Despite the pressure from Firefly as a Disney shareholder, Disney management delayed it for a whole week before releasing Disney's latest financial report to investors.

Due to the sluggish performance for two consecutive years, Michael Eisner did not release quarterly financial reports as usual, but instead spent a lot of space to review Disney's overall development since Michael Eisner served as CEO in 1984, and focused on describing the fact that Disney's market value grew at a rate of 27% per year before 1990, emphasizing that the failure of several movies such as "Cutting the Throat Island" and "Rocket Expert" last year was just a coincidence. In addition to the film department, Disney's radio and television business, theme parks and resorts, and consumer product development businesses are all bringing stable profits to the company, so the failure of several movies will not make Disney irritate.

At the end of the report, Michael Eisner confidently promised to reform Disney's film and television department, and the company would soon return to its development speed a few years ago, calling on Disney shareholders to stand on their own side and jointly resist Firefly's malicious acquisition.

Faced with Michael Eisner's attempt to underestimate Disney's recent financial situation, Firefly quickly fought back and revealed an insider article in the New York Post about the production of "Cutting the Throat Island".

"... According to the crew of "Cutting the Throat Island", during the film production process, Michael Eisner had to personally inquire about everything from the script to the post-production editing. Even the set style of the movie and the costume design of the actors needed to pass Michael Eisner's nod before passing.

It was Michael Eisner's arrogant intervention in the filming of "Cutting the Throat Island" that caused director Renny Harlem to fail to use his directorial philosophy, which eventually led to the failure of "Cutting the Throat Island".

Michael Eisner is a micro manager. This management style will strongly limit the work enthusiasm of specific people in charge when the manager's desire for power expands during the day, resulting in truly talented people seeking a higher position, leaving behind mediocre people who can only figure out the minds of the superiors.

There is no doubt that Michael Eisner made great contributions to the company in the first few years of Disney, but from the development of Disney in the past two years, it can be seen that Michael Eisner's self-willed management style has begun to show disadvantages. In the long run, this will cause immeasurable losses to Disney."

After the article was published, Michael Eisner's agent immediately responded, claiming that the New York Post report was a slander against Michael Eisner, and Michael Eisner will sue the right to slander.

There is a lively media connection, but the real battlefield is in a place that the public cannot see.

In the conference room of Burbank Firefly Headquarters, Bernie Sanders, the head of the Morgan Stanley acquisition team, is discussing with everyone the specific acquisition strategy of Disney's board of directors after refusing a good-faith acquisition.

"In 1984, Saul Steinberg's malicious acquisition against Disney. Disney finally adopted the anti-acquisition strategy of paying a 'blackbill ransom' and redeemed less than $200 million worth of shares in Saul Steinberg for a huge sum of $300 million. But this time, unlike in the past, Disney shareholders obviously had a good wait-and-see attitude towards Firefly's acquisition, so so far, most shareholders have only agreed to Michael Eisner's 'Golden Parachute' agreement because this agreement will not harm their interests. The agreement stipulates that once the acquisition is successful, if 76 Disney executives are forced to leave within two years, Firefly will have to pay a total of $500 million in compensation."

Eric asked, "What if I just want Michael Eisner to leave alone?"

Bernie Sanders looked at the information in his hand and replied: "Michael Eisner first proposed the scorched earth tactic. Any 76 executives were dismissed. In revenge, all the other 75 people left voluntarily, turning Disney's management into a deserted 'scorched earth'. However, Disney's management did not agree with Michael Eisner's proposal, and the board of directors did not pass it. Therefore, if only Michael Eisner was allowed to leave, Fireflies would need to pay Michael Eisner 30 million."

"30 million US dollars, so little?" Eric couldn't help asking. He remembered that Michael Orwitz had only worked at Disney for more than a year in his previous life. When he was forced to leave the position of president, he took more than 100 million yuan in compensation.

Chris, who was sitting next to Eric, rolled his eyes: "Eric Michael Eisner's current annual salary is $750,000, and $30 million is equivalent to Michael Eisner's annual salary for 40 years. Do you think it's still less?"

Eric wondered: "Where are options incentives and profit dividends?"

