The negotiations between Firefly and Colombia on the development of sequels such as "Men in Black" are personally responsible for Katzenberg, with Katzenberg's tough character, Eric is not worried that Firefly will suffer in the negotiations, as for Colombia's so-called threat of prosecution, it is even less worth mentioning in the eyes of Firefly, once Colombia files a lawsuit, this lawsuit will not be able to pull out the result for a year or two, Firefly can afford it, but Colombia does not dare to consume it.

However, Columbia had his heart set on Flower Pictures, but Eric had to intervene himself, so he returned to Los Angeles just after the New Year in New York.

Although Flower Pictures has no equity relationship with Firefly on the surface, it is a very important step in Eric's Hollywood expansion plan, and the whole Hollywood is actually clear about Flower Pictures, after all, in the case that the seven major film companies basically monopolize the distribution channel, if they do not get the support of the Seven, no new Hollywood player dares to venture to make a film with an investment of more than $50 million, otherwise they will definitely be lost by the seven cards in the distribution process.

But the seemingly very inconspicuous Flower Pictures did so, not only did it produce two super productions with an investment of about 80 million in a row, but also got a sharing clause from Colombia that many second- and third-tier film companies envy and hate, which is absolutely inseparable from the full support of the Firefly Group.

The biggest confidence that Flower Pictures dares to do this is that if the big-budget films it produces can't get a reasonable distribution contract from the other Big Six, Firefly can take over at any time.

Colombia chose to make a big deal about Flowers Pictures at this juncture after choosing the New Year, and it also took a fancy to this. Flower Pictures currently has two pending films, "Night at the Museum" and "Forrest Gump". Columbia originally set a schedule for the summer of 1995 for the two films. And now it's early 1995. The film distribution plans of the summer files of the seven major film companies have basically been determined, especially Firefly, and this year's summer files "Jurassic Park 2", "Solo Day" and "Toy Story 2" are all heavyweight films that need to occupy a lot of publicity and distribution resources.

Once Columbia and Flower Pictures negotiate a split contract, although Firefly can take over Flower Pictures' two films, it is impossible to free up enough resources to distribute these two films. Then, in the end, these two films are likely to be postponed.

The production cost of "Wonderful Night at the Museum" is 80 million. The production cost of "Forrest Gump" also reached $50 million. The film could not be released on time, the total investment of $130 million could not be realized in time, and the follow-up plan of Flower Pictures could not be launched, and this kind of domino effect would be a very big blow to Flower Pictures.

In Los Angeles, not far from Firefly Studios, in Venice Beach, in the office of Flower Pictures' headquarters, Amy Pascal worriedly told Eric about what had happened: "The reason given by Colombia is that 'Jumanji' did not meet expectations at the box office, and that 'Night at the Museum' is very similar to 'Jumanji' in style, and that Columbia would not have been able to make a profit if the original sharing agreement had been followed." Instead, they will face losses, so they ask for a change in the established contract. Increasing Colombia's share of North American distribution from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, while at the same time requiring participation in the distribution of videotape and television rights. ”

If you think about it, the story styles of "Jumanji" and "Wonderful Night at the Museum" are indeed very similar, with a large number of animals, giant beasts, exotic flowers and plants in both films. Even the special effects of both films were done entirely by the same team under the umbrella of the digital realm.

However, the box office of "Jumanji" did not meet expectations, not because of the quality of the film, although the film reviews have a poor reputation, but as a commercial masterpiece focusing on CG special effects, the impact of film criticism on the box office of the movie is very small. The main reason why the box office of "Jumanji" did not meet expectations was that the competition for the schedule was too fierce.

Compared with the potential tacit understanding of the seven major studios in the summer file to arrange a big production to be released on average a week in order to avoid internal friction, the competition in the 1994 Christmas schedule can only be described as miserable, on December 23, in addition to "Juman's Game", there were six films with more than 1500 screens such as "Street Fighter", "Little Women", and "Love" were released at the same time, relatively speaking, there were only three movies that opened at the same time as "Changing Face" the week before.

The large number of new films opened at the same time pushed the total box office of the week from the 23rd to the 29th to $188 million, reaching the highest point of the weekly box office total at the end of 1994. But in this week, there were eight films that grossed more than $10 million in a single week, and under this fierce competition, "Jumanji" was still able to get $36 million at the box office a week, and the next week the box office fell by only a slight 26% when the box office of new films in the Christmas stalls plummeted, and the box office performance can be said to be very good. If "Jumanji" is placed in the summer season with relatively loose competition, it definitely has the potential to hit the box office of 200 million US dollars, and the reason why it has not met box office expectations now can only be said to be born at an inopportune time.

