hunt hollywood

However, listening to what Simon said, both Robert Daly and Terry Semel realized that Simon didn't mean to intervene too much in Time Warner's top management changes.

Of course, the two are not completely ignorant of some of the joints.

Daenerys and Time Warner are competitors after all, and a competitor with internal chaos is definitely more in line with Daenerys Entertainment's own interests than a competitor with stable management.

Also, one more thing.

At this time, the two couldn't come up with a bargaining chip to let Simon do his best to help them get on the top.

In order to ensure that the cooperation between the two parties will not change, Westeros can publicly support them to jointly serve as the CEO of Time Warner, but without other benefits, the other party cannot do too much.

As for the deeper factors, in fact, even if Time Warner really has full control of the power, the two have no intention of confronting Daenerys Entertainment.

After all, Time Warner is a publicly held company, and the two of them are just professional managers.

As a professional manager, as long as he can do the best for the company during his term of office, obtain the highest profit, and get the due remuneration, that is enough.As for the long-term planning of a company, neither of them feels that they have such an obligation. Even for Time Warner, which is constantly fighting internally, even if they want to undertake such an obligation, it is unlikely.

Time Warner is not Daenerys, and each faction in this hill-strewn company has its own demands.

Simon had already had a call with Gerald Levine when he was in Australia, and he also roughly expressed his attitude on the phone.

The three had a brief discussion, and Simon promised Daenerys Entertainment officials would make some more statements in the media to ensure that there would be no other changes at the shareholder meeting on January 1, and Simon did not plan to do more.

After a simple lunch and greetings to those who should greet them, the Simons returned to Manhattan together.

In the evening, I also made an appointment for a dinner with the Raybould family, and the Robert Iger family will also attend at that time.

Although I came back early, I didn't plan to return to Los Angeles immediately to start work. Instead, I planned to spend the New Year in New York, and various activities were arranged in the next few days.

Unknowingly, the last week of 1992 finally passed.

In the week from December 12th to December 25st, "Jurassic Park" was still in full swing. In the second week of its release, the film's decline was only 12%. Compared with the super high box office of 31 million US dollars in the first week, such a decline is already very good. .In the rest of the next week, "Jurassic Park" continued to earn US$21 million, and the cumulative box office quickly reached US$9138 million.

No. 2 in the single-week ranking list, "The End of the World", compared with "Jurassic Park"'s box office of 7217 million US dollars, the box office of the new film starring Mel Gibson is only 1518 million US dollars in the first week of filming. Far below Warner's expectations.

Considering that the Christmas file will pass next week, and the production cost of "The End of the World" reached 3000 million U.S. dollars, the total box office in North America may only be between 3000 million and 4000 million U.S. dollars.

No.3 "Home Alone 2", because of Christmas, once again gained $3 million with an ultra-low drop of 998%. After six weeks of release, the cumulative box office was $1 million.

"Hoffa" produced by Fox had a box office of 871 million US dollars in the first week, ranking No.4.

With the film's overall media score of only 5.4 points, it is obviously unlikely that this biographical crime drama will hit the awards season.

Paramount's comedy "Miracle from Heaven" starring Steve Martin had a box office of 737 million US dollars in the first week, ranking No.5, which also fell short of expectations.

In fact, the box office of the top five films on the weekly list and the last four films such as "The End of the World" is not as good as that of "Jurassic Park".

Relying on the momentum brought by "Jurassic Park", Daenerys Entertainment's statement on the need to ensure a stable management change for Time Warner immediately received positive responses from all parties in Time Warner.

Through this incident, Hollywood once again felt the growing influence of Daenerys Entertainment in the American media industry.

Chapter 516 A Plate of Loose Sand (Revision)

In the manor on the outskirts of Greenwich in northern New York.

The time is July 1th.

The new year has passed and it is officially 1993.

Just the day before yesterday, Time Warner Group formally confirmed a new management team through an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders. Two direct descendants, Robert Daly and Terry Semel, are co-CEOs of Time Warner.

