A private airport on Chicago's south side.

After the Falcon business jet owned by Daenerys Entertainment landed, Robert Egger and Isla Deutschman enthusiastically sent a couple off the plane. The company is here to assist John Hughes in filming "Uncle Buck"

》The team even specially sent a car to pick up people, which seemed to be very considerate.

After the couple left, Egger and Deutschman reboarded the plane, and the Falcon took off and continued flying east.

In the cabin, after the plane reached a stable state, Ella Deutschman took out a thick list of Oscar judges from her briefcase, opened it, found a name, and made a few remarks at the back.

Today is already Monday, January 23rd.

The previous weekend, Deutschman not only negotiated for the rights to adapt six stage plays, but also hosted receptions for three consecutive days starting from Friday for the purpose of award publicity.

The couple whose husbands are Oscar photography judges just got off the plane said at Saturday's cocktail party that they were going back to Chicago today, and Ella Deutschman readily invited them to take the company's private jet.

This kind of small favor does not cost much, but it can leave a very deep impression on the couple.

This year's Oscar nominations have not yet been announced, but Daenerys Entertainment's public relations offensive has already begun.

Robert Ream is busy expanding Daenerys Entertainment's overseas distribution channels. The nature of Gaomen Pictures' business is destined to rely on major film awards for its survival. Simon has given the award public relations tasks for several of the company's films last year to Doraemon.

Ichiman.

After losing the bid for "Sex, Lies and Videotape", Ella Deutschman realized that her original strategy of buying as many completed films as possible for distribution would not go so well. While adjusting her plan, the public relations results of this awards season became

This is the key to whether he can be recognized by Simon during the one-year probation period.

During her last trip to the UK and this business trip to New York, Ella Deutschman did not forget to visit the awards-related contacts she had accumulated over the years after work. At the same time, she also visited the professional public relations company hired by Remote Control Company.

Working with the awards marketing team, it can be described as a multi-pronged approach that spares no effort.

The Golden Globe Awards, which are the benchmark for the Oscars, will be held this Saturday. The corresponding public relations work has also been completed. His next focus is on the Oscars.

Speaking of which, with the current reputation of "Rain Man", under normal circumstances, this movie is destined to be a big winner during the awards season.

However, Simon does not want "Rain Man" director Barry Levinson and leading actor Dustin Hoffman to win, but he wants to ensure the best picture. He also hopes that "Dead Poets Society" can win the best director award.

, this is the biggest difficulty in this public relations.

Iger and Deutschman both agreed very much with the collaborative mechanism proposed by Simon and put it into practice, so they got along very well. Two of the three-day weekend receptions were held at Iger's house.

The two chatted about work. More than two hours later, the Falcon business jet landed again. This time it was not Los Angeles, but Salt Lake City, Utah.

The 5th Sundance Film Festival opened last Friday. Although he knows that any film the company chooses now may be competed by other studios, Deutschman still plans to see if there are any outstanding films at this film festival.

films or emerging filmmakers worth wooing.

Moreover, there should be no shortage of Oscar judges at the film festival who can connect with each other in person.

Simon's instructions to Deutschman were to proceed step by step.

There are more than 3,000 Oscar judges. They are wooing one by one, building public relations and establishing connections one by one. One day they will be able to understand everything.

The reason why the Weinstein brothers are so invincible at the Oscars is not that the brothers invest a lot of energy in public relations for everyone every year. The most important thing is the deep-rooted and powerful connections and deep influence accumulated little by little over many years of business.

The Falcon business jet finally arrived at Los Angeles Santa Monica Airport around 11:30.

Iger sent the two accompanying employees to Burbank and arrived at Daenerys Entertainment headquarters. Amy's assistant Vanessa was already waiting for him.

After a brief greeting, Vanessa said: "Please come with me, Mr. Egger, Ms. Pascal is attending a meeting, and she said you can go directly to the conference room after you come over."

Iger was a little confused, so he followed Vanessa to a small conference room in the company's office building.

After pushing the door open and going in, Nancy, who was in front of the slide screen, saw Iger. She temporarily stopped explaining and said hello: "Good morning, Bob."

"Good morning," Iger nodded towards Nancy, shook hands with Amy who stood up, sat down next to her, and said to Nancy: "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Nancy, please continue."

Vanessa handed a piece of information to Iger, and Nancy continued: "Two years ago, Blockbuster won the game rental lawsuit against Nintendo and gained the right to sell and rent game cartridges. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

"After the development is completed, we can also use Blockbuster's channels for distribution, and we can take the initiative in local channels and marketing in North America."

Iger listened to Nancy's introduction and quickly read through the information handed over by Vanessa.

It turned out that this was a development plan for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video game for the Nintendo FC game platform. Seeing this, Iger couldn't help but think of the Atari collapse a few years ago.

Atari was originally a game console and software development company owned by Warner Bros. In 1977, Atari launched the Atari 2600 game console, which quickly became popular in the United States. At its peak, there was even an Atari game in every three American households.

The popularity of machines.

However, after the success of Atari 2600, Warner began to frantically extract profits from this game platform, and allowed various types of game manufacturers to develop a large number of inferior games without restraint. Countless inferior games flooded the market and continued to consume the patience of users.

Ultimately, the "Alien" video game that Warner had hastily developed in six weeks in 1982 became the trigger for a collapse.

