Eric returned to Los Angeles on June 10, and Firefly Group's second film in the summer season, "Cars," had just completed its first week of screening. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Compared to other Pixar studio titles, "Cars", while maintaining a consistent production standard, was also widely considered by critics to be too young in theme and not friendly to adult audiences.

In its first week of release, "Cars" grossed $83.32 million, slightly below the expectations of the distribution department.

However, the car toys developed around "Cars" were very popular with the release of the film, and even far exceeded the expectations of the Firefly Group.

In just one week, the sales of "Cars" exceeded 200 million US dollars, easily surpassing the sales data of Star Wars merchandise at the same time when "Star Wars Prequel 1: The Phantom Menace" was released at the end of last year.

Firefly Group's Consumer Products Division even made a very bold report, predicting that the sales scale of merchandise in the entire operation cycle of "Cars" is likely to be second only to the "Star Wars" series.

According to first-week sales figures, this year alone, Cars' sales of all aspects of merchandise will reach between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. Coupled with the box office success of "Iron Man", which is also very rich in peripheral products, the revenue of Firefly Group's consumer products business is expected to double this year to about $6 billion.

Based on an average net profit margin of about 15%, the sales of peripheral products of 6 billion US dollars will bring a net profit of 900 million US dollars to Firefly Group.

According to the financial data for the first half of the year, even if the huge non-operating profit brought by the Clover Fund is not included, the net profit of Firefly Group in 1999 will exceed the $4 billion mark for the first time.

In this way, the Consumer Products Division alone will contribute more than 20% of the net profit share of the entire Firefly Group, compared to about 10% in previous years.

Although the Firefly Group has the intention of making a fortune in a muffled voice, it has no intention of promoting the hot sales around "Cars". However, this matter was quickly unearthed by the media, and there were even "supernatural" media who got the forecast report of the group's consumer product department.

Last year, in order to gain more initiative in the merger with AOL, Time Warner Group's well-designed annual financial report only achieved an annual profit of more than $1.9 billion.

Now, Firefly Group is only a consumer products division, and the profit contributed by Time Warner Group is close to half of last year, how can this not make the whole of Hollywood red?

Although Pixar Animation Studios has also established similar software technical barriers to the digital field, a series of Pixar's core creative personnel have quickly become the target of headhunters, and even John Lasseter has been approached, and the conditions offered have made Eric himself a little 'excited'.

In order to avoid the loss of talent, Firefly Group had to launch another round of salary increase plans for Pixar Studios.

In the original time and space, Eric always wondered why studios such as Blue Sky Animation and Illumination Entertainment were able to keep the production cost of animated films as low as $60 million, while Pixar Studios had a production budget of $200 million.

Now I understand it thoroughly.

The main investment in animated films is the labor cost, the same 500-person production team, the two-year production cycle, the average annual salary of the team of 100,000 US dollars and the average annual salary of the team of 50,000 US dollars, can directly double the production budget.

Not only does Pixar Studio have a much larger animation production team than other small animation studios, but the average annual salary of its staff is also far higher than that of other companies, so the production cost of animated films is naturally high.

In addition to "Toy Story", Amberlin Pictures' "The Matrix 3" finally chose a release date on Wednesday, June 9.

There's a very common unspoken rule in Hollywood movie release dates, and if a film chooses a non-Friday release date, it usually means that the producer doesn't have much confidence in the box office of the film, so they will lengthen the first week cycle in order to get a higher box office in the early days of release.

"The Matrix 3" obviously did not escape the shackles of this rule, last year's "The Matrix 2" has consumed a large part of the popularity of fans, Amberlin Pictures did not choose to let the finale be released as soon as possible at the end of last year, but dragged it to this year's summer file, a year of waiting, once again made many viewers lose interest in this series.

With the one-sided bad reviews after the release of "The Matrix 3", after the first week of the two-day box office of $35.15 million, the film's subsequent box office curve fell all the way, and finally the box office in the second week from June 11 to June 17 was only $62.53 million, and in the third week of the next week, the box office fell by 67%, and the total box office in North America is expected to not even reach the production cost line of 150 million.

The failure of "The Matrix 3" also became the last straw that made Amberlin Pictures fall apart.

According to some news in the industry, David Geffen, Spielberg and George Lucas have begun discussions about a spin-off, and Microsoft, which had invested heavily in Amberlin Pictures, stopped funding the film company last year.

The failure of this film company, which was once thought to have the potential to replicate the miracle of the Firefly Group and become another major studio in Hollywood, also made many people realize that in the future of Hollywood, it is obvious that there will be no latecomers who can be tied with the current seven.

In addition to a series of new films, "Iron Man" is still steadily acquiring the box office.

In its seventh week of release, the film grossed another $10.6 million at the North American box office, bringing the cumulative box office to $359.11 million.

Although it will fall below $10 million next week, the North American box office of nearly $360 million is already close to the total North American box office of Eric's last directorial work "007: Casino Royale" of $370 million.

It's just that according to the current box office curve, it is unlikely that "Iron Man" will hit the $400 million local box office in North America.

$400 million also seems to have become a threshold.

Of course, even so, no one was too disappointed by this.

At the same time, with the continuous increase in the number of box offices, the overseas box office figure of "Iron Man" easily exceeded 500 million US dollars, although it also entered the closing period, but in the next few months, counting North America, there is no suspense that the global box office of "Iron Man" will exceed 1 billion US dollars.

Unconsciously, many people suddenly discovered that although "Iron Man" is Eric's starring work, counting "Jurassic Park" and "007: Casino Royale", this is the third film he has led to participate in to reach the global box office level of $1 billion.

A filmmaker who makes a film that surpasses $1 billion at the global box office will be instantly crowned by Hollywood.

