Hollywood Hunter

Michael Ovitz and his party had just walked out of Los Angeles International Airport. The assistants who had received him reminded him that MCA Chairman Lu Wasalman was waiting for him at Marina Del Bay near the airport.

Arriving on a yacht in Marina del Rey less than three kilometers north of Los Angeles International Airport, Owitz saw Vasalman and his first reaction was to gently shake his head.

The time is already November 15.

Three days ago, Panasonic suddenly announced that it would abandon the acquisition of MCA, which caught everyone off guard.

Unwilling to give up on this, Michael Ovitz hurried to Japan after communicating with Panasonic by phone without success.Owitz, who was advised by Lu Wasalman, even hinted that MCA could accept a slightly lower offer than Daenerys Entertainment, but still failed to persuade Furui Akio to restart the acquisition of MCA.

Michael Ovitz also regrets now. Last week, Meg Ryan gave up the planned lawsuit against Daenerys Entertainment without warning. He had increased his vigilance, but still did not expect that he secretly attacked Danny. Lisi Entertainment has made so many preparations to acquire MCA, but Westeros directly used a trick to get paid.

In the yacht cabin, Ovitz and Vasalman sat across from each other and said: "According to the information I collected, Westeros proposed another cooperation plan between Danielis Entertainment and Panasonic. Panasonic originally targeted Whether he wants to continue to increase the offer price is hesitant. After meeting with Westeros last week, coupled with internal pressure from Panasonic, he finally decided to abandon this acquisition."

Lu Wasalman was still a little reluctant, and asked, "Is there really no room to save, or, if necessary, can I fly to Japan in person?"

Michael Ovitz shook his head again and said, "I did not get the content of the cooperation plan between Daenerys Entertainment and Panasonic. However, according to Panasonic's remarks, Westeros was very sincere, and the Panasonic executives agreed. I think we should abandon the acquisition and work with Daenerys Entertainment."

Lu Wasalman frowned and thought of something after a while, then asked: "So, Mike, don't you mean that there are other companies in Japan interested in acquiring Hollywood studios, Toshiba, Ito, and Sanyo?"

"This was what I said last year," Michael Ovitz nodded and shook his head again. "The Japanese stock market bubble was not bursting at the time. The situation is different now. Even Panasonic's withdrawal will be affected by the economic situation. Inside, the Canadian Bronfman family is also interested in acquiring Hollywood studios, but for the time being, they do not have sufficient financial strength and can only participate in second-tier companies like Orion to test the water. Now the overall economy in Asia, North America and Europe The situation is not too good, so, Lu, it is difficult to appear a second buyer interested in MCA in the short term."

After Michael Owitz finished, the two looked at each other for a while.

After being silent for a while, Lu Wasalman finally made up his mind and said: "Mike, since that is the case, give me the backhand you prepared in advance to me."

Michael Orwitz also nodded slightly, saying, "Yes."

Now that Panasonic's withdrawal is irreparable, re-enabling those methods has no effect, but will anger the young man again.Thinking of this, Ovitz was a bit distressed again. Perhaps, the matter of Meg Ryan had already caused a discord between Daenerys Entertainment and CAA again.

Thinking about this, Michael Ovitz couldn't help but ask Vasalman: "Lu, are you going to cancel this acquisition?"

Lu Wasalman smiled bitterly on his face.

In all fairness, Lu Vasalman of course wanted to cancel the transaction as soon as possible, because he did a few trials on Daenerys Entertainment, and the other party's attitude was very persistent. After the acquisition was completed, he and Simberg must leave. .Once this happens, the two will completely leave the center of power in Hollywood.

Lu Wasalman absolutely does not want to let go so easily.

However, the $7 billion offer by Daenerys Entertainment is almost equivalent to twice the MCA's lowest market value some time ago.

At present, the United States is already in the shadow of another war, and the industry generally does not optimistic about the future trend of the US economy and believes that it may continue to deteriorate.In this case, many shareholders of MCA want to accept the offer to cash out and leave the market. They don't care what happens to the management after cashing out.

Although MCA’s chairman and CEO has run the company for decades, Lu Wasalman’s shareholding in MCA is only about 5%, and West Germany’s Simberg is only about 2%. The combined holdings of the two can’t cause much control.

