I’m in Hollywood

At this moment, Amy Adams felt flattered when she heard Eric take the initiative to greet him.

The two had only had a brief exchange the other day when she had just started work, and Amy knew very well what the name Eric Williams meant in Hollywood, although she felt Eric was right on the first contact. Her attitude was a little different, but she still didn't expect Eric to even remember her name.

Very, um, it's like dreaming, Amy hugged the menu that Eric just handed over to her chest, looking a little incoherent, her eyes fixed on the man in front of her, and said: Wei, Mr Williams, I've always been a fan of yours.

Kenneth Horn patiently waited for his boss and the waitress to finish chatting before ordering his own lunch, watching Amy, who was a little erratic, leave, with a knowing smile on his face, he praised: A very special pair Eye.

Yeah, Eric nodded with a smile.

In fact, Amy's eyes are not beautiful as a whole, but those eyes that are sometimes light blue and sometimes green under different light are easy to impress.

After a few casual chats, Kenneth Horn quickly turned the conversation to work.

Time unknowingly is already December 14th, Monday.

In the past weekend, the last film of the Firefly Group in 1998, Tea Boy, also landed in North American theaters.

Although Adam Sandler's Wedding Singer in the Easter schedule successfully achieved a good result of over 100 million at the North American box office, the company did not respond to his Tea Water, which imitated some elements of Forrest Gump. The Boys had a lot of expectations because the plot of the film was a bit too rambunctious to most people.

But it turns out that North American audiences are very fond of Adam Sandler's silly and silly movie style with these little warmth and love.

Within three days of its first weekend, the film earned $33.91 million in North American theaters, far exceeding the original expectations of the new line distribution department.

According to the box office results of the first weekend, the film is expected to earn about 50 million US dollars in the first week, which is enough to recover the production cost of 23 million US dollars. The first week started with 50 million US dollars. In the following consecutive popular Christmas weeks, it is almost a certainty that the North American box office of Tea Boy will break 100 million. After all, no matter how popular Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is, it is impossible. dominate the entire market.

In comparison, the 2D animated film Mulan released by Paramount Pictures at the same time in more than 2,800 theaters in North America only earned $22.75 million at the box office in the first weekend, which is more than ten million less than The Boy with Tea. Dollar. Mulan, on the other hand, cost more than $70 million to make, more than three times as much as Tea Boy.

The reaction from critics and audiences to the animated film has been average. At this time, the industry has finally gradually felt that, under the background of several 3D animation films that have sold well at the box office, 2D animation films have inevitably shown a trend of deviating from the mainstream and declining.

Eric has no intention to pay attention to Paramount Animation.

On the Firefly Group's side, after the annual release plan was settled, everyone was surprised to find that it was originally thought to be a relatively sluggish year for the Firefly Group's film business, but the actual situation was far beyond everyone's expectations.

Moreover, this reversal situation all comes from several low-cost dark horse works under the New Line Pictures that sell well at the box office.

The most surprising of these is naturally the summer Midnight Bell. This horror film that created a phenomenon-level movie-watching craze persisted until the end of November before it was completely released in the North American market.

After more than four months of screening, the film's final box office reached 286 million US dollars, ranking second in the current 1998 North American box office rankings after Charlie's Angels 3 with 322 million US dollars.

At the same time, on November 13, Teddy Bear, which is still released by New Line Pictures, as of the weekend just past, the North American box office has accumulated 1954.3 billion US dollars, only one step away from 200 million.

Midnight Bell and Teddy Bear exceeded 200 million at the North American box office, Wedding Singer and Tea Boy exceeded 100 million at the North American box office, but these four films of the new line, the total North American box office of 700 million US dollars, accounted for 1998 10% of the annual box office share.

Due to the outstanding performance of New Line Pictures, Firefly Group's share of the North American box office market will still reach more than 20% throughout the year.

What is even more rare is that the four films of New Line Pictures with a box office exceeding 100 million are all based on Xiaoboda. ” and “Tea Boy” together have just exceeded 40 million US dollars. The four films cost a total of $120 million, but North America alone will bring in close to $700 million at the box office.

New Line Pictures has been able to achieve such excellent results for several consecutive years, although it is inseparable from a series of ideas given by Eric, but it is also inseparable from Kenneth Horn's excellent management ability. After all, Hollywood has never been short of sloppy studio executives playing a good hand.

It just so happens that Kenneth Horn's contract is about to expire next year. The departure of espn TV's CEO Steve Bernstein has already made Eric very sorry. He naturally does not want another member of the group to leave.

However, the solid management structure of the Firefly Group also makes it impossible for Eric to promote Kenneth Horn in the short term.

Kenneth, you are very aware of the situation in the group. Since he couldn't avoid it, Eric also behaved calmly and said, In the short term, it is impossible for me to make too many adjustments to the management, so although you You have done a great job in the new line in recent years, but I can't make further adjustments to your position. I have communicated with Jeffrey and the others, if you are willing to stay in the new line, the conditions I can give are: , Your next salary standard, on the basis of the basic salary, enjoys a 5% annual profit dividend of New Line Pictures Group. In addition, you will no longer be subject to Jeffrey's jurisdiction in the future, and you will be directly responsible to me personally.

As the CEO of Firefly Group, Katzenberg's salary contract is based on the basic salary and enjoys a 2% annual profit dividend of the entire Firefly Group. According to Firefly Group's current annual net profit of more than 3 billion US dollars, Katzenberg's average annual salary will exceed 60 million US dollars.

The size of New Line Pictures is naturally incomparable to that of the entire Firefly Group. Although the operating performance in recent years has been very impressive, in fact, the various revenue figures of New Line Pictures still only occupy the entire Firefly Group. About 15%, even in this relatively good year, this figure actually does not exceed 20%.

