Murdoch pondered this, and thus ignored the different implications of Eric's question, and replied somewhat bluntly: "Liz is just a woman after all, and I still hope that Lachlan and James will take my place." ”

Eric didn't say anything more, Murdoch was born in a conservative family in Australia, and his patriarchal thinking was not much weaker than that of the Orientals, and it would not be easy for Elizabeth to take charge of News Corp in the future if she could not achieve overwhelming results.

After a few casual chats about the Oscars, Murdoch talked about the recent series of big moves by the Fireflies, which are now approaching April, and the end of May will start the new summer season. The summer Firefly will have two movies "Toy Story" and "Terminator 2" released at the same time.

Although "Toy Story" played a trailer at the Super Bowl two months ago, it is completely unknown whether this kind of 3D animated film, which is completely different from the traditional 2D animation style, will be accepted by the audience, as a giant or monopolist of the Hollywood animation industry, Disney felt that its position in the animation field would be threatened after the trailer of "Toy Story" was played, and did not hesitate to use various channels in its hands to attack "Toy Story" openly or covertly.

In order to prevent the film from being stereotyped by rivals before its release, Firefly allocated $20 million to "Toy Story" in North America alone, which is equivalent to 50% of the animated film's production cost.

And "Terminator 2" seems to be even less optimistic, because of the experience of "The Abyss", many people thought that Cameron would once again indulge in the exploration of film technology and produce a movie that was popular but not popular. Not to mention. Everyone knows that "Terminator 2" has become the first movie in Hollywood history to cost more than 100 million. Plus the investment in publicity. If this film wants to recoup its cost at the box office, it needs at least about $300 million at the global box office, and Cameron's last "Abyss" only had a global box office of 80 million.

In view of the fact that Firefly sold the rights to the popular "Dark War" to Colombia some time before the Oscars, many companies thought that Firefly was already facing a financial crunch. Hollywood's seven major studios experience this every year or two, so that even Warner or Disney, which is doing well, is saddled with no less than a billion dollars in debt.

Although Eric participated in two consecutive fluctuations in the crude oil futures market in the first half of the year, Firefly did not make much action afterwards, and everyone judged that Eric did not make much profit from the oil crisis. So Murdoch's mind has also become active, maybe this is another opportunity to invest in fireflies, although Eric's personality is a little oily and salty, but there is always nothing to lose by trying.

After chatting with Eric for a while, Murdoch asked, "Eric, Firefly even sold Dark Wars." Funds must be very tight during this time, right?"

"It's okay," Eric immediately understood what the old man meant. It seems that similar words were heard last year, and that time Murdoch personally sent them to the door, but this time, Eric did not make any concessions or anything like that, he finally said that the fireflies were completely in his hands, and it was impossible to bring in any shareholders unless it was absolutely necessary: "Mr. Murdoch, the fireflies have just returned to me, so I will not sell any more shares, I think we should not mention this topic, maybe we can talk about other things." ”

Murdoch saw Eric's direct refusal and smiled, he didn't have too much expectation, so Eric's refusal was not too much of a loss, he just said earnestly with the shelf of his elders: "Eric, investing in movies is a very risky behavior, and if you don't pay attention to it, you may lose all your money, so it is a very cost-effective thing to use cooperation to share the risk, I think the bet you made on "Terminator 2" is too big." The losses caused by James Cameron's last "Abyss" to Fox have not yet been recovered, and even now, there is still a gap of about $20 million, but this does not have much impact on Fox, because this film was jointly invested by Fox and several other investors, although the loss is large, but it is not much to Fox. ”

"The same can't be said about things," Eric replied, "and the film projects that are co-invested are basically those that the film companies don't value too much, or don't have much confidence in. But the film companies' own ace series will definitely not let outsiders interfere, for example, Warner will definitely not co-develop "Batman" with outsiders, and the "Star Wars" series will definitely not introduce outside investors. ”

Seeing that Murdoch didn't fool Eric, he said again: "Speaking of which, you promised to let Fox release Home Alone, there has been no movement last year, and you can't delay it any longer this year, right...... The little guy named Stuart Runkel is already ten years old, and if he is two years older, he is probably no longer suitable for the leading actor. ”

"At present, we are already in contact with CAA, and the price offered by the other party last year was too outrageous, so Firefly has temporarily put the project on hold. ”

"Eric, since you can sell 'Dark War', do you think it's possible to transfer the rights to 'Home Alone' to Fox. ”

Eric thought quickly about Murdoch's plan, he had already had such thoughts before.

According to Firefly's internal assessment, the cost of the third installment of the "Home Alone" series will be between $40 million and $50 million, and the North American box office is estimated to be only about $100 million. Perhaps it is the best option to sell the development rights of this project directly, although it may make less money by doing so, but Firefly saves a lot of time and energy, which can be invested in other more valuable projects.

However, Eric does not intend to sell all the rights to Home Alone, and the plan to buy Disney has been going on in secret, once this plan is successful. As "Home Alone", which has a very important place in the hearts of children. After Disney's omni-channel development and Disneyland's "Home Alone" themed project. will bring a lot of profits.

