After receiving Spielberg and handling some other work, Michael Orwitz left CAA headquarters at 11 o'clock and rushed to Universal Burbank Studios on the other side of Beverly Hills.

Today I made an appointment with Simon for lunch and discussed LinkedIn, a workplace social networking website that will be launched at the end of June.

After the project was finalized in February and obtained venture capital from Egret, in recent months, Eisner has been mainly responsible for the project. Because he is a neighbor and both shareholders, the two friends often gathered together after dinner to discuss various details of the website. This lunch was Eisner's invitation to Westeros, and finally it was determined based on Simon's schedule to determine the internal restaurant at Universal Studios Burbank.

I was worried that I would set off early when I encountered traffic jams and arrived at Universal Studios. It was only 11:40.

I called Eisner and learned that the other party had arrived in advance and was with Westeros inside the Cinema.

He parked his car nearby in a parking lot next to Kirk Douglas Avenue in the north of the cinema. Michael Orwitz walked to Universal Cinema with familiarity, looking at the tourists passing by, things changed, and feeling inexplicably. Looking back on the first job when Orwitz entered Hollywood, he worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios. At that time, Spielberg was just a young man who skipped classes and ran to Universal Studios to do odd jobs.

Everything has changed now.

After Daenerys Entertainment acquired MCA, Universal Studios, which covers an area of ​​200 hectares, is increasingly inclined to a purer theme park. Most office departments have turned to the Malibu Daenerys Cinema. Even the wisteria street sets and "Friends" studios produced by Daenerys, which are set up here, will be open to tourists regularly. The office spaces that were once reserved for many Hollywood celebrities Yu have become attractions that movie fans enjoy.

In order to make friends with famous filmmakers in the early years, Hollywood often kept an office for each other in the studio. Spielberg's Amberlin Company originally owned a specially built building in Universal Studios.

CAA's habit of retaining offices for its big names is actually inspired by Orwitz's experience as a tour guide at Universal Studios.

Daenerys Entertainment still retains this custom.

Now, in addition to Spielberg, who quietly moved his headquarters in Amberlin, more big names have settled in two film and television bases, Universal Studios and Malibu Cinema.

Universal Cinema is located in the middle of the cinema, which is actually a large multi-hall cinema for tourists. Unlike Disneyland, Universal Burbank is more like a large commercial center as a whole. In addition to various attractions, there is no shortage of restaurants, hotels, cinemas, shopping plazas, and even hospitals.

Michael Orwitz came here and a staff member took him into a theater to remind him of the renovation of the screening room.

Entering the screening room, in the dim light, Orwitz first noticed the heavy scene on the big screen ahead, and vaguely identified that this should be a clip from "Jurassic Park 2".

3D.

This name flashed through Orwitz's mind.

Due to work reasons, Orwitz, who was not in Los Angeles some time ago, did not attend the premiere of "Jurassic Park 2" held in the Holy Citizen Auditorium on May 31. However, he later heard the shocking effect of the premiere of the film using IMAX. There are also rumors in the circle that Daenerys Entertainment will next promote this new movie playback format.

When he encountered problems, Orwitz immediately asked his assistant to find IMAX information. After researching it, he felt that it was not easy for IMAX to promote it because the cost of this playback system was too high.

However, it is not impossible to gather the power of the entire Hollywood.

Now I have seen the 3D version of "Jurassic Park 2" in this screening room of Universal Cinema. Orwitz realized that like the original CG special effects, Daenerys Entertainment has once again been at the forefront of Hollywood in film technology.

The staff handed over a pair of 3D eyes. Orwitz thanked the other party, came to an empty seat in the middle of the cinema, and sat down. Taking advantage of the light in the cinema, he looked at the 3D glasses in his hand. He did not see the red and blue 3D I had ever seen in my memory. He put on his glasses and looked at the big screen. It happened to be the scene of a large army of dinosaurs striking the poacher base. The shocking feeling that came to his face seemed unparalleled.

Unfortunately, it is obviously not the whole article that is played on the big screen, but just a piece of clip.

In less than five minutes, the clip was played and the lights in the screening hall were on again.

Simon, Eisner and others sat in the front row. The lights were on. Orwitz got up and walked over, greeted Simon, and exclaimed: "Simon, I just saw the future of Hollywood, right?"

"certainly."

