Chapter 376: Go to World of Warcraft and invite me Luo Lai Buddha
Just like Eddie Redmayne with little freckles, after he was able to invite Stephen Hawking to the premiere of "The Theory of Everything" and make him burst into tears with his performance, he blocked the general public\'s selection rules, Isn\'t it just a joke?
When the highest honor in the industry is within reach, they don\'t think about it.
Only when you can\'t get it, you will be in a commotion.
When you can buy a Ferrari production line by leaning on the sofa and staring in a daze, you won’t be like those celebrities who take a photo when you pick up the car and tell everyone about it .
Because you know that you are rich, you don\'t care about these foreign things at all.
And those who don\'t know you are rich, what\'s the point of showing them now?
Different levels of worship cannot satisfy your vanity.
The class gap will only make you feel—
This should be.
...
After the celebration banquet of "Spider-Man 3", the twentieth century is also coming to an end.
With the arrival of 2001, various major events have come and gone.
First of all, on January 10, the US Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner.
Due to the bursting of the Internet bubble, this merger, which should have exceeded 160 billion, eventually shrank to 120 billion, but even so, Time Warner still did not stand out from the infighting.
Gerald Levine, former Time Warner chairman and chief executive officer, will be chief executive of the new company, while AOL founder Steve Skye will be chairman of the board, former president and chief operating officer of AOL. Robert Pittman and Dick Parsons, the former president of Time Warner, became the joint chief operating officers of the new company.
Judging from this distribution model, the leadership team of the original Time Warner will be dwarfed in the new company.
However, after the merger of AOL and Time Warner, Ted Turner, the largest shareholder of the original Time Warner, is still the largest shareholder of the new company. As the vice chairman of the board of directors, he gave all the support to the leadership of the original Time Warner .
That is, to support Time Warner in an orderly merger with America Online while ensuring revenue.
This also makes AOL Time Warner the most bizarre product in the history of company mergers.
Although the two groups have merged, the miscellaneous departments still operate independently. Time Warner\'s media and entertainment department refused to officially open to AOL, and AOL independently developed its own equity incentive plan. Replaces performance bonus cash awards other than Time Warner.
Behavior like this makes people inside and outside the industry puzzled like a monk.
Merge and merge, unity is the right way!
If you can’t even achieve business integration, but just combine the two into one on the brand, then...
What are you doing together?
Lonely?
The fierce internal struggle made everyone pessimistic about the future prospects of AOL Time Warner. At this time, no one thought that they would be able to complete the legendary triple play.
As a result, many private equity funds holding its stocks also sold off one after another, not wanting their performance to be affected by it.
While everyone felt that if the conflicts between the two sides could not be reconciled, a tragic war would break out in AOL Time Warner within a year, but Roland was quite satisfied with the situation.
If AOL Time Warner is monolithic, how can Google develop? How does DC still operate?
In Google\'s Internet business, most industries cannot bypass the patents held by AOL.
That\'s why Google spent a billion dollars on AOL to get around this problem.
DC\'s outsourcing is a deformed product of Time Warner\'s serious internal strife.
If there is no internal fighting, there will be no outsourcing, and there will be no situation where the DC movie universe is formed while creating independent movies.
So, the harder AOL Time Warner fights, the happier Roland will be.
Because these guys are trying their best to make as much profit as possible in the field they manage in order to keep their position, the eagerness to stretch the report and kick the competitors out is really pretty!
For this reason, tears of emotion flowed down the corner of his mouth unconsciously.
...
At the same time as America Online and Time Warner officially merged, on January 20, the inauguration ceremony of the Grand Commander was also officially held.
As the first inauguration ceremony of a grand commander in the 21st century, its scale is quite grand.
Morning prayer ceremony, parade to Capitol Hill, swearing-in of the deputy commander, swearing-in of the general commander, inauguration luncheon, inauguration parade, evening inauguration ball...the whole process will burn 50 million US dollars.
More than 300,000 people watched the ceremony, which made the security personnel miserable.
Of course, Zipperton did not refuse to hand over the rights like Wang Dong.
So, everything is fairly peaceful.
However, even if this matter was related to Roland, he had no intention of going to the scene. After donating a maximum of 250,000 US dollars to the other party\'s inauguration account to express his attitude, he turned around and began to deal with other things derived from it. .
With the rise of the second ancestor, Henry Rumsfeld also officially stepped down as the chairman of Gilead, and continued to hold shares in the company in his personal capacity. Because of his departure, the board of directors was also reorganized, and the position of chairman will be given by the founder. Take over again, and the vacant board seats will belong to Roland.
At the beginning, Roland wanted David to continue to be the leader, but considering that he had too many titles and miscellaneous companies were all related to him, Roland gave up this idea and screened around technology companies. , and finally reached a tacit agreement with Steve Jobs, who had the same interests, and invited the other party to serve as an independent director of Gilead Technology.
Independent directors are directors who are independent from the company\'s shareholders and do not hold positions in the company, and have no important business or professional contacts with the company\'s managers, and are able to make independent judgments on company affairs.
