Chapter 1791 He Who Wins the Bond Wins the World

However, what is the purpose of Sony and Facebook investing in buzzfeed at the same time?

The purpose of Facebook is actually easy to guess, because the rise of new era media has greatly reduced their influence in the media field, and they can only stand still in the social area.

Facebook, which has hit the ceiling, must develop horizontally. On the left, Google dominates the search pie. On the right, Yahoo originally dominated the news dissemination field, but this area is gradually being caught up and surpassed by New Era Media.

He even turned around and started to extend his sinful hands towards the social field. How could this make Xiao Zha not be vigilant?

It is reasonable for the opponent to make the headlines.

But what is Sony going to do? You must know that the cooperation between the two parties was quite pleasant before, and the merger negotiations were also proceeding in an orderly manner. Although the rivals who rushed to invest in Toutiao at this stage have no competitiveness for the time being, this has to make people think deeply.

As expected, he is a little RB, and he likes to be a midfielder the most.

Now is not the time to think about this issue. Yang Cheng is more curious about why Sanford would take the initiative to reveal this news. You must know that this is a company secret. Once it is discovered, it will definitely not be tolerated.

He asked the doubts in his heart very directly. Sanford laughed and said, "Mr. Yang, don't think too much, I just want to exchange a favor~"

"Favor?"

"Yes, I think the merger of New Era Pictures and Columbia Pictures is inevitable. By then, I will become Mr. Yang's subordinate~"

Yang Cheng suddenly realized that this guy was planning a future for himself in advance. If this was the case, the whole thing would make sense.

Clinking glasses with the other party, he said with a smile, "Are you so optimistic about the merger of the two film industry groups?"

"Yes~ This is the general trend. Fox's acquisition by Disney is unstoppable. If the remaining major companies want to fight against the unprecedentedly powerful Disney, merger is the only way out."

After hesitating for a moment, Sanford carefully looked around to make sure that no one could hear their conversation, then he lowered his voice and said, "If possible, I suggest that New Era Pictures include MGM in the negotiation conditions. .”

Yang Cheng was surprised. He didn't expect that Sanford would actually start to make suggestions. Did he consider himself one of his own?

But his proposal made Yang Cheng's heart beat.

If we say that it was once the most luxurious family among the eight major Hollywood families,

In fact, it has to be MGM.

Not only did it create the highest-grossing movie "Gone with the Wind" in film history, of course this is without taking inflation into account, but it also led to the birth of the Oscar statuette. MGM's films have won 170 Oscars. prize.

However, prosperity and decline are always inevitable curses for wealthy companies. MGM, which has a history of nearly a century, is no longer what it used to be. Not only has it changed hands several times, it was almost on the verge of bankruptcy in 2009.

James Bond has saved the world more than 20 times in half a century. The most important rescue is probably to revive the lion of MGM. It can be said that without Bond, MGM would have long been in the history books. Word.

Yang Cheng felt sad when he thought about the current situation of MGM. He couldn't help but think about whether his family and New Era Media would follow the same old path in the future.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but I’ve been thinking about these things lately.

However, as far as he knows, the copyright issue of MGM's most important and valuable IP "007" has always been a problem.

He asked, "Has the James Bond copyright issue been resolved?"

Bond can be considered a prodigal son. In 1961, out of love for the original work, Canadian Harry Salzman bid for the film rights.

At the same time, American producer Albert Broccoli wanted to pay a larger price to buy out the copyright, but Harry refused, but agreed that the two would work together to shoot the "007" movie, and then the two established a film production company. Danjaq.

In 1962, "Dr. No", the first part of the "007" series, was released to the public, which caused a huge response and laid a good audience foundation for the more than 20 "007" films that followed.

But starting from the fourth part, the "007" series has been involved in copyright disputes.

Danjaq was involved in a protracted legal battle after one of the screenwriters sued the company for holding part of the copyright to "007".

Fifteen years later, due to financial difficulties, Harry sold all the "007" copyrights he owned to United Artists Production Company, one of the eight largest Hollywood studios at the time.

Later, MGM acquired United Artists and changed its name to MGM-United Artists Entertainment, becoming one of the largest film production companies in the world. At the same time, it was a matter of course that it took over the film copyrights of the "007" series.

The "007" series of films, born in 1962, joined the MGM film library family for the first time 19 years later, and has never left since.

Does this scene look familiar? Now that Disney is forcibly acquiring Fox for the sake of the integrity of Marvel, it is exactly the same scene as when MGM acquired United Artists.

However, the fate of "007" is the same as Bond's, always full of twists and turns.

