Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 279: Seven major sects plan to attack Guangmingding
Michael Ovitz was right. The huge sales of "The Mask" had already made the Big 7 studios panic. Now that "Good Will Hunting" has also become a big hit, the executives of the Big 7 studios feel greatly threatened.

As things stand, at least four of the top ten films of the annual box office rankings are from Guess Pictures.

Guess What Pictures' total annual box office revenue will also exceed $8 million, which is better than the box office performance of the Big Seven studios.

A film company that was established less than three years ago has become the industry leader by riding on the banners of the seven major film studios.

The groups and shareholders behind the Big Seven studios cannot tolerate this happening.

They demanded that the top executives of the seven major film studios must try every possible means to regain the box office market and maintain the status and dominance of the "Big Seven" in Hollywood, and replace them if they failed to do so.

Under the active coordination of Michael Ovitz, the presidents of the seven major film companies gathered in the Death Star building for a meeting.

On the surface, it is to summarize the gains and losses of the film industry this year and discuss the direction of the film market next year.

In fact, they were discussing how to deal with the rapidly rising Guess the Movies.

Michael Ovitz, as the landowner, participated in and hosted the meeting.

"The first topic is that in order to curb Guess What Movies, we must reach a consensus to treat Guess What Movies as an enemy and stop cooperating with Guess What Movies. Do you accept this?"

Michael Ovitz said.

Paramount Pictures President Sherry Lansing, Universal Pictures President Ron Meyer, and 20th Century Fox President Barry Diller chose to support.

Columbia Pictures President Jon Peters, Warner Bros.' Miguel Goss, MGM Pictures President Stephen Cooper, and Disney President Michael Eisner remained silent.

the reason is simple.

Columbia Pictures and Guess What Pictures have a $5 million film deal.

At this time, they are unable to stop cooperating with Guess Pictures.

Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM Pictures also have collaborations with Guess What Pictures or Link personally, so it's impossible for them to break off the collaboration immediately.

On the Disney side, Michael Eisner's main job at present is to resolve internal disputes within the company and win the support of the majority of shareholders. He cannot do much in this matter, so he remains silent.

Shirley Lansing adjusted her glasses. "Michael means that the previous cooperation with Guess What Pictures is no longer valid. Starting next year, the seven major film studios will no longer cooperate with Guess What Pictures. As long as there is not enough funds and resources, the number of film projects that Guess What Pictures can invest in and produce each year will be very limited, and its development will also be restricted."

The presidents of the seven major film studios nodded and agreed with the proposal that they would not cooperate with Guess What Pictures, but could cooperate with Link.

Seeing that everyone agreed on this matter, Michael Ovitz smiled excitedly.

“The second topic is that starting from next year, we will continue to work together to suppress Guess the Movies, ban Guess the Movies from publicity channels, and reduce their exposure.

At the same time, we competed with Guess Pictures for theaters and film scheduling in terms of film distribution. In fact, we did very well in the summer vacation.
If Link hadn't been lucky enough to encounter the "Simpson Murder Case" when "Seven" was released, the North American box office of "Seven" would have been at most $1 million, instead of the current $3.4 million.

We should not give up this effective method just because of a mistake.

What do you think of this proposal? "

"We can compete with Guess Films in terms of film distribution, but when it comes to film promotion, that is the business of the media company, and we cannot represent the group's opinions."

Miguel Goss of Warner Bros. said.

"Is such that."

The presidents of 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Universal Pictures nodded in agreement.

MGM Hotels, the company behind MGM Studios, does not have any media company under its umbrella, so Michael Ovitz's proposal has no impact on MGM.

On the Disney side, Michael Eisner is the president of Disney, in charge of Disney's film animation company, television media and Disneyland, and he has the greatest power.

However, because many shareholders on the board did not support him, his power was greatly limited, so he did not express his opinion.

“I hope you can take the initiative to make suggestions to the group to suppress Guess the Movies in the publicity channels.

At present, Guess What has become an obstacle to the development of the film industry. As long as Guess What is still there, media groups will not be able to make profits as before. I believe that several media groups will agree to do this. "

Michael Ovitz said with a grin.

The presidents of several film companies nodded in agreement and only made suggestions to their superiors. Whether they agreed or not would be decided by the group's board of directors.

Seeing that everyone agreed again, Michael Ovitz couldn't help but feel excited. Hollywood is the territory of the Big Seven film studios. As long as the 'Big Seven' are willing to join forces to deal with Guess What, Guess What and Link will undoubtedly lose.

“Third Agenda”

Michael Ovitz hopes that the Big Seven Pictures will send notices through company channels to directors, photographers, screenwriters, and actors in the industry, persuading them not to participate in Guess Pictures' film projects, especially those talented directors and actors.

