Monster Power was supposed to be a Pixar project, but Eric sold Disney's hand-drawn animation division, and after the reorganization of the new Disney animation studio, Peter Doggett, the director and writer of Monster Power, was transferred to Disney Animation, and this project followed, becoming the first work of Disney Animation Studio after the digital transformation. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Paramount has already released two back-to-back titles, Pocahonta and The Lion King 2, after buying the hand-drawn animation studio, and while the significantly higher salaries of the hand-drawn animators have caused the cost of both animations to skyrocket, overall, both 2D animated films have been commercially successful.

Therefore, as the first work after Disney abandoned the hand-drawn animation department, if the box office of "Monster Electric Company" does not reach a satisfactory level, Eric's move to sell Disney's hand-drawn animation department is destined to be criticized and ridiculed again, and perhaps even the Firefly Group will criticize it.

However, compared to the expectation and apprehension of Katzenberg, who is directly in charge of Disney Animation Studio, Eric is much more relaxed.

Because he likes the wonderful idea of this animated film very much, from the beginning of the project, Eric has been paying attention to the production progress of this animated film in all aspects for more than two years, and has also added some interesting story details himself. Therefore, Eric is still very confident in the box office of "Monster Electric Company". What's more, the majority of the profits of animated films are not at the box office, and peripheral products are the bulk of the profits of this type of film.

Speaking of which, stimulated by the two hit films "Titanic" at the end of last year and "Finding Nemo" this summer, coupled with the fact that the development rights of peripheral products of the "Lion King" series are still in the hands of Firefly, the sales of Firefly Group's peripheral products this year have almost doubled compared with last year, but in the first three quarters, the sales revenue of peripheral products has reached 2.5 billion US dollars.

Due to the release of another new 3D animated film "Monster Electric Company" at the end of the year, and Thanksgiving and Christmas are peak consumption seasons, the company expects that the sales revenue of the company's peripheral products is likely to exceed $1 billion in the final quarter.

This means that the sales revenue of Firefly Group's peripheral products in 1997 will reach 3.5 billion US dollars.

The $3.5 billion sales revenue of peripheral products is equivalent to almost 10% of the annual revenue of the entire Firefly Group, compared with about 5% in previous years.

Moreover, compared with the average net profit margin of about 11% for all businesses of Firefly Group, the net profit margin of peripheral products has reached 25%. Therefore, the peripheral products alone will bring more than $800 million in profits to the Firefly Group this year.

A little comparison shows how amazing the revenue of Firefly Group's peripheral products is.

According to the data that has been made public, in the first three quarters, the total revenue of Time Warner Group's peripheral products was only 370 million US dollars, and the profit was even more pitiful, which was because Warner Bros. released "Batman and Robin" this year, a film that drove the sales of Batman peripherals to some extent despite the box office fiasco.

Even Viacom, which relies on the retail channel of the Blockbuster chain store to develop peripheral business, although "The Lion King 2" has brought good box office revenue to Paramount, because it does not have the peripheral development rights of the "Lion King" series, Viacom's peripheral product sales revenue in the first three quarters was less than 600 million US dollars, and even the profit figures of Firefly Group's peripheral products are not as good.

After attending the premiere of "Monster Electric Company" and showing his face at the party that followed, Eric left early.

Back at Jianjiao Manor, it was past ten o'clock in the evening.

Entering the lobby of the villa, Eric saw the reception area on the west side of the glass curtain wall lit up.

As she walked by, she saw Aniston wrapped in a blanket, curled up on the couch like a kitten sleeping soundly, a white Fireflyer player with headphones dropped on the floor next to her, and an open copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in her hand.

Carefully picking up the Fireflyer player and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and placing them on the coffee table, Eric didn't bother Aniston and walked lightly to the kitchen.

After making a pot of coffee and sitting down on the couch next to Aniston, Eric gave himself a cup of coffee and began to look through the thick pile of papers on the coffee table in the reception area.

