Rebirth of England.

Chapter 887 Influence

Currently in the Internet sector, IC Capital managed by Ivanta is the second largest shareholder of Woaw. This company not only has a social network, but also owns the video sharing platform YouTube.

Moreover, IC Capital is the largest shareholder of Twitter!
It can be said that this will be a very powerful publicity platform if needed in the future.

Well, at least it can avoid the embarrassing situation that happened in Barron's previous life, when Twitter banned a sitting President of the United States.

Some people who admire the West may think that if even the president says to close it, then it will be closed, so you decide whether it is free or not.

As for the so-called freedom of speech...

Can that be the same? !
As for traditional paper media, it is not impossible to acquire one when necessary.

It's not just for the election of Barron, the father-in-law...

At least for a certain period of time, paper media still has a certain influence.

What's more, even The Washington Post, which was once famous for being the first to exclusively report the Watergate scandal and ultimately leading to Nixon's resignation, and one of the most influential newspapers in the United States, along with the New York Times, was only sold for $8 million when it was sold to Amazon's Bezos in August this year.

Similarly, the 140-year-old Boston Globe will be sold by the New York Times Company in August of this year. The package price of this newspaper and some New England media assets is only US$8 million.

You know, twenty years ago, in 1993, the New York Times Company acquired The Boston Globe for $11 billion. Twenty years later, the selling price was less than one-tenth of the purchase price, which is also very regrettable. Print media has become a sunset industry.

Of course, such a price is still very cost-effective for Barron, who only needs the influence of these paper media to help him achieve some goals. Even if these newspapers are not profitable and their assets are still shrinking, as long as they can help him in public opinion, it can be considered a good deal.

Just like in England, the independent newspapers under the SEM Group have very weak profitability compared to those TV stations, and even occasionally need to invest capital.

But because he could still rely on these newspapers to manipulate public opinion, they were very useful tools for Barron to control power in Britain, so he was happy to keep them.

After that, Barron spent some time with Ivanta and her son in a low-key manner at his estate in Long Island, New York.

Apart from attending a banquet hosted by Blue Valley Capital and Marvel-MGM Pictures, he has not appeared in the public eye for almost a whole week.

Speaking of Marvel MGM Studios, it can be said that its performance in recent years has been the envy of other Hollywood film companies.

Their first Avengers movie, released last year, raked in more than $17 billion worldwide, ranking third in the global box office after Avatar and Titanic.

The reason why the global box office of the first "Avengers" in this time and space is higher than the $15 billion in the original time and space is because after obtaining the copyright of "Spider-Man", before the movie "Avengers", Marvel Studios restarted the Spider-Man series of movies, and has now launched the first new Spider-Man movie, which has performed very well at the box office. In addition, they added characters such as Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four, whose copyrights they have already regained, to "Avengers", which made the popularity of this movie even higher.

In addition to the superhero movies of its Marvel Studios, which can be called box office harvesters, MGM Studios also performed well, especially the "Hobbit" series they launched in cooperation with Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema, which also performed very well at the box office. Taking the opportunity of attending this banquet, Barron also talked with Annika Dawson of Blue Valley Capital about the development of Marvel-MGM Studios.

In fact, up to now, those big Hollywood production companies have begun to seek stability. Apart from art films aiming for awards, they are very cautious about commercial films with huge investments.

Therefore, it can be seen from the movies released every year that big productions often pursue IP effects. Except for superhero movies like Marvel, the others are sequels to the original series.

After all, from a historical perspective, a big reason why many once glorious film companies have fallen into decline is that they blindly launched big productions, which ultimately resulted in box office performances falling short of expectations, leading to unbearable losses.

Now, for small productions, the subject matter will be relatively freer, while large productions will inevitably need to be conservative.

In addition, they are also looking forward to the Marvel-MGM Studios in Qindao, China, which will be completed this year.

The performance of the first Marvel-MGM Studios built in California, USA, was satisfactory, which also gave Marvel-MGM management great confidence - just like the Disney theme parks all over the world, in addition to making considerable profits, it can also help Disney consolidate their fan base. The Marvel-MGM Group also has high hopes for their studio projects.

If China's Marvel-MGM Studios can be successful, then their cinema plan will continue to move forward and they will prepare to select sites in Europe to continue building new cinemas.

"Hello, Your Highness the Duke..."

Barron looked at the girl who was speaking. Although she was not tall, she looked very youthful.

After the girl came to Barron, Annika Dawson introduced her to Barron at the right time and then left tactfully.

Although this banquet was sponsored by Blue Valley Capital and Marvel-MGM, two influential Hollywood companies, and many female stars attended, Barron was very low-key when he appeared here. Those who could be placed next to him would naturally be judged to be "very safe"...

Just like the girl in front of him, named Emma Roberts, born in 1991, just 21 years old this year - to be exact, she will be 22 in more than ten days.

Although she is very young, as early as 2000, when she was only 9 years old, she had already participated in the classic film "American Drug Lord" starring Johnny Depp and entered the film and television industry.

The main reason, of course, is that she has a good aunt - Emma is the favorite niece of Hollywood superstar Julia Roberts.

Emma Roberts participated in the filming of the MGM film "The Family" last year, which is why she is associated with the Marvel-MGM Group and appeared at today's banquet.

"I've seen your movies, but you were still a child at that time, and now you've become a big beauty..."

Hearing Barron's praise, Emma had a sweet smile on her face:
"It's such an honor, Your Highness. I've been following you on Woaw for a long time. I'm your fan. You're even more handsome in person than in the photos..."

(End of this chapter)