Thanksgiving Day in 1996 was on November 28, a little later than usual, but the Thanksgiving schedule began on November 15. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"Rush Hour" is not too conspicuous among the films that opened in November, after all, although "Red Fan Zone" caused a good response in North America at the beginning of the year, Asian-American movies are still a niche in Hollywood. Despite the critical response after the test screening, the industry still only gave a box office expectation of $60 million to $80 million, and a large part of this is due to the fact that one of the two protagonists is black, who is slightly less recognized in Hollywood than whites, but far more than Asians.

On November 15, "Rush Hour" opened in more than 2,600 theaters in North America, and at the same time, there was also a combination of Warner's live-action and animation film "Space Slam Dunk", starring the famous Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, the story tells the story of the cosmic monster trying to kidnap all of Warner's animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Toffee Duck, etc., to the space playground to solicit guests, in order to avoid being captured, the two sides finally decided to play a basketball game to determine the whereabouts of all the animated characters. Space monsters easily learn a lot of NBA superstar skills, and in desperation, Bugs Bunny asks NBA superstar Michael Jordan for help.

The 1988 live-action and animation film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" achieved a high box office of 150 million in North America at a cost of $45 million, and Warner's "Space Jam" obviously wanted to replicate the box office success of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" that year, and the industry's expectations for the film were also very high.

It's just that when "Rush Hour" and "Space Slam Dunk" were released at the same time, the box office conditions of the two films were very different from the expectations of the industry, which surprised many people.

"Rush Hour" grossed more than $42 million in its first week, surpassing the cost of $33 million in one fell swoop, and easily won the box office title of the week. Even according to the box office curve of "Red Fan Zone" at the beginning of the year, the cumulative box office of this film will be close to 100 million US dollars, and the audience's love for this film, which exudes unbearable humor everywhere from dialogue to martial arts, is far more than "Red Fan Zone", and after the film's release, the media quickly adjusted the total North American box office expectation of "Rush Hour" to between $120 million and $140 million.

"Space Jam" grossed only $32 million in its first week, which is not only $10 million lower than "Rush Hour" but also far from Warner's first-week box office expectation of $50 million. But the cost of the film is more than double that of "Rush Hour", reaching $80 million, according to the current box office curve of the film, the film can recover its cost through overseas distribution in the later stage, but Warner's original ambitious plan to make a series of films has been directly shelved, and there is no follow-up.

Subsequently, on November 22, "Mission Impossible 2" was officially released in 3000 theaters in North America, this super agent movie can be said to be the film with the highest expectations of the audience at the end of this year, and the production cost is second only to "Titanic", Paramount chose to transfer "Star Trek First Contact" from the Thanksgiving schedule to the Christmas file a few days ago, although there is an intention to snipe "Titanic" secretly, but the reason announced by the other party to avoid "Mission Impossible 2" is not just an excuse.

With the accumulated popularity of the previous work and the strong influence of the MGM Agent Cinematic Universe, "Mission: Impossible 2" lived up to expectations and achieved a box office of $82.7 million in the first week, easily breaking the box office record of the traditional Thanksgiving schedule in North America, second only to the summer "The Mummy 2" in the first week box office list of North American films in 1996, and the two films are also the only two films released this year to have a first-week box office of more than $80 million.

Since MGM announced the Secret Service Cinematic Universe plan, the sequels to the two series of big movies that have been launched "Breaking Bad" and "Mission Impossible" have all achieved very brilliant success, coupled with strong confidence in "Casino Royale" produced by Eric himself, after the release of "Mission Impossible 2", MGM's stock price rose again, with a share price of more than $18.5 per share, and the company's total market value easily exceeded $8 billion.

Although the media industry as a whole has risen rapidly in the past two years, MGM's market value is still at the bottom of the seven, only slightly better than Sony Pictures, but compared to the market value of only more than one billion dollars two years ago, MGM's growth rate is definitely the highest among the seven.

Eric spent Thanksgiving with Nicole and Famick in Los Angeles, and in December, the two women flew back to Australia and the Netherlands to spend Christmas with their families.

In Southampton's estate, fine snowflakes are falling outside, but the house is warm.

Today is December 12th, and the time is night.

Eric made a phone call and returned to the living room from the adjacent living room.

