Chapter 743: MCI With Sad Times

...

In the various intrigues of the ultimate battle of PC standards, 1986 was sent away, and 1987 came slowly.

Compared with the prosperity of Silicon Valley, Hollywood has become more and more sluggish. This can be reflected in the highest-grossing film in the United States in 1986, which was "Top Gun" with 180 million US dollars. Compared with previous years, the domestic box office in the United States has dropped to a level of less than 200 million US dollars.

What is surprising is that there is also a special case of "foreign monks who like to chant sutras" in Hollywood.

For example, 20th Century Fox won the distribution rights of an Australian comedy film ""Dundee"-"Crocodile" Duncan". .

In addition, the American Kung Fu film "The Karate Kid" discovered by Columbia Pictures - "The Kid Is Hard to Deal with". The filming cost was only $13 million.

Generally speaking, the current Hollywood, while developing into horizontal fields such as television, is trying its best to make a fuss about profits in the main business of film.

Under such circumstances, Xiangjiang, which is unprecedentedly prosperous in the film industry, will inevitably have several works that cater to the tastes of American audiences, replicating the US$850,000 investment and US$22 million that Warner received from Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon". Return on investment miracle at the US box office.

Undoubtedly, Hollywood has no patience, and it is impossible to have the leisure to cultivate the development of Xiangjiang Films. After Bruce Lee, it was unable to make a name for itself quickly, and after squeezing the money, it lost interest. People's hearts gathered around Tang Huan.

The kung fu movies with a completely Chinese cast centered around Li Lianjie basically come out every year and are put into American theaters. Until this year's "Tai Chi Zhang Sanfeng" and "Zhong_South_Hai Bodyguard", the box office has maintained a steady rise In terms of situation, the two films combined can be compared to "Tough Kid", and the return on investment is even better. After all, Xiangjiang's shooting costs are easier to control.

However, "Dragon Brother and Tiger Brother", which Golden Harvest placed high hopes on, suffered a bit of ill-fated fate. The leading actor Cheng Long was accidentally seriously injured during the reshoots, and he will not be able to use it within a year.

Originally according to Jiahe's intention, since "Dragon Brother and Tiger Brother" has been basically completed, it should be released as soon as possible and earn as much as it can, especially in Japan, where local audiences are obsessed with Cheng Long's movies.

Tang Huan could see that Zou Wenhuai and others had no idea about Cheng Long's future, so they acted a bit eager for quick success. Cheng Long couldn't cooperate with public appearances to promote "Brothers and Brothers". The oil and water are squeezed out.

For this reason, Tang Huan rarely expressed his opinion: "Even if we wait for a year, the level of "Brothers and Tigers" is still first-class in Asia. There is no need for everyone to rush to cash out. What's more, this year, Xiangjiang Cinema Group has mastered the There are a lot of excellent film sources, and Cheng Long, the leading actor, can't help promote it, so the box office performance may be difficult to grasp, so it's better to wait until the second half of 1987, when Jackie Chan can make a public appearance, and work on the release."

Seeing that Tang Huan still maintains confidence in Cheng Long's future, this suggestion was accepted.

As for "The True Colors of Heroes", which is likely to sweep Asia, the response in the United States is also good. The heroic genre created by Wu Yusen really caters to the appreciation of this era, and Zhou Runfa, who performed the most brilliantly, caught the limelight. Li Lianjie in 1990, just the promotional poster of him lighting cigarettes with counterfeit money in the movie was snatched up by fans who shouted that he was cool enough.

Taking advantage of this craze, "The Story of the Loyal Dog Hachiko" starring Zhou Runfa also began a small-scale test screening, and Tang Huan took the time to look at the copy that was delivered.

In fact,

The filming progress of "The Story of Hachiko" was a bit delayed. The problem was with the three Akita dogs who played the role of the loyal dog Hachiko. Director Xu Anhua's team was still a little unaccustomed to animal actors, and there was a mistake in "communication". Several times the dog was not in the state, and the technical processing of the lens was difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice.

Fortunately, everyone worked hard and finally completed this work with the theme of loyalty and trust.

