I’m in Hollywood

Many years later, when recalling the summer file of 1998, the series of big movies such as "Charlie's Angel 3", "The Matrix 2", "The Day After Tomorrow", etc. may be a topic that cannot be avoided, but for most people, The first thoughts that came out of their minds were almost all shots of the horrifying grievances coming out of the TV set. Book fan

The three-day box office of the "Midnight Ring" was not too good, only $26.68 million.

However, with the rapid spread of the reputation of this classic horror film, the box office of the first seven days of the film reached $43.88 million.

On the surface, the figure of $41.88 million does not seem to compare with most of the hot-selling movies in the summer. But don't forget, the film's production cost is only $30 million, far less than any of the summer blockbusters.

Moreover, compared with the first three days of the first weekend, it is not difficult to find that the number of box office for the first week of the "Midnight Ring" is $17.2 million, which is equivalent to 39% of the first week's box office, far exceeding the majority of the film workdays. The average box office ratio around %. Combined with this, coupled with the feedback from a large number of media and fans, the new line film keenly judged that the wording of "Midnight Ring" is continuing to ferment, so it has decisively increased the number of screens from 2,161 to 2,395.

Then, in the first week of August, the box office of "Midnight Ring" fell less than expected, only a very weak 9.7%, and then received $39.65 million. The first week of the "x file" released in the same week, the box office was only less than two million dollars higher than "Midnight Ring", barely got the position of the box office champion of the week.

Under such circumstances, the new line once again greatly increased the scale of the "Midnight Ring", making the film's North American release screen number reached 2,775. At the same time, after half a month of fermentation, the word-of-mouth and popularity of "Midnight Bell" has reached a peak, and even young people have already seen the trend of watching "Midnight Ring" as a challenge, more The passers-by audience also began to walk into the cinema under the influence of the media and the public.

In the third week, the "Midnight Rings", which was continuously suppressed by "Scorpion King" and "X Files" for two weeks, finally won the championship of the box office rankings in the week. The weekly box office drop was still only 11.2%. Another 35.19 million US dollars.

Unconsciously, many people suddenly discovered that a medium-cost horror film that was not originally eye-catching had reached a total of $118.75 million in three weeks, even surpassing the "Fatal Weapons 4" at the beginning of the summer stall. The Patriots, "The World of Truman" and other major North American box office films, and, in the current situation, the box office potential of "Midnight Ring" is far more than that.

With the help of the Firefly Group, the group of fans who have gradually formed the "Midnight Rings" began to pay more attention to the box office of this film. The growing popularity and a new wave of propaganda have once again attracted more new audiences.

Thus, in the fourth week, the box office drop of "Midnight Ring" was only 1.7%, which was slightly undetectable. Yes, it was 1.7%, not 17%.

The box office of $34.59 million in a single week also pushed the film’s North American box office to $146.97 million. This box office figure directly caused the "Midnight Ring" to rush to the sixth place in the 1998 North American box office rankings in August. The location, followed by "Charlie's Angel 3", "The Day After", "The Matrix 2", "The Scorpion King" and the "Austin Powers 2" of the Easter period. Moreover, on the top ten box office list, all other films are at least twice as expensive as the "Midnight Ring".

At this time, all the media that originally predicted that the Firefly Group would have a quiet summer file were stupid, even if Eric himself did not think that "Midnight Ring" would burst out such a strong box office potential.

According to the current box office trend, "Midnight Ring" is likely to have a box office potential of not less than 100 million US dollars. The film's North American box office will even exceed the "After the Firefly" summer file. In the face of such a brilliant North American box office, the overseas box office of the film will naturally not be inferior, especially the transcript, considering all the reasons, just this overseas ticket warehouse is enough to bring the firefly to the overseas market of not less than 100 million US dollars. box office.

In a summer file, there are two works that are enough to break into the top five in the annual box office rankings in North America. Who would dare to say that this is the low-flying period of the Firefly Group's film business?

At the same time, almost the same week as the "Midnight Ring", on the other side of the globe, the Russian economic crisis finally broke out.

