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The topic of major media in North America naturally started with the Oscars just past, but like the Oscars that created a new low in ratings this year, the controversy about "The Horse Whisperer" winning multiple Oscars is not as fierce as imagined.

Most newspapers, magazines, and television media outlets are still focused on the increasingly turbulent Nasdaq tech stock market.

Last week, the Nasdaq rose on the back of Forbes magazine's announcement that Eric's personal assets had crossed the $300 billion mark due to the explosion of technology stocks, causing a large number of hedge funds that shorted the Nasdaq to lose a lot of money.

I don't know if I took advantage of the weekend to lick my wounds, but at the beginning of Monday, an obvious bearish Nasdaq and theory made a comeback, as if I wanted to completely smash the Nasdaq market that just broke through 3,000 points last week.

The biggest of these bearish forces is Tiger Fund, which conquered Southeast Asia in the economic crisis two years ago with Soros's Quantum Fund.

Julian Robertson, the founder of Tiger Fund, even appeared publicly in an interview with NBC's morning "Today Show", unceremoniously slamming the Nasdaq technology stock for its serious bubble component, and even criticizing several listed technology companies in the Firefly system such as Yahoo and Cisco.

Speaking of which, Eric also had a relationship with Julian Robertson at a party in New York last year, although he didn't expect any friendship between the two sides because of this rare meeting, but he didn't expect Julian Robertson to suddenly point his head at the Firefly system.

It wasn't until Chris called from New York that Eric understood that last week's surge in the Nasdaq directly caused Tiger Fund, which had built a large number of short positions, to lose $500 million.

Two years ago, the total size of the Tiger Fund, which had just been harvested in the Southeast Asian economic crisis, once exceeded $22 billion, but since last year, when he and Soros bet on Russia suffered a loss, the Tiger Fund has not had a good year.

Tiger Fund has rapidly shrunk to $16 billion due to two back-to-back failed major investments in Russian and American airlines.

Now, Nasdaq tech stocks are on the red all the way, Soros's quantum fund is holding its breath, but Julian Robertson doesn't know which tendon is wrong, and is firmly on the side of bearish tech stocks.

In just one week's rally, Tiger Fund lost $500 million, and it is conceivable how hard Julian Robertson bets on the bears, and it is no wonder that the other party is in a hurry to jump out and go shirtless in person.

However, while the sudden blow did send the Nasdaq on a downward swing at the start of the new week, the volatility did not affect the overall trend of the Nasdaq as a flood of speculative money continued to pour into the technology stock market.

Then, just one day on Wednesday, the Nasdaq rebounded back to where it was at the opening of the session on Monday. Moreover, the NASDAQ did not even fall below 3,000 points during the whole process.

The NASDAQ index exceeded 3,000 points several months earlier than he remembered, but Eric did not change his original plan, and he did not even have a desire to slow down because of the sudden outbreak of this wave of bearish theories. Since Monday, Eric has not hesitated to order the traders of Clover Fund to gradually sell their holdings.

On the other hand, in the same week, Yahoo Portal also quickly published an article entitled "AOL's merger with Time Warner will seriously affect the normal competition in the Internet industry", which openly stood on the opposite side of AOL's merger with Time Warner, and other media in the Firefly system also began to follow suit, calling on the federal Department of Justice to immediately reject AOL's merger application with Time Warner.

In order to avoid gangs, Eric simply made a full set of acts, completely cut off his private support for the merger of AOL and Time Warner, and did not inform the management of AOL and Time Warner in advance.

Steve Keys did not expect that the Firefly system, which had clearly expressed support for the merger of AOL and Time Warner at the last consultation meeting of the Department of Justice, would suddenly turn around, and he was immediately a little angry, and soon published an open letter on AOL's portal, accusing the Firefly system of being the culprit that "affects the normal competition of the Internet industry", and once again quoted the article in the Washington Post not long ago to prove the ambition of the Firefly system to monopolize the Internet industry.

After such a toss, whether it is the media or the political circles, a large number of voices have emerged to speak for AOL and Time Warner. Of course, the Firefly system, which was already an industry oligarchy itself but still wanted to prevent others from developing and growing, inevitably committed public outrage and was soon met with a lot of criticism.

