I’m in Hollywood

Chapter 763

During the Christmas period, the last batch of new Hollywood films in 1995 began to be released. At this time, because of the various artistic films aimed at hitting the Oscars in the next year, the entertainment media will always be extraordinarily lively under the manipulation of the behind-the-scenes film company.

But this year, the PR-heavy media atmosphere has been much cooler. In the nomination list of the 53rd Golden Globe Awards for Film and Television that has been announced, Forrest Gump has won seven important nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in the drama category without any suspense.

Under the circumstances that Forrest Gump has already won a series of big and small pre-awards with great momentum, if the film awards of the Golden Globe Awards are not divided into two categories: drama and comedy, some films may even directly Even so, in order to avoid a head-to-head confrontation with Forrest Gump at the Golden Globes, some drama films were even squeezed into the musical drama category, which caused a lot of ridicule and censure from the media.

When ordinary people enjoy the holidays, Hollywood has been brewing for several months, and MGM began to consciously release the news of oo7 Casino Royale. When I heard that Eric Williams will personally direct this oo7 sequel, many People's first reaction may even think that others are joking. Eric Williams doesn't even bother to direct the sequel to the Jurassic Park series that he created himself. After all, in the eyes of the insiders, the oo7 series has only a few tricks to play, and it really can't play too many tricks. If you are purely an audience, you may be able to get some from the hot scenes and glamorous Bond girls. Fun, but as a director, the job can only be described as boring.

However, as the news spreads more and more, it becomes more and more eloquent.

Eric Williams talks to oo7 series producer Barbara Bullock at the Pointe Manor party.

The next oo7 will be filming Ian Fleming's last off-screen Casino Royale.

MGM begins secret contacts with the Charlie's Angels trio.

The eighteenth oo7 will fully open the MGM movie universe.

The three major brokerage companies began to frequently test the progress of MGM's oo7 project in an attempt to gain more role share.

This series of scattered details gradually proves that, perhaps, Eric Williams really wants to direct the next oo7 himself.

Immediately, the media with a keen sense of smell quickly caught the news and began to dig deeper.

However, oo7's Casino Royale is still in the stage of script revision.

After some news was released, in order to properly maintain the mystery of the series and maintain enough topicality, MGM was ordered to keep a gag order from top to bottom, and began to keep silent, without any confirmation or comment on external news, the media public relations department was only very Formally means that the project is still in the process of preparation and everything is not yet finalized.

Similarly, the current helm of the oo7 series, Barbara Brockley, is a woman who does not like to appear in public, and media reporters did not get more information from her. However, Barbara Brockley also serves as the series producer. The filmmaker's older brother, Michael Wilson, is just the opposite. He is a guy who likes to show off very much. Soon, a media reporter with great knowledge in London, England, confirmed from Michael Wilson's mouth that Eric Williams will indeed serve as the oo7 Casino Royale. director.

The news exploded at once.

It has been more than two years since Jurassic Park was released in 1993 and created a global box office miracle of 100 million US dollars.

Because there is no news about Eric's next movie, there has been more than one news in the media that Eric will give up directing the film and move behind the scenes. In the past two years, the ltd group has risen rapidly with the Victoria's Secret annual show. Lietime TV's rise to prominence with two reality shows, the integration of MGM, Flower Pictures and DreamWorks productions, and the continued strength of the Firefly Group's film business all prove the reliability of this view in the media.

Although ordinary people have paid less and less attention to Eric's news, in Hollywood, even in the emerging Internet industry, even in the unrelated clothing industry, Eric's presence is still so strong, and its influence The force didn't even mean to stop.

Take 1995, which is about to pass, this year is still a fruitful year for Hollywood. With the last two weeks of the Christmas season, Hollywood's total box office hit a new high for the whole year, reaching a scale of 6.5 billion US dollars.

The Firefly Group only relied on the five films of Jurassic Park 2, Lonely Day, Toy Story 2, Jedi Men and 101 Dalmatians, and crazily harvested as much as 100 million US dollars at the box office. A total of 18 films have been released by several major labels. Although the production has been significantly reduced compared with the previous two years, the cumulative box office of the 18 films still reached 900 million, and the global box office share reached an astonishing scale of 2.7 billion US dollars.

According to the forecast of statistical agencies, in 1995, the total size of the global box office market was only about 17.5 billion US dollars. Therefore, only one company, Firefly Group, has occupied 4% of the box office share of the global film market. It is a well-known thing, but a company will carve up 4% of the global box office market, which can still only be described as horror.

And behind the scenes of all this, there is no doubt that the young man who has been riddled with miracles since his debut is in control.

As the topic was brewing, the news that Eric would personally direct oo7 Casino Royale became a fuse, rekindling the people's gradually cooled interest in him.

The media has always been able to grasp the trend very consciously, and as the topic has increased, they have also begun to provide readers or viewers with more news of interest to them.

The things that most people are interested in are undoubtedly very superficial. Last year, Forbes magazine had made a valuation of Eric Williams' net worth of 46.5 billion US dollars. This valuation not only made the rich people behind him only Being able to look up also makes many people who see this data feel numb. After all, ordinary people cannot imagine what the assets of 46.5 billion US dollars represent.

Although they didn't know the huge power of huge wealth, they still had a very strong curiosity about Eric's net worth this year, so the media also began to take stock of the assets owned or held by Eric.

A firefly business empire network map that subsequently appeared in Business Weekly aroused wild reprints in countless media magazines. In the following months, it was frequently used as a topic of discussion in various types of media.

