Los Angeles International Airport.

Disney CEO Sandy Litwatt and President Bill Micchanik waited in a VIP room.

Watching Litwater hang up a phone, Bill Michanik asked, "Simon must have refused, right?"

"That happened just a few days ago, how could Simon have agreed to a party to welcome the French," Sandy Litwatt smiled indifferently, put away her phone, took a sip of a cup of coffee next to her, and said, "Anyway, we just need to do what we need to do, just like when Peter Coobra entertained Akio Morita and made the Japanese happy." ”

Bill Michanick was a little regretful and self-deprecating: "It's a pity that we didn't treat Cooper and Peters as well. ”

"At least for a short time, donkeys aren't going to step on the same pit twice, we just haven't had a good time," Sandy Litwater shrugged and smiled, glancing at the airport runway outside the glass window of the VIP room, and suddenly added: "Have you been in contact with Michael lately?"

Michael, of course, is the old boss of the two, Michael Eisner.

Bill Michanik didn't hide it, nodded and said: "We had breakfast together in the first two years, and Michael's LinkedIn workplace networking site did a good job, and I also tested whether I was interested in working together in the past." ”

Sandy Litwatt heard Michanik say this, and was a little disappointed that Eisner didn't have contact with him.

But it was quickly relieved.

Sandy Litwatt is a lawyer by training, who was once the head of Disney's legal department, and although he managed the business in good order during his tenure, he didn't have much to offer, and he was not familiar with the emerging Internet industry.

What's more, Litwater also knows that Michael Eisner also pulled former President Frank Wells, who retired from Disney, as LinkedIn's legal counsel. Frank Wells is also a lawyer, and he was Sandy Litwater's direct boss at the beginning, and since he has this leader, Eisner certainly won't think of him again.

Bill Michanik is different.

The former head of Disney's home entertainment division successfully ran a series of video tapes of Disney's old animated films in the 80s, which not only created sales miracles, but also directly provided a large amount of money for Disney's development in the 80s, and contributed to the sharp rise of Disney's stock price.

All in all, Michanik is a very good business development and marketing practical talent, if he turns to LinkedIn, it is very promising to help Eisner improve the business model of this workplace social networking site, which is a problem that many Internet companies urgently need to solve at this stage.

Thinking so, Sandy Litwatt asked, "And how did you reply to Michael?"

Michanik shook his head and said, "I refused." ”

"Why, I think this is a good opportunity?"

Bill Michanick said: "The Internet industry is crazy right now, I can't understand it, and I think this bubble wave, well, at most another year, if you go to LinkedIn, maybe you haven't gotten started, you have to face the crisis of the bubble bursting and the market is undervalued." In comparison, I still stay in Hollywood more consistently. ”

Sandy Litwater half-jokingly, "In that case, you're probably missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars." ”

Michanik shook his head and said: "Now whether it is Wall Street or Hollywood, many people are desperately squeezing into Silicon Valley, and how many can really make a fortune? Once the Internet bubble bursts, do you think these people can easily return to the field of cause? Moreover, in my opinion, the monopoly pattern of the Internet industry has taken shape, and the Westeros system occupies most of the benefits, unless there is another change, there will only be fewer and fewer people digging gold mines from this field." ”

Litwater thought about Michanik's words for a while, and had to nod, but he still couldn't help but say: "I heard that LinkedIn is already preparing for an IPO?"

"Yes, it will go public early next year at the earliest, Michael revealed a little, the valuation can be about 500 million US dollars, compared to the investment in the website, this is quite a considerable number," Michanik said, and said: "However, this is also the reason why I don't go, if I choose to join at the beginning, I can still get some more stocks, and now I can only get some future options, you must know more than I know in this regard, once the bubble bursts, those options will only be worthless." ”

In fact, I was also thinking about whether to use the savings of these years to fight in Silicon Valley, listening to Michanic's analysis, Litwatermo was a little depressed when he held the coffee cup in his hand, and dispelled some thoughts.