The meaning of existence is to prevent the controlling shareholder and management from conducting internal control on the company and harming the interests of the overall shareholders.
Although the original intention of this thing is good, but want the company owner to give up control of the company?
That\'s just nonsense!
Capital can separate itself from the management of the company as required by law.
But at the same time, they can also implant their trustees from other companies where they are needed.
Just like Warren Buffett kicked out Coca-Cola CEO Douglas Ivester in 1999, the final successor was himself. The acquisition of the beverage Quaker led to Pepsi Cola taking advantage of the vacancy. After realizing the rapid growth of the business, he was criticized and resigned, but the new successor was the Dow Chemical, which was invested by Warren Buffett. Coca-Cola was still under his control. .
So, independent directors have never been independent.
They will never be independent.
Because the meaning of these guys’ existence is to maintain the sustainable rule of capital.
As for the rhetoric on the surface, it is just to fool the public.
...
While Roland was resolving the issue of Gilead\'s board seat, on January 21, the Golden Globe Awards ceremony was officially held.
Roland, who has never participated in the Golden Globe Awards before, will not participate in the future, and the reason why he pays attention is to know whether the two brothers who control Miramax will still act as monsters.
Of course, there is a big difference between him now and himself ten years ago. He would rather read the company report at night than turn on the TV to watch the live broadcast. Greg and Julia Roberts competed for fame in order to maintain their status, and the new generation of actors Kate Hudson and Sarah Gellar posed for fame, but this kind of eyeball economy could no longer make him interested .
It is not because they are not beautiful, but because the price of obtaining this kind of beauty is too high and meaningless.
In this way, reading the news the next morning has become the first choice to save time.
Although Roland can no longer remember the list of winners in his previous life, he is extremely satisfied with the list that is not bad.
The Best Foreign Language Film went to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the best director went to Li An.
That fat man Harvey Weinstein gave a beep.
However, just as Roland was about to close the webpage after reading the results, another photo on the website caught his attention.
Take a closer look, isn\'t that brown-skinned mixed-race beauty the popular lover Jessica Alba in the ancient entertainment novel?
\'She was invited to the Golden Globe Awards? \'
Doubtful Roland checked her profile on IMDb.
After he found out that this guy was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series because of his role in James Cameron\'s "Dark Angel", he suddenly realized and turned off computer page.
Even if Jessica Alba is beautiful, he has no idea of cooperation.
Because Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and Jewish gang girls are enough for him.
Anne Hathaway will be regarded as a catwoman by him;
Charlize Theron has already starred in Phoenix Girl;
And the Jewish girls...
Their needs are the final project!
No way, the reality is so cruel in many cases.
Even if I think you are OK, I can only say NO to you.
Who will keep me by my side, and there are so many people of my own who need me to take care of?
As for the Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four?
Even if Kevin Feige really wants to prepare this movie in the future, Roland will not choose Jessica Alba.
In his opinion, even Hailee Steinfeld is more suitable than her.
Because of the latter, they are Jewish.
...
And after the Golden Globe Awards, February came quietly.
On the 8th, Disney California Adventure Park officially opened.
As the largest project established by Disney at the turn of the century, the sister park of Disneyland, this park with an average daily capacity of 33,000 people has attracted a lot of attention from the outside world as soon as it opened. The 29-hectare new paradise has four areas, 22 scenic spots, and 15 restaurants, which allow tourists to have fun while enjoying a homely resting service, and people\'s interest in it will become even greater .
However, with the opening of the park, when people enter the park and play for a day, they realize that they have been cheated!
Although Disney has always stated that Adventure Park is a continuation of Disneyland, there are no projects that attract children in this park. Instead, it is filled with a large number of prohibition signs and adult signs!
Not only that, there are more than 70 sales shops buried in the 22 scenic spots!
Such a dense sales group makes people uncomfortable, and the non-children\'s items laid out in large quantities make tourists feel cheated.
As a result, in the month of opening, the major media published articles criticizing them, feeling that Disney, which has been in operation for nearly a hundred years, has fallen into the eyes of money, lost its original intention, gradually deviated from the needs of the masses, and is no longer the fascinating fairy tale kingdom. .
Not only that, they also showed examples, and all the anchors said one after another—
“There is no way I could drop my kids off at Disneyland and go to Adventureland by myself!”
"I can\'t accept a store paradise with two steps and one booth, and three steps and one storefront!"
"The workmanship of Disney Adventure Park is really rough! In their Disneyland, there are barriers on the sides of each play scene, so that tourists will not be disturbed by the outside scenery while playing, but in Adventure Park, The surrounding radio towers and the Anaheim Convention Center are all visible! If it’s just these, then forget it! The most unacceptable thing for me is that even the nearby hotels can be seen at a glance!”
With such criticism, the passenger flow of Disney Adventure Park in the first month of its opening did not meet operating expectations.
The daily passenger flow of 9,000 at the peak and 5,000 at the bottom made Disney even more dumbfounded.