Eric believes that Colombia will definitely not fail to see this, and it is a bit of a scoundrel to try to renegotiate the terms of the sharing with Flower Pictures under the pretext that "Jumanji's Game" did not meet expectations at the box office.

After thinking for a moment, Eric looked up again and asked, "What about Forrest Gump, what is their excuse?"

"Colombia felt that Forrest Gump was more suitable as an Olympic film, with limited box office potential, and Columbia had some lack of interest in the release of this film from the beginning," Amy Pascal said, looked at Eric, and said, "Actually, Eric, I think so too." There is no doubt that "Forrest Gump" is a very good film, but its inspirational and nostalgic film style seems to be more suitable for the year-end schedule, and the main audience for the summer season is still young people. So, the latest thing we should make sure now is the release of Amazing Night at the Museum. If "Forrest Gump" is delayed until the end of the year. For the impact next year's Oscars. Perhaps it's a good thing, the American culture of this film is too strong, and without the Oscar halo, the revenue from overseas distribution must be very limited. ”

Eric listened patiently to Amy Pascal's analysis, as a strong woman who was able to be the head of a big Hollywood film company in her previous life, Amy Pascal's personal ability is absolutely excellent, and her analysis of the commercial positioning of "Forrest Gump" is also very accurate, but just like the chocolate quote in "Forrest Gump". If a movie is not released, no one knows what kind of box office potential it will show, but luckily Eric does, so he only nodded slightly to Amy Pascal's analysis, and did not agree.

Looking at Xiao Nizi, who was sitting quietly next to her, who was rarely coquettish and not cute, and patiently listened to the conversation between the two seriously, Eric asked without an examination: "Drew, what do you think we should do?"

Drew heard Eric ask himself, thought for a moment and said, "It depends on what you think, Columbia made these gestures." It's nothing more than trying to force Firefly to pass the sequel development plan of "Men in Black" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", oh. Now there will definitely be a sequel to Jumanji. If Fireflies no longer get stuck in this matter, Columbia will definitely not be entangled with Flower Pictures on the sharing contract. After all, without these two films, Colombia will definitely not find a suitable film to fill the schedule, and it will also miss this summer, which is a lose-lose thing. ”

Eric smiled: "Actually, Sony looks like a wealthy nouveau riche who wants to be vassal-minded in Hollywood, and this kind of character who is willing to spend money and can't have too much impact on the rules of the game in the circle stays, which is only good for us, and if the players behind Colombia are replaced by others, maybe it is not something we can arbitrarily handle." So I'm not going to get too stuck on the rights of those films and force Sony out of Hollywood. ”

Amy Pascal smiled relaxedly, and Nizi spread her hands: "Then what else do we have to worry about, it's business as usual." ”

Eric looked at the reaction of the two, shook his head with a smile, and said: "You guys are too unpursued, you can see from this incident that even your closest allies are sometimes unreliable, and the reason why Colombia dares to do this is that it can see that even if Firefly wants to take over for Flower Pictures now, it will be powerless in a short period of time." Therefore, Flower Pictures ultimately has to rely on itself. ”

Amy Pascal was a little surprised: "Eric, you're saying let's release these two movies ourselves?"

"Of course not, you can only take your time at this point, and the main thing is that Colombia should learn a lesson, and the other major Hollywood studios should also understand that if you don't have enough confidence, don't just turn your face with your partners. ”

Drew shook his head, "Eric, we're all a little confused about what you said. ”

Eric looked at his watch and turned his head to look at the TV in the office, "It should be almost time, do you have CNN here?"

Amy Pascal nodded, found the remote control, turned on the TV, and found CNN News.

The picture happened to cut from a news about the auction of mobile communication operation licenses, and the host held a press release in his hand and said to the camera: "The latest news, at 10:15, Firefly Group CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sony USA President Howard Stringer jointly held a press conference at the Columbia headquarters in Culver City, announcing that the two sides will start the production of sequels to the two films "Men in Black" and "Jumanji" at the same time this year, please see the live report of our reporter in Los Angeles below......"

All three of them stared at the TV screen, and after a while, Drew said, "Eric, it's so sudden, if I knew this, Amy and I wouldn't have to worry about the release of "Night at the Museum" and "Forrest Gump" these days." ”

Xiao Nizi's voice pulled Eric out of some thoughts, he didn't immediately respond to Drew's words, but picked up his phone and dialed a number, and after connecting, he said to the other end of the phone: "Kelly, I just saw a piece of news on CNN about the mobile operator license auction, find out what's going on, I want to see the details tomorrow." ”

After a few words, Eric hung up the phone, not explaining anything about what he had just done. Continuing the topic just now, he said: "The reason why I asked Katzenberg to settle this matter as soon as possible. Just to make some people understand. Flower Pictures' next move has nothing to do with copyright disputes over films such as "Men in Black." ”

Amy Pascal asked, "Eric, you're saying you're not going to let us work with Columbia?"

