I’m in Hollywood

Monsters, Inc. was supposed to be a Pixar project, Eric sold Disney's hand-drawn animation division, and Monsters, Inc. director and screenwriter Peter Docter was transferred to Disney after the brand new Disney Animation Studio reorganized The animation, the project followed, became the first work of Disney Animation Studios after the digital makeover. Burning Book Library.しwxs.

After Paramount bought the hand-painted animation studio, it has successively launched two works Pocahontas and The Lion King 2. Although the greatly increased salary of the hand-painted animators has caused the cost of the two animations to increase sharply, the overall cost of the two animations has risen sharply. In other words, both 2D animated films were a commercial success.

Therefore, as Disney's first work after abandoning the hand-drawn animation department, if the box office of Monsters, Inc. is not satisfactory, Eric's move to sell Disney's hand-drawn animation department is destined to be taken again. Come out to criticize and ridicule, maybe even the Firefly Group will have criticism about it.

However, compared to Katzenberg, who was directly in charge of the Disney animation studio, Eric was much more relaxed.

Because I like the wonderful idea of ​​this animated film very much, Eric has been paying attention to all aspects of the production progress of this animated film for more than two years since the project was established, and also added some very interesting story details. , Eric is still very confident about the box office of Monsters, Inc. What's more, the bulk of the profit of animated films is not in the box office, and peripheral products are the bulk of the profit of this type of film.

Speaking of which, stimulated by the two hot films Titanic at the end of last year and Finding Nemo this summer, and the development rights of peripheral products of the Lion King series are still in the hands of the company, Firefly Group's peripheral products The sales of products this year have almost doubled compared to last year. In the first three quarters, sales of peripheral products have reached 2.5 billion US dollars.

Due to the release of a new 3D movie Monsters Power, Inc. at the end of the year, and thanks to Thanksgiving and Christmas being the peak consumption season, the company expects that the sales revenue of the company's peripheral products is likely to exceed 1 billion US dollars in the last quarter.

This also means that in 1997, Firefly Group's peripheral product sales revenue will reach 3.5 billion US dollars.

The 3.5 billion US dollars in sales of peripheral products is almost equivalent to 10% of the entire Firefly Group's annual revenue, while in previous years, this data is usually only about 5%.

Moreover, compared with the average net profit margin of all businesses under Firefly Group of about 11%, the net profit margin of peripheral products has reached 25%. Therefore, just the peripheral products will bring more than 800 million US dollars of profit to Firefly Group this year.

A little comparison shows how amazing the income of Firefly Group's peripheral products is.

According to published data, in the first three quarters, the combined revenue of Time Warner Group's peripheral products was only $370 million, and the profit was even more pitiful. This is because Warner Bros. released Batman and Robin this year. Although the box office fiasco, it has driven the sales of Batman peripherals to some extent.

Even Viacom, which relies on the retail channel of Blockbuster to develop peripheral business, although The Lion King 2 has brought good box office revenue to Paramount, it does not have the peripherals of the Lion King series. Development rights, Viacom's sales revenue of peripheral products in the first three quarters was less than 600 million US dollars, and even the profit figures of Firefly Group's peripheral products were not as good.

After attending the premiere of Monsters, Inc. and showing his face at the subsequent party, Eric left early.

Back at Jianjiao Manor, it was past ten o'clock at night.

Entering the villa lobby, Eric saw the light in the reception area on the west side of the glass curtain wall.

Walking along, I saw Aniston wrapped in a blanket, curled up like a kitten on the sofa sleeping soundly, a white fireflyer player with headphones dropped on the floor next to her,

He also had an open copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by his hand.

Carefully picked up the fireflyer player and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and put them on the coffee table, Eric didn't bother Aniston, and walked lightly to the kitchen.

After brewing a pot of coffee, he sat down on the sofa next to Aniston, Eric offered himself a cup of coffee, and began to look through the thick pile of documents on the coffee table in the reception area.

After staying in the UK for a month, although the Firefly Group is operating as usual, the huge scale of the Firefly system is placed there. During this period of time, there are still a lot of things that need to be handled by Eric himself. Documents related to the company's administrative affairs are all placed in the office, and the piles on the coffee table in front of them are basically film project materials.

Compared with this year's series of blockbuster blockbuster films, Firefly's release plans for next year's film are much smaller.

Except for Michael Bay's The Day After Tomorrow, there will be no major heavyweight productions next year.

There could have been a sequel to The Matrix, but Eric sold the production rights of The Matrix to Ann Berlin Pictures, which was established by Spielberg and others. The Matrix 2 is set for next summer, but there is no news about The Matrix 3 yet. I wonder if Amberlin and Paramount will be as eager as the original Time Warner to release The Matrix 3 at the end of next year. also take it out. Since Amberlin took over the back-to-back shooting plan of the Wachowski brothers, and there was no rumors of modifying the script, Eric is still not too optimistic about the two sequels.

Although the two sequels will definitely make a fortune for Amberlin and Paramount with the popularity of the first movie, Eric has no regrets. The 300 million US dollars that Eric got from selling the production rights of the sequel to The Matrix has invested in the Clover Fund to buy technology stocks. Now the 300 million US dollars has doubled, and it will double again in the next two years. Still no problem. In comparison, the two sequels of The Matrix, even based on the global box office of $1.2 billion in the previous life, plus the later videotape revenue, will definitely not bring more than 600 million to Amberlin and Paramount. Dollar.

Recovering the drifting thoughts, Eric glanced at the document in his hand.

This is a 3d-imax format movie that imax plans to produce, called Return to the Cretaceous. Before Firefly acquired imax, the film had already been set up. The imax company changed hands, and the decision on whether to start shooting the film fell to Firefly.

