Chapter 1059: Turbulent beginning

Compared with live-action movies, the profitability of animated feature films is more amazing, especially "Cars."

This animated feature film was released from North American theaters in mid-September, and the North American box office finally stopped at a figure of 285.97 million US dollars.

But as of the time the film was released and the DVD went on sale, the total offline revenue of "Cars" was close to 500 million U.S. dollars.

On the global market, there is still a huge gap between online and offline income.

The global gross box office of "Cars", which is currently being screened overseas, is 489.52 million U.S. dollars, but the total offline revenue exceeds 1 billion U.S. dollars.

"Cars" has also become the single most profitable movie project of Relativity Entertainment so far in 2007.

If nothing else, there will be no surpassers in the movies later this year.

Of course, to have such a box office income, Relativity Entertainment has also invested heavily in "Cars."

In contrast, "Ratuitou" and "Robot Walli" released in Pixar's holiday file, Relativity Entertainment's investment in publicity and distribution is much lower.

Especially the latter, the relatively high plot content and the lack of a role in the design of derivatives that have become a hot spot in the market, excessive investment is undoubtedly very stupid.

In the movie market, classics are often not equated with commercial revenue.

Frankly speaking, Ronan likes "Robot Walle" very much. If he chooses according to his personal wishes, he would rather watch "Robot Walle" ten times than watch "Cars Walle" more than once.

From the point of view of movie fans, if "Robot Walli" is worth 9 points, "Cars" is 7 points at most.

The problem is that this kind of large-scale commercial project with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be based on personal hobbies.

If it weren't for the Pixar studio, the "Robot Walle" has been established and a considerable amount of money has been invested; if it is not for the management of Pixar studios...

Ronan may directly cancel the "Robot Walli" project.

Fortunately, he focused on controlling the scale of investment, and there will be no sequel to this film.

The Shahai Entertainment Animation Studio under the charge of Chris Leonard has developed smoothly. With the great success of the "Minions" series and "Kung Fu Panda" successively, the scale of the animation studio is also expanding in an orderly manner, and now it has Simultaneously expand the ability to produce three or even four animated feature films.

"Despicable Me 2", "Crazy Primitives" and "How to Tame Your Dragon" are animated feature film projects officially produced by Shahai Entertainment Animation Studio. "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Little Yellow Man 2" are also being developed preliminary work.

In addition, an animated feature film project about singing talent and a pet world project inspired by the toy world of "Toy Story" are also in early preparations.

As for "Peppa Pig", the annual one is never late, and Pink Pig will never grow up.

Compared with the mature Pixar Studios and Shahai Entertainment Animation Studios, the development of Princess Animation Studios is much slower, and it is still suffering for the first animated feature film.

In mid-September, Ronan participated in a joint meeting between Princess Animation Studios and the distributor Embassy Pictures, focusing on the production and distribution of the animated feature film "Frozen" that is currently in production.

Princess Animation Studio took out a sample, and there are multiple models of the two heroines Anna and Elsa.

Ronan vetoed several styles, on the grounds that they were not beautiful enough, especially the skirts.

In addition, he also asked the Embassy Pictures to do a good job in the peripheral distribution of the film, referring "Frozen" to the same level as "Alice in Wonderland" and "Beauty and the Beast".

After receiving the strong support of Pixar Studio, the production speed of Princess Studio on "Frozen" is very fast. The theme framework of the film has been set up, but the remaining work such as rendering is extremely time-consuming.

Through the previous animation short films, these professionals from the Disney Animation Studios basically reversed their minds and made the most complete transformation while making "Frozen". Not only did the princess not be with the prince, the prince also It may be bad guys.

This setting is quite critical and involves the promotion and distribution of Embassy Pictures.

The setting of "Frozen" caters to the current female equality movement in the United States to a certain extent, giving a simple fairy tale a seemingly serious core.

To some extent, this is very likely to open up the adult female market for relativistic entertainment and directly expand the consumer population of IP.

In fact, Elsa is not like an old princess, with a clear calm, brave, alone and beautiful modern female style.

These are all invisibly getting rid of the inferior label for the "Frozen" series, and naturally they have more purchasing power and possibility of derivation.

Currently, Princess Animation Studio only has this project. Ronan is already doing some text preparations for "Zoo City" and "Sea Princess", as well as "The Six Heroes", which is also "Big Hero 6".

This will not be on the schedule until after "Frozen" is completed.