Unlike the long tug-of-war in Southeast Asian countries, the fragile Russian economy is almost no longer able to attack the major hedge funds. The entire country’s foreign exchange reserves of more than one billion dollars, even large-scale foreign debts are not enough to repay, Not to mention effective intervention in currency exchange rates.

Therefore, just two weeks, the Russian Central Bank, which basically did not do any effective resistance, announced that it would completely abandon the protection of the ruble exchange rate.

The ruble, which has just stabilized for less than three years, has plunged thousands of miles and depreciated by more than 50% in just one week.

However, the opponent has not fully opened and lie down, and the attacker who has accumulated enough strength to punch out will not have too good results.

Russia’s thorough depreciation of the ruble has also brought huge losses to international financial speculators.

After all, foreign exchange futures are a kind of zero-sum game. If someone picks up, both sides of the bet can make a profit. In the early stage, a large number of international financial speculators who were preparing to establish short positions were aimed at Russia’s foreign exchange reserves. Now Russia does not accept the move. The ruble in the hands of international financial speculators not only depreciates sharply, but also pays high short-term borrowing interest costs. lost heavily.

In addition, the quantum funds such as Soros, which were optimistic about Russia's economic recovery and therefore invested heavily in its stock market and bonds, are also trapped in Russia's economic quagmire. It is only a quantum fund, and it is expected to lose after the meat is removed. It could be more than $3 billion.

It must be said that compared with the countries in Southeast Asia that have been cut two times of wool, although the economy is also broken, but Russia, the fighting nationality that you want me to finish playing together, is still unveiled.

The rapid collapse of Russia, an emerging economy, accurately confirms the speculation that Morgan Stanley gave more than a month ago. With the further advocacy and guidance of Morgan Stanley, more and more capital has begun to pay more attention to the Nasdaq technology stock market.

In a month, the Nasdaq index has not been affected by the Russian economic crisis. Instead, it has broken through the 2100-point high and almost all mainstream technology stocks are red.

On Saturday, August 22, Eric flew from Los Angeles to New York early in the morning.

Today is the day when Firefly Investment signed an equity transfer agreement with several other major shareholders of AOL. Although Saturday is not a working day, Gravity is in a tight shooting period, and Eric will only have time on weekends. Naturally, New York can only match his schedule.

In the past month, AOL’s share price has fallen to a pressure of $49.6 billion in the absence of firefighting investment, and the breakthrough of the $50 billion mark is just around the corner.

Although AOL's share price rose nearly 20% in a month, Eric did not make adjustments to the agreed transfer price in order to avoid another wave.

Many times, giving up the idea of ​​greed can get more. If Eric starts to sit at this time, the confidence that investors have just built up for AOL will surely be hit again. The firefly investment will also be a big deal for the first phase of AOL's stock reduction.

Since Eric gave the same price for the other 15% of the stocks that Firefly will invest through Morgan Stanley, the Morgan Stanley underwriting plan has not yet begun, and a large number of investors have frequently Contact Firefly Investment and Morgan Stanley to try and get more subscription shares.

Although according to the agreement and sec regulations, the stocks bought at this time will have a lock-up period of half a year, but even if the share price of AOL remains unchanged in the next half year, they will get 20% of the time. profit.

In the good economic situation of the Nasdaq market, AOL's own performance growth rate is very bright, so most investment institutions have gradually changed their initial cautious attitude, and the possibility of loss of this transaction is very small.

On the plane that flew to New York, Eric took a box office analysis report of "Midnight Rings" in a leisurely leaning on the sofa. Caroline and Mayer sat next to him, reporting another one. Things.

“Last month, Warner Music, Sony Records, bmg and EMI’s second-quarter earnings were released 27%, 33%, 29% and 26% respectively compared to the same period last year. The global record of Gold's business integration has declined by 36%, with a loss of US$320 million in a single quarter."

