Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 958
In New York, at the intersection of West 57th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, on the east side of the former Hearst Media Group editorial building, a Chinese-style teahouse opened.

This Chinese-style teahouse has a large area, with two floors, and each floor is more than 200 square meters. Five months ago, it was a clothing store.

Jimmy was sitting by the window on the second floor of the teahouse, holding a cup of tea and looking at the opposite building under construction. Make Jimmy feel good.

The "Satisfaction Tea House" where he is now is his own property, and he aimed at this position as early as when he saw that he was going to put the Deep Space Building on top of Hearst.

After negotiating with the Hearst Group to buy the editorial building, he also took down the shop and turned it into a Chinese-style teahouse.

After the teahouse opened, the business was average. In places like Manhattan, Chinese tea is not a very popular drink, and the consumption of teahouses is very high. A pot of tea costs tens of dollars, which is still cheap. As for the expensive ones, the price is gone. Such a teahouse is destined not to be consumed by ordinary people.

But Jimmy didn't care about it, and his purpose of opening this teahouse was not to make money.

He just wanted to find a place where he could drink tea in peace.

In fact, when it comes to drinking tea, he can also drink it in his own office, but compared to the office, he prefers the atmosphere of the teahouse, and there are special people here to help them make tea, which is definitely better than his assistant and secretary. .

In order to cater to his preferences, one of his secretary learned how to make tea, but he stopped him. He told the secretary that she was invited to help the company make money, not to make tea for him.

Professional people do professional things, of course Jimmy will settle the bill, but it is a waste to have a secretary hired with a high salary doing tea making.

He didn't come alone today. Spielberg was sitting opposite him, holding a script in his hand, and was reading it seriously.

Spielberg read the script more slowly than Jimmy last night. When he closed the script, Jimmy looked at his watch and three hours had passed.

This script does take some time to read, because there are many interesting settings in it, and there is a certain logical relationship between these settings. If you just read it as a story, you don’t need to go into it, but Spielberg wants to To see if the script can make money after filming, he has to figure out these settings, so it will definitely take more time.

Seeing that Spielberg finished the script, Jimmy said with a smile, "It seems that you are going to take care of my dinner today, but I stayed here with you for three hours, not including the 10 minutes I waited for you. With this tea, I drank several pots, and you have to pay the bill."

"Why can't you invite me to dinner?" Spielberg leaned back on the chair and looked around, "And you have to pay for tea when you bring me here? Do you think I don't know, the owner of this teahouse It's you."

"You know everything." Jimmy curled his lips, "Don't worry, I've already arranged dinner. There are chefs in our teahouse, and they will let us eat authentic Chinese food at night."

Not only can you drink tea in the "Satisfied" teahouse, you can also eat, but the meal needs to be prepared in advance, so when Jimmy and Spielberg made an appointment to meet in the afternoon in the morning, he had already greeted the teahouse and asked them to prepare A table of meals, in the evening he brought people to eat.

Spielberg was quite surprised when he heard that there was still food in this teahouse, "Since I sat here, there hasn't been anyone on the second floor of the teahouse, right? You hired a chef, how much money will you lose?"

Jimmy said with a smile, "Compared to this location, the chef's salary is nothing."

Hearing Jimmy's words, Spielberg couldn't help nodding. In a place like Manhattan where every inch of land is very expensive, the value of a two-story corner store has already surpassed the phenomenon of ordinary people. That little money is really nothing.

In addition to the high value of the shop itself, the decoration of this teahouse must have cost a lot of money.

Spielberg looked around the second floor again. This time he carefully looked at the layout and decoration of the second floor. He didn't know much about decoration. He didn't know how much these Chinese-style woods were worth. It all takes money to pile up.

Just say that the set of tables and chairs they are sitting on now are all made of mahogany. Although this thing is not expensive, it is rare to use such a good chair in a teahouse for business.

"However, chatting in such a place feels really good. The decoration here reminds me of the scene of drinking tea in Jinling Luoyuan. The tea here is also good, but it is not as good as Luoyuan. "

"Your judgment is entirely subjective. I only use the best tea. Except that some new teas that are in season are not as fresh as those from the garden, everything else is the same. Besides, how much tea have you drank? Can you tell the difference between good tea and bad tea? Can you tell the difference between Longjing, Maofeng, Huangya, Guapian, Houkui, and white tea? I’m afraid you can only tell what is black tea and what is green tea.”

"Eating is a very subjective thing. I can't tell the difference. It's your responsibility, not mine. But it's really good to sit here if you have nothing to do. Sitting in such a quaint Chinese teahouse, and then Looking at the streets of Manhattan with people coming and going outside, it gives people a strong sense of contrast, which can also be said to be fresh.”

"Come and sit when you have nothing to do, I will give you a [-]% discount."

Spielberg raised the corners of his mouth, "I came here to drink tea, but you still have to pay, you are too stingy."

Jimmy laughed, "I can't help it. After all, it's a small business. The [-]% discount is already my limit. If you come here for free, then I really don't want to earn a dime in this teahouse. Don't say it's you. , even if Yu comes to my teahouse, he has to pay obediently, and I will give him a [-]% discount at most."

"You shouldn't give him a discount, but you should charge him several times more, because he has more money than us, and this guy usually doesn't spend money. If you don't earn his money, he won't be able to spend it all."

This is the impression that Yu Dong gave everyone. Usually the soup is clear and watery, and he rarely spends money.In fact, Yu Dong's family usually has a lot of expenses. The staff hired by Luoyuan can be in double digits, and the monthly salary of these staff is tens of thousands of yuan.

