Hollywood Hunter

“We can’t engage in price wars, ask Daenerys to assist in obtaining equal online payment channels, and reduce the store density in some areas such as Los Angeles and New York. These terms can be agreed, but major studios and competing leasers form third-party supervision. It is not acceptable for the agency to supervise Blockbuster. Unless the supervisory agency supervises everyone, Blockbuster can also participate. Otherwise, the result will only be a group of people holding a magnifying glass to find faults with the future Blockbuster. What kind of business can stand this kind of harassment, so we might as well maintain the status quo.”

"The problem is, boss, each family is very strict with this condition."

"So they are delaying on purpose?"

"Obviously."

Los Angeles, Malibu Daenerys Studios.

It's October 5th.

on Monday.

From October 1997 to September 1998, it happened to be the end of another fiscal year. On the third day after Simon returned to North America, when he arrived at the company in the morning, the first thing he did was to meet with Daenerys and several principals. , to discuss some important recent events.

What is being said is the Blockbuster acquisition that Simon is most concerned about.

In a small conference room in Building 1 of the Administrative District, Simon heard Nancy's affirmative answer, thought for a moment, and said: "Then put pressure on us, we will take the initiative to shrink the scale of Blockbuster and give them the rental market. If people are not satisfied, then expand again, anyway, Blockbuster’s control is already in our hands.”

Amy was browsing a document with her head down, but when she heard this, she looked up: "Simon, is it real or fake?"

"Of course it's a fake move, but if everyone still insists on not letting go, it doesn't matter if the fake move turns into a real move." Simon said, looking at Nancy: "You should come up with a plan as soon as possible."

Nancy also understood that this was the only way to go. She nodded and said, "I'll ask someone to release the news at noon. Blockbuster will invest more and expand 3,000 stores and 100 warehousing and logistics centers around the world."

"There are 5,000 stores and 200 logistics centers."

"Boss, is this a bit exaggerated?"

"After speaking, we will start to implement it and see how long those peer leasing companies can last."

Nancy tentatively asked, "What if they don't give in all the time?"

"If they can really sustain us until we complete all the expansion plans, they should be bankrupt, right?" Simon shrugged: "And Daenerys, even if the expansion plan is doubled, it will not damage our foundation."

Amy said: "Also, where are the other studios?"

"If there is only one Blockbuster left, they will know better what the result will be."

If everyone thinks about it, it is indeed the case, and it can be regarded as a decision.

Then Amy talked about the construction progress of Universal Studios in Rome.

It was officially announced in November 1995 that it broke ground at the end of 1996. After nearly two years of construction, Universal Studios Rome, with a total investment of 2 billion U.S. dollars and covering an area of ​​200 acres, has begun to finish.

Amy briefly reported the project overview to Simon, and then talked about the opening.

To catch up with the popular summer holidays when many people go on vacation, it is a good choice for Universal Studios Rome to open on Easter next year. Come down, it will open on Easter next year, and the time is still a bit tight.

After all, it is a theme park that involves tens of thousands of tourists. If it opens in a hurry, resulting in a poor experience or even some safety problems, it would be a bit of a signpost.

This problem actually occurred in the original Paris Disneyland, or the Euro Disneyland before the name change.

Various flaws in the early stage led to a very poor experience at Disneyland Paris, with complaints from tourists and continuous losses for several years after its opening. In addition to cultural, climate and other reasons, the theme park experience is not good enough, which is also a very important factor.

After hearing what Amy said, Simon shook his head after a little thought: "There is no need to hurry up, especially for Easter. Make sure that everything is perfect before opening. It is responsible for ourselves and tourists. And, even if we can't make it in time Easter, summer vacation should be no problem, is this also a popular time?"

"The problem is that the summer opening will directly welcome a large number of tourists. Once there is a problem, it will be further magnified and cause a bad influence," Amy said: "The Easter opening can not only play the best publicity role, but also After Easter, we will soon enter a short off-season until summer, during this time, we can make timely adjustments to the shortcomings of the park, and it will not cause too much impact."

