Chapter 401 The actions of Kingdom Investment Group
Little Gilbert went to Dubai before when he was traveling around the world and had a conversation with Prince Abdullah of the Dubai royal family.
Prince Abdul wanted to enter Hollywood. Little Gilbert told him to wait for the opportunity to acquire MGM. Now the opportunity has come.
When MGM was in trouble, Prince Abdullah's Kingdom Investment Group announced with a high profile that it would launch an acquisition of MGM.
As soon as the news came out, it shocked the entire Hollywood.
Everyone knows that the big dogs in the Middle East are very rich. If Kingdom Investment Group takes over MGM, it means that MGM still has a chance to come back to life.
The positive effect of this news is that MGM's stock price has stopped falling and is still on the rise. But it also makes it more difficult for MGM to be acquired.
Prince Abdullah is so high-profile because he is trying to test his tone.
As we all know, Hollywood is inseparable from powerful media groups, and now most of the media power in the entire Western world is in the hands of squid people.
Squid people are still very sensitive to the forefront of public opinion. There are basically squid forces within every media group.
Unfortunately, the Kingdom Investment Group is an Arab consortium. Due to historical reasons, Arabs and squid people always have some conflicts.
Although Dubai is fine, if an Arab consortium wants to enter Hollywood, it still needs to test the reaction of the Hollywood squid forces.
But the core essence of the problem is still interests.
MGM executives also understand that they really need Kingdom Investment Group to save their lives.
Although several Squidward executives within MGM objected, MGM still sent representatives to Dubai to contact the Kingdom Investment Group.
Little Gilbert, who was filming in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, received news early in the morning. There were two news. The first one was Prince Abdullah.
He hoped that Gilbert Jr. could give him some help in acquiring MGM.
The other one is a certain squid club in Hollywood. They hope that Gilbert Jr. will join forces with Warner and Disney to prevent Kingdom Investment Group from entering Hollywood.
Faced with two completely contradictory requests, little Gilbert adopted a different strategy.
First, it was Prince Abdullah. Little Gilbert suggested that he go to Michael Ovitz.
In fact, little Gilbert had already told Prince Abdullah that only Michael Ovitz could complete this huge deal.
Specifically, you can look at Sony's acquisition of Columbia Pictures and Panasonic's acquisition of Universal Pictures, both of which Michael Ovitz played a huge role in.
Little Gilbert's move is called not taking the blame, lest the Hollywood squid forces find someone to settle the score after Prince Abdullah successfully acquires MGM.
Although the opinion was raised by little Gilbert, the actual implementation has nothing to do with him. He can completely deny that it was a joke.
Faced with some squid forces in Hollywood who wanted him to stop the Kingdom Investment Group, Gilbert Jr. only said three words: antitrust.
There is no doubt that little Gilbert is now the representative of the Hollywood squid force.
After Spielberg and George Lucas both grew old, Little Gilbert was undoubtedly the top character, and most of the squid forces rallied around Little Gilbert.
But even without Little Gilbert, the Hollywood Squids are still a deep-rooted force that can stop the Kingdom Investment Group.
But the problem now is that Kingdom Investment Group is not short of money, but MGM is in urgent need of life-saving money.
If MGM's wishes are not changed and MGM is given a life-saving money so that MGM can have a development prospect, MGM will definitely rely on Kingdom Investment Group.
This is the core issue. If this issue is not resolved, MGM will eventually fall into the hands of Kingdom Group, unless Washington comes up with some bill.
But to be honest, although the squid lobby is powerful, Washington has been committed to building a good relationship with Dubai in recent years and is unlikely to listen to the lobby's deception.
Moreover, it is just a movie company that is about to go bankrupt. MGM has long been unworthy of its reputation as a giant. It is also difficult for Kingdom Investment Group to take over MGM. Most people don't believe that Kingdom Investment Group can save MGM.
Therefore, with a small number of people anxious but all parties tacitly not objecting, Kingdom Investment Group officially launched the acquisition case, with an initial offer of US$6.3 billion.
To be honest, although the value of MGM's brand has dropped significantly, these billions of dollars are definitely not enough to take over MGM.
This acquisition is expected to take several years to reach an agreement.
For MGM, at least it has retained its brand name and does not need to file for bankruptcy.
At the year-end press conference, the president of MGM confidently announced several film investment and production plans for next year, with the intention of increasing the company's value.
However, this quick success approach has been criticized by many professionals.
At this time, many insiders believed that it would be better for MGM to play it safe and just wait for the acquisition.
The more you do at this time, the more mistakes you make. If you fail and your brand value drops again, it means the gain outweighs the loss.
This acquisition is a vigorous one, and there are various complex factors that will determine the final outcome of this acquisition.
After paying attention to the MGM acquisition, let’s pay attention to the North American film market and the global film market.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" ultimately failed to surpass the performance of "Titanic". The film held up until the Oscar nominations were announced on January 26, 2003, and was withdrawn from North American theaters.
The North American box office was finally set at US$618 million, ranking second in North American box office history.
In global regions, there are still a few markets where the film is being screened, and even some new markets are starting to screen it. This is normal. One year after a film is released in North America, new markets continue to join.
However, the overall scale of these markets is relatively small and basically has nothing to do with the international mainstream film market, so they are basically a buyout system.
It is bought by local film producers and then shown in the local market.
The global box office of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" reached US$1.802 billion, which also failed to surpass the global box office of "Titanic" and ranked second in film history.
The achievements created by the "Lord of the Rings" series are enough to become a model for commercial films. "The Return of the King" also received 13 Oscar nominations.
This is where The Return of the King surpasses Titanic, with more nominations than Titanic.
If "The Return of the King" has surpassed it in terms of the number of awards, it can be considered a gain.
In fact, many experts have done a good job in analyzing the problem of "The Return of the King" failing to surpass the box office of "Titanic". For example, the audience group, the fanaticism of movie fans, etc.
Although it is a pity, sometimes there is really no way. The will of the market is not determined by people.
This result is enough to satisfy all investors. As the most popular movie series in history, the "Lord of the Rings" series has extremely strong peripheral profitability.
In terms of profitability and the amount of profit gained, the "Lord of the Rings" series completely crushes "Titanic".
Gilbert Jr.'s other movie "Heartbeat" has officially exceeded 100 million in global box office, which is a pretty good result. Scarlett stars in a movie and finally has a movie with good results.
The movies she starred in before were mostly literary and artistic, and she was just an artistic girl.
Only when he played a supporting role or cameo in the Little Gilbert movie, the film's box office performance was quite good.
However, the movie that attracted the most attention at the end of the year was not "Heartbeat", although this movie was said by the media to be the beginning of Gilbert's decline.
What really attracted attention was the movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
(End of chapter)