Chapter 297 Final Offer and Two Phone Calls
Liu Zhou wrote the script directly without writing the novel of "The Hunger Games".

Although the novel "The Hunger Games" is very popular in North America, if Liu Zhou wrote the same story, it might not be as popular as the original.

There are still some differences in reading habits between the East and the West.

Besides, Liu Zhou was too lazy to write novels, and his time was much more precious now than before.

Liu Zhou spent a week writing the script and then went to register it.

After finishing the script, Liu Zhou was just about to go to Toronto to accompany Zhang Tong and the children, but at this time he received a call from Anthony Edwards.

"Anthony, is there any good news?"

"Liu, I ran into some trouble. Things didn't go as smoothly as I thought."

"What's the trouble? Do they not want to sell it anymore or do they have a competitor?"

"Neither. We just couldn't agree on the price."

"what happened?"

"Liu, I think you can come over here."

"Ok, I'll come over now."

After the call, Liu Zhou also got up and went to New York.

Summit Entertainment's headquarters is in New York, and Los Angeles is just their production department.

In fact, many Hollywood film companies are headquartered in New York.

After arriving in New York, Liu Zhou finally understood the specific situation.

The main disagreement actually lies in the movie "Twilight".

Summit Entertainment was founded in 1993 by three founders: Patrick Warburg, Bob Hayward and David Garrett.

Among them, Patrick Warburg came from Wall Street and is also the main investor of Summit Entertainment, so he owns the largest number of shares in the company, up to 42%.

Bob Hayward and David Garrett are both veteran Hollywood producers who understand film making and Hollywood rules. They divided the remaining shares equally, 29% each.

At the beginning, the three of them were very ambitious and did not want to do small things. They aimed to cooperate with top superstars.

Hollywood in the 1990s was known as the era of superstars, and Hollywood superstars at the time had unparalleled box office appeal.

However, Hollywood superstars obviously look down on such start-ups, and the only option is to throw money at them.

Although the company had just been established and the three of them had pooled some money together, it was obviously not enough to support the operation of a large-scale production.

So after hitting a wall, the three decided to keep their feet on the ground and make the production and distribution of low-budget independent films the company's main business.

One of them understood business, two of them understood production, and the close cooperation between the three of them rapidly developed Summit Entertainment into a well-known second-tier film company in Hollywood.

After the company made money, the three of them began to diversify their investments, not to mention that one of the partners came from Wall Street.

At the beginning, the situation was good. The film company was making a lot of money and other investments were also increasing in value.

But no one expected that a financial crisis would not only make their investment go down the drain, but also put Summit Entertainment's development into trouble.

Currently, all walks of life are wailing. There are no financing channels at all. Even the previously confirmed film investments are preparing to withdraw their capital.

In Hollywood, it is rare to invest all of one's own money in a movie.

Generally, when there is a project, the film company will invest a little, and then go to other institutions or individuals for financing for the remaining funds.

Almost all projects of the Big Seven Hollywood studios operate in this way, including their major film series.

It's just that if you invest in their key projects, you will only get a share of the box office profits, and the subsequent copyright profits will have nothing to do with you.

For example, Legendary Pictures, which was later acquired by Wanda, does not produce movies, but mainly invests in key projects of the seven major Hollywood companies.

It is more like a film and television investment company than a production company.

Some of the major film series of the Big Seven Hollywood are not yet accessible to ordinary people because the investment has extremely low risk.

Unless the film is really bad, such series of movies rarely fail.

In this case, it will be difficult for the Big Seven Hollywood studios to cheat people, as the box office figures are relatively transparent.

In fact, Hollywood doesn't always cheat people, otherwise if it had always been unprofitable, there wouldn't be more and more such film and television investment institutions.

As for Hollywood film companies, they also need such investment institutions.

This would solve their funding problems at one stroke and also allow film companies to develop more projects.

If the project is successful, the most you can do is share some of the box office revenue with the investment institutions, but the bulk of the subsequent profits will still be yours.

