"The price war cannot be carried out, and Daenerys is required to assist in obtaining equal online payment channels and reducing store density in some areas such as Los Angeles and New York. These terms can be agreed, but major studios and competitive leaseholders form a third-party supervisory agency to supervise Blockbuster. This is not possible. Unless this supervisory agency supervises everyone and Blockbuster can also participate, the result will only be a group of people holding magnifying glasses to find fault with Blockbuster in the future. No company can withstand this kind of harassment. In this way, we might as well maintain the status quo."

"The problem is, boss, each family is very serious about this condition."

"That's they're deliberately delaying?"

“It’s obvious.”

Daenerys Cinema, Malibu, Los Angeles.

This is October 5th.

on Monday.

From October 1997 to September 1998, it happened to be the end of another fiscal year. On the third day of Simon's return to North America, he arrived at the company in the morning. The first thing he did was to meet with Daenerys and several main persons in charge to discuss some important matters in the near future.

What we are talking about is the Blockbuster acquisition case that Simon is most concerned about.

In a small conference room in Building 1, Simon heard Nancy's affirmative reply, thought for a moment, and said, "Then put pressure on us. We will actively shrink the scale of Blockbuster and give them the rental market. If these people are not satisfied, then expand again. Anyway, Blockbuster's control is already in our hands."

Amy was looking down at a document, but when she heard this, she looked up: "Simon, is it real or fake?"

"Of course it's a fake move, but if each company insists on not letting go, it doesn't matter if the fake move becomes a real move." Simon said, looking at Nancy: "You can make a plan as soon as possible."

Nancy also understood that this was the only way, nodded and said, "I asked someone to let the news be released at noon. Blockbuster will invest additionally and expand 3,000 stores and 100 warehousing and logistics centers around the world."

"5,000 stores and 200 logistics centers."

"Boss, is this a bit exaggerated?"

"After saying that, start executing and see how long those leasing manufacturers in the industry can last."

Nancy tentatively said: "What if they never surrender?"

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

Amy said: "And, where are other studios?"

"If only one Blockbuster is left, they understand better what the result is."

Everyone thought that this was indeed the case, so it was decided.

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

It was officially announced in November 1995 that ground was broken at the end of 1996. After nearly two years of construction, Universal Studios Rome, with a total investment of US$2 billion, covering an area of ​​200 acres, has begun to finish the work. Everything goes well and will be open in the first half of next year.

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

If you want to catch up with the popular summer vacations of many people going out for vacation, Universal Studios in Rome is a good choice to open next Easter. However, even if the project has begun to end and the recruitment and training of employees have been carried out since the beginning of the year, it is calculated that the time for opening next Easter is still a bit tight.

After all, it is a theme park involving thousands of tourists. If the business is opened in a hurry, the experience will become worse and some safety problems may occur, it will be a bit of a sign.

This problem actually occurred in Disneyland Paris, or the European Disneyland before its name was renamed.

Various flaws in the early stage led to a very poor experience in Disneyland Paris. The tourists complained and suffered continuous losses in the past few years of 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 Amy's words, Simon shook his head and said, "There is no need to hurry up and make special time to make up Easter. Ensure that everything is perfect and then opens. It is not only responsible for ourselves and tourists. Moreover, even if Easter cannot be caught up, the summer vacation should be fine, which is also a popular time?"

"The problem is that opening during the summer season will directly welcome a large number of tourists. Once a problem occurs, it will be further amplified and have a bad impact," Amy said. "Opening Easter can not only play the best publicity role, but also, after Easter, it will soon enter a short off-season. Until the summer season, during this period, we can make timely adjustments to the shortcomings of the park without causing much impact."

Simon also understood that even if you consider everything in the early stage, you will inevitably have various details and problems when you really open it. Once these problems are not solved well or are exaggerated by the media, it will cause unpredictable harm to the popularity of the theme park.

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

Robert Eiger, who came from the East Coast, said: "I don't know much about the details of the project, but since the details need to be improved and adjusted after the opening, Easter should be appropriate."

Nancy also spoke, saying, "I feel so too."

"Then let's go Easter," Simon was not confused, and instead asked Amy: "If the project is tight, then add some investment and hire more people. The $2 billion is spent, and it's nothing to add tens of millions."

Amy nodded and quickly wrote it down on the notepad.

Then it was Eiger who talked about the overview of the fall TV business.

In October, most of the popular dramas this year have been launched. The performance of "American Idol" in the fourth season is still stable. The number of viewers in the first episode of the broadcast reached 34.6 million, easily leading the ratings champion. In addition, there are several new dramas this year that perform very well.

Then there is ESPN.

ESPN has bought out the NFL's broadcast rights for eight years with a huge $9 billion agreement with a huge bet, and the sports TV station has grown rapidly in the past two years, which is a highlight of the TV business. Therefore, this time, Iger mainly told ESPN's head Steve Bernstein's plan to continue to buy out the broadcast rights for NBA and other events, and further expand ESPN's advantages.

