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Zhou Buqi wants to recruit several foreign assistants.

For three consecutive days, he interviewed six people.

Everyone has a good background, and his last job was at least at the vice president level.

Then, two people were identified, a man and a woman.

The man’s name is Bill Mertens, and he comes from BAMTech, the world’s earliest live streaming platform for sports events.

The BAMTech platform is very powerful. It is the video technology department of Major League Baseball. It began to broadcast live baseball games through the Internet seven or eight years ago.

This is a sports league, but its technical level...is not much worse than Silicon Valley. This is not surprising. The United States is a big sports country. Many IT elites who graduated from Stanford and MIT will go to work in sports institutions instead of technology giants in Silicon Valley.

Ten years later, Hollywood has been transforming to streaming media platforms, including CBS, Disney, HBO, AMC, etc. If you want to transform, you must have powerful streaming media technology as a guarantee.

But Hollywood has no technology and is incompatible with Silicon Valley. What should we do?

The answer is BAMTech.

These streaming media platforms in Hollywood all use technical solutions provided by BAMTech. Hollywood's borrowing of technology from Major League Baseball has become their key to competing against Silicon Valley.

But now BAMTech mainly broadcasts baseball games. Baseball is a popular sport in the United States, but not in other countries. It is not as popular as basketball.

Bill Mertens is BAMTech's senior vice president in charge of partner solutions. He wanted to make a bigger career and wanted to change jobs.

As it happens, he is British.

Zhou Buqi chatted with him all morning and sent emails for two days to communicate in many fields. Finally, he decided on this candidate and asked him to serve as the assistant to the chairman of Ziweixing Digital Media, concurrently as the vice president and managing partner. Solutions business.

The so-called partner solutions have a very wide range. As for the current Ziweixing Digital Media, it is responsible for communicating with major football clubs, asking them about their needs, seeing what they think about the design of their official website, and then providing them with solutions. solve.

Another woman is Ann Sarnoff, who was born in 1961. She graduated from Harvard Business School and has a very impressive career resume. She worked at Viacom from 1993 to 2003 and founded three TV channels for Viacom, rising to the position of vice president. In 2004, she left and joined the sports league WNBA as chief operating officer; in 2006 , and joined Dow Jones as a vice president.

Dow Jones is a financial company, the most famous of which is Wall Street's "Dow Jones Index".

Ann Sarnoff worked there for several years and found it uncomfortable.

I just want to return to the film and television industry.

I happened to meet Ziweixing Global who was recruiting a vice president-level assistant to the chairman, so I flew from New York to Los Angeles to attend the interview.

Zhou Buqi chatted with her for 10 minutes and felt that she could do it.

Her job at Dow Jones is data management in the technology direction, which has a technology attribute; she served as COO in the Women's NBA League, which has a sports attribute; she once managed a music station at Viacom, founded several sub-channels, and also There are TV properties.

This is enough!

What Zhou Buqi needs is managers with rich management experience and diverse industry backgrounds. The richer the resume, the stronger the adaptability.

Bill Mertens will be able to work at Ziweixing Digital Media next month.

Ann Sarnoff was a bit slower, saying it might take until September before she can join the company.

There was no other way, so Zhou Buqi could only take senior sister Zhen Yu and sister Bao Shan and let them act as temporary assistants and go to important places in Hollywood with him.

As for the three little secretaries, Sun Wanran, Ning Lu, and Feng Muer, they were of no use and went out to play again.

On this day, Zhou Buqi proposed to convene a resale meeting as a director of Marvel.

All parties participated.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is also here. He is the most excited. As long as he can snipe Disney and prevent the implementation of Disney's plan, he will be satisfied.

On the way there, Katzenberg said confidently: "Marvel's board of directors will definitely agree. I have already made an agreement with Paramount."

"oh?"

Zhou Buqi raised his eyebrows.

Katzenberg said: "Didn't Paramount get the distribution rights for three Marvel movies? It has already had "Iron Man" and there are two more movies left. I have already talked to them and they are willing to pay for it in an appropriate way. Transfer this part of the equity at a price.”

Paramount is now so poor that DreamWorks has to transfer the distribution rights of the film to Disney in order to obtain an advance payment of more than 300 million US dollars from Disney to produce the film.

Zhou Buqi nodded, "What about the price?"

"$50 million."

"hehe!"

Zhou Buqi felt a little depressed.

Marvel’s handling of copyrights is really a scam!

Recently, he checked Marvel's background again, and only then did he realize that Marvel's current failure actually stems from Wall Street. In 1986, Wall Street capitalists acquired Marvel, but in the 1990s the publishing industry declined and Marvel was about to go bankrupt. In order to recoup their capital, capitalists began to sell off Marvel's superhero copyrights.

There was even a plan to sell all superhero film and television adaptation rights to Sony Pictures for $25 million.