Although the official management has been confirmed on the surface, in fact, this kind of power arrangement after mutual compromise still makes Time Warner Group's internal hills full of scattered sand.

Nominally the leader, Gerald Levine can only control the business that originally belonged to the Time Corporation system.The two co-CEOs are still firmly in control of Warner Bros.'s various companies.

The Wall Street Journal published an article commenting on Time Warner's 'synergies' the day after new management was confirmed.

The reason why Time Company and Warner Bros. merged at the beginning was that the management of the two companies vigorously advocated the "synergy effect" of the enterprise, claiming that once the merger, Time Warner would greatly increase its business cooperation in film, television, magazines and other fields. The company's competitiveness and overall revenue.

However, the fact is that, in the three years since the merger in early 1990, the synergy that shareholders hoped to see has not appeared. Time Warner is still in disarray. In the case of tit-for-tat dismantling, this time the management change is also turbulent.

Not only that, but the entire Time Warner has not been able to get out of the heavy debt quagmire because of the original merger.

All in all, in the view of the "Wall Street Journal", the original merger was a complete and complete failure, and it only satisfied the personal ambition of Time Warner's management to expand the scale of the company blindly.

Facing the criticism from The Wall Street Journal, Time Warner officials publicly refuted it for the first time, but failed to prevent the further decline of the company's stock price.

At the beginning of the new year, Simon is still staying in New York these days due to various things.

Watching the "Wall Street Journal" suddenly criticize Time Warner with a cold eye, Simon discovered that this small public opinion disturbance will have another important impact on Warner.

In several contacts at the end of last year, Terry Semel revealed to Simon that he hopes to further expand the diversity of Warner Bros. Pictures in the field of production.

In fact, it is imitating the current operation mode of the three Daenerys Entertainment labels, and getting involved in the genres of thriller literature and other movies that New World Pictures and Gaomen Pictures are good at.

For Warner Bros., the easiest way to do this is undoubtedly an acquisition.

The group's management has been replaced. Even if there is not much change in power, the new executives still need to make some achievements, even if it is a cosmetic project, to show the newcomers and new atmosphere.

On the original timeline, it happened to be 1993. Time Warner acquired the booming New Line Pictures, and in the following years, it won super blockbusters such as the "Rush Hour" series and the "Lord of the Rings" series. The sub-label even once directly caught up with the development of the main label.

This time, due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment, New Line Pictures lost its first blockbuster series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with a domestic box office of over [-] million, and was forced by New World Pictures in the field of horror and horror that it is good at. Retreating steadily, the strength is far less eye-catching than the original time and space.

Compared with the original timeline, which had to sell itself to Time Warner, which monopolizes the distribution channels of Hollywood movies, in order to further expand, the new line now seeks buyers mainly to survive.

Therefore, the attractiveness of this second-tier label is not as great as the original time and space. In addition, the Wall Street Journal accused Time Warner Group of the last merger as a blind expansion article. In order to avoid more criticism, the acquisition of New Line or other The plans of second- and third-tier film companies to increase the diversity of productions will definitely be shelved.

Lacking successors, New Line Cinema, which has been in business difficulties due to over-expansion in the past two years, is likely to go bankrupt this year if it doesn't survive.

Affected by the parallel success of Daenerys Entertainment's three labels, other Hollywood studios are more or less following suit, and Simon can't stop this. For Neris entertainment, it was a piece of cake.

Whether it's New Line, Miramax, or even Orion Pictures, which is still struggling to maintain, under Simon's watchful eyes, these companies basically have no hope of getting projects that may sell well.

In recent years, "The Silence of the Lambs", "The Crying Game", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", etc., should have belonged to these companies, but all of them were successfully cut off by Simon, and he used New World Pictures and Gaomen Films in advance The two major labels in the industry have occupied the niche film field that mainstream studios would not care about in the past.

The fate of New Line is destined to change, and Simon has also solved another company in recent days.

Miramax.

Hollywood's second- and third-tier film companies, like Daenerys Entertainment in the early days of its development, largely rely on bank loans to maintain operations.

