Made in Hollywood

Before the Shang Hai Film Festival was over, Duke flew to Los Angeles on his own business jet. In addition to using several promotional activities to expand the signboard of Rosenberg films, this trip to China can only be said In general, especially the simultaneous release of "Hurricane Rescue" in China and the United States, the actual income that can be brought can only be said to be better than nothing.

Constrained by the size of the market and the number of theaters, when Duke left, "Hurricane Rescue" was released in China for a whole week, and received a box office of 42.28 million RMB, although compared with most movies of this era, it was a pretty good box office result. , but only 13% of the box office share, which does not bring much practical benefits at all.

Fortunately, the future is bright, as long as his brand is loud enough, after a few years, there will naturally be a bumper harvest.

Compared with China, North America is the foundation of Duke's career. "Hurricane Rescue" maintained a stable performance in the four working days of this week, with a total of 41.17 million US dollars, plus 51.25 million US dollars in the first weekend. , Although the North American box office failed to break 100 million in a week, it also reached 92.42 million US dollars. Compared with the film's theme type and investment scale, this is already a very good result.

Moreover, the film's audience reputation has always been good, and the CinemaScore audience rating has always remained above 85%. In the case that the Navy basically did not launch, the IMDB score was temporarily as high as 8.5 points.

But in its second weekend, "Hurricane Rescue" met Spielberg's "Happy Terminal."

In Hollywood, the type of subject matter and investment scale of commercial films are equally important to market performance, even comparable to the role of directors and superstars, such as in previous years. Duke did not direct the Lord of the Rings series, but replaced it with the type of "The Shawshank Redemption". Even he could not make the film super-sold, and many Hollywood films would not take a detour.

For the same reason, in this year's summer season, many films did not hide from "Hurricane Rescue" like last year. Because it's not necessary at all.

This schedule is actually carefully chosen by Duke. He has some impressions of many popular films, and of course the persimmon is also picky.

Most of the time, Spielberg is a persimmon that is not easy to handle, but "Happy Terminal" is definitely an exception.

Last few years. The situation of DreamWorks is getting more and more difficult. Every time DreamWorks encounters difficulties, Spielberg will release a work, and Hollywood also has a peculiar landscape-DreamWorks is in trouble, and Spielberg rescues it.

But what a great director. No one person can support such a huge company as DreamWorks, Duke can't, James Cameron can't, Spielberg can't either.

Not to mention. No matter how good a director is, there are times when they fail.

"Happy Terminal" is undoubtedly Spielberg's missed work. Despite the three box office guarantees of Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the response was far below the expectations of DreamWorks and the outside world.

In three days this weekend, "Happy Terminal" made only $19.05 million in North America, except for the classic 'I've been waiting my whole life. But I don't know who I'm waiting for' lines, and it can't be said to be successful.

Although the box office of "Hurricane Rescue" fell by 40% in the next weekend, its 30.75 million US dollars was enough to ensure that the film won the top spot in the North American box office.

Back in Los Angeles, after a weekend of rest, Duke returned to work. "Hurricane Rescue" didn't cost him too much energy. It's not a problem for the film to achieve high profits. Warner Bros. The publicity department is watching, and he doesn't need to pay too much attention.

The first thing to do is to let Tina Fei and agent investor David jointly set up a negotiating team to conduct acquisition negotiations with Warner Bros.

The Duke Studio holds many copyrights for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, and the Matrix trilogy. It seems to be small in scale, but the actual profit is very high. If Warner Bros. wants to eat it, they must take it out. A lot of real money, and Duke is not short of cash, what he wants is the equivalent of Warner Bros. or Time Warner.

Negotiations are never easy, and this one has only just begun, and Duke is involved in yet another negotiation — a partnership between Pixar Studios and Warner Bros.

After the increase in holdings in recent years, Duke's shares in Warner Bros. have approached 9%. Warner Bros.'s earnings are closely related to him, and once the acquisition of Duke Studio is completed, his Warner shares will continue to increase. .

Besides, he had other ideas.

With the current scale of Pixar Studios, if Warner wants to complete the merger, it must use stock exchange and cash payment. Compared with large film companies that must maintain huge liquidity, Duke has sufficient cash in hand, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy has obtained Most of the proceeds were not used.

This can be described as a series of negotiations. The negotiation between Tina Fey and Warner Bros. will have one of the most basic conditions, and the conditions are closely related to the Pixar studio.

Duke then went to San Francisco specifically to interview Steve Jobs, who was recovering from his illness.

