Chapter 972： Lionsgate without a future

Contact with Top Entertainment is still going on, but just like the previous investigation, they encountered a financial crisis, and their attitude is not firm. At least for the bottom-level employees, they cannot pay full salaries, let alone incentive bonus days. I didn't think so.

Although bound by unions, capitalists have to abide by many policies and bills on employee benefits and benefits, which protects their rights and interests, but in fact, unions are also partners of studios to a certain extent, and no union would want to A fairly powerful studio is on the verge of collapse.

The bigwigs are arguing every day, some people don’t want to play, but no one wants to eat it, some people yell at them, complaining that the stalls are too open and too fast, which greatly increases the operating cost and affects the business that is still making money. As soon as the incident occurs, the motivation of the employees will be gone.

Even if "The Hurt Locker" won the Oscar, it actually has a lot of operating capital. As long as the slogan of the Olympic Awards is used, it can attract some audiences to actively enter the theater, but if the money earned cannot make up the gap, the meaning That's it, obviously, a literary film can't do this, it can't be "Avatar", and it won't be "The Dark Knight".

"They have a lot of conditions."

In the crew of "The Tuner", Johnson rushed over to report: "Retain the label, hold certain powers, and more specifically, it's all on this."

Lehmann took over the negotiation results after the initial contact and frowned.

He suddenly discovered that the demands of investors and management are completely different. The former is better, just for the money, and wants to sell Summit Entertainment at a good price. It is best to become a sub-label of Mann Media and enjoy similar treatment as Firefly and Marvel.

In other words, this is a big departure from Lehman's vision. He never thought of accepting so many people. If Summit Entertainment enters by retaining the label, it will definitely have a certain impact on the existing personnel structure. This is also troublesome.

"Is it still possible to continue the talks? Retaining the label is not in my plan."

"Of course there is, but," Johnson talked about another matter, "when we contacted Summit Entertainment, we found out that there are other manufacturers who have an idea for it."

"Who?"

"Lion Gate."

......

As the first independent manufacturer to break the existing pattern and establish itself overseas, at the end of last year, it led the release of several projects with a total value of more than 1 billion US dollars. Lionsgate, which was praised as the eighth brand by Variety, has encountered many trouble.

They have an ambitious overseas layout, and successively acquired a number of studios to re-split and integrate all the labels to improve the efficiency of distribution and production, hoping to gain a firm foothold.

But it is a pity that a firm foothold is a firm footing, but it is not on one's own. In terms of content, it relies too much on the cooperation projects of Firefly. As a result, overseas distributors do not buy Lionsgate's account very much. The fundamental reason is that they produce independently. On the other hand, there are few achievements that can be proved.

Again, you don't have reliable interests that convince people, so why would people be willing to contribute money?

But the stalls have been spread out. For the return of project operation, they can only choose to improve the competitiveness of content. Especially when Mann Media began to develop overseas markets, the resources of the two overlapped quite a bit, and they couldn’t even play different cards. , and more depend on yourself.

From this point of view, Lionsgate's situation is indeed not good, and they are eager to change, otherwise it will be very embarrassing.

"Now there is a news circulating in the industry that Lionsgate plans to spend a lot of money to build a new production system. It is very likely that they want to integrate strong foreign aid like Paramount in 2005."

Johnson said: "Maybe they themselves have discovered that relying only on the original production team, at most they also produce the "Black Woman" series or some horror, thriller and other types of film projects. They have played this set for many years and have a lot of experience. It is rich and rarely loses money, but the problem is that overseas audiences can’t be moved by only relying on these topics with a small audience.”

"Lionsgate's management is capable and financially secure. Why is the output so single?"

"It's actually very simple. In the film industry, everyone instinctively chooses the works with the most success rate. Like Universal, their comedy production is higher than the other studios. Compared with Lionsgate, they are used to thrillers, The horror genre is more biased than Universal. This subconscious training has made many studios have similar resource tilts. Look at Disney, no matter how much it develops live-action movies, it often has a youthful style and family fun. production experience.”

This is also true. After the audience has an inherent impression, is it not restricting the changes of the studio?

Lionsgate doesn't play thriller and horror themes. Who would buy it? No wonder they need to bring in foreign aid, but the question is, what is Summit Entertainment? Lehman thought and asked, "What do they want from Summit Entertainment?"

"The genre of movies that Summit is best at is teen-oriented. Don't be fooled by their Hurt Locker, sir, the studio's focus is similar to the Twilight series you developed, The representative works of their company such as "Las Vegas Style Painting" and "Dancing Out of My Life" all target the youth market."

"In other words, Lionsgate is sure that there will be a role in the future of the film market for teenagers?" Lehmann concluded.

"Who knows, Hollywood will have a change in the wind in a few years. The most popular magic epic in the past will not be bought by the audience now because of their aesthetic fatigue."

Lehmann stopped talking. If it's true, Lionsgate made it into the top three for the first time on the subject of teens, accomplishing a feat that most studios don't have.

At that time, Lionsgate, which held the copyright of "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight", was very popular.

However, Lehman had already held the right to adapt "The Hunger Games" -- this book was published in January 2010, and before the sales became famous, Lehman, who had been paying attention, was in the bag.

It only took 10 million to reserve the priority of the first and future adaptations...

"So, Lionsgate also wants to compete with us for the copyright of the film library?"

"Looks like yes, they desperately need content, and, if it's Lionsgate, they might agree to the terms of keeping the label."

Bad, Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment have a better chance of winning.

But from another angle, why can't the two companies split up Pinnacle Entertainment? Lionsgate definitely doesn't want that part of the copyright that has no realizable value.

Yes, just do that. Lyman had a few words for Johnson...

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