After ending his trip to South Korea, Simon returned to North America, on March 2.

The first thing I’m paying attention to is the Valentine’s Day schedule that has passed in North America.

Daenerys Entertainment's first feature film in 1999, the American version of "Love Call Transfer", starring Tom Hanks, was released on the eve of Valentine's Day on February 12, and finally won $41.95 million in one box office on the first week from February 12 to February 18.

A good start.

Subsequently, the decline of "Love Call Transfer" was well controlled at 36% in the following week from February 19 to February 25, and another $26.83 million was closed, with a total of $68.78 million.

Simon returned to North America on Tuesday. The film's third week and weekend box office has been released, continuing to earn US$12.89 million, with a cumulative box office exceeding the 80 million mark, reaching US$81.67 million.

It is obvious that the local box office of this American version of "Love Call Transfer" exceeded 100 million, which is only a matter of time. Moreover, referring to the current box office curve forecast, the local box office of this movie in North America is expected to rise to between 120 million and 130 million US dollars.

Let’s talk about overseas, although some core vote countries have not been able to achieve Valentine’s Day synchronization, they have basically started paintings.

As of Simon's return to North America, the cumulative overseas box office of the US version of "Love Call Transfer" has also exceeded US$70 million. Based on various data, the total overseas box office of some of the film is expected to be between US$150 million and US$200 million.

The global box office is expected to reach US$300 million.

The production cost of the film is US$40 million and the promotion and expenditure is 20 million. The global calculation is US$300 million. In the theater stage, the film can achieve a profit of about US$70 million, which is obviously another great success.

The most intuitive feeling is first in China.

The original "Love Call Transfer" is domestic. After all, most people don't know the inside story of this project, so an adaptation of one of their own projects actually made it possible to achieve a box office of over 100 million in Hollywood, and a sense of pride arises naturally.

First of all, the project passed the review in mainland China with a green light and was scheduled to be scheduled for the end of March, which is definitely a rapid pace in the field of introducing films.

Secondly, the New Year film "Party A and Party B" released in China is the original cast of "Aihu" last year. After winning glory overseas, everyone could not see "Aihu" last year in the theater, so they put their emotions on "Party A and Party B".

As the news of the US version of "Aihu"'s big sale spread in China, the box office curve of "Party A and Party B" unexpectedly rose again. It was originally expected that the local box office volume of 150 million yuan would increase by about 30 million yuan in one fell swoop, and the final landing point is expected to reach 180 million yuan.

Jinshu also planned to re-sell the original version of "Aihu" when it was released in China at the end of March, which is a confrontation.

No matter how much you make, you will definitely make a profit.

When talking about North America, the industry will inevitably have various interpretations of the success of this movie, and it is planned to follow the trend.

However, there are still some people, especially practitioners in the Hollywood circle, who have actually seen more.

The unpopular February schedule, even with the blessing of Valentine's Day, in previous years, those who can break through the box office threshold of 100 million yuan are basically the dark horses of the year.

Now, is the American version of "Aihu" considered a dark horse?

Not counting.

The main feature of dark horse videos is that when everyone is not expecting it, it will be sold out unexpectedly.

The US version of "Aihu" has a total investment of 60 million US dollars in production and promotion, which can be said to be the bombshell level. The production company is willing to invest so much money in a project and obviously has considerable expectations for the commercial prospects, so this is not an unexpected success.

However, the American version of "Aihu" is undoubtedly a very successful project, especially the unpopular schedule in February.

So the question is, why is it so successful?

Because Hollywood is now no longer the Hollywood that once started to win the beauty of each family.

Daenerys Entertainment, which emerged from nowhere, has occupied more and more resources, divided the increasingly large market, and has become more and more powerful, squeezing other peers' living space to become smaller and smaller, and eventually completely changed everything.

Besides, in the past, in our traditional concept, it was difficult to release a box office video for 100 million yuan in February.