Tang Huan didn't expect the film's commercial performance to be outstanding, and if he treated it from the perspective of a literary film, there might be unexpected surprises. Just like the literary film "The Story of Roses" starring Zhang Manyu, which was adapted from Yi Shu's novel of the same name, the box office of Xiangjiang's local port can exceed 10 million.

Obviously, the background of "The Story of the Faithful Dog Hachiko" was moved from Japan to Xiangjiang as a matter of course, and the actor played by Zhou Runfa became a professor at Xiangjiang University.

Taking on this drama is not a small challenge for the leading actor. After all, it is necessary to cooperate tacitly with the dog in order to reflect the sincere feelings. And at this stage, most of the roles played by Zhou Runfa are cynical and ruffian fringe characters. With his limited education, he really needs to work hard to interpret a university professor well.

Looking at Zhou Runfa wearing glasses on the screen, Tang Huan said with a smile to Zhou Runfa, who was on vacation in the United States with his wife Yu Anan, "Not to mention, stand on the university podium, you are a full-fledged cultural person."

"The director's instructions are good." Zhou Runfa smiled modestly, "It's not the first time I've watched this movie, but I'm still quite surprised by my performance."

Tang Huan pointed out: "After "The Tale of Hachiko" was released in Japan, the response was good. I guess you will have to go there a few more times in the future, so as to expand your popularity while the iron is hot."

"It's not hard work, I'm ready." Zhou Runfa, who had been acting hardworking all the time, wasn't pretending to be in front of Tang Huan, he really came from his heart.

Ever since he joined DreamWorks, Zhou Runfa has undergone earth-shaking changes in his stardom. After working hard in TVB for so many years, he certainly understands the rare opportunity to make his debut, so he can't bear the airs of being a double actor_king up.

"If you can meet Ms. Deng when you go to Japan, please take care of me." The clever Zhou Runfa began to curry favor with Deng Lijun again.

"It's not about taking care of me. If I need help, I will try my best." Deng Lijun, who was so moved by the movie, wiped the corners of her eyes and agreed happily.

In the past few years, Deng Lijun's development achievements in Japan, not to mention the number one among the Chinese counterparts, are not inferior even compared to the first-line stars in Japan. Participating in the Red and White Song Battle for the third time illustrates this point.

The reason for this is that apart from Deng Lijun's hard work and outstanding talent, there is also Tang Huan's secret help. After all, various ranking resources are limited, and Japanese record companies have tried their best to arrange their own artists, let alone an outsider.

With the current achievements, Deng Lijun's help to boost the popularity of DreamWorks stars in Japan can still play some obvious role.

It is no exaggeration to say that Deng Lijun, who already has a strong influence, can no longer simply be regarded as a big singer. If he really wants to make good use of it, he can gather a non-negligible appeal in Baodao, and help Zhou Run to make this point If you are busy, you can't help wasting talents.

...

After the movie was over, Tang Huan said, "I still have something to do, so I won't be with you." Then he got up and went to meet the MCI CEO William McGovern who had been there as reported by his assistant.

"I'm fairly proficient in Chinese medicine, so please allow me to say something else. It seems that your health has a serious problem." During the exchange of greetings, Tang Huan carefully reminded after looking at the other party's expression.

"Heart surgery has almost been arranged." William McGovern's face flashed a gloomy look, and he asked bluntly: "You are so observant, did you expect that when I approached you for the financing of MCI? When it comes to the problems that MCI will encounter, that's why you reject it unfavorably?"

"I just feel that although AT&T was dismantled, the eight split companies still have a huge monopoly advantage. In contrast, MCI has only focused on litigation and grabbing territory with AT&T over the years. There are few achievements, so it is difficult to resist the competition of the Bell family that has been dismantled on the surface, but in fact has let go of its hands and feet." Tang Huan did not give up the opportunity to pretend to be a magic stick, and analyzed it carefully.

After the dismantling of AT&T officially took effect on January 1, 1984, MCI did not flex its muscles in the open space as expected by the outside world. Those who were extremely disappointed.

