hollywood billionaire

Chapter 183 Debt Financing
"15% of the investment quota..."

"Jumanji, Blade Runner 2049, Hotel Transylvania 3, Emoji, and... Venom. Marvel's Venom, isn't it?"

Dashi Johnson reviewed the memorandum of cooperation and conducted a second confirmation with Han Yi and Jordan Bromley.

Of course, this is not the first time he has heard about this financing cooperation. From April to July, Dani Garcia will report to him the specifics of the Sony Pictures slate deal at each of Seven Blocks' quarterly meetings. progress.

But Jushi is really too busy. From the beginning of 2016 to the present, he has been moving between various crews. He began principal photography on Phase 2 of Baywatch the day after the second season of Ballers was filmed. Deerfield Beach in the north of Miami on February 22, moved to Tybee Island in the far east of Savannah, Georgia in late March, and wrapped up on May 3.

Before he had time to catch his breath, Dwayne Johnson carried his iPad and a large pile of meeting documents in the middle of the night, with a phone between his head and shoulders, and boarded the private jet prepared for him by the "Fast and Furious 8" crew, passing through Savannah Miami, fly to Havana, the capital of Cuba, and meet Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and other leading actors.

Although the current president made a historic visit to Cuba on March 3 this year, which kicked off the relaxation of US sanctions on the Central American island country, the lifting of the ban on commercial flights will not land until August. In July 30, only a small number of private charter flights licensed by the Cuban government could depart directly from Miami International Airport and land at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport.

Dwayne Johnson's private jet is definitely on the list.

The Cuban government attaches great importance to the promotion of "Fast and Furious 8" to the local tourism industry, and even blocked [-] city blocks for the crew in one go for filming.The landing and takeoff of a Gulfstream is but a trivial detail of Cuba's open-door policy.

Dwayne Johnson, who spent nearly a week in Cuba, where there are only 35 Wifi hotspots in the country, completed the preparatory work for the script and characters. He returned to the United States with the team and returned to Perry, Georgia. The scene was shot in Berlin with Luke Hobbs.

It wasn't until yesterday that Dwayne Johnson wrapped up his work in Georgia and came to Miami to attend to some personal matters -- including meetings with Yi Han, Kevin Hart and Jordan Bromley this afternoon.This time, he had a 42-hour break in Miami. After a day and a half, he will embark on a journey again, going to Atlanta and New York, and staying for another six to eight weeks to finish "Fast and Furious 8" .

This is not over yet. After finishing in early October, Dwayne Johnson can enjoy a total of four days of vacation, and then he has to go to the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary on the west coast, as well as the headquarters of the anti-poaching organization in Rwanda, Africa, to learn and Knowledge related to poaching and anti-poaching will prepare professional skills for the main shooting of "Revenge Behemoth" in April next year.

In other words, between now and Christmas, Dwayne Johnson can spare less than a week to deal with personal and business affairs.

Most meetings are held on private jets and business chartered cars. In this case, it is not easy for Dwayne Johnson to remember the basic framework of the cooperation agreement.

Dwayne Johnson is responsible for the specific performing arts work, and other business negotiations and company operations are handed over to the team led by Dani Garcia to complete. No matter before or after the divorce, the operating system of Seven Films has always been like this.

And this is the main reason why the two are still business partners even if the relationship breaks down.

Dani Garcia needs the super action IP of Dashi Johnson to display her business talent, and Dwyane cannot do without Dani's powerful operation.

"Yes, Marvel's "Venom", produced by Columbia Pictures, with assistance from Marvel Pictures."

Jordan nodded slightly and replied.

"We have one-third of the film's investment share."

"It's very interesting." Dashi Johnson frowned, rubbing his chin and thinking seriously, "I heard Matt mention this project...how is it going now?"

Dwayne Johnson will of course know the general progress of "Venom", because the Matt he is talking about, that is, Matt Tomach, is exactly "Game of the Brave", "Venom" and Andrew Garfield's version of "Spider". Producer of the Heroes series.

In 2008, Matt Tomach, who was appointed as the co-production president of Sony Pictures, left his position after two years in office, founded Matt Tomach Productions, and signed a three-year preferred transaction agreement with Sony Pictures , focused on developing a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man, with Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin.

