"Eric, I don't think it's a big deal if you insist, Firefly gets a 70% stake in AE Network, and the Hearst Group doesn't have any initiative in this matter," Katzenberg said to Eric at the luncheon after the meeting.

Eric was picking food at the buffet table with Katzenberg with a plate in his hand, and when he heard this, he turned his head to look at William Hirst, who was chatting and laughing with Tom Murphy not far away, and said: "If you want the development of Lifetime TV, you will definitely need a lot of investment in the early stage, and the addition of the Hearst Group can not only share the investment risk, but also the support of their print media channels around the world is also crucial." Moreover, we have already obtained an absolute controlling stake, and the Hearst Group will not have any initiative in the future, will it?"

There was something unfinished with Eric's words, but Katzenberg understood it immediately, grinning sheepishly, revealing a row of large teeth. By the time Lifetime TV developed, Firefly, as the majority shareholder of absolute control, had countless ways to dilute the shares in the hands of the Hearst Group.

After the two of them finished picking out the food, they found a table and sat down, and Katzenberg said, "I couldn't attend the children's birthdays a few days ago, so I asked Peter to help me send me gifts, did you receive them?"

"Of course, they all like it," Eric nodded, and added, "What about you, are you going back to Los Angeles for Easter?"

"Marilyn and they both came to New York, and this year with my parents, I just didn't have to run around," replied Katzenberg, who was married very early to his wife, Marilyn Siegel. There is a pair of dragon and phoenix fetal daughters.

A brief chat about homely things. Both of them involuntarily turned to work again.

During this time, the group's senior management focused on discussing the development plan of the general direction of Lifetime TV. However, the production of specific programs is somewhat neglected.

In the morning meeting, after consultations with the Hearst Group, the final plan was finalized. At this time, Katzenberg began to care about the host of "America's Top Model Contest" again, which has been discussed since the Oscars, but it has been unresolved. Eric ended up being a little torn between Cindy Crawford and Linda Ivan Golinsta, and Tyra Banks, the 'original host', was ruled out due to her age.

"Eric. Now there is less than half a year left until the autumn season in September, and the reality show needs to be produced in one go, so we don't have much time to waste, Linda Ivan Golinsta and Cindy Crawford, which of these two will be chosen, have you considered it?"

Eric hesitated, and said, "I've been thinking about it a lot, and they're both very good, so, Jeffrey." How about splitting it in two?"

Katzenberg frowned slightly, "Eric, you mean to let them take turns as hosts." This is not a good idea, and the host changes around, which is easy to distract the audience. ”

"No, I mean, since we have $100 million in project funding right now, we might as well start two reality shows at the same time and have them as hosts. ”

Katzenberg was interested: "Eric, do you have any good ideas again?"

"I've been struggling with this lately, and I have thoughts, but I don't know much about it. ”

Katzenberg looked puzzled, not quite understanding what Eric meant.

"I mean," Eric continued, "The idea was also related to last year's Victoria's Secret show, when the project was being prepared, the designers had to come up with dozens of angel outfit designs almost every week, but only 40 were finalized. I've been thinking lately that if we can do a model contest, why can't we create a reality show about a fashion design contest. It's just that I don't know anything about fashion design, so I don't know if I should implement this plan. ”

Eric is talking about the same name as "American Supermodel Contest" "Flyover", these two shows can be said to be mortal rivals, launched around the same time, the ratings are equal, and even, as the hosts of the two shows, Tyra Banks and Heidi Krum also won the top two positions on Forbes' list of highest-paid TV actresses.

But unfortunately, Eric was not interested in fashion design in his previous life, and in order to see his long legs, he glanced at a few episodes of "American Supermodel Competition", but he never watched "Flyover".

In contrast to Eric's hesitation, Katzenberg was very optimistic, saying: "Eric, many times, a successful project starts with an idea, Walt Disney also saw his daughter playing, and he had the idea of Disneyland by chance, and he certainly didn't know how to build a Disneyland at that time, but now Disneyland has spread all over the world." And I think your idea is even better than the American Model Contest, where countless people in the United States are very interested in design, and those celebrities who are slightly more well-known like to launch their own personal brands, but most of the ordinary designers with unknown origins have a hard time getting ahead. If we can provide such a fashion design reality show platform, not only can we attract outstanding civilian designers to participate, but also those viewers who generally have their own design dreams in their hearts will also like to see such a show very much, as for fashion design issues, professional things just need to be done by professional people. There are so many world-class fashion magazines under the Hearst Group, so that they can just bring in an editor-in-chief to serve as the art consultant of this reality show, as well as Cindy and Linda, who have been supermodels for so many years, their taste in fashion is definitely better than most ordinary designers, enough to be the host of the reality show. ”

"Well, the two of them have been in New York recently, so I'll think about it again and talk to them by the way, taking advantage of the Easter days off," Eric was persuaded by Katzenberg's remark, and the main reason why he hesitated was to be safe, after all, he had just started the reform of Lifetime TV and suffered the failure of the original program. This will have a big impact on the next step of the TV station's plan.

Now think about it. Start the production first and see how it goes. If the quality of the program does not meet your psychological expectations, you can just refrigerate the project, and the big deal is a loss of millions of dollars.

Easter in the West is on the first Sunday after the full moon of the vernal equinox, and students have a week of spring break during this period, but it is not a national holiday.

But after all, it was the weekend, and Eric returned early to East Hampton, Long Island, intending to spend time with the women and children. This year's Easter is much later than in previous years, with most of Easter taking place in March. This year, it's April 16th.