The specific performance is that in the second year after the dismantling of AT&T officially took effect, that is, in 1985, mci's revenue was only 2.5 billion US dollars, which was less than 10% of the total revenue of the new AT&T, and compared with the previous year. In the same year, that is, 1984 was basically flat, and profits fell; until 1986, MCI lost 448 million US dollars, and the stock price also fell to 6 US dollars.

This result made William McGovern, who was ambitious to find financing everywhere, and even borrowed a large sum of money from junk bonds, to make a big fight, speechless. Facing investors' doubts, he even had an excuse to defend himself. Neither could be found.

William McGovern is a super workaholic and has bad living habits. He drinks a lot of strong coffee and smokes a lot of cigars every day to maintain his energy and handle the workload that is overloaded for ordinary people.

As a result, under this ruthless blow, his health finally suffered a serious problem, and he had to step back from the position of MCI CEO for a long time to undergo surgery, recuperate, and recover.

You know, William McGovern is 60 years old this year, and it's really hard to say whether he can survive this hurdle.

And the situation he left behind is that the market share of mci's main business - long-distance telephone business is only 10%, and another new competitor, sprint, has reached 8%. The company still holds 70%.

The reason why MCI retreated so embarrassingly is that although the old AT&T company was dismantled, it can be used as a compensation, and the new AT&T company does not have those federal monopolies. All kinds of restrictions set by the company's status can be directly let go of the hands and feet, and the price war of challengers like MCI can be faced head-on.

In the 1970s, MCI was 70% lower than AT&T in terms of long-distance telephone access charges, which became one of the strong evidences for the US Department of Justice to dismantle this giant.

But this advantage ceased to exist after January 1, 1984, and the new AT&T directly smoothed out this gap.

At the same time, since mci's communication network was completed by surprise, there are many technical problems, and it has not challenged the halo of dragon warriors, so it is naturally more and more difficult to get tolerance and understanding from customers; and New America The communication network inherited by the Telephone and Telegraph Company is the most excellent. Under the condition of the same tariff, it is obvious what choice the user makes.

As a result, the new AT&T retained more than 75 percent of its subscribers, while MCI only poached 10 percent.

This is the predicament that mci is currently facing. It has lost its original ideal color and has become a company driven purely by commercial interests. It can only accept the reality of the capital market and ruthlessly ridicule it.

Telling those nonsense in front of sensible people has no meaning other than wasting time.

No matter how shrewd William McGovern was, he couldn't hold back the mentality created by the strong and the weak, so he was quickly impressed by Tang Huan's stance, so he could only smile wryly and say, "Well, I hope you, who know everything, won't Taking advantage of the fire to rob, you can give a fair price."

Speaking of this, William McGovern did not forget to add, threatening faintly: "You should know that Craig McCaw, who is buying cellular phone operating licenses all over the United States like you, is also interested in this business. interest."

Before William McGovern abdicates, it is impossible to leave a mess to his successor without any room for turning around. Otherwise, maybe on the day when he recovers and wants to return to MCI and continue to challenge AT&T, the company has already closed down because it couldn't stand it.

Therefore, William McGovern had to leave a considerable amount of cash to guarantee that MCI would not be consumed by AT&T for at least one year. With few options, he finally decided to cash out by selling Airsignal, a subsidiary that operates the cell phone and paging business.

"Smart people don't talk dark words, and Craig McCaw, who dares not wean on funds from betting on banks and junk bonds, has limited confidence to spend a lot of money, and I can also provide mci with technology including technology in addition to money. , resources that he does not have.”

After Tang Huan unceremoniously exposed William McGovern's threat as completely weak, he took a document from his assistant and handed it to the other party, saying indifferently: "My team has carefully and comprehensively evaluated it. Cellular phones and paging are not MCI's core business, and the level of development is quite average, that is, the license plate can be called a valuable asset. People like Craig McCaw will not bid more than 130 million U.S. dollars, and now I will give you an extra 10 million US dollars, so that MCI will have more possibilities to tide over the difficulties when you are unable to take the helm."

The corner of William McGovern's mouth was twitched, and he asked sarcastically, "Thank you Tang for your generosity. You 'helped' mci so nonchalantly. Can you tell me the reason?"