On April 9, the Easter schedule officially kicks off.

This Friday, there were three new films in North America theaters. "Anti-Wisdom Stars 2" produced by New World Pictures, with 2,516 screens, Fox's "Legend of the Sand", 1,819 screens, and 1,365 screens, 1,365 screens, 1.

Many vulgar and spoof comedies in Hollywood often cannot escape the vicious circle of box office drops after the first big-selling sequel.

In Simon's memory, this is the case with the "Anti-Wisdom Stars" series.

However, because the cost of such comedy is often not too high, even if a sequel is developed, studios can often achieve good profits.

The key is cost control.

Otherwise, if you don’t pay attention to the studio, you may become a role of working for celebrities.

I spent a lot of budget and gave the best time, but in the end I just barely made a profit. Looking back, I found that the creator who received a huge salary made a lot of money.

Daenerys Entertainment signed two film contracts with Mike Meles, the creator of "Anti-Witness", so after the first "Anti-Witness" sold $120 million in North America for 20 million, the sequel budget was well controlled at $30 million.

Speaking of which, the curse of the box office drop of vulgar comedy sequels is not unbroken. The former "Anti-Star" series failed to escape. It was precisely Mike Meiers' other series "Ace Spy" that achieved this initiative. The first step of "Ace Spy" was barely more than $50 million in the box office. "Ace Spy 2" achieved an outstanding record of $200 million in North America, and successfully maintained such a level in "Ace Spy 3".

Because of the box office spell of the vulgar and spoof comedy, Simon decisively gave up the development plan for the sequel to "Flying Over Innocence".

Regarding "Flying Over Innocence", the sequel is really difficult to innovate when the baby speaks. Mel Gibson is also strong enough in terms of pay, and developing a sequel is very risky. It just so happens that Daenerys Entertainment is not short of projects.

However, for "Anti-Wisdom Stars", on the one hand, the main creator's initial package contract successfully controlled the cost, and on the other hand, it was precisely because of the precedent of the "Ace Big Spy" series that Simon agreed to the sequel development plan for this series.

Many media have found it difficult to say a specific reason why the first "Anti-Withful Stars" was a big box office success.

After the sequel was launched, the New World Film team and Mike Meiers spent a long time discussing this issue, and Simon also gave a lot of suggestions based on the "Ace Spy" series in his memory.

The key is the same lineage.

In comedy movies, people often watch some very interesting jokes.

Just like "Hangover", the scene of mistakes after getting drunk twice in a row, and the audience still bought it. The creators of the third part thought we had to innovate, so they stopped playing the "Hangover", and the box office fell sharply.

Therefore, the sequel continues to maintain the style of the first song.

Plot innovation, etc., no innovation is needed for shit, pee, fart.

Since the audience thinks that "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the first song is a masterpiece, we will choose another good music for the sequel.

Since the audience thinks the style of breaking the fourth wall is very interesting, the sequel will be as usual.

In addition, Daenerys Entertainment has also used its own resources to equip this series with a stronger guest lineup. Madonna, who has a good personal relationship with Simon, and the Gun Rose Group of Universal Records, and other big-name singers have participated in the guest appearances of the sequel.

Since we agreed to this project, based on the production cost of $30 million, the promotion and distribution budget of "Anti-Star 2" also reached $15 million. In this era when film marketing is becoming more and more important, it is essential for a movie to succeed and maintain sufficient promotion and promotion.

Even the Easter schedule has been carefully considered.

The first film "Anti-Witness" won a box office of US$120 million. At such a big sale, the sequel should be able to squeeze into the summer or the end of the year. However, the competition in these periods is often very fierce. Once the reputation of the film is unsatisfactory, or other box office dark horses appear at the same time, the box office of "Anti-Witness" will inevitably be seriously affected.

Easter schedules are different.

Although Hollywood has been paying more and more attention to Easter and Halloween in recent years, competition is not as cruel as the summer or the end of the year.

This Easter, "Anti-Wisdom Stars 2" is far more popular than other movies of the same period, both in the first episode and in the promotion. Unless a very strong box office dark horse appears, the film can almost be sure to dominate this period.

