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Among the six major Hollywood giants, Sony Entertainment is the weakest in terms of model and business.

According to traditional Hollywood thinking, investing in movies is very risky, which requires finding investors to share the risks together, that is, a platter investment plan.

But this is not enough. The more a company's performance is affected by box office performance, the more unstable its performance will be. Public companies especially don't like this.

In order to reduce the performance impact caused by the sudden rise and fall of movie box office, film companies have turned to TV giants in the past few years to reduce investment risks in the film business through the "movie content + TV channels" model.

But Sony is a foreign company, which is a bit troublesome, and its TV business is very restricted.

This also means that Sony Entertainment's ability to withstand pressure is not very strong, and it is living in a tight situation against the background of the economic crisis.

It just so happens that MSI Global is very similar to Sony Entertainment in terms of structure. The business structures of both parties are very weak, and with Masayoshi Son in the middle to support them, it is easy to promote the cooperation strategy of "alliance with Wu to resist Cao".

Zhou Buqi plans to start from this angle and ask Son Zhengyi for help to see if he can reach cooperation with Sony Entertainment in terms of copyright!

In the past life, after Disney acquired Marvel, it had a lot of money and began to buy back the copyrights of superhero characters that had been stranded in the past few years.

But the action was not fast enough.

Most of the equity was recovered, leaving "Spider-Man" in the hands of Sony Pictures and "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" in the hands of 20th Century Fox.

Then, "Iron Man 2" was released!

As soon as this film was released, it completely changed the market roles of DC and Marvel. Marvel became the most popular comic company, and the market voice became stronger and stronger.

Sony Pictures took notice and immediately started working on the "Spider-Man 4" project. Later, after some internal discussion, we felt that the reputation of "Spider-Man 3" released in 2007 was too poor and disappointed a large number of viewers. It would be a thankless effort to continue this series.

Why not restart the "Spider-Man" trilogy!

This idea was advanced, and Sony Pictures subsequently launched the "Amazing Spider-Man" trilogy.

It will take at least 6-8 years to finish filming this trilogy.

At that time, Marvel's "Avengers" series had already become popular all over the world and became the most popular superhero movie in history. It even changed the production concept of Hollywood movies in the past hundred years.

It will be very difficult to take back the cash cow of "Spider-Man".

However, difficulty does not mean impossible.

Under Disney's relentless pursuit, Sony Entertainment opened its mouth and said that it could redeem the copyright of "Spider-Man" for US$10 billion!

Of course Disney disagrees. They only spent $4.25 billion to acquire Marvel.

Later, Disney wanted to focus on the content industry under its streaming media transformation strategy, acquiring 20th Century Fox for US$71.4 billion, and finally successfully recovered the copyrights of "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four".

Zhou Buqi wanted to take this opportunity to see if he could get away with it once and for all.

Now, the market is turbulent, and Disney, under pressure from its stock price, has clarified that it has no intention of acquiring Marvel. But they are still in contact with Marvel privately.

If you want to compete with Disney and take Marvel into your own hands, the copyright of "Spider-Man" is the biggest attraction.

"Iron Man" is only a second-rate character in Marvel comics. The only Marvel superhero that is truly loved by American comic fans and can compete with "Superman" and "Batman" is "Spider-Man"!

For Marvel's board of directors, which is composed of cartoonists, the biggest expectation is to take back all the copyrights to "Spider-Man".

The next day, Zhou Buqi took his family out to sea and went to Catalina Island near Los Angeles.

The yacht was borrowed from Masayoshi Son.

Brand new!

It is more than 140 meters long. The design of the hull and interior decoration are full of simple and low-key Japanese aesthetics, but also luxurious and exquisite. It's just that the colors are a bit dull, not bright and lively enough, and the artistic atmosphere is very strong.

There are too many super-rich people in California. From time to time, super yachts go out to play, and tourists in this area are used to it.

Zhou Buqi was wearing shorts and lying on the deck chair, admiring the girls' graceful figures in bikinis while talking on the phone to Son Zhengyi.

"How's it going? Is it successful at MGM?"

"Soon."

"Damn! What do you mean it's fast? I finally got the creditor side, so don't make any mistakes on the equity side."

Zhou Buqi complained angrily.

Son Zhengyi laughed and said, "No, don't worry. It's just that the handling fee is a bit high."

The MGM deal is now mainly two-pronged.

First, MSI purchased all of MGM’s debt worth US$3.7 billion for US$2.65 billion. This matter has been settled. The next step is to force MGM to go bankrupt, reorganize, and complete a debt-for-equity swap.

If you really want to do this, it will be difficult.

It would be good to go through the entire process in a year or two.

There is another way, which is to deal directly with the equity parties and buy the negative assets in their hands - MGM shares at a price of 0 yuan. With the left hand holding the equity and the right hand holding the debt, MGM was completely in control.

This path is beneficial to all parties.

First of all, the process is simple and can be completed within 3 months.

