Chapter 1140: Top in the World
Since the formation of the North American film market, no movie has exploded so wildly hot as "The Avengers".
That year's "Titanic" and last year's "Avatar" were not top-notch in a single week, mainly because they were super stable.
"The Avengers" took only 20 days to exceed $500 million at the North American box office and more than $1.1 billion worldwide.
It is not only the box office of the film that is a big hit, but also the peripheral products such as comics, dolls, toys and character image licensing, which also bring huge revenue to Relativity Entertainment, and the global peripheral sales easily exceed 500 million US dollars!
Relativity Entertainment's investment in this series has reached the moment of harvest.
This also represents that the Marvel's Avengers Cinematic Universe has officially entered its second phase.
At the same time, Robert Iger's negotiations with News Corp. officially ended, and the two sides finally reached a series of agreements on Twentieth Century Fox.
Subsequently, Ronan officially signed a contract with News Corporation on behalf of the new company established by Relativity Entertainment and Qianlu Group to wholly acquire Twentieth Century Fox.
News Corp. had all of its combined assets of more than $60 billion before the economic crisis, but after the economic crisis and buggon, its market value shrank by nearly a third.
Even so, it was not easy for Relativity Entertainment to acquire Twentieth Century Fox, and the final acquisition price was ten percent higher than the current market value of Twentieth Century Fox, and the transaction price was as high as $27.6 billion.
Such a price also means that the new company controlled by Relativity Entertainment has bought more than just Twentieth Century Fox Pictures.
The deal includes a series of companies owned by Twentieth Century Fox, including Twentieth Century Fox Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Fox Music, Blue Sky Studios, National Geographic, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Cable Network and Fox Television.
Companies like Fox Online and Fox Networks have voluntarily given up on Relativity Entertainment.
While traditional media outlets such as Fox News Network and Fox Star Media, News Corp. refused to sell.
Relativity Entertainment's acquisition is very targeted, focusing on entertainment and TV businesses, and since the company has an absolute controlling subsidiary such as Netflix Networks, companies with highly overlapping businesses and relatively heavy debts such as Fox Online and Fox Networks will naturally not be interested.
As for Fox News and Fox Star Media, even if News Corp and the Murdoch family are facing difficulties, they are still unwilling to make concessions in such a traditional media industry, and Relativity Entertainment has already obtained Fox Cable Network and Fox TV, and has also made a quick decision in a situation where a long delay may lead to the intervention of other companies.
COMPARED TO WALT DISNEY, RELATIVITY ENTERTAINMENT HAS WON THE FULL VERSION OF FOX CABLE NETWORK AND FOX TELEVISION AND THEIR SCATTERED LOCAL STATIONS, BUT IT HAS LOST STAKES IN PROGRAMS SUCH AS HULU AND SKY.
And there are far fewer subsidiaries under Fox today than there will be in a decade.
In addition, due to the economic crisis and other aspects, there was no direct competitor such as Kongscart in this transaction, which avoided Relativity Entertainment from making a higher offer.
This is not the peak of the media and entertainment stock surge caused by Walt Disney's acquisition of Fox ten years later, just after AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner.
Of course, the deal is not really done, and there are still uncertainties that need to be reviewed by the government.
It only took a week for the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to pass the antitrust and other audits, on the condition that Relativity Entertainment, as the controlling party of the new company, sell Blue Sky Studios within 90 days.
At present, Relativity Entertainment's animated feature film business accounts for more than 40% of the North American animated film market share, and it is normal for this to be restricted.
Moreover, after Relativity Entertainment owned Sand Sea Animation Studio, Pixar Studio, and Princess Animation Studio, Ronan didn't think about Blue Sky Studio anymore.
Once the three major animation studios in Hollywood, after the rise of Shahai Entertainment Animation, it has become unworthy of its name.
With the approval of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the deal was finalized, with the new company paying News Corp. $27.6 billion in two installments in a month.
With News Corp well funded, and the biggest driver behind it withdrawing, the buggate crisis has not worsened.
In the end, the two sides did not discuss the proposal to completely break up News Corp. and force the Murdoch family to sell the media company, and James Murdoch and a group of News Corp. executives inevitably became scapegoats and inevitably faced prison time in the future.
In addition, News Corp. faces huge damages and sky-high fines.
For example, in the case of wiretapping Ronan, Jessica Filton and Relativity Entertainment, in the face of the lawsuits of the three, News Corp finally chose to pay $100 million, $55 million and $300 million respectively to reach an out-of-court settlement.
Of course, the bugggate is only a temporary settlement, and Ronan and Relativity Entertainment will keep an eye on News Corp. and will not give them a chance to turn the tables around.