After all, both of them are middle-aged.

Can't afford toss.

Now co-in charge of Disney, even if it can only be a puppet of the French, after all, it is also the seven leaders of Hollywood, although the French control of Disney is harsh, but in order to stabilize people's hearts, it is not a bad treatment for them.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, an assistant came to inform them, and the two got up and took a few entourages to a tarmac inside the airport for private jets to take off and land.

Jean-Marie Messier, the new chairman and CEO of the French Vivendi Group, and his party arrived from France.

Jean-Marie Messier recently took over the 100-year-old giant with a market value of more than $30 billion from Guy Djovanni, the former head of Vivendi Group for 20 years.

Vivendi was previously mainly engaged in water, transportation, energy and other fields, Jean-Marie Messier began to enter the media field during the president, Vivendi's acquisition of Disney, it is Jean-Marie Messier's personal promotion of the project, with the acquisition of seniority, Messier defeated other competitors in one fell swoop, became the new head of Vivendi.

Just after the handover last week, Messier couldn't wait to arrange this trip to North America.

Even if Disney's current performance is a little tepid, after all, the time is still short, the deal is far from being labeled as a failure, the global media and entertainment industry is recovering, and the acquisition of Disney is just the beginning for Messier, who has great ambitions to transform Vivendi into a media and entertainment giant.

After getting off the plane, Jean-Marie Messier, who came to Hollywood with a huge group of subordinates, did not go to the hotel to rest, but rushed directly to the Disney headquarters in Burbank.

A large conference room at Disney's headquarters.

Sandy Litwatt sat on one side with a bunch of Disney executives, looking at the executives of Vivendi's French TV 4, the famous French Gaumont Pictures executives, and the French director Luc Besson, who is still a little famous in Hollywood, and felt a little strange in his heart.

Is the French trying to counterattack Hollywood?

Jean-Marie Messier also looked resolute, everyone sat down, briefly introduced each other, and went straight to the topic, saying that he would personally promote Disney to focus on building a number of blockbuster projects to compete with other Hollywood studios, and at the same time, in order to share the risk, Disney will also strengthen cooperation with major French media and entertainment companies.

After asking Sandy Litwatt about the progress of the copyright negotiations for "The Terminator" and expressing his affirmation, Jean-Marie Messier announced on the spot that he would cooperate with Gaumont Pictures in France to jointly develop the sci-fi blockbuster "The Fifth Element" series that French director Luc Besson had been preparing for many years.

Messier also personally introduced that this is a science fiction series with a complete world view that Luc Besson has been creating since he was young, and currently has the complete concept of the trilogy, and it is not impossible to develop into a fifth element cinematic universe series similar to the DC Cinematic Universe in the future.

Nor did Sandy Litwatt and others express their displeasure at the surprise attack, which the French had not been informed of beforehand.

It's just that it is inevitable to complain in my heart.

Another cinematic universe, doesn't the cinematic universe want money?

Moreover, a large number of French filmmakers were recruited to cooperate with Disney, which made Disney's senior management even more optimistic, and it is strange that the French film style can adapt to Hollywood.

Just like Luc Besson, although "Blue Sea and Blue Sky" created a French film box office miracle, the director, at least for now, shows any potential to adapt to Hollywood, and the "This Killer is Not Too Cold" two years ago only had a good reputation in North America, and the box office was completely unsuccessful.

On the third day of his arrival in Los Angeles, Jean-Marie Messier hosted a grand press conference at Disney headquarters in Burbank to announce the new phase of Disney's film development plan led by the two major projects of "Terminator 3" and "The Fifth Element".

It was Friday, June 21.

A box office week in North America has just ended, and the topic of "007: Spectre" was hot, but I didn't expect to be suddenly attracted by Disney's big moves.

However, this does not completely hide the edge of "007: Spectre".

From June 14th to June 20th, "007: Spectre" in the first week of the opening week, in the North American market alone, won a box office of 89.17 million US dollars with 3,346 opening screens, even if inflation is calculated, this is also the highest first-week box office of the 007 series since its inception.

