"Hollywood has grown stronger over the years, but it seems to me that Hollywood is also losing its creativity, whether it's high-budget blockbuster movies or low-budget horror and comedy films, it's becoming more and more like an assembly line commodity. www.biquge.info Of course, no one can deny that this assembly line model is very successful commercially. But at the same time, this high degree of industrialization in Hollywood has also made the living space of those alternative, rough, and anti-traditional films smaller and smaller, but this type of film actually has a large market demand. My Lionsgate film company focuses on the production and distribution of these films. ”

After a brief exchange of pleasantries in the ballroom of the Sunset Tower Hotel, Frank Gusta began to talk about his plans for Lionsgate.

After a brief moment of surprise, Eric returned to normal, listening with great interest to Frank Gusta's opinions, occasionally discussing them with the other party.

After chatting for a while, feeling that the young man in front of him didn't seem to show much interest in his film company, Frank Gusta hid his disappointment and politely said goodbye and left.

When Frank Gusta was gone, the girl asked, "Eric, what do you think?"

Eric nodded in agreement: "A person with a lot of ideas, if he continues to develop according to his ideas, the company in his hand is likely to have a place in Hollywood." ”

"I think so too, I just took him to talk to Amy and John, and everyone thinks he has a very good idea. So, Eric, how about we buy this studio, so that MGM has a subsidiary like New Line and Miramax. Didn't you say we needed to expand MGM's production department? ”

Eric recalled the history of Lionsgate, shook his head without thinking about it, and said, "No. ”

Historically, Lionsgate has grown into a Hollywood up-and-comer along what Frank Gusta just called 'alternative, rough, iconoclastic'.

However, the rise of Lionsgate has been fraught with intense controversy.

From the early anti-religious "Anger Against Heaven", to the later ban on "Irrevocable" by most countries around the world, to "Fahrenheit 911", which caused fierce confrontation with the Bush administration, Lionsgate's so-called anti-tradition is entirely based on offending most mainstream values.

If Lionsgate were a small company that had always been on its own, it would have been able to deal with the pressure of distributing these controversial films in a very single-handed manner.

But if MGM co-opts it, then the pressure will be magnified tenfold and hundredfold on MGM, the parent company. It can be said that such Lionsgate is a complete 'time bomb' for large studios.

Of course, after the acquisition, under MGM's control, Lionsgate may also be able to abandon these overly biased filmmaking and distribution ideas. But in this case, Lionsgate will lose its own characteristics, and it will be difficult to develop much.

The girl would never object to any of Eric's decisions, and when she heard him deny her idea without hesitation, she didn't ask why, so she said, "That's it, forget it." ”

Eric looked at the girl next to him holding a glass of orange juice like a kitten sipping, smiled and helped her straighten the straps of her dress that had slipped a little, and said, "A small company like Lionsgate may be a little more deviant, but MGM can't do that, and can't let its own subsidiaries do it." However, it is possible to cooperate, and we can give to such small companies alternative films that have good commercial potential but are not suitable for our own distribution. ”

In my memory, "Fahrenheit 911" was transferred by the Weinstein brothers to Lionsgate for distribution under the opposition of Disney's top management.

The film set a global record of $200 million at the documentary box office, but most of the profits still went to Disney, and Disney did not take the political risks of the film.

Meeting Lionsgate owner Frank Gusta was just a very inconspicuous episode, and Eric later learned from the girl that the other party was introduced by Clinton when she last went to Washington for E! Entertainment Subchannel, and Frank Gusta was one of Clinton's campaign funders.

The day after the celebration party, Eric's mind shifted to the transformation of the Gravity astronaut's helmet again.

Eric originally only planned to remove the glass cover, and later added it through CG special effects.

However, during the transformation process, Eric found again that the glass cover was embedded in the helmet, and if the glass cover was only removed, it would still be cumbersome to embed the CG glass cover into the helmet in the future. In reality, you can also disassemble the parts around the glass cover and put the glass cover inside, but in the post-production special effects process, it is impossible to 'disassemble' the helmet in the picture and directly put the CG model into it, and the edge of the picture is easy to be flawed.

To solve this problem, Eric and Robert Byron removed several sealing parts around the glass cover and CG modeled the parts around the glass cover to form a complete CG module with the CG glass cover.

This may sound like a hassle, but in reality, it took only two days to disassemble the helmet, install the sensors, and test the CG modeling, with strong technical support in the digital field.

Going into the workday, filming for "Gravity" restarted without delay, and after a short run-in, Jodie Foster and George Clooney quickly adapted to the new equipment.

Eric almost didn't listen to anything outside the window in order to shoot "Gravity". However, for the North American media and the general public, there is really more news related to the firefly system during this time.

At the beginning of the new week, the board of directors of Firefly Investment and AOL held a press conference, announcing that the major shareholders of AOL will jointly invest in 16.5 million shares of Firefly Investment at a price of $4 billion, accounting for 10% of AOL's total share capital.

At the same time, John Mark also announced at this press conference that Morgan Stanley will underwrite another 24.75 million shares in the hands of Firefly Investment.

After the completion of the two plans, Firefly Investment's shareholding in AOL will be reduced to 7.6%, and with the increase in holdings of former AOL shareholders such as Vanguard Group and Goldman Sachs, Firefly Investment will withdraw from the top five major shareholders of AOL.

