"I talked to Jon Landau in the morning, and Robert was personally watching it, and we should be able to win all of them this time, and Titanic is arguably undisputed in that regard. www.biquge.info However, the six core nominations of Best Picture, Best Director and the four major acting awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, Leonardo's performance can only be said to be passing, and there are no outstanding supporting male roles in the film, and the other four award nominations should be locked in advance. ”

In Firefly Studios, in the spacious office loft of the digital field, Eric and Katzenberg sat in the lounge area together, listened to him, and subconsciously said: "In other words, or 14?"

Katzenberg didn't notice the other meanings implied in Eric's words, he thought that Eric had also calculated before, so he said this, nodded and said: "Yes, 14, there are 24 Oscars in total, but "Titanic" definitely can't get nominations for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animation and other things that have nothing to do with the film, which first ruled out 7. Of the remaining 17 nominations, Best Film Score is divided into drama and musical comedy, which eliminated another one, and we didn't hope to win Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, so there were only 14 left. However, with just these 14 nominations, we have been able to equal the nomination record set by "Comet Beauty" in 1950, and the number of awards is likely to exceed that of "Ben-Hur". ”

As soon as Eric said that, he was already aware of the language problem, but fortunately, Katzenberg didn't care, and he didn't show any abnormality.

If it weren't for the recent media questioning of the Golden Globes, Eric might have forced Leonardo to have a Best Actor nomination for Leonardo, surpassing the nomination record of "Comet Beauty".

However, because of the widespread questioning of the Golden Globe Awards, although the Oscar jury no longer dared to ignore the award-winning strength of "Titanic" this time, it also paid more attention to its own credibility.

Although it is impossible to break the "Comet Beauty" record in terms of the number of nominations, as Katzenberg said, it is still possible to surpass the record of 11 statuettes in "Ben-Hur".

The two discussed the details of PR, and Eric asked, "How's the overseas distribution going?"

Similar to North America, most of the countries where "Titanic" has been released overseas have stepped out of the box office curve similar to that of North America.

Especially in the United Kingdom, the box office equivalent to US dollars in four weeks has exceeded 36 million, according to the current box office trend, the British box office of "Titanic" will easily exceed the box office record of 71 million US dollars created by "Jurassic Park" a few years ago, it is not impossible to break 100 million, in addition, the box office performance of Spain, Australia and other countries and regions is also very good, just these nine overseas box office markets that have been released, the cumulative box office in a month has reached 92 million US dollars. Stimulated by this excellent box office performance, overseas filmmakers, who were quite cold to the release of "Titanic" at the beginning, have completely changed their initial attitude at this time and are extremely eager.

"I'm going to fly to Europe next week, and Robert will be going to Japan to talk to the local distribution and cinema chains in person," Katzenberg paused, "Eric, my idea is that we don't need to pursue a higher share ratio, the average 35% share is already very good compared to previous years, and asking for a higher share will definitely discourage local publishers." However, we can ask for more resources in terms of publicity, schedules and theaters. ”

Although Firefly has its own branches in the world's major ticket warehouse countries, the specific distribution work also needs to cooperate with local distribution companies, and it is inevitable to give each other a certain hairstyle share.

Katzenberg was personally in charge of European distribution, and Robert Thompson, president of distribution, was in charge of Japan, and Eric was very happy with the arrangement.

After thinking about it, Eric nodded and said, "Then do what you think, and in addition, let Robert go to China by the way to see if it is possible to get the qualification for "Titanic". ”

Katzenberg was a little puzzled, because over the years, Eric had inadvertently told him that Fireflies would deliberately strive for one or two quotas in the Chinese market almost every year, but to be honest, although there is a huge population of more than 1 billion, the film market is really small and pitiful, and the share ratio is even lower and outrageous.

However, he didn't question Eric's decision, it was just a trivial matter after all, nodded and agreed, and then said: "Eric, there is one more thing, Harvey wants to start the production of "The Black Family" in advance, you were in New York some time ago, he talked to me about this matter, and recently he has been busy running "Shakespeare's Love History", he shouldn't have had time to talk to you yet, right?"

Eric originally planned to release a self-made drama such as "The Black Road Family" after the operation of FFM TV stabilized this fall, and when he heard Katzenberg's words, Eric asked, "What does he think?"

"Didn't you say that 'The Black Family' belongs to the slow-burning genre and should mainly rely on awards to make a name for itself," Katzenberg said: "Harvey thinks that since this is the case, it is better to start production now, and broadcast it in the spring in March, so that it can hit the Emmy Awards in August." If it is postponed to the fall season, it will definitely miss this year's Emmy Awards, and there will be a year-long time gap between next year's Emmy Awards. ”

After a break in New York for nearly a month, and with the troubles of "Titanic", he returned to Los Angeles again, and Eric found that he had accumulated too many things unconsciously.

Needless to say, the post-production work of "Casino Royale", in other aspects, the British ARM company that Eric instructed Chris to acquire a few years ago, the two sides have signed an acquisition contract, but many subsequent decisions still need Eric to make decisions, in addition, the setting of the Marvel Cinematic Universe plan, the listing of MP3 players, the equity investment of Clover Holdings, the operation of FFM TV, etc., although these affairs are all in charge of special personnel, but there is still a lot of work that Eric needs to decide personally.

