Chapter 1368: The Overall Situation Has Been Decided

In the fourth week of release, "LA Confidential" faced the pressure of "Jurassic Park 3", and the single-week decline was still controlled at 43%, earning 8.89 million US dollars.

Obviously, this is actually due to the fact that the box office of "LA Confidential" itself is already very small. Facing the 160 million Big Mac in the first week, the box office is less than 10 million, which has nothing to do with the overall situation.

However, for "LA Confidential" itself, in four weeks, the cumulative box office was 86.01 million U.S. dollars, and it is basically certain that it can enter the 100 million box office club from the initial forecast of 50 million to 100 million U.S. dollars.

With a cost of US$35 million, an announcement of US$15 million, and a local box office of more than 100 million, "LA Confidential" directly entered the profit cycle.

Considering the classic word-of-mouth rating of the film itself which exceeds 9 points, "LA Confidential" will obviously do something in the awards season next year, which also predestined that the film's follow-up videotape and TV channel distribution will be more lucrative and long-term, Rather than being like ordinary popcorn movies, after the theater stage, the follow-up is often weak.

In stark contrast to "LA Confidential" is "2013 Ultimate Postman" produced by Sony Pictures.

In the second week after its release, "2013 Ultimate Postman" fell by 53%. Considering the crushing of "Jurassic Park 3", it does not seem to be terrible.

The problem, however, is that the film opened its first week with just $21.19 million.

The drop reached 53% in the next week, and the single-week income immediately fell within the range of 10 million, leaving only 9.95 million US dollars, and the cumulative box office for the two weeks was 31.14 million US dollars.

The cost of 75 million US dollars, including the quite conservative 25 million publicity, the production cost of "2013 Ultimate Postman" also reached 100 million US dollars.

Now, it’s $31.14 million in two weeks. According to the current box office trend, the possibility of 50 million in the local market is very low. Even if it’s not a complete box office fiasco, such a loss is enough to make people hurt.

Not only that, whether it is the budget overrun in the production stage of the film, or the schedule being directly bet on a week before a giant like "Jurassic Park 3", Sony executives in Japan once again felt that Columbia was completely out of control a few years ago of frustration.

In the 1990s, Sony announced more than once that it would withdraw from Hollywood, but at the same time as the financial turmoil in 1997, Sony Pictures just produced "Men in Black", "Air Force One" and "As Good as It Gets" that year. The series of the top ten blockbuster films of the year gave the faltering Sony film business back a mouthful of blood, and it survived the economic crisis instead of fleeing like Panasonic.

This time, Sony has no such good luck.

Los Angeles.

Sony Pictures headquarters in Culver City on Friday, June 12.

On the last day of the working day, it was still breakfast time. Chris Lee, the president of Columbia Pictures, received a notice asking him to rush to the company as soon as possible in the morning. He had a premonition in advance. Stringer, Chris Lee is no surprise.

It is inevitable that there will be some apprehension.

Following Simon Westero's hints and making this series of small actions, Chris Lee was worried that he would be kicked out of the house directly. However, think about Peter who almost tossed Columbia to the end and still retreated with a generous salary. Cooper and Jon Peters, these small actions by themselves are actually nothing.

What's more, there is still a contract, and it is impossible for Sony to show evidence that he deliberately made small moves, and if he terminates the contract rashly, he can get a fairly generous compensation.

Not only that, through some private operations, Chris Lee also transferred the "Air Force One" project that Simon Westero and he mentioned last year out of Sony. If he really wants to leave, he can do it seamlessly As a freelance producer, Simon Westeros would not be stingy with compensating him for this.

A conference room at Sony Studios.

When he heard Howard Stringer asked this side to suspend all projects in development, and the few films being filmed must also undergo strict supervision, Chris Lee understood.

The overall situation has been decided.

Sony is really leaving this time.

Howard Stringer was obviously in a very bad mood. After holding a brief meeting, only Sony Pictures chairman and CEO John Kelly was left, and everyone else was sent out.

Chris Lee also understands this quite well.

