In the original plan, the first part of "The Lord of the Rings" will be released in three formats: 2D, 3D and IMAX at the same time.

The release of the first part of "The Lord of the Rings" is December 17, exactly four weeks before "Gravity". According to the normal box office decline of most movies, four weeks after the release of "Gravity", it can also make way for "The Lord of the Rings" to make some 3D and IMAX screens.

But the current situation is that, with the strong box office trend of "Gravity", the film is enough to support the current screen size for more than eight weeks.

Moreover, from a purely commercial point of view, even if "Gravity" has a certain box office decline, as long as it is not too ruthless, the theater chain does not want to transfer too many screens to "The Lord of the Rings".

Because the length of "The Lord of the Rings" is so long, close to 180 minutes, that a screening room can only schedule a maximum of five shows a day, but the ticket price of North American movies may be adjusted due to the screening time, but not because of the length of a movie.

In comparison, "Gravity", which is only half the length of "The Lord of the Rings", can schedule up to nine shows a day in a single museum. This equates to the same attendance, and "Gravity" can collect nearly twice as much at the box office as "The Lord of the Rings".

In the initial issuance stage, Firefly Group has actually considered this issue.

Therefore, the release of the first part of "The Lord of the Rings" is still mainly in 2D, and the company has prepared 2,800 2D screens for this film, and 3D and IMAX screenings are only supplements, which can also save a lot of copy costs.

But now, now that the commercials for simultaneous releases in 2D, 3D and IMAX formats have been released, and 3D and IMAX have received such a strong response, if the 3D and IMAX versions of "The Lord of the Rings" are temporarily canceled, it is clear that fans of the long-awaited movie will not rest on their laurels.

In the face of the current hot situation and the strong demand of major theater chains, Firefly Group finally made the decision to increase the number of 3D screens, and Eric also approved it after discussing with the company's senior management.

However, in order to ensure the viewing effect of the new 3D theater as much as possible, Firefly only agreed to provide an additional 500 sets of RealD projection systems for the theater chain for the time being, and needs to supervise the whole process of venue selection, equipment installation and personnel training.

In the case that the major theater chains have proposed to implement the buyout clause in the original contract, the 500 sets of reald projection systems this time will naturally not sign a guaranteed share contract. However, Firefly Group also unceremoniously offered a high price of $500,000, which is more than twice the manufacturing cost of the entire set of equipment, and five times the price of a film projector on the market of about $100,000.

For this alone, Firefly Group will earn more than 100% of its gross profit.

Moreover, according to the contract, when the theater needs to replace equipment bulbs, 3D glasses and other parts and other consumables in the future, it needs to purchase from Reald, a subsidiary of Firefly Group, which can also bring a steady stream of huge profits to the company.

However, although the theater chain was pained by the Lion of the Firefly Group, it did not refuse the offer.

You must know that in the first week of "Gravity", the average single museum income of 2,000 3D screening halls reached 60,000 US dollars, and with the current popularity of 3D movies, it will only take about a year for the theater chain to recover the 500,000 US dollars in equipment investment costs. However, it often takes two to three years for a typical 2D screening hall to recoup its costs.

Under the strict requirements of the Firefly Group, it will take at least a month to complete the renovation of the additional 500 3D screening halls.

Compared with the 3D screening hall, the transformation of the IMAX theater is more difficult, and the Firefly Group is no longer looking forward to increasing the scale of the IMAX screen before next summer, so it can only use the existing more than 100 IMAX screening halls distributed in major museums and science and technology museums around the world.

As Katzenberg and Richard Gelford were discussing a partnership agreement with the IMAX theater and plans for the expansion of the IMAX theater, one of Katzenberg's assistants approached him and whispered a few words to him.

"Well, let's do this for the time being," Katzenberg listened, nodded, and didn't hide it from Richard Gelford, "Kazuo Hirai, CEO of Sony America, is here." ”

When Richard Gelford heard the name, he immediately understood what Sony meant.

The core and most expensive components of the RealD projection system are two custom-built versions of the film projectors. For a number of reasons, Reald chose to use Sony's projectors.

The global order for 4,000 RealD systems and the purchase of 8,000 projectors have already made Sony a lot of money. This is actually one of the reasons why Sony succumbed to the pressure of the Fireflies last year and sold Columbia Pictures again.

