Chapter 1175： The story surrounding the Father of Star Wars and Star Wars

He will be happy when he makes money, and the achievements brought by his professionalism are the boosters that make him quite happy.

"cheers."

Warmly celebrate.

Until late at night, when I got home and wrote something in the study, I did it in a state of excitement.

In the past year, the company's various businesses and financial resources have a more reasonable proportion, which made him a little unexpected. Marvel's brand is strong enough, but in order to make good use of it and shoot each project well, many people have paid for it. Extremely hard work to get it.

Before going to bed, he suppressed his extremely high mood and fell asleep on the big bed in the top-floor mansion.

"OSS."

At noon the next day, Lehmann came to the company and was stopped by Mace.

"What's up?"

"President Liam is looking for you, he is in the office."

"Oh."

Outside the movie market, the curve of "Guardians of the Galaxy" is as stable as ever. It has greatly surpassed the box office of "Captain America 2" and has become Marvel's second-largest revenue masterpiece. Although the related discussions have gradually become popular with the consumption of moviegoing popularity. It came down, but it was still shocking to the insiders.

There is no way, the adaptation of third-rate characters is more popular than the popular sequels like Captain America and Thor. It is indeed unreasonable, but who makes the audience appreciate the nostalgic, humorous, and out-of-tune style of the Star-Lord team.

At most, it can be called a victory for market selection...

"Of course, this is also Blue Butterfly's job well done."

He looked at Liam holding the document and smiled.

"Haha, it's everyone's credit..."

Liam laid out the documents, and the two of them were busy with coordinating business. He added: "I heard some shocking news, which has nothing to do with us, but... It's a pity." Liam was a little envious of his words. Yan.

"Ok?"

"There's good news that George Lucas is thinking of retiring and he's thinking of selling Lucasfilm, but buyers are coming in too quickly," Liam said. "He doesn't think about anyone else at all. Willing to leave that property to Disney."

"It's really a big deal."

Lehman was a little surprised, but it wasn't an accident. He just didn't expect that the personal feelings among the high-level executives would still affect the acquisition.

"When you are old, and you don't want to waste your efforts, it is indeed a relatively good choice to hand it over to Disney."

"Yeah, I just found out last night that Robert Iger negotiated with Lucas about this last May. It was too much of a mystery."

"Then how do you know now?"

"Because the opening ceremony of the Star Wars theme park in April this year was organized by Disney, and George Lucas is 67 years old, after the release of "Revenge of the Sith" in 2005, it was revealed that he did not want to continue filming The idea of ​​a commercial film, boss, you know, such a big thing, there is always a little bit of wind to explore."

"Can Robert handle it? He doesn't have the power of the emperor at Disney." He had only heard of this acquisition in his previous life, but witnessing it personally at this time made Lehman curious about various details.

"Who made him Jewish? Put down his job, he also knows George Lucas and a lot of Jewish bigwigs."

Liam smiled bitterly: "To be honest, I just think that Disney has a very high possibility of negotiating. George Lucas is willing to nod when he talks, and Disney's own production and sales network is there again, and it will not snub Star Wars. Add to that the detached status at Disney after the acquisition of Pixar, a spin-off from Industrial Light & Magic, and nothing is impossible."

"Well, that's really a pity. Kevin is also a Star Wars fan. If we can win it, maybe a new trilogy will be born in our hands."

"Yeah, this is Star Wars, the most influential cornucopia..." As a publisher, Liam was really jealous.

"However, director George appreciates Robert's management, and this transaction is not cheap." Liam continued, "He wants to retire in peace but does not want Star Wars to be buried here, so the tug of war in all aspects will definitely not be easy."

"So they started secret contact in May last year, and now there is some definite progress, right?" Although Lehman also felt that he could make money by starting Star Wars, he didn't open up competition, so he didn't have any other thoughts. Anyway, He has Marvel.

"The Oscars are next, is there any hope for our movie?"

"It's a bit difficult, nominations are easy to get, and the wind direction of the awards is still changeable."

"Try if you can, but don't spend too much."

"Don't worry, OSS."

*********

Robert Iger has always been a personable professional manager, otherwise he would not be jokingly called "Smiling Mickey Mouse".

But joking is joking, and people don't rely on relationships to do that.

In early 2012, Robert would always turn on the projector and watch a Star Wars movie in his spare time.

