hunt hollywood

No.7: "Romeo and Juliet", $1.23 million.

No.8: "Professor Fat", $1.13 million.

No.9: "Aeroplane 2", $1.08 million.

The entire list is clear at a glance.

Among them, Daenerys Entertainment completely independently produced 9 movies, accounting for 5 of them, and there are two other cooperative movies, even the number one "007: Spectre", because MGM's distribution capacity is insufficient , Daenerys Entertainment is responsible for the distribution in many overseas markets, so it is also considered a stake.

There is only one "Professor Fat", which is completely exclusive to Fox.

Although No.1 on the list is temporarily occupied by MGM's "007 Spectre", although Simon actually does not want to compete for the limelight of this No.1, considering that at the end of the year there will be a DC movie universe series that happens to be distributed by Dan. Neris Entertainment's "Wonder Woman 2" is released, and the final result of the annual list is still unknown.

In any case, just looking at the list so far, Daenerys Entertainment is no less than Disney at the peak of Simon's memory.

If the connection among this series of films can be completely clarified, it is not an exaggeration to say that Simon has basically controlled the entire Hollywood at this time. In Hollywood's century-old history, Louis Meyer, who was once the most popular at the time, possesses more power than At this time, Simon is far inferior.

Daenerys Studios.

In Simon's office, as an insider, David Geffen, who had watched the entire rise of Simon Westeros, looked at the young man opposite him, and couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart.Even Geffen Records, which he founded back then, was already a part of Daenerys Records.

But now, not to mention anything else, just this young man's power in Hollywood is enough for everyone to look up to.

On the sofa in the reception area, Simon took a sip of the soda water that Girl A had just brought him. He felt a little uncomfortable with David Geffen's sizing up. You know, this is a well-known comedian in Hollywood. Put down the glass, Simon Straight to the point: "David, I have a meeting later, so let's make a long story short."

"Oh, of course," David Geffen also quickly put away his thoughts, and said, "I probably sent an email in advance, and DreamWorks hopes to buy Daenerys Entertainment's "Saving Private Ryan." "The script, Simon, I also checked in advance, Daenerys did not make any preparations for this project, I think, you should not mind changing hands."

Simon was noncommittal, and said: "David, "Saving Private Ryan" is a World War II-themed script, and it must be a blockbuster-level investment. The risk is very high. Why do you want to shoot this project?"

"The main reason is..." David Geffen wanted to prevaricate, hesitated a little, but finally told the truth, with a wry smile on his face: "Well, Simon, it was actually Steven who saw this After the script, I was very excited, but unfortunately we were late."

Hollywood is full of intrigues.

However, for Simon Westeros, if he used lying methods today, even if he got the script of "Saving Private Ryan", once the matter was revealed, this young man would not just admit that he was unlucky like other deceived filmmakers. In case of a rebound, the entire DreamWorks will be implicated.

Might as well tell the truth.

Even David Geffen would not have accepted the job if Spielberg hadn't asked him to do so. As a shareholder of DreamWorks, his attitude is consistent with what Simon just said, and he is also not very optimistic about the future possibility of such a huge investment. War movies that are not popular with audiences.

Simon had already guessed the general inside story of the matter, and since Geffen confessed, he didn't make any more detours and said, "Since Steven is interested, Daenerys can let her go. However, it happens to be an opportunity, Why don't Steven pay back the last film contract he owes Daenerys Entertainment this time."

David Geffen didn't expect Simon to agree so readily, but was stunned immediately.

Looking at the expression on Westeros' face, this bigwig who has been in Hollywood for many years felt inexplicably that he might have stepped into a pit on his own initiative.

But, this can only be said to be a feeling.

No evidence.

However, David Geffen quickly realized that if this project could be made into a cooperative film with Daenerys Entertainment, it would be a boon for the ambitious DreamWorks, which has not developed so smoothly after its establishment.

The problem is that Spielberg asked him to come over to talk about the script, but he didn't want to have any contact with Daenerys Entertainment. After all, after the success of the "Jurassic Park" series, Daenerys kicked him out. As I recall, Spielberg produced two blockbuster films, "Jurassic Park" and "Schindler's List" for Daenerys Entertainment.