Because during this period, compared with the end of the year or summer season, the number of viewers has dropped significantly, which has naturally reduced the market size. Secondly, even if the ticket store is so large, people still had to compete with each other in the past to cut the cake that was not big into smaller pieces. Therefore, it is difficult to produce blockbusters with a box office of 100 million yuan.

Now, Daenerys Entertainment has broken the rules.

With its strong publicity and distribution network, Daenerys first stimulated more public to enter the theater during this period of time and expanded the market size.

Secondly, as Daenerys becomes stronger and stronger, other Hollywood studios have been continuously compressing production output and investment volume in recent years, resulting in a significant reduction in competition with Daenerys' films produced by the same period.

The cake has become bigger and the competition has decreased. In addition, the American version of "Aihu" itself has excellent quality, so it is not surprising that it can easily break the box office volume limit of the traditional unpopular schedule in February.

Speaking of which, this is also a trend in Hollywood in the original time and space.

In history, when other popular schedules could not meet their own video displacement, the strong Dibao began to open up the February schedule.

The typical one is "Black Panther", which was released in February, also shows that Dibao is more or less confident about this Marvel pure black hero film. As a result, this film actually sold $700 million in the early part of the year when it was unpopular.

This market performance that completely broke the schedule restrictions was the same as the American version of "Aihu" at this time. One was that Dibao was too strong at that time, and the other was that other competitors were getting weaker and weaker.

At that time, except for Disney, Warner and Universal, all the big studios were left with empty spaces.

In this time and space, Daenerys began to make efforts without reservation last year. Next, in addition to the "competitors" reserved by Simon, other studios will inevitably soon become empty.

Simon returned to Hollywood and a merger case that had been quietly pushing for was also gaining attention.

About MGM and Fox.

There is also the small move of Old Murdoch trying to acquire Lucasfilm first. Simon actually heard the news soon, but he didn't mean to intervene. Anyway, he ended up falling into his own pocket.

Because Simon did not intervene, Murdoch finally negotiated the business for $1.7 billion in cash and stocks, which acquired Lucasfilm, including Industrial Light and Magic, which has developed well in the CG field in recent years, as well as the copyrights of popular series such as Star Wars and Raiders of Lost Ark.

You know, the reason why Disney spent $70 billion to acquire Fox was not only because it was well known that it wanted to recover the copyright of the X-Men series, but also because it hoped to completely collect the Star Wars series.

The global issuance rights of the first six Star Wars departments, including many peripheral interests, were always in the hands of Fox before Disney acquired it.

Now, Fox won Lucasfilm. Although Simon felt that $1.7 billion was a bit high, after all, the price was only $4 billion more than ten years later, it was acceptable. After all, in order to continue to ensure the right to speak, Lucas demanded as much as $1.2 billion equivalent to 70% of the stock.

In short, next, MGM merged with Fox and Simon basically completely mastered the super IP of Star Wars.

Also worth mentioning are Industrial Light and Magic and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Even though Simon's deliberate suppression over the years has made the industrial light-magic technology far inferior to that of the past, it is still a fish that escapes the net outside the Westeros system. Now in his hands, Simon's control over Hollywood special effects movies will reach a higher level.

As for the same sentence, it is different to know how to do CG and special effects, just like a person who knows kung fu may not be able to do martial arts guidance.

Then there is "Raiders of the Lottery Ark".

This is also a gold mine series. Unfortunately, the right to issue is in the hands of Paramount, and it is also somewhat inseparable from the classmate Laos. However, as long as the project is launched, Paramount is already inspiring the classmate Laos to film "Raiders of the Lost Ark 4". In short, at that time, the benefits that should be attributed to this side will definitely not be missing.

After taking over Lucasfilm, it was followed by the question of who merged and whom.

Murdoch won the parent company of the Star Wars series ahead of schedule, which is actually to gain more initiative in this regard.

Simon did not force this.

After all, News Corporation is also a partner that Simon values ​​very much. Therefore, after returning to North America, the two of them had breakfast together, and the matter was finalized.

