Marvel in the original time and space has always been criticized in terms of actors' salaries, mainly because Marvel had a very critical CEO at that time, Isaac Perlmutter, and the industry even once circulated jokes that the furniture in the Marvel Entertainment office was second-hand. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Before snatching Marvel from Ron Perelman, Isaac Perlmutter was also a member of Marvel's board of directors. Firefly swallowed Marvel completely, the original board of directors was naturally dissolved, and Eric did not throw an olive branch to Isaac Perlmutter, as a boss, Eric of course hopes that the top management can generate more profits for the company as much as possible, but he also feels that there is no need to be so harsh, it will only backfire.

Compared with these details, Eric is more concerned about the overall cost control in the production process of Marvel movies, which is the foundation for the stability and sustainability of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Therefore, in the two weeks in New York, the discussion of the compensation package of the protagonist of the Marvel movie occupied most of the time, and the core of the final plan was actually two points: a long-term contract, and the salary is linked to the box office.

In the preliminarily determined plan, the core actors participating in Marvel superhero movies must sign contracts for at least six films, as long as the box office is good enough, Marvel can guarantee that they get the salary of A-grade stars, but they will definitely not pay sky-high prices such as $50 million for a single film.

chatting casually with Stuart Runkel about these things, the two of them inevitably talked about some of the past events, and they were a little embarrassed.

The expectant glances of the surrounding guests made Stewart realize that Eric was not as idle as he appeared to be, and chatted for more than ten minutes, saying that he would carefully consider whether to participate in "Spider-Man", and the teenager took the initiative to say goodbye to Eric and walked towards his parents and sister who were waiting not far away.

Still leaning on the railing, Eric gestured to the waiter who passed by, and had just taken a glass of champagne from the other's tray when a couple approached.

The man was gray-haired, dressed in a crisp suit and glasses, and had the style of a university professor, but if anyone knew that he shot "The Exorcist," which was once called Hollywood's No. 1 horror film, they would certainly not have a similar impression. This man is Hollywood horror master William Friedkin, and the middle-aged woman holding his arm is naturally his wife, Shirley Lansing, the current CEO of Paramount.

Eric also noticed that Shirley Lansing's expression was clearly a bit of a relentless inquiry. Obviously, the purpose of the other party's appearance at tonight's party will not be so simple, and, according to common sense, on this occasion, although it will not refuse, it is impossible for Firefly to take the initiative to send invitations to the heads of its competitors such as Paramount, and the other party is obviously uninvited.

Pretending not to notice Shirley Lansing's expression, Eric straightened up and greeted William Friedkin warmly, "Hi William, good evening." ”

"Good evening, Eric, this is a time to celebrate," William Friedkin said as if he was not affected by his wife's emotions, or did not show it, and greeted Eric with the same enthusiasm, "It's a miracle that the global box office is $1.8 billion, but I'm curious, Eric, I wonder why you chose this number for the celebration party, isn't it better to have 2 billion worldwide?"

Eric made a casual excuse and said, "Some things are thought of and done, and it's not a good thing to be bound by the inertia of thinking all the time." ”

William Friedkin laughed in agreement.

Shirley Lansing continued Eric's words, "But, Eric, don't you think the Fireflies have gone too far in some things?"

William Friedkin didn't expect his wife to be so direct, he looked a little embarrassed, and coughed helplessly.

From Shirley Lansing's gunpowder-filled words, Eric was almost 100% sure of the other party's intentions, thinking that due to Firefly and Fox's joint blocking strategy for "The Lion King 2", Paramount had been forced to rush.

Although Lei Shidong once made a bold statement in the media that "The Lion King 2" would kill "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age", since the end of March when the summer film started the final stage of promotion, "The Lion King 2" has almost completely disappeared from the media networks owned by Firefly and News Corp., and the Yahoo portal and print media related to Firefly and News Corp. have rarely appeared any news related to "The Lion King 2".

Due to factors such as advertising audiences, the marketing pitch of animated films is much more reliant on TV commercials than live-action films. "The Lion King 2" not only lost more than half of the TV advertising channel platforms in North America, but also was jointly sniped by Firefly and Fox in the advertising of NBC and CBS, and almost all the marketing activities in the past month or so can only be described as half the effort.

On the other hand, the promotion of "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age" is in full swing, and the influence of these two animated films is spreading like a virus among the public through a powerful combination of various marketing methods such as television, newspapers, the Internet and traditional posters.

Now that he had guessed the intention of Shirley Lansing's words, Eric didn't pretend to be stupid, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Shirley, I don't think there's anything excessive about the fireflies. If I'm not mistaken, at the end of last year, MTV similarly rejected the trailer for "Titanic". ”

"It's different, Eric," Shirley Lansing defended, "Firefly is completely exterminating right now, and it's not good for either of us, and don't forget, Firefly still retains the rights to The Lion King merchandise, and if The Lion King 2 fails at the box office, you won't get any benefit either." ”

Eric spread his hands: "Shirley, you don't mean anything to say this. While the Big Seven of Hollywood have never lacked collaborations and occasionally come together on something, we are always competitors in nature, and in that case, we will each choose the best solution for ourselves. ”

"But the TV network should be in the open public service field, Eric, it's not even legal for you to do this, it's unfair competition. ”

"You're wrong, Shirley, the big four networks, they've always been private, ABC is mine, Fox is Murdoch, CBS is Larry Tish, NBC is GE, I saw Jack Welch's speech live on NBC last week, it seems to be an hour long, do you think, if NBC wasn't GE, would Jack Welch get a full hour of solo show? So, just listen to some high-sounding words, if you take it seriously, it would be silly. ”

Shirley Lansing's fingers gripped the wine glass in her hand hard, and for a moment she didn't even think of a rebuttal.

