The time is already the end of October, less than ten days before the release of the first movie in the year-end schedule of the Firefly system. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Firefly Group will release a total of three films at the end of the year, "Teddy Bear" on Thanksgiving on November 13, "Elizabeth" on December 4 and "Tea Boy" on December 11.

"Teddy Bear" is a project that Eric is personally focusing on, needless to say.

"Elizabeth" is a biopic of Elizabeth I that Firefly collaborated with the British Working-Title film company last year, starring Cate Blanchett, and the main goal is to hit this year's Oscars.

Although Working-Title, which was controlled by Polygram, has become a film company under the Seagram Group that works closely with Universal Pictures due to the acquisition of Polygram Group, Julia also pushed down Working-Title's "Notting Hill" because of this.

However, the production and distribution rights of "Elizabeth" were finalized before Seagram acquired Polygram, and the cooperation between all parties was not affected.

The last "Tea Boy" is another comedy by Adam Sandler after "The Wedding Singer", which has a good box office schedule for Easter this year. Speaking of which, December 11 is a relatively deserted period in the film market between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is not a good schedule, but fortunately, the production cost of "Tea Boy" is only 23 million US dollars, and there is not much pressure to return on investment.

In addition to the three Firefly Group movies, MGM's "Mission Impossible 3" on November 20 and "Fast and Furious" on January 1 next year; Fox's "The Horse Whisperer" on November 6 and "Star Wars Prequel 1" on December 18; Colombia's "Deadly College" on November 13 and "Kiss My Mom" on December 25, just these nine movies of the Firefly system have already packed the entire year-end schedule.

The other three, Universal will release two movies "Wonderful Hands" and "The Sixth Sense of Life and Death", Paramount is also two, "Star Trek 9: Uprising" and the 2D hand-drawn animated film "Mulan", and the last Warner only has a medium-made romance "Electronic Love Letter", which seems to be more down.

As for the films released by other second- and third-tier film companies, they are basically outside the scope of concern of the Seven.

With the initial completion of the consolidation of media groups, a number of second- and third-tier film companies that stood out in the 80s, such as New Line, Miramax, Orion, Carlock, etc., were either absorbed by the big film companies, or were on the verge of bankruptcy and no longer vigorous. The new batch of independent film companies that can attract the attention of the seven major studios, such as the former Lionsgate and Pinnacle, are still in their infancy and pose no threat to the big studios.

At the same time, the integration of traditional media giants and the rise of new Internet media can be said to be the most powerful period in Hollywood media in recent years. Moreover, there is no doubt that the Firefly system, which controls most of Hollywood, has become the undisputed superpower of the North American media industry.

As the absolute controller of the Firefly system, after the annexation of Columbia Pictures again, Eric has been closely watched by the media from all walks of life recently.

Eric naturally didn't have the energy to care about this, and when he returned to Los Angeles, he went into the post-production studio of Firefly Studios and began to focus on the preliminary sorting of the footage of "Gravity".

However, although Eric's direct access was not available, the media quickly found another breaking news point, which was Caroline, who suffered a foot injury.

The shy little tour guide back then, now Eric Williams's 'Little Pepper', has a Cambridge and Harvard high education, noble aristocratic blood, and a perfect exquisite appearance...... This is simply the best candidate for the queen of the Firefly Empire.

The topic was provoked, and naturally there was a 'inventory' of the women around Eric, and the hearsay in the open and in the dark was chasing after the wind and shadows, and it was not lively for a while, and some tabloids even pulled the topic to the two little guys.

Over the years, Eric has never deliberately concealed the news that he has two children, and ordinary people can get relevant news with a little attention. However, out of consideration for the safety of the two little ones, Eric's bottom line for all media is that sensitive information such as photos, names, and addresses of the two children must not be disclosed.

Although Eric is a public figure, he is also a super-rich man with a strong social influence. In a society like the United States, the consequences of offending capital are much greater than offending the powerful, as can be seen from the fact that many politicians and even presidents often break out all kinds of scandals, but few of the richest people on the Forbes list are entangled by the media.