You know, before the park opened, they let go of their wild words, saying that Disney Adventure Park will definitely be operating at full capacity!
For this reason, the "Los Angeles Times" even called it "the most crowded paradise in the world!" \'
Can now...
The maximum daily passenger flow of this park is not even half of the full capacity operation?
This, this, this...
"What\'s going on!!!"
"Why is the number of visitors to the adventure park so far behind expectations?????"
Disney tyrant Michael Eisner is furious again!
Following his roar, everyone in the conference room of the Disney headquarters in Burbank could only lower their heads and dare not make a sound.
Because like the French Disneyland and Go.com, the plan of this Disney Adventure Park was also decided by the emperor himself. When everyone can’t make the decision, they can’t explain to him why people don’t like Adventure Park. ah!
But for their silence, of course they only got insults.
When Michael Eisner found out that this group of subordinates dared to isolate himself, he was so angry that he knocked on the table and slobbered the guys in charge of the project from top to bottom, from left to right, from outside to inside bath.
Finally, he said even more out of breath: "I don\'t care what you think now!
In short, you must solve this problem for me within a month!
If the traffic in the next month does not exceed 500,000!
Then you all get out! "
The pressure was so high that the guys present looked at each other in dismay.
Almost everyone thought he was crazy.
Because according to the objective development law of things, the performance of all amusement projects in the first month of opening is the current peak. Without the introduction of the old and the new, the passenger flow will only decline and will not rise.
If not, wouldn’t the amusement park become the most profitable business in the world?
Invest once, benefit for life!
So, in the case that the number of visitors to Disneyland Adventure Park did not reach 500,000 in the first month, there are actually only two ways to achieve the performance of 500,000 in the next month—
1. Interchange the brands of Disneyland and Disney Adventure Park;
2. Dreaming.
But after these guys expressed their thoughts very implicitly, Michael Eisner, who heard the connotation, was even more upset!
You guys dare to imply my decision?
Damn it!
After yelling at the guys present, he was so angry that he told everyone to get out!
When he returned to the office out of breath, Dick Cook, who had been waiting here for a long time, expressed his thoughts.
"Boss."
"Um?"
"I actually have an idea about the paradise."
"What? You have a way? Say it!"
“At the beginning, I was driving a small train in Disneyland, and I had contact with many tourists. According to my understanding of them, many times, they refused an amusement project because they didn’t know the fun of this project.
For example, the train I used to do is not an attractive project in any other park, but it is different in our Disneyland, because it is Mickey’s little train, Goofy’s little train .
Although the project has not changed, but because of the existence of Mickey and Goofy, the children like to play.
It’s the same now. Although we opened Disney Adventure Park, tourists don’t know about many projects in it!
A pirate ship going around is not attractive to tourists at all, because this project can also be played in Six Flags Park.
But what if we add some special meaning to this pirate ship?
Like Mickey\'s pirate ship?
The situation is different!
But Mickey, cannot appear in the adventure park.
Because that\'s a brand for kids and Corsair is an adult program.
So, I think, if we want to change the status quo, the best way to do it is to advertise adult programs.
Just like what Mr. Walt Disney did before, use movies to advertise.
Write a story for these projects, make up a compelling story, let everyone know that this project is only available to us at Disney, so that people will naturally choose our adventure park.
And now, in Hollywood, didn’t the best advertiser sign a cooperation agreement with us? "
When Dick Cook clearly explained his thoughts, Michael Eisner\'s eyes lit up with fire!
"Yes! Advertising!"
"Hurry up, hurry up! Go to Warcraft Film and Television, and invite Luo Lai Buddha over here!"
Note: ① Ted Turner has always been the largest shareholder of Time Warner. His existence has played a decisive role in the operation of Time Warner. He was the one who promoted the merger of Time Warner and AOL. He found that the momentum was not right and called an emergency stop The one who stopped the loss was also the one who rejected Murdoch\'s 80 billion acquisition, and now CNN is even more anti-Jianguo. As for why he opposes Jianguo, it is because FOX supports Jianguo, but he and Murdoch are deadly enemies. When the two were both yachting in 1983, the yacht they sponsored collided in a race in Sydney, causing the team supported by Turner to lose. That night, Turner lashed out at Murdoch. Even like Jianguo\'s violent temper, he sent a letter of war to Murdoch and wanted to beat him up in the boxing ring in Las Vegas. ② There are too many people who use independent directors to control the company. Steve Jobs, the largest individual shareholder of Disney, also invited Disney Chairman Robert Iger to be an independent director of Apple. The essence is to strengthen his control over the company. ③The reason why Disney came up with the idea of making a movie to attract traffic to the park project is because the adventure park suffered too badly. Disneyland received 12.3 million visitors in 2001, but Adventureland only had 5 million visitors, and people were still opposed to adult projects in Disneyland at that time, so movie promotion was urgently put on the agenda. Even if Michael Eisner doesn\'t like Jeffrey Katzenberg very much now, he can only go to them for help now, and it was this decision that won "Pirates of the Caribbean" by accident.
(end of this chapter)