Hollywood Road - Chapter 711

“I just got news this morning…”

Seeing Murphy sitting on the sofa, Bill Rossis succinctly said, “At the meeting of Sony Entertainment’s senior management, many people once again revisited the plan to spin off Sony Columbia Pictures and package it for sale.”

Murphy nodded. Since the first news of Sony Columbia Pictures’ divestiture and sale, he has kept people staring at Sony Entertainment. Naturally, he also got this information, and combined with Sony Columbia Pictures and the entire Sony Group. Circumstances, he is also ready to make a decision to try to acquire Columbia Pictures.

Therefore, Murphy directly said to Bill Rossis, “I am going to acquire Sony Columbia Pictures.”

Bill Rossis knew Murphy’s plan for a long time, and was not surprised.

“What do I need to do?” he asked.

Now Murphy and Stanton’s party members are his most important customers. Without the support of these people, his position as a partner in CAA is also unstable.

“Of course.” Murphy is not at all polite from Bill Rossis. “Bill, I need you to convince the CAA partners to let CAA fully assist me in completing this acquisition.”

Although so many years of directing career and film investment have accumulated a lot of net worth, and various assets are worth billions of dollars, but it is definitely a thing to acquire one of the six traditional Hollywood companies such as Columbia Pictures. Very difficult thing.

This kind of acquisition involving billions of dollars in assets is not about my payment and your agreement. Both parties simply say a few words, and then they will be done with a single shot of the forehead.

It’s either a fantasy, a child’s play, or a group of neuroses…

Not to mention anything else, financing alone is quite troublesome.

Murphy is not prepared to complete the acquisition as a sole proprietorship. The fool will pour all his funds into a project and develop to his current level. Of course, the funds cannot be placed on a project, just like all the money in this country. Like acquisitions, financing or loan is the most reasonable way.

Even if Shanghai Disneyland uses future ticket income as collateral to obtain a loan, if it really reaches an agreement with Sony Entertainment, he can use the film copyright in the Columbia Pictures Film Library as collateral to finance.

Of course, you can also bring in several promising partners.

Although this may be troublesome, in the business circle, it is the most normal situation to confuse me, and he is not afraid of these at all.

As for choosing CAA, on the one hand, he is now the number one customer in CAA, and the two parties have cooperated for more than ten years. As long as the interests are the same, CAA will definitely launch the momentum to help him complete the acquisition; on the other hand, CAA has experience in this area. Entertainment acquired Columbia Pictures, and it was the CAA created by Michael Ovitz who facilitated the deal.

Although Michael Ovitz is no longer there, the strength of CAA is only stronger than that of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Murphy thought about this, and Bill Rossis, one of the CAA partners, also knew that he thought about it for a moment, then nodded and said, “No problem, I can take your words directly to the CAA partner meeting. on.”

“That’s good.” Murphy is very clear about the truth. The purpose of business cooperation is profit, so he added, “If CAA can assist Stanton Studios in acquiring Sony Columbia Pictures at a reasonable price, I will come up with this deal. Three percent of the quota is used as CAA’s remuneration.”

“Three percent?” Bill Roses’ eyes widened immediately. Even if the situation is not good for Sony Columbia Pictures, the purchase price cannot fall by five billion US dollars.

This 3% can be worth more than half of CAA’s profits.

“In this case…” Bill Rossis was very confident and said to Murphy, “I am 90% sure to persuade the company to participate in this acquisition.”

Murphy nodded slightly. The commercial company is not a charity. If you want horses to run, they naturally have to graze them.

The two exchanged opinions again. After all, the acquisition is not a trivial matter. This is only the most preliminary intention. If the Stanton Studio really wants to cooperate with CAA, there are still a lot of things that need to be negotiated slowly.

After chatting for a while, Bill Rossis reminded Murphy, “Although Sony Columbia Pictures is not doing well these days, the foundation is still there. You must be prepared to fail.”

“I know.” Murphy certainly understands the reason why he wants to buy but not necessarily wants to sell.

Even if Sony Columbia Pictures is in a bad situation, there are voices from Sony Entertainment and Sony Group that want to sell Sony Columbia Pictures, but the sale of Sony Columbia Pictures did not happen when he used to.

But Murphy also knows that if he wants to win Sony Columbia Pictures, now is the best opportunity.

In the past two years, Sony Columbia Pictures has invested heavily in the production and distribution of films. Except for “The Amazing Spider-Man”, the revenue is not bad. Most of the other films are facing losses. The projects that can recover the cost only occupy a relatively small amount. proportion.

