Many years later, when recalling the summer season in 1998, "Charlie's Angels 3", "The Matrix 2", "The Day Afternoon" and other blockbusters may be unavoidable topics, but for most people, the first thought that comes to their minds is almost the scene where the terrifying resentment crawls out of the TV.

The first three-day box office of "Midnight Bell" was not very good at the first weekend, with only $26.68 million.

However, as the reputation of this classic horror film spread rapidly, the box office of the film reached $43.88 million in seven days in the first week.

On the surface, the figure of $43.88 million does not seem to be comparable to most popular movies in the summer season. But don’t forget that the production cost of this video is only $30 million, far lower than any of the summer season blockbusters.

Moreover, compared with the three days of the first weekend, it is not difficult to find that the box office of "Midnight Bell" on the first four days of working days was US$17.2 million, equivalent to 39% of the first week's box office, far exceeding the average box office ratio of most films that account for about 30% of the entire week. Combined with this, coupled with the feedback from a large number of media and fans, Xinyi Film Group keenly judged that the reputation of "Midnight Bell" is continuing to ferment, so it decisively increased the number of screens released from 2,161 yuan to 2,395 yuan.

Subsequently, in the first week of August, the box office of "Midnight Bell" fell by no means as expected, with a very slight 9.7%, and another $39.65 million. "X Files" released in the same week only had a box office of less than two million US dollars higher than "Midnight Bell" and barely won the box office championship that week.

In this case, the new line once again greatly increased the screening scale of "Midnight Bell", making the number of screens released in North America of the film reach 2,775. At the same time, after half a month of fermentation, the reputation and popularity of "Midnight Bell" have reached a peak. There has even been a trend among young people to regard watching "Midnight Bell" as a challenge, and more passers-by have also begun to enter the cinema under the influence of the media and the public.

In the third week, "Midnight Bell", which was suppressed by "Scorpion King" and "X Files" for two weeks, finally won the box office rankings that week with expectations. The box office decline in a single week was still only 11.2%, and it closed at another $35.19 million.

Before we knew it, many people suddenly discovered that the originally inconspicuous medium-cost horror film had a cumulative box office of US$118.75 million in three weeks, even exceeding the total box office of North American movies such as "The Deadly Weapon 4", "Patriot", and "The World of Truman" which started the summer season. Moreover, judging by the current situation, the box office potential of "Midnight Bell" is far more than that.

With the help of Firefly Group, the gradually formed fan group of "Midnight Bell" has begun to pay more attention to the box office of this film. The increasingly popular popularity and a new wave of publicity offensive have once again attracted more new audiences.

So, in the fourth week, the box office decline of "Midnight Bell" ended up being only a meager 1.7%, yes, 1.7%, not 17%.

The box office of $34.59 million in a single week also pushed the film's total North American box office to $146.97 million. This box office figure directly made "Midnight Bell" reach the sixth place in the North American box office rankings as of August 1998, closely following "Charlie's Angels 3", "The Day After", "The Matrix 2", "The Scorpion King" and "Ace Spy 2" during the Easter period. Moreover, on the top ten box office rankings, the production cost of all other films is at least twice that of "Midnight Bell".

At this time, all the media that had originally predicted that Firefly Group would have a quiet summer season were stunned. Even Eric himself did not expect that "Midnight Bell" would reveal such strong box office potential.

According to the current box office trend, "Midnight Bell" is likely to have a box office potential of no less than US$100 million, and the total box office of the film in North America will even surpass "The Day Afternoon" which is mainly featured in Fireflies during the summer. Faced with such an excellent North American box office, the film's overseas box office will naturally not be inferior, especially in Japan. Considering all reasons, this overseas box office is enough to bring Fireflies an overseas box office of no less than US$100 million.

There are two works that are enough to reach the top five of the annual box office rankings in North America during the summer season. Who dares to say that this is the trough of Firefly Group's film business?

Meanwhile, almost the same week as "Midnight Bell" was released, Russia's economic crisis eventually broke out on the other side of the earth.

Unlike the long tug-of-war between Southeast Asian countries, the fragile Russian economy is almost powerless to fight back against the attacks of major hedge funds. The entire country's foreign exchange reserves of more than 10 billion US dollars are not enough to repay even the huge foreign debt, let alone effectively intervene in the currency exchange rate.

