Hollywood New Century

Simon Pike and Nicole Kidman's agent, Pat Kingsley, meet at a hotel cafe in New York.

"Simon, are you meeting with CAA President Brian Lord?" Pat Kingsley was commissioned by Nicole.

Simon Pike nodded and smiled slightly: "There is a business suitable for CAA and I want to talk to them!"

"Okay, then when are you going?" Of course Pat Kingsley wouldn't ask about any business, it was something that had nothing to do with him.

"It can't be done recently. "The Devil Wears Prada" will be released this Friday. I have more things to do. After the release, you can arrange it." Simon also felt that it would be better to give CAA more time to operate.

"No problem, I'll arrange it," This kind of thing is very simple, even if Simon Pike goes directly to CAA to find Brian Lord, but he wants to go through himself as a middleman, so he shouldn't want to be known by too many people.

"By the way, Simon, the two Wall Street hedge film fund companies established in the past two years approached me and expressed their support for you!"

"Well, which two?" Simon Pike asked. After all, since 2003, Wall Street has invaded Hollywood aggressively, and there are many movie investment funds and movie hedge funds.

Pat Kingsley laughed: "Legendary Entertainment and Relativity Entertainment!"

"Oh, it really is two famous film venture capital companies," Simon of course knows these two. Legendary Entertainment was established in 2004 and reached a $500 million 25-year film with Warner Bros. Investment plans, like "Batman" and "Superman Returns" are planned, and the legend is right.

Relativity Entertainment invested in two movie projects worth $1.1 billion in Sony and a $200 million project in Universal.

"Simon, you can contact them directly if you need it!" Because Pat Kingsley is Nicole Kidman's agent, Nicole has an unusual relationship with Simon, and Simon has never had a movie financing plan, so Contact yourself to try it out.

"Direct participation in film investment is itself a venture capital investment. Now they have come up with this type of investment plan to invest in multiple films at one time to reduce risks. This model is obviously suitable for large studios and a large number of films. Projects, multi-channel film profit recovery mechanism, mature industrial system, independent projects like mine are suitable for bank commercial loan investment, otherwise in equity negotiations, my right to speak will not be guaranteed!" Simon expressed to the current Wall Street film investment fund A lot of research has been done, which can be roughly divided into three types.

Commercial film loans: Use film copyrights or overseas pre-sale contracts or even future earnings as collateral to lend to banks. Of course, the interest rate will be higher, but this is a senior debt, and the risk of banks or investment institutions is very small.

Equity-debt fusion investment: Investors in the fund can convert debt to equity when the film company cannot afford to repay the debt. MGM in the future is a typical example.

Venture capital: Set up a film fund to directly invest in film projects. Because of the high risk, platter investment came into being, and a relatively large amount is used to share the risk. Generally, the foundation requires big studios to put promising IP in the platter project. attract investors.

The three models are very popular. The first model has always been the mainstream model in Hollywood. It has been developed for decades. At present, there are no less than thirty or forty banks providing this kind of loan in Hollywood.

Platter investment is caused by the boom in the film market after the millennium. High risk means high return. Of course, Wall Street hedge funds will not let go of the film market. Film investment companies such as Relativity or Legend are managers of investment projects similar to platters. Each project needs to compete with the studio and then attract investors into the project.

Sony did not put "Spider-Man" into the platter project, and let the two platter projects of relativity be more than 1 billion US dollars. If it was before the release of "Spider-Man 1", it would definitely be in the platter project;

If Warner Bros. knew that the rebooted "Batman" was so popular, it would certainly not have put it in. After all, the previous "Batman" failed miserably;

If 20th Century Fox knew that Avatar would be so successful, it certainly wouldn't be in the platter with the Dune Fund.

"Simon, Legendary Pictures, a subsidiary of Legendary Entertainment, actually wants to participate in film production. If you cooperate with them on a film project, of course, your Xinghai Pictures will be in charge!" Pat Kingsley actually doesn't know much about filmmaking. Many, after all, are just brokers.

"Okay, I'll consider it, after all, I really don't have much money!" Simon responded with a smile.

"By the way, Nicole is coming over to New York on Thursday and going to the premiere on Friday," Pat reminded.

After Pat Kingsley left, Simon also returned to his room in the hotel and read the news from Marvel.

Marvel Studios is going to develop their own movie, and it has been reported since last year that they need to do too much.

The most important financing, the filming plan cannot be implemented without the funds. Although they have been keeping it secret now, Simon knows that they are going to film "Iron Man", after all, other popular characters are not in their hands.