Simon also understands that for a huge theme park, even if everything is considered in the early stage, it will inevitably have various details when it is actually opened. Once these problems are not solved well, or are exaggerated by the media, it will cause unpredictable damage to the popularity of the theme park.

Thinking of this, Simon looked at the other people in the conference room.

Robert Iger, who came from the east coast specially, said: "I don't know much about the details of the project, but since it will definitely need to be improved and adjusted in details after opening, Easter should be appropriate."

Nancy also spoke and said, "I think so too."

"Then it's Easter." Simon didn't get entangled, and turned to Amy: "If the project schedule is relatively tight, then add some investment, hire more people, spend 2 billion US dollars, and add a few thousand more Wan is nothing."

Amy nodded and jotted it down in a notepad.

Then Iger talked about the autumn movie

View the profile of the business.

Entering October, this year's popular dramas have basically been launched. The performance of the fourth season of "American Idol" is still stable. The number of viewers in the first episode reached 34.6 million, easily leading the ratings champion. In addition, there are several new dramas this year The ratings were very good.

Then there is espn.

Since ESPN bought out the broadcasting rights of the American Football League for 8 years with a huge gamble of 9 billion US dollars, this sports TV station has grown rapidly in the past two years, which can be described as a highlight of the TV business. Therefore, Iger mainly told the person in charge of ESPN this time Steve Bernstein's plan intends to continue to buy out the broadcast rights of NBA and other events to further expand ESPN's advantages.

Simon is very clear about how the "espn tax" in his memory came from, and it is still a monopoly after all.

Although the huge agreement worth billions makes people feel a little scared, but in the final analysis, the wool is on the sheep, and the audience must pay the bill in the end, and as long as it obtains a monopoly position, ESPN must be the biggest beneficiary.

Therefore, there were not many objections to this matter, and everyone passed it unanimously.

After discussing this matter, Mark Belford, the fourth executive of Daenerys after Simon and the Big Three, reported to Simon the operating situation of Daenerys' overseas business in the past fiscal year.

In the past fiscal year, overseas, the biggest highlight is undoubtedly the release of "Titanic".

However, what Simon values ​​more is the localization strategy of Daenerys in various overseas markets, including the localization of many businesses such as production, distribution and peripherals. Mark Belford is mainly responsible for this. Because it involves more than a hundred overseas markets, this is a very cumbersome job, and even, because it is too fragmented, it is difficult to make any highlights.

Simon has always been very satisfied with Belford's job.

After all, although it is scattered and cumbersome, from the overall situation, especially from the financial report, Simon can clearly see the strong growth of Daenerys' overseas revenue in recent years.

The meeting lasted until twelve o'clock at noon.

At the end of the meeting, several tycoons who are currently very important in the world's entertainment industry went to a restaurant for dinner together, and talked about some recent bright spots of Daenerys Entertainment.

Mainly two, a game and a movie.

It was officially launched during the time when Simon left North America.

Among them, the game is "Frozen Age" from South Korea. This is a game with a sci-fi background. The content tells the story of the long nuclear winter era after the nuclear war, and the story of different forces competing with each other for survival on a continent. In the shadow of real-time strategy games popular in North America in recent years, except for the OL mode, many of the settings are similar to real-time strategy, and the most important pk system is even more so.

This role-playing online game was launched in South Korea in November last year. Due to the economic crisis, the project was rushed at first, but the result was favorable comments and criticisms.

After Chen Qing directly acquired the game development company over there, she made some corrections to make up for the leaks, and became the first water testing project in North America.

After going live on Monday, September 21, as of yesterday, exactly two weeks, relying on Daenerys Entertainment's strong promotion capabilities and North America's user technology far surpassing other markets, it took only half a month for the registration of "Frozen Age" The number of users broke through the million mark, the exact number is 1.32 million.

And it's growing fast.