If the project fails, it is the investors who lose money, not the film company.

The distribution fees, subsequent copyright development, etc. can make back the investment, and the film company does not invest much, so it is very likely to be able to make a profit.

Therefore, the risks are borne by the investment institutions, and they will always make a profit.

Summit Entertainment certainly also adopts this method to produce movies, but now Hollywood's film and television investment institutions have no money due to the financial crisis, which has also caused the company to almost shut down.

If it were in the past, the three founders could still invest some money in the company themselves and keep the company running.

But now, they can barely protect themselves, let alone invest more money in the company.

So they had to reluctantly sell Summit Entertainment, otherwise they would all go bankrupt. At that time, it would not be them who sold the company, but the bank would directly take their company away for auction.

In that case, Summit Entertainment will most likely be sold at a low price and they will be left with nothing.

If you take the initiative to sell it, you may be able to get more money, and you can keep some for yourself, so you don’t end up on the streets.

The financial crisis is so cruel that you may be a millionaire or even a billionaire one day and become a pauper the next.

Of course they were very happy that someone approached them and wanted to acquire Summit Entertainment.

Although Summit Entertainment is good, they are still worried that it won’t sell.

They thought that since it was an outsider who came to buy the property, they could make a killing, but they didn't expect that there were also knowledgeable people on the other side, so they had to give up the idea of ​​ripping him off.

But I gave up the idea of ​​ripping them off, but I didn't expect the other party to give me a hard time. The offer they made was really hard to accept.

"Liu, under normal circumstances, Summit Entertainment is worth at least 300 million, but in this special period, the value is definitely not that high.

The offer I made was 1.5 million, but the other party rejected it outright. These days, I gradually raised the price to 1.8 million, but the other party still refused.

They insisted on the 2.5 million offer because they seemed to be very confident about Twilight and felt that the movie had the potential to be a hit. "Why were they so confident about Twilight?"

Looking at the Twilight series from the perspective of later generations, it is certainly a successful series, but this IP, whether it is a novel or a movie, was not well-received at the beginning.

Because of the precedent of "Harry Potter", "Twilight" makes people feel very childish.

Anthony Edwards smiled bitterly and said:
"We are just unlucky. The Twilight novel has suddenly become popular recently and has entered the top five of the bestseller list."

"During the financial crisis, weren't contraceptive condoms popular? How come novels are also popular?"

"Perhaps this novel is indeed unique, and after a year of accumulation, it just happened to explode now."

"Okay, but the Twilight movie hasn't been released yet. Even though the novel is suddenly a bestseller, it won't increase the valuation by $70 million."

"Maybe they're fantasizing that Twilight can achieve the same success as Harry Potter."

"That's wishful thinking. Harry Potter can create tens of billions of dollars in value. Since they think Twilight can be compared to Harry Potter, why don't they offer tens of billions?
And the reason why Harry Potter has such a high value is the result of the operation of the entire Time Warner Group. What do the three of them have now?"

"But they were so convinced that Twilight would do very well at the box office that they refused to budge once the price dropped to $2.5 million."

"When is the next negotiation? I will talk to them in person then."

"Next Monday, which is three days from now."

Hearing Liu Zhou's words, Anthony Edwards felt slightly relieved.

The reason why he called Liu Zhou over was because the negotiations with Summit Entertainment had reached the final stage, and the final decision still needed to be made by the big boss Liu Zhou.

"Ok, then please send all the information about your recent negotiations with Summit Entertainment to my room. I'll take a look first."

"I'll have someone from Goldman Sachs send it over right away."

Afterwards, Anthony Edwards also left Liu Zhou's room.

At this time, Liu Zhou couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

In fact, the 2.5 million yuan offered by the other party to Summit Entertainment is not expensive. After all, before the financial crisis, their valuation was around million yuan.

Moreover, the three of them had a pretty accurate view of "Twilight". Not only did the movie do well at the box office, it also became a big hit.

Historically, in 2012, Lionsgate spent nearly 500 million to acquire 80% of Summit Entertainment's shares, with the main purpose being the "Twilight" series.

