LTD Group was acquired by Firefly Investment Company and the Brighton family through a hostile takeover, although the two jointly hold 62% of the shares and have an absolute controlling stake, but when Eric threw out a $20 million marketing plan to make a Victoria's Secret show, it was immediately strongly opposed by other shareholder representatives on the LTD board of directors. In order to avoid another turmoil within the LTD Group, which had just completed a hostile takeover transaction, Eric took the initiative to take over the matter. Even considering the possible reaction of the minority shareholders of the Firefly Group, the production cost of the Victoria's Secret show was entirely invested by Eric personally.

From the establishment of the fashion show to the final TV broadcast, the sensational effect has all proved the great success of this fashion show, but before the release of the videotape of the Victoria's Secret show, no one thinks that the show itself has the potential to generate profits, even if the high ratings after the broadcast of the Victoria's Secret show have attracted a large number of TV stations that try to buy the broadcast rights, but in order to expand the influence of the Victoria's Secret brand as much as possible, Eric's bid for the broadcast rights is very low, and some small European TV stations even took the TV broadcast rights of the Victoria's Secret show for only $100,000, and the total income of this piece is only more than 10 million, still not enough to recover the $20 million in production funds.

However, after the release of the videotape of the Victoria's Secret show, an unexpected situation appeared.

The beautiful fashion Nei Yi Xiu's own video collection value, six songs that have hit the top of any music chart, and the hunger marketing effect formed by repeated out-of-stock sales by accident have led to the popularity of the Victoria's Secret show videotapes far exceeding everyone's expectations, just in the United States, the sales of the Victoria's Secret videotapes may reach 20 million boxes, and the vast overseas market sales prospects are even more unpredictable.

With the hot sales of the Victoria's Secret show videotapes, the sales of videotapes in the United States alone can bring Eric $300 million. Even though Eric is now worth tens of billions of dollars, this money is an unexpected windfall for him.

When everyone is amazed by the sales of the Victoria's Secret show videotape, the most regretful must be the part of the LTD shareholders who strongly opposed the production of the Victoria's Secret show. If it weren't for their strong opposition, the Victoria's Secret show videotape revenue would now belong to LTD. This revenue can almost double LTD's annual profit.

What's more serious is that the huge profits brought by this year's Victoria's Secret show will definitely not be shared, but because the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show was hastily sold to Fireflies, LTD will also not be able to share the profits in the commercial operation of any Victoria's Secret show in the future.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Emily has just tried to take back the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show.

Although the relationship between the two parties is very close, Emily is a member of the Brighton family after all, and if the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show can be recovered, the Brighton family will also be able to gain benefits in the future.

Actually, from the beginning. Eric's plan is to make a Victoria's Secret show on his own so that LTD can see the advertising effect, and then return the so-called copyright to LTD to continue to operate, and he never thought that the Victoria's Secret show could bring him such a windfall. But now, just as Emily is in business, now that the Victoria's Secret show itself has been an unexpected commercial success, it is impossible for Eric to carry out his original plan.

However, Eric is also well aware that the unexpected success of the Victoria's Secret show in the release of the videotape can only happen this once. Because this year's success is the culmination of Eric's efforts to mobilize the media resources of the entire Firefly Group and Yahoo's online media, and to personally carry out the operation that lasted for half a year.

But Eric can't continue to spend countless media resources doing this in the future. And even if he wants to, after the Victoria's Secret show loses its freshness and mystery, the audience will not continue to buy it, and at the same time, the form of the Victoria's Secret show is actually very simple, it is not like the Super Bowl or the Oscars. Each year is able to bring enough suspense to the audience, so there is no possibility of replication of this success at all.

Therefore, although because of the successful operation of the first one, the Victoria's Secret show will definitely bring some profits in the next few years, it is unlikely to last too long. So. Letting go of the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show now is almost equivalent to selling a stock at the highest point.

After thinking about it for a moment, Eric said to Emily: "If I am willing to return the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show, what kind of price can LTD give?"

"Huh?" Emily's eyes widened and she looked at Eric in disbelief, as if trying to make sure she had heard it wrong, and even Chris and Joanna looked at Eric in surprise.

Although someone at the last LTD board meeting proposed to withdraw the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show, Emily was also quite moved, otherwise she would not have tested Eric at all just now, but at this time, when she heard Eric say that she was willing to let go of the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show, Emily still had a feeling of disbelief, because she, like many people, had no expectations for this matter at all.

However, after only a moment of surprise, Emily recovered and asked in confirmation, "Eric, what you just said is true?"

Eric shrugged: "Of course, but if the price offered by LTD is not sincere enough, I will definitely not agree." ”

"Well, we really haven't thought about it," Emily smiled awkwardly and said honestly, "I need to go back and discuss it with the other shareholders, but, Eric, you ...... yourself," Emily said, gesturing blankly, "yourself...... How much does it cost to be satisfied?"

Eric said: "I'm not short of money now, if you pay cash, I also have to pay personal income tax, which is not cost-effective, so the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show can be regarded as an equity investment." ”

Hearing that Eric wanted to convert the copyright of the Victoria's Secret show into LTD equity, Emily immediately showed a pitiful expression: "Eric, LTD sold the copyright to you at a symbolic price, are you embarrassed to offer too high a price, and you have already made so much money this time." ”

Eric spread his hands and smiled, "If there is no windfall income from the release of the videotapes." I'm going to put in $20 million this time, and I'm going to consume so much media resources from Firefly Group and Yahoo Portal, so I'm very comfortable with this money. Now that I've turned a soybean into a golden bean, of course you're going to have to buy it back at the price of gold, haha. ”

Emily listened to Eric's words, and stopped making those meaningless gestures. talked about the business seriously: "Then, if LTD takes the copyright back, will you still personally participate in the production of the Victoria's Secret show?"

