After dinner, the two didn't leave the restaurant in a hurry, and ordered two cups of coffee before Eric talked about setting up a digital branch in Australia.

"The digital sector is now close to $1 billion a year, right?" asked Elizabeth with some envy.

Eric nodded: "However, because most of the orders are made within Firefly, the profit margin is not high, only 10%. ”

In order to prevent the outflow of excellent special effects artists in the digital field, Eric has offered very generous salaries and bonuses to these people, so as to ensure that the turnover rate of talents in the digital field is very low even when the entire industry is in short supply.

The high labor cost also greatly reduces the overall profitability of the digital field. However, Eric didn't expect the special effects company to bring too much profit to Firefly, and the main role of the digital field is to assist in the production of Firefly's films and keep Firefly strong in the field of special effects.

Elizabeth also understands some of the key points, saying: "The Fortune 500 companies in the United States published last month only received $2.2 billion in receivables. Why do you want to set up a branch in Australia, although you can get some discounts, but far away from Hollywood, many things will become very inconvenient. ”

"Now there are more and more special effects companies in Hollywood, and you can definitely find this, so the biggest factor restricting the development of special effects companies in the future will no longer be technology, but cost. I'm preparing for this. ”

Elizabeth nodded as if she didn't understand, stirred the coffee in front of her with a spoon, and said after a while: "I haven't been back to Australia very much over the years, and I'm not familiar with things over there at all." If you want to get in touch with the Australian government, you should talk to my dad about it. ”

"Your old man is a goblin, I don't want to deal with him. ”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "You mean, I'm easier to deceive." ”

"Well," Eric nodded solemnly, jokingly, "Still, there's nothing wrong with your comprehension." ”

Elizabeth raised the spoon in her hand menacingly, then put it down, and said, "I really can't help even if I wanted to," hesitating. She continued: "Dad has already started to train Lachlan and James to be in charge of the newspaper business. Most of our family's industry in Australia is a paper media business, and it is not convenient for me to meddle there. ”

While News Corp. has newspaper outlets all over the world, Australia is the home of News Corp., which controls more than 70 percent of Australia's media resources, much more than the 40 percent in the United Kingdom.

While Eric is well aware of the future decline of print media, Murdoch clearly doesn't see it that way. And he has always made the print business the foundation of News Corp.

Eric could tell from Elizabeth's brief words that Murdoch was now. is still inclined to let his son take over the industry, otherwise they will not let the two of them take charge of the basic business of News Corporation, and only let the daughter be in charge of the film business.

At this time, with a large number of newspapers around the world, News Corp. generated more than 50 percent of its profits from the print business, in addition to television stations in Australia, the Far East and the United Kingdom. Although Fox has developed very well in recent years, it is not the most important in the entire News Corp. system.

However, if this situation develops, it will be lively in the future.

In memory. News Corp. underwent a split more than a decade later, being re-split into News Corp., which focused on print media business, and Fox Group, which focused on film, television, and other businesses, and at that time, because of the decline of print media, the new News Corp. had a market value of just over $2 billion, or only 2% of Fox Group's market value of more than $80 billion.

Then, as long as Elizabeth can firmly control Fox, it is actually equivalent to inheriting the entire News Corporation.

When the time comes, tsk......

"What are you thinking, smiling so badly?" Elizabeth's voice rang in her ears.

"No, it's nothing," Eric immediately shook his head and said, "I think that since your old man has arranged it like this, then you can run the business on Fox's side with peace of mind." Well, you don't have to worry about the digital branch anymore, I'll take the time to talk to him personally. ”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and looked at Eric for a moment, then pouted, "It always feels like you're playing with some bad idea." ”

"Liz, you have to believe that I have always been there for you. ”

"Is this 'You' singular or plural?"

Eric didn't hesitate: "Singular." ”

Elizabeth smiled at the corner of her mouth, but she still said, "It's strange to believe you." ”

Now that he had made up his mind to let Elizabeth run Fox with peace of mind, Eric stopped talking about the digital branch, drank his coffee, looked at his watch and said, "It's still early, let's take you to the movies." ”

"Oh......" Elizabeth said in a small voice, slightly dissatisfied, "How many times have you invited me to a movie?"

"Is it the first time, it seems that I still have to pick and choose, how about "Solo Day"?"

"Don't watch your movie, go to see "The King of Words". ”

"What a good girl who takes care of her family, and she has to think about her own family when she watches a movie," Eric said as he handed the credit card to the waiter to settle the bill, complimenting in passing.

Elizabeth raised her chin and was very proud: "Yes, it looks like you." ”

In the days that followed, Eric personally communicated with Murdoch, who was naturally more than happy to help, but still made a condition that News Corp. would take a stake in the Australian branch of the digital sector.

Eric didn't hesitate and readily agreed to give News Corp. a 30% stake in its branches.

With Murdoch's matchmaking, Stan Winston soon rushed to Australia with the management team to negotiate with the local government. Of course, the Australian government is aware of the benefits of a large special effects company giant settling in its own country, and it is also quite eager, and the Murdoch family, the local snake, mediates and quickly comes up with a ten-year tax relief plan.

At the same time, the Australian government in order to attract more films to film. It also gave a financial subsidy of $7.5 million to the upcoming filming of "The Matrix" in Australia, which is equivalent to 10% of the filming budget of "The Matrix".

Hollywood, of course, reciprocated, announcing that after "The Matrix", the special effects of Tol King's "Lord of the Rings" series will also be all handled by the Australian digital domain branch.

