don't know. I called him after the movie was released at the box office in the first week. He said he would take Jenny to the South Pole."

Terry Semel raised an eyebrow: "Antarctica?"

Amy smiled: "Yeah, Antarctica. Melbourne is closer to the Antarctic, I don’t know. However, the Southern Hemisphere is now summer, and the Antarctic is the warmest time of the year, oh, it seems to be still Extremely day, it is very suitable for traveling in the past."

"and then?"

Amy shrugged: "He hasn't been able to contact him in recent days. He hasn't said when he will come back, probably wait until the end of the month."

Terry Semel smiled bitterly and said, "Then, he will definitely not be attending the celebration party this weekend."

"Well," Amy nodded and said, "There is another thing. The box office of "Moment of War" is very good. Simon asked me to formulate a reward plan. Probably, the two protagonists are $3 million each, and several supporting roles. It’s $1 million, and everyone in the crew has their own rewards. The total expenditure is about $20 million. I still need to tell you about this. Warner does not need to share this part of the expenditure this time, but the subsequent projects will be rewarded. To be counted in the general ledger."

Terry Semel nodded and said, "20 million, compared to Daenerys' income this time, it's not much at all."

Amy smiled, knowing that Terry Semel must have been entangled in these days, so she didn't mention it.

Abandoning Warner and others, Amy came to her office.

Nancy Brill has arrived early and is sitting on the sofa in the reception area of ​​Amy's office looking at a document.

Seeing Amy come in, Nancy got up and hugged her and asked, "How is the meeting with Warner?"

"Surely it will be a while, there are too many things to discuss," Amy said, and asked again: "How about you, are things done on Rhode Island?"

Nancy just returned from Rhode Island in the afternoon, for Daenerys Entertainment’s toy factory there.

This time in the development of derivatives for Batman: Moments of War, Daenerys Entertainment's toy factory in Rhode Island has undertaken the most lucrative production of the protagonists.In the end, because of lack of experience in this area, all the toys produced by the factory in Rhode Island were sold out in the first week of release.

This time Nancy went to re-coordinate the toy production in the factory, but also contacted his old relationship with Hasbro, and entrusted some of the toy orders that could not be completed by his factory.

Hasbro's headquarters is also in Rhode Island.

"It's done," Nancy said: "Actually, I think the last sale was a good result. After the restocking, the sales of those toys were even more popular. Simon told us a few times before, Hunger marketing is really good. By the way, I brought some limited-edition toys back. Would you like to send someone?"

"Of course, leave me a few things. My nephew asked for it at Christmas, but I couldn't get it out. I was also counted by my parents."

The two said with a smile, Amy motioned for Nancy to continue to sit down. She turned back to her desk and opened the safe to take out an envelope. She walked over to Nancy again and said, "Simon asked me to pass it on to you."

Nancy opened the envelope, which contained a $5 million check: "Is this?"

"Bonus," Amy sat down next to Nancy. Vanessa brought in coffee at this time. Amy took the coffee and held it in her hand. She continued to Nancy: "You know Simon's temper, your contract is short-term There is no way to change it, this is an additional compensation."

Nancy put the check in her shoulder bag in a polite way and asked Amy: "He gave it to you, or did you help me?"

"I mentioned it, but he gave it to him," Amy said. "He actually cares about you."

Nancy knows that Amy's "care" doesn't mean anything else, and still pretends to be dissatisfied: "This sentence is really ambiguous."

"Okay, I forgot that you are single," Amy smiled. "Actually, I am not in a hurry to amend the contract. After the three-year period expires, the company will probably be listed, and it will happen that I will get one. A new contract with options."

Nancy came in and asked, "Simon talked to you about the listing plan?"