"I just got the news this morning......"

Seeing Murphy sitting on the couch, Bill Rothes said succinctly, "At the meeting of Sony Entertainment's top management, many people once again reiterated the plan to spin off Sony Columbia Pictures and sell it as a package. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Murphy nodded, since the first news of the divestiture sale of Sony Columbia Pictures, he has kept people staring at Sony Entertainment, and naturally he has also gotten such information, and combined with the situation of Sony Columbia Pictures and even the entire Sony Group, he is also ready to make the decision to try to acquire Columbia Pictures.

So, Murphy said directly to Bill Rothes, "I'm ready to buy Sony Columbia Pictures. ”

Bill Rothes had known about Murphy's plans for a long time and wasn't surprised.

"Is there anything I need to do?" He asked.

Now that Murphy and Stanton are his most important clients, without their support, his position as a partner in the CAA is shaky.

"Of course." Murphy was not polite to Bill Rothes at all, "Bill, I need you to convince the partners of CAA to let CAA fully assist me in completing this acquisition." ”

Although after so many years of directing career and film investment, he has accumulated a lot of net worth, and his various assets add up to billions of dollars, but it is definitely very difficult to acquire one of the six traditional Hollywood companies like Columbia Pictures.

This kind of acquisition involving billions of dollars in assets, it's not that I pay for it, you agree, the two sides simply say a few words, and then it is done with a slap of the head.

That's either fantasy, or a child's play, or a group of neuropathies......

If nothing else, financing alone is quite a troublesome thing.

Murphy is not ready to complete this acquisition 'alone', a fool will throw all his funds into a project, to the extent that he is now, of course, the funds cannot be pressed on a project, just like all acquisitions in this country, it is the most reasonable way to carry out it in the form of financing or loans.

Even, just like Shanghai Disneyland can use future ticket revenue as collateral to obtain loans, if he really reaches an agreement with Sony Entertainment, he can use the film rights in Columbia Pictures' library as collateral for financing.

Of course, it is also possible to pull in several promising partners.

Although this may be troublesome, it is the most normal situation to be mixed in the business circle, and he is not afraid of these at all.

As for choosing CAA, on the one hand, he is now the number one customer in CAA, and the two sides have cooperated for more than ten years, as long as the interests are the same, CAA will definitely mobilize forces to help him complete this acquisition; On the other hand, CAA has experience in this area, when Sony Entertainment acquired Columbia Pictures, the middleman or the person who facilitated the deal was Michael Ovitz's CAA.

Although Michael Ovitz is no longer there, CAA is only stronger than it was in the late eighties and early nineties.

Murphy thought about this, and Bill Rothes, as one of the partners of CAA, also knew it, and after a little thought, he nodded and said, "No problem, I can take your words directly to the partner meeting of CAA." ”

"That's good." Murphy is well aware that the purpose of business cooperation is profit, so he added, "If CAA can help Stanton Studios buy Sony Columbia Pictures at a reasonable price, I will give CAA three percent of the deal." ”

"Three percent?" Bill Rosith's eyes immediately widened, and even if Sony Columbia Pictures was in a bad situation, the acquisition price would not fall off half a billion dollars.

Such three percent can be worth most of CAA's profit for half a year.

"In that case...... Bill Rothes said confidently to Murphy, "I'm 90 percent sure I'm going to convince the company to get involved in this acquisition." ”

Murphy nodded slightly, a commercial company is not a charity, and if you want the horse to run, you naturally have to give the horse grazing.

The two exchanged views again, after all, the acquisition is not a trivial matter, this is only the most preliminary intention, if Stanton Studio really wants to cooperate with CAA, there are still a lot of things that need to be discussed and dealt with slowly.

After chatting for a while, Bill Rothes reminded Murphy again, "Although Sony Columbia Pictures is not doing well recently, the foundation is still there after all, and you have to be mentally prepared to fail." ”

"I know." Of course, Murphy understands that he doesn't necessarily want to sell if he wants to buy the other party.

Even if Sony Columbia Pictures is not in a good situation, from Sony Entertainment to Sony Group, there are voices to sell Sony Columbia Pictures, but the sale of Sony Columbia Pictures did not happen when he was.

But Murphy also knows that now is the best chance to win Sony Columbia Pictures.

In the past two years, Sony Columbia Pictures has invested heavily in the production and distribution of films, except for "The Amazing Spider-Man", the revenue is not bad, and most of the other films are facing losses, and the projects that can recover their costs only occupy a fairly small proportion.