Of course, he'd seen it before, but this time he took notes while watching.

At this point, Disney's negotiations with Lucasfilm had already gone through a lot of work and spent a lot of thought on him.

But for the evaluation of "Star Wars" I, which is the core of the acquisition case, is the reason why he keeps flipping through the movies.

As you might imagine, filmmaking has always been a subjective assessment.

The film library and property rights are valuable, but the exact value is unknown.

Just as Netflix is ​​reluctant to pay a premium to cause the loss of 3,000 movies, Disney is definitely not willing to "premium" to win Lucasfilm, otherwise it will become that they use resources to help others work and incubate projects.

In this process, as the party who facilitated the acquisition, Robert needs to understand the value of the intellectual property of Star Wars-specifically, how many "Star Wars" sequels can be developed by simply buying it. How much is the investment and the return?

But at this time, someone said: Any veteran Star Wars fan knows that there should be nine "Star Wars", and now there are 6 films, and of course there are 3 left (this statement, Lucas has not been in 17 years ago. Negative, also a number that many Star Wars fans believe).

But Disney doesn't think so. What bothers them is valuing this fictional world? Rather than a single count of the number of movies.

For example, what is the value of the characters it has appeared in? Is it appropriate to only use toy sales?

The acquisition of property rights is easy to say, but it is troublesome in practice. Many things need to be talked about to the extent that both parties can accept it.

But it is difficult to define the value. Some people think it is worth 10 billion, and some people think that it is worth 3 billion. It is rare.

A movie has never been recognized by the audience market, and no one can guarantee how much money it will make. This is also a magic point in the film and television industry.

In this industry, there will never be a shortage of jokes that even lose pants with small miracles or high input and low output.

So, for months, Disney's top brass has been doing their homework on this one.

They recorded all kinds of data of Star Wars in the past 20 years from "A New Hope" in 1977 to "Counterattack of the Sith" in 2005 into a special database, and listed in detail the stars living in the "Star Wars" universe. A character in a thousand planets with background lines spanning years.

In order to help Disney digest this huge universe and make a reasonable acquisition agreement, Lucas also provided Disney with a guide, Pablo Hidalgo, a founder of the "Star Wars" Fan Association, now Lucasfilm The company's brand manager.

And such a serious and uncompromising deal, even if it is more difficult, is in line with Robert Iger's plan for Disney.

Ever since he took over from Michael Eisner, he has been on the hunt for image rights that will ensure Disney's future creativity and competitiveness by giving consumers a variety of choices.

It is different from many traditional studios, and it is also different from the business route of the former animation kingdom. This is a better and more successful road established based on the popularity of the Internet.

At this point, Robert is Disney's savior.

Looking at his strategy, it is not difficult to understand that it is nothing more than creating a "mini Disney", such as Pixar, Lucas, who is now eyeing, and Marvel, which he thinks he has missed. His executive level can drive Disney's characteristics. Management system - mainly movies and TV, supplemented by theme parks, toys and all other copyright-based development business, multi-directional management, one fish eats more.

Compared with Robert's business thinking, the needs of the demanded side, Uncle George, are more emotional. He is old and has no energy. He has to retire and stay away from the virtual world he created - but he doesn't want anyone to ruin it. .

"I've never been this rich," Lucas often said. "I'm a filmmaker, and most of the money I make goes to keep me innovating on film."

This is indeed his wish, otherwise he would have sold the studio 20 years earlier and became the group of people who freely enjoy the wealth of directors in the world.

In the past when the record industry was still prosperous, there was a saying of "a classic party for the rest of your life", and this is not the case in the field of movies that enriches the entertainment life of audiences.

A little rich man with a little power is really simple for a big guide, and it is also the type of goal that does not need to be deliberately pursued.

But for a director like Lucas who has come from the traditional big studio, he is obviously sharper.

Like Cameron, Lucas, a young and first-time guide, failed miserably in "THX-1138".

Warners not only took the film from him and re-edited it, but completely stripped him of the creative outcome of his "ideas" turned into images.

Cameron encountered this kind of thing, and as a result, everyone knows that he directly learned how to operate an Italian-made editing machine, and threatened the employer after cutting a version; Lucas was not so tough, although he was sad about it. , but decided to take a different approach to his new work.

