After discussing the release of the two films, it was almost noon, and the three of them were about to go out to lunch together, and just after walking out of the conference room, Eric met Tina Fey, whom he hadn't seen for a long time.

After Flower Pictures broke away from Firefly, Tina Fey changed from Drew's assistant to the management of Flower Pictures, responsible for the script editing and review of Flower Pictures. Although the two sides had a few dewy loves, Eric had no intention of keeping Tina Fey by his side for a long time, but since they met, Eric also invited Tina Fey to dine with him.

There was a nice restaurant near the office building of Flower Pictures, and after several people sat down and ordered lunch, Eric smiled at the somewhat reserved Tina Fey: "Tina, are you still writing scripts lately?" ”

Tina Fey didn't expect to see Eric suddenly today, she hadn't been in contact for a long time, and some of her feelings for Eric at the beginning had faded a lot, but she felt that this man was getting more and more dazzling, and she was getting farther and farther away from herself, at this time, hearing that Eric was still talking to herself in the casual and familiar tone that she used to have, Tina Fey's restraint in her heart dissipated a little, and said: "I had some ideas, but I've been too busy lately, and I don't have much time to write them down." ”

Drew suddenly said, "Tina, didn't you tell me last time about an idea based on your high school life, tell Eric about it, and see what he thinks?" ”

When Eric heard the girl's words, he smiled and raised his head, but he thought of the "Mean Girl" written by Tina Fey, but he also knew that "Mean Girl" was based on a novel called "The Queen Bee and the Follower" by Tina Fey. At this time, I was a little curious about what kind of high school script Tina Fey would come up with.

I saw Eric, Drew, and Amy all looking at him with interest. Tina Fey smiled sheepishly. said: "Actually, I was a very annoying girl in high school, a little crazy, always dressed like a tomboy, but I actually envy those girls who can dress themselves up beautifully, this idea is roughly a story of a girl's transformation......"

Tina Fey's screenplay concept has a lot of similarities to Eric's "Mean Girls", a somewhat rustic high school girl trying to adapt to a new life environment. In order to make the boy he likes notice him, he tries to change himself from an ugly duckling to a swan, which is still inseparable from the elements of friendship, love, and trust between teenagers. In fact, this kind of coincidence is not difficult to understand, a screenwriter's script style must be closely related to factors such as personal personality and life experience, although the script of "Mean Girl" in the original time and space was changed from a novel, but as a screenwriter, Tina Fey must have added a lot of 'private goods' to it.

Since there are so many similarities between the two stories, Eric says, "Tina, take the time to write this story, and I'll help you read it then." Maybe it can be filmed. ”

Because he has the full image of "Mean Girl" in his memory, Eric is able to obtain information about the original author from the subtitles. As long as he looks up the relevant information to make sure that there is no infringing oolong, Eric can ask the screenwriter to transform Tina Fey's script into the original "Mean Girl" script in the original plane.

Tina Fey's eyes lit up when she heard Eric's words, with Eric's current identity, since she asked her to write the script, the possibility of making this script into a movie was almost close to 100%. Amy Pascal, who was sitting next to him, also had a slight expression, and said with a smile: "Eric, Tina is now a member of Flower Pictures, you can't dig the wall in front of me and Drew, right?" ”

Eric shook his head and said with a smile: "That's true, speaking of which, Tina's script is quite suitable for you to operate, after "Mission Impossible", Flower Pictures will definitely be able to have sufficient cash flow, and it is time to increase the scale of production." ”

There are actually a lot of jokes in Amy Pascal's sentence just now, if Eric likes a script, any other company may compete with Firefly, but Flower Pictures will definitely not do this, after all, Eric has given Flower Pictures enough high-quality copyrights. Therefore, hearing that Eric took the initiative to push Tina Fey's script to Flower Pictures so quickly, Amy Pascal was a little surprised for a while.

Eric watched Amy Pascal's expression change and explained: "Actually, Firefly is currently planning to gradually streamline the production business, and we plan to reduce the number of films produced per year to about 15 in the next few years, so we may not have much energy to estimate the development of this kind of youth school comedy." ”

Now Amy and the three of them were a little surprised, after the merger with Disney, the number of Firefly film production and distribution in recent years has been maintained at 25 to 30 films, and it was suddenly reduced to 15 films, which is almost half of the production. It would not be surprising if MGM and Columbia, which are not in a good situation, announced production cuts, but Firefly Group, which has been in the limelight in recent years, suddenly announced production cuts, which is too surprising.

