Era: Starting from divorce from female college student

Chapter 303: Sky-high Copyright Lawsuit

Sam's New York, in a luxurious large flat on the 88th floor of a high-rise building in Manhattan, Filjak was looking at the data report with great satisfaction.

As one of the financial giants on Wall Street, Filjak is very familiar with financial statements.

"Jurassic Park", the most popular movie in the United States recently, has indeed made a huge profit at the box office, but Filjak knows better that dinosaur-related products are the real money-makers, and the rest are fake.

If 20th Century Fox, a film and production company, were a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange, Filjak would certainly use the financial methods he is more familiar with to make money.

But 20th Century Fox is a wholly private company and outsiders cannot interfere at all.

As a result, Filjak could only think of the trick of "pirty" production of dinosaur peripheral products, but it was precisely because of this trick that he became more greedy.

The factory runs around the clock, producing more than 100,000 dinosaur-related products every day. As a result, it sells as many as it produces.

It can be said that demand exceeds supply.

The profit from a small dinosaur trinket is as high as $1.80, which is simply outrageous.

One hundred thousand pieces means a daily income of $180,000. In just one week, Filjak earned $1.26 million.

This is just a trial business, but there are hundreds of thousands of supermarkets and stores across the United States, as well as numerous movie theaters, and Target supermarkets, etc. These stores must sell hundreds of millions of dinosaur-related products every day, right?
In this way, their profits would probably be hundreds of millions of dollars!
"Fuck, even selling exclusive products or arms isn't this profitable!"

Filjak's face was grim as he immediately ordered an expansion of production. He wanted to produce one million dinosaur-related products every day, covering the entire North American continent and even expanding overseas.
However, less than a day after his order was issued, the factory, sales company, etc. received court summons.

After hearing the news, Filjak immediately became angry and snorted:

"Sue me? Humph, what are you afraid of? Don't be afraid, just keep producing, and we'll wear each other down!"

As for Filjak, he has plenty of money and lawyers, and is not afraid of these tricks at all.

If it were an ordinary person, he might be scared and shut down the factory directly, but as a big boss, what kind of scenes has Filjak not seen?

It's just a court summons, there's nothing to be afraid of.

He was indeed not afraid, but Filjak soon compromised.

Filjak is a Wall Street businessman. He is not only a shareholder of First Citibank, but also owns shares in several financial companies.

While he was carelessly planning to sue 20th Century Fox, the two financial companies under his name were soon acquired in a secret transaction.

And in less than a week, the privatization process was launched.

In other words, Filjak was about to be eliminated without even struggling.

Therefore, when Filjak received this call, he was completely stunned.

Isn’t the opponent’s attack too fierce?

As soon as they disagreed, they started fighting, and they hit the snake in its most vulnerable part, directly attacking Filjak's lair.

How to do?
Dinosaur merchandise is indeed very profitable, but you have to be alive to spend it.

The shareholders behind 20th Century Fox are so damn powerful. They used courtesy first and then force, and put up more than 1 billion US dollars to acquire several listed companies invested by him, directly striking him out.

Fake!

Even the most angry Filjak had to bow his head. If he didn't, haha, the next time he took action would not be so easy.

The big boss Filjak obediently made compensation, not a hundred times, but fifteen times.

Although the compensation was only fifteen times the revenue, it still made Filjak heartbroken.

At this time, the box office of "Jurassic Park" on the 19th, 20th and 21st was also released, and it still dominated the single-day box office championship for three days.

These three days were Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the box office was much higher than the previous Thursday, at 37.2 million, 39.76 million and 37.91 million US dollars respectively.

The box office revenue of the movie "Jurassic Park" over the three days of the weekend alone has exceeded 500 million US dollars, and the overall box office has reached 546 million US dollars.

According to predictions from major media outlets, "Jurassic Park" will surpass "Sadako" around the 30th day and become the number one box office hit in film history.

"Sadako" took more than a year to release before it earned more than 700 million US dollars at the box office.

But "Jurassic Park" was very popular and it lasted very long after its release, with the single-day box office rarely falling below 30 million US dollars.

In just over half a month, box office results broke through one after another. Neither Universal Pictures' "Rambo" nor MGM's "Star Trek" could suppress "Jurassic Park".

As time went by, the box office results for the three days from the 22nd to the 24th were also released. "Jurassic Park" earned 27.2 million, 26.3 million, and 28.94 million US dollars respectively.

Such results are all single-day box office champions, and the total box office has successfully exceeded 628.4 million US dollars.

July 25th is Thursday, and "Zombies vs. Vampires," which Paramount Pictures spent a year and a half and a huge investment of 68 million US dollars to produce, is about to be released.

