Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

Chapter 337, Nanda Devi

In mid-to-late December 1973, in a luxurious office on the top floor of a building in Manhattan, New York's most prosperous city center, Zhao Mancang was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the bustling scenery outside.

Standing next to him was a pair of twin sisters, who were serving Zhao Mancang very obediently.

This pair of twin sisters have definitely been tamed by capital to the point of being completely obedient, and they have almost lost their self-esteem.

I don’t know how many such situations people like Harlan Nicholson have created behind the scenes, and how many such excitements they have experienced in the world to do such a cruel thing.

Domestication!

It is definitely a word that makes Zhao Mancang feel very disgusted.

"Boss, we have successfully acquired 7% of Bunge's shares, completing our stated goal."

Finally, after the last Wall Street Wolf company reported, Zhao Mancang breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay, then you will sell these 7% shares to Kabu Company at the price of two dollars."

Kabu Company is a new company established by Zhao Mancang, and he will use this company to complete the acquisition of the giant Bunge.

He currently owns 72% of Bunge's shares and is fully capable of carrying out the privatization and delisting process.

But there is no need to do so, you can take your time.

Cut the meat with a soft knife and slowly control everything.

What's more, Zhao Mancang currently only owns 42% of the shares of Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland Company, which does not give him an absolute advantage.

So he thought it was still necessary to act cautiously and not rush to bring the Kabu Company to the forefront.

The matter was quickly settled, and Zhao Mancang did not continue to pay attention to it because at this time, the Hollywood drama had already begun.

Although, no matter how impressive the box office of Hollywood movies is, it is only a few hundred million US dollars in box office profit, far less than the tens or even nearly 10 billion US dollars in profits of Wall Street financial companies.

However, this is Hollywood, and it involves numerous cultural symbols, product peripherals, and a lot of strategic depth, etc., which are not comparable to financial companies.

Without mentioning anything else, let’s just talk about the Chinese film actors and related Chinese symbols that Zhao Mancang has been promoting since 1989.

Many symbols of zombie culture, kung fu culture, etc. have now entered Hollywood.

And now movies starring Chinese people can become popular in Hollywood. This is unprecedented and a cultural victory.

Chinese culture is very inclusive.

At this time, there is no need for Zhao Mancang to promote Chinese culture, as it has already subtly influenced many local Sam people.

In California, many local people can speak a word or two of Chinese.

Even in some remote towns, they all know the existence of Chinese and understand what China is like today.

Because they are interested in Chinese culture and curious about the distant Eastern country: What kind of country can give birth to such a splendid culture?

Starting from the movie "Chinese Kung Fu", the four words "Chinese Kung Fu" came into everyone's attention.

Chinese Kung Fu alone is dazzling: Wudang, Shaolin, Emei, Southern Fist, Xingyi, Bagua and other boxing styles, as well as Tongbeiquan, Changquan, Wing Chun, etc.

Not to mention the subsequent releases of "Zombie vs. Vampire" and "The Qin Empire", which incorporated various Chinese elements.

December 6, 1973, was a Thursday, a good day.

Paramount, one of the four major Hollywood studios, has released the first blockbuster of this year's Christmas season, "Ming"!

Many people were dumbfounded when they saw a movie like "Ming" and didn't quite understand what it represented.

Unlike the Tang Dynasty movie "The King's Avatar", "Ming" is about the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, there are other movies such as Zhu Yuanzhang that can be written as screenwriters, but they have not been released yet.

Such a movie is still sought after by many movie fans.

Because starting from "The Great Qin Empire", this series of dynasty movies has become addictive.

The history of the great Eastern country is really too long, and their historical heritage is really very profound. For Sam, a country with only two hundred years of history, being stupid is a dimensionality reduction attack.

"Their movie is definitely not good."

Inside Warner Bros. Studios, Jack continued to stare blankly after hearing his subordinates' words.

Whether Paramount's movie is successful is not the real key, but whether Warner Bros. can withstand the impact of "Ming" and "The Man from Nowhere" which will be released on the 13th next Monday.

This is the key.

Warner Bros. spent 150 million U.S. dollars to shoot a monster movie "King Kong"!
The idea of ​​this movie comes from Sony Columbia's previous monster movie.