In recent years, the bank that provided funds for Miramax is also well-known on Wall Street, Chase Manhattan Bank.As far as I can remember the bank merged with JP Morgan around 2000.

Of course, it's just Chase Manhattan's film investment department dedicated to Hollywood.

The Weinstein brothers have operated Miramax with several twists and turns over the years, and owed about $1500 million in debt to Chase Manhattan Bank.

1500 million US dollars is not worth mentioning for the current Daenerys Entertainment, but it is a huge sum of money for a small studio film company that can only release some low-cost literary films.

Moreover, according to the investigation, in addition to Chase Manhattan, the largest creditor, Miramax also has other arrears, with a cumulative debt of 2300 million US dollars.

Around the New Year, the Westeros system began to discuss some cooperation projects with several major banks in the United States, mainly the loan financing required by each subsidiary for further development, and further cooperation between Internet payment tools and physical banks.

For the major banks in the United States, the subsidiaries of the Westeros system are undoubtedly the highest-quality lending targets, and they naturally try their best to fight for them.

Chase Manhattan is also one of them.

In order to form as many interest relationships as possible, the Westeros system also habitually chooses more partners.

During Verizon's talks with Chase Manhattan about a $3 million loan financing, Simon asked James Raybould, who was negotiating, to offer Chase Manhattan an additional condition: an early recovery of the debt from Miramax.

A small Hollywood company that is always on the verge of bankruptcy is not worth mentioning to Chase Manhattan.

It is unlikely to recover all the debts owed by this troubled film company. Chase Manhattan is actually doing debt collection, and is ready to take on another bad debt.

The incidental requirements of the Westeros system, in the eyes of Chase Manhattan, also think that this small company has offended Daenerys Entertainment somewhere, and the potential cooperation between the two parties is far more than a financing of 3 million US dollars. , of course he is happy to sell a favor casually.

Therefore, on the same day that the Wall Street Journal criticized Time Warner for its over-expansion, a third-tier film company headquartered in New York officially filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District Court of New York.

Although the development of the Westeros system has been smooth sailing, Simon has always understood that business competition has never been warm and affectionate.

Cruelty is the essence of business.

He didn't have any burden in his heart to erase a film company that should have been brilliant in the original timeline.

In the reception room of the manor house, after lunch, the Simons, James Raybould, and Verizon Telecom Chairman and CEO Raymond Smith were discussing the next step of the Westeros system in the telecommunications field.

The week before Christmas last year, the U.S. Congress formally approved the lifting of the industry ban that telecom operators are not allowed to set foot in the field of equipment manufacturing.

Although it is a bill passed by Congress, it is largely a way for the Bush administration to accumulate as much political legacy as possible before the official transfer of power.It is doomed that Bush Sr. will step down, and Bush Jr. will also officially enter the US political arena.

Speaking of which, in the last few months of the general election, the Bush administration has also been trying to promote the passage of some bills related to the new technology industry.

However, because the "Information Superhighway Act" is in the forefront, this bill has also entered the final stage of discussion. It is impossible for the Bush administration to take the bill proposed by Clinton's running mate as its own achievements. Therefore, in the field of new technologies, the White House After all, it seems to be doing nothing.

Of course things need to be done step by step.

Telecom operators are not allowed to get involved in the lifting of the ban on equipment manufacturing, and the next step is for Nokia to enter the North American market as a matter of course.

In the original timeline, Nokia’s share in the North American market was actually not high, mainly because the North American telecom equipment market was too closed, and the sales channels were also monopolized by telecom operators. Until many years later, when the iPhone appeared, US telecom operators still relied on The bundled sales model with telecom packages monopolizes more than 90% of the telecom equipment market.

This time, with the cooperation of Verizon, Nokia's pace of developing the North American market will not be as difficult as before.

In the past two years, America Online has conquered cities and territories in the field of Internet service providers. While cooperating with America Online to develop Internet business, Verizon has also been vigorously deploying its own mobile communication network.