At the same time, Resident Evil, which DreamWorks produced and distributed by MGM, was officially released in 2,500 theaters in the week before Easter.

Resident Evil cost $30 million, which is considered a medium cost.

Eric did not use the movie version in his memory, but the plot designed according to the main line of the game version, compared with Mira's live-action version, Eric prefers Capcom's two 3D animated movies based on the game plot, especially the fight between Sister Wang and the female president of East Slavia in "Resident Evil: Curse", how handsome, although the plot cannot start with "Resident Evil: Curse", but just change the villain. Ida Wang appears in the script, and this fight scene can still be added to the film. Therefore, during the creation of the script, Eric deliberately drew some relevant storyboard scripts for the screenwriter to figure out, and specially invited the martial arts instructor on Hong Kong Island to be responsible for the fight scene during the filming.

There is no doubt that the results are very good.

After the release of the film, the audience talked about the most, in addition to the special effects scene of Licking Ye vs. Tyrant, is the hand-to-hand combat between Ida Wang played by Hu Kaili and the villain, and Hu Kaili has also become famous and has become a kung fu actress in the hearts of fans.

Although the media evaluation of the film is generally not high, with a smooth plot, perfect setting and enough plot highlights, the film got a box office of $23 million in the first week, a very good start, and the industry estimates that the North American box office of the film will reach about $60 million, which can basically recover the production cost, and Eric knows that the important market for "Resident Evil" is not actually in North America, but overseas, and "Resident Evil" in the previous life series, no North American box office exceeded $100 million, but it became the first game-based film series to exceed $1 billion at the global box office.

Although there are also media people who ridiculed the film as the worst box office performance since Eric entered Hollywood, as soon as the box office was released on the first weekend of the film, MGM and DreamWorks executives called Eric, hoping to start the production plan of the sequel immediately.

At his villa at East Hampton Manor, Eric hung up the phone from MGM CEO Frank Maccasso and got up and walked out.

Today is Saturday, April 15th.

Yesterday, the box office of the second week of "Resident Evil" was released, and compared to the same period in the first week, the box office only fell by 30%, so the total box office of the film was readjusted to the height of 70 million US dollars, so Frank Maccasso couldn't wait to call again to report the good news to Eric and discuss the sequel, and Eric naturally had no problem.

In April, the daytime temperature in New York has just warmed up, but today it is a beautiful day with a sunny day and moderate temperatures.

On the lawn in the backyard of the villa, Joanna and Virginia are sitting at a table with their children to paint Easter eggs.

Eric walked out of the villa, walked around the pool to the lawn, picked up Emma, who ran over to show him the little easter egg in his hand, came to the table, looked at Eva Pakula, who had just made a phone call, and smiled, "Why are you here?"

Eva picked up a paintbrush and poked it at Eric in dissatisfaction: "My sister dislikes me, and you dislike me too?"

"How dare I dislike you," Eric smiled and dodged away, placing Emma on the small chair, and the little guy immediately grabbed the paintbrush on the table, forgetting about Eric's existence.

Eric looked left and right, Virginia was holding Kevin's little hand and tracing a pattern on an egg one by one, looking happy, and when she saw Eric coming, she held up the egg and gestured to Eric, showing off how great my son was. And Hawaii, sitting on Joanna's lap, held a colored pen in his hand, but his little eyes were full of boredom.

Eric leaned over and kissed his baby son on the cheek, pulled over the chair and sat down, reached out and hugged Hawaii in Joanna's arms, and said, "Come on, baby, is it that Mommy is terrible at drawing, let Dad teach you." ”

Joanna watched Eric hug her daughter, smiled and handed over the easter eggs and paintbrushes in her hand, and said, "Xia Xia is not interested in these, maybe I am too bad at painting, hehe." ”

"Okay, let's make a grimace first," Eric said, holding Hawaii's little hand like Virginia.

Hawaii struggled gently in Eric's arms, feeling his father's somewhat rough big hand holding his small hand, reluctantly relaxed, and sighed.

Alas, why would I draw such boring stuff on boiled eggs, it's stupid.

The little girl complained in her heart, looked up at the little boy sitting in Aunt Vicky's arms on the other side, pouted, tsk, she was stupid enough to be able to smear paint on her face.

Her eyes drifted to her mother's side again, and Joanna held her chin with one hand and looked at them with a warm smile on the corner of her mouth.

The little girl sighed again.

Alas.

However, looking at the happy look on my mother's face as she looked at my dad teaching me to draw, I reluctantly pretended to be as clumsy as Kevin.

But it's hard.

Hey, stupid dad, you can still draw crookedly with someone's little hand, really.

The little girl complained in her heart, but in the end she couldn't help it, and said, "Dad, why are we painting these?"

"It's Easter," Eric explained.

"Then why is there Easter?"

Because people say that Jesus will be resurrected on this day, it is called Easter. ”

"Who is Jesus?"

"Son of God, oh, don't ask me who God is, I don't know. ”

"Why do we celebrate the day of Jesus' resurrection?"

Because Jesus is the faith of many. ”

"What is faith?"

"Faith is something that needs to be held on to in a person's heart. ”

"Hold on to what?"

"Stick to what you think is right. ”

"Dad, what is your faith?"

"Oh, baby, you can ask me, but you can ask your mother?"

"Mom, Mom, what is your faith?"

"Jesus. ”

“……”

The little girl blinked her big eyes, which were as beautiful as her mother, and combed through the information in her mind, and found a circle.

So, she realized that her parents were perfunctory again.

Alas, how can these adults treat a child like this, who is only two years old. (To be continued.) )