Chapter 712

Eventually, the discussion about the presenters of the "America's Top Model Contest" focused on Linda Ivan Golinsta, Cindy Crawford and Tyra Banks.

The supermodel title began with Linda Ivan Gorinsta, and it was undoubtedly the most convincing to have her as the host of the show.

Cindy Crawford frequently appeared on TV shows before the Victoria's Secret show, although after the Victoria's Secret show, the five spokespersons were almost the same in the public's mind, but Cindy Crawford had the advantage of hosting TV shows.

Tyra Banks has a dynamic personality and is obviously more likely to mingle with the contestants on the show, making her very relatable. But her hard injuries are also very obvious, Tyra Banks was born in 1973, only 22 years old this year, although she has gained a very high popularity with the Victoria's Secret show, but her age is difficult to convince the public after all, otherwise, as the host of the "American Supermodel Competition" in the original time and space, Eric will not think too much about it at all.

After some discussion, the decision fell to Eric.

To be honest, despite the absurdity of the first two days, Eric doesn't know much about these five women, and most of the memories of his past life come from various media, and now in this circle, it would be silly for Eric to believe in the media information again.

Plans for the Lifetime TV reform and the "America's Top Model Contest" have just begun, and Eric is not in a hurry, and plans to communicate with them in detail before making a decision.

Before I knew it, it was late at night, and Eric was listening to Luc Besson talk about the idea of a science fiction film, when he heard Catherine's voice ringing beside him: "Eric. Too late. I think it's time for me to go back. ”

Luc Besson saw Catherine approaching. He raised his glass with a smile and walked away.

Catherine's expression was a little embarrassed: "I didn't interrupt you talking, did I?"

"Of course not," Eric shook his head.

Looking at his watch, it was just after eleven o'clock, and no one had left the party, but it was obviously too late for Catherine, who had a very regular lifestyle.

Eric lowered his wrist and looked up at Catherine, who held the little golden figure tightly in front of him with both hands. There was a hint of nervousness and panic in the woman's expression, and Eric smiled and said, "Shall I send you back?"

"No, no," Catherine shook her head subconsciously, and the nervousness and panic on her pretty face suddenly overflowed.

"I'm not worried that you're drinking, it's not safe to drive by yourself," Eric said, gesturing towards the hall door.

Catherine shifted. Suddenly, he said, "You, you've been drinking too." ”

Eric said, "I have a driver." Let's go,"

Catherine followed Eric and walked towards the door, still whispering, "I can take a taxi back." ”

"You think you're the heroine of a movie who can hail a taxi with a wave of your hand, it's late at night, how can there be a taxi," Eric joked, and waved a few more gestures to Katzenberg, who was not far away, to arrange what to do next.

When the two came to the parking lot, Eric personally pulled the door to let Catherine in, sat next to her, asked Catherine's address, and told the driver to drive.

The streets around Sunset Boulevard are still brightly lit, but there is already a lot of traffic.

The car traveled through Sunset Boulevard, and in the carriage, looking at Catherine holding the little golden figure in her hand and looking helpless, Eric inexplicably had the illusion that there was an unworldly little girl sitting next to him, smiled, and took the initiative to liven up the atmosphere and said: "How did you discuss the script of "Red Alert" with Terrence Malick?"

"Still, it's okay, there are some differences in details, but it's not a big problem. Next month, we're going to go on a field trip to Guadaconal Island, and Terrence wants to shoot on location. ”

Eric nodded, "Oh, have you thought about when exactly it will turn on?"

"Red Alert" will be financed by Firefly, but it is not part of Firefly's commercial film sequence, so Eric is very lenient about the production plan for this film, leaving it to Catherine and Terrence Malik to decide for themselves.

"Next year, I'd like to have more time to prepare," Catherine said, hesitating.

The two of them chatted casually, and before they knew it, the car stopped outside a residence in Coldwater Canyon.

Eric had always complained about all the infrastructure in Los Angeles except for the road network, and the two got out of the car, surrounded by old streetlights, and in the dim light, a telephone pole stained with dark moss could be seen, looking crumbling.

"Good night, then," Eric said with his arms open to Catherine.

Catherine cautiously leaned over, hugged him, and let go, "Good night." ”

With that, the woman walked towards the door behind her, and Eric remembered something, and shouted again, "Catherine?"

The woman's body stiffened, and she turned her head: "What, what?"

Eric pointed to the little golden figure in her hand: "In the next few days, I may need your cooperation to participate in several interviews, I hope you can prepare." ”

"Oh, I see. After the woman finished speaking, she looked at him with her eyes and stared at him for less than two seconds, realizing that the man had no intention of continuing to speak, and fled into the courtyard again with some haste in her steps.

Eric smiled and sat back in the car, and Carter Moen in the front seat started the car, but did not forget to joke, "Boss, this is not your style." ”

"Drive you, I already feel like I'm guilty of bullying a little girl. ”

Carter Moen expertly turned the car around and said, "Ms. Bigelow must have feelings for you, otherwise she wouldn't have been so flustered." ”

"It's always a little bit short," Eric replied vaguely.

The next day, the news of the first female best director in Oscar history quickly dominated the headlines of major media around the world, causing a carnival.

At the same time, Firefly also took advantage of the situation to launch a new round of distribution of the "Saving Private Ryan" videotape, and won the Oscar for Best Director through Catherine. In the following week. The videocassette of "Saving Private Ryan" easily sold more than 1 million boxes.

