Chapter 904 Actions of the Film Industry

After Rhodes Saxon left, Xia Yu did not plan to visit Ronald Reagan immediately, he had to wait for Rhodes Saxon to show his talents and change Ronald Reagan's opinion.

The top priority now is to seize the time to improve the layout of the film and television industry.

After reading the materials for so many days, Xia Yu has understood the pattern of the American film industry today.

Today's Hollywood giants are still eight, and Luen Mei has not been acquired by MGM, and MGM and Columbia have not been acquired and integrated by Sony.

Because the ranking of the Hollywood Big Eight is easy to change from one movie to another, the ranking of the Hollywood giants is not fixed.

For example, Universal Pictures, although it is the oldest, sometimes it has jumped to the first place, and sometimes it has always been very obsessed with investment, and even once became a second-class citizen of Hollywood, but now it is backed by the powerful MCA Group, and has signed many influential Hollywood directors, and now it is in the first grade.

In general, the current Hollywood production field can be divided into two grades.

The first level is Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Picture Industries.

Although there is a gap in the strength of the five companies, because they are not just simple producers, they have complete distribution channels, and they are also involved in other related industries, they have strong anti-risk ability and great influence, and they all have the strength to wrestle with each other.

The second level is Disney, MGM and United Artists (United Artists).

Disney's trump card is animated films, but in recent years, the production has been low, as for family movies, they have long been unpopular with the audience, but Disney is not keenly aware of the migration of market atmosphere, and naturally loses the youth and adult audience group.

Moreover, the founder of Disney died one after another, Roy Disney also died in 1978, at this time the president of Disney was Walt Disney's son-in-law Ray Miller, and only a small number of members of the Disney family were in the company.

Xia Yu saw that the report said that the revenue of Disneyland and its sister project Disney World accounted for almost three-quarters of the total revenue of the entire Disney company, and it was barely enough to keep the production department running, which shows the predicament of Disney.

What about MGM Pictures?

Once the undoubted first place in the golden age of Hollywood, filmed "Gone with the Wind", shaped "Cat and Mouse", initiated the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and launched the Oscars.

But as it changed hands and acquisitions again and again, MGM was tossed and fell into the quagmire step by step.

Especially after being bought by Las Vegas gambling tycoon Kirk Kercorion in 1970 as a tool for money laundering, MGM's development path took a big turn, and Kirk Kercorion sold MGM twice and bought it back twice.

Last year, Kirk Kercorion even openly announced that MGM had become a hotel company, and as for the film business, it accounted for about 3 percent of the entire film market share.

Once the No. 1 giant in Hollywood, it has fallen to the point where it is now, Xia Yu can only sigh that Kirk Kelcorion is awesome.

As for Luen Mei, this film company, which was founded by Chaplin in order to get rid of the shackles and exploitation of big film companies, was controlled by Wall Street capitalists during the Great Depression, and later changed hands several times, and the shareholding was very dispersed.

And because Luen Mei is the purest production company, the distribution channel can be said to be the worst of the eight giants, so after continuous investment failures in recent years and the loss of influence in the circle of independent producers, the influence has been greatly weakened, and now Luen Mei's share of the film market share is about three percent of that of MGM, which is pitiful.

According to the analysis in the report, most of Luen Mei's assets today are virtual assets, and the most valuable thing is the huge film library and the copyright of the "007" series.

And because Luen Mei's shareholders are basically Wall Street financial investors and do not know much about movies, the company's senior management now has far more experience in investment than in the film industry, so the acquisition value is very low, and even if it is acquired, it needs to be comprehensively replaced.

It was not written in the report, but what Xia Yu still knew was that if he did not interfere, in 1981 next year, MGM would acquire Luen Mei, and from then on, the eight giants of Hollywood would become the seven giants, and Luen Mei would gradually disappear in the long river of history.

In addition to today's Hollywood Big Eight, there are other players in the American film market, such as Lucasfilm Company, which has relied on the "Star Wars" series in recent years, and its influence is not inferior to that of United States, but the distribution channel completely relies on Twentieth Century Fox, and most of the copyright of the "Star Wars" series is in the hands of Twentieth Century Fox, and Lucasfilm Company cannot squeeze United America down at all.

So Xia Yu doesn't care too much about film companies other than the eight giants of Hollywood, and with his current strength, film companies other than the eight are not worth his hands.

In the entire film industry, in addition to production and distribution, there are two more important ones, that is, brokerage and cinema chains, which are also what Xia Yu needs to focus on.

In the field of star brokerage, the CAA, the later Hollywood overlord, has only been established for less than five years at this time, although it has shown signs of rising, but it is still only a small brother, and the big names have only signed a few, and the company's annual revenue is only 15 million US dollars, and the net profit is not even 5 million US dollars.

Today, in this field, MCA Group, the parent company of Universal Pictures, is the well-deserved boss, and CAA's one-stop service model of "actor + director + screenwriter + behind-the-scenes" that became the world-famous is that MCA Group has become the mainstream.

Today's CAA, in the field of celebrity brokerage in the United States, not to mention the top five, can't even squeeze into the top ten.

Finally, there is the cinema market.

At this time, the American cinema market is in chaos, forced by the "Paramount Act", Hollywood giants can not own cinemas, although many have secretly invested in some cinemas, or reached cooperation with some cinemas, but they are all tied up, unable to deliberately manipulate the cinema market from behind the substantial integration, and now the cinema market is far from the oligarchy era.

In later generations, the three major oligarchs of North American Emperor Entertainment, AMC and Marvel Ke once occupied more than 50% of the number of theaters and screens in North America, and the box office also accounted for more than half, and the voice of the theater chain was not ordinarily large.

But now, according to the survey report, there are more than 10,000 theaters in North America, 17,000 screens, and the number of theaters and screens of the top five theater chains combined is less than 20% of the market!

The cinema market is so chaotic, which is exactly what Xia Yu wants to see the most, because this means that the difficulty of integration is very low, as long as you are willing to spend money, fast enough and confidential, you can acquire and integrate a huge cinema company at a very fast speed.

In response to the information collected by Peter Lynch, Xia Yu quickly made a plan of action.

On the film company's side, they will go all out to acquire MGM and Luen Mei, which are the least difficult, integrate them together to re-participate in the competition in the film industry, and even make more preparations to acquire Disney, whose brand value is seriously undervalued.

On the brokerage company's side, it focuses on grasping the future, using funds to pry open the door of CAA and take Michael Ovitz for its own use.

In the field of cinemas, it is the simplest and most brutal means, using money to smash a cinema chain all over the United States.

And considering that Ronald Reagan has not relaxed the policy of the film industry, in order not to touch the "Paramount Act", the theater company must be hung up separately.

After deciding, Xia Yu immediately went to Polaris Capital to form a team to acquire Luen Mei Film Company.

At the same time, it arranged for Heung Kong Global Cinemas to register a shell subsidiary offshore, and the shell company entrusted the acquisition of the theater to Polaris Capital.

Then he entrusted Goldman Sachs to acquire MGM Pictures in the hands of gambling king Kirk Kercorion, as for the MGM Hotel of the same name, these are not within the scope of the acquisition, and of course they will definitely not be bought.

In the end, Xia Yu went out by himself and took some of his subordinates to Hollywood, preparing to meet the uncrowned king of Hollywood in the future.