Simon and Jack Welch reached a basic trading framework for New World Entertainment, and the detailed contract terms still require further negotiation between the two parties.

With the acquiescence of New World Entertainment's major shareholder and General Electric and other parties, Daenerys Pictures began to quickly intervene in the company's operations in a few days, requiring New World Entertainment CEO Robert Rem to temporarily stop the production and distribution of all film and television projects, and any expenditures exceeding $50,000 must be approved by Daenerys Pictures.

Due to the long-term and uninterrupted paparazzi followers around Simon, the news of his meeting with Jack Welch and others appeared in the newspaper the next day, and the media immediately clarified the ins and outs of the matter.

However, this time, there was no situation where capital was rushing to the sky at the beginning of the year.

In half a year, things have changed so much.

At the beginning of the year, the news that Simon suddenly became rich through the operation of the stock index futures market was just exposed, and it was the fat sheep in the eyes of many people. Moreover, the Hollywood screenwriter strike had not yet occurred, and the crisis of New World Entertainment was not as serious as it was at this time.

Now, due to the strike of Hollywood screenwriters, the TV production business that New World Entertainment relies heavily on has almost stopped, which has further deteriorated the operating conditions of the company, which is already in a financial crisis. Simon also expressed his attitude through his operations at the beginning of the year.

Therefore, the transaction progressed quite smoothly.

The second day of Simon and Jack Welch's meeting was July 4, the United States' Day.

After four consecutive days of holidays, Daenerys Pictures, New World Entertainment and General Electric jointly issued an announcement, officially releasing the relevant news.

Daenerys Pictures plans to acquire all shares of New World Entertainment after GE's debt-to-equity conversion operation for $250 million. Through this transaction, General Electric can recover $225 million of funds, and the original shareholders of New World Entertainment will receive a total of $25 million in compensation, equivalent to one-sixth of the stock price before the transaction.

Although some shareholders expressed dissatisfaction with the transaction, all parties knew that this was actually the best result.

Without this transaction, New World Entertainment would either go bankrupt and liquidate, or sell assets to repay debts, and both plans would only leave shareholders empty-handed.

Finalizing these, Simon began to ask James Rebeld to organize a team to conduct asset and financial audits on New World Entertainment.

In addition to open financing loans, many companies will accumulate certain hidden debts by falsely reporting operating income or defaulting on payments. The worse the operating conditions, the easier it is for companies to do so. Once acquirers ignore this, they often need to bear this part of the expenses themselves after the transaction.

Hidden debt is even more common in Hollywood where the accounting system is complex.

Simon did not choose to buy the debt rights in General Electric's hands first, and then perform the debt-to-equity conversion operation on his own, because he was worried that New World Entertainment would suddenly have a large amount of hidden debts that caught Daenerys Pictures off guard. He asked General Electric to convert debt-to-equity in advance. As long as the contract was not officially signed, the risks in this regard would still be with General Electric and New World Entertainment.

The pre-authorized audit work will take about a month, and in addition to the financing issues of acquiring New World Entertainment, Daenerys Pictures may not officially take over the company until August.

In such a busy life, a new week has passed.

Due to four consecutive days of single-day holidays, the overall box office in North America exceeded the $100 million mark in the week from July 1 to July 7, reaching $117 million.

Paramount Pictures produced by Eddie Murphy, which has a somewhat main theme, earned $36.15 million in the first week with a screen opening of 2,065 yuan, making it the highest-grossing film in the first week of this summer. Previously, "Crocodile Dundee 2", also produced by Paramount, opened on the screen at 2,837 yuan, and the box office in the first week was only $30.17 million.

After the box office of Disney's "Who Framed Roger the Rabbit" was 21.65 million US dollars in the first week, with a hot reputation and four-day holiday support, the next week almost zero decline, with an additional $21.34 million, with a cumulative box office of $42.99 million in two weeks.

Sandra's black comedy "A Fish named Wanda" ranked third in the first week of its release, with a box office of $13.96 million. Although the start was not amazing, compared to the film's production budget of only $8 million, the movie will be enough to recover all the production and distribution costs next week. The reputation and topic popularity expressed by the film are enough to support it to make a very beautiful long-term trend.