The TV was turned on in the living room, but at this time, the family was bustling around the glass table in the center of the living room, on which many beautifully printed New Year cards were placed.

Joanna, who was kneeling on the thick carpet, turned her eyes away from her daughter, who was writing and drawing on the glass table, and looked at Eric with a look of inquiry in her eyes.

Eric glanced at the TV, where the Golden Globe nominations would be announced via NBC at eight o'clock, noticing Joanna's expression and explaining, "It's Chris, he's asking me to go to Manhattan tomorrow to talk about something." ”

Virginia also asked at this time, "Then will you come back tomorrow?"

"Of course," Eric nodded, and leaned over to sit down on the carpet, taking his son into his arms, holding his little hand and filling in the contents of the New Year's card.

These beautiful New Year's cards are for the top management of the firefly system, as well as for family and friends.

In the first few years, because he habitually felt that Westerners were relatively weak in human affection, Eric never cared much about this, so on the New Year, as a boss, he was more casual when giving New Year's gifts to the more important executives of Firefly.

It wasn't until the year before last that Robert Iger, who was in charge of the television business, made a New Year's phone call that made Eric realize that Westerners are not much different from Easterners when it comes to human sophistication.

The situation at that time was that on Christmas Eve, Eric prepared some New Year's gifts for all parties, as usual.

Because of the merger and acquisition of the Metropolis-ABC Group, the territory of the Firefly Group has been greatly expanded, and there are important departments of Firefly on the east and west coasts and even in many inland states, such as Disneyland in Florida, ESPN in Connecticut, etc., so most of the gifts are given by mail. In the process, a gift to Steve Bernstein, chairman of ESPN in Connecticut, was accidentally lost by the postman.

The year before, Firefly had just completed its acquisition of the Met-ABC Group, and Steve Bernstein had received a New Year's gift from Eric, but the following year it was gone.

Steve Bernstein is even more upset when he learns that his lieutenant has received a gift from Eric, who thinks that Eric is dissatisfied with his job at ESPN and may lose his job. Unable to control his worries as he approached the New Year and still did not receive a present, Steve Bernstein flew from Connecticut to New York to ask Robert Iger if Eric wanted to fire him.

Since Steve Bernstein took the helm of ESPN, the rapid growth of ESPN is obvious to all. It's just that at that time, Firefly was making personnel adjustments to the TV business unit that had been merged for more than a year, and it was normal for some executives to be removed and replaced by Firefly headquarters. Robert Egger himself was inclined towards Steve Bernstein, so he called Eric with a holiday greeting to test Eric's attitude towards Steve Bernstein.

Eric was also baffled by Robert Egger's mention of Steve Bernstein, and he certainly couldn't have fired the manager who had taken EPSN to the top. Robert Iger mentioned that he also praised Steve Bernstein's work.

Robert Iger heard that Eric didn't mean to fire Steve Bernstein, so he carefully tried to find out the matter of the New Year's gift, and after some tossing, the ins and outs of the matter were sorted out, Eric did not expect that an unexpected loss of a New Year's gift would cause so much trouble to his executives, so he then began to pay attention to this kind of thing. Since last year, Eric's New Year's gifts to Firefly Group executives have not only changed to a more professional courier company, but his assistant's office will track each gift to ensure that the gift is delivered to the appropriate executive.

In comparison, the cost of express delivery is even far more than the gift itself, and this year's gift is a box of maple biscuits made by the women themselves, accompanied by a New Year's greeting card. The executives who can receive the New Year's gift from Eric in person, at least at the level of the general manager of the group's branches, with the income level of this group of people, it is impossible to pay any attention to the value of the gift itself, they are more concerned about the other meanings represented by Eric's New Year's gift.

In order to show sincerity, the New Year's cards are all handwritten by everyone, and the three little guys, Kevin, Hawaii and Emma, are just joining in the fun at this time, and Eric will not give away the New Year's cards with crooked fonts of the little ones.

The two little ones will be four years old next year, and since the beginning of the year after her third birthday, Virginia has stopped working and hired several education consultants to develop a special early childhood education plan for Kevin.

Compared with Hawaii, which is abnormally intelligent, the intellectual growth of the little guy has always been Virginia's heart disease, Eric and Joanna actually know that Kevin's development status is actually not a problem at all, and the three or four-year-old boy has no problems talking and walking, and his physical condition is also healthy, what higher expectations can there be.

