I’m in Hollywood

new week.

The topic of major media in North America naturally started from the Oscars that just passed, but, like the Oscars, which created a record low ratings this year, the controversy about Horse Whisperer winning multiple Oscars is not as intense as expected.

Most newspapers, magazines and television media still have their sights set on the increasingly turbulent Nasdaq technology stock market.

Last week, stimulated by Forbes magazine's announcement that Eric's personal assets exceeded the $300 billion mark due to the outbreak of technology stocks, the Nasdaq index rose all the way, causing a large number of hedge funds shorting the Nasdaq to suffer heavy losses.

I don’t know if I took advantage of the two days of the weekend to lick the wounds. As soon as Monday started, an obvious bearish Nasdaq and discussion made a comeback. It seems that I want to make a big push and completely destroy the Nasdaq market that just broke through 3000 points last week. smashed.

Among the bearish forces, the biggest one is the Tiger Fund, which fought with the Quantum Fund under Soros two years ago in the Southeast Asian economic crisis.

Julian Robertson, the founder of Tiger Fund, even publicly appeared in an interview on NBC's Today Show in the morning, unceremoniously criticizing the serious bubble component of Nasdaq technology stocks, and even named and criticized Yahoo, Cisco, etc. Several listed technology companies of Firefly System.

Speaking of which, Eric also had a relationship with Julian Robertson at a party in New York last year. Although he did not expect that the two sides would have any friendship because of this few meetings, he did not expect Julian Robertson to have any friendship. Robertson would suddenly point to the Firefly system.

It wasn't until Chris called from New York that Eric understood that it turned out that last week's surge in the Nasdaq directly cost the Tiger Fund, which had established a large number of short positions, a loss of $500 million.

Two years ago, the total scale of the Tiger Fund, which had just been harvested during the Southeast Asian economic crisis, once exceeded 22 billion US dollars. However, since the bet on Russia with Soros last year, the Tiger Fund has not had a good year.

The Tiger Fund's current size has shrunk rapidly to $16 billion after two big-ticket investments in Russia and American Airlines failed in a row.

Now, Nasdaq technology stocks are all the way to the red, Soros' Quantum Fund is standing still, but Julian Robertson doesn't know what's wrong, and stands firmly on the side of bearish technology stocks.

In just one week of gains, Tiger Fund lost $500 million. You can imagine how strong Julian Robertson is betting on the shorts, and it is no wonder that the other party is so anxious to jump out and go shirtless in person.

However, although this sudden blow did send the Nasdaq into a downward volatility at the beginning of the new week, due to the continuous influx of speculative funds into the technology stock market, this volatility did not affect the overall Nasdaq market at all. trend.

Then, in just one day on Wednesday, the Nasdaq rebounded back to where it had just opened on Monday. And, the entire time, the Nasdaq didn't even drop below 3,000.

The Nasdaq exceeded the 3,000-point mark several months earlier than he remembered, but Eric did not change his original plan, nor did he even have any thoughts of slowing down because of the sudden outbreak of this wave of bearishness.

Since Monday, Eric has not hesitated to order the traders of the Clover Fund to gradually sell the stocks in his hands.

On the other hand, in the same week, Yahoo Portal also published an article titled AOL and Time Warner Merger Will Seriously Affect the Normal Competition of the Internet Industry, publicly standing on the opposite side of the AOL and Time Warner merger case with great fanfare. Other media in the Firefly system immediately followed suit, calling on the Federal Department of Justice to immediately reject the merger application of AOL and Time Warner.

In order to avoid going through the gang, Eric simply acted as a complete set, completely cut off his private support for the merger of AOL and Time Warner, and did not inform the management of AOL and Time Warner in advance.

Steve Case did not expect that the Firefly system, which had also clearly expressed support for the merger of AOL and Time Warner at the last consultation meeting of the Ministry of Justice, would suddenly turn his face, and he was a little exasperated. He soon published an open letter on aol's portal website, He blamed the Firefly system for 'affecting normal competition in the Internet industry', and once again quoted an article in The Washington Post not long ago to prove the Firefly system's ambition to monopolize the Internet industry.

After such a tossing, a large number of voices have emerged to speak for AOL and Time Warner, both in the media and in the political circles. Of course, the Firefly system, which is already an oligarch in the industry but still has to prevent others from developing and growing, inevitably caused public anger, and soon came under a lot of criticism.

