Hollywood Hunter

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Simon and Jack Welch reached a basic transaction framework for New World Entertainment, and the detailed contract terms still require further negotiation between the two parties.

With the acquiescence of New World Entertainment's major shareholders and General Electric, Daenerys Pictures began to quickly intervene in the company's operations in the following days, asking New World Entertainment CEO Robert Rehm to temporarily stop all film and television projects. Production and distribution, any expenditure over $50,000 must be approved by Daenerys Pictures.

Due to the long-term uninterrupted paparazzi follow-up around Simon, the news of his meeting with Jack Welch and others appeared in the newspapers the next day, and the media immediately sorted out the ins and outs of the matter.

However, this time, there was no more capital rush at the beginning of the year.

In half a year, things have changed a lot.

The news that Simon suddenly became rich through the operation of the stock index futures market at the beginning of the year has just been exposed, which is exactly the fat sheep in the eyes of many people. Moreover, at that time, the Hollywood screenwriters strike had not yet happened, and the crisis of New World Entertainment was not as serious as it was at this time.

Now, New World Entertainment's heavily reliant television production business has all but ceased due to a strike by Hollywood writers, further deteriorating a company already in financial distress. Simon also showed his attitude through the operation at the beginning of the year,

Therefore, the transaction went quite smoothly.

The day after Simon and Jack Welch met was July 4th, America's Independence Day.

After four consecutive days of holidays, Daenerys Pictures, New World Entertainment and General Electric jointly issued an announcement and officially released the relevant news.

Daenerys Pictures plans to buy all of New World Entertainment's stake in General Electric's debt-to-equity swap for $250 million. Through this transaction, GE can recoup $225 million in funds, and New World Entertainment's original shareholders will receive a total of $25 million in compensation, equivalent to one-sixth of the stock price before the transaction.

Although some shareholders expressed dissatisfaction with the transaction, all parties knew that this was actually the best outcome.

Without this transaction, New World Entertainment would either go bankrupt or liquidate or sell assets to pay off its debts, both of which would simply leave shareholders empty-handed.

After finalizing these, Simon began to let James Raybould organize a team to conduct an asset and financial audit of New World Entertainment.

In addition to financing loans on the surface, many companies will accumulate certain hidden debts by falsely reporting operating income or defaulting on payables. Once the acquirer ignores this, it often needs to pay for this part of the cost after the transaction.

Hidden debt is even more common in Hollywood, where accounting systems are complex.

Simon did not choose to buy the creditor's rights in General Electric's hands first, and then carry out the debt-to-equity swap operation on his own, because he was worried that a large amount of hidden debt would suddenly appear in New World Entertainment, which would catch Daenerys Pictures by surprise. Let GE carry out a debt-to-equity swap in advance. As long as the contract is not formally signed, the risks in this regard are still on the side of GE and New World Entertainment.

The pre-audit work will take about a month, and coupled with financing issues for the acquisition of New World Entertainment, Daenerys Pictures may not officially take over the company until August.

With such a busy schedule, a new week has passed.

Due to the four-day Solitude Day holiday in a row, the overall North American box office for the week from July 1 to July 7 exceeded the $100 million mark, reaching $117 million.

Paramount Pictures' Eddie Murphy's film "Journey to America," which is somewhat of a theme, raked in $36.15 million in its first week on 2,065 screens, making it the highest-grossing film in the first week of the summer. Previously, "Crocodile Dundee 2", also produced by Paramount, opened with 2,837 screens and only $30.17 million at the box office in its first week.

Disney's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" received $21.34 million in the next week with almost zero drop after its first week of $21.65 million, with the support of fiery word of mouth and a four-day holiday. reached $42.99 million.

Sandra's black comedy, "A Fish Named Wanda," ranked third in its opening week with $13.96 million. Although the start is not amazing, compared to the film's production budget of only 8 million US dollars, the film will be able to recover all the production and distribution costs next week, and the word of mouth and topical enthusiasm shown by the film is enough to support it. long line.

Pulp Fiction slipped to No. 4 this week, falling 17% to $12.53 million. Within five weeks of its release, the film has a cumulative box office of $95.79 million and is destined to break 100 million next week.