But now, as the future of 3D cinema becomes clearer, the global film industry is destined to usher in a wave of equipment replacement.

At present, the number of movie screens in the world has exceeded 100,000, and it has been showing rapid growth.

Of those, even if only 30% of the screen moves to 3D, that means 60,000 new projectors.

In fact, there is a great similarity between film projection equipment and the automotive industry, that is, the subsequent repair of consumables brings the same profit to the manufacturing company as the initial equipment sales.

As a result, 60,000 projector equipment, plus follow-up consumables maintenance and other inputs, will contribute an additional tens of billions of dollars in revenue to the entire film infrastructure equipment manufacturer.

With such a rich piece of fat, theoretically, film equipment manufacturers are naturally reluctant to be restrained by the Firefly Group.

But the current situation is that the reald system of Firefly Group has taken the lead, and traditional equipment manufacturers only want to fully catch up with the reald system in 3D projection technology, it will take at least half a year, and half a year is enough for the reald system standard to dominate the world.

What's more, the follow-up promotion will not be successful without the assistance of Hollywood's film source.

Then, if these equipment manufacturers want to share this part of the profits in the short term, they can only become the core equipment suppliers of the reald system of Firefly Group.

Although most of the profits will be taken away by the Firefly Group, this can at least ensure the market share of equipment manufacturers, follow-up consumables maintenance and other income, even if it has to be stripped off a layer of profits by the Firefly Group, but it is definitely more alive than those manufacturers who are excluded from the 3D market.

As a result, in recent days, almost all major cinema equipment manufacturers have been in close contact with Firefly Group in the hope of obtaining orders for projector equipment for RealD systems.

In the face of the frequent actions of other manufacturers, Sony, which has maintained a certain degree of reserve due to various frictions with the Firefly Group, soon could no longer calm down. If it loses its position as a supplier of realD system projectors when it already has an advantage, Sony will definitely become a laughing stock in the industry.

After a brief conversation, Katzenberg saw off Richard Gelford and returned to his office in the studio.

Kazuo Hirai, CEO of Sony America, has a tall figure that is rare for him, but his eyes are small.

Seeing Katzenberg in the lounge, Kazuo Hirai immediately bowed slightly with his own unique respectful etiquette and stretched out his right hand to the powerful head of the Firefly Group: "Mr. Katzenberg, hello, I'm Kazuo Hirai. ”

Katzenberg shook his hand and said, "Hello, Hirai, I'm glad you're here in Los Angeles." ”

After a few brief pleasantries, the two entered Katzenberg's office together, sat down in the reception area, and the secretary served coffee to the two, but Kazuo Hirai mentioned another thing, saying: "Mr. Katzenberg, I have contacted Mr. Williams's assistant office, hoping to meet with him or visit him privately during my stay in Los Angeles, but I have been refused, I wonder if you can express my sincerity to Mr. Williams again?"

"Well, I'm afraid you won't have a chance this time," Katzenberg shook his head and said, "Eric has been on vacation lately, and he's not in Los Angeles. ”

Kazuo Hirai said, "Is it in New York? In that case, I can visit me when I go back there?"

"No," Katzenberg shook his head again, "I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, Eric was in Florida, and he didn't want to be disturbed during this time. ”

"Oh, that's a shame. ”

Katzenberg took a sip of the coffee brought by the secretary, put down the cup, and said, "So, let's talk about the RealD system." Hirai, first of all, I regret to inform you that it is no longer possible for Sony to monopolize the supply of projector equipment for the RealD system. ”

……

While Katzenberg was busy in Los Angeles, Eric sat leisurely on a tennis court at the IMG Sports Academy in Bradenton, Florida, watching with great interest as a tall, young-faced girl carefully accompanied Emma and Kevin to a game of tennis.

Hawaii sat a little bored next to Eric, and the little girl, dressed in a beautiful tennis suit, had no intention of playing. On the other side of Eric were Payne Fosterman, CEO of IMG Group, who also happened to be in Florida, and Max Essenbard, an ace agent of IMG.

Since Cindy was already on due date, Eric hurried back to New York a few days before the release of Gravity.

On Thanksgiving, Eric takes Virginia and the three of them to spend time on the estate in Martha's Vineyard.

