Heads Up Hollywood

"The Hollywood Reporter": "The new Universal shines at the Golden Globes!"

"Time Magazine": "Twain created the box office and also created art! After the box office market, Twain once again dominated the awards season."

Complete Cinema: "Unbelievable, Three Films, Seven Stages, New Universal Is Dominating the Golden Globes!"

"Entertainment Weekly": "The competition is fierce, and New Universal is proud of all the heroes!"

"The Times": "Golden Globe Awards reject European film style? The masterpiece "The Pianist" runs Golden Globe Awards empty-handed."

Sohu Entertainment: "The 60th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was grandly opened in Los Angeles, and various high-profile awards were also announced one by one. "Chicago" won the Best Musical Comedy Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress Three awards, becoming the biggest winner. The Chinese film "Hero", which had been highly expected by domestic fans before, lost to the new work "Tell Her" by the famous Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar..."

"Ming Pao": "The mainland film "Hero" participated in the competition for the 60th Hero Award. Director Zhang and Mr. Jiang went to the United States respectively. Since all the leading actors in "Hero" have new film tasks, many leading actors including Mr. Unable to go to the Golden Globes. Mr. Jiang was the producer and distributor of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Although they didn’t win the Golden Globes for Best Foreign Language Film this time, they will aim for the Oscars!”

...

With the announcement of the winners of the Golden Globe Awards, New Universal shined throughout the awards season.

The three art films "New York Vice", "Chicago" and "The Hours" are almost invincible. Surprisingly, however, Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" fell out of the list.

In the past few years, every time there was a big harvest in the awards season, Tang En would hold the newspaper and hide quietly in the office or study by himself, reading the articles and secretly having fun.

Now, I am immune.

If it was Oscar, Twain might still be very interested.

The Golden Globes...had failed to arouse his interest.

After getting busy with the Golden Globe Awards, the next awards ceremony Twain will attend is the Grammys.

However, during this period, Tang En, Robert Iger, Andrew Mooney, Bob Chapek and others flew directly to Osaka.

Tourism and vacation business is the top priority of New Global!

In 1998, Universal Pictures, the Osaka City Government, Goldman Sachs Investment Bank and a number of Japanese companies jointly invested US$2 billion, and it took two and a half years to build the third Universal Studios in the world.

Its design is similar to Universal Studios Orlando, including the adventure areas transformed from classic movies such as the "Jurassic Park" area, "Terminator" area, "Jaws" area, and "Future Water World" area.

Now, the holding ratio of the entire Universal Studios is 41% for New Universal, 9% for the Osaka City Government, 40% for Goldman Sachs, and 10% for other Japanese-funded enterprises.

With the current financial strength of New Universal, it is very unrealistic to want to buy back all the shares of Universal Studios Osaka.

In the past year, the revenue of Universal Studios Osaka has exceeded 100 million US dollars, which is very promising.

If you want to buy back all the 59% of the shares controlled outside, you need to pay at least a 15%-20% premium, that is to say, you will need to spend at least 1.4 billion US dollars!

Tang En could get the money, but the cash flow was cut off.

Twain also plans to continue to increase investment in Universal Studios Osaka, and jointly invest another 300 million US dollars to expand a "Spider-Man's Amazing Adventure" park.

This time, Tang En mainly wants to take back the 10% of the shares controlled by the Japanese-funded enterprises, so that New Universal's controlling stake in Universal Studios Osaka will reach 51%.

Then you can sit back and relax and have absolute control.

Prior to this, Bob Chapek and the heads of the public relations department and the marketing department had negotiated with these six companies to take back the 10% equity at a price of 220 million US dollars.

As a result, the shareholders of Universal Studios Osaka are only New Universal, the Osaka City Government and Goldman Sachs Investment Bank, and it is easier to reach an agreement to strengthen further investment in the studio.

Because "Spider-Man" is the copyright of New Universal, regardless of the fact that New Universal holds 51% of the shares after the transaction is completed, in fact, it only needs to pay 120 million US dollars in cash, and let the Osaka City Government and Goldman Sachs invest 180 million US dollars to build a new one. The new "Spider-Man's Amazing Adventure Park".

Tang En had no intention of staying longer in Osaka. After completing the signing ceremony and having lunch with the presidents of several major companies, he wanted to return.

The rest of the negotiation work will be handed over to Robert Iger and the others.

But when he was leaving, Tang En was invited by Atsutoshi Nishida, an executive from Toshiba, to have a drink.

"Okamura is at the president's place?"

Tang En was a little strange.

Atsutoshi Nishida is the person in charge of Toshiba Group North America. He speaks English very fluently. He bowed his body and said politely: "President Okamura is not good at English, so he entrusted me to communicate with the husband."

Tang En nodded, "What are you talking about?"

"Sony."

Atsutoshi Nishida gave the answer bluntly.

Tang En understood it as soon as he heard it, and smiled, "Okay, let's go find a coffee shop outside. The environment is quieter. The hotel is too complicated."

Atsutoshi Nishida bowed deeply, expressing his sincere gratitude to Tang En for accepting the invitation.

