Nine Hundred and Twentieth Eight Chapters Four Thousand Two Hundred

Most of the data Caroline and Melanie have collected in recent days have been brought on the plane.

After listening to the two of them's suggestions, Eric asked them to bring the information, and the three discussed it more deeply.

As the North American film market has become more and more prosperous in recent years, in 1997, the total number of screens in major theaters in North America has exceeded 36,000, an increase of almost 10,000 compared with ten years ago. The substantial increase in the number of screens will inevitably lead to market saturation. As well as various problems such as intensified competition, small theater chains with poor strength have been annexed and integrated by several major theater chain giants.

So far, the top three theater chains in North America, regal entertainment, amc and cinemark, after years of expansion, have more than 14,000 screens with the highest commercial value in North America, and become the three most competitive commercial theater chains in the United States. Although the number of screens owned by other small theater chains, art theater chains or local theater chains is still far more than the sum of these three, these second- and third-rate theater chains basically have their own remote status, outdated equipment, and insufficient film sources. All kinds of dilemmas, completely unable to compete with the three major cinema giants.

If Firefly Group abandons the Big Three and initiates acquisitions of other small theater chains, it would be better to build a chain of theaters from scratch. Even the top three theater chains have more or less various problems due to their over-expansion over the years. Although the top-ranked regal entertainment has more than 7,000 screens, among the top three, On the contrary, the operating conditions are the worst, and there is even a risk of bankruptcy in the next few years.

On the surface, regal Entertainment seems to be the best acquisition target of the Firefly Group, but if the Firefly Group really does this, it will embrace more than 7,000 screens in prime locations in major cities in North America, the entire Hollywood, and all outside the Firefly system. The studios are probably getting restless. For the other two, although the number of screens is around 3,000 or 4,000 yuan, if Firefly wants to intervene, they will still face anti-monopoly issues.

In the study, Melanie showed Eric a document and said, "Eric, look, the three major cinema entertainment groups all have several sub-brands, just like regal entertainment, its sub-brands. There are three brands, regal-cinemas, edwards-theaters-unitedartiststheaters. We can actually adopt this sub-brand operation method and cooperate with one of the top three theater chains. I think the best is regal entertainment, which has been around for a few years. After completing another major merger and acquisition, although the number of screens has expanded to more than 7,000, it has been losing money in the past two years due to rising debt ratios and chaotic management of theaters. What we need to do is to start from their theaters It selected a group of screening halls, and Firefly Group adopted the mode of capital injection and shareholding to transform it into a sub-brand specializing in 3D movies.”

The biggest reason why Eric entered the cinema industry is to promote 3D movies in advance and find a new profit growth point for the Firefly system. On the other hand, he also hopes to lead the promotion process of 3D movies.

Once in history, the popularization process of 3D movies can only be described as chaos.

In the early stage of "Avatar", many Hollywood blockbusters already had 3D versions. However, compared with the huge North American film market, the source of 3D movies can only be described as scarce. Without enough 3D film sources, the number of 3D screens in North America will naturally fail to develop. The insufficient number of 3D screens also curbs the motivation of filmmakers to make 3D versions of their films.

After "Avatar", driven by huge interests, several major North American film companies and major theater chains began to swarm to produce 3D movies and rebuild 3D theaters.

This kind of swarming behavior naturally caused the quality of 3D film sources and the quality of the cinema 3D projection system to be uneven.

Even, most of the 3D film sources and 3D cinema quality are very poor, which makes the audience not only did not accept 3D movies further, but gradually became disgusted with this movie mode.

As long as the 3D film source and cinema projection system meet the standards, the visual experience of 3D movies is absolutely shocking, and at the same time, it can also drive the audience who are more and more inclined to watch movies on TV or online platforms to re-enter the cinema.

What Eric wants to do now is to put the promotion of 3D movies on a healthy development track, instead of being put down by those theater chains and film dealers who are excessively pursuing profit by using low-quality projection systems and rough re-production sources. This new form of film gradually destroyed.

