Hollywood Hunter

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At the end of the morning's work, Simon dined in the management's small restaurant at noon with Amy Pascal, Mark Belford and other senior executives of the group.

The topic of conversation at the dinner table was about Disney's recent turmoil.

The matter still has to start with the "Lies Behind the Scenes" directed by Robert Redford last year. Simon played a small trick and deliberately pushed the project to Disney. The film ultimately cost 40 million US dollars, but the final effect is Passable. Therefore, Disney not only gave up the high-quality schedule at the end of last year, but also almost lost it to the schedule cemetery in January and February of the new year.

Finally, with Redford's insistence and mediation, "Behind the Scenes Lies" was released on April 1 at the same time as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3".

It's a pity that compared to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3" and the subsequent big-selling "Detective Plane", "Behind the Scenes" only made $6.19 million at the box office in its first week.

Not only that, but under the impact of the two best-selling films in the same period, when it was just sketched within four weeks of its release, the total North American box office of "Behind the Scenes" was only $16.35 million, and the box office share barely offset Disney's publicity expenses. With the bleak prospects for overseas and peripheral releases, "Behind the Scenes Lies" will bring a net loss of at least $30 million to Disney.

The failure of "Behind the Scenes" is a microcosm of Disney's increasingly bleak situation in the past two years, and it has also become a fuse for the outbreak of internal conflicts within the management of this old-fashioned film studio.

In 1984, they jointly took over Disney and now, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who were once Barry Diller's subordinates, cooperated closely in the early days. Excavating the commercial potential of Disney's classic animation, Disney was booming in the second half of the 1980s. It once launched "Three Dads and One Baby", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and "Supreme Detective" before the annual list. Ten top-grossing films, re-releases and videotape releases of Disney's classic animated films have repeatedly brought huge profits to Disney.

Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, one is the CEO of Disney, and the other is the general manager of several Disney studios, because of differences in corporate management and personal compensation, the two There have been deep contradictions unknowingly.

For example, in 1988, after Disney experienced a bumper harvest, Michael Eisner received a bonus of $6.8 million. However, due to special accounting rules for the studios of major film companies to deliberately create losses to avoid taxes, Jeffrey Carr. Senberg's bonus figure is a pitiful 'zero', and the conflict between the two sides has already been made public once.

According to the original agreement, in 1994, that is, this year, the contract of Disney's second-in-command and current president Frank Wells expired, and Katzenberg will become the successor of Disney's president. However, Michael Eisner has no intention of letting Katzenberg take over as president. Instead, he quietly discussed with President C, who is also his neighbor and friend Michael Ovitz, about joining Disney recently.

The Hollywood circle was small, and news spread unexpectedly, and Katzenberg confronted Eisner directly.

Just happened to meet the box office failure of "The Lies", Michael Eisner did not hesitate to put "The Lies" and Disney's sluggish film performance in the past two years on Jeffrey Katzenberg's head, As a result, the executive who worked for Disney for a decade angrily announced his departure.

In the past, the conflict between Eisner and Katzenberg also broke out this year, but the fuse was the accidental death of Frank Wells in a helicopter crash while out skiing during Easter in 1994. At that time, Disney's situation was far better than this time and space, but Eisner still did not want Katzenberg to take over as president, which eventually led to Katzenberg's departure, Disney lost Katzenberg, and the film business in the second half of the 1990s. All the way downhill, and eventually led to Michael Eisner was forced to step down.

Now, because of Simon's big butterfly, Frank Wells has not suffered a helicopter accident, but the Disney president's contract will still expire in August this year, and Wells is 62 years old this year and has not renewed Covenant's intention to retire early to enjoy life, Disney still needs to re-select a new company president.

Then came the recent changes.

Disney's management turmoil is largely due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment.

The current Daenerys Entertainment is similar to the Disney in Simon's memory twenty years later. At that time, Dibao passed the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney animation, live-action adaptation of fairy tales, and several trump cards of the Star Wars series, and almost every year at the North American annual box office Divide half of the shares on the top ten list, and suppress other big Hollywood film companies to the point of no arrogance. In the end, the Big Seven became the Big Six, and the Big Six became the Big Five. The second-tier film companies such as Lionsgate and Summit, which seemed to be on the rise, became even more arrogant. It was short-lived.