But despite the vehement opposition on the surface, the Firefly system has privately taken no concrete steps to hinder the AOL-Time Warner merger.

In the days that followed, it may have been the same reaction that neither Steve Case nor Terry Semel, who may have left the company after the merger was settled, did not call anyone at Firefly to question them. The two sides formed a tacit understanding.

The operation of these big capitals did not take up too much time for Eric, and his main energy was still on Hollywood.

After its third week of screening, Blair Witch has dropped by an unexpected 53%, but the film has once again reaped $28.9 million at the box office, with a cumulative box office of $111.68 million in three weeks, continuing to refresh the return on box office investment. rate miracle.

Moreover, although the decline in the box office deepened in the third week, a large number of students were on vacation because of the Easter period. So, even with multiple new films coming out in the next few weeks, Blair the Witch could easily top $150 million or more at the North American box office, according to New Line Cinema's distribution forecast.

Due to the box office myth created by Blair Witch, during this time, a large number of Hollywood film companies have begun to pay attention to the newly emerging shooting method of DV photography, and some film companies have even quickly established a number of DV film projects.

However, it is clear that most people have only seen the ROI myth of Blair Witch, but have not noticed that the success of this film has nothing to do with DV photography. In the final analysis, it is a brand new Internet marketing model. victory.

Moreover, even if some people realize this, the Internet marketing platform has just been 'over-consumed' by Blair Witch. In the next few years, those projects that try to replicate the miracle of Blair Witch are destined to only reduced to cannon fodder.

Gravity is in the relatively boring and repetitive CG production stage, and Eric does not need to keep an eye on it, so he can free up time to pay attention to other projects of the Firefly system.

On the Firefly Group's side, the first Harry Potter project was officially approved, and a press conference was held this week, and the author of the novel, J.K. Rowling, also flew to Los Angeles.

Although the other party did not propose it as before, Eric took the initiative to promise that the film would use British actors as much as possible and shoot in the United Kingdom. In fact, doing so can also restore the scene of the novel more realistically. After all, just the cool atmosphere unique to the UK is not easy to find in other countries and regions.

In terms of MGM, after more than a year of long preparations, Bond 19 is finally determined to be launched in April, and it is tentatively scheduled for next summer.

In addition, the Fast and the Furious released at the beginning of the year, after three months of screening, has completely dropped at this time. The North American box office finally accumulated to 218.6 million US dollars, compared to MGM's total production and distribution cost of 70 million US dollars. In terms of spending, it was definitely a big success.

Affected by the success of the North American box office, the schedule of The Fast and the Furious in most overseas ticket warehouse countries has been pushed to the more popular summer season, but judging from the popularity of the overseas ticket warehouses that have been released so far, the film's overseas box office exceeds There is no problem in North America, and the global box office is likely to reach the $500 million level.

The success of Fast and Furious, a derivative series of the Secret Service movie universe, also changed the attitude of Kevin Costner, the hero of the Mission Impossible series, who was in a wait-and-see state, and finally signed a contract with MGM. The next two Agents movie universe films approx.

At the same time, the Fast and Furious series has been successful, and the Bourne Bourne series that MGM is brewing has naturally gained more attention from the industry.

Century City, MGM headquarters.

Near get off work time, in a conference room, well-known Hollywood producers Frank Marshall and Katherine Kennedy took the initiative to get up, and several MGM executives such as Eric, Amy Pascal, Frank Macasso, etc. They shook hands and said goodbye.

After Eric's suggestion at the Vanity Fair party last weekend, Amy quickly approached Frank Marshall.

Frank Marshall and his wife have stopped working at Amberlin Films and were looking for a next home. The conditions offered by MGM are very good, and as long as the two sides reach a cooperation, the couple can immediately take over the popular projects of the MGM Agents movie universe. The two sides almost hit it off.

As the actual controller of MGM, it is naturally impossible for Eric to not show up for such an important cooperation. Today is the last contract negotiation with the couple in person.

Since both sides have strong cooperation intentions, after a week of consultations, the two sides have basically reached a cooperation agreement.

The official signing ceremony will take place next week.

When the couple left, the crowd did not disperse and sat down again.

After chatting a few words about the details of the negotiation just now, Amy took the initiative to bring up the issue of the male protagonist of the Brunette series.