In addition, in the case of time-based charging, due to the different market environment, the discount in North America is much lower than that in China. Therefore, with 1.32 million registered users, the payment rate of players in North America has exceeded 60% in just two weeks. . In the 14 days since its launch, the game brought Daenerys Entertainment $5.61 million in revenue.

According to the current growth momentum of the game, the team of Daenerys' game department predicts that the maximum number of registered users of "Frozen Age" will easily exceed 10 million, and it is not impossible to hit 20 million.

Obviously, another hit.

Furthermore, based on the calculation of the two-year operating cycle, combined with the revenue data of the previous two weeks, the team’s forecast for the total revenue of the game is conservatively 500 million US dollars, and the highest may reach 1 billion US dollars again.

Simon chatted with everyone at lunch time, and when he heard this number, he couldn't help joking again.

It's more profitable than drug trafficking, and it's not breaking the law.

You know, the South Korean studio developing this game, even if you count the follow-up additions, is less than 5 billion won. According to the current exchange rate, it is equivalent to about 3 million U.S. dollars. Now, it’s just a market in North America, even if calculated based on the most conservative revenue of 500 million US dollars, this is more than 100 times the return.

What's more, what's more, it got the agency rights in all markets in the world except South Korea and mainland China. Daenerys will definitely promote this game to the world in the future, and the revenue is even more immeasurable.

Obviously, as the news spread back to South Korea, the South Korean people inevitably had another climax.

But it can only be exciting.

Not to mention that the game studio that owns the copyright has long been taken over by the Westeros system. Even though the 30% share contract was signed at the beginning, the business entity responsible for receiving the share is set up in an overseas tax haven. Simon has no intention of distributing these proceeds Return to Korea.

Earn overseas money directly overseas.

What South Korea can get is honor and satisfaction.

Moreover, Simon does not intend to allow South Korea to enjoy this sense of satisfaction permanently. The reason for introducing a series of role-playing games from South Korea this time is mainly because this country has stepped on Simon more fancy.

The direction of the industry, but, again, Simon will not put all his eggs in one basket.

A few days ago in Finland, Simon had the idea of ​​letting Australia develop the game industry.

Plus North America, plus China, and even Europe, you can cast a wide net and go hand in hand.

In the final analysis, if a country wants to maintain its strength in a certain industry, the key is to have a large enough market. Just like the game industry in South Korea, the most prosperous time was those years at the beginning of the 21st century. After that, although it seems to be still prosperous, most of the game companies in South Korea have actually become foreign capitals, and many of them Most of them are still Chinese.

After all, it is working for others.

In addition to "Frozen Age", another highlight is a movie released on September 25, "Happy Death Day".

This is one of Simon's teen movie series produced last year, referring to the "Happy Death Day" in my memory. The cycle of dying every time, but not dying every time, always waking up in the same morning.

Overall, "Happy Death Day" is a difficult story to justify.

However, this is a popcorn movie, why does the heroine fall into a death loop, is it important?

Everyone has seen it, and it’s a joy.

From "Friday the 13th" and "Moonlight Panic" in the early years to the present, after so many years, it has been difficult for Hollywood teenage horror films to get rid of the clichés. Although "Happy Death Day" is an ordinary wild hunting and time loop Combination, but it is also an innovation.

Therefore, after the release, even the circle of film critics who have always been harsh on horror films finally gave the film a comprehensive media score of 8.2 points.

Pretty good grades.

In the end, 2,736 screens were opened, and in just the first week and seven days, "Happy Death Day" earned $31.34 million. The crux of the problem is that the production cost of this small film with no stars and no special effects involved is only $8 million.

Make a lot of money at the beginning.

According to the fairly good 37% drop in the past weekend, the North American box office of the film is expected to be at least 70 million.

Only the local return on investment is close to 10 times.

It is conceivable that after the overseas release, it will easily exceed 100 million worldwide, so it will undoubtedly become another dark horse of Daenerys Entertainment this year.