In this issue of Business Weekly, the details of the two major business networks under Eric's name, Firefly Group and Firefly Investment, are fully presented to the world.

Needless to say, Firefly Group is the largest media group in Hollywood, which owns Disney Group, ab Group, Firefly Film Company, Pixar Animation Company, New Line Film Company, Firefly Records, Bowei International, Digital Special Effects Company, A series of high-quality entertainment companies such as Marvel Entertainment, last year, relevant agencies have made a valuation of 500 million US dollars for Firefly Group, and this year, with the excellent revenue growth rate of Firefly Group, according to the annual growth rate of % Standard, its valuation once again broke a new high, reaching 6.5 billion US dollars. For this alone, Eric Williams, who owns about 73% of Firefly Group's shares, will obtain assets of 4.7 billion US dollars, which is higher than his entire net worth last year. worth more than $500 million.

The subsequent scale of the Firefly Investment Company made many people stunned.

After a detailed investigation by a reporter from Business Week, this investment company, which has been somewhat obscure since its establishment, now owns more high-quality company shares than most people imagine.

have a look.

Yahoo! Networks, the first portal in the Internet industry, has been a well-deserved fraction of the Internet industry in recent years, with a valuation of over 50 billion US dollars, and Firefly Investment holds 80% of the shares.

Cisco, a large network equipment company, has a current market value of $2.6 billion. After nearly a year of large-scale increases, Firefly Investments holds 26% of the shares.

America Online, an emerging Internet service provider, will be listed on the Nasdaq market in January next year. The current valuation is close to 50 billion US dollars, and Firefly Investment holds % of the shares.

The ltd group, which owns famous fashion brands such as Victoria's Secret, has risen with the annual Victoria's Secret show for two consecutive years. The current market value is 5.9 billion US dollars, and Firefly Investment holds 35% of the shares.

Nokia, a mobile communication equipment company headquartered in Finland, achieved 700,000 mobile phone sales in 1995. Firefly Investment holds 51% of the shares and has an absolute controlling stake.

t, a well-known telecom operator, has a nationwide mobile operating network, and Firefly Investment holds 10% of the shares.

Qualcomm, the latest mobile communication technology company, has a large number of technical patents of the third-generation digital communication technology, and is supported by mobile operators such as t, ve and zon, and Firefly Investment holds 40% of the shares.

Although most traditional investors believe that investing in high-tech companies is very risky, because these companies generally need to invest a lot of research funds every year to maintain a leading position in technology, and if they are not careful, they may be opposed by their peers and decline rapidly. However, in the past two years, the Nasdaq index, which is dominated by high-tech stocks, has begun to rise rapidly, as well as the rise of the Internet and mobile communication technology industries. Therefore, not many people will doubt the prospects of these emerging industries.

Therefore, the valuations and share prices of these high-tech companies held by Firefly Investments have doubled in recent years.

For example, Yahoo Network Corporation, a high-tech company with popular network products such as Yahoo Portal and Yahoo Mail, has invested less than US$600 million in funds from Firefly Investments in recent years, but according to its current market estimates Value, if Firefly Investment is willing to sell, it will definitely be able to obtain a premium income of more than 10 times.

Although these companies held by Firefly Investments have not been able to compete with the huge Firefly Group, they are almost invariably leading companies in related industries. It is conceivable that with the rapid development of the high-tech industry, in the next few years, these The company may even produce a single company with a market value that is bigger than the Big Mac of the Firefly Group.

So, by then, Eric Williams' net worth will be even more jaw-dropping.

Such a business miracle, born in a young man who is not yet 30 years old, makes many people feel a strong sense of powerlessness.

In the midst of the rising tide of public relations, Eric turned down a lot of invitations for media interviews and continued his life step by step.

During the Christmas season, MGM's Mean Girls and Firefly's 1o1 Dalmatians were released at the same time. Disney is a tall and thin producer of family comedies. With the release of 101 Dalmatians, with the interesting plot and the cute army of Dalmatians, it quickly conquered the Christmas audience and earned more than 5000,000 US dollars in two consecutive weeks. box office.

Although Mean Girls' box office results are not as bright as 1o1 Dalmatians, but with the teenage audience market that has just been hyped by screaming screams, this school girl's horse-catching comedy week still received 2ooo million dollars at the box office, and again the next week. With a harvest of $1.56 million, the production cost of this film is lower than that of Scream, so after just two weeks of broadcasting, MGM has already collected the full cost.

While paying attention to the box office of the last two films in the New Year's schedule, Eric had to rush to Mexico, Rosarito, and the Titanic studio after Christmas.

During the Christmas season, MGM's Mean Girls and Firefly's 1o1 Dalmatians were released at the same time. Disney is a tall and thin producer of family comedies. With the release of 101 Dalmatians, with the interesting plot and the cute army of Dalmatians, it quickly conquered the Christmas audience and earned more than 5000,000 US dollars in two consecutive weeks. box office.

Although Mean Girls' box office results are not as bright as 1o1 Dalmatians, but with the teen audience market that has just been hyped by screaming screams, this school girl's horse-catching comedy week still reaped $2ooo at the box office, and again the next week. With a harvest of $1.56 million, the production cost of this film is lower than that of Scream, so after just two weeks of broadcasting, MGM has already collected the full cost.

While paying attention to the box office of the last two films in the New Year's schedule, Eric had to rush to Mexico, Rosarito, and the Titanic studio after Christmas. (To be continued.) 8