Eric nodded and said, "Now that the dispute between Firefly and Colombia has been resolved, and Flower Pictures will terminate its cooperation with Colombia, it will no longer be affected by the copyright dispute between Firefly and Colombia, and there is no risk that you will be robbed by someone when you look for a distributor again." My plan was that the release of Night at the Museum was transferred to MGM. I personally communicated this with Frank Maccasso, and the terms of the split were the same as those in Colombia, and MGM only had one 007 in the summer season, and a "Wonderful Night at the Museum" was added temporarily, without any distribution pressure at all. The overseas and peripheral operations of "Forrest Gump" are represented by Firefly, and you can do it yourself for local distribution, which is a kind of exercise. "Forrest Gump" is more inclined to rush to the Olympic art film, so the distribution pressure is not too great, and the box office trend is more likely to be a long-term line, as long as you can get more than 1,500 premiere canvases. ”

Amy Pascal listened to Eric. His brows furrowed slightly, but he was a little hesitant.

Hollywood movie releases put it bluntly. In fact, there are only a few steps.

First of all, you need to contact the theater that is willing to show your movie, which is the innate advantage of the undoubted owner of the Big Seven, for the Big Seven, some promising films often have just been established, and they have already signed distribution contracts with many theaters, and even get a lot of money from the theater company. At the same time, it is also an important threshold that blocks most of the new players who are trying to enter Hollywood.

The seven major distribution films, the cinema chain will take the initiative to seek cooperation, but if it is a brand new film company that wants to distribute the film, don't think about signing the distribution contract in advance, even if you finish the film, the cinema operators often do not have much enthusiasm to distribute the film for you, and in the end there is not even a chance to release it, because this involves the second key step of film distribution, marketing.

With the same quality of films, the same scale of release, and the same schedule, the box office obtained by the seven major releases is often much higher than that of second- and third-tier film companies, and the main difference is marketing. The seven major film companies already have a mature film marketing system, and the further integration of the media industry in recent years has made the overall media strength of the seven far more than the second and third-tier film companies. Because the marketing of the film is done by the film distributor, in the case of the gradual gathering of media resources on the seven giants, the cinema chain will even prefer to release the mediocre quality films produced by the seven major films rather than distribute the excellent films of small film companies, because the seven strong marketing forces can often make a mediocre quality film far exceed the excellent films of small film companies at the box office.

However, although Flower Pictures is a Hollywood novice on the surface, the key issues that these newbies may face are not a problem on Flower Pictures' side.

Amy Pascal started as a small clerk in a solo production company more than a decade ago, and eventually rose to the position of vice president of Columbia, and she knows all about any joint of film distribution, even without the help of Fireflies, she can pull enough theaters for "Forrest Gump" through her own connections, and with the support of Firefly, the largest media group in the United States, the marketing problem of the film is also solved. Therefore, just operating the North American release of Forrest Gump is not difficult at all in Amy Pascal's opinion.

But at this time, she just felt that this matter seemed completely unnecessary...... Right?

Wouldn't it be better to give the distribution to Sony or MGM, as Eric just said, MGM only has one 007 in the summer file, and there is no difficulty in adding the distribution task of "Wonderful Night at the Museum", so adding a completely different style of "Forrest Gump" is also nothing, even if MGM really can't even eat two movies, isn't there a few other big ones?

Don't worry about distribution, the time saved by Flower Pictures is completely enough to prepare a new film.

Of course, Eric also knows what Amy Pascal is thinking at this time, and in addition to teaching Sony a lesson, he also has another layer of ideas, which is to keep the profits of the film "Forrest Gump" as much as possible to his own people. The North American box office of "Forrest Gump" in the original time and space is 330 million US dollars, and if it is handed over to any company for distribution, at least 15% of the distribution cost must be shared, which is almost 50 million US dollars, and more than 90% of Hollywood films squeeze out the last trace of profit, which may not necessarily bring $50 million to the producer.

Looking at Amy's expression, Eric smiled and said, "Actually, this is just my personal suggestion, you and Drew think about it yourself, if you really don't want to be so troublesome, then forget it, just transfer the issuance contract to MGM." ”

When Eric said this, Amy Pascal made up her mind and said, "Eric, I'd better listen to you, I'm sure you're thinking about Flower Pictures." ”

The two agreed, and Xiao Nizi came over with a smile and grabbed Eric's arm, although she would never have any objections to Eric's decision in her heart, but the girl also knew that if she didn't have any opinions about Eric in everything, it would definitely hurt Amy Pascal's feelings, and Flower Pictures couldn't do without this manager now. (To be continued.) )