After staying in the UK for a month, although everything was running as usual in the Firefly Group, the huge scale of the Firefly system was placed there, and during this time, a lot of things that needed to be handled by Eric were gradually accumulated. The documents and materials related to the company's administrative affairs are handled in the office, and the pile on the coffee table in front of me is basically film project materials.

Compared with a series of heavyweight big-budget films this year, Firefly's film release plan next year has been much reduced.

Except for Michael Bay's "The Day After Tomorrow", Firefly will no longer have any heavyweight blockbusters released next year.

Originally, there could be a sequel to "The Matrix", but Eric sold the production rights of "The Matrix" to Amberlin Pictures, which was established by Spielberg and others, and now Paramount, who is responsible for the distribution, has set "The Matrix 2" for next summer, but there is no news of "The Matrix 3", I don't know if Amberlin and Paramount will be as eager to take out "The Matrix 3" at the end of next year as Time Warner in the original time and space. Since Amberlin took over the back-to-back shooting plan of the Wachowski brothers, and there was no rumor of revising the script later, Eric is still not too optimistic about these two sequels.

Although with the popularity accumulated by the first part, excluding all the costs, the two sequels will definitely make Amberlin and Paramount a fortune, but Eric has no regrets.

The $300 million he received from the sale of the rights to the sequel to "The Matrix" was invested in the Clover Fund to buy technology stocks, and now that the $300 million has doubled, it will be okay to double it again in the next two years. In comparison, the two sequels to "The Matrix", even if calculated according to the global box office of $1.2 billion in the previous life, plus various revenues such as videotapes in the later period, will definitely not bring more than $600 million in profits to Amberlin and Paramount.

Retracting his wandering thoughts, Eric glanced at the document in his hand.

This is a 3D-IMAX format film that IMAX plans to produce, called "Return to the White Age". Before Firefly acquired IMAX, the film had already been established. IMAX changed hands, and the decision on whether the film would start filming or not fell to the firefly.

The film is planned to be only 45 minutes long and has a budget of $15 million. Prior to this, IMAX had been assisting museums in the production of IMAX documentaries, which were planned to be only 45 minutes long, but if they were made, they would be the first IMAX format films.

Eric simply flipped through the script, which was very rough, but thinking about it, this film is not for storytelling, but mainly to promote and demonstrate 3D-IMAX technology.

After thinking about it for a while, Eric picked up the pen on the coffee table and approved a line at the end of the document, agreeing to the filming. With two years to go before the '4200' project is implemented, the film can really be used to show the visuals of 3D-IMAX in advance, and at the same time, the IMAX team will continue to build up the technology.

Placing the folder aside, Eric flipped through several other scripts one after another.

Due to the long production cycle of special effects blockbusters, it is inevitable that Firefly will experience a short trough in this regard. Since Firefly will only have one heavyweight big-budget film next year, "The Day After Tomorrow", Eric plans to look for a few low- and medium-budget films with good box office potential to fill this vacancy.

At present, the project has been established "Teddy Bear", although it is also a special effects movie, but the production of "Teddy Bear" is much simpler than "Iron Man" and "Lord of the Rings", and it is expected to be released by the end of next year.

In addition, Eric's request for Katzenberg to send someone to Japan to search for horror film scripts has also come to fruition.

Right now, the scripts for "Midnight Bell" and "The Grudge" are in front of him in the pile of papers, which Eric had picked out from a long list of Japanese horror synopsis by email when he was in the UK, and he had not yet had time to read the detailed scripts.

Eric remembered that "Midnight Bell" was released in 1998, and originally thought that Firefly could only get the remake rights.

But unexpectedly, when the Firefly staff searched for a horror film script in Japan, although the script of this classic horror film had been completed, filming had not yet started.

The Japanese naturally didn't know that "Midnight Bell" would break the box office record of Japanese horror films, and since the script was favored by Hollywood giants, they naturally offered it with both hands, so Firefly easily cut off the script. The other "Curse" was obtained directly from the original screenwriter and director Shimizu Chong, but there were no twists and turns.