Simon nodded with a smile, said a few words to several Daenerys Entertainment executives around him, and took the A girl to get up and walk out with Orwitz and Eisner.

The dining arrangement is arranged in the interior restaurant in the north of the cinema.

Everyone was chatting and laughing and leaving the theater together. At noon, there were not many tourists, so Simon put on a sunglasses and quickly got on an electric car to the administrative area to the north.

Until they sat down in the restaurant, Simon and Eisner were still talking about 3D and IMAX.

Whether it is 3D or IMAX, it has actually had a history of decades. The main reason why it has not been promoted is not cost, but unnecessary.

Before the 1990s, there were very few science fiction blockbusters in Hollywood such as the Star Wars series. Even though it used a lot of new technologies, it was not actually good at visual effects. It was mainly a new science fiction world created by George Lucas.

In addition, most Hollywood movies are very traditional genre films.

Whether it is Sylvester Stallone's "The First Blood" series or Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" series, the viewing experience of such films on 2D and 3D screens will not be much different, and the same is true for IMAX and ordinary screens.

Since there will be no subversive changes in the movie viewing experience, there is naturally no need to promote it.

It's different now.

As CG special effects technology becomes more and more mature, more and more visual wonder films are created using a large number of special effects technology, just like the "Jurassic Park" series, like the DC Cinema Universe series, these movies have completely different viewing experiences on 2D screens and 3D screens or IMAX.

Therefore, it is now the right time to start promoting technologies such as 3D and IMAX.

The promotion of any new film technology cannot be separated from content and channels. In the final analysis, it is still capital. For Daenerys Entertainment, which is currently the best in Hollywood, these are not problems. Even if other studios do not cooperate, Daenerys Entertainment is even able to complete the reform of the film screening model on its own.

Simon is actually planning to do this.

The first person to take a big risk may take a lot of risks. However, if you confirm the huge business potential contained in it, pioneers can often gain more profits.

No one knows better than Simon about the market potential of 3D and IMAX.

During the lunch, Simon was not completely frank about Eisner and Orwitz, but he did not hide his ideas too much, and roughly explained his own ideas. In recent years, due to the revival of the entertainment industry, the number of theaters has continued to increase worldwide. Taking advantage of this east wind, Daenerys Entertainment happened to promote these two new technologies.

First, you can start promoting it from Daenerys Entertainment’s own theater chain.

The MCA that was merged at the beginning was far more than just a Universal Pictures. It was to be precise, a series of very large asset portfolios, including 40% of the shares of Cineplex Odeon, a large theater chain in North America. This was the asset purchased by MCA after the government relaxed its control over the entertainment industry.

After development in recent years, Oden Cinema not only has a total of 379 theaters in the United States and Canada, with a screen count of 1,863, but also quietly develops its business to overseas markets such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, and Ukraine.

Because they are basically in prime locations in major cities, in 1994, as a subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment, Auden Cinema won a box office share of up to 11% with about 6% of the screens in North America.

Ordinary people always focus on Daenerys Entertainment's most dazzling film business, so it is inevitable to doubt whether Daenerys Entertainment is worth the bubble of market value of several other major Hollywood 100 billion US dollars. The fact is that Daenerys Entertainment Group is already a comprehensive super entertainment giant with leading advantages in movies, TV, music, games, theaters, video chains, etc.

Now, Simon plans to use the Auden Cinemas under Daenerys Entertainment as the basis to carry out a reform of film screening technology. Once successful, it will inevitably further strengthen the advantages of Daenerys Entertainment in the entire entertainment industry.

During the meal, I talked about 3D and IMAX, and the topic quickly turned to LinkedIn, which is about to be launched.

This company is just a seed that Simon sows casually.

When he first won 20% of LinkedIn's shares for $5 million, his efforts were actually a bit high. Simon valued more, Eisner and Orwitz. Otherwise, he could get at least 30% of the shares for $5 million. However, for LinkedIn, Simon's time cost would only be an occasional discussion of dining together.

In the entire Westeros system, Simon needs to take into account too many things, so he also try his best to avoid doing everything himself.

The two sides discussed the core functions and potential business models of LinkedIn for an hour. At one pm and lunch ended, Simon continued to call several Daenerys Entertainment executives in the morning to discuss the promotion of 3D and IMAX. The schedule for this matter is not urgent. It is expected that it will take two years to really roll out.