The other two films, "Legend of the Sand" and "New Ghost Street", do not have the potential of a dark horse no matter how you look at it.

Fox's "Legend of the Sand" tells the story of a group of baseball teenagers, a standard sports youth film.

Although the new line's "New Ghost Street" has a word "new", after six consecutive movies, the audience will inevitably get tired of the repeated Freddy murder. Even if the new line's $50 million box office target for North America is not high, Hollywood is not optimistic about the prospects of this movie.

On Easter weekend, Simon took two Jenny to the Bahamas for a solo vacation at the invitation of Joseph Lewis, whom he met some time ago.

Joseph Lewis was British, but in order to avoid taxes, Lewis settled in the Bahamas, across the sea from Florida.

As one of the world's famous tax havens, the Bahamas also only charges a small amount of license fees from local registered companies, and there are no other sales tax, value-added tax, inheritance tax, and capital gains tax.

After completing its operations in the European currency market last year, Joseph Lewis planned to gradually shift his career focus to the real industry and savvyly tried to establish business connections with the Westeros system. Simon also took a fancy to the Tavistock Group, registered under Joseph Lewis, located in the Bahamas.

The Tavistock Group seems to be an industrial company, but in fact it is a comprehensive investment company.

In recent years, while continuing to speculate in the financial market, Joseph Lewis has successively invested in many real estate, energy, sports, catering, medical and other projects in North America and Latin America through the Tavistock Group.

However, even after last year's European currency operation, the current total assets of Tavistock Group are only US$3 billion, most of which exist in the form of cash and short-term convertible bonds. Investment in the physical field can only be considered a small fuss.

Of the $3 billion total assets of Tavistock Group, about $600 million belong to Joseph Lewis himself, accounting for one fifth of them.

With a net worth of 600 million US dollars, this era is already considered a ranks of super rich people. Of course, it is indeed not worth mentioning in front of Simon.

In Simon's plan, with the increasing surging Internet bubble in the next few years, the Westeros system will gradually reduce its holdings and cash out its technology stocks. At present, only two companies, Cisco and American Online, have both market valued over US$30 billion. At the next high point of market value, even if they only reduce their holdings by 1%, they will be hundreds of millions of dollars.

The total amount of funds drawn by the Westeros system from the technology stock market may even reach the tens of billions of dollars in the entire share reduction plan.

Therefore, even if we use this fund to jointly build a super mining group in Australia with the Johnston family, there will definitely be a large surplus in the end. Simon does not intend to continue to invest in the technology stock field, but intends to enter more traditional physical industries.

The Tavisterke Group, which is involved in real estate, energy, sports, catering, medical and other industries, happens to be the shell for the Westeros system to invest in the real industry.

Not only North America, using this shell, Simon can also extend his tentacles to the vast Latin American market.

Although the Latin American economy has been suppressed by North America, it is a huge market with a population of more than 500 million.

In addition, using the Tavistock Group as its shell can also hide the assets of the Westeros system to a certain extent.

As long as it is operated properly, most media and the public will often only see Tavistock in some industries that the Westeros system has involved in in the future, and will not know that the actual controller behind the scenes is the Westeros Group.

Just like many large funds on Wall Street, according to public information, the public can see the shares of these funds in some large groups, but cannot figure out who the real controller behind these shares is.

You should know that large fund companies do not only have one fund, but often have dozens or hundreds of funds. The investment goals of each sub-fund are also different, which gives many investors who do not want to expose their own goals.

Therefore, buying a fund and controlling the fund to target the stock of a company. For the public, large funds themselves hold shares in the company. In fact, these shares control someone else.

Obviously, many times, such operations are of course contrary to the federal securities laws.

But who cares?

Just as a joke circulating in the New York legal community, the crimes committed by Wall Street during a meal may be no less than a war.

If you don't take it seriously, of course there is nothing.

Cersei Capital can already be regarded as one of the shells of the Westeros system. Tavistertok Group is another shell selected by Simon. This shell will also involve local investments in North America, but the main goal is overseas, and more accurate, it is Latin America.