In Europe. Because the release time of this film and videotape lagged behind North America, and it was at the point of market hunger, European distributors easily beat North America in weekly sales data with the cooperation of Firefly, close to 1.5 million boxes. In just one week, the sale of the videotape of "Saving Private Ryan" brought in $75 million in revenue for Firefly, and Firefly internally predicted that the film would eventually sell more than $500 million. even surpassed the film's global box office in terms of data.

Because studios don't usually release sales figures for videotapes, most people in the outside world are still stuck in the middle of Catherine's Oscar for Best Director. But Hollywood is boiling over the sales data of the videotapes of "Saving Private Ryan", and several major film companies have begun to look for excellent war film scripts, and the most direct result is that Catherine's next film "Red Alert" has attracted several major attention inside and outside Hollywood, and even caused a small lawsuit.

It turned out that Terrence Malick had been in contact with many production companies in order to make this film before he came into contact with Eric. Basically, including the other six, these are nothing. The point is. In the course of a contact with a solo film company called Phoenix, Terrence Malick signed a contract of intent with the company to allow them to invest in the film "Red Alert," but that was in 1988.

The film was too budget-proclaimed and too risky, and Phoenix didn't end up pulling in a dime of investment, and as is customary in the industry, the contract would almost automatically lapse in this case.

This seems to have passed like this, and the project was taken over by Firefly, and everything seemed to be in order.

But after Catherine won the Oscar for Best Director and "Saving Private Ryan" did amazing results in the videotape market, perhaps at the behest of some people, Robert Geisler, a producer at Phoenix Films, jumped out and said that Phoenix had already secured investment for "Red Alert" according to the original contract, and demanded that Firefly return the production and distribution rights of the film.

Hollywood is full of bullshit, and Eric didn't pay much attention to it, just handed it over to Firefly's legal department.

He has read the script of "Red Alert", and he also has a lot of information about this film in his memory, and knows that this is not a box office blockbuster, and he also knows that the company Phoenix may just want to mix in the investment, as long as it does not affect the production of the film, Eric does not mind giving up part of the investment rights a little, of course, if the other party is too ignorant, Eric does not mind letting the other party try the firefly rage.

After the Oscars, Eric's main focus was on the reform of his Lifetime TV station and the preparation of "American Top Model Contest".

Lifetime was founded in the early eighties as a result of the merger of two smaller television stations owned by ABC Television and the Hearst Group under the umbrella of AE Television Network. In the first few years of its existence, Lifetime was in the red, and it was barely able to break even until the late eighties.

According to theoretical data, Lifetime TV at this time had 30 million subscribers, which is the kind of theoretical subscribers included in the different cable TV packages of several major cable operators.

But in fact, just like Eric remembers those legal channels in China that are also cable TV channels, but few people watch them, Educational channels or Chinese channels, Lifetime TV is the kind of TV channel that has been ignored by users for a long time, even if it is a popular program, the number of viewers does not exceed 2 million, because the ratings data has been very mediocre, and several major cable TV operators often report that they want to refuse to carry this TV channel, after all, just like the Internet, the transmission of cable TV signals also needs to occupy bandwidth.

Before Katzenberg mentioned the station, Eric had almost forgotten that there was such a channel under the Firefly umbrella.

As the project unfolded, Eric learned more about the station.

In the '80s, Lifetime mainly aired the second and third rounds of television produced by the ABC television network, and occasionally bought some very cheap low-budget women's films, which were very monotonous and boring.

It wasn't until the early 90s that attempts were made to produce TV movies or miniseries on their own, but the average number of shows produced each year over the years was less than two.

Therefore, it is not easy to reform such an unknown TV station. Fortunately, with ESPN's successful experience of growing from less than 300,000 local users to the largest sports television station in the United States, all the executives of Firefly were confident and quickly made a very detailed plan.

On the other hand, although the cable television industry in the United States was born in the 80s, it really began to flourish in the second half of the 90s.

If you pay attention to American dramas, you will find that many American dramas produced by classic cable TV stations roughly start from the second half of the 90s. The most famous is undoubtedly a few films from Time Warner's HBO television station, and at this time, the cable TV market in the United States, in Eric's opinion, is the most appropriate to describe it as a rising sentence.

The new wave of technology has just emerged, although the main focus is still on Internet companies, but at the same time, a large amount of money is invested in the TV industry, and the owner of Firefly has a very complete internal capital chain, and does not need to be like other film companies, but also needs to obtain financing from time to time through external investment banks, foreign film and television funds and other departments, but a large amount of money invested in the TV industry, but also indirectly built a larger platform for Firefly.

At the same time, the cable TV industry in the United States has begun to become more and more loosely regulated, and large-scale consolidation has actually begun last year. Barry Diller and Sommer Rayshidong fought for Viacom, but the reason why they lost in the end was because Barry Diller's parent company, Telecommunications Group, merged with AT&T.

The new wave of technology has just emerged, although the main focus is still on Internet companies, but at the same time, a large amount of money is invested in the TV industry, and the owner of Firefly has a very complete internal capital chain, and does not need to be like other film companies, but also needs to obtain financing from time to time through external investment banks, foreign film and television funds and other departments, but a large amount of money invested in the TV industry, but also indirectly built a larger platform for Firefly.

At the same time, cable television and film companies in the United States also need to obtain financing from time to time through external investment banks, foreign film and television funds and other departments, but invest in the television industry (to be continued. )