Director’s Legend

August is the harvest season for Dream Entertainment and Shao Shuaijun, and it is also the season when "Rise of the Apes" sweeps the world. Under Shao Shuaijun's improvement, this version of "Rise of the Apes" has more refined details. In six years of directing career, Shao Shuaijun has integrated commercial elements into his personal style. The connection between the two shots must conform to the rhythm of the plot and inspire people's hearts.

As a result, the box office is also rising steadily. At the end of August, the world received a super box office of $630 million.

This year, "Toy Story 3" and "Alice in Wonderland" both achieved more than $1 billion at the box office, occupying the top two of this year's global box office list. "Shrek" is $740 million, and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part 1 is currently $700 million, ranking third and fourth respectively.

The fifth place is "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", which is a mess. Summit Entertainment immediately announced that the "Rise of the Apes" will shoot a sequel. The script is already being created. As for whether the sequel will be directed by Shao Shuaijun, neither Summit Entertainment nor Shao Shuaijun gave a reply.

From September 3 to 5, "Rise of the Apes" ushered in its fifth weekend. This weekend, another major production of Summit Entertainment will be available in major theaters in North America.

Directed and starred by Sylvester Stallone, R-rated film king Jason Statham, Chinese new kung fu king Li Lianjie, karate champion Dolf Longer, wrestling champion Randy Cotur, movie star Mickey Locke The nostalgic classic action blockbuster "The Expendables", starring action stars Bruce Willie and Arnold Schwarzenegger, was released in 3270 theaters in North America.

From the production to the promotion of the movie, there has almost never been a lack of attention. Nowadays, Hollywood, the action blockbuster has deteriorated, and it is no longer the blood of fist to flesh, nor explosions and fireworks. It's the soaring showmanship in "The Matrix", and the fancy dress in "Pirates of the Caribbean" is cool.

As a result, "The Expendables" claimed to return to the style of early action blockbusters, and it was immediately welcomed by fans who love action movies, and the pre-sale tickets for the movie were a mess.

There are also three new films released on a large scale with "The Expendables", "The American", "Machete" and "Long Distance Love", all of which are low-cost movies.

At the end of the weekend, the box office was released. "The Expendables" reached the top of the box office with 36 million U.S. dollars without accident. It was already a very good result in this cold autumn box office. With the exception of "The Expendables", only "The American", last week's "Robber" and "Machete", with a box office of tens of millions, are around 10 million.

And "Rise of the Apes" four weeks later, the momentum remains unabated, ranking fifth with $8 million this week. The one-month release period in mainland China also ended, with a perfect ending of 412 million yuan. Although it is far from "Avatar" 1.05 billion yuan, it is also the second highest box office of Hollywood in China this year.

The overseas form is similar to last week, with about 60 million U.S. dollars in harvest. So far, the global box office of "Rise of the Apes" has reached 710 million U.S. dollars, surpassing "Breaking Dawn (Part 1 and climbing to the fourth place in the world.

From September 10th to 12th, "Resident Evil: Rebirth of God" won the championship with $27.7 million, and "The Expendables" $18 million. Then, "Rise of the Apes" unexpectedly climbed to third with $7.1 million. The autumn stall is the off-season at the box office, and the total box office this week is only $68 million, which can be said to be the worst period of the year.

And this year, there is no good word-of-mouth literary film, which is scheduled in the fall. It is the fierce battle for the box office in the mainland. "The Sound of the Wind", under the pressure of "Tangshan Earthquake", grabbed 43 million in the box office in the first week, which performed well.

Basically, the box office trend in September was very stable. There were no unexpected bright spots and no disappointing gaps.

At this time, Shao Shuaijun, who was accompanying his wife, received a call from Mitchell Bruce: "Shao, we may have a problem with the acquisition of Lionsgate."

"what happened?"

"Marc Racheski of Lionsgate has been good friends with me for many years. He told me that Carl Icahn, the major shareholder of Lionsgate, has agreed to the merger and acquisition plan of Lionsgate and MGM Pictures and is actively Facilitate. If Lionsgate and MGM merge, they may absorb capital injection from Warner Bros. This is very detrimental to our copyright recovery."

"Why is it related to MGM again? Isn't MGM acquired by Sony?" Shao Shuaijun asked suspiciously.

Soon, Mitchell gave an explanation.

MGM was the eighth largest in Hollywood that year. In 2005, it was acquired by Sony because it faced bankruptcy. However, after Sony’s acquisition, it was discovered that MGM was a mess and could not be saved at all. So in 2008, MGM no longer invested in MGM and no longer exercised the right to operate, leaving MGM itself to destroy itself. Sony only acted as a The role of shareholders.

Now that MGM is facing bankruptcy again, the consortium behind MGM is actively planning a comeback in order not to bankrupt MGM. Among them, Carl Icahn, the largest shareholder of Lionsgate, has a lot of plans. Carl is a global billionaire and one of MGM’s shareholders.