MGM was incorporated into Fox.

However, as a concession, the integrated new Fox film team will be CEO with Simon-promoted Shirley Lansing.

Let’s talk about the specific merger scale.

Due to the favorable benefits of the Westeros system and a series of top-notch projects in recent years, MGM's market value has been at a relatively high state, with a recent market value of US$4.3 billion. On the Fox side, News Group, the parent company of the entire 20th Century Fox, is currently a market value of US$16.5 billion.

Obviously, big fish eat small fish.

However, according to the agreement reached by Simon and Murdoch, News Corporation will split it up and cut it into two parts: the independent 20th Century Fox and News Corporation to be listed separately.

Even if the paper media industry is in decline, including the paper media and television assets of News Corp in Australia, Europe and Asia, after the divestment, the brand new News Corp, which mainly focuses on paper media and businesses outside the United States, will probably take away about US$7 billion in market value. The remaining 20th Century Fox, including Fox TV, Fox Cable Network, Fox Pictures and other assets, will be discounted by about US$9.5 billion.

Neither party asked for a premium or discount and traded at the current share price.

Also consider Lucasfilm.

Therefore, after the merger, the new 20th Century Fox Company held 63% of the shares of the original Fox, George Lucas held 8% of the shares, and the original MGM held 29%.

Just looking at this shareholding ratio, it seems that Simon lacks the right to speak, but in fact, among the 63% shares of the former Fox, only 17% belong to the Murdoch family. Although it is also the largest shareholder after subdivision, it is still much worse than absolute holding.

To put it bluntly, the new company has basically become a popular company.

However, in fact, small shareholders must take the lead.

As for major shareholders, they also need to rely on the board of directors to implement control over the company.

This is also an aspect of Simon's comparison of the warriors between Mr. Murdoch.

Of course, an agreement was reached.

The nine-person board of directors planned to be established, except for one that George Lucas demanded to protect his own rights and interests, the other eight were divided into half.

After all, if we really want to fight for control of the new company through the public shareholders' meeting, Simon and Murdoch stand on the stage together, there is no suspense for whom those shareholders will choose.

In addition, compared to Redstone, who can become enemies with a group of children in order to seize the power of the company, Murdoch is not that extreme in terms of control of the company. Moreover, Murdoch also knows that he actually has not many choices.

What if the deal is rejected?

Can.

At that time, we can continue to firmly control the company.

However, with the current trend of Hollywood, it basically means that the company will decline.

At breakfast that day, Simon directly clarified Murdoch's guess.

Therefore, this is a chance that Simon gave to the Murdoch family, rather than Simon begging the Murdoch family to agree to the deal.

In Hollywood next, Simon only plans to retain two competitors that appear to be slightly contending with Daenerys.

One of the places has been given to Warner.

Another one, in fact, has been confirmed, is to expand based on the MGM team.

If Focus doesn't get in the car this time, it will be even more difficult to get in the car in the future. Even Simon's original idea was that there was no chance for Focus.

Simon wants Disney, who is now caught by France Vivendi.

Even though the big butterfly of Simon has taken away too much luck, Disney, which has the theme park business and a large number of animation IPs, is still a hot commodity that can be revived with a little tidying up. Therefore, even if the merger was successfully completed, Simon did not give up Disney's plan.

As for others, including Fox, it depends on fate.

Simon's initial idea was that he saw that the "Star Wars Prequel" series was about to be launched, and that a deeper alliance with the Murdoch family would further consolidate the Westeros system's voice at the global public opinion level.

However, if you don't want to do this, then it's better to go with the flow.

The result is that only talking about the transaction volume seems to be the majority of the 20th Century Fox, but in terms of control, just like when Fox was sold to Disney, it is obviously impossible to gain too much control, and this time it is the same. It is possible to be half apart, and at the same time, Murdoch will continue to serve as the chairman of the new company, which is already a good result.

The basic transaction framework was reached, and the two parties officially announced the news on March 5th.

There was an uproar again.
Chapter completed!