"Pulp Novel" has dropped to fourth place this week, with a box office drop of 17%, and another $12.53 million. In five weeks of release, the movie's cumulative box office reached $95.79 million, which is destined to exceed 100 million next week.

"Flying Over the Future" starring Tom Hanks also entered its fifth week, with a box office of another $9.24 million. This movie, which has never won a weekly box office championship, has unknowingly accumulated $55.46 million in box office, and the trend is solid.

On July 8, North American theaters launched four new films from mainstream studios at one time.

However, judging from the box office data of the three days of the weekend, the four new films basically ended in failure. The Fox Films comedy, which is expected to have the best performance in the opening, had a box office of about 7.5 million US dollars in the first week, and no one can make it to the top five.

At the same time, "Instinct" also started the sprint promotion in the last week before its release.

On the other hand, after only a week of stalemate, ABC TV started to contact Daenerys Pictures again.

As Simon's previous judgment, ABC really does not have enough confidence to give up a TV show that can earn $1 million for the TV network per episode. What's more, the number of episodes per season of this TV show is three times that of a traditional one-hour TV series.

After restarting negotiations, Daenerys Pictures still insisted on a $2 million offer per issue, but also made some concessions in other aspects, agreeing to provide ABC with an additional 15 episodes of the show in the next period before the fall to make up for the shortage of TV programs caused by the strike.

Including the previous week's pilot episodes, this additional 22 episodes will be paid by ABC in one lump sum of Daenerys Pictures.

ABC wants to get this extra part of the show, but it is more important to win more TV viewers before the fall season. This is actually the reason why ABC is willing to compromise so quickly. In comparison, although it also signed a contract with Daenerys Pictures soon, the "Survivor" won by NBC cannot play this role.

On "Survivor", Daenerys Pictures and NBC also signed binding terms similar to ABC.

However, because it is impossible to confirm the ratings in advance, Daenerys Pictures only received a one-time buyout price of US$1.2 million per episode of the first season. After the program is broadcast, both parties can renegotiate the subsequent quotations based on the specific ratings.

Simon actually wanted to get a share contract, but was firmly rejected by NBC.

He later learned that this is more because the TV network does not want to expose its financial data to the outside world. The TV network also has an accounting system similar to Hollywood books, and it is more opaque.

Compared with the standard "Who Will Be a Millionaire" which has a standard season 69 episodes, Daenerys Pictures has only 13 episodes of the first season plan for "Survivor" to be drafted. It may be adjusted according to the broadcast schedule in the future, but it will basically be controlled within 20 episodes of each season.

The first season is expected to produce about $5 million, which is much more expensive than "Who Will Be a Millionaire".

Therefore, the benefits of Survivor cannot be compared with Who Will Be a Millionaire.

Even if the second season is re-negotiated, Simon expects that this show will probably only get a similar offer to "Who Will Be Millionaire". However, the expected screen life of "Who Will Be Millionaire" is much shorter than that of "Survivor". Even if Daenerys Films actively controls not to make this show too much, at most three to five years, once the audience develops aesthetic fatigue, the show will end.

In comparison, according to the production progress of two seasons per year, "Survivor" can last for more than ten years on the TV screen.

Moreover, although it cannot be compared with "Who Will Be a Millionaire", the return rate of "Survivor" is still incomparable to traditional TV shows.

As long as this program can achieve success as in the original time and space, the number of episodes will be appropriately expanded for two seasons per year, calculated based on two seasons and 30 episodes, plus the revenue from the in-program advertising planting that Daenerys Pictures also retained, "Survivor" can bring Daenerys Pictures no less than $60 million in revenue every year.

In short, these two reality shows are actually like low-cost and high-box office dark horses, which are hard to come by. If Daenerys Pictures wants to develop its TV business for a long time, it also needs to produce various mainstream TV programs.

Santa Monica City.

Daenerys Film Headquarters, July 12th.

In Simon's office, there was a middle-aged man in his fifties sitting opposite him. Even if he sat, he could see that the other party was definitely over 1.9 meters tall.

This is Robert Rem, the current CEO of New World Entertainment.

