Chapter 801: The Weather Forecaster

"Good news! Good news!"

The sound of dense footsteps sounded, and George Clint strode into Ronan's office, waving the documents in his hand, and said with excitement: "Good news worth celebrating."

Ronan put down the signature pen in his hand, looked at him, and asked with concern: "Have you got the box office statistics for the weekend?"

George Clint was in a very good mood: "Yeah." He purposely said: "Ronan, guess how many there are."

Ronan stood up and strode over, feeling equally good: "There must be $140 million."

Two days before the filming of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" opened, the box office in North America reached 110 million US dollars. Even though the sequel films are often the most explosive at the beginning, they will gradually decline later, but why should they have 30 million US dollars on Sunday?

"I regret to tell you that I guessed wrong." George Clint said excitedly: "151.28 million dollars! Ronan, Relativity Entertainment created a new weekend box office record in the North American film market!"

Ronan took the statistics in George Clint's hand, glanced at them, and was a little excited: "Our investment was not in vain!"

George Clint nodded vigorously: "A few years ago, who would have thought that we would have this day?"

Ronan patted the desk: "Yeah, who would have thought that one day we will stand on the highest peak of North American box office records!"

There was a knock on the door, and Jessica Felton, who was wearing a women's professional suit and looked exceptionally capable, walked in.

George Clint walked over to Jessica Felton and shook hands vigorously: "Jessie, you are doing very well."

Jessica Felton apparently got the message, too, saying: "It's overrated, I'm taking over a sequel to a very successful film."

She smiled and said, "It's just that I didn't expect the second part to be so successful."

The second film more than doubled its debut at the box office compared to the well-received first film.

Ronan came to a cabinet in the office, took out a bottle of red wine from it, took three glasses by the way, and said, "We'll have a drink for this."

Jessica Felton smiled and said, "Celebrating?"

"It's certainly something to celebrate," George Clint said.

"

As he spoke, he took the wine bottle in Ronan's hand, and poured wine into three glasses after calling.

"For the big sale of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2"!"

"For our success."

"For relativity fun!"

"cheers!"

The three clinked glasses, took a sip each, and laughed at the same time.

Robert Lee and Mary walked in one after another. Mary looked at the three of them and said with a smile, "Why don't you call us to celebrate?"

Ronan went to get the cup: "You guys came just in time, let's have a drink together."

Robert Lee asked, "I'll get Bob."

Ronan took out the glass and gave it to Jessica Felton, and asked George Clint to pour the wine for the two, saying, "Bob has been in San Francisco recently."

"How did I forget this." Robert Iger stopped: "Bob is busy with the listing of Netflix Network."

Ronan took the wine glass from Jessica Felton, waited for everyone to pick up the glass, and clinked glasses with them one by one: "I wish us better and better."

Mary smiled and said, "I wish us success."

Everyone else smiled and clinked glasses, and the joyful atmosphere spread to every corner of the office.

Here are all the veterans of Relativity Entertainment. Mary, Robert Lee and George Clint are the only three employees who followed Ronan to start a business. Not only do they have options for Relativity Entertainment, they will also have corresponding equity rewards when Netflix goes public. .

Although the shareholding is very small, it can further stimulate people's motivation.

In addition, Ronan can't guarantee that when Netflix goes public, Mary, Robert Lee and George Clint's net worth of tens of millions is absolutely guaranteed.

The listing of Netflix Network also requires a certain number of shareholders to hold shares, which is a necessary condition for listing.

It is also the norm for listed companies that the management owns a small amount of equity.

Just like Pixar Studios back then, Ronan still has an absolute controlling stake in Netflix through Relativity Entertainment even if Netflix goes public.

Jessica Felton was treated much worse than Mary, Robert Lee and George Clint.

If you want to become a shareholder of Netflix Network, you can only wait until it is listed and exchange it for money.

On this point, Ronan has always been very clear. Jessica Felton has a good relationship with him and has shown enough ability, but it is too childish for Relativity Entertainment to give equity.

Speaking out, isn't Netflix's equity the same as Chinese cabbage?

After a brief drink to celebrate, everyone had work to deal with, and they left one after another. Ronan left Jessica Felton behind.

"You also need to participate in the subsequent peripheral sales of "Dead Soul's Chest". Ronan reminded: "Sand Sea Entertainment has no staff for the time being. You need to participate on behalf of the production company."