The way the young man on the opposite side threw off Spielberg to recruit newcomers was really chilling.

Simon saw that David Geffen was hesitant, and then said: "David, you can go back and discuss with Steven. If he wants this project, my conditions are also very simple. Our two companies will invest together. Daenerys Entertainment is in charge of distribution, oh, in terms of production, I am very assured of Steven, so I will not interfere at all."

There is one more thing that Simon didn't say. It is easy for both Geffen and Spielberg to think clearly.After completing this project, Spielberg's film contract owed from Universal Times will be completely cleared this time.

Seeing that Simon had already set out clear conditions, David Geffen nodded slightly, but said again: "The problem is, Simon, we have signed an agreement with Paramount."

"That's not a problem. I think Paramount can also negotiate. For Daenerys, I only ask for half of the investment share and the distribution rights of the film."

David Geffen was not very optimistic about "Saving Private Ryan", but at this time, seeing the request from Simon Westero, who was still expressing the same attitude before, he immediately confirmed some intuition in his heart, Naturally, I felt that leaving only half of the investment share for DreamWorks and Paramount to share was definitely not enough.

However, after continuing the discussion, Simon refused to make any further concessions, so he had to stand up and leave temporarily, thinking about how to go back to discuss with Spielberg, and, perhaps, whether he could completely shake off Paramount.

After sending Geffen away, Simon was about to attend the "American Pie" production meeting, which had just been established some time ago, when he was temporarily stopped by another matter.

Girl A brought the news that had just arrived from San Francisco.

After this period of secret negotiations, Ting Kebaier, who is in charge of Miss C, successfully negotiated an acquisition agreement with Apple.

After all, it’s just a small business worth billions of dollars. Simon handed it over to Miss C last month. In just one month, Apple agreed to Tinkber’s acquisition offer.

The main reason is that Apple is really at the end of the road.

Obviously, the new technology industry has been booming in recent years. As a veteran giant that created the PC era, Apple has gone all the way down under the impact of Microsoft. The most direct performance is the market value, which is as high as 90 billion in the early 70s. With a market value above US$, Apple’s market value has almost fallen to the threshold of 20 billion US dollars recently, which has shrunk by more than 70% compared to its peak period.

Moreover, Apple, which was able to barely maintain profits in the past few years, has been mired in losses since last year. In the first two quarters of this year, Apple’s total losses have reached 3 million U.S. dollars, and it is expected that the annual loss will exceed 6 million U.S. dollars.

Unless a miracle happens, Apple will go bankrupt within two years at most.

On the other hand, this time, Jobs, who had already sold Pixar to Simon, has unknowingly fallen into obscurity. Without the appeal brought by "Toy Story", it is impossible for the other party to return to take charge of Apple, and Simon does not intend to Allow this to happen.

Therefore, selling to Tinkber is almost the only way out for Apple.

Maybe many people will not understand Tinkber's intention to acquire such a poor settlement as Apple for a while.

Continue to a nearby conference room, indicating that Danny Morris, president of New World Pictures, can start the meeting, and Simon is holding the draft acquisition agreement reached between Tinkber and Apple in his hand.

Tinkobel will acquire Apple in the form of cash and stock. The final transaction price is US$28 billion, a premium of 21% compared to the current market value of US$33 billion, of which US$10 billion is paid in cash and the other US$16 billion. The dollar is Tinkber's stock.

At the same time, Tinkber will also assume Apple's approximately $12 billion in debt.

Calculated, the total transaction amount is 40 billion US dollars.

Compared with Apple's current downturn, this is a significantly high price.However, a higher offer is also the key to Tinkber being able to negotiate a goodwill acquisition agreement within a month.After all, once the time is too long and the news leaks, Apple's stock price may rise by more than 30% within a few days.

Simon doesn't want to have long nights and dreams, and Miss C, who has been taught by Simon in private, doesn't want to have long nights and dreams.As for Apple, at this time, Datin Kobel doesn't have the confidence to slaughter him like a fat sheep, and he probably doesn't want to have long nights and dreams.