The transaction plan between the two parties has been finalized. In recent days, Robert Rem has been very proactive in keeping in touch with Simon. Simon has also carefully inquired about the middle-aged man's career resume through his connections in the circle.

Robert Rem is 53 years old and as early as 16 years old, he worked as a receptionist in a local theater. After graduating from university, Robert Rem has worked in a series of film and television entertainment work, with thirty years of experience in film and television production and distribution.

Before becoming the CEO of New World Entertainment, Robert Rem was the vice president of the marketing and marketing department of Universal Pictures, and his previous work was more inclined to release movies.

This also happens to be something Daenerys Pictures is in urgent need.

Middle-aged people obviously see this, so they are so positive.

After all, according to his resume, he is still a long way from grabbing the chair of the top leader of a large studio. If Daenerys Pictures resigns after completing the acquisition of New World Entertainment, he is more likely to become a sole producer, and may also receive job invitations from executives of other second- and third-tier film companies, but those jobs are obviously not comparable to the rapidly developing Daenerys Pictures.

You know, in the first half of the year, the expected benefits of "When Harry Meets Sally", "Pulp Novels" and the newly successful "Who Will Be a Millionaire" have exceeded all second-tier film companies in Hollywood that have generally poor operating conditions, and are even enough to compare with the profitability levels of the seven companies ranked lower in the seven.

Simon actually intends to keep the other party in office, but he must also confirm Robert Rem's attitude.

After all, compared with Robert Rem, Amy Pascal has a much less experienced experience in Hollywood, and is still a woman. However, Simon did not make Amy give up the top leader, and he has always been very satisfied with Amy. If Robert Rem is unwilling to be the second place and wants to replace Amy, Simon will have to regret it.

Robert Rem's main purpose today is to send Simon information on various projects in the hands of New World Entertainment.

When Larry Kuping and others acquired New World Entertainment from Roger Koeman in 1983, Roger Koeman retained the copyright of all films before 1983. However, in recent years, due to the continuous large-scale expansion, New World Entertainment has quickly accumulated the copyrights of nearly 100 movies and TV series through self-production and agency distribution in just five years.

What Simon is most concerned about is the company's TV shows.

According to the information in hand, several major TV networks announced their reservations from New World Entertainment last year, including "Ultimate Police Network" and "Santa Barbara" and other five TV series with very good ratings. This spring, before the Hollywood screenwriter's strike, New World Entertainment also launched another well-received new drama "The Age of Innocence".

However, due to the Hollywood screenwriter's strike, the TV network's programs announced to renew have been temporarily stranded. Without Daenerys Pictures' acquisition, even if the TV network still needs it, New World Entertainment would have to cut off most of the projects due to funding and other reasons.

As for the movie.

Inheriting the production style of Roger Koeman's era, the films produced and released by New World Entertainment in recent years are generally low-cost B-level films, and most of them have flowed directly to the video tape market.

Compared with the eight production lists last year, New World Entertainment has only three production plans this year, and there are also several projects that are clearly uncertain in the process of brewing.

As for release, in the first half of the year, New World Entertainment released a total of seven movies, of which all four movies entered the theaters ended in failure. In early May, a film "Zombie Special Police" released on the edge of the summer season was produced at $5 million, with a production cost of $1,012 to open the screen, but in the end it only recovered $3.59 million in box office. This is the best result among the four theater movies. The other three movies were only released in videotapes, which shows how dismal the film business of New World Entertainment is.

Simon did not ask Robert Rem to wait too long, and quickly browsed the information in his hand. He raised his head and said, "Bob, after completing this acquisition, I will integrate New World Entertainment into Daenerys Pictures. Daenerys Pictures will be reorganized into Daenerys Entertainment and will set up subsidiaries according to the New World Entertainment model. In a short period of time, I do not intend to lay off employees of this company, but according to convention, you are personally. However, I understand your thoughts. So, be honest, are you willing to be Amy's deputy?"

Of course, Robert Rem was unwilling to do so. He had previously considered convincing Simon to make him the top leader. However, Simon spoke up as a prerequisite, and he also realized Simon's attitude.
Chapter completed!