Although he would lean as much as possible towards the interests of the firefly system itself, Eric did not have the ambition to completely monopolize the 3D market, which is actually impossible.

After all, polarized 3D is indeed not a difficult technology. In addition to IMAX, there are other giant screen forms in the industry.

If the firefly system attempts to monopolize, it will only lead to the emergence of other different 3D and giant screen formats. Competition with different standards will undoubtedly consume the resources of the entire Hollywood, which is also not conducive to the healthy development of 3D and giant screen movies.

Therefore, during this period, Firefly Group has made preliminary pricing for the future opening of 3D conversion and IMAX conversion to other production companies.

In order to raise the industry threshold and achieve the goal of filtering inferior film sources as much as possible, RealD's fee for converting ordinary 2D movies to 3D movies will be US$30,000 per minute. For IMAX, the 2D version of IMAX format is converted to US$10,000 per minute, and the 3D version charges double to US$20,000.

This means that based on the average Hollywood 2-hour video, if you want to release 3D and 3D-IMAX versions, the early conversion fee will reach 6 million US dollars.

Although film companies can save expensive 3D and IMAX film copy budgets to a large extent by reducing the scale of 3D and IMAX film scheduling and reusing copy at home and abroad in the future, the early conversion costs are absolutely impossible to save.

At the same time, due to the potential barriers of dual D certification, it will be difficult for other 3D production companies to squeeze into the film source conversion market, and the Firefly system can actually control the development trend of the entire 3D and IMAX film industry from the source.

Katsenberg was going to rush back to Burbank Group headquarters. The two of them communicated for a while, and on the corridor between the administrative district and the studio district, Eric turned back to his office in the administrative district.

Turning on the computer casually and sitting behind the desk, Eric opened the box office prospects evaluation report of the company's distribution department just completed at the end of the year. The two popular videos on Thanksgiving and Christmas have long been confirmed. It was only with the gradual disclosure of the reputation and audience evaluation of a series of recent films being released.

Today is November 9th.

Before this, New Line Film's "Reaper 3" and Universal Pictures' "Man Bone Puzzle" were released two weeks before and after Halloween on October 29 and November 5 respectively.

As a classic horror film brand with a new line, "The God of Death 3" maintains the consistent style and level of the series, and the box office is therefore quite stable. The production cost of $25 million has reached $25.71 million in the first week. It is expected that the total box office in North America will exceed $50 million, and there is no suspense that the global box office exceeds $10 million.

In comparison, Universal Pictures' "Human Bone Puzzle", starring black superstar Denzel Washington, has a production cost of up to $73 million, and the box office in the first three days from November 5 to November 7 was only $16.72 million, and the box office in the first week is expected to be only $23 million, which is about $2 million more than "The God of Death".

Eric flipped through the documents in his hand and found that from "Human Bone Puzzle" to "Hurricane", the last day of the year on December 29, Universal Pictures will release five movies at the end of the year.

Among them, "Hurricane" is also starring Denzel Washington. This movie with a somewhat disaster-like atmosphere is actually a biopic that costs $38 million.

Universal Pictures’ positioning of this film is a winning film. However, judging from the previous screenings of some other film festivals, the quality of "Hurricane" is obviously not satisfactory, and Eric remembers that there is not much information about winning this film.

In addition to "Human Bone Puzzle" and "Hurricane", Universal Studios will also launch three movies: "The Devil's Doomsday" starring Schwarzenegger, "The Man on the Moon" starring Jim Carrey and "Love in the Snowflakes of the Fir Tree" starring Ethan Hawke.

Based on some recent trends of the Sigram Group, it is obvious that Michael Eisner arranged such an intensive distribution plan to maximize Universal Pictures' performance in 1999 and increase the bargaining chips to maintain its position during Universal Pictures' change of ownership.

However, whether based on Eric's own memory or the evaluation of the Firefly Distribution Department, these five movies did not have much potential to sell at the box office. Moreover, judging from the details of "The Human Bone Puzzle" with $73 million and "Hurricane" with $38 million, Michael Eisner is obviously controlling the cost as much as possible, but the effect is obviously not ideal.

Among them, Schwarzenegger's "The Devil's Doomsday" still soared to $100 million, while Jim Carrey's "The Man on the Moon" also spent $82 million. Eric had never heard of the Ethan Hawk romance film "Love in the Snowflakes of the Fir Tree", with a budget of $35 million, also seemed a bit outrageous.

Universal Pictures ranked almost the box office share of Fox a few months ago with its big-selling Mummy 3 and Notting Hill, second only to Firefly Group.

But it is obvious that these five films that seem to be eager for quick success and instant benefits may drag down Universal Pictures' overall performance this year.

Speaking of which, this state actually has a lot to do with the firefly system.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, Denzel Washington are obviously superstars with very low cost performance in Hollywood.

In recent years, due to the strong suppression of superstar pay and cost production strategies, many top-tier stars who insist on value have had to turn to Warner, Universal and Paramount and some other independent production companies with capital strength when they cannot reach a cooperation with Firefly, Fox, MGM and recently Columbia Pictures.

The long-formed concept of star core system in Hollywood cannot change overnight. The prosperity of Hollywood in recent years has also made it very easy to raise movies.

As a result, the other three major and some capitals who entered Hollywood to make gold also accepted all the names of these stars who turned to themselves. They continued to provide them with huge pay and continued to produce movies with varying quality but high costs.

In addition to these movies from Universal, Eric knew that due to the successful box office success of "Dad Forward" in the summer, Warner directly offered a huge pay of $20 million plus box office share and a production budget of $85 million for Adam Sandler's new film "The Devil Successor". Will Smith and Warner's production cost has also begun to overspent, and Tomel has remained the highest-paid number of Paramount in recent years.