Meyer gave a general introduction to the current situation. He looked at Eric’s expression and continued: “According to the major record companies and media statistics during this period, the revenues of the five major record companies have mainly fallen from the end of last year. A group of free mp3 music sharing websites. Among them, just a music sharing website called napster, with more than 7 million registered users in just over half a year, the number of free music on this website is more than 1.6 million. First, Napster was a registered member of the Yahoo! Advertising Alliance. However, in March, with the rapid growth of Napster, Yahoo ended its cooperation with Napster and another group of pirated music websites in time. This time, a group of lawsuits filed by the top five record companies also included Yahoo. The reason for their prosecution was that Yahoo contributed to the growth and spread of napster. The five major record companies claimed $100 million from Yahoo and asked Yahoo’s search. The engine actively blocks websites that spread pirated music content."

Yahoo's ipo is approaching, and the big-scale lawsuits of the five major record companies will bring Yahoo!, obviously wanting to provide sufficient cooperation in the fight against online pirated music.

At this juncture, in order to avoid extra-budgets, Yahoo had to make compromises and settle out of court with the five major record companies as soon as possible. Just like the five major record companies paying $100,000 for every pirated music that Napster has made, the $100 million compensation for Yahoo is definitely not to be thought of, but in the out-of-court settlement, Yahoo will definitely need to agree on the five major records. More conditions for the company.

"They are learning to be smart this time, and the enemy will be saved," Eric just smiled. After hearing the reminder of Madonna in the UK a few months ago, he asked several companies to do the preparatory work in this area. Instead of worrying that Yahoo will not be able to cope with it, continue to ask: "Where is the firefly electronics?"

Meyer shook his head: "The five major record companies have not yet acted on fireflies electronics. However, they should then file a lawsuit calling for Firefly Electronics to enforce restrictions on audio copying."

Last year, after Sony Records and several other lawsuits were directly dismissed by the Federal Court of San Francisco, the five major record companies apparently knew that the attempt to continue to ban the mp3 player was impossible. This time, it can only be started from other aspects.

"After this time, the record companies should be able to see some of the situation, the trend of digital music is inevitable, Yahoo Music Store just can get more genuine music licenses." Eric said, do not want too much brain, look up Caroline and Mayer told me: "I sent an e-mail in the past to remind Yahoo to pay attention to this aspect of the situation. If anyone still can't see the situation, we will help them see it."

In the past few months, the global monthly sales of fireflyer players have remained above 2 million units, and it has shown a steady growth trend. The trend of replacing digital music players with traditional music players is unstoppable. In this case, if the record company continues to resist and resist the digital music player, it will only cause more Internet pirated music resources.

Talking about these things, the private plane has arrived at the East Coast without knowing it.

The signing ceremony of the equity transfer was decided at 2 pm ET, which was close to one o'clock. The private jet did not fly to MacArthur Airport in central Long Island, but landed at JFK International Airport, which is very close to New York City.

Eric just got off the plane, Chris, John Mark and others greeted him, including several American online executives, including Steve Case, although the two sides almost completely tore their faces some time ago, but this When faced with Eric, AOL did not dare to ignore the etiquette.

After everyone chilled and left the airport together, Eric and Chris went to the Firefly Group to send a car, waiting for the car to run smoothly, remembering the expression that John Mark had invited him to his car and obviously had something to say. Chris said: "What happened to John?"

Chris glanced at the nearby BMW sedan and said: "He should want to explain it to you in advance. You are on the plane, I haven't had time to tell you. At noon's dinner, Philippe Pousse. Tell me that Morgan Stanley has confirmed that the 15% of AOL's stock is over 70% of the subscription amount. However, perhaps it is to invite, or there may be some other thoughts, John Mark has concealed these news from us. Philip Pussel should have forcibly intervened in this project. You know, Dean Witt is originally the main stock distribution retail business, and their resources and channels in this area are stronger than the original Morgan Stanley."

Eric is not very interested in Morgan Stanley's ceo and the president's fighting method. He just said: "You have to pay more attention to this side. If their infighting affects our interests, we need to be cautious in future cooperation. Something."

Chris nodded seriously and said, "I understand, yes, your side, the box office of "Midnight Ring" is really surprising."

The topic became easier, and Eric laughed: "This is really an accident. I didn't expect this horror film to be so successful."