Chapter 805 Buyer

Faintly feeling someone staring at her, Christina Aguilera opened her eyes just to notice that Eric was sitting by the bed with a smile on his face.

The various images from last night quickly flooded into my mind, and I felt the unobstructed contact between the body inside the thin quilt and the big bed. Christina blushed slightly and pulled the corner of the quilt, and whispered hello: "Morning, Eric."

"Seeing that you slept so soundly, I don't know if I should wake you up," Eric asked. : "Aren't you feeling well?"

"Well, it feels like there is something..." Christina's eyelashes were lowered, and she was embarrassed to stop halfway through her words.

"Then just rest here for a few days. Your place is definitely not as good as here. I ordered breakfast for you, when to get up, call customer service, they will deliver it, and you can give me anything else you need. his assistant," Eric said, putting a small card on the bedside table: "Here's his number."

Christina looked at Eric in disappointment and said, "Are you going to work?"

"Yeah, it's already eight o'clock, and hundreds of people are waiting for me."

Christina nodded and said obediently, "Well, then, bye."

"Goodbye," Eric leaned over and kissed the girl's face. Christina boldly raised her little head and kissed it back. She also naughtyly stuck out her tongue and licked it on Eric's face.

Eric didn't mind either, and said with a smile, "It really looks like a kitten."

Christina also smiled and said, "Eric, you seem to like cats very much."

"No, I don't like cats, I like cat-like women, docile, lazy, mysterious, and of course, sometimes wild and untamed."

Christina blinked her eyes quickly and said, "Then can I be your kitty?"

"No problem," Eric smiled, pinched Christina's face, stood up and said, "Then I'll go to work, um, I'll take you to play when I have a break this week, where do you want to go? ?"

Christina showed an excited expression on her face, but said, "I'm not familiar with Venice. I'll go wherever you go, Eric."

"This can't be done. The Venice Film Festival is about to start, and we are filming here again. So there are too many reporters in Venice recently. If they play here, they will definitely be chased and blocked. We have to run farther. How about Paris?"

Christina's little head didn't turn around. Of course she wanted to go to Paris. What girl doesn't yearn for Paris, but the crew only has one day off a week. Can they run that far?

Eric guessed the girl's thoughts from Christina's slightly confused expression, pinched her cheek without explaining, and said with a smile: "It's Paris, I'll go to work first, you go to sleep, think about it. Wake up anytime."

He waved his hand to Eric, saw the figure of the man disappear, waited patiently for a while with his small ears sideways, and finally heard the slight sound of closing the door in the living room.

And lay in bed for a while,

Christina just got up, but she called her assistant Milia first, and explained vaguely that she stayed in the hotel where Eric was last night, and didn't mention it. She believed that the female assistant was also interested. Knowing that, she told the other party to do whatever she wants for the past few days. Christina hung up the phone and called room service to ask for breakfast to fill her stomach. The girl threw herself on the big bed again and fell asleep quickly.

When I woke up again, it was already evening, and there was almost no light outside the thick curtains.

There was a faint voice in the living room. Christina dressed lightly, walked to the door and opened the door, only to find that Eric was the only one on the phone in the living room, and then came out.

Eric saw Christina walk out of the bedroom, nodded to her, and pointed to the sofa opposite him.

Christina came over and sat down on the sofa. She was only wearing a small T-shirt and jeans, and her feet were bare. Although the floor in the room was clean, there was no carpet. It felt a little cold on the ground. He shrank his calves, curled up on the sofa with a pillow, and listened to Eric's call quietly.

"If this is the case, we can accept the price of 300 million US dollars," Eric took the phone in one hand, flipped through the blue folder on his lap, and discussed something with the other side: "However, on the payment deadline, we Can't make concessions, Amberlin wants the copyright of "The Matrix", then they must pay the full amount as soon as possible after signing the contract. It's just $300 million, Jeffrey, with the strength of Microsoft behind Amberlin, as long as they really want to To get this deal done, it will definitely come out.”

Christina stuck out her tongue when she heard Eric's understatement of $300 million. She also knew that Firefly was selling the copyright of the sequel to "The Matrix", but she didn't expect the copyright of this film to be so valuable, $300 million.