Relying on his own prophetic advantage, Simon has already achieved this now, and, in a careful comparison, the current Daenerys Entertainment is stronger than Disney at its peak in Simon's memory. The result of this strength is that the living space of several other major Hollywood studios and second- and third-tier film companies has been continuously compressed, and a series of domino effects have been triggered.

In the early 1990s, Disney, relying on blockbuster animations such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King" and blockbuster films such as "Pretty Woman" and "The Greatest Detective", was a huge hit in Hollywood.

Because of Simon's appearance, many blockbuster projects that originally belonged to Disney were acquired by Daenerys Entertainment, plus other film commercials developed by Disney.

It's not good now, and Disney, which was rising rapidly in the late 1980s, has gone downhill in the past two years.

The entire Hollywood, with the same fate, is obviously not just the Disney family.

The seven giants of Hollywood at this stage can be described as vigorous at this time, one is Daenerys Entertainment, the other is Time Warner Group, even MGM, which was personally supported by Simon, is still in the recovery stage. , As for the remaining four Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and Fox, in recent years, they have found that the Hollywood film market has been recovering rapidly, but business has become increasingly difficult to do.

As for Miramax and New Line, which were supposed to shine in the past few years, they have completely disappeared from the field of vision of Hollywood circles.

Several old Hollywood studios have existed for more than half a century, and it is very difficult to completely eliminate them.

Simon's short-term goal is to knock down several Disney companies into actual second-tier film companies. For the time being, Hollywood only needs Daenerys and Time Warner to stand side by side.

Tolerating Time Warner to stand side by side with itself is on the one hand for the sake of the dc movie universe, on the other for anti-monopoly considerations. After all, if there is a pattern of superpowers in Hollywood, then the other companies will only point their finger at Daenerys. entertainment. Now, with one more Time Warner, it can also share some of the firepower.

However, this is only temporary.

Simon's ultimate goal is still the tripartite confrontation that he once considered, two of which are still Daenerys and Time Warner, and the last one is either MGM, which Simon personally supported, or Baishi, who has quietly planted the seeds. Da Entertainment, and the rest of the other majors, will truly become second-tier players who can't turn over at all, or even disappear completely.

Inside the management diner at Daenerys Studios.

Nancy Brill's question interrupted Simon's thoughts: "Boss, do you think Michael Ovitz will choose to join Disney?"

Simon nodded: "It should be, but this may not be good news for Disney."

Everyone looked over, and Robert Iger, who came to the West Coast yesterday, said: "Eisner and Ovitz are very good friends, and I think the two should work well together."

Simon shrugged and said: "Without direct use of conflict, friendship between individuals is easy to maintain. The key problem is that both Eisner and Ovitz are strong characters who are used to being a leader. Eisner Even Katzenberg, who is actually not that powerful, can't tolerate it, how can Ovitz be allowed to enter Disney and share his power?"

Amy asked, "If that's the case, why would Eisner ask Ovitz to join Disney?"

Simon said: "It's very simple, he needs a strong enough excuse to squeeze Katzenberg out of Disney. If he is promoted from within Disney, it will be difficult for anyone other than Katzenberg to convince the crowd. Ovitz created c, the implementation of the project packaging mechanism, and the fact that a large number of top Hollywood stars are behind the scenes, these can be the reasons for Eisner to persuade the board of directors."

Amy asked, "Then what?"

Simon replied: "Then, Eisner should find out that in order to consolidate his power, he had to find a way to remove his former good friend from the company."

Nancy suddenly glanced at a few people around and said, "I just said, our boss is a guy who doesn't believe in people's hearts. He always thinks about the worst."

Simon looked at his small executive: "How about we make a bet?"

Not to be outdone, Nancy: "What about the stakes?"

Simon smiled and said: "I just bought a batch of Mi-24 helicopters some time ago. If Ovitz doesn't turn against Eisner after joining Disney, I will give you one."