As long as these people don't cooperate with Guess What Pictures, Link and his few friends can only make four or five movies a year at most.

Guess what? With fewer films produced and lower box office revenue, the seven major studios will be able to regain the film market.

"That's probably not easy to do," Longmeyer said. "Link likes to use newcomers in his movies, including Jim Carrey, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, Renée Zellweger, etc., who all grew up slowly by participating in Guess What? movies.

Even if we convince all actors not to participate in Guess What? movies, we won't be able to convince everyone who wants to be an actor.

Secondly, top directors and actors have autonomy in selecting films, so it is not easy to convince them.

Last but not least, Link works closely with WMA and UTA agencies. Even if CAA and the Big Seven studios join forces, they cannot control half of Hollywood's actors and directors.

This proposal sounds good, but it is not very feasible.”

Miggoth nodded in agreement, "That's right, just like Tom Hanks, he is determined to star in Link's new movie, who can stop him?"

Michael Ovitz's face darkened. The last time Link made a new movie, he invited Tom Hanks to be the leading actor.

He originally wanted to use Tom Hanks to control Link, cut a hole in Link's body, and get more pay, but that bastard Link didn't buy it at all, and would rather change people than increase his pay.

In the end, not only did he fail to trick Link, but he also created a rift between him and Tom Hanks.

Later, Link ridiculed him on the phone.

Every time he thought of this incident, Michael Ovitz felt so angry that he wanted to find someone to kill Link.

"Michael's suggestion is correct."

Shirley Lansing spoke out in support of Michael Ovitz, saying, "Although this method is difficult to implement, it is also the most effective. As long as we can convince Hollywood's top directors and actors not to participate in Guess What Pictures' projects, Guess What Pictures' production capabilities will be affected, and they will not be able to compete with us in the box office market.

However, considering that this proposal is difficult to implement, we will do our best in implementation, but it is not necessary to do so.”

Everyone nodded after hearing this.

When Michael saw another proposal passed at the meeting, he was so excited that he could hardly control himself and the muscles at the corners of his mouth trembled.

Now three resolutions have been passed. As long as these three resolutions can be implemented, I guess the day when the film industry goes bankrupt will not be far away.

“The fourth issue”

At the meeting, Michael Ovitz proposed seven strategies to attack Guess What Pictures.

After repeated discussions, all of them were finally passed.

Michael Ovitz slammed the table excitedly and said that he would use these seven steel nails to nail Link to the cross so that he would never be able to turn over.

Everyone applauded and cheered.

After the meeting, Michael Eisner found Michael Ovitz and invited him again.

If he is willing to work for Disney, all matters in the company can be arranged by him, and the compensation is an annual salary of tens of millions, 5% stock dividends, and 10% voting rights.

The reason why Michael Eisner extended the invitation again was that when he was dealing with internal affairs of Disney, he found Link's proposal to be very good.

With the death of Frank Wells and the departure of Jeffrey Katzenberg, the disputes within Disney not only did not subside, but intensified, and he was never able to gain the support and recognition of all directors.

In order to prevent him from monopolizing power, the board of directors plans to select a CEO to check and balance him.

With this in mind, Michael Eisner decided to take the initiative and invite someone who was more prestigious but not good at office struggles to serve as CEO of Disney.

After much thought, there are only two people who are suitable for this position, the first is Link and the second is Michael Ovitz.

Although Link is the chairman of Guess What Pictures, he doesn't seem to be good at internal struggles. If he is willing to work at Disney, this would undoubtedly be the best choice.

It's just that Link was busy filming a movie and wasn't interested in the position.

So he turned to Michael Ovitz.

Michael Ovitz is a very capable person. He is good at diplomacy and business negotiations and has leadership qualities. He relied on his personal charm and skills to make CAA the largest agency in the world.

But his shortcomings are obvious: his business thinking is immature and he is easily emotional.

When he was at CAA, no one could shake Michael Ovitz's position thanks to his personal prestige and strong network of contacts.

Once he leaves CAA, his influence will be greatly reduced, and Michael Eisner is confident that he can control this trump card.

Michael Ovitz was once again conflicted when he heard his invitation.

By joining Disney, the company can use the company's channels to directly suppress Guess the Fantastic Four and Link, which is equivalent to using Disney to compete with Guess the Fantastic Four, which will definitely make Link suffer a defeat.

But after leaving CAA, he could no longer interfere in CAA's affairs, nor could he use CAA's relationships to contact the Big Seven Studios to deal with Link.

Michael Ovitz didn't know how to choose and said he needed to think about it again.

(End of this chapter)