Speaking of which, in history, even though many years later, although cases have proved that superstars with outrageous pay are not indispensable, Hollywood has not completely changed the concept of chasing superstars at all costs.

While looking through the documents in his hand and thinking about these questions, the office door was knocked on. Eric responded, and Mayer walked in with a document in his hand.

Handing a blue folder to Eric, Mayer said: "Eric, news came from Canada that the Nokia team has officially negotiated an acquisition agreement with RIM, with a transaction price of US$260 million, which is equivalent to the beginning of the year, but it is 27% higher than RIM's current market value."

RIM is naturally the brand holding company of BlackBerry. In Eric's memory, it was not until many years later that RIM merged the company name with BlackBerry.

During this period, the Firefly system has basically implemented a buying and buying model, targeting RIM's acquisition of less than US$300 million, and the expansion plan of the entire Firefly system is even worth mentioning.

However, because Eric himself attaches great importance to BlackBerry, Nokia is also very concerned about the acquisition. With Yoma Olila's resignation last year, Eric has been strengthening control over Nokia to prevent Nokia from continuing to follow the old path.

Opening the document, Eric read the terms of the transaction between Nokia and BlackBerry, noticed Mayer's graceful figure across the desk, looked up at the girl, and said, "So, are you really not thinking about staying with me anymore?"

Mayer stared at the man opposite the desk, with a hint of reluctance in his eyes.

With the explosion of reputation of "Georgetic", Eric once again became the focus of many media and theories during this period. Or, this man has always been so dazzling, just like the sun, many people usually don't look into the sky, but occasionally looking up, they can always notice a flash of light.

After a moment of silence, Mayer said: "I have discussed it with Mr. McNelly. I will first go to the YOS system R&D department to work as a software engineer for a while, re-familiar with all technical details, and then transfer to the hardware department in three months."

Listening to Mayer's clear career plan, Eric understood that the girl had decided, so he stopped persuading her, but he still smiled and said, "I'm a little unwilling to do so. I really want to tie you around you all the time."

"You," Mayer said, "you can find another one."

"No more searches," Eric shook his head and smiled, "I am still a very nostalgic person. Let Carly follow me alone in the future. Of course, you can tell me when you want to come back."

Mayer hesitated for a moment, nodded slightly, but said nothing.

Eric has previously discussed the arrangements of RIM with Nokia CEO Oli Carrassouo several times, and even involved details of directly renaming RIM to BlackBerry.

Therefore, after carefully reading the acquisition agreement between Nokia and BlackBerry and signing the direct name, Eric temporarily lets go of this matter. Nokia will naturally complete the layout of BlackBerry phones according to the already discussed plan.

Elizabeth called over before and said that the design draft of Erik's estate in Tasmania, Australia had been completed. After Erik got off work, he rushed to the mansion on the top of Beverly Hills.

During this period, although Eric and the girl have returned to Los Angeles, Eric's agent in Australia has been in charge of contacting him to acquire the Tasmanian plot.

Compared with Eric's current wealth, the land in Tasmania, Australia, which has no economic value in all aspects, can be said to be extremely cheap. Eric's previous purchase of 200 square kilometers is equivalent to about 50,000 acres of land, and the cumulative expenditure is less than US$60 million.

After several months of continuous acquisition, Eric owns more than 1,000 square kilometers of land in Tasmania.

However, except for a few pastures, most of the others are native woodlands in Tasmania, and even have a bit of the meaning of a primeval forest. It is said that there are wild platypus in the woodland. Although this egg-born mammal that has very high biological research value, it is actually not an endangered species and is still widely distributed throughout Australia.

After buying a large number of land, it is naturally impossible not to do any development and renovation at all.

In many people's opinion, Australia seems to have very strict requirements on environmental protection, but in fact it is exactly the opposite.

If it weren't for Eric's purchase, the large area of ​​native forest adjacent to Eric's early purchase of the land had even been included in the logging plan. In comparison, Eric, who hopes to maintain a complete primeval forest, would be more like an environmentalist. In fact, Eric is indeed an environmentalist in his bones, but it is not extreme.

Although there will be no large-scale transformation of the land, after discussing with the women, Eric decided to build a Williams resort estate locally.

As an Australian local snake, Eric entrusted the matter to Elizabeth without hesitation and asked her to contact the designer and engineering team locally.

"Look, the address they selected is here. To the south is Arthur HB, there is a hill next to Arthur HB, and to the west is the Intercontinental Highway. These are the photos and some design drafts." Back at Elizabeth's house, Julia prepared dinner for everyone, while Eric and the girl sat in the living room to look through a large stack of information from Australia. After a brief introduction, Elizabeth said: "Actually, if you want to buy land, Queensland is the best choice. Even Victoria is good, why choose Tasmania, there are not many people there?"

"There are not many people in Australia, right?" Eric looked through the designer's manor draft and said, "And I hope that the less crowded places, the better the more empty they are."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and said, "If you really stayed there for a while, you would never think so."

"No one thought of living there forever, as long as that piece of land belongs to me. Well, you can go over and play at any time."

Elizabeth pretended to be disdainful and said, "What's the fun?"

Eric thought for a while, pointed to the map on the coffee table, and smiled and said, "Look, this river is mine here, well, I plan to buy the mountain to the east. Compared with your Lanai Island, this island is mine, this mountain is mine. Listen, which one is more powerful?"

Elizabeth smiled and hit Eric, saying, "Actually, my dad doesn't want that island much anymore, and he may not go there once a few years."

Eric remembered some things that happened later and said, "Then sell it. However, I definitely won't buy it. I'm not interested in the island at all. If it's Tasmania, you can consider it."
Chapter completed!