However, a filmmaker who has made three films with a global box office of $1 billion in a row can only be described as a miracle.

Moreover, with the continuous disclosure of all aspects of "Gravity", many people have gradually realized that this is likely to be another Eric Williams $1 billion box office miracle.

After rushing to New York for the celebration of AOL's merger with Time Warner, Eric returned to Los Angeles, and devoted most of his energy to the final cut of "Gravity."

"Gravity" adopts the mode of production and transformation, and in the process of post-production, the 3D conversion studio in the digital field has simultaneously converted the corresponding 2D footage into 3D graphics, and even includes IMAX-3D conversion.

Eric also did this to hone his 3D transformation team during the film's production process, while further refining the 3D and IMAX technology based on some of the lessons he remembers.

Now, the 3D transformation of Gravity has been completed at the same time, and the team in the digital field has begun to work on a 3D version of Tales of the Night.

Although the 2D film of "The Lord of the Rings" has been completed, Eric still hopes that the transformation team will go through the "Tales of the Night" training before devoting themselves to the transformation of "The Lord of the Rings". The release date of "The Lord of the Rings" is December 17, and there is plenty of time.

It's so busy, and before you know it, it's come to the end of June.

Near noon, Bill Gates got out of the parking lot of Firefly Studios, although he didn't have any expectations, but he still felt a little unhappy when he saw Eric's tall blonde female assistant waiting next to the parking lot.

"Hello, Mr. Gates," Mayer politely shook Bill Gates' hand as if noticing Bill Gates' expression, and said, "Please come with me." ”

As Mayer walked out of the parking lot, Bill Gates couldn't help but say, "Is Eric busy?"

Mayer nodded: "The boss has recently been finishing the final cut of his new movie. ”

Bill Gates listened to Mayer's corporatized polite tone, remembering that he had just planted a heel in a woman recently, so he didn't talk about himself. But I couldn't help but think in my heart, Eric Williams should obviously have a much greater chance of getting a head on a woman than himself, why hasn't this guy encountered something unlucky like himself.

All the way to the studio in the digital realm, Bill Gates, under the guidance of Mayer, had just sat down in the break room when Eric walked in with a few other people, laughing and laughing.

Bill Gates hesitated, but still stood up, and took the initiative to greet him with a smile on his face.

"Bill, it's nice to see you again," Eric shook hands with Bill Gates and introduced the group next to him, "This is Jim, Michael, you must know him, and Peter, who is the director of the Lord of the Rings series." ”

Microsoft has always had ambitions to enter Hollywood, and although it has just failed to return from Amberlin, Bill Gates has not given up on the idea.

At this time, looking at James Cameron and Michael Bay, the hot Hollywood directors, he also shook hands with everyone very politely, exchanged a few words of greeting, and then jokingly asked: "Eric, are you going to make any big moves again?"

Eric sat down with everyone and said, "It's still about 3D movies, and there are some new technological breakthroughs in the digital field, so let's come and take a look." ”

In fact, in the past six months, in order to further lay out the 3D-IMAX film technology, a series of descendants of the Firefly system have often appeared in Firefly Studios. Eric also personally approved a budget of up to $20 million to allow these core directors of the Firefly system to shoot 3D short films to familiarize themselves with all aspects of 3D and IMAX technology.

The core technology of 3D and IMAX is in the hands of the digital field, and Eric is not worried that these directors will switch to other companies after mastering the application of 3D-IMAX technology.

Everyone drank a cup of coffee and chatted casually for a while, knowing that Eric and Bill Gates must have something serious to discuss, and Cameron took the initiative to leave.

Eric takes Bill Gates to the ship's restaurant.

After ordering the meal, the two quickly turned to today's topic.

Five years ago, in order to make Yahoo Browser Microsoft's default browser, along with a series of other terms of cooperation, Yahoo signed a forward equity subscription agreement with Microsoft that would allow Microsoft to acquire up to 30 percent of Yahoo after five years.

The contract expires next month, and Microsoft has a three-month cooling-off period to decide whether or not to exercise the subscription.

Bill Gates's original intention was to buy a 30% stake in Yahoo first, and then gradually increase his stake in Yahoo through public market absorption and other means, and finally control the company.

But now, things have changed much more than you thought at the beginning.

With the continuous explosion of Nasdaq technology stocks, Microsoft's current market capitalization has reached $560 billion, and Yahoo's recent market value has also rushed to $170 billion.

The original contract gave Microsoft the option to acquire the company in any form of value, such as a share exchange or cash.

But now, Yahoo's 30% stake is worth more than $50 billion, and Microsoft can't come up with such a sum of cash anyway. In the case of the share exchange, although on the surface, Microsoft only needs 10% of the shares to get 30% of Yahoo's shares, which seems to be a big advantage for Microsoft.

But in fact, many people understand that Microsoft, which already has a monopoly position in the industry, has a 10% stake in the gold content far more than the value of 30% of Yahoo's shares.

Moreover, once the share exchange acquisition is carried out, Firefly Systems will become the second largest shareholder of Microsoft, and will even soon become the largest shareholder as Bill Gates continues to reduce his holdings in Microsoft.

Microsoft did not have a dual-class share structure in the first place, and if Firefly became the largest shareholder of Microsoft, it would likely threaten Bill Gates' own control of Microsoft.

In comparison, even if 30% of Yahoo's shares are transferred, Firefly Investment still directly holds more than 48% of Yahoo's shares, and as long as the Firefly system is willing, it can achieve absolute control of the company at any time, so unless Eric Ken takes the initiative to let go, it is impossible for Microsoft to gradually seize control of Yahoo as Bill Gates envisioned.

As a result, the current situation is that the original forward equity subscription contract has become a complete chicken rib for Microsoft.