Eric shook his head: "This kind of participation is definitely impossible this year, but I am also the majority shareholder of LTD, and I will definitely not be stingy if I have any good ideas." Moreover, this year's Victoria's Secret show is off to a good start, so even if I don't participate next year, you will definitely be able to pull in a heavyweight creative team, just like the background song of the show. Next year, you can cooperate with some top musicians, with the current influence of the Victoria's Secret show, those singers must be very willing to use the Victoria's Secret show as the first platform for new songs, so that although the revenue of the video will be divided by these singers, but the income obtained by LTD will definitely be equally lucrative, and don't forget, the most fundamental role of the Victoria's Secret show is the marketing of the Victoria's Secret brand, and the income that the show itself can directly bring will definitely gradually decline. However, the Victoria's Secret brand will continue to strengthen itself for many years and maintain a very strong position in its own field. ”

Emily nodded incessantly. After listening to Eric, he joked meaningfully: "Eric, I want to pull you to LTD as the director of operations now." ”

Everyone laughed, and Eric also laughed and quipped, "Then you must not be able to afford it." ”

In the days that followed, LTD came up with a proposal that ended up closing the deal for $225 million worth of equity. Eric is still very happy with the offer. Originally, Firefly Investment and the Brighton family shared the 62% stake equally, but after this deal, Firefly Investment's shareholding increased to 35%, becoming the largest shareholder of LTD, and the Brighton family's shareholding decreased slightly to 30%.

Although many industry analysts are very keen to point out that the commercial success of the Victoria's Secret show this year cannot be replicated. But the market's reaction is often very blind, otherwise there would be no stock market bubble, so the conclusion of this deal once again stimulated the stock price of LTD, making LTD's market value break through the high of $5 billion. However, these are already things that happened in the following period.

After the Victoria's Secret TV show, Eric's energy turned to Hollywood again.

With the advent of the Christmas schedule, "Changing Face" released by Firefly and "Game of the Brave" released by Columbia have been released one after another, because "Game of the Brave" involves a lot of special effects, but the special effects of the original version are obviously a bit shoddy, and Eric is certainly not willing to repeat the mistakes of the past, so he gives a very generous budget. In the end, the new version of Jumanji was much better than the original, but at the same time, the budget climbed to a high of $80 million, and $40 million was spent on marketing. In comparison, the final investment budget for "Face Change" was only $60 million, and the marketing budget was much lower than that of "Game of the Brave".

However, there were still some unexpected changes after the release of the two films, "Changing Face" was released a week earlier than "Brave Game", and the box office in the first week got an excellent box office of 36 million, and its wonderful plot also won unanimous praise from film critics, and the final box office may reach about $120 million, although the results are compared to the original "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" It's not so eye-catching, but this film can recover the production cost just in the North American market, and through the distribution in overseas markets, it can be profitable at the box office, and the subsequent peripheral publicity is basically a net profit.

Subsequently, Jumanji's Game was released.

This special effects blockbuster, which Colombia has high hopes for, also grossed more than $36 million in its first week. That's right, almost the same as "Changing Face", and Columbia's initial box office prediction was that this film should win about 45 million box office in the first week, and the gap between reality and ideal is obviously very large.

Moreover, compared to the good reputation of "Changing Face", the reputation of "Jumanji's Game" is a bit bad among critics, many critics say that the film is too 'noisy', and the director is a little too obsessed with the accumulation of CG special effects.

Although because the CG special effects film market is not yet saturated, many audiences have not been affected by the low reputation of "Game of the Brave", the box office decline of this special effects blockbuster in the second week was only a slight 26%, and the box office performance of more than $62 million in two weeks is already very good, but according to box office estimates, the final domestic box office of "Game of the Brave" is likely to stop at about $140 million, which is 60 million lower than the estimated $200 million domestic box office in Colombia.

After a huge asset write-down of $2.1 billion not long ago, Sony has infinite resentment against Hollywood, although the final box office of "Jumanji" can still make it squeeze into the top ten of the annual box office, after the release of various channels, this film also has very considerable profit prospects, but the box office did not meet expectations, but it is an indisputable fact.

At the same time, because of the repeated encounters in the selection of Colombia's next leader, Barry Diller, Amy Pascal, Michael Lynn and other well-known Hollywood managers have rejected Colombia's offer, and Sony, who feels that the whole Hollywood is 'bullying' him, finally couldn't help but lose his temper.

The first thing Sony did was to toughen up negotiations with Firefly's "Men in Black" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and even publicly stated that if Firefly continued to deliberately delay the development of the set, Colombia would not hesitate to use legal means to protect its own interests.

Eric didn't plan to embarrass Sony with the development of sequels to these films, and he also wanted Sony to stay in Hollywood and contribute to it.

However, Sony obviously doesn't think so, and Sony has always believed that this is a gesture made by Firefly to monopolize the copyright of "Men in Black" because Eric is entangled in the salary of the creator of "Men in Black".

So, after a short period of negotiations failed, Sony instructed the interim management of Columbia to do another thing, asking to renegotiate the distribution contract with Flower Pictures for "Night at the Museum", "Forrest Gump" and even the "Mission Impossible" series that is still in theaters. (To be continued.) )