readx;? On September 5, with the release of Warner Bros. an action movie starring Steven Sieg, the summer season of 1997 officially came to an end. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Overall, this summer season can be described as a miserable start, crushed by "Finding Nemo" and "Casino Royale", two blockbusters with box office potential of more than $300 million, and other big-budget films released in June are almost wiped out, even Paramount Pictures' North American box office finally barely exceeded $200 million "The Lion King 2", which is definitely not a success.

However, entering July, the chaotic war in the film market has also begun to calm down. Fox's "Ice Age", MGM's "Scream 2", Universal's "Air Force One" and other films have achieved very good box office results.

Among them, the performance of "Ice Age" is undoubtedly the most eye-catching by everyone.

This is not only because "Ice Age" eventually grossed more than $176 million in North America at a cost of $59 million, but also because this 3D animated film is also the first animated feature film from Blue Sky Animation Studios.

While Blue Sky Studios is well known for its technical support from Firefly, it is still a big incentive for other studios to be able to get critical acclaim in North America and more than three times the production cost at the box office.

You must know that in addition to "Casino Royale", the most eye-catching box office performance in this year's summer season is "The Lion King 2", "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age", which have been released one after another. Just these three animated films, the total box office of the summer file is close to 600 million US dollars, which is almost a quarter of the total box office of the entire summer file.

Before "Ice Age", although several major Hollywood studios began to set up their own animated film divisions, due to the influence of the concept that 2D animation was monopolized by Disney, 3D animation was monopolized by Pixar, coupled with the long production cycle of animated films, these studios felt that it was very difficult to produce successful animated films.

But now, whether Blue Sky Studios is breaking with traditional thinking or driven by powerful interests, several other major Hollywood studios have begun to increase their investment in their own animation departments.

On the other hand, the tragic fighting in June also made Hollywood realize that it can no longer stick to the traditional practice of putting key films before the American Independence Day on July 4, which will only cause very serious internal friction.

The box office performance in overseas markets has also further attracted the attention of Hollywood.

This year's two billion-dollar box office seeds, "Finding Nemo" and "Casino Royale", no matter which one, the overseas box office has significantly exceeded that of the United States, and when many media are still amazed that the North American box office of "Casino Royale" broke the first-week box office record again, the film's overseas first-week box office has easily reached a height of $13.6 billion.

"Finding Nemo", which has entered its 13th week of release and has accumulated more than $3.3 billion at the North American box office, has also reached $3.9 billion at the overseas box office, and at the same time, many overseas markets have not yet been released, and there is at least $200 million of box office potential to be tapped in the future, which is far from being like North America, which has entered the sweeping period.

If you push it further, in September, "Titanic", which began to be completely discontinued around the world, finally reached an astonishing overseas box office of $1.6296 billion, and the total global box office of the film finally broke through an unprecedented $22.3 billion.

The Paramount Act of 1948 and the subsequent rise of the television industry put an end to the flourishing American film industry during the Hollywood Golden Age.

But in recent years, as Hollywood films have frequently created box office miracles around the world, Hollywood as a whole has gradually realized that a new golden age is on the horizon for the American film industry. Moreover, this is an era of rapid development of high technology and economic globalization, and if you cannot catch up with these changes, you are destined to face the fate of being eliminated again.

Among them, the biggest change is undoubtedly the rapid integration of several major media groups in North America.

I have to say that this is actually a very ironic thing.

The Paramount Act was designed to prevent the monopoly of a monopoly giant from having a negative impact on the entire industry. But the result of such a move was a heavy blow to the American film industry. In recent years, the Paramount Act has existed in name only, and several major media giants have even reached out to the cinema industry, which was banned at the beginning, but Hollywood has shown a rapid recovery posture.

With the end of this summer season, Hollywood has once again started a big event related to the integration of the two major media groups.

Viacom's acquisition of CBS and Seagram's acquisition of European music giant PolyGram.

Viacom's acquisition of CBS is almost a well-known thing in Hollywood.

Since the 80s, Somer Lei Shidong has been expanding the TV business of Viacom Group non-stop, and Firefly and News Corporation jointly suppressed the promotion of "The Lion King 2", resulting in this 2D animated film with a box office potential of 300 million US dollars in North America and finally stopped at the early 200 million, which further stimulated Lei Shidong and made the other party finally make up his mind to start the acquisition of CBS.

For Viacom to swallow CBS, Eric is very happy to see it happen.

Public television stations in North America are already showing signs of decline, and in recent years they have been increasingly stolen by cable broadcasters to steal a significant amount of market share. At the same time, due to the impact of the new wave of technology, the market value of CBS has also been inflated several times, so it can be said that at this time, Viacom swallowed CBS, even if there is no memory of his previous life, Eric can determine that this public television network will become a big burden to Viacom Group.

However, Seagram's acquisition of Polygram was unexpected by Eric.

The incident was only revealed when a reporter from a European newspaper accidentally took a photo of Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman meeting with PolyGram's top executives.

With the acquisition of Universal's parent company, CA, Seagram already has a very strong Universal record in North America, and if it acquires Polygram, Europe's largest record company, Universal Music will far exceed the strength of several other record companies in the world.