Because Sam seems to have no resistance to such monster movies. Whether it is the previous "Jurassic Park" or the "Godzilla" produced by Sony Columbia, monster movies are very good at selling.

That's why Jack thought of making such a movie. Even though it would require a huge investment and the risk would skyrocket, he had to take the risk.

If Warner Bros. doesn't change, the pattern of the four major Hollywood giants will be completely formed, and then there will be no place for Warner Bros. anymore.

The next day, on the morning of December 7, the box office figures for the movie "Ming" came out, and it was as everyone expected: 98.2 million US dollars.

It's high, but not extremely high.

This movie is the most powerful in the entire market. Eighty-three percent of the screenings were given to "Ming", but its box office is still like this.

It's pretty lame.

But the next day, Friday, the box office took off.

One hundred and twenty million US dollars!

The box office for Saturday and Sunday was US$135 million and US$128 million respectively.

After only four days of release, "Ming", a pure Chinese dynasty film, earned 473.2 million US dollars, which is very impressive.

In the blink of an eye, it was Monday, and "King Kong" was released on this day.

Jack and other people at Warner Bros. were very nervous, as the fateful moment had arrived.

The cinema giants all gave face to Warner Bros. and gave "King Kong" 32% of the screening time. It would be impossible to give it more.

After all, Paramount's "Ming" is still in theaters, and the screening schedule of this movie must be guaranteed.

The box office results will be released soon.

On December 10th, the box office champion of the day was "Ming", which took in 86 million US dollars and ranked first.

Ranked second is naturally "King Kong", with a box office revenue of 29 million US dollars.

After learning about this, the entire Warner Bros. Studios was very excited. This is good news.

It’s almost close to 30 million US dollars, so it’s definitely profitable.

However, the next day, Tuesday, a film company in Hong Kong was also going to release a movie called "The King's Guards", a movie about which no one knew what was going on.

As a result, after the box office results list for that day came out, Warner Bros.' eyes widened instantly.

The box office of the movie "The King's Men" was actually 18 million US dollars, but its screening rate was only 9%.

Paramount's "Ming" took up 55% of the screenings, "King Kong" only had 28%, and after deducting the 9% of the screenings for "The King's Men", only 8% was left for other movies.

However, as Thursday is approaching, a movie called "The King's Guards" shot by a film company in a colonial city in the far east is said to have an investment of less than 50 million US dollars.

But the box office of "The King's Men" was as high as 18 million US dollars on the first day of its release?

It's driving me crazy!

So on Wednesday, the screening share of "The King's Men" directly reached 18%, and its screening share could only be squeezed out from "Ming", "King Kong" and other movies.

"Fuck, this is too much!"

Jack and other people from Warner Bros. were so angry that they wanted to go to the cinema tycoon's office and beat him up.

However, the cinema giants are all greedy for money. They even reduced the screening of Paramount's movies by 1.5%. The screening of "King Kong" was also reduced by 3.5%, and the screening of other movies was reduced by 5%.

Therefore, if you want to get more screenings, the movie box office must be strong enough, otherwise, it will only continue to decline.

Time passed quickly, and it was Thursday, December 13th, early in the morning.

At this point, the box office rankings have already come out.

The top of the list is still "Ming", there is nothing much to say about that, but the champion has become "The King's Avatar".

It can be said that "The Imperial Guards" is a bit of a follower of "Ming", but it is not completely a follower.

Because "The Imperial Guards" softened elements such as the imperial court's eagle claws and martial arts, it cannot be said to be a follow-up work.

But on December 12, the box office of "The King's Guards" did achieve a score of 36 million, ranking second, which was very strong.

However, due to the reduction in screenings, the box office of "King Kong" was only 19 million US dollars.

But no matter how few screenings "King Kong" has, it is still the second at the beginning, which is a lot more than "The King's Men" which only has 18% of the screenings.

Despite having more screenings, the box office is not as good as "The King's Men". On Thursday, Universal Pictures' "The Man from Nowhere" is about to be released, and the screening schedule of "King Kong" has been canceled.

On Thursday, December 13th, the top-ranked film on the schedule was "The Man from Nowhere," which took 40 percent.

