"Strange Heroes in Disguise" got more than $37 million at the box office in the first week, far exceeding its production cost of less than $30 million, and there is almost no suspense at the total box office exceeding 100 million.

Compared with MGM, which only released one movie in the summer and got less than $10 million at the box office, TG's results will definitely be coveted by many people again, after all, even if it is not compared with MGM, which has been broken and completely out of shape, TG's box office report card in the summer of 1992 is much brighter than Paramount, Universal and Fox.

Paramount's summer season focuses on Harrison Ford's action film "Patriot Game", but this movie only got more than 80 million at the box office, while Universal and Fox are in a similar situation, and the three major studios have no movies with a box office of more than 100 million in the summer season.

As for the "deep-pocketed" Sony Pictures, although Tom Cruise was invited to spend a lot of money to create "Dark War Prequel", but for various reasons, the total box office of this film has also stopped at about 80 million, which can reach the budget cost of the movie, and the impact of the failure of the North American domestic box office market is often a series of effects, because the box office of "Dark War Prequel" is not ideal, the overseas box office and peripheral copyright sales will be greatly affected, and this project will once again bring huge losses to Sony Pictures.

A week after the release of "Strange Jack in Disguise", Disney's "Nuns Are Crazy" stepped on the tail of the summer file and boarded more than 2,100 theaters in North America, the release of this comedy film, almost announced the end of the summer file, and the subsequent movies are basically films that the film company does not value much but want to try their luck at the end of the summer file, and the chance of a dark horse in these movies is very small.

No doubt. "Tornado" has become the biggest winner of the entire summer file, and it is expected that the total box office of $300 million plus the subsequent "Strange Jack in Disguise" will exceed $400 million in the summer box office of Firefly. If you count several Disney films, then, according to the current annual box office in North America, just one summer file, Firefly Pictures has exceeded 10% of the total annual box office, if Firefly is a listed company, perhaps the stock price has risen a lot at this time.

But. While the North American entertainment media was buzzing with it, Eric had already left Los Angeles to attend the premiere of "Stranger in Disguise". He soon flew to the Hawaiian Islands.

Because of Jerry Bruckheimer's excellent preliminary work, by the time Eric arrived in Hawaii, Dr. Hardmond's experimental base, Jurassic Park gates, and the power grid to block the dinosaurs had all been completed. Two other small film crews were also filming the amber mining and dinosaur archaeological scenes in the Amber Mines of Dominica and the Red Rock Canyon National Park in California.

"Eric. You see, this is it," Jerry Bruckheimer pointed to a deep forest passage, "Kauai doesn't have the kind of terrain you need, but the conditions here are absolutely right, and it only takes us a day to ship the equipment over and shoot it." ”

At this point, the two were discussing footage of the Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing the jeep, and since there was no convenient terrain on Kauai, Jerry Bruckheimer found the scene on the nearby island of Oahu, which is also part of the Hawaiian Islands.

"Choose the words here. There must be some modifications to the surroundings, otherwise there is no way to shoot at all. Will the state of Hawaii agree?" asked Eric, looking at the very pristine forest environment in front of him.

"I've been thinking about this for a long time, and they say it's fine," Jerry Bruckheimer said with a determined look at Eric.

Eric smiled and didn't ask any further, the two got into a jeep together, and after the driver drove, Eric stretched, although he only arrived in Hawaii yesterday, but today he and Jerry Bruckheimer ran all over the filming locations, and tomorrow there will be some preliminary test shooting.

The filming of big-budget movies is like fighting in ancient times, which is very labor-intensive and material-intensive, so it is impossible for Eric to spare too much time to recuperate, and the production team of hundreds of people is a huge expense every day, urging Eric to get to work as soon as possible. Although with Eric's net worth, he is absolutely wasteful, but if he really does this, he will no longer be a qualified director and producer.

After the jeep arrived at the Oahu marina, the two boarded a small yacht and returned to Kauai, it was already evening, the day's work was done, and the mood was relaxed, looking at the island behind him that looked unusually beautiful in the sunset, Jerry Bruckheimer smiled and said to Eric: "Eric, maybe you can try to buy an island." ”

"Do you have a private island?" asked Eric curiously, the trend of buying private islands was on the rise now, but Eric was not very interested in it.

Jerry Bruckheimer shook his head and said, "Not yet, but I think about it occasionally." ”

Jerry Bruckheimer, a gold-medal producer who has been famous for more than a decade, is no less valuable than Hollywood's A-listers, so there is no financial problem with buying a private island.

"Actually, I don't think it's cost-effective to buy an island, if it's too close to the mainland, the privacy is often not guaranteed. If you are too far away from the mainland, you will be isolated from overseas, and the infrastructure will be a big problem, and you will not want to live too comfortably on the island unless you invest at any cost. ”

Jerry Bruckheimer heard Eric's words with a slightly thoughtful look.

Eric continued, "If it were me, I'd rather buy a mountain." When the time comes, I take my friends to the foot of a towering mountain and point to the clouds: Look, this mountain is mine. ”

Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't help but laugh as he imagined Eric's picture.

As the yacht moved away from Oahu, Jerry Bruckheimer glanced at a group of assistants on deck, glanced at Eric, and the two of them slipped into the cabin.

"Eric, according to the box office trend of several movies now, Firefly Pictures should be able to exceed $500 million at the box office this summer, right?"

Eric knew Jerry Bruckheimer wasn't going to talk about it for no reason. Nodding silently, he sat down with Jerry at the seat near the window.