And after this time, the strength of the two sides has opened a huge gap.
The deal was actually reached, and Relativity Entertainment and Qianlu Group began to negotiate and began to distribute the benefits belonging to the winners.
Again, relativistic entertainment is overwhelmingly dominant.
Relativity Entertainment does not mean to pit Qianlu Group, and splits Twentieth Century Fox in accordance with the agreement reached by the two parties, because there is overlap between Twentieth Century Fox's business and Relativity Entertainment in many aspects, and accepting it all will inevitably bring a huge waste of resources.
In particular, in terms of film production and distribution, except for a few international markets, there is not much improvement on Relativity Entertainment.
It is no exaggeration to say that Relativity Entertainment has almost achieved Hollywood's ultimate in the film industry.
Relativity Entertainment will not completely annex Twentieth Century Fox Films, first of all, take back the copyrights of all Marvel superhero characters, retrieve the copyright library and script library of Twentieth Century Fox, and almost all of the copyright library will be taken, and nearly one-third of the scripts in the script library will be preferentially selected.
Then there is the film library, the copyright of more than 20,000 film and television dramas has fallen into the pocket of Relativity Entertainment.
This huge library is the most valuable asset of Twentieth Century Fox Films.
Winning these also means that Relativity Entertainment has recovered the copyrights of the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil and Deadpool, etc., and all the copyrights of the "Star Wars" series have been integrated.
After Ronan looked at Twentieth Century Fox's film library, copyright library, and script library, some related film projects could also be included in Relativity Entertainment's future plans, such as "Alien", "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", "Predator", "Garfield", "Chipmunk" and so on.
Blue Sky Studios, Relativity Entertainment needs to be stripped as a whole.
National Geographic, Fox Television and Fox Cable Network have nothing to do with the Qianlu Group, and the three will join forces to form the Relativity Network.
Fox Home Entertainment has two film and television peripheral distribution divisions that have been merged into Embassy Pictures, and Embassy Pictures has done much better than them in other aspects.
Fox Music merged with Relativity Entertainment's Big Machine Records, and Relativity Entertainment has since had a first-class music record business in the industry.
The Fox searchlight is treated in the same way as Twentieth Century Fox Films.
In addition, Relativity Entertainment has received a seat at the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA.
From now on, there will no longer be Twentieth Century Fox in the names of the six major Hollywood companies, but one more relativistic entertainment.
And the strength of Relativity Entertainment is far stronger than Fox.
With this acquisition, Relativity Entertainment has gained a series of copyrights, the most valuable of which is the complete version of the Twentieth Century Fox Library, which has since owned one of the four major public television stations in the United States, obtained one of the largest cable television networks in North America, and truly grasped the right to make rules in the film and television entertainment industry.
Like music records, TV production and distribution, news dissemination, variety shows, etc., these businesses that were relatively weak in Relativity Entertainment have all stepped into the ranks of the industry's first-class in one fell swoop.
As long as Relativity Entertainment can successfully integrate these businesses of Fox, it will inevitably become the world's top media and entertainment company.
The remaining part, according to the contract reached between the two parties, belongs to Qianlu Group.
Qianlu Group has spent a total of $14.5 billion, a significant part of which belongs to the brand value of Fox.
As one of Hollywood's most well-known and well-established entertainment brands, the name Twentieth Century Fox has great value in its own right.
Around the world, the brand's influence is also top-notch.
To a large extent, if an entertainment company like Twentieth Century Fox misses out, the Qianlu Group may never have a second chance.
Even though they undertook most of the funds for the acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox, the Qianlu Group and Lin Jian himself repeatedly thanked Ronan and Relativity Entertainment, because without them, the forces from the East would not be able to grasp Hollywood's first-class entertainment industry resources at this stage.
Qianlu Group also has a corresponding harvest, and the label of Twentieth Century Fox is needless to say, and it is enough for the media on the other side of the Pacific to be "shocked" for a long time.
In addition, Qianlu Group has also obtained a nearly complete film and television industry system.
Even the rest of Relativity Entertainment includes most of Fox's film and television production, publicity and distribution, and peripheral sales systems, as well as a complete Blue Sky Studio.
In particular, the international distribution channel is now a business that money cannot buy.
Qianlu Company spends a huge amount of money to generate revenue, and it is a film and television entertainment company that is even more powerful than today's DreamWorks.
I have to say that although Ronan is very rational, his past experience more or less affected his choice, and when the oriental film industry gradually entered the fast lane of development, he pushed hard behind his back.
While Relativity Entertainment is the world's top, Ronan also hopes that the film industry in the East can rise as soon as possible.