Users who continue to be devastated by various inferior games originally thought that the reputation of "Alien ET" and the games produced by Warner's official brand must have guaranteed quality. As a result, the quality of "Alien ET" is so low that it is even shocking.

There are many low-level bugs that would not appear in even the most inferior games.

As a result, only 1.5 million of the 4 million cassettes prepared by Warner for "Alien" were sold, and the rest were sent to the garbage dump for direct destruction.

But that's not the most serious thing.

After that incident, users completely gave up on Atari.

Sales of Atari game consoles and software fell off a cliff in the following years. The game market, which exceeded US$3 billion in the early 1980s, even shrunk to US$100 million during the most deserted period in 1985.

Some analysts believe it will take at least 20 years for the North American video game market to recover.

However, after the short-lived market "ice age", Nintendo, which learned from the lessons of Atari's collapse, gradually filled the vacancy in the North American market left by Atari's collapse through a series of restrictive measures such as the royalty system to strictly control game quality.

In recent years, the North American video game market has begun to recover again. Of course, this field has unfortunately become dominated by Japanese companies.

Nancy in front of the stage finished the introduction, discussed a few words with Amy, and humbly asked Egger for his opinion.

Looking at the 28-page planning plan in his hand with a total budget of only 2 million US dollars, Iger thought for a while and asked: "Nancy, it costs 200,000 to buy the video game development rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

US dollars, but you only plan to make this game with a budget of US$500,000, can the quality be guaranteed?”

Of the total budget of US$2 million, US$200,000 was used to purchase the video game development rights for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", US$500,000 was used for production, US$300,000 was used to maintain the company's daily operations, and the final US$1 million was used after the game development was completed.

Production and marketing expenses.

Nancy nodded seriously and said: "The main expenditure in video game development is labor. Because it is my first time to get involved in the field of video game development, I only plan to set up a studio of about 10 people in the early stage, and a budget of US$500,000 is enough."

Iger asked again: "Marvel's "Spider-Man", "Fantastic Four" and other superheroes are also very suitable for adaptation into games, and they are more famous than "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", why choose "Ninja Gods"?

Where is Turtle?"

Nancy shook her head and said, "I tried talking to Simon, but he said no."

Egger was confused: "Huh?"

Nancy was a little helpless: "Simon seemed to be very fond of Marvel and gave me no room for negotiation. I also talked to him about "The Lord of the Rings" and was rejected, as well as "Run Lola Run", and he has already sold the peripheral products to him.

The rights were packaged and sold. It just so happened that the company had recently approved a live-action movie for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". After research, I found that its character settings were very suitable for adapting into a side-scrolling fighting game. After contacting Mirage Studios, they

I bought the game development rights for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before they were sold."

Iger was not familiar with the field of video games. Since Nancy had already considered all the issues that he could think of in a short period of time, he did not put forward any opinions rashly.

We chatted for a few more words, and it was already noon, so we rushed to a nearby restaurant to have dinner.

Having recently completed the investment in Blockbuster, Nancy quickly came up with another plan, which once again put a lot of pressure on Amy.

Amy had actually considered getting involved in video game development, but had no time to push it forward.

Now, Nancy has come up with this plan. After the establishment of the game studio, it will also be affiliated with the consumer products department, rather than the direct departments of the company such as Daenerys Special Effects and Pixar Animation. If it succeeds, Nancy will definitely take the greatest credit.

Even if it fails, the loss of 2 million US dollars is really insignificant to Daenerys Entertainment now.

Therefore, during lunch, although she tried not to show it, Amy inevitably felt closer to Iger.

Iger, who has a gentle personality, is far less energetic and aggressive than Nancy.

Obviously, it is impossible for Amy to know Simon's expectations for Egg.

The revenue scale of the consumer products department managed by Nancy is far from comparable to that of the television department. Moreover, the consumer products department is located in Los Angeles and is destined to be under the control of the parent company at all times. However, Iger, who is in charge of the television department alone on the East Coast, is completely

An existence at the level of a feudal official.

We chatted for a while, and even though we were having a meal, we quickly talked about work.

Daenerys Entertainment's TV series are mainly produced on the West Coast. With the arrival of the spring TV season, Iger has to start flying to Los Angeles every week for work. This time, in addition to the preparations for several TV series, there are more important things.

.

"About "Who Will Be a Millionaire?", Tom had a detailed discussion with me when he invited me to dinner yesterday. He said that if we are not willing to make concessions, ABC will have no choice but to reduce the number of episodes in the second season and adjust the screening time.

," After Iger finished speaking, he noticed Nancy's doubtful eyes and explained: "ABC Chairman, Tom Murphy."

Nancy nodded and didn't answer.

Amy asked: "What are the conditions?"

Egger said: "The quotation for each issue will be halved, and ABC will also participate in the revenue sharing of advertising placement within the program."

Amy frowned immediately and said, "Simon probably won't agree to this."

Nancy looked around and couldn't help but ask Egger: "Bob, how much profit did we make on "Who Will Be a Millionaire"?"

As the head of the consumer products department, Nancy is well aware of the peripheral product revenue data of "Who Will Be a Millionaire". However, the company's annual financial audit has not yet been completed, and she does not know the headquarters of this popular reality show.

Collection scale.

Faced with Nancy's inquiry, Iger did not hide anything and said: "According to last year's financial data, it was about 180 million U.S. dollars. If we calculate the entire first quarter, it would be about 250 million U.S. dollars."
To be continued...