William Friedkin, who was standing on the side, saw that his wife, who had always been sharp-tongued, was speechless by the young man in front of him, and took the initiative to make a round and said: "Eric, Shirley, you don't need to be so stiff, don't you, why don't we find a seat and talk slowly? ”

"William, I don't have to, I'm glad you came over tonight and have some fun," Eric raised his glass to William Friedkin and turned to leave.

If Hollywood can still maintain a stable pattern of coexistence of the seven major ones as it did many years ago, Eric will naturally take the initiative to promote the coexistence of all parties in competition and cooperation.

But now, with the rise of fireflies, this coexistence has been completely broken. Eric didn't think there was a need for reconciliation now, after all, reconciliation would definitely mean compromise, and Eric really couldn't think of any reason for Firefly to compromise at the moment.

With the rapid development and growth of fireflies, film companies and even media groups with non-firefly systems will definitely be strongly impacted, and even encounter existential threats, and at that time, the competition between all parties will even reach the point of life and death.

In this level of business competition, it is very impractical to seek reconciliation or even sympathy from the opponent, and it is also not wise to take the initiative to give the competitor an opportunity.

Perhaps because the negotiation was fruitless, after the "Titanic" celebration party, the time had just entered May, and Paramount took the initiative to provoke the topic of "The Lion King 2" being jointly blocked by Fireflies and Fox in the promotion process in the newspaper.

Lei Shidong personally landed on NBC's morning news talk show for this, angrily accusing Firefly and Fox of unfair competition, and even vowed to file a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice.

Perhaps sensing that a media war was coming, a large number of newspapers across the United States immediately began to follow suit, reporting on the incident and looking forward to a response from Firefly and Fox.

It's just that no matter how Viacom provoked and how Lei Shidong was furious, the top management of Firefly and Fox did not make any response to this topic, and there was no topic report on the ban of "The Lion King 2" in the media controlled by the two companies, it seems that in the hearts of Firefly and Fox, this matter does not exist at all.

In the end, after being chased and blocked by a large number of media reporters for more than a week, Katzenberg finally 'couldn't bear it' and spoke out, but only threw out one sentence: You can't force McDonald's to advertise KFC.

This statement is simply too powerful.

Anyone knows that as two world-class fast-food chains, McDonald's and KFC have always been competitors.

Similarly, Firefly Group and Viacom Group are indisputable competitors.

Isn't it natural to refuse to advertise for competitors on your own media platforms?

Originally, many media outlets who were indignant and wanted to get 'justice' for Paramount calmed down because of Katzenberg's words, although some newspapers felt that the Firefly Group was too ruthless, after all, "The Lion King" was from Firefly's Disney animation brand, but the original lively wind pluck, in the case of competitors almost completely not taking over, the heat also quickly cooled down. Even if Viacom is still very unwilling to fan the flames everywhere, it is difficult to provoke the media to follow up.

Of course, this wind stir naturally made "The Lion King 2" show its face in front of the public, but as the main audience of "The Lion King 2", no one would think that children between the ages of 6 and 12 would pay attention to this kind of thing.

As for the adolescent or adult audience, they have too many films to look forward to this summer, "Godzilla", "Batman and Robin", "007: Casino Royale", "Scream 2", "Jedi Men 2", etc., even if it is an animated film, even if it is not mentioned in terms of publicity difference, after several 3D animations of Pixar, they are obviously more receptive to "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age", rather than the traditional "Lion King 2" This kind of 2D hand-drawn animation.

After the celebration party, in the three weeks from April 25 to May 15, "Titanic" has successively collected a total of $163 million at the global box office.

On May 16, Firefly Group officially announced that the global box office of "Titanic" exceeded 2 billion US dollars, and the cumulative total box office figure reached 2.015 billion US dollars.

This time, Fireflies did not focus on celebration parties, but held interactions with fans in major box office countries around the world, although these activities could no longer stimulate the box office potential of "Titanic", but directly promoted the sales of a large number of "Titanic" merchandise products.

Since its release, the cumulative sales of peripheral products on the shelves of "Titanic" have also exceeded an astonishing figure of 600 million US dollars, and with the gradual release of peripheral goods in overseas markets, this number will also grow rapidly.

The Firefly peripheral product operation department predicts that just the peripheral goods of the "Titanic" movie will bring no less than $1.5 billion in sales to Firefly in the next few years, which is almost half of Firefly's peripheral product sales last year. In 1996, the revenue of Firefly's peripheral products was only 3.3 billion US dollars.

This series of huge success numbers further stimulated almost all Hollywood studios to start frantically looking for the next project that can be comparable to "Titanic". Even for the Fireflies themselves, Eric has received four or five 'bombshell' scripts in a row in the weeks since he returned to Los Angeles.

Obviously, the success of "Titanic" has created a false impression for the whole of Hollywood, making many people think that since the first film with a global box office of $2 billion has appeared, there will definitely be a second, third, or even more soon.

Eric, of course, will not be carried away by this success, but continues to focus most of his energy on the formation of Marvel Studios and the preliminary preparation of projects such as "Spider-Man" and "Iron Man". (To be continued.) )