"68 shareholder representatives signed the share transfer agreement, plus the 34.18% Marvel shares that McTAndrews and Forbes previously transferred to us, Cowyce now holds 55.35% of the Marvel shares, which has achieved a controlling stake. Richard, a senior accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, did the math and came up with a figure.

"Within two days, all agreements will be filed with the SEC, and the conditions for triggering the privatization are already in place. Chen Xiaomin pushed his glasses and added.

What no one expected was that in just one afternoon, the almost unsolvable management battle that had plagued Marvel for two years came to an end.

The main reason for saying that Marvel's problems are basically unsolvable is its huge debt. During the vampire reign of Perelman, a vampire, he issued a large number of junk bonds to finance it.

These bonds are currently worth between one-third and one-fifth of the face value of the bonds, making them veritable junk bonds.

This hundreds of millions of dollars of junk debt has now become a lifeline around Marvel's neck, and if there is no follow-up capital injection to repay the debt, Marvel's bankruptcy is almost inevitable.

After all the shareholders present signed the agreement, Zhang Chen immediately proposed to convene an interim board of directors, at which he proposed a plan for the reorganization of the board of directors, and David Solomon, who had just joined Cowes as vice president from Bales and other junk bond departments, joined the board of directors to assist the Marvel board of directors in solving financing matters.

Joining the Marvel board of directors with Dawei Solomon is Jeff Bezos. In addition to traditional channels, Amazon's online sales channels will be one of the key areas for Marvel to develop in the future.

For this change, Avi Arad and Polmut can only watch from the sidelines, and they have not relented until now. As the only remaining "old man" in the reshuffled board of directors, they also want to take a look at Zhang Chen's specific measures before making plans.

"Below, we will discuss the selection of the CEO of Marvel Entertainment, which is about to be reshuffled. Zhang Chen sat on a section of the large and heavy board table and looked around, "Mr. Arad, I wonder if you are interested in taking this position?"

"What?" Avi Arad was stunned, not expecting Zhang Chen to ask him.

Once a son of heaven and a courtier, as a former courtier, it would be good if he was not purged, how could he let himself be the CEO?

Zhang Chen repeated: "I'm asking if you are interested in taking over the position of CEO of Marvel Entertainment, I think the most important thing at present is to have a CEO who is familiar with the industry and the basic situation of Marvel to control the overall situation, and you are the first choice in my heart." ”

That's when Avi Arad reacted.

"I'd like to know if you're really going to make movies the main strategy for Marvel's future, or if you have something else in mind. Avi Arad and Polmut looked at each other and asked with some hesitation.

It's no wonder that he hesitated, the plan that Zhang Chen just threw out, few people believed that it could really succeed.

More than half of the reason so many shareholders are scrambling to sell their shares is that they feel the plan is unreliable.

Comics now belong to a subculture in the United States, and no subculture movie in history has ever achieved great success, even if a few are lucky enough to make a profit, the reputation is not very good.

There are more superhero movies that lose money.

Of course, superhero movies also had a glorious period, DC's Superman swept the world in the late 70s and early 80s, becoming the most well-known superhero, winning more than 100 million box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing movies at the time, and also set off a boom in superhero movies in Hollywood.

At the end of the 90s, after DC's Batman created another glory, due to the greed of Warner and DC, the eternal Batman and Batman and Robin were continuously filmed, and the appeal of the Batman brand was overdrawn. Among them, Batman and Robin only exchanged $200 million for a box office of $180 million, and Warner didn't even recover the cost.

Therefore, now superhero movies are at a low ebb, and even "Men in Black", which was just released this year and became a hit, is trying its best to dilute its comic background, and the main creators are silent about the original comics, resulting in few viewers knowing that this film was originally adapted from Marvel's comics.

Zhang Chen smiled: "Of course it's true, I don't want to say what I don't want to say, but I will never lie." Although it is now the low ebb of superhero movies, the audience will always want to change their tastes after watching too much realistic themes, and I believe that in two or three years, this craze will return. ”

Avi Arad and Polmut glanced at each other, their faces changed a few times, and they gritted their teeth: "Even if you use Marvel's heroes as collateral, it is impossible to get a loan from the bank." A few months ago, when Sony talked to us about the full adaptation rights of Spider-Man, we tried to sell Sony the film and television adaptation rights of all its heroes for $25 million, but Sony was not interested. They think Spider-Man is the only valuable commodity we have now, and after they acquired Columbia, they already have the rights to film and television adaptations of Spider-Man. This time I found us, just to buy out the rights of other comic book characters in the world of Spider-Man. ”

sold out all of its superhero adaptation rights for $25 million, which can also see how miserable Marvel is now.

Of course, the important reason why this price is so low is that Marvel's superheroes are far less popular than DC.

In any historical period, even when the Avengers swept the world, the number one superhero in North America was always DC's Batman, and Marvel's hottest superhero Spider-Man was only half of Batman.

After Zhang Chen heard this, he laughed: "Avi, you are an honest person with a noble character. However, this is not a problem, and the value of the rights that Marvel now has is seriously undervalued. Our most important job in the coming months is to spend money. ”

Avi Arad didn't know why: "Spend money?"

Zhang Chen nodded: "Yes, spend money." I'm going to take back all the superhero copyrights that Marvel has licensed. ”

"Including Spider-Man. Zhang Chen added.

Take back all the copyrights of the superheroes who were licensed? All the Marvel executives at the conference table were in a commotion, really fake? They may only make a few million when they are licensed, but now they want to recover more than just a few million dollars, which is a huge investment of tens of millions of dollars.

With just one Spider-Man, Sony can't let go, Sony has been preparing for Spider-Man for two or three years, and has even entered the substantive preparation stage before. But because Batman and Robin sounded the alarm for superhero movies, Sony put filming plans on hold for the time being. If you want to buy back the copyright of Spider-Man at this time, you don't have to talk about it without two million dollars.

Plus the Fantastic Four in the hands of Constantine Pictures, the X-Men in the hands of 21st Century Fox, Namor, Iron Man, Hulk in the hands of Universal。。。。。。 The film and television adaptation rights of these anime characters add up to at least hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment!

Marvel doesn't have that money at all!

Zhang Chen said calmly: "This money does not need to be paid by Marvel, I will have another company to deal with the issue of Marvel's intellectual property, in other words, I will use my own money to buy all the copyrights authorized by Marvel." After the repossession, I will authorize Marvel Studios to use this part of the copyright freely, and through the subsequent box office sharing, the intellectual property owner and Marvel Studios will share the box office dividends. ”

Zhang Chen's words were like a thunderclap, shaking the Marvel executives seated.

Rich and rich, really TM rich and generous, it turns out that this is the courage of the Internet upstart to spend money.

Marvel went public in '91, filed for bankruptcy in '96, and was acquired by Polmut and Avi Arad with the support of Merrill Lynch in '98, but the cash actually didn't pay much, mainly because the bank forgave the debt.

Batman and Robin claimed to have invested 125 million, but the actual cost was more than 180 million, and the box office of the movie must reach at least twice the amount of investment to avoid losing money. Warner lost money, and even sold DVDs but did not recoup the cost, but it is said that in 2012, the investment was finally recouped by online broadcasting.

These chapters are written like, and I find that the more I don't write them, the worse my state becomes. From today, we will resume two shifts for three consecutive days, and we can't go down any longer, so we must cheer up and force ourselves.

(End of chapter)