If it weren't for the fact that a considerable part of the cost of these films comes from multiple financings, and the magic weapon of "Spider-Man" is once again sacrificed to continue its life, Sony Columbia Pictures would have been unable to hold on.

However, there is always a time when the potential to save lives is exhausted, and the "Spider-Man" series can save Sony Columbia Pictures once, twice, three times...... But it can't be saved forever.

This summer, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was released in North America, and the film cost as much as $230 million to produce alone, it can be said that Sony Columbia Pictures has high hopes for this film, looking forward to recreating the glory of "Spider-Man 2".

But many things don't go the way people expect, and movies that invest heavily may not end well.

So far, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" has been released in North America, with a total of a little more than $200 million at the North American box office, far from Sony Columbia's $350 million North American box office expectations.

Such an outcome is certainly not something that Sony Columbia Pictures wants to see.

Although the film's overseas box office is not bad, with the global box office approaching $700 million so far, it simply can't make Sony's Columbia Pictures executives laugh.

The huge production cost of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and the huge investment in publicity and distribution costs, even if the global box office exceeds 700 million US dollars, it may be difficult to recover the cost.

What makes them even more mad is that countless Spider-Man fans are very angry about the death of Gwen Stacy in the film, coupled with word-of-mouth and other unfavorable factors, resulting in poor sales of the film's peripheral products, and the income brought is extremely limited, and a considerable part of this limited income is owned by Marvel Comics, the creator of Spider-Man.

According to the information obtained by Murphy, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is far from a successful performance, although it will not bankrupt Sony Columbia Pictures, but it will also lead to an extremely tight financial chain, and it may break at any time.

So, there is once again a voice within Sony to divest and sell Sony Columbia Pictures.

In fact, when Murphy lived on the other side of the Pacific, Sony Columbia Pictures had a similar situation, but Sony Columbia Pictures finally survived by virtue of its background as one of the six major Hollywood companies.

Murphy's eyes are not only on Sony Columbia Pictures, but also on Sony Electronics and Sony Entertainment.

Needless to say, Sony Electronics is Sony's core business, but in recent years, the development has been difficult, and there have been a number of departments that have been poorly managed and sold by Sony's management; The situation of Sony Entertainment is not much better, and many subsidiaries of the entire entertainment group, in addition to Sony Records, which can bring relatively stable profits every year, other companies such as Sony Columbia Pictures have suffered losses one after another.

Of course, from a certain level, the Sony Group is very strong, and there is a more powerful consortium behind it, but anyone who knows a little about business knows that companies like Sony Entertainment or Sony Columbia Pictures have separate financial accounts, and when they acquired these companies to make profits, these companies could not generate profits, but would drag down the group companies, and the best way was to divest and then sell.

This is also the reason why Sony Entertainment intends to divest and sell Sony Columbia Pictures internally.

Presumably, in the eyes of many Sony executives, Sony Columbia Pictures, which has ranked first in the bottom of the six major Hollywood film companies for many years, is not only not a weapon for profit, but has become a drag on them.

Still, as Bill Rothes said, even if Sony Entertainment wants to sell, completing the acquisition of Sony Columbia Pictures is a huge and time-consuming project.

Because there are also people who don't want to sell Sony Columbia Pictures, after all, Sony Columbia Pictures still has a huge film library in its hands, and as long as this film library is still there, Sony Columbia Pictures has huge value.

These are all troubles in front of Murphy and Stanton Studios, and they are also problems that must be faced, such an acquisition, it is not that he wants to buy, throw out enough funds, Sony Entertainment will obediently hand over Sony Columbia Pictures.

Sony Columbia Pictures has not yet reached the point where there is no way out.

Murphy is well aware of this, and as long as a big-budget commercial film can be a super blockbuster, Sony Columbia Pictures will inevitably get rid of this decline for the time being and rebuild confidence in the film market.

Is there such an opportunity? In the situation that Murphy investigated, not only did such an opportunity exist, but Sony Columbia Pictures was also in action in order to seize the opportunity and be able to turn over.

It's not just Murphy who thinks so, but Bill Rothes too.

"One more thing, I want to remind you."

In the office, Bill Rothes said to Murphy seriously, "Sony Columbia Pictures is approaching Marvel Studios and wants Peter Parker to return to the Avengers!" ”

"I know." Murphy certainly remembers these things, "I'm already working on it. ”