After that fierce auction two years ago, Paramount, who won the Disney hand-drawn animation department for a huge sum of $2.5 billion, moved the entire team to a brand new work park in Culver, Los Angeles.

At this time, Paramount Pictures CEO Shirley Lansing walked out of the office building of Paramount Animation Studio, said goodbye to the person in charge, Roger Elles, and got into his car.

The car started, and Shirley Lansing, leaning against the leather seat, gently rubbed his forehead, recalling the release of "Poems of the Wind" that he had just discussed with Roger Elles.

"Pooh in the Wind" tells the story of an Indian princess who rescued British explorers and resolved a racial war. This is a project that was prepared during the Disney animation period. The detailed script, story version and storyboard were confirmed during the Disney animation period. After Paramount bought the hand-painted animation team, the production of "Pooh in the Wind" was immediately launched.

Although the salary of the entire animation team increased significantly after changing the boss. However, the resentment of being abandoned by Fireflies did not dissipate so easily. Over the past year, the entire hand-drawn animation team has been in a state of great enthusiasm to create a masterpiece like "The Lion King" again so that Fireflies regretted the decision to abandon the hand-drawn animation department.

Therefore, although the usual two-year animation production cycle has been shortened to one and a half years, the quality of "Poems in the Wind" is still very outstanding. During the preview, even Lei Shidong himself praised the animation.

In order to realize Viacom's diversification ambitions in the entire industrial chain, Redstone has spared no effort to support Paramount animation department.

However, Shirley Lansing is far less optimistic than Redstone and the animation team.

Although it has been strictly controlled by cost, due to the surge in animators' salary, the production cost of "Poems of the Wind" still reached US$80 million. With subsequent promotion and promotion, the total investment is likely to exceed US$120 million, which is equivalent to twice the production promotion and promotion cost of "The Lion King".

The cost of the two animations "The Lion King" sequel and "Mulan" that are being produced will definitely be high or low. It will take five years to use Paramount animation as the content locomotive, joining Viacom's Blockchain chain and Nickelodeon and other channel resources to create a diversified industrial chain that can fully tap the commercial potential of animated films. It is conservatively estimated that it will take five years.

Before this, if you want to recover these expensive animation projects, you mainly rely on the movie box office.

It can be imagined that during this long industrial chain, if one of these huge investments fails in the box office, it will seriously damage Paramount Pictures' capital chain, and even have to do what Warner Bros. does not only fail to provide profits to the parent company, but also obtain financial support from the headquarters.

Moreover, Shirley Lansing has always been skeptical about why Fireflies suddenly sold Disney's hand-drawn animation department.

After all, it was the peak moment when the global box office of "The Lion King" was nearly one billion dollars, and it was impossible for a slightly more rational business manager to make such a counterintuitive decision.

But if the young man was acting voluntarily, this reason would be even more untenable. In less than ten years, Fireflies miraculously rose to become the largest media group in North America and even the world. How could anyone who built such a media empire be willing to act voluntarily? But if the sale of the hand-painted animation department was the result of the other party's careful consideration, then Paramount is likely to be taking on some very secretive huge risks.

The decision to acquire Disney's hand-drawn animation department was made by Redstone himself. Shirley Lansing knew that even if there was a problem with the animation department, she would not take too much responsibility, but as Paramount Pictures' CEO, once this happens, her life will definitely not be easy.

Everything was a foregone conclusion. Shirley Lansing was struggling for a while and quickly put it aside. He decided to focus more on live-action movies. Although it is not as rich as animated movies, live-action movies will always be the mainstream of Hollywood.

"Is there any news from Steven?" She lifted her head and sat upright, Shirley Lansing asked the assistant in the front row.

With the support of Microsoft, Spielberg will join forces with David Geffen and George Lucas to establish a brand new large studio, which is well known to the industry.

Although everyone knows that this studio will gradually build its own distribution network, unless it continuously embraces new lines and Disney's distribution channels like Firefly, at least in recent years, Spielberg and others will definitely need to hand over the release of the film to the seven major studios.

Because of the fact that Bill Gates, the main investor behind the scenes, is not harmonious with Firefly, the three companies in the Firefly system will definitely not be Spielberg's considerations. Sony Pictures has not yet struggled from the mess. Warner already has many affiliated production companies. Spielberg has the only choices of Paramount and Universal, and both are also trying their best to win this cooperative project.

The assistant replied: "Mr. Spielberg's assistant called not long ago and said that Mr. Spielberg could make time tonight at 8 o'clock and I had booked a seat at Morton Restaurant in Beverly Hills."

Shirley Lansing nodded with satisfaction and looked at her watch. There was less than an hour left before get off work. She was about to instruct the driver to drive home to prepare for the evening meal in advance, but the car-mounted fax in the front row of the sedan suddenly rang.

The fax machine sounds stopped after five or six pages of data were printed out in a row.

The assistant scanned the information roughly and handed it to Shirley Lansing in the back row: "It's about "First Level Fear". In the past two days, some suddenly appeared in the media... Well, Ms. Lansing, you can take a look for it yourself."

"Freak First" is a crime thriller directed by Gregory Hobrit, who has served as the director and producer of well-known TV series such as "Lucky City French Open" and "New York Serious Crime Team".

The video costs $30 million, which is considered to be a medium-cost production.

Perhaps because he was born as a TV director, Gregory Hobritt was unable to control the rhythm of the film well, resulting in the initial film of the film being more than 160 minutes long. After many editing and editing, it was compressed to 130 minutes. Although it still seems lengthy, it can no longer be modified, otherwise it will affect the integrity of the entire story.

