Seeing that Elizabeth still wanted to ask, Eric shook his head and said, "Don't ask about this matter, I can't say it now, but Marvel's dish is very big, and the Firefly family will definitely not be able to eat it, and everyone will have a share at that time." ”

Elizabeth, who had listened to Eric's nonsense and didn't plan to continue the topic, heard him say this, but became curious again, she couldn't even eat fireflies, so how great should Marvel's potential be.

Just as he was about to continue his questioning, a waiter hurried up to Eric and whispered something in his ear.

Eric nodded to the waiter and said to Elizabeth, "Come with me and greet the guests." ”

Elizabeth then stood up and asked, "Who is it?"

Eric raised his arm to Elizabeth, waited for the girl to hold him, and said, "Warner's Terry Semele, so, be intimate." ”

Elizabeth immediately guessed Eric's intentions, and if the two of them were close, Terry Semel, who came to Disney's animation department, would definitely reassess Fox's competitiveness, and Firefly would get a higher offer.

"Hmph, you're using me," Elizabeth grumbled, but leaned in obediently towards Eric, and the two of them went out together.

Terry Semel has gray hair and rimless glasses, and has the air of a scholar. Although he is in his early fifties, he has been with Warner for nearly two decades and is one of several important successors trained by Steve Ross.

It's just that after the death of Steve Ross, Terry Semel, who became the CEO of Time Warner through a fierce internal competition, has not had a good time recently. Big aspect. After the Firefly and ABC merger and acquisition. Warner was immediately kicked down by the Fireflies and held the media hegemony for many years. Small aspects. In this hot summer season when the total box office once again broke Hollywood's box office record, Time Warner's film and television business bucked the trend and reached the lowest level of Time Warner's film and television business in many years. As a result, Terry Semel has been under tremendous pressure from all sides on an almost daily basis lately.

Hearing that Firefly was about to sell Disney's animation division, Terry Semel immediately knew that this was a great opportunity to get himself out of his current predicament. The starting price of $1 billion offered by Firefly is nothing for Time Warner, which is worth tens of billions of dollars. But if he can win the animation production department, Time Warner will be able to immediately open up the animated film market that has never been successfully explored before, which will also be very good news for him personally.

Terry Semel got out of the car and saw Eric walking towards him, and was about to catch up. noticed Elizabeth next to Eric, Murdoch's outstanding daughter's achievements in Hollywood in recent years are obvious to all. Terry Semel had also vaguely heard that Elizabeth was close to Eric. But as Eric's status grows and he fears his influence, there are fewer and fewer media reports about his private life, and Terry Semel really doesn't know what the relationship between the two is.

Seeing Elizabeth holding Eric's arm affectionately, Terry Semel's eyes suddenly narrowed, if Eric and Elizabeth are lovers, it will become a big variable for Warner to buy Disney's animation division, after all, Fox will definitely not let go of this opportunity easily.

Eric noticed a change in Terry Semele's expression. With a smile on the corner of his mouth, he took the initiative to reach out to the other party: "Mr. Semele." Welcome to Sharp Corner Estate. ”

Terry Semel quickly put away his thoughts to deal with Eric, and greeted Elizabeth warmly, and the three of them walked towards the villa.

"Eric, can we talk alone?" said Terry Semel in a low voice to Eric as he greeted the guests in the hall.

Eric knew that Terry Semel wanted nothing more than to take over the animation department before the public auction, and maybe wanted to bargain for the rights of animations such as "The Lion King", anyway, the animation department was the private property of Firefly, and in the final analysis, it was up to Eric to sell it.

However, the animation department was just a bait for Eric to attract the attention of Hollywood, and he didn't plan to have any entanglement with the other major ones in this regard before successfully winning Marvel, and was just about to find an excuse to reject Terry Semel, when he heard a report that Paramount's CEO Shirley Lansing had also rushed to Sharp Corner Manor.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Semel, I need to pick someone up, maybe we can make another appointment," Eric apologized to Terry Semel, and walked out of the villa with Elizabeth again.

There is also no eternal enemy in the business field, although Lei Shidong did not come forward in person due to the contradictions that arose in the process of competing for Disney, but he still sent Shirley Lansing, the CEO of Paramount, to this party that is very sensitive to timing for many people.

After Shirley Lansing, many important figures in Hollywood also appeared one after another, but when everyone had their own thoughts, they were not able to contact Eric alone.

Although no reporters were invited to the party, the competitive scene of Jianjiao Manor spread immediately the next day. Subsequently, Eric simply asked people to post the list of assets of the animation department to be auctioned and related information on the Yahoo website, which immediately caused a heated discussion again.

Much of the media attention has been on the seemingly low reserve price of $1 billion. You know, just one "The Lion King", the net profit brought to Firefly in the next few years will not be less than $1 billion.