The finances of Sandsea Entertainment's subsidiaries are all accounted for separately, which was determined from the very beginning.

Jessica Felton said: "Yes, I have time now. The post-production of "Fast and Furious 3" is going well. I just need to control the overall situation and I can get away."

Ronan asked: "How is the preparation of "Juno" going?"

"I have already negotiated an actor contract with Ellen Page, and she will play the leading actress." Jessica Felton generally said: "This actor is indeed distinctive, and he is born with the advantage of reducing his age by five. It is suitable for the role of a female high school student."

She thought for a while, and then said, "I'm looking for a suitable director. It's not easy to find a director for a movie of this kind."

Ronan suddenly remembered Sofia Coppola, whom he had seen at the premiere of "Revenge of the Sith". This very free female director is still on vacation, so maybe it would be an option.

"What do you think of Sofia Coppola?" Ronan didn't know who the former director was, and Jessica Felton knew the "Juno" project better than him, so he just made a suggestion: ""Lost in Translation "Director."

Jessica Felton said: "Sofia Coppola? Female directors have a natural advantage in directing female themes. Oh, yes, her directorial debut is "Death of a Virgin", which is also a film about teenage girls' feelings and emotions. Family ethics movie."

Ronan nodded slightly: "Sofia Coppola's movie was handled very well. She should be better at this kind of subject matter about women."

Jessica Felton said: "Do you have Sofia Coppola's contact information? I will contact her first. You should know that a director like Sofia Coppola is not just us choosing her , she also has the right to choose a partner."

Ronan opened the phone book, found Sofia Coppola's contact information, handed it to Jessica Felton, and said, "You contact Sofia first, and then notify me when you need me to come forward."

"Okay." Jessica Felton put away her contact information: "I'll send the script over first, and let her read it."

Instead, she said, "Gore Verbinski asked, when will the preview of 'At World's End' be held?"

Ronan waved his hand: "It's not necessary to try it out, you tell Director Verbinski that if he wants to start a new project, he doesn't have to worry about it."

Jessica Felton said: "He is indeed preparing a new project. He asked me some time ago and let me read the script. Probably the script and project plan will come to you soon."

The project review of Theory of Relativity Entertainment must pass Ronan.

Even the projects of directors with successful collaborations with Relativity Entertainment are no exception.

There have been too many directors in Hollywood who were successful with one film and then flopped with their next film.

Ronan was curious and asked, "What project?"

Jessica Felton simply said: "A family ethics movie about a weatherman, the title of the script is "The Weatherman". Gore Verbinski has bought out the script with his own money. Looking for investment, his first consideration is to continue to cooperate with us."

Directing the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy, Gore Verbinski also made a lot of money, and it was easy to buy a movie script copyright.

Ronan's previous understanding of Gore Verbinski was limited to "The Grudge" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, and he didn't remember any other movies he directed.

In this regard, "The Grudge" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" may also be Gore Verbinski's most commercially successful films.

Jessica - Felton continued: "Gore - Verbinski has confirmed the actor, we just talked about Sofia - Coppola's cousin."

Ronan knew who she was talking about: "Nicolas Cage?"

"That's him." Jessica Felton said: "Gore Verbinski has already signed an agreement with Nicolas Cage, and he believes that having Nicolas Cage joining will help attract investment from production companies. "

Normally, it does.

The last movie "National Treasure" starring Nicolas Cage was a great success, which made this somewhat outdated movie star return to the front line in an instant.

The combination of famous directors and stars has always been one of the studio's favorite models.

But when Ronan heard the name Nicolas Cage, he instantly lost interest in Gore Verbinski's new project.

Nicolas Cage once had a great reputation. On the one hand, he was successful in the 1990s, and on the other hand, he was the king of bad movies after the new century.

For this old friend of the oriental movie fans, Ronan used to be quite familiar with him. I remember that after "National Treasure", it seems that except for "Ghost Rider", the other films are basically the fate of hitting the street and then hitting the street. .

Even, in the end, it was reduced to the point of going to the Oriental Film Production Company to make money.

It can be said that after "National Treasure", Nicolas Cage officially opened the super vicious circle mode.

Ronan thought about it for a while, and said, "Well, let's wait until Shahai Entertainment submits the project to me, and I'll talk about it after I have read the script and proposal."

Jessica Felton didn't say much either, she knew that Ronan had always been more cautious in this regard.