However, Eric still seems sincere in giving Kenneth Horn a 5% annual profit dividend of New Line Pictures Group.

The annual profit that New Line Pictures can contribute to the parent company is about 500 million US dollars, and a 5% annual profit dividend is equivalent to 25 million US dollars, which is completely the salary of the heads of the seven major Hollywood studios. standard. If there will be a continuous outbreak of several dark horse works like this year, this number will undoubtedly be much higher.

In all fairness, it's not that Kenneth Horne didn't think about leaving the Firefly Group.

After all, although the salary is generous, he is only in charge of a subsidiary of the Firefly Group. In any case, it is not as good as running a large studio alone. Moreover, he also knows that within the Firefly Group, he can go a step further and become the president of the group. Sex, also far below Robert Iger. He can even, like many group executives, clearly feel that Robert Iger is almost already the next president of the group that Eric has decided, or even Katzenberg's successor in the future.

However, after just a little thought, Kenneth Horne realized that, given the current state of Hollywood, there was simply no place for him. Steve Bernstein came from the television industry and could have jumped to the industry-connected Comcast Group, but he has been in Hollywood since graduating from college, so it is clear that leaving In Hollywood, it is difficult for him to have much room to play.

As for inside Hollywood, the Firefly system already controls four of the seven major studios. The other three, Time Warner's internal factions are constantly strife, and he was an outsider who switched jobs, and under the constraints of many parties, he was unable to display his talents at all. Universal is now firmly in the hands of Michael Eisner, who doesn't want to follow Michael Ovitz's footsteps. As for Paramount, Redstone's strong desire to control the entire Viacom also won't give him much room to play.

Perhaps, within the Firefly system, he can also compete for the position of the head of Columbia Pictures. He believes that if he proposes it, Eric will not hesitate too much. He wants to take control of Colombia in the past, and Eric might even like it.

But, while still nominally one of the Big Seven studios, only a fool would jump into that mess in Colombia.

You must know that although it is only a subsidiary of Firefly Group, the current comprehensive strength of New Line Pictures has far exceeded that of Columbia Pictures. Of course, the size of the film library and its hidden status in Hollywood are still incomparable. But if the two companies are listed separately, Columbia Pictures' market value will never exceed $5 billion, while New Line Pictures can easily exceed $10 billion.

Well, Kenneth Horn really couldn't think of a better choice for himself than staying at New Line Cinema.

What's more, the salary conditions offered by Eric are absolutely sincere. Although his specific position has not been improved, the next adjustment he only needs to report to Eric personally is equivalent to mentioning him on the same status as Katzenberg.

Eric, I'm looking forward to continuing this job in the future, Kenneth Horn said after pretending to think for a moment: However, I also hope that the group can let go of the production of New Line Pictures a little bit. Due to the limitations of the genre, I think I still have the ability to try out a big-budget movie.”

Although Eric was very generous in terms of salary and treatment, when it came to the fundamental business line of the new line, Eric did not intend to back down and said, Kenneth, I can't promise you this, and neither do you. It should be able to see that this kind of production strategy positioning of New Line has been very successful over the years. Moreover, for series like Jedi Men and Rush Hour, I will not tell you about the production budget of the sequel. Make restrictions. But in terms of the fundamental business strategy, I hope that the new line can always adhere to the current operating strategy.”

Noticing Kenneth Horn's disappointed expression, Eric still didn't plan to change his attention, but still gave a 'sweet date' that had been prepared for a long time, saying: But, Kenneth, you know, the firefly system In recent years, the scale of the TV business has become larger and larger. If the TV programs are only self-produced and sold, it is difficult to produce too many high-quality products. Therefore, I hope that the new line will be more involved in the production of TV programs in the future, for abc, Fox, as well as the cable networks owned by several companies, provide TV programming.

In fact, New Line Pictures originally had a TV production department, but the scale was always small. In recent years, New Line's main energy has always been on the film business.

Hearing Eric say this, Kenneth Horn also understands that this is Eric's hope that the new line can become one of the program suppliers of the major TV brands under the Firefly system, and at the same time stimulate the major TV brands to conduct healthy competition, in order to make a better TV show.

The TV program market in North America is similar in size to the movie market, but it has always been in a closed operating system, and it is difficult for the outside world to learn specific data like movies.

Although Eric did not let Eric release the restrictions on the production type of New Line Pictures, but with the support of Eric's development of the TV business, Kenneth Horn could not have any more extravagances.

After chatting a few more words and confirming some specific details, Amy Adams brought the two of them up for lunch, and Kenneth Horn took the initiative to turn the topic to recent events.

There is no doubt that this year is another small year for the Oscars. So far, Hollywood has only had two popular awards seasons, Horse Whisperer and Elizabeth. Moreover, although the film critics have a very good reputation, I privately let people know However, most of the academy judges don't take Horse Whisperer too seriously. Elizabeth is very likely to win an important Oscar this year. I'm even thinking about whether Midnight Bell can also hit the Oscars. , just like The Exorcist.

Eric shook his head and smiled and said: If Midnight Bell is an original script in North America, or adapted from a Western horror novel, it may still be possible. But it is adapted from an rb horror novel, do you think the academy Would those proud old men fancy a work with rb culture embedded in it?

Oh, I also know it's unlikely. Kenneth Horn smiled, apparently thinking about it too.

Eric continued: Also, 'Horse Whisperer' means a lot to the Harvey brothers, so they certainly won't give up the idea of ​​'Horse Whisperer' competing for important awards such as Best Picture Oscar. , if necessary, even if it is forced public relations, they will definitely do it.