Eric happened to notice Christina's little gesture of sticking out her tongue, thinking that the girl was being naughty, and waved at her, motioning not to be funny.

Christina shrugged and smiled at Eric.

"There's one more thing," Eric and Katzenberg finished talking about "The Matrix", and continued: "I've already watched "Titanic" in the film, except for the ending song, nothing else Question, Jim has already flown back to Los Angeles this morning to get the new ending song. I wrote the song myself. You can ask the record department to cooperate and try to get it done before the opening ceremony of the Venice Film Festival. Also, the publicity work is now It can be started, I don’t plan to compress the finished film, so you ask the distribution department to discuss the corresponding publicity plan.”

"..."

""Jedi Men 2"?" Eric hesitated, thought for a while, and said, "It's better not to be in the same period as "Titanic", I know you have no confidence in this film, and we have no plans for other companies. Right to interfere, but Firefly can't snipe itself, let's postpone it, put it in the summer file next year, this sequel should also have the strength to support the summer file... Well, that's it."

After hanging up the phone, seeing Christina listening with her small ears, Eric smiled and waved to her.

Christina got up holding the pillow, came over and sat down beside Eric, curled her legs and leaned gently on Eric, looked at the document on his knee, and said, "Eric, what is this? "

Eric knew that the girl was not really interested, just wanted to find a topic, and said, "Nothing, some copyright transfer contract information."

Christina glanced at the document a few times, but didn't read it carefully, and asked, "Is it "The Matrix"?"

"Yeah," Eric nodded, turned the information on the folder to the first page, and planned to read it again, feeling that Christina's little body next to him rubbed against him from time to time, and smiled: "Look at you. It should be fine just now, right?"

"Ah," Christina was stunned for a while, and quickly begged for mercy pitifully: "That, Eric, tonight, not...

Eric smiled, his eyes still on the document in front of him, but he changed the subject and said, "What do you want to eat at night?"

Christina is still worried about whether Eric will toss herself again at night, in that case, she feels that she may be broken. Hearing Eric change the subject, he replied absentmindedly, "I don't know either, the morning, um, is good."

"That's breakfast," Eric said. "Forget it, you can call room service and ask them to bring a menu and choose what you want to eat."

"Well," Christina nodded, thought for a while, and gently pulled the short sleeves of Eric's T-shirt, with a small look that was hesitant to speak.

Eric turned his head, saw Christina's pitiful little expression, remembered what she just said, and understood.

I have to say that Christina is now in the best period of her life. She has a sweet face, petite stature, and a slender figure. Coupled with the pitiful little expression of 'don't bully others, okay' at this time, she is indeed very capable. Provoking the ravages of men.

"Don't think about it, just take a good rest these days," Eric smiled, stretched out his hand and pinched the girl's face, and said, "If you don't want to live here, you can go back to the hotel on the street."

Hearing these words, and remembering Eric's generally gentle behavior last night, Christina also felt relieved and smiled sweetly: "I'm not leaving, um, I'll call for a menu."

The girl said, jumped off the sofa and reached out to pick up the mobile phone that Eric had just put down, and started dialing.

Eric smiled and turned his attention to the document in his hand again.

Because he is far away from Hollywood, Eric has not personally felt the various disturbances in Hollywood recently, especially the copyright sale of "The Matrix".

There is no doubt that, as Eric had guessed at the beginning, the one who most wanted the copyright of "The Matrix" was Amberlin Pictures, which was backed by Microsoft. Of course, several other major film companies also participated more or less. In this copyright competition.

Of course, Firefly will not simply and rudely sell the copyright of "The Matrix", and even a large part of the high-level executives don't want to sell "The Matrix" at all, but just dragged this matter down, and finally slowly faded. Therefore, Firefly's attitude is also quite firm, and it will not give an inch when negotiating with the film company that intends to buy the copyright of "The Matrix".

In this case, Paramount and other companies with relatively conservative management styles have withdrawn one after another, and in the end only Warner, Universal and Amberlin are still holding on.