Amy Pascal was stunned for a few seconds, still asking in disbelief, "Eric, are you sure you're not joking?" ”

"Of course not," Eric nodded and said seriously, "This is the result of careful discussion by the company's management, because we found that the strategy of distributing films on a large scale every year is not so effective, but is an excessive waste of the group's internal resources." Take last year as an example, Firefly As of the end of last year, Disney Studios, Disney Animation, Firefly Pictures, New Line Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar Animation, Black Ant Productions and some films introduced through external channels had a total of 29 films released, with a total annual box office of $1.55 billion, accounting for 25.8% of the total box office of $6 billion in North America in 1994......

As he spoke, the waiter brought the dinner ordered by several people, and Eric had to pause the narrative, but Amy Pascal was amazed by Eric's random series of figures, and before he knew it, the Fireflies had taken up a quarter of the total box office market in North America. If it continues. Fireflies may really be trying to recreate the dominance of MGM in Hollywood's golden age. This made her even more incomprehensible why fireflies suddenly decided to reduce production in such a good situation.

After the waiter left, Eric continued: "Although this market share is high on the surface, in many films, Fireflies have already lost money. Fireflies' total box office revenue in North America this year is $1.55 billion, but only "Saving Private Ryan", "True Lies", "The Lion King", "The Runaway Bride" and "Changing Face" – five films that grossed more than $100 million accounted for $750 million, almost half of the total box office, if the scope is expanded. In addition to these five films, several medium-sized productions such as the sequel to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "King of Fighters" have received box office ranging from 50 million to 90 million respectively, and the total of the top ten films in the annual box office of Firefly has reached 1.1 billion US dollars, accounting for 70% of the total box office share, and the profits brought by these ten films account for more than 85% of the total profits of the film business. Next, the remaining 19 films brought in $450 million in box office revenue for Firefly, with an average box office income of only 23 million per film, while the average production and distribution cost of these 19 films was 27 million. But the overall input and output is very uneconomical. ”

Amy Pascal listened to Eric and nodded knowingly. Said to Eric: "According to your analysis, Firefly's behavior of compressing the production plan is definitely very wise, but Eric, if Firefly does this, it may lose the No. 1 share of the box office market in the future." If it were other film companies, I don't think they would be willing to give up the title of No. 1 in market share. ”

Eric smiled and said, "There is not much point in competing for the first place in box office revenue, and it is easy to be hated, and Firefly pursues the first place in net profit." Firefly is now a comprehensive media group, and our future development focus in the film business is to produce more excellent films, and at the same time focus more resources and energy on the development of value-added services around the film, so that each excellent film can maximize the benefits of the whole industry chain. ”

In fact, Eric's decision was also the result of a detailed reference to Disney's later development strategy. In the original time and space, the number of Disney films produced every year after the new century is not high compared to other studios, but because of the use of boutique strategies, almost every year can break out of a few box office dark horses, therefore, although the number of Disney film productions is only more than ten, but with excellent operation of the whole industry chain, Disney's profits have been among the best among several major studios.

After a while, Amy Pascal asked, "But, Eric, don't you think there's a big risk involved, if you reduce the scale of the production to half, the Fireflies may miss out on some box office dark horses." And once some key projects fail, Firefly's annual financial data will definitely be very ugly. ”

Eric said: "The low-cost, high-grossing box office dark horse accounts for less than one percent of Hollywood's annual theatrical films, and this slim probability is not enough for Firefly to maintain a high-load distribution strategy, and as for the possible failure of major projects, even if there is no production cut, this risk still exists." But now, the failure of one or two big-budget films will not have much impact on Firefly, and Firefly is not a listed company, so we don't have to rack our brains to prepare beautiful financial reports for investors, and we can run the company calmly according to our own ideas. ”

Amy Pascal nodded with envy, but Tina Faye suddenly said: "Hey, have you noticed, the box office dark horses of all these years seem to be out of the fireflies." ”

When Tina Fey said this, the three women suddenly realized that this was indeed the case. From the very beginning of "Home Alone", to the subsequent "Pretty Woman", and the peak of "Jurassic Park", last summer's "The Lion King", speaking of which, since Eric's sudden rise, all Hollywood's films that can be called box office dark horses seem to have grown legs and gathered under the banner of Fireflies.