So, in just two weeks, the Russian Central Bank, which basically did not do any effective resistance, announced to the public that it would completely give up its protection of the ruble exchange rate.

The ruble, which had just stabilized for less than three years, plummeted, and the depreciation rate exceeded 50% in just one week.

However, the opponent has completely lie down before he starts fighting, and the attacker who has accumulated enough strength to hit one punch will not have a good result.

Russia's radical approach of allowing the depreciation of the ruble has also brought huge losses to international financial speculators.

Foreign exchange futures are ultimately a zero-sum game. Only when someone takes over can the bet make a profit and lose. International financial speculators who bought a large amount of rubles in the early stage were targeting Russia's foreign exchange reserves. Now Russia is no longer accepting it. The rubles in international financial speculators not only depreciated significantly, but also have to pay high short-term lending and borrowing interest costs, which can be said to have suffered heavy losses.

In addition, capitals such as Soros' quantum funds that were optimistic about Russia's economic recovery in the early stage and therefore invested heavily in its stock market and bonds were also trapped in Russia's economic quagmire. However, after the quantum funds have completed their losses, the expected losses may exceed US$3 billion.

I have to say that compared with those countries in Southeast Asia that have been cut two consecutive wools, although the economy is also collapsed, the momentum of Russia, a fighting nation that you want me to finish playing together, is undoubtedly revealed.

The rapid collapse of Russia, an emerging economy, accurately confirms the speculation given by Morgan Stanley more than a month ago. Under the further advocacy and guidance of Morgan Stanley, more and more capital has begun to pay more attention to the Nasdaq's technology stock market.

In one month, the Nasdaq index not only did not suffer from the Russian economic crisis, but instead broke through the 2100-point high, and almost all mainstream technology stocks were in full swing.

On Saturday, August 22, Eric set off from Los Angeles to New York early in the morning.

Today is the day when Firefly Investment signed equity transfer agreements with several other major shareholders of American Online. Although Saturday is not a working day, Gravity is in a tense shooting period, and Eric only has time on weekends. Naturally, New York can only match his schedule.

In the past month, without the pressure of Firefly Investment to reduce its holdings, the company's market value has reached US$49.6 billion, and it is just around the corner.

Although the stock price of A.R. Online rose by nearly 20% in one month, in order to avoid recurrence, Eric did not make any adjustments to the agreed transfer price.

Many times, only by giving up the idea of ​​greed can you get more. If Eric sits on the ground and starts the price at this time, investors' confidence that has just been established in AOL will definitely be hit hard again, and Firefly Investment's first phase reduction plan for American Online stocks will also be complicated.

Since Eric gave the same price for Firefly Investment's other 15% stock that will be reduced through Morgan Stanley, at this time, Morgan Stanley's underwriting plan has not yet begun, and a large number of investors have frequently contacted Firefly Investment and Morgan Stanley to try to get more subscription shares.

Although according to the agreement and sec regulations, the batch of stocks purchased at this time will have a six-month ban period, even if the stock price of AOL continues to remain unchanged in the next six months, they will still be able to make 20% profits at that time.

Under the economic situation of the Nasdaq market, the performance growth rate of AOL itself is very impressive. Therefore, most investment institutions have gradually changed their cautious attitude and believed that the possibility of losses in this transaction is slim.

On the plane to New York, Eric leaned leisurely on the sofa with a box office analysis report of "Midnight Bell" in his hand. Caroline and Mayer sat beside him, but what he reported was another thing.

"Last month, Warner Records, Sony Records, BMG and EDA Records released their second quarter financial reports one after another, with a decline in performance of 27%, 33%, 29% and 26% respectively compared with the same period last year. Universal Records, which is still integrating its business with PolyGene, has a decline in performance of 36%, with a loss of US$320 million in a single quarter."

Mayer roughly introduced the current situation, looked at Eric's expression, and continued: "According to the statistics of major record companies and media during this period, the revenue plummeted by the five major record companies was mainly caused by a batch of free mp3 music sharing websites that appeared at the end of last year. Among them, it was just a music sharing website called napster. It had more than 7 million registered users in just over half a year, and the number of free music on this website reached more than 1.6 million. Napster was an ad in Yahoo in the early days.