The reason why Virginia has always been worried about Kevin's abnormal mental development is only because the little guy has a more abnormal reference next to him.

As soon as she arrived in New York, Joanna secretly told Eric that Hawaii had finished reading three Encyclopædia Britannica this year, which was the result of Joanna's deliberate control of her daughter's reading time every day, and what was even more surprising was that Hawaii was even able to memorize large sections of the content completely. Eric thought to himself that he definitely didn't have this kind of memory ability, even the complete memory of his previous life, all these years have begun to gradually forget with the passage of time, so he himself occasionally feels that his daughter is a little weird.

Thinking in his heart, Eric couldn't help but look up, Hawaii was sitting next to Joanna opposite, holding a pencil in his hand, with a bit of obvious nonchalance, but his beautiful blue eyes were floating around, curiously looking at the twins who looked exactly the same diagonally opposite him, Hawaii still maintained a little fear of Drew, but he was extremely curious about the Russian twins who habitually followed Drew, and seemed to want to figure out why there were two people who looked exactly the same.

Drew, who was sitting in the middle of the twins, noticed Hawaii's curious little eyes, and the doll had a wicked smile on his face, and he made a slap at the little girl.

Eric obviously saw his baby daughter's small body tremble for a moment, glared at Drew, and the girl quickly admitted her mistake and stuck out her tongue at Eric.

Of course, Joanna also noticed this small detail, hugged Hawaii comfortingly, and looked at the girl helplessly: "Drew, don't always scare Xia Xia. ”

"Okay, okay, but Xia Xia's courage is too small, you see, Kevin is not scared at all," said the girl, and made the same grimace at Kevin in Eric's arms, Kevin looked at Virginia next to him stupidly, as if asking his mother, what is Aunt Drew doing?

Well, the little guy's reflexes seem to be really slow down by half a beat.

Virginia knew that Drew was laughing at her son's stupidity, but she was not as polite as Joanna, rolled up a magazine next to her, and slapped it on the door of her head.

Drew didn't dare to resist, giggled and dodged a few times, heard the voice from the TV, and hurriedly said: "Stop, stop, it's started, the Golden Globe nominations are starting to be announced." ”

Everyone knew that Eric was waiting for the Golden Globe nominations to be announced, Virginia withdrew the magazine in her hand, and Joanna hugged the restless Emma next to her, and everyone looked at the TV screen together.

The Golden Globes Committee invited Tim Ross and Mira Sovino, two Hollywood stars nominated last year, and an NBC host to announce the nominations.

First up were nominations for the TV category, and with the rise of reality shows in recent years, the Golden Globes have also begun to add Golden Globe awards for reality shows this year. However, although it is also ranked second, the Golden Globes are far less influential in TV awards than the Emmys, and the gap is much worse than between the Golden Globes and the Oscars. Because the Emmy Awards are usually announced at the end of August and the beginning of September, which happens to be the beginning of the fall season of the new year, the relevant awards can play a very big role in the early promotion of the new season of TV programs, and major TV stations in North America also attach great importance to the Emmys.

Several of ABC and Lifetime TV series and reality shows have won nominations, but everyone is a little absent-minded.

It wasn't until the TV nominations began to be announced that everyone brought up the spirit.

Although the Golden Globe Awards are not as rich as the Oscars, the first awards to be announced are still secondary awards.

Tim Ross first read out the nominations for Best Original Song, five nominations, and went down in turn, but he didn't hear the name of "Titanic" at all.

Even without the box office miracle of "Titanic", "My Heart is Eternal" definitely has the strength to win the Oscar, but at this time it was not even nominated for the Golden Globe Award, although he didn't care too much about the Golden Globe in his heart, Eric knew that the company's senior management might be about to come true.

Eric didn't say anything, but Drew was indignant: "Even the theme song of "Batman Forever" was nominated for Best Original Song, and "My Heart Is Eternal" was not shortlisted, it's ridiculous. ”

Joanna also said in a soft tone: "Yes, "My Heart is Eternal" is very good. ”

Eric shrugged and continued to look at the TV screen, wanting to see how far the Golden Globes jury could go. (To be continued.) )