In the second half of the 20th century, MGM changed hands several times and became one of the few major Hollywood film companies that has been declining due to mergers and acquisitions.

Entering the 21st century, business is even more dismal.

Not long after the turn of the millennium, Kirk Kerkorian announced the sale of MGM.

Although MGM no longer owned sound stages, backlots, or other physical facilities and produced only a limited number of films, it still owned an asset of immense value: a library of 4,100 films and 10,600 television series. film library, and the most dazzling jewel in MGM's crown is the "007" series of movies, which may be the most valuable series of movies in history.

Buyers who want to take over see the huge potential value of these IPs.

Not to mention anything else, the average annual revenue from licensing the film copyrights of the film library, including the "007" series, to pay TV, cable TV networks and TV stations around the world can reach US$600 million.

However, the business that seems to be a sure profit is not that simple, because when it comes to copyright, this considerable income needs to be shared with the rights holders of other films.

To assess the true value of the library, one of the buyers, Viacom, sent an experienced team of its own in-house professionals to estimate the potential benefit of each film over the next 10 years. .

Including other benefits from merging MGM and Paramount, analysis reports show that Viacom managers value MGM at $3.5 to $4 billion.

After that, Disney also went through a process of valuing MGM's film library. Their valuation was US$3 billion, but they also chose to give up acquiring the company.

Unlike other buyers, Sony's intention to covet MGM is to bet the future of the company on its own Blu-ray high-definition DVD format. It needs to obtain the support of other major studios for the high-definition DVD format in order to cope with the current Format wars.

At that time, wealthy giants such as Dongzhi Group and Microsoft used their abundant cash to enable other major studios to exclusively copy and output films in HD-DVD format.

If Sony can exclusively duplicate MGM's film library in Blu-ray format, coupled with its existing Columbia Pictures film library, it will no longer be possible to win this no matter how generous incentives Dongzhi Group and Microsoft can provide. There is a format war.

This was almost a stand that determined the fate of the group. Sony would never give up, so Sony united some Wall Street private equity funds to form a consortium and led the consortium to acquire MGM.

Although this leveraged buyout cost US$4.85 billion, in fact, Sony only spent US$300 million in cash for it. Don’t forget that the movies in the library can still generate value.

For Sony, this gamble was extremely successful. After acquiring MGM, the size of Sony's film library doubled to approximately 8,000 films, including the "007" series owned by MGM.

It won the format war in one fell swoop by exporting 1,400 films from MGM's library to the exclusive Blu-ray format.

But that was back then. If MGM didn't have "007" now, it might even be worse than a skinny camel.

In that acquisition that year, in addition to Sony, the biggest winner, there were also a group of wealthy Wall Street investors.

It's just that they weren't as lucky as Sony, and this acquisition was almost a disaster for them.

Because this acquisition caused the consortium's partners to lose more than one billion U.S. dollars, who could have predicted that DVD sales would see a historic turn. As far as the U.S. market alone is concerned, MGM's revenue from DVD sales has shrunk by nearly 10%. 80%.

The huge decline in sales, rising revenue sharing, increasing issuance costs, and other issuance problems all caused MGM to be overwhelmed, and finally fell into a huge abyss of deficit, and was no longer able to repay the bank's US$3.7 billion. Debt interest.

In the end, MGM chose to file for bankruptcy protection.

Generally speaking, when a company is unable to repay its debts, bank creditors can force the company to enter bankruptcy proceedings to seek compensation, but if MGM enters bankruptcy proceedings, it will face a very difficult problem - future sequels of the "007" series of movies There are special provisions for copyright. Once MGM goes bankrupt, its sequel copyright will automatically be transferred to another party - Danjaq, the company that owned the copyright to "007" earlier than MGM.

In other words, once the copyright value of "007" is lost, MGM, which has always been proud of "007", will become worthless even if it has a massive film library. Well, I can't say that, I can only say that the value will Severe shrinkage.

Losing "007" will face another disaster for those banks who are eager for MGM to repay their debts - perhaps there will be no buyers willing to take over MGM. There will be no need for a format war, and there will be no need for a format war. In order to continue to produce the copyright of "007" which is bound to be a hit in the future, the value of MGM's remaining film library and other assets can be called worthless compared with the huge debt.

In desperation, in order to protect MGM's residual value, the bank gave MGM a three-month "extension."

The final solution was for MGM to merge with Telescope Films. After the New York bankruptcy court exempted MGM from nearly $4 billion in debt, JP Morgan followed up and endorsed it, helping MGM obtain $500 million from the bank. U.S. dollar credit. With this $500 million in financing, MGM did not need to go bankrupt and completed its restructuring.

Nine Heavens God Emperor

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