So that's basically the final solution.

As long as Simon has no objections here, the news will be announced tomorrow morning.

In addition, such an acquisition will not encounter any resistance from the authority's review, and Simon can now consider the next step.

The first is the system.

Since Eaglet obtained the original source code of the Linux system in 1991, Simon began to plan a graphical interface PC operating system with Linux as the kernel. The operating system of Eaglet's self-built data center.

As for the PC version, the previous plan was to officially launch it in 1997. Now, with Apple and a series of core patents for the graphical interface operating system, the Westeros system will not be afraid of Microsoft's patent barriers.

The big deal is going to court and wrangling.

Second, is the hardware.

Many people may not know that the British ARM company that proposed the ARM architecture was first invested by Apple. Now Apple is still the major shareholder of ARM. In recent years, the Newton tablet uses the ARM architecture processor.

Winning Apple is followed by full control of ARM.

Then, use the resources of the Westeros system to fully promote the research and development of ARM architecture chips suitable for mobile electronic devices. Even though the mobile Internet era may take 10 years to fully come, but in the case of successful products such as iCam and iPlayer, With the ARM chip as the core, it is more than enough to develop more portable mobile electronic devices, and to create a mini family-style mobile Internet ecosystem through the Bluetooth, WIFI and other technologies that have appeared at this time.

Simon had seen the draft agreement between Tinkber and Apple, and quickly began to write various brainstormings on the draft paper in front of him. Before he knew it, an hour had passed.

It wasn't until Danny Morris reminded me that this was the production meeting of "American Pie".

Simon quickly glanced at the meeting minutes handed over by girl A next to him, and finally turned his mind back to the topic of the meeting, and said to Danny Morris and others: "About this project, at the public level, we need to package the film as A story about youth and growth with a special connotation, but you must understand that, in fact, the selling point of this movie is only one word, sex. Only by firmly grasping this point, whether it is the production of the film or the future Release, everyone will not go astray."

Over the years, many movies in Simon's memory have been dropped by butterflies, and many movies that he has never heard of have appeared.

The "American Pie" that was being discussed was a story that was lucky enough not to be dropped by the butterfly. Although the details of the script were quite different from Simon's memory, the overall situation did not change much, so it was decisively won by Simon and given the green light.

After the first "American Pie" sold more than 1100 million box office worldwide at a cost of only 2 million US dollars, even Simon couldn't remember how many sequels he had made.

Although there are various analyzes of the core of the film, such as youth, growth, and blah blah blah, in fact, the key to the success of this series is indeed only one word, sex.The film even created proper nouns such as 'MILF' that have become fixed adult vocabulary, so it can be seen.

As for the others, they are all foils outside this core.

Therefore, if the new version of "American Pie" wants to succeed this time, no matter how it whitewashes a relatively vulgar theme in the future, Simon must let the team of New World Pictures understand the core of the project.

Grasp the main contradiction.

Although it is not comparable to the DC movie universe, not even the Conjuring movie universe, but according to memory, this series is actually a big IP at the gold mine level. As long as the first song can be successful, the follow-up can continue for many years like the original time and space. The production continued, including several non-theatrical releases only for the videotape and DVD markets.

Daenerys Entertainment still holds a huge Blockbuster video chain system, so it can maximize the benefits of this series in all aspects.Combined with the information from memory, this seemingly inconspicuous teen film series, developed properly, could bring Daenerys Entertainment a billion-dollar-level revenue in the future.

Chapter 1028 iMac

The next day is Wednesday, September 9th.

Simon rushed to San Francisco early in the morning. At the same time, Tinkber also held a press conference at nine o'clock in the morning, officially announcing the acquisition plan with Apple involving a total amount of 40 billion US dollars.

Public opinion suddenly went into an uproar.

Apple's current state of decline is well known. In the past two years, it has even become the company that the industry media likes to criticize and ridicule. As the natural monopoly advantage of Microsoft's Windows operating system gradually becomes clear, and the Wintel alliance becomes more and more entrenched, no one can now I don't think that Apple, which relies on the PowerPC architecture and the backward Macintosh system, will be able to reverse the trend.