Although it is impossible for the women to fully accept each other from the bottom of their hearts, they all maintain a harmonious atmosphere on the surface. Joanna also offered to stay in Martha's Vineyard for the rest of the year to look after Cindy until the baby in her womb was born.

However, counting the girls who came over to join in the fun as usual, a group of women got together, and the estate of Martha's vineyard even had a bit of a daughter country.

As a result, Eric, a big man, suddenly seemed a little different in it, and it was impossible for the women to have no complaints about Eric after all, so after living for less than a week, Eric was kicked out.

Of course, this may seem like an exaggeration, but it's basically true.

Virginia asked him to take the three little ones around under the pretext that Eric rarely spent time with the children, and Emma was the first to shout that she was going to Disneyland, and Eric flew to Orlando with the three little ones first.

Due to its tropical location, it's the peak tourist season in Florida, and Disney World Orlando is even more crowded. For safety reasons, it was impossible for Eric to mix with a large group of tourists with three little ones.

As a result, some attractions at Disney World in Orlando were closed for three consecutive days for 'maintenance', and then the local tabloid boldly revealed that it was a certain big man who chartered the venue for his children to play alone, which immediately caused complaints from tourists.

After all, it is its own industry, and the impact must still be paid attention to, and Eric can only run away with the three little guys.

Speaking of which, the firefly system still has a lot of industries in Florida.

In addition to covering an area of more than 20 square kilometers, Disney World Orlando also has a branch in Florida in the digital field, and BC Group and Rainbow Media, which is owned by MGM, also have a number of local TV stations in Florida.

In addition, it is the IMG Group, which Eric acquired some time ago.

IMG Group is headquartered in New York, but the company owns more than 500 acres of IMG Sports Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

Most of IMG's sports stars train frequently at IMG Academy, which is why many of them simply settle in Florida, where IMG also hosts several tennis and golf tournaments each year.

The city of Bradenton is located on the west coast of Florida, just over 100 kilometers from Orlando.

Since he couldn't continue playing at Disney World Orlando, Eric took the little ones to the IMG Sports Academy in Bradenton.

"Maria was originally trained by her father, because of the lack of systematic scientific training methods, she only knew how to squeeze the girl's potential, and the last time we had a physical examination, we even found a dark wound on her shoulder, and in the long run, the results will be very bad. Now that Maria's training is entirely in the hands of Mr. Polyteni, she has worked hard enough to be much more successful than Anna in the future. ”

On the side of the tennis court, Penn Fosterman personally introduced Maria Sharapova's situation to Eric, and as he was talking, Emma in the court ran over with a snap, Eric took the tennis racket in Emma's hand, helped the little guy wipe the sweat on his face, and asked, "Are you tired?"

Emma took Eric's hand and wanted to drag her inside: "Maria is so powerful, Dad, will you come and fight her?"

"Daddy won't," Eric shook his head, glancing at Kevin, who had replaced Emma under Natasha's care, and smiled, "Maria is older than you, of course she is amazing." Now, let's go ahead and have fun and take you to something delicious in the evening. ”

Emma didn't leave, her little body lay on Eric's knees, tilted her head and said, "Dad, the baby in Aunt Cindy's belly is about to be born, let's go back to New York, I want to see the baby?"

Although she also wants to stay by Cindy's side to watch the child be born, but now that she is surrounded by a group of women, this is not a palace fighting world, Eric is actually very relieved. Putting the tennis racket back into Emma's hand, Eric said, "We'll play for two more days and go back, Kevin still wants to go to the Bahamas, and he only thinks that he is not good." ”

Emma hummed seriously, but didn't leave, and said, "Dad, I thought of another name for the little baby." ”

Eric laughed, "What?"

"Tony, Tony Williams," Emma said with wide eyes, "the same name as Dad in Iron Man, how about it?"

"Well, you can talk to Aunt Cindy when you go back, if she wants. ”

During this time, the name of the little one who is about to be born has become the most interesting topic of everyone, because it has been determined that it is a boy, and a group of women have also expressed their opinions.

On Thanksgiving, the girl also found a 'Manhattan' name for the little guy according to the Hawaiian naming rules, and Eric immediately thought of a blue man in the DC comics who didn't like to wear clothes, and then knocked the girl on the head.

Important notice of this site: Please use the free app of this site, no ads, broken anti-piracy, fast update, member synchronization bookshelf, please pay attention () Download free reader!!

"Bookmark for easy reading"