Both the first and second installments of the Amazing Spider-Man series were successful in the traditional sense.The first film grossed $7.57 million worldwide and the second film $7.089 million, bringing Columbia and Sony Pictures together to a combined close to $15 billion.Regardless of the standards of any commercial film, it is considered a success.

But unfortunately, what they represent is not "any commercial film", but one of the most valuable animation IPs in the North American film industry before the rise of the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man.

The opening weekend of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was 9160 million US dollars. Although it was the fault champion of the week, it was still worse than the opening weekend of Tobey Maguire's version of "Spider-Man 3", which had the worst commercial performance of the previous generation. Box office dropped 40%.Not only that, the poor word of mouth caused the film's North American box office to stagnate, and finally stopped at 2.028 million US dollars, a 23% drop from the North American box office of "The Amazing Spider-Man".

You know, Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures expect the box office of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" to be $10 billion.

To put it more bluntly, Columbia and Sony needed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to hit $10 billion at the box office to pull both companies out of financial trouble.If the box office is only 7.089 million U.S. dollars, this ultra-expensive commodity with a production cost of 2.55 million U.S. dollars can only bring Sony a profit of 7038 million U.S. dollars, and the cash return rate is only a poor 1.12.

Adding P&A expenses, overseas issuance costs, indirect costs and capital interest, the total cost of about 5.7 million U.S. dollars can only be exchanged for a profit of 7038 million U.S. dollars, which is not a net profit.For Columbia and Sony, which are in deep financial trouble, this is more uncomfortable than investing tens of millions of dollars in low-cost products that lose money.

Therefore, the board of directors of the group reached a consensus to suspend the project of "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" and all subsequent derivative series, and assigned two executives, Michael Linton and Amy Pascal, to fly to Palm Beach, Florida, Marvel Entertainment The mansion of CEO Isaac Perlmutter will hand over the "Spider-Man" series, which has been reluctant to give up the production rights, to Marvel Studios for development.

After encountering a series of commercial Waterloos in the 2010s, Sony Pictures finally made the first wise decision, which is to let Marvel, which is better at making superhero movies, help Columbia and Sony regain their glory in another way .

After all, Columbia Pictures has only "007: Skyfall" broke through the billion-dollar box office so far, and Marvel?As of 2023, they have exactly ten films that break the billion-dollar mark.

It's ironic that letting someone else run the show prevented Sony Pictures from making another costly mistake.

However, although he was deprived of the right to further develop the Spider-Man series of films, the cooperation between Matt Tomach and Sony Pictures continued.The filmmaker, who has spent almost his entire career at Sony Pictures, has such deep roots within the group that he cannot be easily shaken.The most important thing is that theoretically speaking, the two films developed by Matt Tomach for Sony did not lose a penny, and they made a combined profit of [-] million.This kind of achievement, no matter how you say it, is unlikely to cause Sony Pictures to suspend the priority development agreement between the two parties.

Besides, Columbia and Sony don't have any more talents available.

Therefore, for the entire two years since 2014, Matt Tomach has been actively looking for valuable film assets within the group for secondary development, and there are two projects that have finally landed so far, the first being the previous work "Game of the Brave", which was tepid and did not have much expectations within the group, and the second one was another superhero, Venom, which Sony bought the film development rights from Marvel.

Although in the superhero world of Marvel, Venom is far from being the first echelon, and its commercial value cannot be compared with Spider-Man, but the bonding between Sony Pictures and Marvel Pictures has begun, and anyone with a discerning eye It can be seen that Sony, which is becoming weaker and weaker in terms of copyright development, will only be more inclined to deepen cooperation with Marvel and Disney in the future.

As long as Marvel can get involved in the production of "Venom" and complete it according to their template and formula, then this movie has a good chance of becoming the next hot topic.

At least it's more dramatic than "Jumanji".

Dwayne Johnson also thinks the same way. Although he can't become the leading actor in the "Venom" series due to personal conditions, if he can participate in the project in other ways, it will be beneficial to himself and Qikuai Films. The good outweighs the bad.

It's an idea that's been on Dwayne's mind ever since Matt Tomach mentioned his plans for a new film.

Therefore, when it was learned that the slate deal signed by Han Yi and Sony Pictures included the investment share of "Venom", this became the most concerned detail in Dwayne Johnson's cooperation proposal.

Even surpassed the one he starred in.

"Three producers have been confirmed, Avi Arad, Amy Pascal representing Sony Pictures, and Matt Tomach." Jordan Bromley thought for a while and added, "Dante -Harper is writing the first draft of the film's script."