Simon knew very well how the 'ESPN tax' came about in his memory, and after all, it was monopoly.

Although the huge agreements that cost billions of dollars are a bit scary, after all, if the wool comes from the sheep, the audience will eventually pay for it. As long as you gain a monopoly position, ESPN will definitely be the biggest beneficiary.

Therefore, there was no objection to this matter, and everyone agreed to it.

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

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

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

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

After all, although it is scattered and complicated, 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 after twelve o'clock noon.

After the meeting, several important giants in the world's entertainment industry are now going to restaurants to eat together, and they also talked about some of the highlights of Daenerys Entertainment's recent business.

There are mainly two, one game, and one movie.

It was all Simon's official launch during the period when he left North America.

Among them, the game is "Frozen Age" from South Korea. It is a sci-fi game with a sci-fi background. The content tells the story of different forces competing for survival on a continent in the long nuclear winter era after the nuclear war. After a deeper investigation, it is actually obvious that the real-time strategy game popular in North America in recent years. In addition to 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 initially rushing, but the result was that praise and criticism coexisted.

After Chen Qing directly obtained the game development company there, she made some corrections and made up for leaks, and became the first test project in North America.

After it went online on Monday on September 21, as of yesterday, it happened to be two weeks. Relying on Daenerys Entertainment's strong promotional capabilities and user technology in North America far surpassed other markets, in just half a month, the number of registered users of "Frozen Age" exceeded one million mark, and the exact number is 1.32 million.

And it is growing rapidly.

In addition, when the time charge is also adopted, due to different market environments, the discounts in North America are much lower than those in China. Therefore, the payment rate of 1.32 million registered users has exceeded 60% in just two weeks. In 14 days of online launch, the game has earned $5.61 million to Daenerys Entertainment.

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

Obviously, it is another hit.

In addition, based on the two-year operating cycle and combined with the revenue data in the previous two weeks, the total revenue forecast for the game given by the team is conservatively $500 million, and the maximum may reach $1 billion again.

Simon talked to everyone during lunch time, and when he heard this number, he couldn't help but joke again.

It makes more money than drug trafficking, and it is not illegal.

You know, the Korean studio developed this game, even if it included subsequent additional additions, it was less than 5 billion won. According to the current exchange rate, it was only about 3 million US dollars. Now, it is just a North American market. Even based on the most conservative revenue of 500 million US dollars, this is a return of more than 100 times.

What's more, what we got here was the agency rights of all other markets in the world except South Korea and mainland China. Daenerys will definitely promote this game globally next, and its revenue is even more incalculable.

Obviously, as the news came back to South Korea, the Korean people would inevitably have a climax.

But I can only be excited.

Not to mention that the copyrighted game studio has long been taken over by the Westeros system. Even though he signed a 30% share contract, the company responsible for receiving the share was set up in an overseas tax-avoiding sacred place, and Simon did not intend to transfer these benefits back to South Korea at all.

Make overseas flowers directly.

What Korea can get is honor and satisfaction.

Moreover, Simon does not intend to let South Korea enjoy this satisfaction permanently. The reason why it introduced a series of role-playing games from South Korea this time is mainly because the country accidentally hit the industrial direction that Simon is more interested in. However, as the saying goes, Simon will not put the eggs in a basket.

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

In addition, North America, 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 Korean game industry, the most glorious time was in the early 21st century. Later, although it still seems to be glorious, most Korean game companies have actually become foreign capital, and a large part of them are Chinese capital.

After all, it's working for others.

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

This is one of the teenager movie series produced by Simon last year. The reference is the "Happy Death Day" in my memory. The heroine was chased by the clichéd perverted murderer in teenage horror movies, but ended up in the Japanese-style cycle of groundhogs. She died every time, but she couldn't die every time, and always woke up the same morning.

In general, "Happy Day of Death" is a story that is difficult to justify.

However, it is a popcorn movie. Is it important why the heroine falls into a death cycle?

Everyone has seen it, and hehe, it’s all right.

From the early years of "Friday of the Thirteenth" and "Moonlight and Panic" to the present, over the years, it has been difficult for Hollywood teenage horror films to get rid of the clichés. Although "Happy Death" is a combination of ordinary hunting and time cycles, it is indeed an innovation.

Therefore, after the release, even the critic circle, which has always been harsh on horror films, ended up giving the film a comprehensive media rating of 8.2.

Very outstanding results.

In the end, 2736 yuan was launched on the screen. In just seven days of the first week, "Happy Death Day" earned $31.34 million. The key to the problem is that this small film with no stars or special effects involved was only $8 million.

Make a big profit at the beginning.

Based on the 37% drop just over the past weekend, the film is expected to have a box office of at least 70 million yuan.

The return on local investment is nearly 10 times.
Chapter completed!