I don't know if they have contact with Robert Downey Jr. Hope it's too late, otherwise his contract won't be easy.

Yes, Simon Pike is meeting Brian Lord of CAA to buy Marvel Entertainment for him!

In the evening, Emily Blunt came to the hotel. After all, "The Queen Wears Prada" is going to be released, and publicity is needed!

Leaning on the bed, with a contented Emily Blunt in his arms, Simon Pike asked about Warner Bros. "Superman Returns", "I heard there will be a midnight screening of "Superman Returns" tomorrow night?"

"Yeah, the show starts at midnight on Tuesday, and the release is on Wednesday!" Emily Blunt responded, her hair wet with a thin sweat on her face.

"The popularity of DC's "Superman" is too high, they have enough publicity, big investment, big production, big marketing movie," Simon smiled, as for the big return, hehe!

"Superman" will be released on Wednesday, and our "The Devil Wears Prada" will be released on Friday. It will have a great impact!" Emily Blunt seemed a little worried, after all, it can be said that this movie belongs to Xinghai Pictures.

"It's okay, our audience is mainly women, and then we will fight for the men around them. We don't fight for the weekend championship. Now the market is big enough, it doesn't matter. After all, Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Gathering Souls" will be released a week after the release. "Coffin" was released, and you know the success of the first film!" Simon himself was looking forward to Captain Jack's movie, so it's better to keep it in his heart.

"However, we really had a lot of fun shooting "The Devil Wears Prada", surrounded by all kinds of brand clothes!" Emily Blunt said, kissing Simon on the cheek.

"Oh, that's true. I've watched various edited versions several times. It's almost a walking commercial," Simon smiled. Prada's advertising sponsorship made a lot of money.

"Your wardrobe is probably full of clothing from various brands. Prada, Chanel and Ports seem to sponsor the most!"

"Ah, Annie and Ms. Streep have several closets!" Emily Blunt had many herself.

Simon smiled, and when he heard Anne Hathaway's name, he suddenly thought of her cheating boyfriend.

"Go to sleep, you are still a little tired from the promotion of the recent movie," Simon said, patting Emily Blunt's fragrant shoulder.

Warner Bros.' $270 million "Superman Returns" opened at midnight on Tuesday and made $3 million at the midnight box office.

"Superman Returns" has been in preparation since 2000. When it was ready to shoot in 2003, the director was Tim Burton, and the starring was Nicolas Cage. For various reasons, the script was not satisfactory and so on.

After experiencing director Michael Bay, it was finally set as the current Bryan Singer, and the starring also became the ultimate Brandon Ross. During this period, changing directors, changing screenwriters, and changing actors cost about 50 million US dollars! As a result, the cost of the film reached $270 million, plus Warner Bros. invested no less than $50 million in marketing expenses.

On Friday, "The Devil Wears Prada" also held its premiere in New York. The scene was finally relatively big, and the $20 million publicity budget also made Simon feel distressed.

Simon chats with Sonia Roman while watching the premiere guests enjoying the spotlight on the red carpet.

"The script outline of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has been registered, and the film adaptation rights of the novel are very easy. In addition, regarding the film adaptation rights of "Mouse", the author has put forward some conditions, such as the characters in the novel are not dead, and the film cannot be adapted. Death, characters' names cannot be tampered with, and she needs to discuss with her, etc., and she wants to participate in the selection of actors!" Sonia Roman said about the current matter.

"The actor chooses, the author decides?" Simon was surprised that there was such a person. Who she thought she was, JK Rowling was not qualified to make such a decision!

"No, no, she just wants to put forward her own opinions. Of course, the choice of actors is our decision!" Sonia Roman quickly explained.

"Well, it's almost the same. It can be promised. Hurry up and sign the contract. What I want is the film adaptation rights of her series!" Simon reminded her after agreeing.

"certainly!"

"By the way, how is the preparation for "Spartan 300 Warriors"?" Simon asked about the company's most important film project in the second half of the year. After all, it has invested 15 million US dollars.

"It is still in preparation, many actors have already started training, the director is discussing the special effects production of the film with the special effects company, and the script is still being perfected. In fact, we can start filming in August, but we must ensure that the follow-up funds can be obtained in September. If you enter and the filming stops, the loss is too great!"

"It's not bad to do a good job in the preliminary work, the plan remains unchanged, and the shooting will start in September!" Simon really doesn't have that much money now.