After the initial internal test, except for the amazing performance of the newcomer named Edward Norton, the management was not optimistic about other aspects.

Therefore, the company does not focus too much on publicity and distribution.

Until recently, Gary Luchessi, the producer of "First Fear", thought of a marketing plan that links the film to the new line of Firefly, which is very popular, to hype it up to increase the popularity of "First Fear" and thus promote box office sales.

Today is Wednesday, and "Fear One" and "Seven Deadly Sins" will be released on Friday. Through feedback from all aspects, Shirley Lansing is also very satisfied with the results achieved by Gary Lucessy's marketing plan.

Seeing that the assistant was a little hesitant after seeing the fax, Shirley Lansing curiously took the pages of fax. The assistant just forgot to sort out the fax pages. Shirley Lansing first saw some media comments about "First Level Fear".

"...If "The Seven Deadly Sins" only uses some religious and violent killing techniques to give people a simple sensory stimulation, the shocking reversal of the ending of "First Deadly Fear" brings us pure spiritual shock. Countless theories and facts have proved a point that psychological fear is the real fear. In this regard, as a crime thriller of the same type, "The First Deadly Fear" undoubtedly takes this to the extreme, while "The Seven Deadly Sins" is more like a routinely flooded plasma film."

"... "First Degree Fear" is undoubtedly a crime thriller with a high degree of completion. It does not have the plot mystery, nor does it have the old-fashioned scenes that deliberately mislead the audience. It only makes people feel shocking and fearful in the blink of an eye when people think everything is settled. If "Seven Deadly Sins" that uses blood to show off the killing method to flaunt the killing method, "First Degree Fear" can score at least 8.5 points. I am already extremely looking forward to being able to go to the cinema again when the film is officially released."

“…”

After just a few quick passages, Shirley Lansing frowned. The established publicity method at the time provoked the acting comparison between the two villains Edward Norton and Kevin Spacey. What is this happening now? The reputation of "The Seven Deadly Sins" in the circle has long been confirmed, otherwise it would not have won the Sundance Film Festival jury award.

Now the quality of the film that promotes "First Degree" is better than "The Seven Deadly Sins". Isn't this waiting for the film to be slapped in the face after it is released?

He looked up and said to the assistant, "Asking me a call from Gary."

The assistant picked up the car phone and dialed, and turned around and said, "Ms. Lansing, this is what Mr. Luchessi sent."

Shirley Lansing nodded, flipped through the pages of faxes in his hand, and found the notes on the first page of Gary Luchessey. It turned out that these comments were not the result of Paramount's marketing department's operation. In addition to Paramount, who would pay attention to two videos, is naturally self-evident.

When the phone dialed, the assistant handed over the microphone. Shirley Lansing discussed it with Gary Luchessey, who was in charge of the promotion of "First Level Fear", but he had no choice but to put down the phone and fax the pages in his hand several times. Several thoughts flashed through his mind, but found that it was not very suitable.

These media comments are from Firefly Group, and are almost certain.

Shirley Lansing knew that even herself would often make some counterattacks if she encountered such a thing, but it was unlikely that there would be such a helpless method as Fireflies.

After all, these comments are like "Fear One" to praise the benefits. Paramount cannot publicly state that our video is not good enough and needs progress.

But if you don't do this, you can only let the view that "First Level Fear" is better than "Seven Deadly Sins" spread. Then, when the two films are released on a large scale, the media and audience will find that they have been deceived, and the result will be even more unpredictable.

Obviously, this is to praise you, to hold you high, then fall and smash it to pieces.

The quality of "Fear One" did not meet Paramount's expectations, so the promotion of the film was not too strong. But this does not mean that Shirley Lansing doesn't care about this movie. Paramount's entire production costs of more than $30 million per year will definitely not exceed ten movies.

After thinking about it, Shirley Lansing said: "Go back to the headquarters and call Gary and the others, and everyone will discuss the countermeasures."

"What should I do if my meeting with Mr. Spielberg?"

"As long as you are not late, you can pay attention to the time and remind me when the time comes."

...

The promotion of a movie is often started as the film is launched.

However, the real reputation of the movie is established in a few weeks before and after its official release. Before that, you can only try to let the audience know that there is such a film. It will not spread until the movie begins to be a small-scale trial and preview and officially releases on a large scale.

Since winning the Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in January, "The Seven Deadly Sins" has a strong presence in the media and movie fans.

Because Paramount's clever joint promotional technique approaches, as Easter approaches, many people suddenly notice a movie of the same type called "Fear One".

After all, ordinary people will not study the movie reviews carefully. They will only vaguely feel the influence of the entire Yulun trend, and gradually feel that perhaps, this "First Level Fear" is really better than "The Seven Deadly Sins" as the newspaper says.

Just a few days passed quickly. Easter was not a legal holiday in North America, but this period was the spring break for American college students. Most American college students would get at least one week of spring break during this period. Although some young people from good families would choose to travel, most people would not have such economic strength after all.

However, watching a few movies with family and friends during the holidays is also a very common entertainment for Americans.

"The Seven Deadly Sins" and "First Degree Fear" are undoubtedly the first choice for most people to watch movies this Easter.

On Friday, April 5, the day before Easter, "The Seven Deadly Sins" and "Fear One" were released on the screen at 2,500 yuan and 1,900 yuan respectively.

Because of the lukewarmness of "Alien 3", David Finch is not very well-known, but the two male protagonists of "The Seven Deadly Sins" Matthew McConaughey and Morgan Freeman are Hollywood stars familiar to the public in recent years. In addition, the gimmick of the Victoria's Secret Angel's surname, Diane Kruger, the first show on the screen, attracted a large number of viewers to buy tickets.
Chapter completed!