"It's really hard to be like Warren Buffett, in fact, if most people can have the status and wealth of his level, it is absolutely difficult to keep a few decades of distraction to continue one thing," Eric looked at Caroline's pretty little face and said, "However, I found that you have some potential similar to Buffett." ”

Ordinary people always have too many distractions and desires in their hearts, which can actually become the biggest obstacle to a person's progress.

Eric has not been able to see these things from Caroline, from the first meeting two years ago to now, the simple and pure nature of this Nizi has not changed much, coupled with her unusually smart little brain, Eric believes that if Caroline concentrates on developing in the direction of investors like Buffett, she will definitely be able to achieve extraordinary achievements in the future.

Caroline was a little embarrassed to be praised by Eric, she was not as familiar with Buffett as Eric, and she didn't know what similar potential she had with Buffett, the little hand under the desk pinched the corner of the professional suit, she was still embarrassed to ask, just said: "Eric, if there is nothing else, I have to go back to work." ”

With a smile on his lips, Eric teased, "Don't want to talk to me anymore?" ”

Knowing that Eric was joking with herself again, Caroline couldn't help but shake her head seriously: "But, it's working time." ”

Eric looked very much at Caroline's somewhat old-fashioned appearance, and continued: "You are my assistant, any of my needs can be your job, and chatting is counted. ”

"Obviously not like that," Caroline retorted, blinking.

However, as she said this, Caroline's shadow suddenly appeared in Caroline's mind. Thinking of the occasional intimacy between this mature and capable but charming female boss and Eric, and the not-so-secret relationship between the two, Caroline involuntarily had a very absurd thought in her little brain: Is this also the work of a female assistant, and if so, if he proposes it to himself......

As the thought deepened, Caroline's little face had unconsciously turned red. Crystal eyes sneaked a glance at Eric, and quickly dodged away.

Seeing Caroline's inexplicably rosy face, Eric asked a little funny, "What bad things do you think?" ”

"No, no," Caroline craned her neck and stood up again, "I'm back to work." ”

After saying that, before Eric could answer, Caroline had already turned and fled from Eric's office, as if she was about to be held down by the Great Demon King if she was a second too late.

Alas. dared to snub the boss so much, it seems that he will be punished with a deduction of wages.

Eric thought unscrupulously, pressed the call button on the landline next to him, and summoned the secretary from the outside world, asking him to send her the memo that Caroline had left on his desk.

In July, most companies began to count their revenue performance for the first half of the year, and Firefly was no exception. With the rapid recovery of the U.S. economy, Firefly's movie, television, theme parks, peripheral stores and other businesses have maintained a very strong growth momentum compared with the same period last year. Although the relevant data is still being counted, there is no suspense that the overall revenue of Firefly Group in the first half of the year exceeded 10 billion US dollars.

Meanwhile. Fortune magazine released its first list of the world's top 500 companies in July, and before that, Fortune magazine only counted the top 500 companies in the United States.

Despite the bursting of the bubble in the early 90s, Japan still occupies six of the top 10 of the world's top 500, and General Motors, the number one company in the United States, can only rank fifth in the entire list, and the top four are all Japanese consortiums. Firefly Group's annual revenue of about $20 billion. In front of the first place on the list, Mitsubishi Corporation's turnover of 175.8 billion US dollars is very inconspicuous.

Although Eric lamented the huge gap with the oligarchs of these world-class enterprises in his heart, he would not be arrogant, as long as all the enterprises in the entire Firefly system fully grow, they will definitely be the giants that everyone needs to look up to. Moreover, with the rapid development of high and new technology, this day is not too far away.

At Sharp Corner Manor, Eric is sitting on the couch by the curtain wall and is flipping through Fortune magazine. Pascal walked in and helped the two of them make coffee, and the twins walked quietly upstairs, today is July 9th, tomorrow the annual meeting of Yahoo officially begins, Eric is about to fly to Boston, Drew and the twins are upstairs to help him pack his bags.