"Dante?" Dwayne Johnson hesitated a little. A screenwriter he had never heard of was not a good sign.

"A very good screenwriter. He has written a lot of action-themed things before, and he is also the mentor of new members of the WGA." Jordan stroked his eyebrows with his thumb, and extended the topic down very naturally.He also knows that the current draft screenwriter is far from enough in terms of fame and qualifications, and is just a coolie pulled by the three producers to come up with a general framework, "Of course, there will definitely be more screenwriters in the later stage." The elite talent joining ... Jeff Pinkner has basically confirmed that he will participate in the creative process."

"That would...be better, no doubt." Hearing the second half of Jordan's words, Dwayne Johnson dragged his tone, his expression obviously relaxed.Jeff Pinkner is not only the main screenwriter of "Game of the Brave", but also a member of the creative team of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", "The Fifth Wave" and "The Dark Tower". A total of 33 episodes of scripts for the three TV series Lost, Edge of Crisis, and Land of the Beast.

The ratings of the TV series are not bad. Although the response of the movie is mediocre, at least they are all works of Columbia Pictures with a large scale. The themes and styles that have been handled have been relatively similar to "Venom".

For a Marvel work, what the screenwriter has to do is to fill in the content strictly according to the story template that has been tried and tested since 2008, so as to ensure that it does not go out of line, does not act as a demon, and does not crash.

After all, few of the mainstream audiences cultivated by the Marvel Universe come to watch the plot.

Jeff Pinkner is not the most suitable choice for "Venom" in Hollywood at the moment, but hiring to revise the draft and polish the script to the point where it can be used for purpose, he can definitely be regarded as a master.

"So, since the script is still in the draft stage of the first version, there should be no confirmed lead actor at present, right?" Dwayne Johnson immediately raised the second question he was most concerned about. As long as you know the name of the lead actor, you can Devine, who has been in the industry for many years, can roughly calculate the overall budget of the below-the-line, so that he can also have a rough estimate of the film's production cost, P&A cost, and the global box office required to pay back.

"No actors have been confirmed yet, but according to the results of our communication with Sony Pictures, the production cost of the movie "Venom" will probably be around 15 million US dollars, with a maximum increase of [-]%. Our investment fund CEP-III The management team will strictly monitor this." Jordan Bromley knew very well in his heart what data Dwayne Johnson was most concerned about, and this reply, which sounded a bit off-topic to outsiders, was exactly the answer the other party was looking for.

"One hundred million dollars..."

Dwyane was doing quick calculations in his mind. This humanoid weapon with a body fat rate of only 7% does not seem like a talent with extraordinary talents in numbers and logic, but to the surprise of many people, through rugby Dwayne Johnson, who was admitted to the University of Miami for the project, actually holds a dual undergraduate degree in criminology and psychology.

This is an achievement that he fell into depression when he first entered school, his GPA in the first semester was only 0.7, and he was forced to take a break from school for a period of time.

In 1991, he was forced to suspend his studies with a GPA of less than 1. In 1993, he became one of the "Academic Captains" of the University of Miami. Dwayne Johnson's resilience and extraordinary intelligence can be seen.Although he is not the kind of genius who can study Poincaré's conjecture, it is not a challenge for him to instantly construct a profit model for a Hollywood commercial film in his mind.

The production cost of 1 million US dollars means that the cost of publicity and distribution is about 1.25-1.5 times this figure, or 1.25-1.5 million US dollars.In addition, the cost of capital use, the share of starring actors, and the share of channel distribution... Leaving aside other sources of income, as long as the movie box office alone can reach about 4 million US dollars, it is basically certain that the multi-channel income can be guaranteed. Anything above that is all profit.

Is $4 million hard for a superhero movie that is about to be integrated into the Marvel universe?
Let's put it this way, "Ant-Man" has a global box office of 5.29 million, and the production cost of Paul Rudd's film is even 3000 million US dollars higher than the budget of "Venom".

Even in a situation where no one cared about the superhero at all, "Ant-Man" would bring Marvel a net profit of $1.09 million and a return on cash of 1.31.

Even though "Shang Qi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", which lost the entire Huaguo market, caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to Disney at the global box office, the profits from streaming video platforms and DVD sales after the release were lower. It can still make it slowly turn from red to green on the books.

