Heads Up Hollywood

With Vivendi's vice chairman of the board of directors and director Arnold resigned from the board of directors, Messier lost his biggest backer in the board of directors.

But Messier clearly refused to admit defeat.

He is also a business genius. At the age of 28, he was an official of the French Ministry of Finance. At the age of 30, he became the personal adviser to the Minister of Finance. At the age of 33, he founded his own bank. di.

Over the years, under the management of Messier, Vivendi has enjoyed great success. It not only maintains the company's advantages in water supply and environmental protection, but also enters several sunrise industries such as telecommunications, Internet, entertainment and media.

In the past two years, Jean Messier's name has often appeared on the headlines of French business newspapers. His fame and popularity rival that of Tang En's in the entertainment section.

Among the various economic awards in France, Messier has also won many awards.

It can be said that Vivendi can have today's fame, strength and international status, all thanks to Messier.

Now, just a little more in debt, Vivendi encountered a little trouble, let him resign?

Of course he is not reconciled!

It is conceivable that even without Arnold's support, Messier will definitely launch a final counterattack at Vivendi.

It's a pity...he's just a manager.

To put it bluntly, he is a wage earner!

The bosses disagreed, and no matter how ambitious he was, it was useless.

These days, Tang En has received many calls from friends, either shareholders of Vivendi, or people related to Vivendi directors, all of whom have revealed a piece of news to him - within half a month, Messier Class must be dismissed!

This time, Tang En's hanging heart was relieved.

He had originally canceled attending the premiere of "Pirate League: The Curse of the Black Pearl," but now he's in a good mood and wants to attend again.

"Pirate Alliance: The Curse of the Black Pearl" will be officially released on July 5.

But because this is an imax blockbuster and the first imax movie in Hollywood, not to mention movie fans, even filmmakers and media people have never seen it.

It is necessary to hold a premiere in advance and invite some important filmmakers, critics, and media people to participate and witness this grand moment.

Then set aside a few days for film critics and media people to write articles and promote it, and the media will ferment it to give a wave of free publicity for the imax film.

The premiere will be held on July 1st.

The location is an imax theater in Los Angeles. Because usually this theater only plays some documentaries, experimental films and astronomical images, and the usual audience is very small.

But this time, there are 200 seats, and there are no empty seats.

Not even close enough.

It was, after all, the first IMAX film ever made, and Universal's pre-promotional pitches were provocative, claiming that it was the future of Hollywood movies, a new technology to draw audiences to movie theaters.

The emergence of DMR conversion technology must be a new trend in Hollywood!

Under this powerful influence, the imax theater, which is more than twice the size of an ordinary theater, does not even have extra seats for movie fans.

Hollywood filmmakers and media commentators have squeezed their heads to witness this moment.

In the past, the organizers had to invite the guests present at the premiere with favors and hospitality, and sometimes they even had to pay a certain fee.

But "Pirate Alliance: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is completely different.

Someone begged the organizer to participate!

Such a special premiere is also the first time for Centennial Universal.

So much so that this premiere was like an internal screening, because the scene... was all guests, and movie fans had no chance to enter.

Of course, the executives of Universal Pictures have also recognized the reality. The guests are scrambling for the first place, not because of Universal's face, but because of Twain!

The premiere ceremony was relatively traditional, including Dunn Walker, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway and many other main creators, all came to the stage and bowed to express their satisfaction. Thanks to the guests for coming.

This part is weird.

grateful?

To thank, it should also be the guests present who thank Tang Encai, otherwise they would not have had the opportunity to enter the venue to witness this historical moment.

Afterwards, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp made brief speeches. The supporting actor Tom Hardy and the leading actress Anne Hathaway were not enough, and they had no more than three speech opportunities.

They want to make time for the important person in the premiere ceremony - Twain.

He is going to make an important speech.

Tang En looked at Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Roland Emmerich, Ann Lee, Robert Jimizes, John Wu, Sam Mendes in the first row , Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Nicolas Cage and other Hollywood heavyweight directors and actors smiled.

"It's a great honor to meet so many familiar faces. There are producers, directors, actors, critics and media reporters. Thank you for coming to the premiere of "Pirate League: The Curse of the Black Pearl" Li. I believe many people have also noticed that we have many big-name directors and big-name stars here, star-studded, and there are hundreds of media outside."