In addition, the business consumption is low, and there is no need to spend too much money to hire investment banks, consultants, accountants and lawyers for services. The third is to be able to help MGM's shareholders produce a shining performance under the economic crisis.

Sony holds 20% of MGM's shares. Logically speaking, Sony will bear MGM's US$740 million in debt because of this 20% stake.

Of course I would be happy to be able to get rid of the burden without spending a penny.

What worries me is the greed of the capitalists. Seeing that Ziweixing Global has almost completed the MGM case, they want to rip it off and take advantage of it.

Sure enough, when he heard the handling fee, Zhou Buqi got a headache, "Handling fee? What kind of handling fee?"

Son Zhengyi coughed lightly, "It's the transaction fee for the equity transfer."

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "Don't you just have to spend a lot of money to convince MGM's shareholders if you come up with a clever name? Damn! I was worried that I would be ripped off. Did it really happen?"

Son Zhengyi said: "There are two hedge funds among the main shareholders of MGM, which is more troublesome to operate. But the cost is not big, it will not exceed 200 million US dollars."

"How can anyone do this kind of business?" Zhou Buqi seemed unhappy, "I was originally going on vacation on your yacht, but I'm not in the mood now."

Son comforted him, "It doesn't matter. I'll lend you the yacht for as long as you want. I've already ordered a new one, so there's no rush."

Zhou Buqi felt much better and sighed, "Then let's forget about it. Anyway, I only have one request. The total cost of MGM's case cannot exceed US$3 billion."

"It's not that much, it won't exceed 50 million U.S. dollars. It's mainly the handling fee." Son Zhengyi smiled, "By the way, I told you before that Sony Entertainment has a request and hopes that Purple Star Universal's DVD will be released. Be able to support their Blu-ray HD standard."

Zhou Buqi said angrily: "Obviously it was Ziweixing Global that helped them get rid of the debt burden, but the result is great. They have to give money and cooperate."

"Blu-ray DVD is indeed better than HD-DVD. I think we can agree to it and sign a three-year contract first. Sony will receive a large subsidy."

"Oh? Subsidy?"

"Yes, in the past few years, the Sony standard and the HD standard launched by Toshiba and Microsoft have been competing for the market, mainly relying on market subsidies. For example, Warner, their film and television works are promoted on Blu-ray DVD, and the annual subsidy for this business alone You can get more than $5 million with just one payment.”

"Oh..." Zhou Buqi curled his lips. After seeing the money-burning turmoil of the Internet, he felt that the annual subsidy of 5 million U.S. dollars was really not worth mentioning. "It doesn't matter whether you want the subsidy or not. It doesn't matter if you join the Blu-ray standard camp." Question. There is one thing you have to discuss in person. You tell them that Ziweixing Universal intends to acquire Marvel."

Sun Zhengyi didn’t quite understand, “What’s going on?”

Zhou Buqi hummed: "The most popular superhero in Marvel is Spider-Man, but Spider-Man's film and television rights are in the hands of Sony!"

"Uh...is this difficult?"

Masayoshi Son also knew about the "Spider-Man" movie series, which really opened an era and created a precedent for a superhero movie trilogy.

Zhou Buqi said firmly: "We must take back this copyright! Mr. Sun, this is not business, this is strategy!"

Son felt very embarrassed, "I don't think this can be done."

Zhou Buqi also knew that it was very difficult to accomplish this thing, but he couldn't show it and said lightly: "What can't be accomplished? The reputation of "Spider-Man 3" is over. They have given this brand to It’s ruined and it’s impossible to make a sequel. Besides, it’s an economic crisis now, and Sony can’t survive anymore, let alone Sony Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony? What they need now is cash flow to solve their difficulties!”

This was his casual mention, but what he didn't know was that this strategy hit the mark!

Sony Entertainment is short of money!

Indeed, we also made a fuss about the copyright of "Spider-Man".

In the previous life, after Disney successfully acquired Marvel in 2009, it successively took back the copyrights of superheroes such as Captain America, Thor, Humanoid, and Black Panther.

Spider-Man's offer was too high and the trip failed.

However, Sony Entertainment is also short of money, what should we do?

Sony Entertainment split the "Spider-Man film and television adaptation rights" rights. In 2009, it first sold the TV adaptation rights to Disney, and two years later sold all the product rights back to Marvel.

In other words, no matter how good the "Spider-Man" movie is, Spider-Man's toys and the proceeds from all derivative rights will belong to Disney.

Later, Sony licensed the copyright of "Spider-Man" to Marvel for free, and the two parties cooperated in the development. Marvel's team is responsible for developing the Spider-Man series of movies, with Sony taking 95% of the box office profits and Marvel taking 5%. However, all benefits generated from Spider-Man peripherals belong to Disney and Marvel.

Equity transactions in recent years due to the economic crisis have brought huge economic losses to Sony Entertainment.

But there is no way, a living person cannot let a bird suffocate to death!

They are short of money right now. Whoever gives money is the master!

The economic crisis is all about taking advantage.