Looking at the curious and suspicious eyes of several women, Eric spread his hands and said with a smile: "This is my personal talent, if you really want a reason, have you watched "Men in Black"?" ”

"Huh." Tina Fey couldn't help but laugh. stabbed the equally happy little girl next to her. He also reached out and made a tentacle shape on his head, and asked, "Drew, what color is Eric's blood, is it sky blue?" ”

The girl picked up the napkin and wiped her mouth with a bad expression, and then mysteriously suppressed a small voice: "White, I've tasted it, it's still a little salty." ”

"Uh."

"Huh?"

"Poof...... Ahem......"

Tina Faye was stunned for half a second, and her face instantly covered with a layer of red. Reach out and pinch the girl's ribs.

Amy Pascal gave a puzzled look, but quickly covered her mouth and chuckled.

Eric didn't hold back a sip of red wine, and squirted it out, but fortunately, he immediately turned his head and bypassed the table, but because he endured that breath, he was choked and coughed repeatedly. Seeing Xiao Nizi holding a napkin and leaning over with a weak expression, Eric was not confused by the girl's expression at all, and knocked on her head unceremoniously: "You must not make this kind of joke again in the future." ”

"Remember, I'm not going to tell anyone you're from Pandora."

"Don't play stupid, you know that's not what I'm talking about."

"Uh-huh-hmm......"

The waiter quickly walked over. After a busy cleanup, several people lost the interest in continuing to eat. Pay the bill and leave the restaurant.

Just like the "Twilight" series at the peak of the original time and space, and Lionsgate's "The Hunger Games" series, for second- and third-tier film companies, a blockbuster series can often make it rise. Although it is still a simple production company, a "Mission Impossible" that is expected to reach $500 million at the global box office can continue to bring hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow to Flower Pictures. In the early stage, Flower Pictures still needed to rely on cooperation with other film companies or external financing to launch the three films "Mission Impossible", "Wonderful Night at the Museum" and "Forrest Gump", but after "Mission Impossible", even if it takes some time for the cash to return, Flower Pictures has no pressure on funding.

In this case, expansion is almost imperative. In addition to Tina Fey's improvised idea of a youth school film at lunch, Eric studied some of the scripts recently collected by Flower Pictures with Drew and Amy that afternoon, and the superhero copyrights that Flower Pictures helped Eric recover have been returned to Marvel Entertainment, and the other copyrights such as "The Lord of the Rings" and "Spy Shadows" have not yet reached the time for development, so if they want to develop new projects, they can only choose by themselves for the time being.

However, good scripts are indeed hard to come by, and several people spent an afternoon studying a bunch of scripts sent by the script agent, but they did not find enough good ones, nor did they find the more familiar ones in Eric's memory.

After getting off work all the time, because he was going to Burbank early tomorrow morning to attend the high-level meeting of the Fireflies, Eric did not return to Malibu, but planned to spend the night at Little Nizi's mansion in Beverly Hills.

The twins drove the car onto the road, and Xiao Nizi, who was sitting in the back seat with Eric, lay on Eric's body softly: "I'm tired, Eric, it's so troublesome to pick a script, why don't you write a few for us directly." ”

Eric pinched the girl's face on his lap and smiled, "You really think I'm a Pandora." ”

Drew turned his baby face, looked up at Eric, and said, "You used to write so many scripts." ”

Eric explains, "It's different now, and I don't have as much time to work on the script. ”

After getting along for so long, Xiao Nizi can of course see that Eric is a little insincere, but she doesn't mean to get to the bottom of it at all, she believes that Eric lied to herself, so there must be a reason to lie to herself.

Eric looked at Xiao Nizi with sparkling eyes in his arms, smiled, and didn't say anything more, but what he thought of was Tina Fei's unintentional sentence in the afternoon: The box office dark horses of these years are all under the Firefly. This casual statement made Eric wary, because Tina Fey's words were not accurate, to be precise, the box office dark horses of these years were all made by Eric himself, whether he personally selected or wrote it himself.