Although the box office output of Disney's animation division is very low in the revenue ratio of the entire Firefly Group, it should not be forgotten that Disney's amusement parks, merchandise stores and franchise licensing businesses all need the locomotive effect of Disney Animation, The Lion King The box office success is even more proof of the unlimited economic potential of the owners of Disney animation, and we can hardly imagine the loss of the Disney animation division. Where the Disney brand is headed. ”

Although we don't know exactly what Eric Williams' intentions were to abandon Disney's animation division. But the $1 billion auction price shows how shrewd the Firefly Group is. This low-pricing strategy will undoubtedly attract more investors interested in acquiring Disney's animation division, which in turn will generate more fierce competition in the auction process. Canada's Seagram Group has also begun to engage closely with Firefly executives, with analysts at First Boston Bank estimating that the final auction price for Disney's animation division is likely to exceed $2 billion, more than double the Firefly's offer. ”

-- Walt Disney's nephew, Roy Disney, publicly criticized Eric Williams for wantonly erasing the spirit of Disney and claimed to have lost Disney's animation division. Walt Disney's ideas will also be gone. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Walt Disney's daughter, Diana Disney Miller, also expressed extreme disappointment with the Firefly Group's decision. ”

Eric Williams' talent in film and television has been proven countless times, so I think everyone should have good reason to focus on another thing that happened at the same time as the Fireflies sold their animation division, and that is why the Fireflies went out of their way to wrest Marvel Entertainment from Wall Street investor Ron Perelman. While most of the media tend to think that this is the Firefly Group's revenge on Ron Perelman for fanning the Firefly creditors, with Eric Williams' excellent business performance over the past few years, I absolutely don't believe that the young Hollywood tycoon would be so bent on spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get revenge on his enemies, not to mention that the whole thing was clearly well planned, even the legendary investor Warren Buffett was involved. That evidence is enough to prove that the whole thing wasn't revenge, perhaps. Marvel Entertainment is more important to Eric Williams than Disney's animation division, which created The Lion King. If this is the case, if any bold investor dares to snatch Marvel at this time, there is no doubt that he will get unexpected gains. ”

Ron Perelman sat in his luxury car, silently rummaging through a thick stack of today's newspapers, and in the midst of a piece of news about the imminent sale of the animation division of Firefly, he finally saw a mention of Marvel, and the article in the Manhattan Morning Post was almost identical to his recent speculation about a series of Marvel encounters.

However, Ron Perelman did not have any excitement at all to find a confidant, because two days ago, the New York District Court quickly approved the mandatory bankruptcy protection proposed by Marvel's creditors with astonishing efficiency, and then, with the cooperation of Marvel CEO Avi Arad, Marvel creditors represented by Katzenberg quickly took control of the Marvel board of directors.

The luxury car slowly parked outside the Marvel headquarters on 50th Street in Midtown Manhattan, and after Ron Perelman got out of the car, he walked into the Marvel office building with his assistant.

It happened to be work time, and several Marvel employees were waiting for the elevator in the corner of the hall, and when they saw Ron Perelman walk in, several people who were originally whispering immediately stopped talking, tiptoed around Ron Perelman, and walked towards the safety staircase.

Ron Perelman has long known that most people in Marvel are very disgusted with him, and if it was before, he wouldn't care about these little people at all, but today, Ron Perelman looked at the Marvel staff who avoided him like a plague god, and a strong anger suddenly arose in his heart.

Clenching his fists, Ron Perelman said to the assistant beside him in a cold tone: "Neil, go and write down the names of those people, and then notify the personnel department and tell them all to get out." ”

Assistant Neil glanced at the boss who was almost hysterical, wanting to remind something, Ron Perelman had already roared: "Even you want to rebel against me, I'm still the owner of Marvel!"

Neil didn't dare to hesitate at all, and hurriedly walked towards the safety staircase.

Coming to the floor where the Marvel Entertainment headquarters is located, Ron Perelman found that the lights in the corridor were still all on, and there were still people in and out of the conference room not far away from time to time holding materials.

With faint dark circles under his eyes, Katzenberg heard the prompt of the person next to him, looked up from a pile of papers, saw Ron Perelman arrive, raised his hand to look at his watch, and suddenly said, "It's already nine o'clock." ”

Saying this, Katzenberg stood up from his seat and stretched his body, instructed the assistant to prepare breakfast for himself, and then walked straight to the door, Ron Perelman had long expected that once the fireflies controlled Marvel, they would definitely start at Marvel's financial situation as soon as possible, but he didn't expect that without any notice at all, Katzenberg had already led someone to start reviewing Marvel's financial documents overnight, which made his anger that he had just suppressed erupt again, seeing Katzenberg walking towards him, Ron Perelman gritted his teeth and said: "You guys didn't have my permission, it's against the law, I'll protest it to the federal courts, I will. ”

Katzenberg came to Ron Perelman's side with a somewhat stiff neck, and did not mind Ron Perelman's threats, patted him on the shoulder a few times, and said, "Go protest, Ron." But before we do that, I think we'll have to talk about it, like the 4. $700 million thing. ”

Katzenberg dropped these few words and left the conference room, but Ron Perelman felt a chill in his heart, and the number that Katzenberg said casually was exactly the same as the amount he had embezzled Marvel's debt financing. This most likely means that, in just one night, the fireflies have mastered enough things. He just didn't know that Firefly had roughly mastered this data before launching an offensive against Marvel, and without enough evidence, the New York District Court would not have approved the bankruptcy protection application of Marvel's creditors so quickly. What Katzenberg did at this time was just look for conclusive evidence from Marvel's internal documents.

Unable to attack Katzenberg, Ron Perelman unwillingly pointed the finger at Marvel CEO Avi Arad: "Avi, why did you betray me, don't forget, I supported you to get the position of Marvel CEO?"

……

*PS: There is one more more

*(To be continued.) )