See the fastest updates

Two days after the signing ceremony was reached, a new news item from the Wall Street Times about the business of the film appeared, which said: "Tom Cruise is 2. The $200 million acquisition of Luen Mei officially announced the end of the partnership with Paramount, which is a complete acquisition, and of course, MGM and Cruise's Chinese partners also own its shares.

This means not a salvage acquisition, but a merger. Many business media have guessed Tom Cruise's intentions, a dilapidated Luen Mei company is worthless, so what is it to swallow it up? How many shares does the Chinese partner have? Although Tom Cruise and Li Xiaole did not come forward to explain that this is a trade secret, their opponents and peers are speculating about Tom Cruise's thoughts.

According to the situation, it is actually easy to get the result, Tom Cruise is definitely not for the trademark of United States, and the copyright of hundreds of old black and white films, they are interested in the parent company Sony's Shili, with the help of Columbia Media's Liliang to balance the Viacon Media Group behind Paramount.

In any case, the new acquisition of Luen Mei once again shows that the new Shili of Hollywood is slowly rising, but everyone does not seem to care that the person in charge of Luen Mei is actually the neglected "Chinese partner", and many media have begun to express their opinions on this, the Los Angeles Times commented:

"2005 was a disaster year for Tom Cruise, but at the beginning of the new year, it seems that the former Hollywood darling seems to want to get rid of his bad luck and start a new journey, buying Luen Mei to join MGM and become owned by Sony, is this good or bad for Sony? You must know that Tom Cruise's company once made nearly $200 million in profits under Paramount. ”

And the editor of Empire magazine apparently had a more negative opinion of the news:

"Tom Cruise abandoned his old club and invested in a new company, which shows that his ambition is definitely more than just being an actor, who can predict what kind of chaotic path this handsome guy brainwashed by Scientology will take after losing the blessing of Paramount?"

A week after this news was announced, Viacom's chairman, Paramount's ECO Lei Shidong, in an interview with Vanity Fair, publicly said generously to Tom Cruise:

"His latest bizarre behavior is nothing short of a suicide...... As much as we personally enjoyed him, we thought it would be a mistake to continue working together. Paramount couldn't stand his recent behavior. The Paramount at the helm said:

"When did I decide to fire him? I don't know, it was when he appeared on "The Today Show" (slamming Brooke Smalls for taking anti-partum depression drugs)? Was it when he jumped on the couch on the Oprah talk show? Was it when he replaced his assistant with his sister? His behavior was completely unacceptable to me, my wife and others. ”

Lei Shidong said in the interview that after falling in love with Katie, Cruise's behavior became quite bizarre - showing affection in a high-profile manner, jumping on the couch on Oprah's show, fighting with Brooke Shields, and never forgetting to promote the Scientology he believes in. Cruise's behavior was quite disgusting to the population.

This interview full of negative news has exacerbated everyone's negative impression of Tom Cruise for a year, and a survey on the QScores website of the celebrity popularity index shows that since Cruise fell in love with Katie, the number of women who support Cruise has dropped by 45%, and the number of women who dislike Cruise has increased by 300%, and Cruise's popularity has fallen to a new low since 2000......

When Paramount continues to go out of its way to discredit Tom Cruise's image, what is the reaction of Sony, who originally promised to protect Tom Cruise?

Sony seems to be busy continuing to smear Michael Jackson after signing the contract, and they have completely forgotten their promises, and they have not reacted to Lei Shidong's behavior at all, because in Sony's view, Lei Shidong is just promoting "Mission Impossible 3", which will be released in the summer, and if they respond, it will form a topic and build momentum for the other party.

It all depends on MGM's own attitude.

In the conference room of MGM, Leigh Canon, who is in charge of MGM's affairs, was playing indoor golf while receiving a report from George Carr, the manager of the publicity department, about Luen Mei.

"That's the case, it seems that Paramount is very annoyed that Tom Cruise is cooperating with us, and now he wants to use Tom Cruise's negative news to promote "Mission Impossible 3", and Lianmei is urging us to put pressure on the parent company Sony, what do you think we should do?"

"What should I do?" Canon put the ball along the artificial turf into the hole, then turned his head and sneered: "What is the good development of Luen Mei Company, what is the benefit to us?" Sony is now assessing whether Tom Cruise still has star value, and if he can't come up with a decent movie after "Mission Impossible 3", then Sony doesn't care whether he lives or dies to negotiate with Paramount. ”

"I know what to do." George Carr nodded and pushed out the room.