The big 007 movie cost only $75 million to make.

$89.17 million in the first week, according to the tiered account sharing rules signed between MGM and the theater chain, the release can get 90% of the box office revenue after deducting operating costs for the theater two weeks before the opening of the film, and the actual conversion share is about 70%, which alone, about 60 million US dollars in the first week will allow MGM to recover most of the cost.

All in all, although the total cost of production and publicity of the project reached $125 million, it is expected that MGM will be able to achieve a good profit if it is only a local distribution. Therefore, "007: Spectre" is likely to become the most profitable 007 movie in these years.

Affected by "007: The Ghost Party", the box office of other films in the same period has dropped significantly.

The second-ranked "Mission Impossible 2" fell by 51% at the box office in the third week of release, and it was cut in half directly, continuing to earn $27.98 million. However, in three weeks, the cumulative box office of this action blockbuster adapted from this TV series, which is also a spy theme, has reached $161.24 million.

Moreover, because "007: The Ghost Party" is too strong, except for the second-place "Mission Impossible 2", which has maintained a box office volume of more than 10 million US dollars, all other films this week have been beaten to within the 10 million US dollar range, and even "Romeo and Juliet", which has been performing as a dark horse since its opening, has seen a box office drop of as much as 46% in the past week.

In fact, this is also a manifestation of Romeo and Juliet's box office potential starting to run out.

After all, since its release, counting the box office of $6.76 million in the past week, this low-cost romance film with a production cost of only $15 million has successfully exceeded 100 million at the box office and successfully entered the ranks of the 100 million yuan box office club, with a total box office of $1006.43 million.

On June 21, a new box office week began.

According to the ups and downs of this summer file, there are still not too heavyweight new films this week.

The first is "Police Empire" produced by Daenerys Entertainment's Gaomen Pictures, a crime drama starring Sylvester Stallone that was delayed from the end of last year to the summer of this year, with a production cost of only $10 million and 1,697 screens.

Immediately afterwards, Disney's 2D animated film "Clock Tower Stranger", which is adapted from the cartoon "Notre Dame de Paris", has 1,297 screens.

It's a bit of nothing compared to "Police Empire".

Because of the rise of 3D animated films, 2D animated films in recent years have become less and less expected by the audience, although "Bell Tower Monster" has a world-class super IP foundation like "Notre Dame de Paris", in fact, such an adult-oriented theme is very weak for audiences of all ages, especially the key child audiences for animated films.

Disney also mentioned the topic of heavy vibration painting movies in the grand press conference held on Friday, but unfortunately, due to various factors, almost no one is optimistic that Disney will be able to do this.

Finally, there is also a "Angry Lock and Broken Tide".

This is an adaptation of a black-themed film directed by the famous Spielberg, with a production cost of $30 million and distributed by Paramount.

Compared with "Jurassic Park", "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and even "Schindler's List", "Angry Locks" is almost unknown in Spielberg's list of directors, and few people have heard of this movie in the original time and space.

In fact, this is a project between DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount.

And it's a very important project in the planning stage.

It's a pity that Spielberg doesn't have the aura of never missing, this project was disliked by Paramount at the project establishment stage, and it was only because of Spielberg's status in Hollywood and the insistence of the other party that the project was not allowed to be developed, and it was also placed in an important schedule such as June 21 in the summer file, and Paramount also gave the opening scale of 1956 screens.

In fact, both Paramount and DreamWorks hope that this film will be the second "Schindler's List"

It's just that everyone was cautious about "Schindler's List" at the beginning, and many people still bought tickets for various purposes, so that this Holocaust movie was transferred to hundreds of millions of dollars at the global box office.

This time, although "Angry Lock and Broken Tide" is also a sensitive racial theme, this time there is no need to be careful. Moreover, black people's spending power is limited, and it is almost impossible to achieve the box office like "Schindler's List" again.