After patiently discussing with Melanie and Caroline, Eric finally said, "Then, this sub-brand is called reald."

Both women showed suspicious eyes: "reald?"

Eric nodded, reald, in fact, is the most popular 3D movie projection system in the original time and space.

The biggest problem with the projection of 3D movies is usually the brightness.

Different from 2D movies, 3D movies will greatly reduce the brightness of the movie in three aspects: 3D projector, big screen and 3D glasses during the projection process. The brightness of the movie screen has a special unit called fl (foot-lamberts). In traditional 2D movies, because there are not too many attenuation factors, the brightness can easily reach 14fl, but after three attenuations of 3D movies, the usual brightness is only About 4.5fl left. In order to prolong the life of the high-pressure xenon lamp bulb of the projector, many cinemas even deliberately reduce the brightness, which further reduces the brightness of the 3D movie, giving the audience a dark and bad viewing experience.

In the face of the chaotic situation of the 3D movie market, the later reald company not only developed a special reald projection system, but also launched a set of special reald certification standards. Below 6fl.

What Eric wanted to do at this time was to establish a set of special 3D movie certification standards from the very beginning. For this reason, he also inquired about the status of reald company, but found that the company has not yet been established. In this case, Eric took the name without hesitation.

"reald, you can understand it as the meaning of real 3d." Facing the doubts of the two women, Eric picked up the pencil next to him, wrote the brand new word reald in the blank of the document in front of him, and continued: "Not only this Sub-brand, I hope that the 3D movie projection system developed in the digital field will also use this name. At the same time, we must set a set of 3D movie playback standards in advance. In the future, if you want to get a copy of the Firefly system 3D movie, the relevant theaters must pass the Our standard certification."

After Melanie listened to Eric's words, she immediately nodded arrogantly, and said with a smile, "This is a good way."

She thought that Eric did this mainly to monopolize the 3D movie market.

Caroline obviously thought that Eric was thinking this way, and she also showed a guilty conscience on her face as if she had done something bad.

However, Eric had no such plans in his mind.

In the early stage of 3D movie promotion, as long as the 3D movie quality and theater playback standards are well controlled, with the advantages of technology and theater resources in hand, the Firefly system can naturally enjoy exclusive profits for a long time. However, in the extremely open film markets in Europe and the United States, other film companies will naturally follow up after seeing the benefits of Firefly. Firefly basically does not have the possibility of monopolizing the 3D film market.

Moreover, Eric does not want Firefly to monopolize the interests of this area all the time. If he eats alone for a long time, he will definitely lose his motivation to move forward. Introducing competition is the best choice to keep the Firefly system alive for a long time.

Unconsciously, they discussed for several hours. When it was time for dinner, Eric kept his promise and went to prepare food for everyone in person. Caroline and Melanie stayed in the study and continued to sort out the results of the three discussions. After planning to get off the plane, discuss a detailed implementation plan with the group management in Los Angeles.

Not only from the 3D projection system to the reald of cinema certification standards, but Eric and the two women also initially discussed a plan code-named '4200'.

Eric hopes that in the next two to three years, Firefly Group will build 2,000 standard-certified 3D screens each in North America and overseas. This is 4,000 of the '4,200', and 200 is another imax cinema plan.

At present, there are a total of 54 imax screens in North America, which are basically distributed in museums or science and technology museums in major cities. Moreover, the number of imax screens in the world does not exceed 100 now.

Two years ago, after watching the imax documentary at the Natural History Museum in New York, Eric contacted the Canadian company imax, urging them to speed up the technological development of converting ordinary 35mm films into imax films. Before that, the length of imax films It has always been limited to about forty or fifty minutes.

According to the information that Caroline and Melanie got from imax a few days ago, the dmr (digital re-mastering) technology that imax has been developing will be able to convert normal-length films into imax films by next year at the latest. .