So can "Venom" vote?Of course I can vote!As long as there is no shocking scandal, "Venom" will go on steadily according to this production cost, and the net profit of more than 1 million US dollars is basically a certainty.

"We have to discuss which films to invest in, but at least what I can guarantee now is that as long as you are willing, Mr. Han, Qikuai Films will be responsible for "Venom" and "Brave" The game provides financial support."

"Of course I'm more than happy."

Han Yi responded without any hesitation. Through the slate deal, it was his long-planned plan to make the golden pair of Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson his spokespersons in the film and television industry at the same time.

According to the agreement reached between Kevin Hart and Han Yi, Hartbeat will invest US$1950 million, occupying 15% of the slate deal, while the other 15% will be reserved for Dwayne Johnson's Seven Films.

Therefore, from the perspective of the transaction structure, although CEP-III is the only one who signed the contract with Sony Pictures, after signing the contract, Han Yi will release 30% of the investment share to Hart and Johnson, and he himself will account for 70%.

In this way, this slate deal with a total value of 1.3 million US dollars has several more important stakeholders.

Which ones?

Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson and The Carlyle Group.

The first two are well-connected and influential quasi-first-line stars who are well versed in the operation of Hollywood accounts. As co-stars in one of the five slate deal movies, they will also play a supervisory and deterrent role for Sony Pictures .And the last one is a Wall Street giant with a professional audit team and post-tracking team. They can get huge management fees and profit dividends through CEP-III every year, and they can cooperate well with Kevin Hart and Dashiqiang in the industry. Sen, minimize the "non-business risk" of this cooperation agreement.

I own 100% of the share, and in the end, Sony Pictures has a dazzling operation, abruptly from profit to loss, or release 30% of the quota, to ensure that there are partners to bother to ensure the "procedural justice" of each process, believe that any Investors whose IQs are above the passing line know how to choose.

Moreover, the 30% quota, Hartbeat and Seven Films, did not take it for nothing.

"However...the 15% investment quota and sources of funds, we still have some prerequisites."

"What prerequisites?" Dwayne Johnson raised his eyebrows and asked.

"We attach great importance to the safety and stability of funds, so if 15% of the 100% of the investment amount is your direct cash out of the account of Qiyuan Film Company, then we will definitely not have any problems, Dwyane. After all, those are your hard-earned capital one movie at a time, one boxing match after another. Since you have the confidence to fully invest in slate deals, you must have a clear understanding of the business development and funding needs of other sectors. planning."

Han Yi's words are very cryptic, and people with less quick thinking may not be able to understand the deep meaning of his words for a while.But there are some things that the bystanders are obsessed with and those who are in charge are obsessed with it, while others need to be tasted by those who are in charge.

Dwayne Johnson is very clear about the combination of these winding English sentences, and what message he wants to convey to him.

The Slate deal is great, but do you have $1950 million in cash to spend?

Even if there is, are you willing to put all this cash in a film and television investment agreement that will take several years to see returns?

In 2015, Dwayne Johnson's income from his acting career was $6450 million, more than three times the estimated investment amount.But among the 6450 million US dollars, after deducting taxes, team sharing and the cash flow required for the operation of the seven film industry, how much can he directly shoot on the table?
Private jets, high-end restaurants, decent dresses, even his six days a week of personal education courses, which one does not need to be piled up with real money?
If he could easily come up with 1950 million US dollars, the villa where the four of them are now should be in Xingdao in Key Biscayne, not Southwest Farm City in the north of the city.The value of this property should also be $3400 million, not $340 million.

"To put it another way, we hope that the cooperation between the two parties will be private and in-depth, without the intervention of third-party agencies. Therefore, if you want to raise funds by recruiting other partners or debt financing When enough funds are invested in this slate deal...my suggestion is, let us be the debt financing party."

"You mean..." Dwayne Johnson's lips parted slightly, and his expression gradually became surprised.

"There is already enough cash in CEP-III."

Carefully observing Dashi Johnson's movements and expressions, Han Yi threw out the only cooperation method he accepted with an unquestionable attitude.

"So, in fact, the safest, most convenient, and most effective way to increase mutual trust between the two parties is to directly use the money already in the investment fund."

"If you want to borrow money to invest, Qikuai Pictures only needs to sign a debt financing agreement with me. Believe me, the financing conditions in all aspects must be much better than the financial institutions on the market."

(End of this chapter)