I am Hollywood

Chapter 810: Chapter 811: I Can't Make Any Promises Right Now



[Chapter 811]

As September rolled in, Eric was busy shooting Casino Royale in the UK, while the North American summer movie season came to an official close.

Firefly Group had released three films during the summer, The Matrix, The Rock, and New Line's Final Destination, which collectively grossed $420 million. Although these films were still playing sporadically in North American theaters, their box office revenue of tens of thousands each week had negligible impact on the overall totals.

Compared to previous years when they led the box office by a wide margin, Firefly Group's box office revenue this year not only lost that advantage completely but also saw Universal Pictures snatch the summer box office crown with a slight lead of $435 million. With The Mummy II and The Nutty Professor leading the pack, Universal also found success with two other films.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Following Firefly's performance, Warner Bros. released six films during the summer. While none were major blockbusters, they still managed to secure $380 million due to their sheer number of releases, trailing Firefly closely.

Perhaps due to Firefly's sharp decline in summer performance, the competitive landscape shifted in favor of Universal, Warner Bros., and later Paramount and Fox, among other major studios, which all saw a noticeable increase in summer box office revenue compared to previous years.

Once Variety magazine officially released this year's summer box office figures along with related commentary articles, other media quickly followed suit. Many professional outlets openly stated that Firefly's declining performance signaled Hollywood's return to a more balanced state among the "Big Seven" studios. Before Firefly's rise, the seven major studios maintained a relatively equal market share based on their fixed production scales and distribution channels, occasionally producing blockbusters but generally balancing their market presence according to overall strength.

Even though the Big Seven had been integrating into media groups, the film business still accounted for a significant share. As the notion of Firefly returning to "normal" gained acceptance among the media, the capital markets reacted swiftly. Stock prices of companies like Time Warner, Viacom, and MGM rose by more than 10% within a few days. Even Sony, despite the box office flop of Jumanji 2, experienced a slight uptick in shares.

However, the sudden deceleration of the once fast-moving Firefly Group's media empire drew keen media interest regarding their internal reactions. To get some feedback from Firefly's higher-ups, some outlets even resorted to provocatively challenging the company. Yet, after wrapping up work on The Matrix sequel, unless responding to blatantly false smear campaigns, Firefly's PR department remained notably low-key.

As for Hollywood, most observers maintained a spectator's mindset, especially after the poor reviews for Titanic's premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Many anxiously awaited the year- end release schedule.

With a production cost of $215 million and $50 million in distribution expenses, plus a runtime exceeding three hours, Hollywood saw little reason to believe in Titanic's box office

success.

While Firefly's competitors were still content to watch from the sidelines, Wall Street already gleamed with anticipation. Should Titanic suffer a significant loss, it would not only consume profits from other successful Firefly films but might also impact Firefly's closed production system, compelling it to conform to industry norms rather than persist with their self- sufficient model.

If Firefly opened even a small gap by seeking film financing from capital markets like other studios, Wall Street would have sufficient confidence to widen that gap step by step, ultimately absorbing Firefly and placing it under similar capitalist control as most Hollywood studios.

...

Despite heightened scrutiny from outside, everything within Firefly remained orderly. On September 15, after more than six months of preparation, the FFM Network -- a collaboration between Firefly, Fox, and MGM -- officially launched. FFM offered more high-quality film content than the previous incarnation of the network and implemented various promotional activities, managing to retain almost all of the original users from several pay cable channels, bringing the total user base to 4.1 million.

Since FFM was positioned similarly to HBO, Time Warner naturally regarded it as a significant threat. Warner Bros. Cable even breaching contracts by completely cutting off the signals of the 300,000 users who had previously subscribed to FFM's predecessor. Time Warner adopted a total blockade approach against FFM.

While both Firefly and Time Warner avoided an outright public confrontation, there were minimal restraints among subsidiaries. The moment Warner Bros. Cable severed the user signals, FFM promptly sued the cable giant in federal court for engaging in unfair competition due to its market position. Warner Bros. knew this lawsuit could only help FFM gain notoriety, yet they had no choice but to respond, as FFM clearly would not agree to settle privately.

As a veteran media player, Weinstein quickly stoked the flames of controversy, and FFM's profile surged in the process.

With FFM's launch coinciding with the beginning of the television fall season in September, ABC's Friends, ER, and Survivor made their returns, along with Lifetime's popular shows such as Sex and the City, Project Runway, and America's Next Top Model.

...

When someone was busy, the days flew by. By the time Firefly's television department delivered the September ratings report to Eric, it had somehow become October.

London's weather had cooled further, and the filming of Casino Royale reached over 80% completion. With just a month left, the most important scenes involved Bond teaming up with the Charlie's Angels to rescue Angela Lind.