"Okay, I'll send a plane to Brisbane to pick you up, but don't be too public, and besides, shouldn't you kiss it...... Well, that's good, but it seems to kiss the feet, and then come...... Haha, okay, don't make a fuss," in the conference room of Firefly Studios, Eric was leaning on the desk with his feet crossed, leaning on the boss's chair and talking on the phone with Miranda Kerr in Australia, the office door was pushed open, and Elizabeth walked in without knocking: "Well, that's it, I'm a guest, hang up first, goodbye." ”

Elizabeth suspiciously glanced at Eric's face, who had hung up the phone in a hurry, and found nothing unusual, pouted, sat down on the opposite side of her face, and took the pile of materials on Eric's desk into her arms and looked through them.

Putting his phone on the desk, Eric sat up straight and looked at Elizabeth who was flipping through a thick stack of papers across the room: "Are you blatantly doing commercial espionage?"

Elizabeth didn't raise her head and said, "Hmph, I don't hold you accountable for talking on the phone with those little foxes, you dare to be so arrogant." ”

"I've been planning to make it my motto or something. Eric smiled and took a pencil from the pen holder, corrected a script in front of him, and said.

The script in his hand was "Desperate Housewives" that he happened to remember a few days ago, and Eric spent several hours writing a simple script idea, and then threw it to Mark Cellly, the original screenwriter of "Desperate Housewives".

Now Mark Celli is just a very inconspicuous little person in Hollywood, and naturally he is conscientious, and quickly wrote the full story outline of the first season and the script for the first three episodes.

As soon as she wrote a few lines on the script of "Desperate Housewives", Elizabeth on the other side burst out laughing.

Eric raised his head: "You're so scary, what if you scare me out of a horror movie script, you have to bother writing it." ”

Elizabeth threw the stack of papers in her arms back to her desk, leaving only a folder, raised it, still with an irrepressible smile on her face, and said, "This, the script of "Teddy Bear", is really vulgar, who wrote it?"

Eric pointed at himself with a pencil: "I've been inspired lately, and I can't stop it." ”

Elizabeth subconsciously rolled her eyes, raised the folder in her hand, and said, "I want to." ”

"Come and lie on the table, I'll give it to you. ”

"Ahh

Eric reached out and grabbed the "Resident Evil" Ida Wang figure with a crossbow, carefully put it away, and said, "This is out of print, if it is broken, I can only put you on the table as compensation." ”

Elizabeth snorted again, shook the script of "Teddy Bear" in her hand, and no longer mentioned the things she wanted, but said: "Teddy bear is a plush toy that many children like very much, you just scribble like this, is the copyright owner willing?"

"I think there are only two reasons why copyright owners don't want to, one is that they don't have enough money, and the other is that they don't have enough money," Eric explained. ”

"Hmph, I don't have to think about it to know, they must have been deceived by you, thinking that you were going to make "Teddy Bear" into a Disney-style children's feature film, if they knew in advance that the script would be so vulgar, it is estimated that they would not sell it if they were killed. ”

Eric laughed: "That's not necessarily, it depends on whether the money is enough." However, this is a movie made and it must be R-rated, and children can't watch it at all, so they won't be affected by anything. Okay, what's the matter with you, don't you suddenly think that I can't help myself and run over, if I'm not mistaken, we just met the night before yesterday?"

"Who would think of you," Elizabeth pouted, took out a file bag from her handbag and handed it over, "This is Chris Witch and they just finished the script of "Shrek", you can help me read it." ”

Eric stretched out his hand to take it, opened it, and said, "Why don't you just send it to my mailbox, how convenient is it?"

"Everyone is in a hurry, who knows when you will send a message by email, I don't plan to leave this afternoon, you help me read it and give me suggestions for revisions, well, that's all. ”

"Okay," Eric smiled and nodded, "Then make me a cup of coffee first, add a piece of sugar, and add more milk." ”

Elizabeth gestured at the Ada Wang figure before standing up and walking out of Eric's office.

After a few moments, placing the coffee in front of Eric, she said, "Didn't you say recently that Seagram was going to buy Polygram, don't you feel it at all?"

Eric took the pencil and twirled it in his hand, casually asking, "How do you feel?"

"I said yes, you haven't thought about snatching Polygram down, and recently there have been more remarks that FireFlyer players condone piracy?"

"I just know that Firefly Records' performance will rise by more than 50% this year, and although the digital music revenue is still only 10%, they should be smarter and should know where the future trend is. For brand-new technology, forcibly blocking it will only kill itself. Siemens wants to sell PolyGram now, perhaps because of the rise of digital music in the coming years. ”

"Then Seagram is a fool, can't they see this?"

"It's not a question of whether I'm stupid or not, Edgar Bronfman wouldn't be too stupid to take the position of CEO of Seagram from his family, and of course, I don't think he's too smart. It's just that, just like Lei Shidong, many people only see the short-term benefits in the near future, and are not willing to think too long-term. ”

Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully, and said with a smile: "You think long-term, the fireflies have not expanded in the past two years, and I am afraid that the annual growth rate will soon decline." ”

Eric approved another line of words on the script in his hand, and continued: "Even if the performance of Firefly Group stops growing, it will be enough for other Hollywood studios to catch up for several years, not to mention, whether it will stop growing is not certain." You don't know about the economic bubbles in recent years, Firefly is not a listed company, and there is no way to enjoy too many dividends brought by the bubble, so it is not wise to expand now. After two years, the bubble bursts, and it is the time for the fireflies to show their strength. ”

"Then what do you think of Seagram's acquisition of Polygram?"

Eric remembered that in the original time and space, the integration of the media group was completed, and only the information that the global group continued to change hands in the new century, and said: "Well, I can only say that once Seagram completes the acquisition of Polygram, this company will become a hot potato in the future, and whoever takes it will be unlucky." (To be continued.) )