Amy sat down on the sofa opposite, took a sip of coffee, glanced at the magazine in Eric's hand, and smiled, "Eric, I think you should like Forbes a little more." ”

Knowing that Amy was referring to the Forbes rich list, Eric said: "Always staring at those who are easy to lose their enterprising spirit, but you still have to face the reality and motivate yourself." ”

Amy shook her head and sighed, "You have already left everyone in the dust, it's hard to imagine where you will go in the future." ”

"Anyway, I'm not in the habit of stopping and waiting for someone else," Eric smiled and asked, "Drew said you had a conversation with Kevin yesterday. Kostner talked about the sequel to Mission Impossible, and what was the result? ”

The $175 million "Future Water World" was officially released the day before yesterday, and the box office on the first day was only more than $6 million, although this figure is not much different from the original "Forrest Gump", but the heavyweights of the two films are also very different, not to mention that "Future Water World" was also ushered in after the release of a bad review, the box office is impossible to get out of the long run, plus it is still in theaters and about to start many blockbusters to squeeze the living space, the prospect can be described as extremely bleak.

After the box office came out on the first day, Kevin. Kostner's last glimmer of hope was dashed, and he took the initiative to contact Flower Pictures, hoping to launch a sequel to "Mission Impossible" to maintain his popularity.

"It's just a preliminary touch," Amy replied, "and I'm hoping to be able to sign two sequels at once, Kevin. Costner is only willing to sign one, and they are not willing to make too many concessions in terms of salary. ”

Although it has pounced on two blockbusters in a row, "Law Enforcement Warriors" and "Future Water World", "Mission Impossible" just became a big success last year, and the film's popularity is still at its peak. Costner's reluctance to make too many concessions is not surprising.

"But the initiative is always on our side, let's talk slowly," Eric listened. Said.

Amy nodded and said, "Yesterday I met Joe. Silvo, he asked me to ask you if that promise last year counted. ”

Amy's tone was a little confused, and it was clear that Joe. Sylvo didn't make things clear to her.

At the True Lies celebration last year, Eric and Joe. Sylvo met, and it just so happened that the other party 'was' the producer of "The Matrix". Eric came up with the intention of bringing the other party over to take charge of the project. Eric spoke to Amy about the ins and outs of the future, saying, "Although Fair Play was a failure, there's no denying that Joe. Sylvo is a producer who is very good at making action movies, and I think he would be a perfect fit to be in charge of the Matrix series. ”

Amy shook her head and said, "Eric, I don't think it's a good idea. ”

"Why?" Eric wondered.

"Do you remember Peter. Cooper and Qiang. Peters? ”

Eric nodded, and the two faded out of Hollywood after leaving Columbia. After all, few people are willing to invite these two losers to be producers, but with a 'glorious resume' of losing more than $2 billion in Colombia's assets, it is difficult for Hollywood to forget the two of them.

Amy continued: "Sony was the one from Time Warner who brought Peter Brown. Cooper and Qiang. Peters poached Columbia as CEO and president, but at the time the two still had a contract with Warner, and Sony paid $200 million to buy their Warner-owned studio, but because of the contract. Subsequently, Time Warner was compensated $800 million, and the matter was stopped. Joe. Sylvie is more closely connected to Warner than the two of them. His production company is also affiliated with Warner, and he himself has signed a long-term contract with Warner, and he has not even been involved in the production of any films other than Warner in all these years. Time Warner is in a very bad situation now, and in this case, if the fireflies take the initiative to poach people, they will not let go easily. At that time, the price paid by Fireflies will not be much lower than that of Sony. ”

After listening to Amy, Eric could only shake his head regretfully. Sylvo was able to transfer Firefly, and he wouldn't mind paying Time Warner a proper liquidated damages, but Eric would never be like Sony.