"I've seen the release schedule of Firefly and Disney movies, the end of the year. Firefly will also have "Life and Death", "Detective Plane Head" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" in cooperation with Sony, Disney will also launch another cartoon, the box office of cartoons has always been very stable, then, the box office figures at the end of the year will not be much worse than the summer file, coupled with the box office accumulation of small and medium-sized films in non-popular schedules, Firefly Pictures' box office share this year is likely to far exceed Warner. Up to 30%. ”

Eric had almost understood some of Jerry Bruckheimer's words, and asked with a smile, "Jerry, did someone ask you to help pass the word?"

Jerry Bruckheimer nodded, "Mr. Martin Davis of Paramount." You know, I've always worked with Paramount before. ”

"What does he want?" asked Eric bluntly.

Jerry Bruckheimer smiled and said, "If you agree, Mr. Davis will come and meet you personally." As for what you want to talk about. That's not what I care about. ”

"Well, I'll give Mr. Davis a call sometime," Eric said, nodding.

Jerry Bruckheimer's meaning just now is obvious, the Firefly's movie results are too bright, it will definitely cause a backlash from several other film companies, and Martin Davis asked Jerry Bruckheimer to pass the word on his behalf at this time, undoubtedly wanting to cooperate with Firefly, after all. In a win-win situation, few people will actively choose the hostile one.

"Eric. Personally, I actually think you could split Pixar Animation Studios and the digital realm out of the Firefly system and set up two separate companies. ”

Eric smiled and shook his head: "Jerry, I finally condensed the fireflies into a whole, how could I take the initiative to remove my hands and feet again?"

Jerry Bruckheimer was stunned, as if he felt that there was some truth in what Eric said, but he felt that something was not too right.

Eric didn't look at Jerry Bruckheimer's expression, turned his head to look at the sea outside the window, and said lightly: "Since the twenties and thirties, Hollywood has been accustomed to the pattern of the six, seven or eight, but it doesn't mean that this should be the norm in Hollywood. In the United States, GM can be a monopoly, Bell can be a monopoly, Essenkel-Mobil can be a monopoly, and even Wal-Mart, which has only been established for 30 years, can be a monopoly, so why can't Hollywood be a monopoly?"

When Jerry Bruckheimer heard this, he faintly felt a slight cracking sound, he has been in Hollywood since the early 70s, and it has been nearly 20 years now, and he has unconsciously become accustomed to the coexistence of several Hollywood majors. However, Eric's words made Jerry Bruckheimer realize that this rule is not unbreakable.

"Eric, why does Hollywood keep this coexistence?" asked Jerry Bruckheimer, almost subconsciously.

Eric thought for a while and said: "Probably because of the ups and downs in performance, movies are different from other industries, such as Wal-Mart, they have developed a distribution system that is ahead of their peers, so they have dominated the entire United States in just 30 years, and in the case that Wal-Mart has occupied the market, other competitors can no longer reach the scale of Wal-Mart even if they completely imitate Wal-Mart's model." But film companies are different, what measures the strength of a film company is the movie box office after all, and the movie box office is the most unstable, maybe a film company will contact and produce multiple hit movies in a certain period of time, just like Barry Diller took over Paramount for a few years, but for various reasons, that situation will definitely not last, and other film companies are not idle, and may also produce high-box office movies from time to time, so that you come and go, it is difficult to achieve a monopoly situation. ”

After saying this, Eric smiled confidently and said, "But in Firefly, this is definitely going to continue, so, one day, I will get them used to something." ”

Jerry Bruckheimer smiled, but did not echo Eric's words, since the performance of other film companies will fluctuate, how could Firefly not appear?

……

Eric didn't take Paramount's Martin Davis through Jerry Bruckheimer too seriously, Firefly has now developed a fairly stable mentality, such a big film company, relying on those crooked means will definitely not be able to defeat, if you want to beat a film company, then you can only rely on movies to speak.

But if it's a movie, Eric is confident that Hollywood doesn't have that movie company that has the strength.

However, he did not ignore Martin Davis's message, and that night, Eric called Martin Davis, who was far away in Los Angeles, and agreed that the two sides would take the time to chat, and whether they could reach a cooperation depended on Paramount's sincerity.

Eric knew that with MGM being ignored, Disney being swallowed up by Fireflies, and Universal and Columbia being bought by a Japanese consortium, outsiders wanted to step in Hollywood, and now the only option was to buy Paramount.

According to the memories of his previous life and some information collected before, Viacom's Lei Shidong directly shifted his target to Paramount after failing to compete with Eric for Disney, while Barry Diller left Fox and started his own business for a while, and soon started to return to Hollywood, united several companies, and began to test Paramount's shareholders.

Although Paramount's performance in recent years has not been too good, but with such a shell, only if it can pull high-quality film projects, Paramount may rise again at any time, so Martin Davis has little intention of selling Paramount at all.

But the helpless thing is that Paramount is a listed company, although Martin Davis is the largest shareholder of the company, but if other film companies adopt a hostile takeover to annex Paramount, in the case of Paramount's poor performance, other shareholders of Paramount are likely to agree to the other party's high-price acquisition and choose to cash out at a high price.

Presumably this is also the reason why Martin Davis suddenly contacted Eric, when the Japanese bought Columbia and Universal, both studios had a brief cooperation with Firefly, and it achieved good results, although in the end both companies were sold, but the Japanese spent a lot more dollars.

Martin Davis's mind is clear, he just wants to improve Paramount's performance and prevent other shareholders from choosing to sell the company. With the Eastern European film market gradually opening up and the annual box office in North America continuing to grow, it is understandable that Martin Davis did not want to sell Paramount. (To be continued......)