"Flying Beyond the Future" starring Tom Hanks also entered its fifth week of release, and received another $9.24 million at the box office. This film, which has never won a weekly box office champion, has unknowingly accumulated a total of $55.46 million at the box office , the trend is strong.

On July 8, North American theaters launched four new films from major studios at once.

However, judging from the three-day box office data over the weekend, the four new films basically ended in failure. It is estimated that the best-selling Fox Films comedy "Driver's License" will only gross around $7.5 million in its first week, and none of the films will make it to the top five on the list.

At the same time, "Instinct" also started the last week of sprint promotion before its release.

On the other hand, after a stalemate for only a week, the abc network resumed its relationship with Daenerys Pictures

touch.

As Simon had previously judged, abc really didn't have enough confidence to give up a TV show that could make $1 million per episode for the network. What's more, the TV show has three times as many episodes per season as a traditional one-hour show.

Restarting the negotiations, Daenerys still insisted on the offer of $2 million per episode, but made some concessions in other aspects, agreeing to provide an additional 15 episodes for abc in the next period before the fall, to make up for A shortage of network programming due to the strike.

Counting the previous week's pilot episodes, ABC will pay Daenerys $30 million in one-off payments for the additional 22 episodes.

ABC wants to get this extra part of the program, mostly to win more TV audiences before the autumn schedule, which is actually the reason why ABC is willing to compromise so quickly. In contrast, although it also signed a contract with Daenerys Pictures very quickly, "Survivor" obtained by nbc could not play such a role.

On "Survivor", Daenerys Pictures and nbc also signed a binding agreement similar to abc.

However, Daenerys Pictures only got a one-time buyout price of $1.2 million per episode of the first season because it couldn't confirm the ratings in advance. After the program is broadcast, the two parties can renegotiate the subsequent quotations according to the specific viewing conditions.

Simon actually wanted to get a share contract, but was firmly rejected by nbc.

He later learned that this was more because the TV network did not want to expose its financial data to the outside world. The TV network also had an accounting system similar to the Hollywood ledger, and it was more opaque.

Compared with the standard "Who Will Be a Millionaire", which has 69 episodes per season, Daenerys's plan for the first season of "Survivor" has only 13 episodes, which may be adjusted according to the broadcast schedule in the future. But it will basically be controlled within 20 issues per season.

The first season is expected to cost about $5 million to produce, much more expensive than Who Will Be a Millionaire.

So Survivor's earnings don't compare to Who Will Be a Millionaire.

Even if the second season renegotiates, Simon expects the show will probably only get a similar offer to "Who Will Be a Millionaire." However, the expected screen life of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is much shorter than that of "Survivor". Even if Daenerys Pictures actively controls not to make the show too flooded, it will be at most three to five years. Once the audience is fatigued, the show will end.

In contrast, according to the production progress of two seasons each year, "Survivor" can last on the TV screen for more than ten years.

And, while not comparable to "Who Will Be a Millionaire," "Survivor" still has a return that traditional TV shows can't match.

As long as this show can achieve the same success as the original time and space, two seasons a year, the number of episodes will be appropriately expanded, calculated based on 30 episodes in two seasons, plus the in-program advertisement placement income that Daenerys Pictures also retains, "Surviving" "The Throne" can bring in no less than $60 million a year for Daenerys Pictures.

In short, these two reality shows are actually like dark horses with low cost and high box office, which can be met but not sought after. Daenerys Pictures also needs to produce mainstream TV shows of all types if it wants to grow its TV business in the long run.

City of Santa Monica.

Daenerys Pictures Headquarters, July 12.

In Simon's office, a middle-aged man in his fifties was sitting opposite him at this time. Even if he was sitting, he could see that the other person was definitely more than 1.9 meters tall.

This is Robert Rehm, the current CEO of New World Entertainment.

The transaction plan between the two parties was finalized. In recent days, Robert Rem has been very proactive in keeping in touch with Simon, and Simon has also carefully inquired about the middle-aged man's professional resume through his contacts in the circle.