"Xavi is an expert in the running of awards, and since he thinks it's a good fit, let's put it in the spring slot, well, I'll take the time to call him in the evening to talk about it. ”

"Tonight?" Katzenberg raised his eyebrows slightly and smiled, "Harvey probably won't be available tonight." ”

"Oh, I almost forgot, tonight is the Golden Globe Awards ceremony, so wait for another time," Eric shrugged, not talking too much, only the main creative team of "Red Alert" on Firefly's side will attend the award ceremony tonight, and the team of "Titanic" has already decided not to attend.

"Finally, there's Clover Holdings," Katzenberg apparently wasn't interested in talking about the Golden Globes, both of them were busy, so he quickly switched to the next topic, saying, "With the recent buying, we've invested $1.98 billion in major Nasdaq IT stocks, which have made more than $210 million in book earnings based on Nasdaq trends in recent months." ”

Eric nodded, he already knew these data, because of the stock investment in the NASDAQ market, Firefly's net profit this year will drop to about $1 billion, plus the last balance of the two sales of paper media assets and animation studios in the previous two years, the total will not exceed $2 billion. This is also because Eric needs to take a large amount of profits from the Firefly Group and invest them in the Internet companies owned by Firefly Investment, otherwise, Clover Holdings will buy more aggressively, and at the same time, it can temporarily save more taxes.

Eric didn't think Katzenberg would have brought it up alone.

Sure enough, Katzenberg quickly said: "Warren Buffett, Tom Murphy and David West have called me many times in recent times, and I think there must be a lot more on your side, and if it weren't for the profitability of the shares held by Clover Holdings, their opinions would definitely be greater." ”

"I told David West last time," Eric picked up the coffee pot next to him, refilled his cup of coffee, and continued, "I told them that if they had doubts about the Firefly Group's business strategy, I could always buy back their shares." ”

David West was instrumental in Firefly's acquisition of ABC and was able to become one of the three external directors of Firefly Group.

Moreover, the group of minority shareholders of the Firefly Group from major investment funds he represents behind him holds nearly 14% of the shares of the Firefly Group at this time, and Buffett and Tom Murphy only control 10%.

In the first two years, because of the strong profitability of the continuous sale of print media assets, hand-drawn animation studios and the group itself, these investment funds received about $500 million in annual profits from Firefly Group with a 14% stake, which is enough for the managers of those funds to add a lot of money to their annual financial reports.

But this year, because of the additional expenses of Clover Holdings, the profits and dividends of minority shareholders of Firefly Group such as Berkshire Hathaway and State Street Global Funds will drop by more than half.

Katzenberg heard Eric say this and laughed, "Unless they're crazy, they're going to ask you to buy back the shares." However, there was another thing that David West and I discussed on the phone yesterday, which you mentioned before, and I think it's a good time to do now. ”

Eric's mind turned, and he suddenly understood, "He wants to make the digital realm public?"

Although I think Eric can guess, but his quick reaction still made Katzenberg a little surprised, smiled, Katzenberg nodded: "That's right, Eric, according to the current box office trend of "Titanic", there is absolutely no problem for this film to exceed $1 billion at the global box office, as a film focusing on CG special effects, "Titanic" The success of the success will definitely further stimulate the development of the Hollywood special effects industry, so I also think that the next step should be the best time to get the digital field public, and David also revealed to me that if the digital field is listed, Wall Street should be able to make a valuation of about $3 billion for it. ”

Katzenberg and David West are thinking the same way Eric thought a few years ago.

Eric is well aware of the future development trajectory of the Hollywood special effects industry, although in recent years, Hollywood special effects companies can be regarded as a highly respected 'aristocratic industry', but with the rapid development of computer technology and related software industry in the next decade, with the support of top hardware equipment and professional special effects software, it will become easy to set up a special effects studio, at that time, the competition in the special effects industry will also be extremely fierce.

Therefore, Eric also thought that if "Titanic" could be as successful as the original plane, then CG special effects would definitely be highly regarded, and it would be the best time to make a lot of cash out of the digital field.

But after what happened some time ago, Eric has changed his mind.

Perhaps, ten years from now, or even five years from now, there will no longer be a high threshold in the special effects industry, but now, the digital field is definitely the top special effects company in the industry, and there is no one.

Therefore, if foreign cooperation in the digital field is severed, Firefly will be able to maintain a leading position in the field of special effects for at least three years, and three years will be enough for Firefly Group to leave other Hollywood studios farther away in terms of special effects films.

Even three years later, with the huge economic size of the Firefly Group and the support of allies such as MGM and Twentieth Century Fox, there will still be no shortage of projects in the digital field, even in the longer term, as long as the digital field has excellent special effects technology, even if it cannot achieve profitability, or even a slight loss, the Firefly Group is enough to support such an exclusive subsidiary.

Moreover, even if Wall Street values the digital field as high as $3 billion, if it goes public and raises funds at this time, according to the 20% public share issuance ratio, Firefly can only take out $600 million at most, $600 million, which is simply insignificant to Firefly, it is conceivable that David West's proposal at this time is not just for the $600 million.

……

ps: There was a bug in the chapter yesterday.,Spain should have been released in the setting.,It's been modified.。 (To be continued.) )