The two found a quiet coffee shop on Dotonbori Street, where the clear and lazy Ono Lisa's music was playing, full of petty bourgeois sentiment.

Through the window, you can see the landmark "Poor Chi Taro" and the giant "Glico" signboard, which have local cultural characteristics.

Such a quiet environment is rare in the pace of life of the nouveau riche in the United States.

Unless it's in the top business club like Beverly Hills.

"What you want to talk about is the format standard of high-definition discs, right?" Tang En did not hide it, and raised the topic openly.

Atsutoshi Nishida was sitting upright, the coffee was placed in front of him, and he didn't even move, with both sides on his knees, like a samurai from the Meiji Restoration period, sitting upright.

Hearing Tang En's question, he immediately bowed, "That's right, Mr. Walker, I'm sorry to trouble you."

Tang En smiled and said: "There is nothing to be sorry about. Since it is a business cooperation, it means mutual assistance on an equal footing. Mr. Xitian, you don't have to be too cautious."

"Thank you Mr. Walker for your concern." Nishida Atsutoshi nodded again.

Tang En was speechless, so he just let him go, "When will your HD-DVD format be launched?"

Nishida Atsutoshi said: "The final test and online adjustment are in progress. It will definitely be launched to the market within this year."

Tang En's eyes lit up, "So fast? This is a good thing, at least one year ahead of Sony's Blu-ray, right?"

"That's right, Mr. Walker. HD-DVD is an upgraded high-definition format based on DVD technology, so there is no need to replace the existing production line, and only need to upgrade the production line equipment to produce HD-DVD. This is our biggest advantage."

"Oh? Where's the Blu-ray?"

"Blu-ray is a new disc medium newly developed by Sony. It is completely different from the DVD in the past. Therefore, Blu-ray is not only slow to develop, but after its launch, the entire production line will be replaced."

Tang En nodded without moving his expression.

How can there be such a good thing in the world?

If Blu-ray was so useless, would you still come to me?

It is true that the initial investment of Blu-ray is much larger than that of HD-DVD, but once the production equipment and R\u0026D technology are settled and mass-produced, the advantages of Blu-ray discs will be reflected, with larger capacity and lower cost!

Tang En didn't point it out, and followed his words, saying: "Well, if you launch it first, you can grab more market share first."

Nishida Atsutoshi said: "Sony owns Sony Pictures after all, they have more resources in Hollywood..."

"Wait! Isn't Microsoft going to buy MGM?" Dunn suddenly interrupted him.

Atsutoshi Nishida shook his head and said: "Microsoft has already withdrawn from the bidding after sending a team to investigate. They have no experience in managing film and television companies, and they don't think they can save MGM."

"Well, go ahead."

Tang En let out a sigh of relief.

Now, MGM is facing the bidding of the eight major companies, and it is the meat and potatoes in the market.

Unexpectedly, Microsoft withdrew so soon.

Atsutoshi Nishida said: "The launch of high-definition video discs is inseparable from content guarantee. In this regard, New Universal is the leader in Hollywood!"

Tang En waved his hand disapprovingly, and said: "It's not a leader, it's just that the box office performance in recent years has been good. In terms of film and television library, Warner Bros. is still the largest in the world. They have 6,500 movies in stock! Almost New Universal twice as much."

"Warner, we have already negotiated."

"What?"

Tang En's eyes widened at once.

The combination of Toshiba and Microsoft is really fast enough!

Got Warner Bros. so quickly?

Atsutoshi Nishida said unhurriedly: "Yes, we have reached an agreement with Warner. From 2004, Warner's film and television works will be exclusively produced in HD-DVD format when producing high-definition images."

Tang En's eyes narrowed into a line, "How long is the contract?"

Nishida Atsutoshi said, "Two years."

Tang En nodded slightly.

This should not be a lie.

This kind of agreement is impossible to sign a long-term contract.

"What conditions did you offer?"

"Cost price."

"More than that?"

If it is only the cost price, it is impossible to obtain the "exclusive right".

Besides, only Toshiba knows the real cost price.

The cost price of external publicity must have been processed.

Nishida Atsutoshi said: "For every HD-DVD sold, 50 cents will be returned to Warner."

Tang En's eyes jumped.

If he remembers correctly, last year, New Universal sold a total of 180 million DVD discs.

After the high-definition format is launched, among the 180 million DVDs, 20% are sold in HD-DVD, which can bring a subsidy of 18 million US dollars to New Universal.

To be honest, not much.

This kind of side payment (that is, additional subsidy) is too small compared to the Internet subsidy war that Tang En has seen.

"Mr. Walker, look..."

Atsutoshi Nishida looked at Tang En expectantly.

Tang En frowned and remained silent.

He is not satisfied with such conditions.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye, but found a strange man and woman sitting on the seat not far from the next door.

The man is in his forties, with big nose and small eyes, short, fat and wretched;

Especially in the winter in January, she was wearing a school uniform with a knee-length skirt underneath, revealing two smooth legs.

Tang En couldn't help opening his eyes.