Robert Rehm, 53, worked as a usher at a local theater when he was 16 years old. After graduating from college, Robert Rehm has worked in a series of film and television entertainment and has three decades of experience in film and television production and distribution.

Before serving as CEO of New World Entertainment, Robert Rehm was Vice President of Marketing and Marketing at Universal Pictures, and his previous work was more oriented towards film distribution.

It also happens to be what Daenerys Pictures desperately needs.

Middle-aged people obviously see this as well, and they will be so positive.

After all, according to his resume, there is still a long way to go before grabbing the chair of a major studio. If he leaves after Daenerys completes the acquisition of New World Entertainment, he is more likely to become a sole producer, and maybe get some other second- and third-tier studio executive job offers, but those jobs are obviously Can't compare to the fast-growing Daenerys Films.

You know, in the first half of the year, the expected revenue from "When Harry Met Sally", "Pulp Fiction" and the just-successful "Who Will Be a Millionaire" has already surpassed all Hollywood's generally poor operating conditions. The second-tier film companies are even enough to compete with the profitability of the bottom-ranked among the top seven.

Simon actually intends to keep the other party, but he must also determine Robert Rem's attitude.

After all, Amy Pascal is far less senior in Hollywood than Robert Rehm, and still a woman. However, Simon did not let Amy give up the idea of ​​being in the lead, and he has always been very satisfied with Amy. If Robert Rehm doesn't want to take the second place and wants to replace Amy, Simon can only regret it.

The main purpose of Robert Rem's visit today

It is to send Simon the information of various projects in the hands of New World Entertainment.

In 1983, when Larry Cooper and others bought New World Entertainment from Roger Corman, Roger Corman retained the rights to all films prior to 1983. However, in recent years, due to its continuous expansion, New World Entertainment has rapidly accumulated the copyrights of nearly 100 movies and TV series through self-production and agency distribution in just five years.

Simon is most concerned about the TV shows owned by this company.

According to the information in hand, several major TV networks announced their scheduled projects from New World Entertainment last year, including "Ultimate Police Network", "Santa Barbara" and other five TV dramas with very good ratings. This spring, before the Hollywood writers' strike, New World Entertainment also launched another well-received new drama "The Age of Innocence".

However, because of the Hollywood writers' strike, these shows that the network has announced to renew are temporarily on hold. Without this acquisition by Daenerys Pictures, even if the TV network still needs it, New World Entertainment would have to cut off most of these projects because of funding and other reasons.

As for movies.

Inheriting the production style of Roger Corman's period, the films produced and distributed by New World Entertainment in recent years are generally low-budget B-movies, and most of them flow directly to the video tape market.

Compared with last year's eight production list, New World Entertainment has only three production plans left for this year, and there are several other projects that are obviously in the pipeline.

As for distribution, in the first half of the year, New World Entertainment launched a total of seven films, of which four films that entered theaters all ended in failure. At the beginning of May, a "Zombie SWAT" was released on the edge of the summer program. The production cost was 5 million US dollars and 1,012 screens were opened. In the end, it only recovered 3.59 million US dollars at the box office. This is still the best result among the four theatrical films. The other three films were only released on videotape, which shows how bleak New World Entertainment's film business is.

Simon didn't make Robert Rem wait too long, and quickly browsed the information in his hand, he raised his head and said, "Bob, after completing this acquisition, I will fully integrate New World Entertainment into Danielle. Among Silk Films, Daenerys Films was reorganized into Daenerys Entertainment, and set up subsidiaries according to the model of New World Entertainment. In a short time, I do not plan to lay off employees in this company, but according to practice, you personally Except. However, I also understand your thoughts. So, let's be honest, are you willing to be Amy's deputy?"

Of course, Robert Rem was reluctant. Before he came to Daenerys Pictures, he considered the idea of ​​persuading Simon to let him be the leader. However, Simon took this as a precondition when he opened his mouth, and he also realized Simon's attitude.

After thinking for a moment, Robert Rem nodded and said, "No problem, Simon. However, I can serve as Ms. Pascal's deputy in my position, but I hope to report directly to you personally and not be under Pascal's jurisdiction."

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