In the past, the two could still firmly control the company, but this time, if they blatantly violated the wishes of the shareholders, even if they could eventually disturb the acquisition, they might be ousted.

Therefore, we can only use external forces as far as possible to force Daenerys Entertainment to agree to more conditions on its own, or to force Daenerys Entertainment to give up the acquisition on its own initiative.

Now that his physical condition has improved, Lu Wasalman feels that he can completely take charge of the MCA for a few more years until he is 80 years old.Moreover, he believes that the US economy will definitely get better. MCA's stock price has been seriously undervalued due to the recent downturn in the US stock market. In the next few years, other buyers will definitely appear and can pay higher quotations.

When Michael Ovitz and Lu Wasalman secretly met, Simon also happened to return from the east coast.

After this period of secret negotiations, Bell Atlantic and Westeros initially reached an acquisition agreement worth a total of 7 billion US dollars, which is equivalent to Simon's expectations a few days ago, compared with the original budget, a full 1 billion lower US dollars.When the quotation is agreed, other details and terms will be promoted quickly, and even after the transaction is completed, the negotiation can be negotiated.

Therefore, as long as needed, Simon can announce the details of the acquisition as early as next week.

The next day is Friday, November 16.

As we approached Thanksgiving Day, we moved into the finally completed villa at Dumei Point on the weekend. Janet has been busy on the West Coast during this time. Simon rushed to work at Malibu Daenerys Studios in the morning.

The box office data of the past week also appeared on Simon's desk as soon as he entered the office.

The box office trend of "Dangerous Ten Days" was as expected.

After its release on October 26, it was already the third week of the film's opening.

After US$17.16 million in the first week, the final decline of Ten Days of Crisis in the following week was 35%, and it closed at another US$11.15 million.From November 9th to November 15th in the third week, the decline narrowed to 21%, and continued to accumulate $8.81 million.

Last week, the cumulative box office of Ten Dangerous Days reached $37.12 million.

Simon is more concerned today, but quietly opened the "Dancing with Wolves".

"Dancing with Wolves" opened two weeks ago on November 2 in some core cities in North America with a screen size of 16 screens. The average box office for the first seven days of the week reached $112,000, which had already foreshadowed the film’s Selling potential, the next week after the release of Daenerys Entertainment and the word of mouth of the film at the same time, the single box office of "Dancing with the Wolf" once again surged, reaching an amazing $263,000.

In just two weeks, with a screen size of 16 screens, "Dancing with Wolves" has accumulated a total of US$6.11 million at the box office.Moreover, in the context of the highly praised film criticism of major mainstream media in North America, this movie about the history and politics of white Americans and Indians is extremely correct, and quickly promoted to the next year's Oscar hot.

However, because "Dancing with Wolves" lasted for 4 hours, and this week's large-scale painting, Daenerys Entertainment finally arranged only 1031 screens, intending to rely on word of mouth and awards to get out of a long box office.

At the same time, with the official opening of the Thanksgiving schedule, in addition to the large-scale release of "Dancing with Wolves", there are two other new film openings today, which are Fox’s Stallone action blockbuster "Rocky 5" and Disney. 2D animated movie "Rescue Little Hero".

After Panasonic announced its abandonment of the acquisition of MCA this week, the MCA board found various reasons to delay the quotation that did not pass Daenerys Entertainment, but some others convened.

For example Paramount.

Before Simon contacted Panasonic last week, in order to prevent Paramount from interfering with this acquisition, he temporarily promised to cooperate with the other two new films and maintain the current share of USA TV after the completion of the MCA acquisition.

Paramount's chairman apparently saw Simon's scruples and naturally sold for price.Not only is it required to increase the number of cooperative movies to at least 3, but also insists that the investment ratio of the two sides is three or seven points, and Daenerys Entertainment can only occupy 30%.At the same time, it also made more demands on USA TV.

However, when Panasonic suddenly announced its withdrawal and the form was reversed, Paramount was somewhat based on reaching cooperation.

Amy has investigated that Paramount originally intended to obstruct this acquisition by filing an antitrust lawsuit. However, after Panasonic exited, it was probably aware of the general trend, and Paramount began to rush to promise the benefits of Daenerys Entertainment. The bag is safe.