As the president of Sony America, in addition to taking care of the marketing and sales of Sony's electronics business in the United States, Howard Stringer's main job is music and movies, of which the volume of movies is obviously larger than music. Now, the film business is about to be abandoned, and the shrinking of the music business is also visible to the naked eye. It is hard to say how long Howard Stringer can keep this job.

None of this has anything to do with Chris Lee.

Back in his office, after thinking about it for a while, Chris Lee sent Amy Pascal a brief email using the recently popular iberry-10 business mobile phone, talking about what happened just now.

Simon received the news in Geneva, Switzerland, and it was already Saturday morning local time.

One thing that was expected, and therefore did not explain anything in particular, Amy Pascal had already communicated with Michael Jordan, the head of Westinghouse who entered the media industry.

With Hollywood's current situation, Sony doesn't have much capital to take over the film business. After all, other than the United States, countries in Asia and Europe are still in the shadow of the financial turmoil. In the United States, there is nothing else except Westinghouse.

Simon's attention is still on the European side.

first

It was the celebration ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on Saturday, and all the wto member countries and applicant countries in the world gathered together. However, the situation was not one-sided.

At the same time as the celebration ceremony was being held, organized demonstrations against globalization and the WTO also appeared in various parts of downtown Geneva, and the scale was not small.

Simon asked the team around him to make a statistics and found that most of the reasons given by these opponents were to protest against the outflow of local industries caused by globalization.

In fact, what is worrying is the hollowing out caused by the outflow of real industries in Western countries.

There is never a shortage of smart people in this world, and there is no shortage of organizations with forward-looking vision, but the problem is that being able to see the future never means being able to grasp the future. The indifference of the mighty historical trend is that those who follow it prosper, and those who go against it perish.

Since the trend cannot be changed, the smartest way is to follow the trend instead of blocking it.

The traditional automobile industry is the best example.

The German auto industry is undoubtedly the most outstanding one in terms of globalization, which makes Germany's traditional auto industry still very prosperous until ten or twenty years later.

The opposite is Italy.

Not to mention the United States, because the domestic market in the United States itself is very large, even if the globalization of American auto brands is not considered successful, they still live well. In addition, as rising stars, Japan and South Korea, the auto industry is constantly suppressed by the "sovereign country" of the United States, and there is not much room for maneuver.

Let's talk about Italy.

As a local giant that has basically controlled the Italian auto industry, Fiat entered China twice and failed twice. A large reason is that Fiat is complacent and has a negative attitude towards industrial transfer in line with the trend of globalization. The last chance for the traditional auto industry, in order to survive, it had to merge with Chrysler to keep warm.

These are things for later.

Simon only stayed in Geneva for one day, participated in the official celebrations, and met with the heads of delegations of several of the countries, before leaving for Rome the next day.

The Italian side mainly checked the construction progress of Universal Studios Rome again, and some entertainment arranged by Sofia, and finally flew to Rivni, Ukraine.

Rivney, built according to the concept of China's special zone in memory, almost changes every day.

Coming again, firstly, the city airport on the southwest outskirts of Rivni expanded from the original one runway to two runways, occasionally overlooked before landing, and the number of planes parked in the airport was significantly higher than before, including many large planes like Boeing 747.

In addition to the expanded airport, the entire city is also rapidly spreading to the surrounding area, and there are construction sites everywhere, which is completely different from what Eastern European countries should be like now.

What are Eastern European countries like now?

Referring to the economic data, it is conceivable that Russia is the most representative. In 1997, when the Asian financial turmoil occurred, Russia’s gdp data recovered briefly compared with previous years, rising from US$391.7 billion in the previous year to US$404.9 billion. This year, according to the statistics of the first five months, Russia's gdp in 1998 is likely to plummet to around US$270 billion.

A drop of more than 30%!

The shrinking of gdp actually means a series of serious social problems such as currency depreciation and unemployment surge.

Similarly, even if Simon has set aside a thriving experimental field in Ukraine, it is estimated that the annual gdp decline in Ukraine as a whole will also be more than 20%.

Simon had just arrived in Rivni, and several core members of the Rovno gang talked about these issues with Simon at a noon banquet, and there was also a report from the Rovno gang's internal consultant team dealing with the current situation.