Unexpectedly, Tinkber, who has risen up in recent years, would suddenly come up with this move.

With the convening of the press conference and the release of press releases on various platforms, a large number of targeted comments first appeared on the Internet. It is actively soliciting a burden.

You know, although Apple’s market value as of yesterday’s close was only US$21 billion, it is an old American electronics giant that has been established for 20 years. At present, Apple’s annual revenue still reaches tens of billions of dollars. personal computers, and also involves more than ten product lines such as servers, printers, tablet computers, and digital cameras.

Even if the success of iRec this year and the continued sales growth of iCam and iPlayer make Tinkber's annual revenue growth expected to reach 60%, the company's annual revenue is only about 200 billion U.S. dollars.In terms of market capitalization, the difference between the two companies is more than 100 times, but in terms of revenue, the gap is actually only twice.

This is enough to show that Apple's skinny camel is bigger than a horse.

It is generally believed in the industry that Tinkber's acquisition of Apple is likely to expand its product line in the shortest possible time.

This is definitely a stupid move.

Because the reason why Apple has come to today, apart from serious mistakes in the core personal computer business, is another important reason, that is, unrestrained expansion.Seems like a 'hundred flowers are blooming', but in fact, most of the peripheral product businesses that are eager for success are in a state of loss.

With the decline of the core PC business, other peripheral product lines have become burdens causing the domino effect.

Of course, there are also smart people who think of the real purpose of Tinkerbell or the Westeros system eating Apple, for patents, and the entire PC industry.Even though Westeros Corporation is one of the major shareholders of Microsoft, it is no secret that there are frictions between the two parties.

Therefore, many professionals have also written articles analyzing the acquisition of Apple by Tinkber, which is likely to join forces with Eaglet to enter the PC industry and avoid Microsoft's constraints on Internet terminal equipment.Similar discussions have also aroused widespread heated discussions, but most of the tendentious conclusions are still not optimistic. After all, Microsoft's advantage in the operating system market at this time is too great.

All these disturbances are directly reflected in the North American stock market.

When the news of the West Coast acquisition was officially announced, it was already noon on the East Coast. As of the close at 19:25.3 p.m. Tinkber was just $4 million short of his $28 billion takeover offer.

Because the market is generally not optimistic about the acquisition, Tinkobel's stock price fell by 2.7%, with a closing market value of 2723 billion US dollars.Although the stock price has shrunk by only 2.7%, due to the huge size of Tinkobel itself, the market value has evaporated by 75.5 billion U.S. dollars. Based on the closing market value of the day, it is almost equivalent to 3 Apple companies.

At the same time, due to the media's analysis of the purpose of this acquisition, Microsoft has also been affected.

At the close of trading that afternoon, Microsoft’s stock price fell by 2.5% in a single day, with a closing market value of US$2697 billion. Microsoft shareholders also lost US$69 billion in one day.

In fact, during this period of time, Tinkber’s overtake of Microsoft’s market value is also one of the hot topics in the media, because the market value of the two is similar, showing a see-saw state, and both are hitting the 3000 billion US dollar mark.

It has to be said that Microsoft, which was supposed to lead the wave of new technologies in the original time and space, was really taken away by the Westeros system this time so much "luck", so that the next highest market value will hardly be like it used to be. That breaks through the 6000 million mark.

Now, although the real intention of this acquisition has not yet been revealed, Microsoft has already been affected, and it is easier than the outside world to guess the purpose of Simon's acquisition. As soon as the person left the restaurant, the other party's phone call came.

After connecting to the mobile phone, Simon did not avoid Girl C and the others, and continued to walk towards a meeting room in Tinkber's headquarters building, while speaking into the microphone: "Hi, Bill...Of course, or else I'll buy Apple to do it. What... Of course I haven't forgotten that I am also a major shareholder of Microsoft, but Bill, do you think it is a good thing for Microsoft to completely occupy the operating system market... Let's not argue about this, you have to understand that I am not overly suppressing Microsoft's Internet business, because I know that if an industry wants to develop and progress, competition is the best catalyst, so what you have to do is wait to meet the challenge instead of trying to keep others from competing with you.”