After all, if a lawsuit is filed, Paramount is unlikely to successfully block Daenerys Entertainment’s acquisition of MCA. Even if it is successfully blocked, Paramount itself does not actually get much benefit.

Simon personally met Martin Davis in the morning and made some concessions. Paramount gave up his appeal in the USA TV station. In the film aspect, the investment ratio of the two sides was still maintained at 50%, and the number of cooperative movies was increased to three. Department, at the same time, the sequel of the co-production film is also included.

Through this cooperation, Daenerys Entertainment also successfully obtained the copyright of the "Mission Impossible" movie that Paramount has been preparing.

So, after many ups and downs, Simon's memory of the two most famous Hollywood spy film series after the 1990s, "Mission Impossible" and "Massive Spy", are all in their own hands.

After a long non-stop busy for so long, the weekend finally rested.

Move by the way.

The streamlined shell-shaped villa built by Dumei Point Manor, modeled on the Iron Man villa in Simon's memory, has become the focus of many media after its initial formation.As a larger silver building than Simon remembered was completed on the cliff of Dumei Point, this building gradually attracted more and more attention.

Of course, inevitably, it has once again become evidence that many media criticized Simon's luxury of life.

The completed villa only occupies an area of ​​5,000 square meters, and looks like a museum. It is far more luxurious than the Iron Man villa that was only generated by CG in memory. The silver building circled in a streamlined style, totaling three floors If you count the underground garage that completely imitates the Iron Man studio, the total internal space reaches 12,000 square meters.

Compared to ordinary apartment villas, this shell-shaped building can't even be described simply by the word'big'.

If you have to say it, it is'very big'.

The final construction cost of the villa also exceeded expectations, not counting post-decoration, but the main construction cost reached 30 million US dollars.

Janet will naturally not save in the later decoration and furniture, because it is constantly adding various things, and the final budget may even exceed the construction cost.Therefore, the seemingly simple decoration in the villa is actually expensive everywhere.

The couple originally lived in a villa less than 500 meters west of the Dumei Cape Manor. Everything in the shell villa is already ready-made. The so-called moving is just moving some daily clothing and books. It takes only half a day to complete Get it done.

The fine details were kept until Saturday evening, and all the details were initially fixed, and finally settled down.

By the huge glass curtain wall beside the cliff, Simon relaxed on the sofa, Janet curled his legs against the man, and looked at the magnificent sunset seascape outside the curtain wall, the woman whispered: "Like a dream."

Simon rubbed his face against the woman's fragrant hair, and smiled with her legs bent: "Have you never thought of building such a house before?"

Janet shook her head on Simon's shoulder: "No, even if I want to, I really need to spend so much money to build such a house, unless I sell the stock under my name, but then, the old man will definitely jump up ."

"Isn't it your dowry? Of course you can spend as much as you want."

"I never thought about looking for a man. The stocks in my name, but the cost of my life, once spent, the future will be bleak."

"Catherine and I mentioned," Simon still smiled, saying, "Why didn't you want to find a man?"

Janet lifted her head and slammed Simon's shoulder lightly, her tone sly: "Waiting for you."

"Oh, it's an honor."

"Hum." Janet's mouth was smug, but he pulled Simon's hand in his arms and lowered his voice a little, saying: "In fact, very early, very early, it was also liked by others, but also like other Boy. However, probably I am too clever. Those guys have disappointed me so much that I plan to be alone forever."

"Always alone, very lonely."

"So God let me meet you."

"This, many, many years later, when we see his old man, we must express our gratitude."

"Oh," Janet stepped on Simon again, looking at the growing fire beyond the curtain wall, and said, "I really want to thank you, or you might be alone forever."

"I won't. I like girls so much. If you aren't meeting you, you will definitely become the biggest dude in Hollywood."

"Hmm, finally exposed, Playboy..." Janet scratched her claws in dissatisfaction, and was used as a wrist by Simon. The small body suddenly softened, and said: "Little bastard, you bully me again."

"Do you like to be bullied by me?"

"dislike."

Simon added a little force: "Change the answer."

"Yes, I like it."