Moreover, apart from Yu Hua and the others who often go to Luoyuan, relatives from both sides also often visit, and there are constant people in the garden throughout the year, so various living expenses are expensive.

In addition, the area of ​​the park is so large, so the annual maintenance costs are quite high, and as the age gets older, the later maintenance costs will be higher.

Their family spends not to mention tens of millions every year, there must be several million. This figure is unimaginable for ordinary families.

But even so, Yu Dong's friends still feel that his life is simple, because compared to his net worth, this little money is just a drop in the bucket.

Jimmy gave a thumbs up, "Otherwise everyone will say that you are a business genius, you are really good, you should also come to invest in the stock later, to ensure that the teahouse can make money."

Spielberg waved his hand, "No kidding, let's talk about "Inception". I think the script is pretty good."

Hearing what Spielberg said was calm and breezy, Jimmy knew what he meant.

No wonder I didn't rush to talk about the script after reading the script just now. It turned out that this guy was trying to lower the price.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and said, "Well, if you want to participate in the production of this film, Deep Space can give you 5.00% of the investment share. After all, it's not a big project, just play around. And the director, YU has also been decided, you can only be an investor this time."

"5.00%?" Spielberg was taken aback, "That's too little."

"So how much do you want?" Jimmy asked back.

Spielberg blurted out, "At least 30.00%, otherwise..."

After saying dead, Pierberg regretted it. He looked at the smiling Jimmy and shook his head helplessly, "I was deceived by you again. I was not such an easy person to be deceived, but this script is really too much. Okay. That being the case, let’s be honest. I really think this script is very good. Although it can be seen that this script is a bit like the shadow of YU’s "Prison No. 30.00" before, there is still a big gap between the two stories, and they are quite similar. Compared with "Prison No. [-]", the story of "Inception" is more complicated and the structure is more rigorous. I hope to get a [-]% investment share, and you can tell if it is possible, and if so, what I need to pay."

Jimmy smiled, "I like your honesty, so let me answer your first question first, can I give you 30.00% of the investment share, the answer is no, we can give you a maximum of 20.00% of the investment share, this It’s impossible to talk about it. But I’m still going to bring Lucas over and give him 20.00% of the investment share. The two of you add up to 40.00% of the investment share. If you think 20.00% of the investment share is not enough, you can also Talk to him. But I personally think that 20.00% investment share is enough, and it will also put pressure on your funds.”

When he first heard that it was only 20.00%, Spielberg was a little disappointed, but when he heard that there were still [-]% for Lucas, he became happy again.

The production cost of this movie is definitely not low, and the 20.00% investment share requires a lot of money, and Lucas is currently in a tight situation, so I am afraid he will not be able to spend that much money.

Perhaps, he can discuss with Lucas and transfer a part of the investment share from Lucas.

Lucas has not developed well in the past two years. In addition to making money from the IP of "Star Wars", their company also makes some money from IMAX, which they cooperate with Deep Space Corporation.

However, IMAX has just started to make a profit, and their proportion is already small, so they can't get much money.

As a collaborator, Jimmy certainly hopes that Lucas can develop better, which is also a good thing for IMAX.But now this situation is not all good for Deep Space Corporation, because Jimmy has long been drooling at the Industrial Light and Magic in Lucas's hand.

Jimmy told Yu Dong more than once that he wanted to take down Industrial Light & Magic.

When they were going to shoot "The Lord of the Rings" before, Jimmy and Yu Dong had a discussion about which special effects company to find. Industrial Light and Magic has always been very happy to cooperate, but Weta Digital has not been established for a long time, and the scale of the company cannot be compared with Industrial Light and Magic. Instead of wasting money to acquire Weta Digital, it is better to be ruthless in a few years to fight for the industry. light magic.

The most valuable thing in the entire Weta Digital is their boss Richard Taylor, and the others are worthless at all.

But in the end, Jimmy still agreed with Yu Dong's plan, and bought Weta Digital first, as for Industrial Light and Magic, he had to put it aside.Now it seems that Yu Dong's decision is still reasonable. Although Weta Digital is small in scale, it is very distinctive in special effects. They are completely different from Industrial Light and Magic. "The performance in the filming of "The Lord of the Rings" was very good, and after participating in the filming of "The Lord of the Rings", Weta Digital has grown a lot.

Spielberg doesn't know Jimmy's thoughts on ILM, and even if he does, it's fine. He doesn't mind whether ILM is in the hands of Lucas or Deep Space. Anyway, it doesn't matter who owns ILM. does not affect his own development.

"I'm basically satisfied with the investment share. How much is the 20.00% share? Is it a direct cash transaction?"

"This is going to be a slow chat. I made a rough calculation. The investment of this film is relatively high, and the production cost may reach 3000 million US dollars. If you give cash, 20.00% of the investment share is 600. Around ten thousand dollars."

Spielberg said, "Twenty-six million! I can't spend so much money to make a movie myself, and the production cost of this movie can be so much? You know, we only spent 600 million on "The Martian" before." It is less than 9000 million US dollars, even if the price rises, it will not increase so much. It cannot be said that the special effects requirements of "Inception" are higher than that of "The Martian". Moreover, if it is not for the local repair of Mangya roads and other infrastructure, and the production cost can be lower.”

"Steven, you also need to know that when "The Martian" was filmed, we didn't spend much money on actors, and most of "The Martian" was shot in China, which naturally saved a lot of costs. "

What Jimmy said was true, they really didn't spend a lot of money on actors when they were filming The Martian.

"The Martian" originally needed fewer actors, and most of the movies were the protagonist's one-man shows, so the actor spent some money on the actors.

(End of this chapter)