Elizabeth is only one step away from president at Fox, and with the special status of Murdoch's daughter, she has a lot of real power. It's just that the company's big project with an investment of more than $50 million definitely needs to be approved by the board of directors, and the chairman of Fox is, of course, her old man.

Eric's proposal to let Fox participate in part of the investment in "Titanic" is actually to fine-tune Murdoch and secretly fight for more power for Elizabeth.

He knew that Murdoch, as a standard businessman, would never agree to throw money into such a bottomless pit as "Titanic", and in his previous life, because Fox was too shrewd, in order to avoid risks, he sold the North American distribution rights to Paramount at a price of only $60 million, and as a result, the North American box office of "Titanic" was 600 million, and Fox was all crying.

This time, if "Titanic" is not a big success, forget it, once the film is a box office hit like the original, Murdoch will definitely pay more attention to Elizabeth's advice in the future. Elizabeth correspondingly has more decision-making power in the company.

The next day, while Eric was in his office, he received a call from Elizabeth, and the outcome was not what he expected.

After the Oscars, "Forrest Gump" won six heavyweight awards such as Best Picture and Best Director from thirteen nominations, especially Tom Hanks's re-election, which suddenly became a hot spot for the media, and the box office of the film that was screened in hundreds of theaters in North America rebounded significantly, and in the ninth month of the film's release, it still received more than $3 million at the box office in a single week, and Firefly, who got the copyright of "Forrest Gump" other than the North American distribution rights, also began the next phase of the film's distribution plan.

Firefly Studios, on Friday, after a period of research, Katzenberg took out the evaluation of 3D and IMAX technology.

"According to the detailed research of the Strategic Planning Department, everyone feels that the current 3D technology may still have the possibility of promotion, but IMAX is not, there are too many restrictions on this technology, and there is no possibility of large-scale promotion. ”

The two were still sitting in a café in the studio, and Eric pushed the coffee to the side, flipped through the materials that Katzenberg had sorted out, and asked, "What is the main reason?"

Between 3D and IMAX, Eric actually prefers the latter, which may be the result of being poisoned by too many pseudo-3D movies in his previous life.

"The main thing is the cost," Katzenberg obviously did a lot of homework, without looking through the information, he blurted out: "Just take the cost of theater renovation, for 3D, most movie theaters only need to replace a set of projection system, the current most advanced polarization 3D movie projector, the price is only about 100,000 US dollars, plus 3D eyes and other hardware, all the transformation cost will not exceed 150,000 US dollars." But IMAX is different, small IMAX screens are as tall as four or five stories tall, and more than 99% of movie theaters in the United States and Europe are not eligible for modification. If you want to build an IMAX theater, you have to start from scratch, and the construction of the venue plus the projection equipment will cost about $1.5 million, which is ten times the cost of 3D theater renovation. ”

Listening to Katzenberg's explanation, Eric suddenly understood why the mainland had become the fastest developing area for IMAX technology in his previous life. Because the popularity of IMAX and the explosion of the film industry went almost simultaneously there, a large number of new theaters could determine IMAX specifications from the start. But North America is different from Europe, where the film industry has been developed for more than 100 years, and the supporting movie theaters have long been finalized, and the screening halls of these theaters basically do not meet the IMAX renovation standards. In the face of such a high cost of IMAX theaters, the enthusiasm of traditional theater chains to rebuild IMAX theaters will not be too high.

After flipping through the materials in my hand, in addition to the cost of theater renovation, if you want to popularize IMAX, from film shooting to film conversion, almost all of them are accompanied by very high cost requirements.

Relatively speaking, the difficulty of popularizing 3D technology is much lower, and at present, IMAX technology is not able to support a complete movie duration of more than 90 minutes, but 3D technology has been roughly mature, and the main reason why it cannot be promoted is the lack of 3D film sources and 3D theaters. Even, the current 'reputation' of 3D technology is not very good, because many theaters with 3D equipment show **** films that give people a sense of curiosity.

Eric is not a blind idealist and knows that many things need to be done gradually.

After thinking about it for a moment, he said: "I see that IMAX is recently developing DMR reset technology for converting ordinary film to IMAX film, and you can make people pay attention to it, the other party's financial situation does not seem to be very good, we can invest a sum of money into it, and it will be regarded as an angel investment." In addition, on our own side, we have set up a dedicated 3D technology research and development department in the digital field, well, when I finish filming "Casino Royale", I may be able to try 3D in the next film. ”

Katzenberg nodded, and he roughly took Eric's suggestions into account, but after Eric finished speaking, Katzenberg continued: "Eric, I also think that 3D technology will definitely be a new area of development in the film industry in the next few years, so don't you think this is a good time for us to enter the theater industry?"

"Cinema?" Eric raised an eyebrow in surprise, he hadn't thought about it.

In the 80s, during the Reagan administration, the federal government gradually liberalized the control of the entertainment industry, and the Paramount Act, which separated the film company from the theater chain, had existed in name only, and Viacom, Time Warner, and Universal all had their own movie theater chains, of which Viacom held the largest theater chain, with a super high 3,000 screens in the United States.

However, the development and rise of Firefly was relatively late, and before it had time to set foot in the theater business, it was bound by the deep-rooted concepts of the Paramount Act, and Eric subconsciously did not consider this matter.

At this time, after being reminded by Katzenberg, Eric found that in recent years, it is indeed the best time for Fireflies to get involved in the theater business.

Although many people always think that "Avatar" is the beginning of the rise of 3D movies, in fact, in the years before and after the new century, 3D movies have appeared, and the more well-known films such as "Spider-Man" and "Harry Potter" in the previous life have 3D versions, but because of various limiting factors, these films have not reached the powerful influence of "Avatar".

Whether it is 3D technology or IMAX, it has been around for more than 30 years, so the promotion of these technologies is not difficult in terms of technology, but the difficulty is only the lack of strong institutions to promote.

At this time, it may be a good choice for Fireflies to be such a 'pioneer'.

After all, according to the historical trajectory, the North American film market will reach saturation around 2000, and the market growth in the next ten years is completely driven by the increase in ticket prices.

After thinking about it for a while, Eric put down the empty coffee cup and said, "Jeffrey, this matter can be added to the next development plan of Firefly, but I hope you can be very cautious." I've always wanted the fireflies to be stronger, but I'm also worried that the fireflies will become sluggish and bloated due to blind expansion, you know?"

"Of course, I won't do this lightly without 100% certainty. ”

Eric nodded, picked up the coffee pot and added a cup of coffee to himself, and said, "Do you know what Steven and they're doing?"

"David also talked to me and asked me to come over and help, but I refused," Katzenberg said, "They will make a public announcement next month, but I don't know the details." ”

David Geffen and Katzenberg have always been good friends, and Eric knows this, but the friendship factor is unlikely to drive a determined business elite to change places, and the former Katzenberg has no choice, and at this point, he clearly understands that the Firefly is the best stage for him to stretch his talents. (To be continued.) )