And Mark Racheski is Lionsgate’s second largest shareholder, and he is opposed to the merger with MGM. Now Lionsgate’s board of directors is arguing over whether to merge with MGM, and the negotiation between Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate Pictures on the copyright of superheroes was put on hold.

"Shao, we are facing two roads now. One is not to interfere with Carl's plan to merge with MGM. I think Carl has our goodwill, and the superhero copyright will be returned to us directly. The other is to cooperate with Mark and help Mark Defeat Carl on the board of directors so that our cooperation with Lionsgate will continue, and the acquisition of Lionsgate will not be difficult. Of course, by helping Mark, Carl will definitely hate him and offend a rich man in the world. It seems unwise."

Carl Icahn is not just a world-class rich man. In the latest Forbes ranking in 2010, he ranked 47th with a worth of $14.5 billion, which is much higher than Shao Shuaijun. In terms of actual value, of course he is not as high as Shao Shuaijun. However, this old man in his seventies, nicknamed "Corporate Predator", is a lone wolf in the Wall Street investment world. He is very aggressive. The most famous one was the malicious acquisition of Global Airlines, which caused the whole world. The uproar of the world.

"Mitchell, Summit Entertainment has been on the top six companies, how many companies have we sinned?" Shao Shuaijun heard Carl's name, curled his lips lightly, and asked.

"Um, it should be a lot, Walt Disney is definitely offended, and the other six major companies are also strained because we grab too many markets..."

"That's it. If we want to expand, we will offend people. We all dare to take food from a giant like Disney, and are afraid of him Carl? An old man in his seventies may belch in a few days. Fear of him! Lionsgate has been the prey that we have coveted for years, and I can’t bear to give up!” Shao Shuaijun said grimly. To be honest, he doesn’t know much about the company’s business, but he has the confidence to chase. Dream Entertainment is not an ordinary company. It now represents the image of China. It has the Chinese government as its backer, so I'm afraid of a fart.

And Shao Shuaijun knows that although the company is listed, through various cross-shareholdings over the years, the equity of the company under Dream Entertainment is all complicated and terrible. It is firmly controlled by Li Xiuxiu and Shao Shuaijun, and he is not afraid of hostile acquisitions by others. .

He doesn't need to fear anyone.

Of course, he doesn’t understand finance, that is, he utters two pretenses. How to decide the real decision has to be discussed by the executives: "Mitchell, on this issue, I support cooperation with Mark in principle. I hope to acquire Lionsgate. But I don’t interfere with the company’s decision-making. Your management should discuss it by yourself."

In the end, after a few days of meeting with executives, Summit Entertainment began to work with Mark Racheski, wooing Lionsgate’s two board chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Worsberg. They are all old friends of Mitchell and have had a pleasant cooperation with Shao Shuaijun. Compared to Carl who likes to squeeze management, they prefer to work with Summit Entertainment.

Soon Lionsgate made a decision on the routine board of directors to accept financing from Summit Entertainment in order to dilute Karl Icahn's shares.

In a very short period of time, Lionsgate and Summit reached an agreement. Lionsgate received $500 million in financing from Summit Entertainment and obtained 25 common shares. At the same time, Lionsgate issued 16.2 million new common shares to Mark Racheski. , So that Mark’s stake in Lionsgate reached 31.5, while Karl Icahn’s shares were diluted to 29.7, and Peak Entertainment was diluted to 22.4.

In this way, Mark and Summit held more than half of the shares, directly launched the board of directors, and rejected the merger plan for MGM.

The whole process went smoothly. Carl's spokesperson at Lionsgate tried to persuade the board of directors to veto the cooperation with Summit Entertainment, but there were very few responses.

Originally, Summit Entertainment had already completed the long-term seesaw negotiations for the acquisition of Lionsgate. Who ever wanted to let Summit Entertainment take advantage of MGM’s intervention and quickly and directly obtained shares.

Two dogs fight, play off.

Within a few days, Marvel Comics announced on the official website: “Good news, after friendly negotiations with Lionsgate, starting from September 15th, the three superheroes, the Punisher, the Humanoid, and the King Sea All copyrights are officially returned to Marvel Comics! We will start to create the film plans of these three superheroes, and strive to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe Trio as soon as possible."

The return of these three superheroes opened a good start for the copyright road, and also made Marvel comics fans look forward to the return of the next superhero.

On September 20th, another weekend passed. Summit Entertainment took advantage of the heat to start negotiations with Lionsgate. The company's official website also announced a new set of data. As of today, "The Hunger Games", "Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part 1 and "Rise of the Apes" have all been officially drawn.

"The Hunger Games" global box office of 650 million US dollars, of which 410 million US dollars in North America, became one of the most popular movies in North America this year. "Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part 1 global box office of 725 million US dollars, temporarily ranked fifth in the world this year.

"Rise of the Apes" global box office of $780 million, surpassing "Shrek", temporarily ranked third in the world this year.

"The era of Shao Shuaijun has come!"-"Times Weekly". (To be continued. Please search Piaotian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!)