Two days over the weekend, Simon and Joseph Lewis quickly reached an agreement. Westeros invested $100 million in Tavistock Group, which was a small test. The proportion of $100 million is very small compared to Tavistock Group's total capital of $3 billion. However, both sides are not familiar after all, and Simon would not be so stupid that he immediately bet on the company.

Joseph Lewis naturally understood.

In order to show sincerity, Lewis also proposed to take the initiative to liquidate the capital of other investors, but Simon refused.

There is no need at all.

If the Westeros system accounts for too much capital in the Tavistock Group, the company will lose an important hidden effect as a shell.

Instead, Simon also suggested that Joseph Lewis continue to absorb more capital.

The $3 billion, most of which are cash or bond assets, seem to be a large amount of funds, but if it is operated in large quantities, it will not be able to operate several projects.

Just like the 10% share transfer plan of Igret, if Simon agreed at the beginning, it would directly consume half of the Tavistock Group's wealth.

With enough funds, of course it is impossible to find too large projects in the short term.

Although it is impossible to reach an agreement on the transfer of shares of Igrit Company, Simon also suggested that Joseph Lewis temporarily invest in domestic technology stocks in the United States. The Internet bubble is still in its early stages of inflation and there is still a lot of room for growth in the future. As for how much Joseph Lewis has the courage to invest, Simon did not give specific suggestions, and he also wanted to see the other party's investment vision.

If Joseph Lewis can bet all his funds on the technology stock market at one time and can successfully exit rationally at the peak of technology stocks, the current US$3 billion is expected to grow by more than 10 times in the future.

Of course, if it were Simon, he would definitely do so.

But if Joseph Lewis did this, Simon would have retained his attitude towards Lewis even if the Tavistock Group's capital increase significantly in the future.

Because this is completely a gambler mentality.

After the weekend, when I returned to Los Angeles, the box office for the first three-day Easter weekend was officially released.

After the painting started last Friday, under the operation of the New World Film team, the media score of "Anti-Wisdom Stars 2" was 7.3 points, which was barely good. However, the box office of the film's three-day first weekend exceeded everyone's expectations, including Simon.

The initial goal of the New World Pictures team is to expect the box office of "Anti-Wissing Stars 2" to reach $20 million in the first three-day box office, so that the cumulative box office of the first seven days is expected to reach $30 million.

The first film "Anti-Wisdom Stars" relies on reputation to make a very beautiful long-term trend. The sequel dare not expect such a luxury, but even if it starts at a 50% drop in the next week, with a total box office of $30 million, the North American box office can reach at least $60 million.

Such box office results are only relying on local box office revenue, and there is still a big gap between the cost of recovering US$45 million. After global operations, it is enough to achieve small profits, and the subsequent channels are enough to bring good returns to Daenerys Entertainment.

In fact, with the increasing cost of film production and distribution, it is difficult for most Hollywood movies to recover at the box office stage, and basically need to make profits through videotapes and TV channels. This is actually the reason why second- and third-tier film companies are becoming increasingly difficult to survive. Omni-channel operation requires a lot of time and resources, especially time, which cannot be used at all.

Compared with the first weekend expectation of $20 million, the actual box office of "Anti-Wissing Stars 2" has reached $31.79 million in three days, and the average average of the museum exceeded 10,000 in the first three days, and the box office is expected to reach $40 million in the first week.

The first week was $40 million, even if the subsequent decline was deep, it could easily hit the $100 million threshold.

The box office in North America exceeded 100 million, and "Anti-Wisdom Stars 2" can directly achieve profitability in the local market.

Due to the strong impact of "Anti-Wis Star 2", Fox's "Legend of the Sand" only earned $5.36 million in three days in the first weekend.

"New Ghost Street", which Xinyi Film Corporation has high hopes for, has a box office of only $3.71 million in the first three-day weekend. It is expected that the total box office in North America can only barely exceed $10 million. Xinxian's fantasy of turning around through "New Ghost Street" is completely shattered.
Chapter completed!