Putting away the phone that he hung up on the initiative, Simon just smiled, and a group of people also came to the conference room.

Several leaders of the desktop Linux operating system development team at Igret also arrived at the same time. Everyone sat down in the conference room and started the afternoon topic: combining the upcoming Apple and Igret’s accumulated years of operations The result of system research and development, the development of Linux version personal computer of Tinkobel brand.

Simon sat down at the conference table, and naturally grasped the initiative of the meeting. He first said: "Everyone already knows the content of this meeting. Regarding the development plan of Tinkber personal computer after the acquisition of Apple, the tentative name is For the iMac series, this is one of the many trademarks that Tinkobel has applied for. I only want to say two points. First, the iMac series will use Eaglet’s Linux desktop operating system. Second, this personal computer will give up Apple's original PowerPC architecture uses Intel processors."

After Simon's voice fell, more than a dozen executives from the three companies of Tinkber, Apple, and Eaglet in the conference room suddenly started discussing, and there were buzzing voices around.

Lightly tapped on the table a few times to attract everyone's attention, Simon looked at the people around him, and said in an unquestionable tone: "This is the final decision, and, from now until the spring conference of Tinkobel next Easter next year, you It's only 7 months, I don't want to hear your dissent, this meeting, I just want to hear how you can get this done."

"However, Mr. Westeros," an executive from Apple couldn't help but said, "It is impossible to complete a personal computer with a new operating system and a new processor architecture in seven months." .”

Simon glanced at Peter Bacal, Apple's vice president in charge of R&D in the PC department, and shook his head: "It's not just 7 months, to be precise, 5 years and 7 months, because Igret's development of the Linux system It can be said that it started 5 years ago. Moreover, the version of the desktop operating system with a graphical interface was based on the X86 architecture from the very beginning. arrive."

"Mr. Westeros, I still think you think the problem is too simple." Peter Bacal still shook his head and said, "If he wants, a senior computer engineer can spend a few years developing and operating from scratch alone." System design a set of prototypes, but this is not the same as a personal computer that can be sold on the market. The development of a mature personal computer is a systematic and huge project. For example, how to solve the software, Mr. Westeros, what do you think? ever?"

Even the chairman and CEO of Apple did not attend this meeting, but Peter Bacal was invited instead. It is not without reason.

The other party was an internal promotion candidate who was carefully screened by Miss C and then submitted to Simon himself for approval.

Therefore, Simon was very patient with Peter Bacal, nodded again, and smiled: "Of course I have thought about it, Peter, also since a few years ago, Ygritte has quietly cooperated with SUN to develop JAVA The software platform is planned to be used for the development of Linux system software. I think you are well aware of the advantages of the JAVA language. Next year, when the iMac is launched, the mainstream application software on the market, especially Internet-related software under Igret, will be available. Launch a Linux version."

Hearing what Simon said, Peter Bacal was speechless for a moment.

Also suddenly a little sad.

If... the recent leaders of Apple can have the vision of the young man opposite, how could Apple, which he has served for more than ten years, have fallen into this situation.

Thinking of this, the middle-aged man in his 40s wearing thick rimless glasses suddenly couldn't help but want to say something from his heart, so he said, "Okay, Mr. Westeros..."

"Peter, you can call me Simon."

"Well, Simon, I actually want to say that although this is out of date, Microsoft has left us too far away. Rather than... Maybe it's better to use Microsoft's window system directly."

"From a purely commercial point of view, this is of course the best choice," Simon nodded slightly, and said, "However, Peter, I bought Apple to open up an entirely Westeros system besides the Windows system." The operating system platform. In order to avoid the possible constraints of Microsoft and retain the platform position of the user terminal, this is what both Eaglet and Tinkber must do.”

Although Peter Bakal is obsessed with technology, he is not ignorant of corporate strategic considerations. Simon explained this and quickly understood.Since the young man had considered this to a certain extent, he didn't say anything more.