Of course, he wouldn't be foolish enough to persuade a stubborn person to receive western medicine treatment, and a person whose family couldn't persuade him would listen to an outsider's words. Is that possible?

It's just a conversation about interests.

"Duke, you don't have to go around in circles either."

Sitting under the vines in the hallway, Jobs poured a cup of tea for Duke. "There are six major companies in Hollywood, and even if you exclude the weaker Sony Columbia, there are still five. Why should I choose Warner Bros.?"

"Five companies?" Duke picked up the teacup, took a sip, and shook his head gently, "Steve, do you really have five companies to choose from?"

Without waiting for Jobs to answer, Duke continued, "Your negotiations with Disney have not progressed so far, and the terms of your cooperation are that Michael Eisner must step down. With Eisner's control over Disney, I am afraid it will be difficult to do so. Are you here?"

Perhaps the chain reaction triggered by his appearance, Michael Eisner's position at Disney is extremely stable until now.

"Twentieth Century Fox has Blue Sky Studio, and the two sides have worked together for many years. They have no shortage of animation production departments. Even if they want to cooperate, are you sure that Pixar Studio will maintain its position in the Disney system?"

"Universal Pictures is negotiating with Illumination Entertainment, which is a very promising animation company, and their sincerity is the problem."

"Paramount Pictures is indeed looking for a suitable animation partner, but Steve, have you noticed that DreamWorks' performance is not good, and the three giants want to spin off DreamWorks Animation Studio separately. It is said that Paramount Pictures will Become the new publisher of DreamWorks Animation."

Steve? Jobs looked at Duke quietly, without any expression.

Undoubtedly, even if all of what Duke said was true, he would have the absolute initiative in the negotiation.

"Warner is different. Warner has extensive distribution channels all over the world and is the media company with the largest market value." Duke is not stupid enough to think that a few words can impress people like Steve Jobs, but just tell some basics The situation reminded him of Warner's advantages over other companies, "Although Warner also has an animation department, but it is basically negligible. We will give Pixar studio the greatest creative freedom, even greater than Disney."

The price issue is a matter of specific negotiation, and Duke does not need to mention it. If you want to get Pixar, you must offer a price that will satisfy Jobs.

"This is the tea I brought from India," Jobs suddenly turned to the tea. "How does it taste? Is it fresher and more natural than the black tea we are used to drinking?"

"Very good." Duke turned the teacup gently. "It's just not to my taste. I'm still more used to drinking Chinese tea."

He suddenly changed the subject, "Steve, your life can only be described as a legend, and I really want to make a biographical film of you in the future."

Jobs' eyes lit up, but he didn't say anything.

When a person enters the business circle, what he pursues is nothing more than fame and fortune. Duke knows very well that for Jobs, money is just a numbers game, but what about the temptation to be famous?

Just as "Schindler's List" was to Oscar Schindler, a successful film will cast someone's unfortunate monument for later generations.

It is not easy to impress Steve Jobs, and it is impossible for Duke to say a few words to make the famous Steve Jobs moved. Until he left, Jobs did not express anything in particular.

But Duke believes that his words can still have a little impact, as long as Jobs is slightly biased towards Warner, it will be enough.

Duke took a helicopter back to Los Angeles, but before he reached his destination, the news of his meeting with Jobs was passed to the ears of Disney executives.

"It's not very likely that other companies will actually work with Pixar."

In the spacious office, Cook Dick sat in a swivel chair, looking at Michael Eisner behind his desk, "Warner and Duke Rosenberg are our biggest competitors."

Michael Eisner folded his hands on his desk. "What about Marvel Studios?"

"Duke Rosenberg has already agreed to Marvel as the director of Iron Man." Cook Dick quickly replied, "Marvel Pictures is more inclined to cooperate with Warner."

He reminded, "Michael, we can't lose Pixar, we have to make appropriate concessions in the negotiations."

"Without Pixar, we still have Disney Animation Studios."

Since "Tarzan of the Apes", Disney Animation Studio has been committed to the development of 3D computer animation. The countless brilliance in the past also convinced Michael Eisner that Disney animation will inevitably rise again. "You can make appropriate concessions, but you cannot let Jobs Zhang Open your mouth!"

With a sullen look in his eyes, Eisner added, "The release date of the new film that Ovitz and David Ellison are cooperating with is not confirmed yet, and we will wait until the release date of the new Batman is announced. I want to save Batman... …”

A sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth. (To be continued ~^~)