So far, all parties have tacitly adhered to the red lines drawn by Eric. This discussion of the two little guys eventually flowed into Eric's personal wealth inheritance. Although there is still half a year before the release of next year's Forbes rich list, the statistics of the rich people from all walks of life in the American media are actually happening all the time.

Many media have speculated that once Yahoo successfully goes public, combined with Eric's net worth growth over the past year, his personal wealth is likely to reach a new high, exceeding the unprecedented $200 billion.

Such a terrifying fortune, even if it does not increase in the future, according to current federal law, if it is to be passed on normally in the future, it will need to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in inheritance tax. Although it is destined to have nothing to do with itself, this topic has made many people talk about it, after all, paying more than $100 billion in taxes at one time makes many people even completely irrelevant feel distressed just thinking about it.

In the end, some media and politicians who advocated for the reduction or abolition of inheritance tax jumped out and joined the discussion.

Firefly Studios.

Yahoo's listing date was approaching, and Eric couldn't leave for the time being, so several Yahoo executives and Chris rushed over today to discuss some details of Yahoo's listing.

In the office loft of the digital field, sitting in the lounge area on the second floor near the glass curtain wall, during the greeting process before entering the main topic, everyone inevitably talked about the recent topics surrounding Eric.

With a cup of coffee in his hand, Eric leaned back in his chair and said to Chris, Ian Gnier and others: "Actually, I think it would be best if I could spend all my money before I die, and I wouldn't have to leave a penny to the IRS, and as for the children, I still prefer them to be able to support themselves." ”

"It's a huge task," Chris laughs, "even if you don't count the profits generated every year, based on the $200 billion in fixed assets, if you live to be 100 years old, you'll need to spend $8 million a day from now on." ”

"$8 million," Eric said, looking at the only woman among them, "Tina, you women are more likely to spend money, help me think about it, how can I spend $8 million a day?" ”

After Jeff Locke left, Tina Brown, who Eric had personally selected, gradually rose to become one of Yahoo's new Big Three in recent years, and gradually ranked alongside Ian Gnier and Steve Mitnick in Yahoo.

Hearing Eric's question, Tina Brown thought about it, and after a moment, smiled, "Well, you'll have to let me try it first." ”

Eric immediately showed an exaggerated expression of vigilance: "Then I'd better go ask someone else." ”

Everyone laughed.

After a few small talks, a few people got to the point.

One of the more difficult issues faced by Yahoo when it went public was the digital music copyright lawsuit with the five major record companies.

In the first half of the year, due to the sudden outbreak of the impact of Internet piracy of digital music on the physical record industry, coupled with the rise of the Fireflyer player, the five major record companies launched a large-scale lawsuit against Internet music piracy, and incidentally also made Yahoo a target.

Perhaps because of Yahoo's imminent IPO weakness, the big five record companies are very tough on reaching an out-of-court settlement with Yahoo.

"The first is to strengthen the filtering and even blocking of pirated music resources by portals and search engines, the second is to open up the five major record companies to set up separate digital music stores for Fireflyer players, and the last is compensation, although the amount of compensation has been reduced, the other party still asks for $20 million in cash compensation." ”

Eric wondered: "If an agreement was reached on the first two, they should have achieved their goal, why insist on $20 million in compensation?" This may be a lot of money for individuals, but for the big five record companies, it's just a small amount of money that is dispensable, right? ”

Chris said: "This should be the insistence of the other party's lawyer. ”

Eric understood immediately.

The main reason why the legal class in the United States has such a high status is because they are so profitable. The economic base determines the superstructure, and this statement is not wrong at all. For example, in infringement lawsuits involving these large companies, not to mention the fixed litigation fees of millions of dollars, once a huge amount of compensation is obtained, the lawyer can directly take a 30% or even higher share of the lawsuit.

Rubbing the smooth surface of the coffee cup in his hand, Eric asked, "So, what do you mean now?" ”

"We've talked about it in detail," said Ian Gnier, "and we've been too focused on the potential impact of this lawsuit on Yahoo's IPO." But if we agree to the terms of the big five record companies, it will not only greatly hurt our potential interests in digital music sales, but at the same time, this compromise will completely violate the core spirit of openness and sharing of Internet platforms. Therefore, we are not going to reconcile, but to promote the concept of openness and sharing of the Internet as much as possible in the period when Yahoo is close to going public, and to guide the media and the public to discourse. As long as the IPO can be successful, the big five record companies will no longer want to gain any initiative in front of Yahoo. ”

Ian Gnier's rhetoric seems to be very righteous and awe-inspiring.