Canon picked up the ball from the hole, sat back on the bench with satisfaction, and looked out the window, but in his heart he was laughing at Tom Cruise, who wagged his tail and begged for mercy. Don't be stupid, MGM will collapse again in 5 years, and you, an idiot who can only make movies, have just jumped into another abyss of commercial financing.

At dusk, the coffee shop has a lot of customers, and office workers who are tired after a long day of work come here to sit, drink a cup of coffee, and enjoy the charming twilight.

Li Xiaole and Lei Ting sat at a table by the floor-to-ceiling window, each holding a cup of coffee.

In the past few days, they have carried out a simple combing of Lianmei, completed the redistribution of the company's personnel, and now they have the time to discuss the next Jihua, although they have lost the attention of the media after coming to Hollywood, and have returned to a penniless state of life, but it seems that Lei Ting and Li Xiaole are enjoying this process of building their careers bit by bit.

"I have to admit that this is a haode start, the question is what should we do next?" Lei Ting drank coffee, looked at Li Xiaole and said: "Don't forget, we have to repay millions of dollars in bank interest every month, and the operation of the screenwriter's republic alone is not enough to offset these burdens, and it will take time for the films on the Chinese company's side to be converted into profits......"

"Self-reliance." Li Xiaole raised his coffee with a smile and took a sip: "You know that I haven't only made movies in the past few years, and I, a legendary screenwriter, still have dozens of first-draft scripts to sell." ”

Although he only has time to complete more than a dozen well-crafted scripts, he still has more than enough to write the first draft script, and there is no problem at all in selling it to the producers of the Big Six, although the money is not much, but it is perfect to deal with the problem of bank debt collection in the recent period.

"I don't think it's so troublesome, maybe we can do some things with Luen Mei stock." Lei Ting shook her head, she has a better way, when she operated Apple stock with Li Xiaole before, she had already mastered some stock skills, although it was difficult to make a fortune in the stock market, but she was confident that she would make a little profit to maintain the company's operation.

"No, we can't move the stock, I have another use, I was about to tell you this." Li Xiaole smiled:

"Sister Tingting, please take our stock documents to the bank as a mortgage, the market value of the shares in our hands should be about 80 million, I plan to use this money to buy the ten-year adaptation rights of several comics in Marvel, you have to help me draw up a mortgage contract, after three years, if we don't pay back Marvel's 80 million cash, Lianmei will belong to them, I believe Marvel will not refuse."

"Have you already decided?" Lei Ting was not too surprised, she knew that Li Xiaole had been thinking about this jihua since a long time, compared to the previous madness, this time it was at least well thought out, although 80 million is a huge amount of money, it is conceivable to buy 180 million of Lianmei's bankrupt property...... It's really nothing, Luen Mei Company was originally an empty shell, it is better to let the money move, but she has a question she wants to ask:

"Now we have bought all the shares of Luen Mei with all the funds, and then you have pledged all the shares of Luen Mei to Marvel to sign a contract, so what are we going to do with the movie? I don't think we can even get $100,000 right now? ”

"Hehe~" Li Xiaole couldn't help laughing and pointed at himself: "Sister Tingting, you seem to have forgotten, I am now the president of Luen Mei and a member of the big league,"

"So what? You're not a hotel lady, so you can get a higher price by putting on a name. Lei Ting disagreed, is it because you are the president of Luen Mei that someone will invest in your film?

"Deputy...... I didn't spend any money to make a movie, and I didn't spend any money at all. Li Xiaole squinted his eyes and explained: "In Hollywood, except for those really independent production companies, all the sources of investment in films are financing from the financial institutions behind the six major companies, if you don't let them invest in it, your film will not have any chance of publicity in the cinema, simply put, you must achieve an equal share of the interests of the entire industry, and of course the risk will be shared."

Do you think there is a shortage of rich people in the United States? But have you ever heard of a rich man who has invested in making movies on his own? Even if you really have the money to invest in making movies, when you sign a contract with the Big Six for distribution, you have to share with them, and the result is the same.

So no matter how much money you invest, the profits are divided according to the ratio of 22 to 35%, and the rest is the distribution agency, such as Lionsgate, which produced "Blair the Witch" in 1999, although the film only used $15,000 to get a huge box office of $250 million, but Lionsgate only got more than 30 million of the box office share, and the remaining more than 100 million box office profits were earned by the six major controlled distribution channels. ”