Since he is going to make "Gravity", Eric will naturally not let go of the imax projection mode that can maximize the visual appeal of this epic space movie.

Therefore, while building 4,000 3D screens, Eric also plans to build 100 imax theaters in North America and overseas.

Eventually, after the plane landed in London, Eric discussed the 'reald' and '4200' plans with Firefly executives by videoconference from his residence on Garden Street in Kensington, London, as far away as Katzenberg in Los Angeles and Frank R. Wells and the others couldn't help but silently stunned.

In Eric's plan, the reald projection system that needs to be developed in the digital field must abandon the current single-camera 3D projector and adopt a dual-camera 3D projection mode that can greatly increase the brightness and reduce the dizziness of the audience. The cost of the theater renovation could eventually reach $300,000. The cost of transforming a single auditorium is naturally nothing, but the total cost of transforming 4,000 3D auditoriums around the world will cost at least $1.2 billion, not to mention the later operating costs.

Likewise, 200 imax theaters, built from scratch, would cost $400 million even at a cost of $2 million each.

In this way, in order to promote 3d and imax, the total investment that Firefly Group needs to pay will not be less than 1.6 billion US dollars, not to mention, the later operating costs are also huge.

1.6 billion US dollars, although it cannot buy the No. 1 regal entertainment theater chain in North America, it is more than enough to acquire the second and third-ranked amc and cinemak theater chains. Eric has been deliberately suppressing the expansion of the Firefly Group in the past two years. Therefore, Katzenberg and the high-level executives who want to make the Firefly Group continue to grow and develop are actually suffocating in their hearts, but they really saw Eric's efforts. With the new expansion plan, they inevitably felt uneasy.

In order to promote 3d and imax, which have no clear market prospects at present, is it really worth investing a huge sum of 1.6 billion US dollars?

What if it fails?

Eric can naturally understand Katzenberg's mentality. This mentality is actually the main reason why 3d and imax have not been able to be widely promoted for many years in the future. No company can't see the market prospects at all. $1.6 billion for such a project. After all, if the operating conditions of other major Hollywood companies are not good enough, the combined profits of several years may not necessarily be 1.6 billion US dollars.

Since Eric has invested a lot of money in the Nasdaq market in the past two years, Firefly's surplus profit this year is definitely not 1.6 billion US dollars, and may even drop below 1 billion US dollars.

In all fairness, Eric would not have dared to rashly invest $1.6 billion in the two plans he had in hand if he hadn’t been able to clearly see the future. No one’s money came from the wind, and he had never used his money to waste his money. idea.

In the study of Kensington Garden Villa, Eric was sitting on an office chair, watching the hesitant and admonishing expressions on the faces of Katzenberg and others far away in Los Angeles on the video conference screen, Eric knocked on the table. , said with a final word: "Everyone, this is my decision. What you have to do is to act from now on. In the first two years, I want to see the digital field develop a perfect reald projection system and more Excellent 3D conversion technology. Second, from now on, negotiate with major theater chains in North America and overseas to get the renovation contract for 4,000 3D auditoriums that I need, once the development of the reald system in the digital field is completed, and our The film that can provide the film source for the 3D projection hall is completed. I need to realize the transformation of the 3D projection system of these 4,000 screens worldwide within three months. Third, continue to urge imax to speed up the development of dmr conversion technology, If imax needs money, give it to them, and if it can't operate, buy it. At the same time, you are also buying land in major cities around the world. When the 4,000 3D screen renovation is completed, I will also see 200 An imax theater. So, is there any problem?"

After Eric finished speaking, he stared firmly at the executives of the No. 1 Firefly Group far away in Los Angeles through the high-definition camera.

In the hearts of Katzenberg and others, Eric could never be regarded as a strong boss. But this time, thousands of miles apart, they could still see the determination in his eyes through the video conference screen.

After a mutual wink, everyone no longer raised any objections, but began to discuss the substantive issues that need to be solved in order to complete the plan.