However, despite the outward opposition, Firefly has secretly not taken any concrete steps to hinder AOL's merger with Time Warner.

In the days that followed, perhaps in the same way, neither Steve Keys nor Terry Semele, who was about to leave after the dust settled on the merger, called anyone in the Firefly system to question him, and the two sides formed a tacit understanding.

These big-capital operations didn't take up much of Eric's time, and his main focus was still on Hollywood.

After the third week of screenings, "Blair the Witch" fell by 53% unexpectedly, but the film still earned $28.9 million at the box office again, and the cumulative box office reached $111.68 million in three weeks, continuing to refresh the miracle of return on investment at the box office.

Moreover, although the box office decline deepened in the third week, because the Easter schedule will enter next, a large number of students will have a holiday. So, even with multiple new releases in the coming weeks, "Blair the Witch" could easily surpass $150 million or more at the North American box office, according to the projections of New Line Pictures' distribution department.

Due to the box office myth created by "Blair the Witch", during this time, a large number of Hollywood film companies have begun to pay attention to DV photography, which is just emerging as a shooting method, and some film companies have even set up a number of DV film projects at a rapid pace.

However, it is clear that most people only see the myth of the return on investment of "Blair the Witch", but do not notice that the success of this film has little to do with DV photography, in the final analysis, it is the victory of a new Internet marketing model.

And, even if some people are aware of this, the Internet as a marketing platform has only just been 'over-consumed' by "Blair the Witch", and in the next few years, projects that try to replicate the miracle of "Blair the Witch" are destined to become cannon fodder.

Gravity is in the middle of a boring and repetitive CG production phase, and it doesn't require Eric to keep an eye on it, freeing up time to focus on other projects in the Firefly system.

On the Firefly Group's side, the first part of "Harry Potter" was officially established, and a press conference was held this week. K. Rowling also flew to Los Angeles.

Although the other party did not propose it as before, Eric still took the initiative to promise that the film would use British actors as much as possible and shoot in the UK, in fact, this can also restore the scene of the novel more realistically. After all, it's just that the cool atmosphere that is unique to Britain is not easy to find in other countries and regions.

On the MGM side, after more than a year of long preparations, "Bond 19" is finally confirmed to be launched in April, and it is tentatively scheduled for next summer.

In addition, "Fast and Furious", which was released at the beginning of the year, has been completely out of gear at this time after three months of screening, and the North American box office has finally reached a total of $218.6 million, which is definitely a great success compared to MGM's total production and distribution costs of $70 million.

Affected by the success of the North American box office, "Fast and Furious" has been launched to the popular summer schedule in most overseas box office countries, but judging from the popularity of some overseas box office warehouses that have been released so far, there is no problem for the film's overseas box office to surpass North America, and the global total box office is likely to reach the level of 500 million US dollars.

The success of "Fast and Furious", a spin-off series of the Agent Cinematic Universe, also made Kevin Costner, the actor of the "Mission Impossible" series who was in a wait-and-see state, change his attitude, and finally signed the next two Spy Cinematic Universe contracts with MGM.

At the same time, the success of the "Fast and Furious" series has naturally attracted greater attention from the industry.

Century City, MGM headquarters.

Near the end of work, in a conference room, well-known Hollywood producers Frank Marshall and Katherine Kennedy took the initiative to get up and shake hands with Eric, Amy Pascal, Frank Maccasso and other MGM executives one by one.

After Eric made a suggestion at a Vanity Fair party last weekend, Amy quickly approached Frank Marshall.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Marshall have stopped working at Amberlin Pictures and are looking for a home. MGM's offer was very good, and as long as the two sides reached a cooperation, the couple could immediately take over the popular project of MGM's Agent Cinematic Universe, and the two sides almost hit it off.

As the de facto controller of MGM, it is naturally impossible for Eric not to show up at all for such an important cooperation, and today is the last round of contract negotiations with the couple.

Since both sides have a strong intention to cooperate, after a week of contract negotiations, the two sides basically reached an agreement.

The official signing ceremony will take place next week.

When the two couples left, the crowd did not disperse and sat down again.

After chatting a few words about the details of the negotiation just now, Amy took the initiative to raise the issue of the male protagonist of the "Spy" series.