"However, the particularity of this premiere does not lie in the stars and the media. Our focus is on movies! All the people here are workers in the film industry, and they must also be full of love for movies. From the first silent film to the later Movies with sound; from the first black-and-white movies to the later color movies, movies have gone through more than a hundred years."

"In the 1930s, there were 120 million people in North America, but the weekly movie ticket sales exceeded 40 million. But now, North America has a population of 350 million. In 2001, only 1.48 billion movie tickets were sold. The population has increased. 3 times, but the sales of movie tickets have dropped by nearly 50%. Of course, there are many reasons. In the past, there was no TV, no game consoles, and movies were almost the only entertainment.”

"However, this cannot obliterate the fact that the audience is moving away from the cinema! Why? Is our film getting worse? As a film worker, I don't think so! The 21st century is here, and we are in the middle of the film industry. A most beautiful era! We have high-end computer technology, we have more shooting budgets, we can absorb the best film talents in the world, we can shoot in any corner of the world, this is Hollywood back then, Things you can't even think about."

Speaking of this, Tang En paused for a moment, looked around for a week, and found that everyone was listening seriously, especially the guests in the first row, with particularly serious expressions.

"The development of movies is inseparable from movie fans. Those of us who love movies must not only produce good-looking movies, but also find ways to bring movie fans back to movie theaters! Piracy cannot destroy movies, and television cannot destroy movies. Games can't beat movies! Movies must keep pace with the times, and there must be a film revolution from black and white to color films!"

"Presumably everyone already knows the answer I want to say. That's right, it is an imax movie! Imax has launched DMR conversion technology, which is the main direction of commercial movies in the future. The super-large screen and shocking sound will bring unique Different viewing experience. Old-fashioned movie theaters should go into history, and imax theaters and imax movies are the direction of the future.”

""Pirate Alliance: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is the first imax blockbuster. It is a great honor to witness such an epoch-making historical moment for Hollywood with you. Of course, I also thank Director Tim Burton and Thanks to the hard work of the actors in the past two years, it is your hard work that makes today's full house full of guests."

"Now, I announce that the movie...starts!"

...

Twain sat between Steve Spielberg and George Lucas. They have been working on the promotion of new technology in Hollywood movies for so many years.

Although this process was criticized by a group of old directors including Francis Coppola and Milos Forman, it still persisted.

In this respect, they have made a great contribution to Hollywood.

"What about the cost of the DMR technology?" George Lucas seemed unaffected by the poor box office of "Star Wars Episode 2" and was full of interest in imax.

Tang En looked at the opening title of Universal Pictures on the big screen and said with a smile, "It's not that much, maybe two to three million dollars."

George Lucas frowned, "What about the copy?"

"Each copy is about... $50,000." Tang En responded.

After hearing this, George Lucas shook his head again and again, "It's not easy to promote this imax movie!"

For a normal copy, about $3,000 should be enough.

But the price of an imax copy is as high as $50,000, which is a lot of money.

There are 75 imax theaters in the United States, and the cost of conversion and copying alone costs 6 million US dollars!

With such a large expenditure, relying on these 75 imax theaters, can selling movie tickets recover the cost?

Tang En looked calm, and said lightly: "To be honest, I really don't care whether I will make money or not. What I value is the potential and the promotion of the movie. Furthermore, even if the expenditure is high, it may not be impossible make money."

"Oh?" George Lucas was interested.

Tang En said: "The current copies are all film copies, mainly because the imax digital projector has not yet been produced. When the imax digital projector is launched on the market next year, digital copies can be made. At that time, the cost of copying will drop sharply, maybe... …will not exceed $200 per serving.”

George Lucas nodded, "Digital technology is the direction of the future. "Star Wars Episode 2" was shot with a digital camera, but... hey."

Tang En was a little amused, so he quickly held back and said, "And the ticket prices of imax theaters must be higher, which will help increase the box office of the movie."

George Lucas gave him a deep look, with a strange tone, "Isn't the share high?"

Tang En smiled slightly, "The movie has started, let's watch the movie!"

He didn't want to answer this question.

It's just nonsense.

Without benefits, there is no progress.

For the box office in North America, the producers and distributors can get about 53% of the box office share. If it is an imax theater without a one-time equipment buyout, imax can still get 7%-10% of the box office.

In other words, Tang En Pictures' box office share will exceed 60%!

No wonder George Lucas was so weird.