Kate, Charlize, and Penelope needed another week before joining the set. The recent days had been more relaxed for the crew, mainly focusing on dialogue scenes involving Bond, M, Vesper, and a few villains.

After finishing a scene between the sisters Vesper and Angela that morning, Eric sat in the cafeteria of Pinewood Studios. After finishing lunch, he had some time left and started to read the newly arrived ratings report from New York.

On ABC, Friends, ER, and Survivor continued to lead in viewership. This year, Friends was in its eighth season, with plans to conclude by the tenth. ABC had already announced this before the season started. Although the six main actors appeared slightly younger than in past life, ten years of filming had made them weary of continuing.

This time, Aniston hadn't rallied the other stars for a million-dollar pay dispute, but Firefly was generous nonetheless. The salary for each of the six leads had doubled to $600,000 per episode for the final three seasons.

As the most popular medical drama in recent years, ER maintained remarkably steady viewership, averaging over 20 million viewers per episode. Meanwhile, Survivor, which had peaked at an average audience of 30 million over its first two seasons, began to see a significant drop in viewership due to competition from other reality shows airing on different networks.

However, because Survivor's production costs were low, even if ratings drop below 10 million, the network would remain very profitable. Moreover, the first three episodes of this season averaged 17 million viewers, which hardly reflected failure, positioning it among the leaders of North American reality programming.

In addition to the three leading shows, ABC also welcomed a new dark horse this year -- a sitcom called Everybody Loves Raymond. This family-centric show soared past the 15 million

mark for its premiere episode.

During its peak, its ratings compared well to Friends. With a opening viewership of 15 million, it was merely a starting point. It was expected that once Friends wrapped up, Everybody Loves Raymond would reach its own peak viewership, perfectly positioned to take over Comedy

Night.

In memory, Everybody Loves Raymond was CBS's flagship sitcom. However, Eric had not been involved in it; he only discovered it after seeing the new show list submitted by ABC in May. The transition of Everybody Loves Raymond to ABC resulted mainly from David Letterman producing it. ABC had revamped its late-night programming over the past two years, moving CBS's Late Show with David Letterman to their network, which naturally led to ABC securing Letterman's television projects.

After reviewing ABC's ratings statistics, Eric was about to turn to Lifetime's data when Christina Aguilera approached with a small tray.

The girl stood across from Eric and sweetly asked, "Eric, may I sit here?"

With a smile, Eric cleared some paperwork from the table and nodded to her. Christina happily

placed her tray down and took a seat.

While they had become close, Christina was far from clingy and never publicized their relationship. Her discreet and intelligent behavior pleased Eric immensely.

Since the entire day's scenes involved Christina, her sitting beside Eric would only make people assume she wanted to discuss film matters with the director, not raising any suspicion.

Watching Christina pick up her utensils and eat a small portion of the vegetable salad, Eric smiley asked, "What have you been up to? Why did you take so long to come to the table?" Christina replied sweetly, "My mom called from Los Angeles, and we talked for a bit longer."

"Oh, were you feeling homesick?"

"Not really," Christina shook her head.

She truly wasn't homesick. Having grown up in a single-parent household, Christina was much more independent than Britney. She had no desire to attend school and relished the opportunity to travel the world with her work.

Eric smiled and turned his attention back to the papers in front of him, but Christina then spoke up, "Eric, I... suddenly feel like Angela isn't that cool."

Eric raised an eyebrow, "What do you think would be cool then?" Having seen Charlie's Angels, Christina immediately replied, "Definitely like Kate Beckinsale's character, Selina! But Angela seems more like a bookish tech geek who loves tinkering with machinery. I think that if Charlie's Detective Agency actually existed, they would surely overlook Angela Lind."

In the script for Casino Royale, Angela Lind was depicted as a tech-savvy geek obsessed with precision instruments, influenced by her father during childhood.

"Thinking Angela Lind isn't cool might stem from the fact that Casino Royale is a James Bond film, and the role isn't given much room for development. However, that character is well- rounded and is akin to Qin the 007 series, who will eventually provide the Angels with all sorts of cool high-tech gadgets. You know, after the film is released next year, Marvel Entertainment will publish comics related to Angela Lind, and you'll get to see it then." Initially, Eric had handed that character to Christina without sharing too much information. There was a time when Christina thought Angela might just be a minor character in the Casino

Royale series.

Now hearing Eric say this, Christina's eyes sparkled, and she asked, "So, Eric, does this mean I could appear in the movie again in the future?"

Eric chuckled, "Your character will definitely feature in the comic stories; Marvel has already

started on that. As for whether you can appear again in MGM's spy movie universe, there are too many factors -- your career development, audience feedback on your character, the storyline needs, and so on. I can't make any promises right now."

*****

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