In the next few years, Relativity Entertainment will usher in an explosive period for animated feature films alone. Although it cannot be expected that every feature animation film will be "Cars", the total value of these projects can reach at least tens of billions of dollars. level.

A huge entertainment media empire is growing.

In September, Relativity Entertainment's movies were launched as planned. Today, Shahai Entertainment's movies are entirely based on sequels and adaptations, and the proportion of original types has been very low.

is no exception this time, not only a sequel, but also adaptations from other popular movies.

Similar to the "Scream" series, "Reaper is gone" came to the second part, with "Reaper here" as the guarantee and foundation. This spoof series still has no shortage of market. The second North America has nearly 25 million in the first week. Compared with the production investment of almost the same scale, the dollar input has been regarded as a very successful business feedback.

With the passage of time, the trend of turmoil in Hollywood has become more and more obvious.

First of all, companies that have close business relationships with financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers are beginning to have difficulty in raising funds through Lehman Brothers and others.

Several Hollywood companies such as Twentieth Century Fox.

As early as a few years ago, Lehman Brothers started cooperation with Hollywood and once went to Relativity Entertainment, but Ronan politely rejected Lehman Brothers' seemingly sincere and kind investment.

On the one hand, Relativity Entertainment was busy responding to the aggressiveness of Paramount Pictures and the listing of Netflix with Goldman Sachs, so there was not so much time and energy to struggle with Lehman Brothers.

On the other hand, Ronan remembers that Lehman Brothers did not end well, so naturally he would not plunge headlong into this quagmire.

However, Lehman Brothers also adopted the strategy of casting the net at that time. While contacting Relativity Entertainment, it was also discussing cooperation with some companies including Twentieth Century Fox.

Lehman Brothers first provided a loan for the establishment of Fox Online for 20th Century Fox, with the amount of up to one billion US dollars.

With a successful start, Twentieth Century Fox has cooperated with Lehman Brothers in many places and provided huge financial support for Twentieth Century Fox. Not only has it become Hollywood, including Twentieth Century Fox, like many large financial institutions. Creditors of many companies have gradually changed their identities and become true investors.

Hollywood has long cooperated with Wall Street, and Wall Street funds have also entered Hollywood through various channels.

Just like Walt Disney at the time, many investment institutions on Wall Street also hold equity in 20th Century Fox. Lehman Brothers has the most equity in Wall Street because of its close cooperation with 20th Century Fox.

In addition, in the usual way of operation on Wall Street, the loans that are released can not only earn income through interest.

Like one of the many inducing factors of the upcoming brokerage crisis, Wall Street can spend money on loans and bonds.

Lehman Brothers has encountered some financial troubles. It is troublesome to obtain loans, and it takes time. Some companies cannot repay their loans for the time being, and they have to go through auctions, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Inspired by the real estate loan bonds and insurance launched by the financial industry, they plan to package their loan claims into bonds and sell them to a third party to raise the necessary huge cash flow.

Of course, a closer partner like Twentieth Century Fox is placed at the end of the plan.

Through the relationship with Goldman Sachs and other partners through multiple channels ~ www.novelhall.com ~ Relativity Entertainment has also received relevant news, and Robert Iger has been keeping a close watch.

In the past, Wall Street funding changed Hollywood.

Nowadays, the changes on Wall Street are also deeply affecting Hollywood.

Seemingly normal Wall Street, once there is an accident, Hollywood will inevitably change accordingly.

In addition to the financial impact, another turbulent trend in Hollywood is that the first negotiations between the producer union and trade union organizations headed by the directors’ union, actors’ union and screenwriter’s union ended in a breakdown.

The trade union organization put forward conditions that the producer union cannot accept at all, and generally demanded to share nearly half of the revenue from DVD and new online media channels.

For the management, this condition is simply crazy.

Even Ronan, who was ready to make appropriate concessions at the right time, didn't know what to say when he got the news.

The news that the initial negotiations between the Producers Union and the three major trade unions broke down was immediately disclosed by the media, and the conflict between labor and management became public.

The three major trade unions clung to each other. In an interview, their respective directors claimed that if their rights and interests cannot be protected, the possibility of a strike will not be ruled out.

This is putting pressure on the producer league.

The contradiction between labor and management seems to continue to expand.

In this context, the Producers Alliance convened a meeting of core members to discuss specific strategies.

This conference is very high-end, and only the bosses or CEOs of large and medium-sized companies participate.