After Eric rejected the terms offered privately by Disney shareholders, Disney shareholders delegated negotiations with Firefly and Viacom to Disney management. Michael Eisner spared no effort to help Viacom in all aspects in order to keep his position, and any contact between Disney and the Fireflies in negotiations was known to the Viacom team almost immediately.

When Michael Eisner followed Viacom's statement, the Fireflies' team anticipated this and prepared for it. When Disney shareholders decided to sell Disney, Disney management's negotiations with Viacom and Firefly quickly accelerated, and after several bids, the purchase price climbed to $5.6 billion in just two weeks.

This price is already 2.1 billion higher than Disney's $3.5 billion market value when Firefly first quoted, with a premium of 60%, and most of the previous hostile takeovers, when the premium exceeds 50%, the hostile acquirer will often die down, but Firefly and Viacom have no intention of backing down, whether in public or private, the confrontation between the two sides has brought more and more gunpowder flavor.

In light of this situation, many Wall Street analysts have issued risk warnings about the acquisition. Some companies that had planned to join the acquisition saw such fierce competition between the two sides, and they silently put the original acquisition plan into the waste cartons.

On January 14, 1992, after months of lengthy negotiations, Disney, Firefly and Viacom finally reached a tentative agreement on the terms of the acquisition, and the final bid would take place on January 20.

After half a year of busyness, the exhausted Firefly acquisition team can finally take a short break. Eric, however, is still busy preparing Firefly's 1992 film project.

After "Dumb and Dumb". Jim Carrey was immediately approached by a number of film companies. hopes to seek cooperation, although "Dumb and Agua" is a dual-protagonist structure, both critics and ordinary audiences have praised Jim Carrey's performance, and the other actor Jeff Daniels has received a decent evaluation, plus "Dumb and Agua" box office exceeded 100 million, and Jim Carrey's salary has skyrocketed to 5 million US dollars.

The value of the boat rises, and the mood is different. At the beginning, as long as I could get the opportunity, I was willing to pay any conditions, but now I feel that I have suffered a big loss. In an interview with a Hollywood newspaper, Jim Carrey openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the five-year option contract that he was "forced" to sign in the first place. However, hearing this news, neither Eric nor TG's daughters cared too much, the original option contract was drafted by Firefly's special legal team, and there were no loopholes in the law at all, and Kim Carrey wanted to breach the contract, even if the lawsuit was brought to the Federal Supreme Court. I also had to pay $100 million in liquidated damages.

However, in order to prevent Jim Carrey from making a movie, he tossed once. Eric asked TG to directly open a contract for two films for Kim Carrey for $10 million, which is definitely not a disadvantage to the other party, and Eric never thought of a good thing of wanting the horse to run and not feeding the horse, but when Elizabeth came forward to negotiate this plan, she did not directly meet Jim Carrey himself, according to his agent Carl Meksen, Jim Carrey went to Hawaii for a vacation.

Of course, Elizabeth understood that Kim Carrey wanted a higher price, and she even felt that the price offered by Eric was a bit high, and the other party was not satisfied, so Elizabeth directly put Kim Carrey aside.

Although there was no agreement with Jim Carrey for the time being, Firefly smoothly won the copyright of "Strange Jack in Disguise", and also poached Tom Sadiak, the screenwriter of "Detective Planehead", from Warner. Eric directly took the two films to TG to set up the project and make preliminary preparations.

Preavista's studio base, Eric is leading a few people to visit the special effects studio in the digital field, the original headquarters of the digital field is Venice Beach, but after the completion of the studio base in Preavista, the digital field has migrated, on the one hand, it can save a lot of rent, on the other hand, the studio is close to the large studio, and it is more work.

"This is a special effects software newly developed by the software R&D center, called Broken, which is mainly used to make shots of buildings being smashed. ”

Stan Winston introduced as he pulled up a relevant shot from the computer, and Eric and several people around him gathered around, and everyone let out a low sigh of admiration when they saw the movie screen of a drive-in movie theater slowly shattering under the action of a hurricane.

"This is just one of the parts that has already been completed, and there is another part where the entire villa is torn apart, but this one is not finished yet," Stan Winston said, turning the screen to the software interface and moving aside.

Standing next to Eric, a middle-aged man in his thirties who was somewhat thin couldn't help but sit in an office chair, clumsily manipulating the computer to view the various options of the software.

"The software is still a work in progress, but it's much better than the original version," Stan Winston said.

Eric looked at the middle-aged man who was obviously not familiar with this software, but was very interested, and said with a smile: "Roland, you don't want to change careers to become a special effects artist, we just signed a contract, and I definitely won't let him go." ”

Hearing Eric's joke, several people laughed, and Roland Emmerich also smiled and stood up: "I think I'd better be an honest director." ”

James Cameron, who was standing to Eric's right, said: "I don't think there's an essential difference between a director and a special effects artist, we are both creating a picture, but the process is different. ”

Although James Cameron did not take a stake in the digital field at this time, with his good relationship with Eric and Stan Winston, as well as his obsession with film technology, Cameron would come to 'try out' every new special effects treatment scheme introduced in the digital field, so he was not as curious as Roland Emmerich just now.

After a few jokes, Eric said, "Okay, I've seen so much." There is a café right next to it. Let's go there and rest for a while. ”

A few people walked into the café in agreement. Because it was working hours, there were no employees in the café, and Eric sat down with six other people around a long table.

In addition to the already mentioned Roland Emmerich and James Cameron, the other three are Jon Landau, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jane de Bont, the future of Hollywood's most famous directors or producers.