The film was planned to be only 45 minutes long and had a budget of $15 million. Prior to this, imax was basically assisting some museums in producing imax documentaries. Although this film was planned to be only 45 minutes long, if it was produced, it would be considered the first imax format film.

Eric simply flipped through the script, which was very rough, but think about it, this film is not for storytelling, but mainly to promote and display 3d-imax technology.

After thinking for a while, Eric picked up the pen on the coffee table and approved a line at the end of the document, agreeing to the filming of the film. The implementation of the '4200' plan is still two years away. This film can indeed be used to show the visual effects of 3d-imax in advance, and it also allows the team of imax to continue to accumulate technology.

Putting the folder aside, Eric flipped through several other scripts one after another.

Due to the long production cycle of special effects blockbusters, it is inevitable that Firefly will experience a short trough in this regard. Since there will only be The Day After Tomorrow for Firefly's heavyweight blockbuster next year, Eric intends to look for a few low- and medium-budget films with good box office potential to fill this vacancy.

The project that has been approved at the moment is Teddy Bear. Although it is also a special effects movie, the production of Teddy Bear is much simpler than that of Iron Man and The Lord of the Rings, and it is expected to be released at the end of next year.

In addition, Eric asked Katzenberg to send people to Japan to collect horror movie scripts.

Right now, the two horror movie scripts, The Ring and The Grudge, are in the pile of documents in front of him, which Eric emailed from his time in the UK, in the midst of a slew of Japanese horror film synopses. The selected, detailed script he has not had time to read.

Eric remembered that Midnight Bell was released in 1998, and originally thought that Firefly could only get the right to remake it.

But unexpectedly, when the Firefly staff searched for horror movie scripts in Japan, although the script of this classic horror movie had been completed, the shooting had not yet started.

Naturally, the Japanese would not have known that Midnight Bell would break the box office record of Japanese horror films. Since the script was favored by Hollywood giants, it was naturally presented with both hands, so Firefly easily cut off the script. The other The Grudge was obtained directly from the original screenwriter and director Shimizu Takashi, but it did not encounter any setbacks.

After reading the script quietly for a while, Eric looked up and was about to pick up his coffee, but saw that Aniston woke up at some point, lying there with his beautiful eyes wide open, staring at him motionless.

Eric clapped his hands with a smile, and said, Come on, hug.

When Aniston heard Eric teasing a kitten, he pouted in dissatisfaction. However, Xiao Niu quickly kicked off the blanket on her body and floated over lightly.

Eric watched Aniston rush towards him, quickly put the folder on his knees aside, and stretched out his hand to hug the little girl.

After a kiss on that sweet face, Eric smiled and said, I already told you to go to the premiere with me. Wouldn't it be cool to stay here alone?

Aniston's sharp chin slammed on Eric's shoulder, and he said lazily, I'm not going, I don't want to be discovered that I'm reconciled with this guy.

Heh, what you do is like stealing bells by plugging your ears. Last time there was such a big commotion, you expected others to not know, Eric put his arms around her waist and joked with a smile.

Aniston nibbled lightly on Eric's shoulder in dissatisfaction, but he was wearing a coat and his taste was not very good, so he quickly let go of his little white teeth and said, Anyway, with you, even if they know about it, they will You have to pretend you don't know.

Well, that's true, Eric still smiled, the big hand on Aniston's waist lifted the hem of her tights in dissatisfaction.

You guy, Aniston twisted his waist when he felt the movement of Eric's big hand. He didn't know if he was resisting or catering to him. After a while, he felt that Eric's movements were getting more and more excessive before he said : Don't be here, go to the bedroom.

Okay, Eric directly hugged Xiao Niu and got up, and said, Let's go take a shower first.

...

The next day, he was woken up by a knock on the door.

Eric just opened his eyes, but before he could get confused, the bedroom door was pushed open. Drew rushed in with a smirk and jumped on the big bed: Hey, little fat girl, good morning.

Having said that, the girl did rudely grab Aniston with her cold little hands.

The little girl, who was also a little confused, immediately woke up when she saw Drew, like a cat encountering a natural enemy, she grabbed a pillow to block Drew without hesitation, and said nothing of weakness: Little Bitchi, you Do you think I can't beat you?

Ha, let's try it.

Wait a minute, don't run.

Having said that, the two were already entangled.

Eric reluctantly got dressed in two or three times, seeing that Aniston and Drew didn't mean to greet important parts, knowing that they had a sense of proportion in their hearts, so they didn't dissuade them, and planned to let the cats fight.

When I walked to the door, I planned to go to other bathrooms to wash up, and when I saw the twins guarding the door, I ordered: Take care of them, and pull them away if you are in a hurry. If Drew wants you to help, you should not hear it, and you will not be allowed to intervene in the future. and such things.

Looking at the twins nodding to show their understanding, Eric left with confidence.

After a simple wash, I went to exercise for a while before I went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for everyone.

While frying eggs, Aniston and Drew finally appeared in the restaurant outside. Although the two women were still bickering, they didn't intend to do anything.

Hey, when you're done exercising, get ready to eat, Eric said, raising his chin toward the prepared bread: Take these to the restaurant, what else do you want to eat, go to the refrigerator to find it yourself.

The girl smiled and rubbed over, Eric, MGM is preparing a movie that lacks a heroine. If you want a sweetheart type, it's better to be over the age of 30.

The little girl was not to be outdone: Hmph, then you are just right. It's better to be hung on a tree in the first five minutes, as in Scream.

Eric knocked on the heads of the two women and said, Okay, this is the end of today's confrontation. If you want to find someone over 30 years old, go to Meg Ryan, who wants to play a horror movie. I, um, who's going to fetch me today's paper. (To be continued.)