It's just August and Eric is still pretending to negotiate with Peter Schneider, when the topic of Firefly's closure of the hand-drawn animation department, which had cooled down after a heated discussion at the end of June, seems to suddenly become loud again.

For a while, news such as "Eric Williams had a fierce conflict with the top management of Disney's animation department", "employees of Disney's animation department are dissatisfied with the company's treatment and will leave as a whole", and "The Lion King" will become Disney's 2D animation masterpiece' and other news appeared in the newspapers.

Because "The Lion King" is expected to make a total profit of more than $1 billion, the ROI is a staggering 2,000% for a production cost of less than $50 million, far exceeding the profit margins of other live-action movies in the summer slot. Therefore, if Firefly is a listed company, even if it is supported by many box office blockbusters in the summer, affected by the news that Disney's animation division may fall apart, the stock price will inevitably fall sharply.

In the wake of this powerful public opinion offensive, it didn't take long for all the onlookers who got the news through different media outlets to get the idea that Firefly was about to lose Disney's hand-drawn animation department.

Institutions and media outlets that are closely following the matter have speculated about what forces other than Disney's animation division are pressuring the Firefly group in this way.

In their opinion, in the face of the huge profits of "The Lion King", Firefly will definitely not give up the Disney animation division easily, but at the same time, the Disney animation department cannot have such a wide media influence, after all, Disney animation is a subsidiary of the Firefly Group. The media resources it originally owned were basically in the hands of the parent company. It is impossible to make such a big disturbance alone.

And. The Firefly Group's response to a series of news stories seems to be a little weak compared to the pressing black clouds of media opinion, and most analysts have concluded that Firefly will be forced to give in to Disney's animation department.

On the second Monday in August, Ron Perelman, chairman of Andrews Holdings, headquartered in Manhattan, New York, issued a public statement in his capacity as a creditor of Firefly Films, along with 27 other creditors holding Firefly's long-term bonds, expressing concern about the internal turmoil caused by Firefly by a series of wrong decisions by Firefly's board of directors and its top management, and at the same time, in order to protect the interests of creditors. Ron Perelman publicly appealed to Firefly shareholders to be able to sit on Firefly's board of directors as a creditor and participate in the decision-making and operation of Firefly Group. If Firefly's board of directors rejects the request, Ron Perelman said it would file for arbitration with the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

Immediately afterwards, Peter Schneider of Los Angeles and Roy Disney, an important member of the Disney family, issued a statement on behalf of all employees of Disney's animation department almost at the same time, expressing strong disappointment with Firefly's series of group decisions, and at the same time welcoming Firefly's creditors to participate in the group's operations, and hoping that Firefly shareholders would consider the matter carefully.

In order to avoid early leaks, Ron Perelman and his 27 creditors collectively hold only $3.6 billion in Firefly bonds, which is less than half of Firefly's total bond.

When Ron Perelman made a statement. All the media and institutions that followed the storm in early August instantly understood what was going on. Ron Perelman also called on the other creditors of the Fireflies at the press conference, however. While the other creditors were still considering the pros and cons, Peter Schneider and Roy Disney's statements of support made them instantly make a decision to favor Ron Perelman's side.

"The formation of a creditor alliance in just three days is really fast, I'm just a little curious, a total of 77 creditor institutions want to allocate the two directors they want to get?" said Eric mockingly, looking at the latest information in front of him during the Firefly's meeting.

Katzenberg looked at Buffett and other directors present, and said: "Eric, I think you have completely complicated this matter, we don't need to go through such a public opinion crisis, although we are a private company, but if we have a stalemate with creditors, it will have a great negative impact on Firefly's future financing behavior." ”

"Surely that's what everyone thinks, right?" Eric looked at the others and smiled, "Actually, I did this to make the others take what was going to happen in the future as a revenge action." I want Marvel Entertainment, more urgently than all of you think, and now this purpose no longer needs to be hidden from everyone, and in the future, everyone will find that in order to get Marvel, it is definitely worth provoking the current farce that will not have any real impact on the fireflies. ”

Although Marvel Entertainment is a publicly traded company, it is also owned by Ron Perelman's Andrews Holding Group, similar to MGM's shareholding model.

If you want to get Marvel, it is impossible to absorb Marvel Entertainment shares from public channels, and the only way is to publicly initiate an acquisition from Marvel Entertainment. If other companies had done this, Ron Perelman would have been able to shake off this mess that had been saddled with a lot of debt and losing money year after year. Even Michael Jackson almost became a potential buyer of Marvel in the original plane. However, only Fireflies can't, because Firefly's current performance is too eye-catching, once Firefly publicly launches a takeover offer, it is equivalent to telling others clearly that I have taken a fancy to the copyrights of some of Marvel's characters, come and grab it from me, the result can be imagined.

It is conceivable that while competitors join the bid to raise the purchase price of Marvel, a shrewd businessman like Ron Perelman will definitely not let go of this opportunity, once it is determined that Firefly is bound to win, Ron Perelman will definitely take the opportunity to open his mouth, and when the time comes, Firefly may once again usher in an individual shareholder with a large shareholding ratio, look at the mess of Marvel, such a shareholder is definitely not what any company wants to see.

Inspired by Ron Perelman's attempt to join the Firefly board as a creditor, after more than a month of secret deployment, Eric determined that the chips they obtained at this time would definitely allow Ron Perelman to obediently spit out Marvel, and there was no second way out.

"Since everyone has no opinion," Eric continued, seeing that no one in the room had said anything more, "then, let's start talking about how to end this farce." (To be continued.) )