Registered members of the alliance. However, in March, with the rapid growth of napster and taking into account the legal risks, Yahoo promptly terminated its cooperation with napster and another group of pirated music websites. However, this time, Yahoo was also included in a number of litigation targets filed by the five major record companies. The reason for their lawsuit was that Yahoo encouraged the growth and dissemination of napster. The five major record companies therefore claimed $100 million from Yahoo and asked Yahoo's search engine to actively block websites that spread pirated music content."

Yahoo's iPo is approaching, and the large-scale lawsuits of the five major record companies have brought Yahoo together, obviously in order to require Yahoo, the first Internet portal platform, to provide sufficient cooperation in combating online piracy.

At this critical moment, in order to avoid out-of-court trouble, Yahoo has to make compromises and make an out-of-court settlement with the five major record companies as soon as possible. Just as the five major record companies have proposed to Napster that the compensation of 100,000 US dollars per pirated music, the 100 million US dollars of compensation against Yahoo must not even think about it, but during the out-of-court settlement, Yahoo must also agree to more conditions for the five major record companies.

"They have learned their intelligence this time, and they will save the enemy," Eric just smiled. After hearing Madonna's reminder in the UK a few months ago, he asked several companies to prepare for this. Now he is not worried that Yahoo will not be able to deal with it. He continued to ask: "Where is Firefly Electronics?"

Mayer shook his head and said, "The five major record companies have not yet acted against Firefly Electronics. However, they should file a lawsuit next to ask Firefly Electronics to strengthen restrictions on audio copying."

After the lawsuit filed by Sony Records and several other companies was directly rejected by the federal court in San Francisco last year, the five major record companies obviously knew that the attempt to continue to demand the ban on mp3 players was impossible, and this time they could only start from other aspects.

"After this time, record companies should be able to see some of the situation clearly. The trend of digital music is inevitable. Yahoo Music Store can just get more authentic music authorization." Eric said, not wanting to be too brain-strapped. He looked up at Caroline and Mayer and ordered: "Send an email to remind Yahoo to pay attention to this aspect and theories. If anyone still can't see the situation clearly, we will help them see clearly."

For several months, the global monthly sales of fireflyer players have remained above 2 million units, and have shown a steady growth trend. The trend of portable digital music players replacing traditional music players has become unstoppable. In this case, if record companies continue to resist and resist digital music players, it will only cause more Internet pirated music resources to appear.

As we talked about these things, the private plane had already arrived on the East Coast without knowing it.

The signing ceremony for the equity transfer was confirmed to be held at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, which was close to one o'clock. The private jet did not fly to MacArthur Airport in central Long Island this time, but landed at Kennedy International Airport, which is very close to New York City.

As soon as Eric got off the plane, Chris, John Mark and others came up, including several American Online executives, including Steve Case. Although the two sides had almost completely broken up some time ago, at this time, facing Eric, American Online did not dare to ignore the etiquette they should have.

After everyone exchanged greetings, they left the airport together. Eric and Chris got on the Firefly Group's car and waited for the car to drive smoothly. They remembered the expression that John Mark took the initiative to invite him to get into his car just now and asked Chris beside him, "What's wrong with John?"

Chris looked at the BMW sedan that was following nearby and said, "He probably wanted to explain to you in advance. You were on the plane, and I hadn't had time to tell you. At the lunch party, Philip Pussell told me that Morgan Stanley had confirmed the subscription amount of 15% of the 15% of the American Online stocks. However, perhaps because he wanted to take credit, or he might have some other thoughts. John Mark concealed this news from us. In addition, Philip Pussell should have forced his hands on this project. You know, Dean Vette was originally a major in stock distribution and retail business, and their resources and channels in this area are much stronger than the original Morgan Stanley."

Eric was not very interested in the fight between Morgan Stanley CEO and the president, but just reminded: "You should put more thought into it. If their internal struggle affects our interests, we need to be more cautious in future cooperation."

Chris nodded seriously and said, "I understand, by the way, the box office of "Midnight Bell" is really surprising."
Chapter completed!