With the economic situation deteriorating sharply again, after all, it is the granary of Europe. Even if there is no famine just after the disintegration of the Soviet Union this time, the living pressure of the Ukrainian people can be imagined. The unemployment rate of more than 30% can almost be said to make ordinary people Man sees no hope.

In this situation, all most Ukrainians want is to flee.

The first goal is Western Europe, and even neighboring Poland is much stronger than Ukraine.

However, because Ukraine is not a member of the European Union, it is not easy to go to Western Europe legally, so Rivni has become the second choice of Ukrainians.

With the rapid spread of economic deterioration at the end of last year, the number of people from all over Ukraine flocking to Rivni to seek opportunities has increased significantly, which inevitably brings about various problems.

Speaking of it, the key to Rivni's rapid development lies in the fact that the Rovno Gang controlled by the Westeros system has a strong control over the entire Rovno state, which can be said to be self-sustaining. In addition, the Westeros system is sufficient Therefore, unlike the turmoil and chaos in other parts of Ukraine, including Kiev, the entire Rivne region is thriving.

Development requires order, which is inevitable.

Too many foreign populations are often like the problem of illegal immigration in developed countries. If the control is not good, the whole game will collapse.

Knowing the seriousness of this, Simon intentionally changed the schedule and called together a group of high-level officials from the Rovno Gang that afternoon to discuss countermeasures in detail. Speaking of which, Simon actually has considerable experience in dealing with this kind of thing.

The general plan will be finalized soon.

First of all, the first article, seemingly irrelevant, is actually very important, and once again tightened the land policy of Rivne Oblast. Even the sale and transfer of private land must be strictly regulated.

Anyone who wants to settle in an area cannot do without the land.

Only this item firmly controls the initiative of how many people can be accommodated in Rivne State, especially Rivni, in the hands of the Rivne helpers. Outsiders cannot gain a foothold on this land, and they can only leave in the end without forcefully driving them away.

Second, tighten the settlement policy.

This point is the plan made by Rovno's consultant team, and Simon has given some modifications.

Speaking of which, for example, in the large-scale resettlement community on the northeast outskirts of Rivni, Simon's initial consideration was to introduce the population on a family basis.

This turned out to be incorrect.

The introduction of population based on family units can certainly make the settlers feel at ease, but at the same time, it will also put pressure on the city's education, medical and other resources.

Therefore, the core of this tightening of the settlement policy is very simple. Next, Rivni will try to absorb high-quality young labor groups that can create a lot of benefits for the city. As for the elderly and children who will only consume social resources and cannot provide sufficient contributions, it is very likely that It's a pity, I'd better stay at home honestly.

Finally, it is to fight crime from both black and white aspects.

Why is the business environment in Eastern Europe recognized as bad? In addition to the inefficient bureaucratic system, there is another one, that is, the collapse of social security. There have been too many cases in these years, investing in other places, or losing money at most, and running away. If you go to Eastern Europe, your head will probably be blown off by an ak47. In this case, who is willing to take the risk?

And Eastern Europe, which has experienced turmoil and decline, is like a dry pond. To restore the ecology, a large amount of water must be introduced

Capital is the 'water' here.

Without the inflow of water sources, economic development cannot be discussed, and then fall into a vicious circle.

After several purges, Simon has quite strong control over the government system of Rivne State, which is enough to ensure an efficient and good business environment. As for the underground forces, they are basically their own. Compared with the previous two, this time it is more At most, it can only be regarded as a precautionary measure.

After finalizing the plan, Simon personally arranged some implementation matters the next day before finally returning to the established schedule.

The most important thing is to visit the ufms base.

The ufms private army, the Ukrainian Western Combat Command that has been quietly incorporated by Simon, is actually the basis for the Westeros system to control Rivne State.

Just like later, a certain governor of Dnieper State was dismissed by the president. The oligarch governor directly used his private army to put pressure on the Kiev authorities in the name of protecting his personal property. In contrast, a female oligarch who lacks her own armed forces can only end up in jail.

By the way, the tyrannical governor who controlled a large amount of media in Ukraine was the driving force behind a certain comedian president later.

This is the real oligarch.

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