After reading the script quietly for a while, Eric looked up and was about to pick up his coffee, only to see Aniston wake up at some point, lying there with a pair of beautiful eyes wide open and looking at him motionless.

Eric smiled and clapped his hands and said, "Here, hug." ”

Aniston pouted in dissatisfaction when she heard Eric tease the kitten. However, the chick soon kicked off the blanket on her body and floated lightly.

Eric watched Aniston lunge towards him, quickly put aside the folder on his lap, and reached out to hug the chick in his arms.

Kissing on that sweet face, Eric smiled: "I said a long time ago that you would go to the premiere with me, isn't it lonely to stay here alone?"

Aniston's pointed chin slammed into Eric's shoulder, and she whispered lazily, "I'm not going, I don't want to be found out that I'm reconciled with you again." ”

"Heh, you're doing this like stealing a bell with your ears plugged in, and if you can't hear it, you think that others can't hear it. The last time there was such a big commotion, you still expect others to know," Eric teased with a smile as he put his arm around her waist.

Aniston gently gnawed on Eric's shoulder in dissatisfaction, but he was wearing a coat and the taste was not too good, so he quickly let go of his little white teeth and said, "Anyway, with you, even if they know, they have to pretend not to know." ”

"Well, that's true," Eric still smiled, his large hand resting on Aniston's waist unsatisfied, unsatisfied.

"You guy," Aniston twisted her waist when she felt the movement of Eric's big hand, not knowing whether she was resisting or pandering, and after a while, she felt that Eric's movements were getting more and more excessive, and then she said, "Don't be here, go to the bedroom." ”

"Okay," Eric got up with the chick in his arms and said, "Let's go take a shower first." ”

……

The next day, he was woken up by a knock on the door.

Eric had just opened his eyes, and before he could get foggy, the bedroom door had been pushed open, and Drew rushed in with a wicked smile and jumped directly on the big bed: "Hey, chubby, good morning." ”

Saying this, the girl did unceremoniously grab Aniston with her cold little hand.

The chick, who was also a little confused, saw Drew, and immediately came to her senses, like a cat that had encountered a natural enemy, and grabbed a pillow to block Drew without hesitation, without showing weakness in her mouth: "Little Bichi, do you think I can't beat you?"

"Hah, let's try it. ”

"Wait a minute, don't run. ”

Saying this, the two are already entangled.

Eric reluctantly put on his clothes, seeing that Aniston and Drew didn't mean to greet the important parts, knowing that they had a sense of proportion in their hearts, so they didn't dissuade them, and planned to let the cats fight.

When he walked to the door, he planned to go to the other bathrooms to wash up, and when he saw the twins guarding the door, he ordered: "Take care of them, and pull them away if you are in a hurry, if Drew wants you to help, don't hear it, and don't get involved in this kind of thing in the future." ”

Seeing the twins nodding their heads in understanding, Eric was relieved to leave.

After a brief wash, I went to exercise for a while before I went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for everyone.

While frying eggs, Aniston and Drew finally appeared in the dining room outside, and although the two women were still arguing, they had no intention of doing anything more.

"Now, now you're done with your workout, let's get ready to eat," Eric said, raising his chin toward the bread that had already been prepared, "Bring these to the dining room, and find out what you want to eat in the fridge yourself." ”

The girl smiled and rubbed over, and said, "Eric, there is a lack of a heroine in a movie that MGM is preparing, oh, if you want a sweetheart type, it's better to be over thirty years old." ”

The chick was not to be outdone: "Hmph, then you are just right, it's best to be like in "Scream", and you will be hung on a tree in the first five minutes." ”

Eric knocked on one of the two women's heads and said, "Okay, that's the end of today's confrontation, I want to find a sweetheart over thirty years old to contact Meg Ryan, and if I want to act in a horror movie, find me, well, who will bring me today's newspaper." (To be continued.) )