However, because of the harsh conditions offered by Firefly, they are only willing to sell the production and distribution rights of the sequel of "The Matrix", but still retain the development rights of all non-film and television peripherals such as comics, games, toys, etc. of "The Matrix", plus the asking price Too high, Warner and Universal also withdrew one after another, and in the end only the Amberlin family remained, agreeing to Firefly's request.

According to the preliminary negotiated agreement, Amberlin Pictures will buy the follow-up film and television production and distribution rights of "The Matrix" for $300 million in cash. The agreement does not stipulate that Amberlin can only produce two sequels. To restart the series, Firefly will not object. Of course, most fans who follow the "Matrix" series know the script of the trilogy of this series. Presumably, after this storm, it is impossible for Amberlin to change the script under pressure.

However, the agreement also stipulates that Firefly retains the development rights of peripheral copyrights such as comics, games, and toys of the "Matrix" series, including the peripheral development rights of the characters related to the sequel of "The Matrix". Firefly will not participate in the distribution revenue share of any cinemas, DVDs, videotapes, etc. of the sequel series of "The Matrix", but at the same time, Amberlin Pictures has no right to participate in the peripheral revenue sharing of the "Matrix" series.

Although Amberlin Pictures is very ambitious, it has just been established. The most important job of the other party at the moment is to improve its own distribution network, and it has not yet involved the ability of peripheral development, so the other party will agree to this plan, and peripheral product development, But it is precisely what the Firefly Group is best at.

Judging from the cumulative global box office of the first film of "The Matrix" of about 600 million, Firefly's net income from theatrical screening and video tape distribution alone is more than 300 million US dollars. ︽②miào︽②bi︽.*②Ge︽②,

However, even if the sequel to "The Matrix" doesn't go down the same path as the previous life, the business Firefly is not a loss. Because of the overall recovery of the U.S. economy, the $300 million in cash has been recovered a few years in advance, whether the money is invested in the entertainment industry or high In the technology industry, Eric has enough confidence to double this money several times in the next few years.

Although in the eyes of outsiders, Firefly's profits in recent years have been very terrifying, but only Eric himself knows that the Firefly system has been burning money crazy in recent years, and most of the annual profits will soon be turned into investment. , injected into the various companies under the Firefly system.

In order to reduce the tax burden as much as possible, Eric has even begun to consider investing directly in the company of Firefly Investment in the name of Firefly Group. Although this will indirectly lead to about 27% of Firefly's small and medium shareholders entering the Firefly system's Internet industry, But it can save a lot of tax in the middle link.

When the surplus funds are directly converted into project investment, the pre-tax gross profit of Firefly Group will be greatly reduced, but this can also allow Firefly to reduce the amount of corporate income tax paid. With the scale of Firefly, the pre-tax profit and income tax ratio reaches 35%, which is comparable to The proportion of 27% of small and medium shareholders is much higher, and if the interests are distributed to small and medium shareholders in the form of investment, it will definitely gain more favor from these shareholders, increase Eric's control over Firefly, and the representatives behind these shareholders. Forces support for Firefly. But if you hand it over to the IRS, Firefly gets no real benefit.

Thinking of this, Eric also made up his mind. Next time, he will discuss with Katzenberg about the Clover Holding Company, which originally belonged to the Disney Group. This is an investment company left over from the Disney period, but the scale has always been It's so small that most people wouldn't even notice the existence of this investment company if they hadn't read Firefly's balance sheet carefully.

Although Disney was developing rapidly at the beginning, it did not have much energy to involve external investment. Clover Holding's largest external investment project was only to assist in the construction of the Disney Concert Hall in the Los Angeles Music Center, with an investment scale of 20 million US dollars. But that project has not made any profit so far, because the project was initiated by the Disney family at the beginning, and the main purpose was to expand the influence of the Disney family, and the public welfare nature is very large.

However, at this time, this investment company can be used as a window for Firefly Group's direct foreign investment. The company law in the United States is very loose, and it does not stipulate that a company can only operate certain industries, just like Berkshire Haasa, which is controlled by Buffett. Wei, who was only a textile factory at the beginning, has now become a comprehensive holding group, operating in various industries such as insurance, books, beverages, candy, and entertainment.