The second place is "Ming", with 29% of the screenings, followed by "The King's Men", which got 22% of the screenings. "King Kong" has since been classified as other movies.

In other words, at this point, if the movie "King Kong" still doesn't perform well, then its box office performance will only get lower.

Soon, Thursday's box office figures were released.

"The Man from Nowhere" won the championship with 89 million US dollars, while "The King's Men" still performed well and won the second place in the box office rankings with a single-day box office of 49.2 million.

From earning $36 million with an 18% screening share, to now earning $49.2 million at the box office with a 22% screening share, its box office potential is even higher than that of Ming Dynasty.

Unbelievable!

The single-day box office of "Ming" has dropped to 34 million US dollars because its screening schedule has been declining.

The single-day box office of "King Kong" was only 8 million US dollars, which was barely enough to survive.

Many people did not expect that the competition during the Christmas period would be so fierce.

The screening schedule for Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the same for "The Man from Nowhere", but it has been reduced for "Ming", and the screening schedule for "King Kong" and other movies has also been reduced.

When the screening schedule of "The King's Guards" increased and it was released over the three-day weekend, its box office performance was even better.

Because it involves the historical dynasty of Ming Dynasty, the darkness in the court and cholera among the people, coupled with elements such as martial arts, it has thoroughly aroused the curiosity of many people about this movie.

The box office results for the three days are out. "The King's Men" has earned 58 million, 64 million and 61 million US dollars.

As of now, the total box office of the movie "The King's Men" has reached 286 million US dollars.

Judging from its investment, this movie has made a lot of money.

Warner Bros., Sony Columbia, United Artists, Disney and other film studios are completely at a loss for words.

This is simply speechless.

It is too much for a foreign film to be so popular in their country.

Unfortunately, Hollywood has completely changed today.

Although monster movies are good, the curiosity has passed, and movies like "King Kong" are actually far inferior to "Jurassic Park", so the box office of this movie is naturally not very good.

The investment of 150 million US dollars was a complete failure.

However, if the West is not bright, the East will be bright.

Warner Bros. did not expect that the movie "King Kong" would actually achieve good box office results in Europe, South America, Kimura and other countries.

Looking at it this way, hey, not only did I make my money back, I also made a small profit of tens of millions of dollars.

Gan!
Keep making monster movies.

"My God, movies like King Kong can make tens of millions of dollars. How much money did the Jurassic Park series make?"

Jack couldn't help drooling at the thought of this.

20th Century Fox launched the "Jurassic Park" series and has already made a lot of money.

Moreover, a theme park has been built in Hong Kong Island nowadays, with a large number of visitors every day. The ticket fees alone can recover the cost of investment in about 20 years, and it will be a huge profit in the future.

What's more, in addition to ticket sales, there are other sources of income. If these incomes are calculated, it may not take 20 years to recover the cost, but only 10 years, or even shorter.

Make big!
Just as Jack continued to delve deeper into monster movies, the Christmas season has officially entered its white-hot stage.

The two film companies, 20th Century Fox and MGM, also entered the battlefield and launched their own films.

For a time, the entire Hollywood movie box office had become very different.

The market has gone completely crazy.

However, Zhao Mancang returned to New York at this time and came here to take charge.

The oil crisis has reached its current point, and the truly dangerous time has passed.

People like Razag Magid must bow their heads, because Richard Milhouse will not allow them to make trouble without limits, causing oil prices to soar.

If the price of oil is too high, it will definitely not be a good thing for Sam's country.

If gas prices are too high, people will cause trouble.

Richard Milhouse is very clear about this.

So he had to stop what Razag Magid and the others did.

As we enter late December, there are still some small-scale unrest in the Middle East, but the large-scale tension has passed.

So it's time for the turmoil on Wall Street to subside.

However, Harlan Nicholson of the First Citibank Consortium was very angry because their wrong judgment had led to Bunge being completely snatched away by someone else.

Many retail investors have already collected their Bunge shares and are no longer trading them in the secondary market.

Bunge's stock price has also been essentially locked in, remaining unchanged for more than a week.

Even a fool knows that this company has almost no shares outstanding on the market.