"Mr. Murdoch, I won't transfer the copyright of Home Alone, but Firefly really doesn't have much time and energy to spend on this project, so if Fox has this intention, Firefly can grant Fox the development rights for the sequel. ”

Murdoch thought about it and agreed. However, neither of them rushed to discuss a specific cooperation agreement, and the copyright of "Home Alone" already involved too many things. It will not be able to negotiate for a while, so it can only be handed over to the Firefly and Fox staff to negotiate slowly.

……

After the Oscars, the media naturally commented on this Oscars, "The Silence of the Lambs" with its excellent quality, although it was not empty at all to win the award, but it still received a lot of doubts according to the convention, but neither the winners nor the film school made any response to these questions.

Because she was repeatedly mentioned at the awards ceremony, the scene on stage when Elizabeth won the best picture is even more memorable to many. For TV viewers, perhaps Eric is just an after-dinner conversation. But in Hollywood, the situation also heralded Eric's growing influence.

As Billy Crystal finally quipped, Hollywood studio executives finally noticed that Eric was no longer frantic about making several films a year, but this guy was at the Oscars again. Although none of the seven major film companies operate Oscar films as their main business, the influence and surrounding economic benefits brought by the Oscars are still a big cake, and in previous years, most of this cake belonged to the Big Seven.

However, this qiē did not affect Eric in the slightest, the preliminary preparations for "Tornado" have been completed, and the film crew of more than 200 people has already gone to Oklahoma in batches, ready to start filming at any time.

Eric spent a few more days in Los Angeles to finalize negotiations with Fox for the licensing of Home Alone. Firefly plans to release five films this year, and before the Oscars, four films have been confirmed: "Toy Story", "Terminator 2", "Dumb and Agua" and "Spicy Hand Police Flower", and Eric's last days in Los Angeles have finally confirmed the last film, which is the sequel to the original new line's signature series "Ghost Street".

Because of the box office failure of the fourth part of the "Ghost Street" series, when Robert Shay was still in Firefly, he planned to make a sequel as the end, and even had some first drafts of the script, what Eric did was to completely finalize the project, tentatively named "The Death of Freddy", unless this sequel can be a big hit, otherwise, after the fifth part, Eric will temporarily seal this project, and wait for ten or eight years, when Hollywood remakes are popular.

In addition to "Ghost Street", Eric will not forget his attention to Disney's "Cut Throat Island", which was launched in February, Disney has not stopped promoting "Cut Throat Island" since the establishment of the project, and at the Oscars, he also specially publicized the role of an award guest for directors Renny Haring and Gina Davis, and even revealed the script to the media.

According to the news in various newspapers and media, "Cut Throat Island" is being filmed in the Mediterranean island nation of Malta, and may even be transferred to Thailand for on-location filming, and the TV station will occasionally release some tidbits. Moreover, it is said that the original investment in this film was set at 70 million US dollars, but because of the rush to work, there are obvious signs of overspending, Disney and Robert Shea are also singles, after learning that "Terminator 2" has invested more than 100 million, they simply announced that the cost of "Cut Throat Island" will also exceed 100 million US dollars.

Although there are still three months before the release of the two movies, there are already sparks between "Cut Throat Island" and "Terminator 2", and the media is also very keen to compare the two movies together.

In New York, while taking care of Firefly investment, Chris has not relaxed his absorption of Disney stock, and in February, he also bought the largest 0.9% stake from a Disney shareholder, and Chris expects to buy a total of about 10% of Disney stock through several different channels before July. At that time, if the bona fide acquisition does not succeed, Eric can use the funds and chips in his hands to launch a hostile takeover that has an overwhelming advantage over Disney.

On March 28, Eric flew to Oklahoma, located in the south-central United States, with the last members of the Tornado crew.

Compared with the densely populated east and west coasts, the interior of the United States can be described as vast and sparsely populated, taking Oklahoma City, the capital of this state and the largest city in the state, Oklahoma City, has a population of only 500,000, and the surrounding population is even more sparse.

The filming location of "Tornado" was not in Oklahoma City, but near a small town called Ponca in northeastern Oklahoma, and the crew built a large number of sets around Ponca City, such as the town where the heroine Aunt Qiu's house is located, the hotel where the team stopped before the huge tornado, etc., because these need to be destroyed in the later stages of film shooting, so it is impossible to rent real houses for filming.

Eric's previous biggest film was "Dark War", but the investment in that film was only more than 30 million, and it was shot in Los Angeles, where all kinds of conditions are very convenient. In comparison, "Tornado" is the first major film in the true sense of the word controlled by Eric.

This film not only has a guaranteed investment of $70 million, but also has a total of more than 200 crew members, in addition to the core of the crew directly controlled by Eric, there are also three assistant directors in charge of three teams, each of which has a clear division of labor, one is responsible for the day's shooting, one is responsible for finishing the day's shooting, and the last group prepares for the next day's shooting.

In addition to the drama, a large number of tornado shots of the crew need to be filmed on cloudy days as much as possible, therefore, the shooting plan cannot rigidly stipulate which scene to shoot on a certain day, but need to flexibly change the shooting plan according to the local weather, in order to ensure the crew shooting as much as possible, Eric even asked the logistics team to customize a huge black gauze of several hundred square meters, once the weather conditions are not suitable for a long time, the crew will hire several tower cranes to support this large net, artificially create gloomy weather conditions. (To be continued......)