Maybe the names of these people are a little unfamiliar, but when it comes to movies such as "Titanic", "2012", "Transformers", "Speed of Life and Death", they are all thunderous, and these people are the directors or producers of the above movies.

James Cameron and Jerry Bruckheimer are already successful. After Cameron completed Terminator 2, signing with Firefly became logical. And Jerry Bruckheimer was the maker of the famous "Top Gun" that year, I don't know if it was Cruise, defeat was also Cruise, the success of "Top Gun" made Jerry Bruckheimer a top producer, but Cruise last year's "Thunder and Ambition" box office that cost 80 million was far lower than expected, and Jerry Bruckheimer, as a producer, was terminated by his old club Paramount.

Jerry Bruckheimer's future golden partner, Michael Bay, is still just a rookie in the shooting of the music video, and Eric is unlikely to promote him to director. However, Eric did not hesitate to sign Jerry Bruckheimer, because he is very good at being the producer of large-scale Zuò films, and Firefly is most lacking in this talent.

Jon Landau, Jane de Bont and Roland Emmerich are not very well-known yet. However, these people have been in Hollywood for many years, and their personal ability is undoubted. In addition, Eric happened to have a project in his hand that was suitable for several people, so they signed it together.

After the waiter served coffee to a few people and left, Eric said, "After reading what I just saw, I think everyone has no worries about the script I gave you, right?"

Except for Stan Winston, who was drinking coffee leisurely, the others nodded, but James Cameron said: "Eric, although the change of script you gave me is good, I don't want to start working so soon, I want to enjoy life, I'm not a workaholic like you." Moreover, Arnold has already taken a film contract from Sony Pictures, and he will not be able to spare time until next year. ”

Eric said: "I know this, I didn't put you in this year's production plan. ”

"Forehead ......"

"Hahaha......"

Jerry Bruckheimer said, "Eric, I remember that Mr. Jeffrey has always been the producer of your film, why did you choose me to be the producer of Jurassic Park?"

"Jeffrey is going to take care of the company, and he won't be the producer himself in the future, at most, he will put on a name," Eric explained, looked at Roland Emmerich and said, "Roland, what do you think of the script of "Heaven and Earth"?"

Roland Emmerich looked at Eric, the script was written by Eric himself, and although Eric had the highest achievement in the group, Roland Emmerich thought the script was very bad. Having opened his mouth, Roland Emmerich asked cautiously, "Eric, do you want to listen to the truth?"

"Of course," Eric nodded.

"That, I think this script is a bit bad, the main story is about the great crisis of human beings facing annihilation, but in the first half hour of the story, the heroine has been entangled in things like high-ranking official scandals. ”

James Cameron heard the two of them talking and interjected, "Eric, is that your idea for a movie about a comet hitting the Earth?"

Eric nodded, and told the story briefly.

After hearing this, James Cameron also shook his head: "I feel the same as Roland, although the people always talk about things like scandals, but it is too bad for a disaster blockbuster to use this kind of plot as a foreshadowing." ”

Jane de Bonte, who has always been relatively silent, couldn't help but say at this time: "I worked as a cinematographer for a low-budget science fiction film seven years ago, and I think the setting of that movie is good, using family affection and love, or the life of small people as a foreshadowing, which can have a greater contrast effect and make it easier to bring the audience into the plot." ”

Several of them nodded.

Seeing that no one agreed with the original script, Eric was not angry, and smiled: "I know, but then I need to have major surgery on the script." ”

"Then it's all overthrown," James Cameron said without hesitation, "It would be a shame if such a good disaster movie theme was ruined in a bad stock market." ”

"I think a little bit of modification would make the story better," chubby Jon Landau interjected.

Drawing everyone's attention, Jon Landau continued: "You see, the heroine has been tracking down the scandalous official with a code name, which originally meant a woman, what if we replaced this code name with that comet?"

Eric's eyes lit up, and James Cameron slapped the table directly: "This is better, modify the setting a little and remove the scandal factor." In order to avoid panic among the public, the White House withheld the news and used a woman's code name to represent the comet. The high-ranking official, who was misunderstood as involved in the scandal and forced to resign, actually wanted to be able to reveal the truth to the people, and his proposal was not approved, so he resigned in anger. ”

Jerry Bruckheimer nodded and agreed: "Eric, I think it's good to change this way, although the public will always have such and such opinions about the federal government, and always feel that the government is full of all kinds of conspiracy theories, but in general, ordinary people still have good fantasies about the high-level, and this setting just meets the public's deep inner expectations." ”

Eric laughed, "That's it, Jim, Jon, do you want to add your name to the screenwriting column?"

Cameron and Jon Landau shook their heads at the same time, they both knew that Eric was just joking, although up to one-third of Hollywood scripts have zài authorship rights, but if they really want to get the authorship rights, they need to participate in more than 30% of the revision of the script.

Now that the conversation has begun, after "Heaven and Earth Collide", Eric will talk about the scripts of the three movies "True Lies", "Jurassic Park" and "Speed of Life and Death", which he led respectively, and he has gained a lot of inspiration.

It wasn't until the evening that the happy people parted and sent Cameron and the others away, and Ari was about to get on the bus and go back to Malibu, but was stopped by Stan Winston.

"Eric, there's something I can't tell you about when they were here just now," Stan Winston pointed to the office not far away, "Let's go back and talk about it." ”

Eric looked at Stan Winston's stern expression, nodded, instructed the driver, and returned to the office with Stan Winston. (To be continued......)