Nancy didn't feel at all that she shouldn't stick to the murder weapon that swept up tens of thousands of African soldiers in Rwanda not long ago. She nodded and said, "Okay, I lost, please have a meal."

Simon suddenly had such an insincere expression of dissatisfaction that you could even say it.

Everyone laughed.

Nancy showed no weakness in front of her boss and said, "Your bet is your own, and of course I have to make my own conditions, and you didn't say that our two bets must be equal."

Simon raised his hand depressedly, expressing his confession.

In fact, when it comes to Disney's infighting, everyone just thought of Daenerys Entertainment herself, but they quickly understood it.

With Simon, a strong boss, personally in charge, Daenerys Entertainment does not have the soil for high-level infighting. Simon has been promoting the collaboration and cooperation within Daenerys Entertainment over the years, and at the same time, he has unknowingly turned Daenerys Entertainment into a A flat corporate structure in which each department is relatively independent.

Everyone has their own hilltops, and most of them are directly responsible to the boss, Simon. There is no strong conflict of interest between them, so there is no soil for infighting.

After all, once there is a sign of internal friction, with Simon's strength, the dispute will definitely be snuffed out in the cradle soon. The young boss of his family seems to be very fancy to everyone, but it is definitely not the case. If a senior executive needs to leave to ensure the internal stability of Daenerys Entertainment, he will not hesitate to do so.

The flat corporate structure of Daenerys Entertainment also brings some hidden concerns. The most important point is that once a strong boss like Simon is missing, it will be difficult to have a second leader with sufficient power and prestige. Solidly coagulates the sprawling Daenerys entertainment.

However, Simon is only 26 years old this year. Compared with some veteran businessmen in their 50s and 60s who are approaching retirement to build a conglomerate, what he lacks most is

It's time, and therefore enough experience to deal with a lot of things.

Jokes about Simon and Nancy's bet, Amy added another thing: "David Geffen has been trying to start a new big studio with some of his best friends in recent years, Jay Fury was also one of his lobbying targets, as well as Steven, so the establishment of this major studio should be a certainty."

Once in history, Hollywood billionaire David Geffen joined forces with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to set up DreamWorks, and it was no different in Hollywood for a while. And in the late 1990s produced a large number of blockbuster films.

It's a pity, because the foundation is not solid, just because the studio lacked perfect film distribution channels, the results of DreamWorks are not good. Most of the profits of many blockbuster films are either drawn by the big studios responsible for distribution, or by history. Steven Spielberg and these main creators divided up, and left the investors who initially invested huge sums of money in this 'big movie company', just a mess that kept losing money.

Although the rise of Daenerys Entertainment is very short compared to traditional Hollywood producers, from the initial small workshop to the acquisition of New World Entertainment to improve its own production and distribution team to the final acquisition of mca, it has been completely promoted to Hollywood Seven. The big one is steady and steady every step of the way.

The dream factory of David Geffen and the three of them is equivalent to building a large castle directly on the beach without even laying the foundation.

Simon didn't intend to interfere with this, feeling the intention in Amy's tone, and said, "We don't need to pay attention to this matter, just do our job well."

Amy said, "Simon, I mean, maybe MGM can work with this new studio."

Simon shook his head and smiled again: "Even if we want to, do you think Steven will agree to cooperate with us?"

For the "Jurassic Park" series, although everyone seems to have a good time, but in fact, the whole of Hollywood knows that Steven Spielberg was directly fired by Daenerys Entertainment, as a seventy It is strange that Spielberg will continue to cooperate with the Westeros system in this tone of being a Hollywood star who has been admired by many stars since the 1990s.

Moreover, even if the other party agrees, Simon will not agree.

Simon's arrangement for MGM is also steady, retraining his team by producing and distributing films himself. If it reaches a cooperation with the studios of Spielberg and others, MGM can only reduce production to adapt to the other party. The end result is that the studios of Spielberg and others may end up being a mess, and MGM will then Still lame in both 'production' and 'distribution'.

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