At that time, two "Twilight" movies had already been released. The reason why it was sold so cheaply was, as Liu Zhou just said, that Summit Entertainment had limited strength.

Even if "Twilight" can be compared with "Harry Potter", Summit Entertainment cannot create such great value for "Twilight".

It was only after the Twilight Saga fell into the hands of Lionsgate that its influence became completely popular under the operation of Lionsgate.

However, in this financial crisis, the initiative is in Liu Zhou's hands. Even if they value "Twilight" very much, Liu Zhou does not believe that they can continue to be tough.

For the next three days, Liu Zhou kept looking at the negotiation materials between Anthony and Summit Entertainment.

After having a clear idea in mind, Liu Zhou followed the negotiation team to the Summit Entertainment headquarters on Monday.

The three founders of Summit Entertainment seemed to be familiar with Liu Zhou, and they did not seem surprised to see him coming.

"Mr. Liu, this is really unexpected. I thought you would be a rising big director in Hollywood, but I didn't expect you to become the boss of a film company."

"That's because you know too little about me. I'm more than just a director."

"We also recently learned that Mr. Liu is actually the second richest man in China. It's really surprising."

"There are many unexpected things. Just like I didn't expect you to still cling to the company."

Liu Zhou didn't want to beat around the bush with them and went straight to the point.

After hearing what Liu Zhou said, the three people on the opposite side also put away their smiles, and the leader, Patrick Waberg, said seriously:

"Mr. Liu, it's not that we are holding on to Summit Entertainment, but the offer Anthony Edwards made is too low."

"US$1.8 million, I think this price is not low."

"But Summit Entertainment was worth at least 300 million before."

“Don’t talk about the past. Summit Entertainment was worth 300 million yuan before. Would you sell it if I offered 300 million yuan at that time?
I think even if you sell it, you will at least sell it at double the price.

But now we, the buyer, have the initiative, so it is normal to lower the price, not to mention that I paid in cash.”

“Under normal circumstances, we would have accepted the price of 1.8 million, but now that Twilight has been completed, the post-production will be completed in another two months.

If you acquire Summit Entertainment, this movie will be given away for free, and if the movie is successful, it will become a series."

"So Twilight is the reason for you to raise the price? Even if Twilight does well at the box office, can you wait until this movie is released?"

Seeing that the other party was silent, Liu Zhou softened his tone a little and continued:

“I really want to acquire Summit Entertainment, and you happen to be short of money, so we have sufficient basis for cooperation.

Although the sales of the Twilight novels have exploded, as veteran filmmakers, you should also know that there is too much uncertainty in movies.

So I think we can both compromise, $2 million, what do you think? "

"Mr. Liu, $2 million is still too little."

"Mr. Warburg, since I'm here to talk to you in person, it also means that I'm not here to bargain with you. $2 million is our final offer.

If you think $2 million is too little, I will give up the acquisition of Summit Entertainment and let Goldman Sachs look for new acquisition targets. "

After hearing Liu Zhou's almost ultimatum, the three of them were silent for a while, and then Patrick Waberg took over and said:

"Mr. Liu, we need to discuss this before we can give you an answer."

"I understand, but I don't want this to take too long. Today is June 29th. I hope you can give me an accurate answer before your country's Independence Day."

The Independence Day of the United States is July 4th, and Liu Zhou gave them five days to consider.

After saying this, Liu Zhou then left with the negotiation team.

In the next few days, Liu Zhou stayed in New York, waiting for a reply from Summit Entertainment.

Although Liu Zhou was somewhat confident that they would not refuse, there was always the possibility of an emergency.

Summit Entertainment can be said to be Liu Zhou's most ideal and also the acquisition target that he is most satisfied with. If they really refuse it in the end, Liu Zhou will also feel a little regretful.

Just as Liu Zhou was anxiously waiting for the other party's reply, his phone and Anthony Edwards' phone rang one after another.

(End of this chapter)