After completing the work for the day, Simon set off for Europe in the evening and went to Italy again to visit the pregnant Sophia.

On the other hand, this box office week that started today, under the pressure of "Jurassic Park 2", there was only one major new film in North American theaters. This is a romantic film by Fox Films called "September of Pregnancy". The film is starring Hugh Grant, who became famous last year with "Four Weddings and One Funeral" and Julian Moore, the heroine of the "Summoner" series. The number of screens opened is only 1,461.

This new film did not pose any threat to "Jurassic Park 2".

The next day, "Jurassic Park 2" announced its single-day box office on June 9 as usual. Compared with the $28.79 million on the first day of the painting last week, the film's first-day box office fell by only 39% year-on-year, and continued to earn $17.56 million. Because the box office on the first day of last week also had midnight shows, judging from the box office data on the first day of the next week, Daenerys Entertainment's publicity and distribution team predicted that the weekly decline of "Jurassic Park 2" will likely be around 35%.

The first week earned $129 million, and the decline in the next week was not only not more than half, but it could still maintain 35%. The possibility of the local box office of "Jurassic Park 2" breaking through the 400 million threshold has increased significantly again.

The final weekly box office from June 9 to June 15 was as expected, with a final decline of 36%, earning $82.63 million.

Two weeks after its release, the cumulative box office of "Jurassic Park 2" easily exceeded US$200 million, reaching US$211.76 million. "Anti-Wissing 3" surpassed the Easter period, second only to "This Man from Earth" at the Valentine's Day period at the beginning of the year, temporarily ranking second on the annual list.

Everyone also discovered that the three labels under Daenerys Entertainment Group, Gaomen Pictures' "This Man from Earth", Daenerys Pictures' "Jurassic Park 2" and New World Pictures' "Anti-witness 3" temporarily ranked the top three in the 1995 annual list.

Including the projects such as "Broken Arrow", "Red Agent", "McMullen Brothers", "Under the Zipper" and other projects that achieved good results in the first half of the year, Simon's initial plan for the three brands under Daenerys Entertainment to gradually evolve into the actual three major Hollywood studios, has begun to take shape without realizing it.

On June 15, two other new films in the summer season, Paramount Pictures' "Brave Heart" and Disney's 2D animated film "Poems of the Wind" were released.

Mel Gibson's $72 million epic blockbuster "Brave Heart" has snatched the schedule of DreamWorks' "The Ghost Elf", but Paramount obviously does not have enough confidence in the movie. He only gave 2,055 yuan to open the screen in the first week.

In comparison, Disney's "Poems in the Wind" has a higher number of screens of 2,569.

Perhaps because he just took over Disney's confidence, Vivendi Group spared no effort to support this Hollywood studio.

On the other hand, on June 15, Egret delayed for a month compared to expectations and finally submitted its first prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), mainly revealing Igret's corporate profile, operating performance, equity distribution, fundraising scale and other information to investors.

After exceeding 10 billion US dollars in revenue in 1994, the industry generally expects that Igrit's revenue growth will slow down.

The same is true.

However, the results are still beyond the expectations of most industry analysts.

In the first quarter of 1995, Egret's revenue growth was still as high as 67%, far exceeding the industry's previous forecast of 30% to 50%. Such performance growth rate inevitably pushed Egret's IPO valuation again. Therefore, in the first edition of the prospectus submitted to the SEC this time, based on the preliminary determined equity data and issue price, Egret's valuation declared by Egret has reached US$130 billion.

If the revenue growth in the next two quarters is still comparable to the growth rate in the first quarter, before it is truly listed, Igret can actually raise the issue price to a certain extent.

By then, the company's valuation may exceed $150 billion.

Considering that the total financing scale of this IPO reached US$20 billion, in order to avoid risks as much as possible, in the prospectus, Igrit also revealed that it would launch the over-allotment option used by Nokia during its listing in North America, namely the green shoe mechanism.

If the stock price falls below expectations after listing, Igrit will use the funds collected from this listing to repurchase stocks equivalent to 15% of the IPO issuance to support the stock price and protect the interests of investors.

The green shoe mechanism is actually two-way.

If the market feedback exceeds expectations, Igrit will continue to supply investors with an additional 15% of the IPO issuance volume at the issue price, which is a kind of feedback, and Igrit can also obtain more funds.

After the successful IPO, Simon's stake in Igrit will be reduced to less than 60%.
Chapter completed!