To this end, he took the initiative to reduce the director's salary from 500,000 to 50,000, but what he required was to have the absolute right to speak in the shooting of all works including sequels.

At that time, he was famous in the circle by "American Graffiti" (this one he was only in charge of shooting, after leaving Warner, it was Universal Investment and responsible for cutting), so he wrote and directed "Star Wars: A New Hope" ” got Fox’s resource tilt (the director has the capital to negotiate with the film company, and whoever has the best conditions to cooperate with whom).

Later, Star Wars mythology... Lucas is rich enough to "do whatever he wants".

By 1989, he wanted to make a series about the early days of Indiana Jones.

Unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark, created by his friend Spielberg, Young Indiana Jones is not exactly a TV series supplement to the show, but more like a history lesson for the audience.

It was also because of the show that in the early 1990s, Lucas "sold" "Young Indiana Jones" to Robert Iger, who had just been promoted from an ordinary clerk broadcasting TV weather forecasts in upstate New York to ABC (AC). ) chairman.

The meeting place between the two was at Skywalker Farm - although Robert was somewhat apprehensive at the time because he was not so familiar with the entertainment industry, Indiana Jones was already the most popular character at the time, the ace of Paramount. money machine.

"I was so desperate to get it," Robert thought at the time. "Come on, this is a George Lucas and Spielberg show."

But the old-fashioned Paramount obviously taught Robert Iger a lesson at the time. The reason why Paramount was not interested was because they felt that the direction of the show was wrong.

So later the show failed to gain the audience's favor, but Robert, who gave the green light, still made it last for two seasons.

"The show was difficult," Lucas said, a little embarrassed, "but Robert put all his energy into it."

This is how the two met.

Then, in 1999, "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", along with two other films released later, grossed $2.5 billion at the box office, but some fans did not agree with the trilogy.

They especially couldn't stand the clumsiness of Naboo's Ga-Ga Binks - a character with an inexplicable Jamaican accent that was later made fun of in South Park and The Simpsons for a while.

Criticisms came, and when fans were dissatisfied, Lucas felt a little bit unable to innovate.

“It was fine before the internet,” Lucas said in an interview. “But since the internet, the criticism has become more vicious and personal. Why am I?”

So, Lucas's retreat has been revealed.

Del Pollock, author of "Skywalker: The Life and Movies of George Lucas," said: "I think he must have felt like he was imprisoned by Star Wars, and it felt like that year after year. It's getting stronger."

Meanwhile, Robert continued his promotion at AC.

When Disney bought the network in 1996, Robert moved into Disney's inner circle of power.

Although in the next ten years, all high-level executives were in the shadow of Eisner.

But by 2005, Disney was in trouble. Their thriving animation division failed to produce a box-office hit in those years, and the increasingly incomprehensible Eisner angered many shareholders. He completely treats Disney as a personal stage.

Of course, Disney has mixed senses about the Emperor.

In 1984, Disney suffered a hostile takeover. The hostile acquirer at the time wanted to bring to market the core Disney animation assets that Walt Disney had carefully managed for many years, as well as prime land around Disneyland.

Although it was stopped urgently, it also made Disney realize that it could not go on like this: At that time, Disney ranked last in the market share of the eight major film industries in the United States. The market value of the entire company's assets was only $1.4 billion. They decided to adopt more modern management. .

So invited Michael - Eisner and Frank - Wells, the partner of professional managers.

The two rescuers actually had high-level experience before: Michael Eisner was the president of Paramount Pictures before he arrived at Disney; Frank Wells was an associate director of Warner Bros. Pictures.

When the two stood at the top of Disney's management, they worked together to draft a reform plan in an attempt to pull back from the brink and restore Disney's market position.

The actions of the two made Disney take off:

1. Franchise rights: Give Disney's brand franchise rights to various peripheral manufacturers, frantically expand the proportion of peripheral products in the market, and penetrate into all aspects of ordinary people's lives;

2. Modernize Disneyland: Completely renovate the old Disneyland and add modern entertainment facilities. The location of the new park is not only selected around big cities, but developed into tourist resorts;

3. Revitalize the animation industry: Invest resources to produce a batch of animated films that are "suitable for the whole family to watch together", such as "The Little Mermaid", "The Lion King", "Beauty and the Beast", "Pocahontas" and other works by Michael- Eisner's output during his tenure;

4. Set foot in the film field for adults to watch: Set up a sub-label of Touchstone Films, specializing in the production and distribution of such films; and then acquired Miramax in 1993 and entered the field of Chong Olympic.