However, if you think about it, if it can really turn the tide of discourse, then Yahoo can immediately change from a shameful copyright infringer to a messenger of justice who fights against stubborn and conservative music copyright owners and seeks openness and sharing for the public, which is actually a bit more shameless, but definitely panders to mainstream Internet values.

The key to this matter is that the public media still needs to publicize and cooperate.

Although the firefly system is relatively weak in the traditional paper media, it has a powerful energy that no other media force can match in the more influential TV media, and as for the emerging Internet media, Yahoo Portal, which occupies 70% of the traffic share of the portal website in North America, is the self-reserved place of the firefly system.

Since it was proposed at this time, Ian Gnier and others obviously already had a detailed plan to build momentum, and there was naturally no obstacle to the group's cooperation, and everyone discussed this plan in detail for a while, and Eric also personally called Murdoch on the spot, hoping that several mainstream newspapers controlled by News Corp. could cooperate in this matter.

Speaking of which, News Corp. only a small piece of Twentieth Century Fox Film Company, which has been handed over to Elizabeth by Murdoch, can be counted as part of the Firefly system, and the FOX television network only has a relatively close alliance with the Firefly system. Other, much larger, such as the vast print media networks in Britain, Australia and North America, as well as television networks in Britain and the Far East, remain firmly under Murdoch's control. After a lifetime of hard work, it is naturally impossible for Murdoch to let go of these powers, and Eric has not thought of such a good thing.

However, the current Firefly System controls more than ten times the size of the assets of the entire News Corporation, and Murdoch also knows the benefits of maintaining a cooperative relationship with the Firefly System, and when he heard Eric's request on the phone, he naturally agreed.

After finalizing this matter, everyone discussed the details of Yahoo's last equity incentive plan before the IPO, and Ian Gnier, Steve Mitnick and Tina Brown left in a hurry, one flew to New York to discuss the details of the specific and publicity with ABC and FOX executives, the other rushed to San Francisco to inspect Yahoo's Silicon Valley branch, and finally Tina Brown flew back to the Boston headquarters. It's been less than a month since the IPO, and the three of them are busy with their feet on the ground.

After talking about everything, it was already evening, and Chris was in no hurry to leave after seeing off Ian Gnier and the three in the parking lot, and scattered along the concrete road of the studio park with Eric.

"Actually, on the issue of wealth inheritance, Eric, your assets are too large, you should make plans now, you don't really want to obediently hand over half of your net worth to the federal government one day, and even, when the time comes, Xia Xia and Kevin will not be able to get half of it at all."

In all fairness, Eric naturally didn't want to do this, he still doesn't have any sense of belonging to the country he is in, and naturally he doesn't have a strong sense of social responsibility.

If possible, in fact, the joke he just made with Chris about spending all his money before he died was his own heart, and he has always maintained a very pessimistic attitude towards the inheritance of wealth in his bones. After all, there are too many concepts such as being rich for three generations in memory, and it is difficult to determine whether there will be losers among their children and grandchildren.

For Chris, Eric didn't hide anything, and said his scruples very seriously.

"It's not a problem," Chris said with a smile, "You look at the current Morgan family, and the Rockefeller family, it's been a hundred years, and although they've gone behind the scenes, they're still beautiful, and it's not that the children and grandchildren of these families are so good, do you know why?" ”

"Huh?"

"Because all of these families are passed on through funds or trusts. Even though the founders of these families have passed away for many years, through the strict family trust rules that have been established from the beginning, the wealth of these families still follows the will of those old guys, and no one of their children and grandchildren can change it. Moreover, as long as there are enough outstanding talents among the descendants of the family, these families will be able to re-prosper on the basis of their original deep heritage. In this regard, you can ask Caroline to help you gather some information. ”