"According to the agreement signed by Michael Eisner with Disney in 1984, he would receive option incentives and profit dividends based on his performance after working at Disney for five years. At the beginning of last year, the Disney board of directors officially passed the corresponding plan," said Chris, speaking of this, seemed a little gloating: "But Disney's performance took a sharp turn for the worse. Several films in the summer last year caused losses of up to $100 million. In 1990, Disney made profits from other channels other than movie releases, in addition to making up for this loss, it also required to pay $150 million in maturity debt and interest. In the end, Disney could only barely reach the balance of income and expenditure, and there was no way to talk about options and dividends."

After Chris finished speaking, Bernie Sanders added: "But I want to remind you that Eric, among the 75 executives except Michael Eisner, 18 people have a very close relationship with Michael Eisner. They can be said to be his confidant. The total compensation for these people accounts for $220 million."

Eric glanced at Michael Lynn, who was sitting not far away, and didn't care too much. After completing the acquisition, it would be better to make corresponding arrangements to see the performance of these people. Just like the executives left behind in the new line, most of them have now become the backbone of Fireflies. No one will be unable to match the high salary and benefits.

"We'll consider these things after the acquisition is completed. I still hope that Disney's current management can be kept intact. Of course, Mr. Michael Eisner will definitely not be able to stay in his original position anymore."

Bernie Sanders nodded, turned the document in his hand a page, and said: "In addition, Eric, according to our team's evaluation, a wholly-owned acquisition plan is not the best choice. If only Disney's controlling stake is obtained, with Firefly's outstanding performance in movies, most Disney shareholders will be happy to sell some of the shares they have."

Eric shook his head and said, "Bernie. I once said that I don't want the company to be disturbed by external investors during its development, and I hope Disney can be privatized and facilitate integration with Fireflies."

Bernie Sanders only abides by his professional ethics to provide Eric with more professional advice. Seeing that Eric was determined and did not persuade him, he continued to talk about other topics.

After this meeting, Firefly immediately held a press conference. Firefly Film Company Ceo Michael Lynn made his first official offer to Disney, and acquired all Disney stocks with a 20% premium on the day of Firefly's public acquisition invitation.

Michael Eisner, also located in the Disney headquarters in Burbank, sat in the large chair in his office. Looking at the latest quotation materials for Firefly that his secretary had just sent him, he said to Frank Wells on the other side: "The first quotation is 4.2 billion US dollars, the first quotation is 20%. I don't know what the bottom line of Firefly will be."

Frank Wells looked at Michael Eisner's eye sockets that were obviously deep in his eyes, and didn't know how to answer. Michael Eisner seemed to be talking to himself, not expecting an answer.

This week after Firefly announced its acquisition offer, Michael Eisner visited more than 30 investment institutions and creditors day and night, hoping to get support. But this time the situation was completely opposite to the attitude of shareholders when facing the malicious acquisition of Wall Street tycoon Saul Steinberg in 1984. Many investors had expectations for this acquisition. Therefore, they did not give Michael Eisner any success, and some fierce anti-acquisition measures could not be implemented.

Although Michael Eisner chose to be vague when releasing his financial report, most investors are very clear that Disney's film business has been on a downward trend in the past two years. Even if Disney's other businesses are still bringing stable profits, as a film company, developing excellent movies will always be the most important cornerstone of the company. Without enough hot-selling movies to support, Disneyland and Disney stores around the world will not be able to launch new products, and the ratings of Disney TV stations based on Disney content will also decline.

Fireflies, which are very strong in film and television content, even strong enough to cover up their channel disadvantages, just form a perfect complementary effect with Disney, which has very complete surrounding channels. This complementary effect becomes more obvious after Pixar's "Toy Story" was successful.

If Firefly's acquisition plan is to choose Disney Holdings rather than a wholly-owned acquisition, perhaps most shareholders have turned to Firefly.

Frank Wells waited for a while, and saw Michael Eisner not speaking anymore, so he had to take the initiative to say: "This acquisition cannot be completed in a short period of time. If Disney's New Year movie performs well, it may be able to regain the support of shareholders."