Under their drastic transformation, Disney has grown from a company with a market value of only $1.4 billion in 1984 to a large company with a market value of $28 billion in 1994.

There is no doubt that Michael Eisner's transformation of Disney has been successful in terms of outcome theory alone.

It's a pity that in 1994, Eisner's partner and another leader of Disney's transformation plan, Frank Wells, died unexpectedly in a helicopter crash, that is, since then, the vigorous development of Disney has gradually become loose. signs.

Mainly Frank Wells played a white-faced character at Disney at the time.

His character is forbearing and humble, which is in stark contrast to Eisner, who is extremely irritable with his subordinates.

And when Wells tragically passed away, Eisner took the reins, surrounded by his own appointed cronies.

This is not the end. In 1994, Eisner had four major operations, each of which was life-threatening. He did not directly assign a successor, but said that he kept a package in his office drawer. The letter with the name of the successor, but it can only be opened when the operation is unsuccessful——

However, Eisner survived four times. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was originally considered an ideal candidate for the chairman of the board of directors, chose to leave in a fit of power and became the CEO of DreamWorks Animation. Take it to court.

This series of operations caused Disney's internal management environment to decline rapidly, and many Disney shareholders came forward through the board of directors to let Robert replace Eisner.

Although at the time, Robert's ability was not optimistic about the outside world - many people described him as "the CEO who will only be bored and read."

But it turns out that people have a very clear strategic plan——

First, the box-office hit movie "The Lion King" became a long-running Broadway play;

Immediately after, "Pirates of the Caribbean" was originally a ride project in Disney's theme parks, which turned into a series of movies, which in turn led to the sales of related copyright peripherals.

In 2006, he personally met with Jobs, retained Pixar's creative team, and promised to do minimal intervention in the operation of the team and persuaded Jobs, who had been dissatisfied with Eisner, to successfully integrate.

Although Jobs has also become a member of Disney's board of directors and the largest individual shareholder, Disney has also gained an absolute advantage in the new animation property rights.

"It was simply the most appropriate addition."

Jessica Cohen, a media analyst at Merrill Lynch, described the deal this way.

Licensing the resulting cast of characters allowed Disney to create a slightly different business model in Hollywood: a diversified revenue-generating business structure with solid growth.

From 2006 to 2010, Disney's earnings not only had steady growth, but the stock market value doubled.

And, Pixar's success has given Robert the backing of the board to buy more "mini Disneys." Lucasfilm became his next acquisition target.

The time came to May 2011. One morning on Disney's visit to the Star Wars theme park, Robert asked this matter casually - he was the first person to know that Director George wanted to step back As it happens, Lucas also believes that Disney's acquisition has not disrupted Pixar's "talent". If he sells Lucasfilm to Disney, he can still retain his influence on the virtual universe he created after taking a back seat. force.

After careful consideration, George Lucas wanted to invite Katherine Kennedy as the new administrator, who was also Lucas' close friend for more than 20 years...

"I think you've heard that I'm about to retire."

One day in October 2011, Lucas told her this.

And when Lucas sincerely asked her if she was interested in taking over as CEO of Lucasfilm.

Catherine readily accepted.

"We need to have a consensus that while we've had a lot of conversations and collaborations before, once we finally acquire the company, Disney has to be the one who has the final say on any plans."

Under this premise, Robert Iger, of course, wants to protect Disney's position after he persuades the board to win the deal.

Although Lucas agreed in principle due to issues such as energy and age, it was tormenting him to really give up absolute control.

This is a guy who puts a prop for the "Star Wars" shooting at his will.

So even if Robert greets Lucas every week, many things are being resolved and pushed forward, but he is not so calm.

But, this is life.

The father of Star Wars will not be the decision maker who will accompany this forever, just like Mickey Mouse will not disappear after leaving the Disney family.

Robert's desk is filled with objects from Disney movies, including two lightsabers.

Whenever he hears that his subordinates have achieved results in the advancement of the deal negotiation, he likes to pick it up and wave it, "I'm Darth Ravi." He thought...