What can we do?

The management held an emergency meeting and asked the board of directors to apply for a shareholders' meeting.

At this time, Kabu Company had to step forward.

Just after the Cab Company appeared at the Bunge shareholders' meeting, all the giants on Wall Street sent their men to investigate who the Cab Company was.

After all, this company suddenly appeared, and there was no trace or impression of it before. Who is it?
Everyone knows that when the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits, but no one expected that the fisherman would be the Kabu Company.

It's hidden really deeply.

However, no matter how people investigate, there is really nothing to investigate about the Kabu Company.

A small company that has been in Sam's hometown for a long time. Such small companies are very common on Wall Street.

It's just that it has been acquired by someone now, but no one knows the mysterious capital.

Because this mysterious capital came from a company in California, and similarly, the company in California was acquired.

It's like a nesting doll, one layer inside another.

It seems that someone is up to something and has started planning this many years ago, starting with Company A, acquiring one BCDEFG company every year, and then letting these companies acquire each other, or even merge and acquire each other.

Or through mergers and acquisitions from other companies.

This has resulted in very confusing affiliations among these companies, making it very difficult to investigate the equity relationships behind them.

For example, the Kabu Company has forty shareholders behind it.

Among these forty shareholder companies, each has two or three shareholders, or dozens or hundreds of shareholders, and some large companies even hold a small amount of shares.

Anyway, it’s very difficult to figure it out.

It's too complicated.

When Kabu Company became the target of everyone's attention, Zhao Mancang had already arrived at the headquarters office of Mayflower Media Group.

"Tell me, what's going on?"

On the last day of December, he received a call from Salvatore Van Buren, head of Mayflower Media Group, who said that he had a very confidential piece of news and needed to consult his big boss.

So Zhao Mancang came over.

"Well, we received some news today."

Salvatore Van Buren also brought two reporters, Raphael Brooks and Fenrir Reynolds, into the office. Zhao Mancang was quite confused, but as he got to know them more deeply, he soon fell into deep thought.

But there were waves in my heart.

It turned out that while Raphael Brooks and his companion were collecting news, they unexpectedly received an interview from Tom Frost, a climbing enthusiast, in the hospital.

This interview involved a lot of top-secret matters.

According to Tom Frost's recollection, they were suddenly summoned to Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America, for training in 1962.

Since they could earn $1,000 every day, all the members of this 14-member mountain expedition team were smiling happily.

Even though it was a secret mission and they were not allowed to disclose the information to the outside world, they agreed without hesitation for the sake of US dollars.

This was a top secret mission of SAM Intelligence Agency and no one dared to say anything.

Tom Frost was the most successful mountain adventurer at the time. He was a man of very strong physical fitness and had climbed many mountains, but he had never experienced climbing a high mountain, which made him so scared.

But this time, the mission of Sam Intelligence Agency is so incredible.

"I shouldn't have been greedy for the money in the first place."

These were Tom Frost's original words. Zhao Mancang also heard the voice from the recorder. He had a blank expression on his face, and Salvatore Van Buren and others had no idea what he was thinking.

In September 1962, Tom Frost and his team arrived at the foot of Nanda Devi Mountain in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. They arrived there by helicopter.

But they still need to wait here, because they are not here to conquer Nanda Devi, the peak of the goddess of blessing, but to carry out a mission.

TOM FROST What they were waiting for was a coffin.

No one knew what was inside the coffin, not even Tom Frost and the others knew what was inside.

Climbing Nanda Devi Mountain is not an easy task, let alone carrying a coffin weighing hundreds of pounds, which makes it even more difficult.

Hundreds of local porters carried the coffin to the foot of Nanda Devi Mountain and met up with Tom Frost and his team.

After reuniting, Tom Frost and his group began to climb the peak with full confidence.

The Nanda Devi area is a famous uninhabited area. It is surrounded by twelve mountains over 6,400 meters high, forming a natural barrier and becoming the most inaccessible place on earth.

Therefore, it was almost impossible for Tom Frost's team of fourteen climbers and four local climbers to transport the coffin weighing hundreds of kilograms to the highest point of Nanda Devi at 7,816 meters.

(End of this chapter)