When the Japanese heard this, they were very wary. They felt that the Americans were trying to trick them, so they refused to agree. It just bought the rights to the "Spider-Man" series, as well as several more eye-catching superheroes such as "Ghost Rider" and "Black Panther" for US$7 million.

The requirement is that the film must be made within 5 years, otherwise the copyright will be withdrawn. The "Black Panther" movie was not made and the copyright was taken back. Two "Ghost Rider" movies were made, but the reputation of the series has been ruined by Sony, and it will be taken back in a few years.

Katzenberg was very embarrassed, "The distribution rights of DreamWorks Animation were also in the hands of Paramount, and they didn't end until 2012."

"How's the talk going?"

"The price of a movie that has been released is US$10 million. The price of a movie that has not yet been released is US$20 million."

"hehe."

Zhou Buqi was speechless.

What a trap.

Katzenberg coughed slightly and explained: "Maybe there is a package price, and I will try to fight for it. Uh... there is one more thing, it is very complicated."

"What's wrong?"

"After "Transformers 2" was released, the box office was very hot. It was the most watched movie this summer. Paramount is not willing to lose this cash cow."

Zhou Buqi frowned, "So the acquisition of DreamWorks is going to fail?"

Katzenberg said: "Yes and no."

Zhou Buqi asked: "What do you mean?"

Katzenberg said helplessly: "DreamWorks' equity structure is owned by Paramount, but in terms of management authority, Spielberg has parted ways with Paramount. He wants to part ways with Paramount." film to Disney for distribution.”

Zhou Buqi frowned, "What do you mean?"

Katzenberg said: "When Spielberg and Paramount were talking about separation, Paramount firmly controlled the distribution rights of the Transformers series."

How complicated!

This copyright is all messed up!

DreamWorks' past film distribution rights were scattered among Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount. For future film distribution rights, the "Transformers" series is in the hands of Paramount, and other movies are in the hands of Disney.

Depend on!

For Ziweixing Global, the most important thing is the distribution rights of film and television content.

With the distribution rights in hand, Ziweixing Global has the right to distribute movies on streaming media platforms instead of using traditional DVD sales and television broadcast channels.

Just like MGM retaining the distribution rights for the "Lord of the Rings" series of movies, Warner spent countless efforts and money to acquire the film and television production rights for "The Lord of the Rings", but it was useless.

If MGM doesn't distribute it, even if they make all the movies, they won't be able to release them and they'll just have to collect them in a warehouse and collect dust.

The authority and dominance of the six Hollywood giants rely on their respective distribution channels.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said, "Forget it, DreamWorks' copyright is in a mess and its operation is too complicated. Without distribution rights, it makes no sense to only rely on production rights to make profits. This is not the strategy of Ziweixing Global."

Jeffrey Katzenberg was a little disappointed, "Aren't you going to buy it?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Let's put it aside for now, I'm too busy. Hmm... But you have to hurry up on DreamWorks Animation. This deal must be completed. Not only that, but also the distribution rights of DreamWorks Animation's past and future films. Take it all back.”

Katzenberg nodded, "Then organize a team to negotiate a package deal with Paramount to take back the distribution rights of DreamWorks Animation and Marvel."

This idea was welcomed by the Marvel board of directors.

Recently, Disney has been in private contact with them, but they are no longer interested. They are all full of hope for Ziweixing Universal for three reasons.

The first is that the distribution rights can be taken back from Paramount.

In Hollywood today, no one wants to cooperate with Paramount.

Nine out of 10 movies released by Paramount were loss-making, causing Paramount to become the bottom of the six major Hollywood companies. Even their own son, DreamWorks, turned their backs on them.

Second, the copyright of "The Incredible Hulk" was withdrawn from Universal, but the distribution rights of the "Hulk" movie are still in Universal's hands. Ziweixing Universal happens to be based on Universal Pictures, killing two birds with one stone.

Third, this is the focus of today's meeting, and it is also the most exciting point for Marvel's management and cartoonists. Zhou Buqi has said that he will try to take back the copyright of the "Spider-Man" series!

…

In the evening, Zhou Buqi held a small business cocktail party at home and invited everyone to come.

This process is both stressful and exciting.

What makes me nervous is that there are too many beautiful girls in the house, especially the coquettish and beautiful maids, so I must keep an eye on them. You can't let any guest take a fancy to it and take it to a certain room to have it done.

Boss Zhou spent so much money to invite someone here, but he hasn’t even enjoyed it yet, so someone else has taken advantage of it. That’s a big loss!

Happily, the big bosses of Marvel all agree with Ziweixing Global’s positioning and plans for Marvel, and also agree with the recovery of copyright.

This has already announced Disney’s exit.

More importantly, without the competition from Disney and Zhou Buqi's status as a shareholder and director of Marvel, the acquisition price may be lowered as appropriate.