Chris also publicly stated at the press conference that after reducing its 25% stake in AOL, Firefly Investment will not have any plans to reduce its holdings of AOL shares in the next year.

Although many Wall Street analysts have reservations about Morgan Stanley's stock underwriting plan, they believe that AOL's stock price is high and the investment is very risky. However, no one doubts that the powerful Morgan Stanley will be able to digest the $6 billion share sale contract.

Therefore, the stimulus to AOL's stock price was also immediate.

With the convening of the press conference, the shadow of Firefly investment holdings that had shrouded AOL for more than half a month finally dissipated. AOL shares rebounded 5.6% again on Monday, with a single-day trading volume of more than $1 billion, and AOL's market capitalization also breaking through the $46 billion mark in one fell swoop.

On the other hand, many people have also noted that once the 25% share of AOL is successfully completed, the deal will bring $10 billion in cash to Firefly Investment.

As a pure equity investment company, even taking into account the cost of reducing holdings and the capital gains tax of up to 20% in the later stage, Firefly Investment will hold an astonishing level of cash reserves in the future.

You must know that even among the world's top 500 corporate giants, there are very few companies with nearly $10 billion in discretionary cash reserves.

Take Wal-Mart, which has a lot of cash flow in many people's impressions, the cash flow of the retail industry is naturally very large, but at this time, Wal-Mart's annual turnover has just exceeded 100 billion US dollars, and due to its huge purchase costs and human resource costs of millions of employees, Wal-Mart maintains cash reserves that are actually less than 5 billion US dollars.

In comparison, the cash reserves held by Firefly Investment are more valuable than other corporate giants with cash reserves of the same size, because the debt ratio of Firefly Investment is 0, there is no debt, and all its subsidiaries are operating very well, and there is no need to reserve emergency funds, which means that Firefly Investment can use this huge amount of funds at will completely according to its own wishes.

When all kinds of media, from Wall Street professional economic magazines to gossip tabloids, are taking the initiative to help Firefly invest in 'making ideas' on how to spend the money, on Wednesday, in Los Angeles Century City, MGM also announced that the trio of the "Breaking Bad" series signed two more sequels to the Spy Cinematic Universe with the company.

Many people still remember the salary dispute between Piers Brosnan and MGM, the actor of the 007 series last year, and no one thought that the "Breaking Bad" series, which might have caused a salary storm again, was so quietly settled that it did not cause waves in many people's imagination at all.

Although MGM did not release the terms of the contract, the professional Hollywood media could also anticipate that, according to Eric Williams's character, if the trio's salary conditions were too high, MGM would not agree to it anyway.

Therefore, most people speculate that in this salary negotiation, the trio of "Breaking Bad" must have taken the initiative to back down.

Some well-informed media people even inquired about some details of what happened at the "Breaking Bads 3" celebration party, but when it came to Eric Williams, these gossips must not be published in the newspapers in a grand manner.

However, in any case, it is an indisputable fact that the "Breaking Bad" series has successfully crossed the curse of the Hollywood trilogy.

After breaking $200 million in two weeks, under the pressure of "Scorpion King", the box office decline of "Breaking Bads 3" in the third week of the weekend was finally locked at 46%, collecting another $28.11 million, and the cumulative box office reached $232 million.

After "The Scorpion King", in the entire summer file, except for the movie version of "The X-Files" at the end of July, no heavyweight major production has been released, so according to the word-of-mouth and box office trend shown by "Thunderbolt 3", it will be very easy for the North American box office of this film to break through the $300 million mark.

The North American box office is directly at 300 million US dollars, and the world is expected to hit the $1 billion mark, and the three heroines have completed contract renewals, and the film has successfully crossed the trilogy curse...... This series of good news, like a shot in the arm, strongly stimulated MGM's stock price.

Throughout the third week of "Breaking Bads 3" was released, MGM's stock price rose almost as quickly as the film's box office. In just over a few days, MGM's market capitalization has reached $25.3 billion, and MGM's shareholders are naturally ecstatic, with more than $400% of their share in just over three years, compared to less than $5 billion when the acquisition was just completed.

In this attention, many media also suddenly discovered that according to MGM's market value of more than $25 billion, Drew Barrymore, who holds 33.56% of MGM's shares, a girl under the age of 25, has unknowingly reached $8.5 billion.

$8.5 billion, even if she can't make it to the top 10 of the world's richest list, this wealth can definitely make this young girl the richest woman in the world.

In addition to envy and amazement, doubts are inevitable.

Even though Firefly Group has a pivotal position in the North American media industry, there are still various opinion articles in many North American media that question the legitimacy of the girl's net worth. No matter how much equality is pursued, everyone knows that the whole world is still just a patriarchal society. If a man creates such a miracle, he may get more just admiration, but women who are too good will almost inevitably be subjected to all kinds of suspicion and doubts.

Firefly Studios, time has unconsciously come to Friday again.

It's nightfall, most of the employees in the studio have gotten off work, and in the restaurant on the big ship, Elizabeth and Eric are sitting opposite each other, holding the menu in their hands and flipping through it carelessly, but Elizabeth is unforgiving: "8.5 billion US dollars, our family has probably been so many years, you give her so much, aren't you afraid that one day this Nizi will suddenly turn against you, find a little white face to marry you or something?"

Eric smiled and ordered a few dishes to send the smiling waiter away, saying, "Actually, if you want, I can give you so much." ”