Speaking of which. Although the summer season is not over yet, Warner's distribution strategy of replacing quantity with quality in this summer season in an attempt to improve performance is doomed to failure in Eric's view.

Three of the five planned films have already been released, but with the exception of "Batman Forever", which is passable at the box office, "Fair Game" at the end of May and "Future Waterworld", which has just been released, have both failed, although there is still Arnold in the next two weeks. Schwarzenegger's "Evaporation Order" and Al. Pacino, Robert's. De Niro led "The Line of Fire", but in Eric's memory, neither film was too high at the box office.

The box office performance of "Evaporation Order" is likely to be similar to Fox's "Die Hard 3" in May, both of which belong to the kind of old action movies that barely break 100 million in China and slightly better overseas, although "The Line of Fire" is a classic, but the film's length of nearly three hours will also limit its box office scale to a large extent.

Because none of the five films has a special effects blockbuster that may be a big hit overseas, and at this time, Batman's overseas box office appeal is not even as good as that of North America, so calculated, the total global box office that the five films can get in the future is only about 1 billion US dollars, which is only a little more than the global box office of Firefly's "Jurassic Park 2".

With excellent word-of-mouth and the popularity accumulated by the first part, although the global box office of "Jurassic Park 2" does not reach the global billion of the first part, it is not much different. What's more, the entire production and publicity cost of "Jurassic Park 2" is only about $150 million, and the box office alone has already made Firefly make a lot of money. However, the average production cost of Warner's five films is close to 100 million US dollars, and the total production and distribution expenditure of all has even reached 700 million US dollars, and the global box office of 1 billion US dollars is far from allowing Time Warner to recover such a huge cost, compared with last year's weak loss of 90 million US dollars, dragged down by the film business, Time Warner's loss this year will be further expanded.

Perhaps, it's time to test whether Time Warner's board of directors has the possibility of splitting the business. With the advantage of the second largest cable operator in the United States, several well-known paid cable stations in the future will basically have a more or less shareholding relationship with Time Warner. And this piece happens to be the short board of the Firefly Group.

"Eric, what are you thinking?" Amy's voice suddenly sounded in my ears.

Eric retracted his thoughts, smiled apologetically, and said, "It's nothing, let's talk about MGM." ”

I chatted casually just now, but the main purpose of Amy's coming over today was the acquisition of MGM by Flower Pictures. Taking advantage of the gap before Eric left Los Angeles, Amy came to communicate with Eric about this matter.

Amy nodded, without asking why Eric was distracted just now, and said: "Prestige, Corkrian, and the three of us who want to buy MGM have tentative offers of around $1.5 billion, and after the news broke that Flower Pictures and DreamWorks Productions might sever their cooperation with MGM, the other two have not made another offer. I've been contacted by both the senior management of Prestige and Corkrian, and they know that Flower Pictures doesn't have enough money for the acquisition, so they want to cooperate on this acquisition. On the Crédit Lyon side, they offered $1.8 billion, and everyone was at a stalemate for the time being. ”

Eric listened quietly to Amy with his coffee cup in his hand, and his mind was also thinking quickly.

Even if the final purchase price is maintained at about $1.5 billion, it will not be easy for Flower Pictures to shell out this money.

In Eric's plan, Firefly Group will spend $300 million in cash to buy out the overseas distribution rights of "Forrest Gump" and video tapes and TV broadcasts. "Mission Impossible", which was released by Flower Pictures at the end of last year, will be used to repay the production financing of several films in the early stage, and the next "Wonderful Night at the Museum" was originally used as a bargaining chip to recover the copyright of Marvel superheroes, which brought limited income to Flower Pictures, not to mention that the income settlement of "Wonderful Night at the Museum" will probably wait until the end of the year.

After calculation, the funds available in the hands of Flower Pictures are only the domestic box office revenue brought by "Forrest Gump" and the buyout funds of Firefly, which are roughly about 400 million US dollars, which is still a big gap of 1.5 billion US dollars. (To be continued.) )