At the same time as these things happened, in August, another sensational news happened in the United States.

August 24th. Microsoft officially launched the Windows 95 Windows system at its headquarters in Seattle, and with a better user experience and overwhelming publicity, Windows 95 sold 1.4 million copies in the first week of its release. Unlike Yahoo Browser, which is free, Windows 95 has a price tag of $210, which is definitely not cheap even after 20 years, so the first week of sales of 1.4 million copies generated nearly $300 million in sales for Microsoft. Microsoft's stock price has risen sharply again.

Because the competitor Apple's operating system is getting more and more old, there has not been much innovation over the years, and Apple's recently released new PC film has suffered a tragic loss in sales due to various problems, therefore, after the release of Windows95, it immediately showed a trend of domination, but Apple was far behind. While Windows 95 was selling well, the sales of Apple computers also ushered in a cliff-like Waterloo.

Eric, of course, also received an invitation to the Windows 95 press conference. But he didn't go to Seattle to join in the fun.

After all, although Windows 95 is selling well, Bill's mood is not very good.

Because in the next few weeks of research, the most popular software on the Windows 95 operating system was the latest Yahoo browser that Yahoo released at the same time. After the browser, it is still not Microsoft's own software, but Yahoo's YCR chat tool, and then Microsoft's own office software suite.

The Windows 95 system has greatly reduced the difficulty for ordinary people to use computers, but Bill Gates has an idea in his heart to make wedding clothes for others. No doubt. The capital market is also very sensitive to this change, and at the same time as Microsoft's stock has soared, Wall Street's maximum valuation of Yahoo has increased to $5.6 billion, and many investment institutions have begun to frequently contact Yahoo in the hope of participating in the investment.

Stimulated by this, a week after the release of Windows 95, Microsoft hurriedly launched the MSN portal led by Jeff Locke, which basically referred to the format of the Yahoo portal, which was regarded as announcing its entry into the Internet industry.

Although Jeff Locke was also responsible for some of the R&D work in the early stage of Yahoo, but has been in charge of website operations since then, it is conceivable that MSN can only be regarded as a façade, and both the content and user experience are far from being compared with Yahoo Portal.

Eric only browsed the MSN portal interface a few times, and completely put aside the worries in his heart, in the current form of the MSN portal, even if it has been developed for a few years, it may not be able to catch up with Microsoft, not to mention, Yahoo is also making rapid progress.

The time entered September, and the North American summer season was completely over, although several major film companies at the end of the summer file, because Firefly and MGM did not have new films released, they somewhat regained some market share. But throughout the 14-week summer vacation, Firefly and MGM still occupied more than 50% of the market share.

And the most dismal performance in this year's summer file is Sony-Columbia, because of the loss of the distribution rights of "Forrest Gump" and "Wonderful Night at the Museum", Sony can only buy a few movies in a hurry to fill the gap, but these films generally only have a box office of one or two million US dollars, and the highest box office is only 31 million US dollars, and the total box office of Sony Pictures is not even 100 million US dollars in the entire summer file.

Because of the support scene of "Batman Forever", Time Warner's box office share in the summer is not low, but because of the ultra-high cost disadvantage, Warner's film business is facing large-scale losses than several other Hollywood companies.

In addition to Firefly and MGM, the only ones that performed better were Universal and Fox, Paramount originally had a new film by Tom Cruise, but in consideration of the blockbuster bombardment of the summer file, the schedule was postponed to the New Year's file, so the performance was not hot, and the results were only slightly better than Sony.

The Firefly headquarters is still cheering for the still beautiful box office results of this summer, but Eric has already rushed to New York again.

Entering September, the summer file is over, but the autumn file of the TV series has begun.

The production of "America's Top Model" and "The Flyover" is already in the final stages, and Cindy Crawford and Linda Ivan Golinsta have even let go of the project and are temporarily preparing for the new year's Victoria's Secret show.

Eric came to New York, in addition to following these two reality shows, mainly to take a short break.

In East Hampton, the weather in September was already very cool, Eric sat lazily on the manor lawn and read the script in his hand, Joanna sat quietly beside him, peeling this apple.

After a while, a peeled apple was handed over, and Eric took a bite of it, but didn't take it.

Joanna smiled and asked, "How is this script?"

"There are still some things that need to be improved, but overall, I'm very satisfied. Eric said, turning another page.

Joanna said: "Seeing that you have been so attentive to this script during this time, are you moved?"

Eric's eyebrows moved, and he nodded, "yes, it's almost time to start my next movie, but the main reason is that I like this script more." ”

The script in Eric's hand is "007: Casino Royale" that he and MGM's screenwriting team have been preparing.

The original Casino Royale has a timeline set after 2010. Although it is the first part of Ian Fleming's original work, except for the plot in the casino, the others still have little to do with Ian Fleming. The story revolves around a huge sum of money, and it is still a variety of chase and fight explosions, but in the original version, there is the first woman who makes Bond fall in love with her, and this woman named Vesper has become an indispensable factor in the success of this Bond sequel.

Even, several later sequels, more or less mentioned this Bond girl that Bond fell in love with for the first time.

Eric himself liked the character very much, so although the script in his hand was greatly changed, Vesper kept it completely.

What Eric is now thinking about is who to play Vesper. Eva Green, who played Vesper in memory, is still just a little girl who has just turned fifteen, and the shrewdness, stubbornness, gloom, and mystery unique to this role are not so easy to replace. (To be continued.) )