Owning the highest-quality markets on several continents along the eastern coast of the United States, at the same time, it does not hesitate to lock in the second-generation GSM format. It does not hesitate between different telecommunication standards like other operators, and even wastes resources to enable different formats at the same time. Sen's layout in the field of mobile communications is also far ahead of other peers.

Next, while deepening the mobile communication business in its own market, Verizon's next goal is to expand.

Of course, for this to happen, the antitrust restrictions imposed when AT&T was split in 1984 must also be resolved.

This is actually just a matter of course in the next few years.

Whether it is public media or private lobbying, the Westeros system has been promoting the concept of 'triple play' as much as possible in the past two years.

Internet broadband, cable TV, and home telephone, if these three major networks can be combined into one, it will greatly save the operating costs of operators and bring cheaper services to users.

The anti-monopoly in the United States is mainly to prevent the monopoly of the telecommunications industry from causing excessive prices and harming the interests of consumers.

Now, the integration of three networks can not only save social resources to a great extent, but also provide consumers with cheap communication services to the greatest extent. Therefore, this concept, whether it is media platforms or American political circles, is already very popular.

The continuous deregulation of the telecommunications industry is beneficial to the major telecommunications giants.

The concept proposed by the Westeros system was quickly unanimously recognized by the telecommunications industry.

AT&T even published a report, arguing that once the telecommunications industry is deregulated and the triple play is promoted, the U.S. telecommunications industry can save hundreds of billions of dollars in costs every year. These cost savings can just benefit consumers to the greatest extent. .

Discussions all afternoon about Verizon and Nokia's entry into North America.

In the evening, James Raybould and Raymond Smith were sent off, and the Simons also officially boarded the plane back to the west coast.

The next day is Friday, April 1th.

The first box office week of 1993 is officially over.

During the seven days from January 1st to January 1th, because of the weekdays, movies in North American theaters experienced a sharp drop.

"Jurassic Park", which was released in the third week, fell by 35% in a single week and continued to earn 4691 million US dollars.

At the same time, the cumulative box office of this dinosaur movie in North America also exceeded the 2 million US dollar mark, reaching 2 million US dollars.

Daenerys Entertainment's other film "Home Alone 2" in the year-end schedule also saw a drop of 43% in the first week after the new year. The single-week box office was only 566 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office was 1 million U.S. dollars.

Different from the sharp dive after the two commercial films entered the working day, Daenerys Entertainment's awards season featured "Scent of a Woman", but the box office trend was relatively good, with a drop of only 28% in the first week of the new year. The game's decline curve has also shown signs of slowing down.

At the same time, in the past 1992 year, the box office list as of December 1992, 12 has also been released.

Daenerys Entertainment's "Wonder Woman" in the summer file, with a huge box office of 3.71 million US dollars, became the annual box office average in 1992 without any suspense.

Although the box office momentum of "Jurassic Park" is still fast, it is difficult to overtake "Wonder Woman" in general. Both inside and outside the company predict that the local box office of "Jurassic Park" will be about 3.5 million US dollars. .However, judging from the market performance of overseas ticket warehouses that have already been drawn, it is still difficult to say who will win and who will lose in the overseas box office of the two films.

Chapter 517 Preinstallation (repair)

Seattle, in the villa on Mercer Island in the center of Lake Washington.

Seeing Alice Ferguson almost shaky going downstairs, Zoe Parks and Isabel Dunn almost wanted to laugh, with some inexplicable envy in their emotions.

The housekeeper, who was no longer the housekeeper, glared at the two women, walked towards the restaurant on her own, and at the same time hated a certain guy again.

Anyway, I will never give in.

Today is Tuesday, July 1.

Simon came to Seattle as a major shareholder to attend a high-level meeting of Microsoft, mainly discussing the pre-installation of Windows system in IE browser.

The affair with the housekeeper actually started with some arguments.

In the past week, Ypay, Ypay, an online payment tool of Eaglet, has successively authorized the payment interface applications of six online business websites, many of which compete directly or indirectly with Amazon.

This was naturally opposed by the housekeeper, who believed that Simon was marrying someone.