If it hadn’t been for a considerable part of the cost of these films to come from multiple sources of financing, and the magic weapon of “Spiderman” was once again offered to extend their lives, Sony Columbia Pictures would have long been unable to sustain it.

However, when the potential of life-saving magic weapon is always exhausted, the “Spider-Man” series can save Sony Columbia Pictures once, twice, three times… but it cannot be saved forever.

This summer, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” was released in North America. The production cost of the film alone was as high as 230 million US dollars. It can be said that Sony Columbia Pictures has high hopes for this film and hopes to reproduce “Spider-Man 2”. The brilliance.

But many things will not develop according to people’s expectations, and movies that have invested heavily in movies may not have good results.

Up to now, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” has already been in decline in North America. The North American box office has accumulated a little more than 200 million U.S. dollars, which is far from the North American box office expected of Sony Columbia Pictures 350 million U.S. dollars.

Such a result must be something Sony Columbia Pictures does not want to see.

Although the film’s overseas box office is not bad, the global box office is now close to 700 million U.S. dollars, but this simply does not make the seniors of Sony Columbia Pictures laugh.

The huge production cost of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” plus the huge investment in publicity and distribution costs, even if the global box office exceeds 700 million U.S. dollars, it may be difficult to pay back.

What makes them even more crazy is that countless Spider-Man fans are very angry at the death of Gwen Stacey in the film. Coupled with word of mouth and other disadvantages, the sales of the film’s peripheral products are extremely poor. The income is extremely limited, and a considerable part of this limited income is still owned by Marvel Comics, the creator of Spider-Man.

According to the news that Murphy received, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is far from a successful performance. Although it will not bankrupt Sony Columbia Pictures, it has also led to an abnormally tight capital chain, and it may break at some point.

Therefore, the voice of stripping and shooting Sony Columbia Pictures appeared again within Sony.

In fact, when Murphy lived on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Sony Columbia Pictures had a similar situation, but Sony Columbia Pictures finally survived by virtue of being the six major Hollywood companies.

Murphy’s eyes are not only on Sony Columbia Pictures, but also Sony Electronics and Sony Entertainment.

Needless to say, this is Sony’s core business. However, in recent years, it has been struggling to develop. Many departments have been poorly managed and have been stripped and sold by Sony’s management; Sony Entertainment’s situation is not much better. Many subsidiaries of the Entertainment Group, except Sony Records which can bring relatively stable profits each year, other companies such as Sony Columbia Pictures have successively suffered losses.

Of course, from a certain level, the Sony Group is very strong, and there are even more powerful consortia behind it, but anyone who has a little understanding of business knows that companies like Sony Entertainment or Sony Columbia Pictures are financially Separately, when they acquired these companies to make profits, when these companies cannot generate profits, but will drag the group companies, the best way is to divest them and then sell them.

This is why Sony Entertainment plans to spin off and sell Sony Columbia Pictures.

Presumably in the eyes of many Sony executives, Sony Columbia Pictures, which has ranked last among the six major Hollywood studios for years, is not only not a profitable weapon, but a drag on them.

However, as Bill Rossis said, even if Sony Entertainment wants to sell, completing the acquisition of Sony Columbia Pictures is a huge, time-consuming and labor-intensive project.

Because there are also people who don’t want to sell Sony Columbia Pictures. After all, Sony Columbia Pictures still holds a huge film library. As long as this film library is still there, Sony Columbia Pictures has great value.

These are the troubles facing Murphy and Stanton Studios, but also the problems that must be faced squarely. Such an acquisition is not because he wants to buy. If he throws enough funds, Sony Entertainment will obediently hand over Sony Columbia Pictures. from.

Sony Columbia Pictures has not yet reached the point of nowhere to go.

Murphy knows this very well. As long as there is a large-scale commercial film that can sell superbly, Sony Columbia Pictures will inevitably get rid of this decline temporarily and re-establish confidence in the film market.

Is there such an opportunity? According to Murphy’s investigation, there are not only such opportunities, but Sony Columbia Pictures is still acting in order to seize the opportunity and be able to stand up.

It’s not just Murphy who thinks so, but Bill Rossis does the same.

“One more thing, I want to remind you.”

In the office, Bill Rossis said to Murphy seriously, “Sony Columbia Pictures is contacting Marvel Pictures and wants to get Peter Parker back to the Avengers!”

“I know.” Of course Murphy remembers these things. “I’m already working on it.”