The memory of rebirth is Eric's greatest wealth and his biggest secret, this is a society of the jungle, Eric doesn't feel any guilt for taking out the script in his memory for himself, but he doesn't want this situation to continue, so that others really think of him as an alien or something. Moreover, now that he has wealth and power, he does not have to do anything himself. As long as the excellent films in memory reappear according to the historical trajectory. Fireflies have enough strength to win these projects. Those rights owners are also certainly more inclined to work with a big company like Firefly.

The sedan had unconsciously driven into the narrow mountain road of Beverly Hills, and the slight bumps pulled Eric from his thoughts into reality, looking at the little Nizi who was leaning on his arms and had squinted his eyes, Eric smiled and reached out to touch the girl's eyelashes, and his smart eyes opened immediately.

"Haven't eaten dinner yet, are you sleepy?"

Drew rubbed his little head against Eric, and said in a greasy voice, "I just want to sleep in your arms." ”

"Oh, that's right. I just remembered, about the sequel to "Mission Impossible", did you get in touch with Kevin Costner? ”

"Well, he wants $20 million and a 20 percent share of the North American box office."

Eric made a simple calculation in his heart, if the sequel can reach the results of the first part, Kevin Costner will probably take about 60 million from this project, which is really a lion's mouth, although Tom Cruise took more than 70 million from a "Mission Impossible", but people also participated in the production and investment.

"And then?" Eric asked again.

Nizi pinched the corner of Eric's coat and tugged at it. Said: "What else then, give him 20%." The distributor takes another 15%, and we ourselves are only left with 20%, and the local box office share is the fastest way for the film to return funds, and we are not those big film companies that can slowly recover funds through long-term operation, how can we give him this share, so everyone broke it as soon as they got in touch. He should be filming "Future Water World" in Hawaii now, hehe, I just inquired, it seems that the filming of that film did not go well, the set they chose was too windy, more than 5 million US dollars of set, a big wave came, it was scrapped in a bang, and then it had to be rebuilt, and now the budget has exceeded a lot. ”

The inertia of history is really strong enough, and Eric has a smile on the corner of his mouth, perhaps, the film with the largest budget before "Titanic" will also be born "as scheduled".

patting the girl's excited little face, Eric said: "Then let's put this matter down for the time being, if "Future Water World" fails, plus the "Law Enforcement Warrior" in last summer, Kevin Costner will be saddled with two films that have made investors lose a lot, and there are only three things, and he will definitely take the initiative to contact you at that time." ”

Little Nizi, who was leaning against Eric, laughed and snorted a few more times, as if she was brewing some bad idea.

The car quickly entered the Beverette Lausdale estate area, circled for a while, and stopped just outside Drew's mansion. Xiao Nizi just sat up, and the twins, who were sitting in the front passenger seat, turned their heads and pointed to the door of the mansion, and said, "Boss, look." ”

Eric and Nizi looked over together, the sun had set at this time, and in the dim light, a girl in a small white trench coat and jeans was standing quietly in the open space outside the gate of the mansion with a school bag on her back. Seeing the car stop, the girl hesitated before cautiously approaching.

Eric was a little puzzled as to how Christina Aguilera could be at Drew's house, and while pushing the car door open, he looked at Nizi inquiringly, and the girl just shook her head.

Seeing Drew get out of the car, all of Christina's hesitation disappeared, and she ran over with obvious excitement, noticing Eric who got out of the car from the other side of the car, and her face was even more happy.

Although she paused after seeing Eric, Christina quickly walked towards Xiao Nizi and said excitedly, "Drew, I thought you wouldn't be back today." ”

Xiao Nizi warmly hugged Christina in her arms, although the girl was not tall, but Christina looked more petite, a burst of intimacy like oil, the girl let go of the girl, and smiled: "I haven't seen you for a long time, why did you suddenly come to me?" ”

Christina was about to speak, when she saw Eric coming over, she quickly turned around and greeted obediently: "Hello, Mr. Williams." ”

Eric just smiled and nodded, looking at Drew, Christina also turned her attention to Xiao Nizi, and said with a little sadness in her tone, "Drew, I, I'm here to say goodbye." (To be continued.) )