"I'm not Eric Williams, where to find..." Michael Eisner said halfway, paused, unwilling to mention Eric's name again, and continued: "I went to see several sample films yesterday. "Beauty and the Beast" and the remake of Elizabeth Taylor's "New Father-in-law" are both good, but Robert Benton's "The Storm of the Lord" are not satisfactory. The movie cost $48 million, which is the sum of the cost of the first two movies, but everyone who has watched it thinks this movie is worse than "Cutting the Throat Island". I wonder if it's time to change the schedule until next summer."

"It's better to change the process. You can't let this movie affect this matter anymore," Frank Wells said, and suddenly thought of something again, saying: "I remember "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" invited Nicole Kidman to play the heroine, but she refused."

"That love man Eric Williams?"

"Yes, if we had realized this earlier, maybe we should be more cautious about the project "Yi Qian Fengyun".

"Maybe it was just a chance," Michael Eisner waved his hand irritably: "Don't talk about him anymore."

As the two were talking, the phone rang on the desk. Michael Eisner picked up the receiver and the secretary opposite him said, "Mr. Eisner, I just received a call. The other party said he was Summer Redstone. Do you need me to pick it up?"

"Sumer Redstone, is Summer Redstone of Viacom?" Michael Eisner confirmed, and Frank Wells also raised his ears when he heard the name.

The secretary opposite gave a definite reply, and Michael Eisner said: "Come in."

After saying that, Michael Eisner looked at Frank Wells and pressed the hands-free button on the landline so that Frank Wells could hear the conversation between the two.

A somewhat old but full of energy came from the landline.

...

In the villa of Malibu's Sharp Corner Manor, Eric sat on the sofa in the hall and watched the film form that Disney was producing and about to be released. Frank Wells was able to think about the importance of the New Year's schedule to Disney, and Eric of course thought about this, and he was considering how to snipe several Disney movies at the end of the year.

In the movie being produced, the pinnacle of 2D animation in memory, "The Lion King", has not appeared yet, but another "Aladdin" has been launched and is being produced.

In addition, among the upcoming movies to be released at the end of the year, Eric saw two more familiar movies, "The Storm of the Good Death" and "Beauty and the Beast". What impressed Eric the most about "The Storm of the Good Death" was Nicole's frontal nude shots. As for the plot, there was nothing to say at all. An ambitious work that wanted to imitate "The Godfather" and "The Past of the United States", but the filming was inappropriate and had no highlights.

Eric focused more on the cartoon "Beauty and the Beast". "Beauty and the Beast" in the original time and space is the first animated film nominated for the Best Picture in Oscar history. Although the information in hand shows that the premiere of this cartoon is only more than 900, Eric dared not take it lightly.

If "Home Imperial" is still produced by Fireflies, it would be a good way to release the movie with "Beauty and the Beast". Fox has now started the production of "Home Imperial 3", but the schedule has not been announced. According to the schedules of the first two movies, "Home Imperial 3" may still be released on Thanksgiving, the same as "Beauty and the Beast", but who knows whether Fox will change his mind, maybe he can find some time to test it out.

Eric was considering putting Jin Carrey's "Ah Du and Agua" on the Thanksgiving period. Nicole walked out of a bathroom with a short bath towel wrapped around her body and swaying her two fair long legs and barefoots.

Seeing Eric staring at him and looking at Nicole, who was rubbing her wet hair with a towel, asked, "What are you looking at?"

"leg!"

Nicole gave Eric a blank look, walked over and sat down beside him, and looked at the information in Eric's hand curiously. She knew that what Eric looked at outside the study was usually not information that needed to be kept confidential, so she had no scruples.

Eric reached out and pointed at the information: "Do you know "The Storm of the Lord"?"

"Well, I've received a film contract for this script. I can work with Dustin Hoffman and Bruce Willis at the same time, but there are some full nude shots. I communicated with the director a few times, but the other party disagreed with deleting these shots, so I didn't answer."

Eric smiled and said, "Fortunately you didn't answer, otherwise you would be not far from the box office poison if two consecutive movies failed."

Nicole wondered: "How do you know, this movie is a Disney movie, and it hasn't been released yet."

"Look at its schedule, on November 1, a movie with a production cost of nearly $50 million was placed in a schedule like November 1. Apart from the movie being shot, I can't think of a second reason."
Chapter completed!