Surprise!

The news brought by Robert Jr. is definitely a surprise for the current Lu Deshuang!

Why?

Because Lu Deshuang is also eyeing the dream factory behind Steven Spielberg!

Perhaps people will remember that in 2005, Paramount made a shocking acquisition of DreamWorks for $1.6 billion. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Founded in 1994, DreamWorks Films was founded by several of the most influential heavyweights in the American entertainment industry at the time: Stephen Spielberg, who became a household name in the United States for directing films such as "Jaws" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", and was hailed as Hollywood's most commercially promising film director; David Geffen, an American record industry giant who amassed $4.4 billion for successfully packaging and marketing pop artists such as Cher, Aerosmith and Nirvana; Jeffrey Katzenberg, the famous master of animated films and the former president of The Walt Disney Company with $250 million in assets, plus an anonymous shareholder, Paul Allen, a partner at Microsoft, who is worth $21 billion and ranks seventh on the world's richest list, invested $600 million in DreamWorks.

The "Big Three" DreamWorks was not originally positioned to add a regular version of a movie studio to Hollywood, where there are many production companies, but to build an entertainment media empire that spans the fields of film and television, animation, music, computer games and the Internet. In addition, DreamWorks plans to build a giant high-tech cinema on an empty swamp south of Los Angeles' LAX airport.

Overall, DreamWorks has done quite well in filmmaking.

In the field of animation production, Jeffrey Katzenberg learned from his previous success at Disney and recruited British animation genius Nick Parker to make his debut film, Chicken Run. The $42 million animation production grossed $200 million.

This was followed by "Shrek", which was a successful box office with 6 times the cost of investment ($60 million). "Shrek 2" is even more of a cash cow, costing $75 million and earning a staggering $916 million at the box office worldwide. This summer's animated film "Madagascar" also grossed $425 million.

Live-action filmmaking has also made a significant profit.

Spielberg's self-directed "Saving Private Ryan" grossed $479 million for $70 million, "Minority Report" earned $353 million, "Get Away with Justice" made $342 million, and this summer's "War of the Worlds" also made twice the original investment ($128 million).

DreamWorks' other productions are also impressive.

The first was the five-award American Beauty directed by Briton Sam Mendes, which cost a measly $15 million and grossed $200 million, plus $211 million in cassette and DVD rentals.

With a $103 million investment, Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" grossed $188 million domestically and $258 million internationally. DreamWorks later made a gold mine in the production of family comedies, such as "Very Son-in-law" and its sequel, "Very Son in Law 2", which made box office revenue four times the cost of investment.

It stands to reason that with such excellent performance, there should be no reason for Steven Spielberg and others to sell DreamWorks!

Yes, if the story had continued in the style described above, DreamWorks would never have fallen to the point where it is selling in retail today, but on the contrary, it would be at most half a step away from the dream of a media empire.

So what went wrong?

Since DreamWorks films make so much money, why don't their founders stick to their success and keep going?

The answer to the question is not so simple.

If DreamWorks had a good track record in filmmaking in its early days, the company's investments in other projects were not equally lucky.

First, there was the shelving of the high-tech studio project, which in 1999 failed after five years of fighting environmentalists and birdologists to build a high-tech studio in Los Angeles.

Spielberg and his accomplices had to retreat to their temporary home, a replica estate built on the corner of Universal's studio, a gift from his young employment with Universal Pictures, for which he made big box office hits for films such as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extraterrestrial and Jurassic Park.

Soon after the company was founded, its Internet business failed with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and the company's investment in computer games was thwarted. After signing with singers such as Nelie Fitado, George Michael, and Cockroach Daddy, David Geffen was unable to replicate his success and glory in the "Geffen Records" era in his music career, and he had to sell DreamWorks' record division to Universal in November 2003.

And DreamWorks' TV career is also anticlimactic, with no beginning and no end.

At first, DreamWorks produced high-quality TV series such as "Band of Brothers" for HBO cable under Spielberg's personal supervision, but the mediocre TV films that later produced made DreamWorks also a second- or third-rate TV film studio, and even DreamWorks had a legal dispute with Rubert Murdoch-controlled Fox Television Network over the original rights of the TV show "The Competitor".

If you've ever watched DreamWorks' slightly long animation logo, a young boy perched on the crescent moon, with a rod and line piercing through the clouds and falling on the water, you'll think that Spielberg founded DreamWorks not just to make money, but to dream bigger, a dream from the deepest recesses of Spielberg's narcissistic childhood.

Unlike the average studio owner, Spielberg is more of an idealist or perfectionist, focusing on actual performance as much as process, and his way of working is not all about results.

Spielberg's private suite in the American-Mexico Building in Los Angeles, jokingly referred to by DreamWorks staff as the boss's office, from which many of the company's instructions, large and small, were issued, giving the impression that Spielberg was a self-centered dictatorial czar who was directing a private studio that made movies rather than running a practical commercial company.

He always likes to make important decisions about all the major affairs of the company from his personal interests, and his daily routine has caused many endless delays. Some filmmakers can't wait and have to redirect their work to other production companies.

A traditional studio boss often gives the green light to films of all genres, but according to his staff, Spielberg, the owner, only gives away films with a "Spielberg personality", preferring to make those films himself if time permits. Unless the film is labeled as "directed by Steven Spielberg", it will be relegated to the second line for a long time.

Spielberg's meticulous "micromanagement" angered other senior DreamWorks executives who could not make the film of their choice. The production capacity of a large number of senior producers has been greatly weakened. In addition, DreamWorks averages about 6 films per year, and the output of films that lack diversity and novelty simply cannot meet the needs of general cinema chains, so most cinema chains prefer to cooperate with production companies with an annual output of dozens of films and a wide variety of film sources.

For a small, low-volume film company like DreamWorks, the payment of 475 employees has become a heavy burden.