Since the release of "The Originals" last summer, Paramount Pictures has been deeply developing this theme.

It’s true that vampire-related themes are really great and are of great help in increasing box office sales.

The movie "Zombies vs. Vampires" is Paramount Pictures' preparation for the next zombie movie.

Even though other film companies have already released movies related to zombie elements, what does it matter?

Anyway, whether a zombie movie is authentic or not depends on the specific situation.

What's more, this movie contains vampire elements and the script is very well written, so no one is afraid that the box office will be a failure.

But now in the market, the popularity of "Jurassic Park" is too high. If you want to cool down "Jurassic Park", you can only find another way.

Therefore, all means must be used.

At the filming site of Warner Bros. headquarters, Jack was leading a group of executives to watch the filming of the movie "Cretaceous Age".

In order to get the movie released quickly, Jack no longer cared about anything else.

With an investment of over 40 million US dollars, this movie must make a profit.

why?
Because just purchasing the dinosaur materials cost a lot of money, and they also poached a lot of 20th Century Fox employees, which also cost a lot of money.

Otherwise, given the shoddy production of the movie "Cretaceous Age", it would have cost at most 10 million US dollars, and it is impossible for it to cost more than 40 million US dollars.

But now the box office of "Jurassic Park" has exceeded 600 million US dollars. It would be strange if Jack didn't get excited.

Although the box office of more than 600 million US dollars is still not as good as the box office of "Sadako" which is more than 700 million US dollars, the daily box office of "Jurassic Park" is still more than 20 million.

And today is Thursday, and the weekend is coming soon. I guess "Jurassic Park" is going to rebound again.

Many people are very fanatical about the movie "Jurassic Park", otherwise the movie ticket price would not be very expensive. The United States has a population of just over 200 million, but the box office of the movie directly exceeded 600 million US dollars.

And it’s still soaring!
I can only say that this world is really crazy!

"Can we finish the filming on the 31st?"

After watching the filming, Jack immediately asked.

Producer Clint Richard paused for a moment and said, "It should be possible. I will keep a close eye on it and ask them to work overtime. We will try to finish the filming on the last day of this month and then edit it as soon as possible."

August is almost here, and once we enter late August, the box office will definitely drop sharply.

There is no way. When the summer vacation is about to end, the film market will indeed enter a sluggish off-season. What can we do?

Paramount and other four companies have directly encircled all the hottest periods in the summer season, such as "Blade Runner", "The Treasure Hunt", "Jurassic Park", "I Am Mike", "First Blood", "Star Trek" and so on, which have already been released. These movies are all big hits.

The movie "I Am Mike" did not make over 100 million US dollars at the box office, and its current box office is only over 50 million US dollars, but as a low-cost romance film with a total investment of only one million US dollars, it has already made a lot of money!

Other movies like "Blade Runner" may have very high investments, but their box office is also amazing.

And the movie-related products also sold very well.

Take "The Treasure Hunt" as an example. It has been released for almost a month, and the total box office has reached 342 million US dollars. It should be no problem to break 350 million US dollars.

As of now, the peripheral products of "Treasure Hunt" have generated revenue of 1.1 billion US dollars.

In the coming August, the movie-related products will definitely make hundreds of millions of dollars more, and the follow-up will be a steady stream of income.

In short, the money that a movie like "Treasure Hunt" can earn is definitely more than the box office profit.

Not to mention "Jurassic Park". The reason why Jack invested more than 40 million US dollars in "Cretaceous Era" was because the former was so popular.

It is normal to have a share of the pie.

On July 26, the film "Zombies vs. Vampires" produced by Paramount Pictures won the top spot in the single-day box office rankings with a box office of 37.26 million US dollars.

"Jurassic Park" came in second with $33.92 million.

Even though it was only the second place result, Jack and other competitors still gasped. Isn't this "Jurassic Park" too awesome?
It's been more than 20 days since its release, and its box office is still rising against the market trend?

It's truly bizarre: who on earth is buying tickets to this movie? A New York Times Post reporter conducted a street survey, where thousands of adults and children showed off their dinosaur trinkets and other toys. They all said they had seen Jurassic Park at least seven times.

Seven brushes!
This shows how much these people like the movie "Jurassic Park".

This is just a random interview on the street. Some real fanatical fans would run to the cinema after get off work every day. Although it was only released for twenty days, these fanatical fans watched it more than fifteen times.

Terrible heat!

The success of "Zombie vs. Vampire" also made many Chinese martial artists rise again, because there are too many Chinese elements in this movie.

Zombies are originally Chinese, and the movie is named Zombies vs. Vampires, so the fighting scenes are definitely the top priority.

In the following three days of the weekend, the movie "Zombie vs. Vampire" once again won the single-day box office championship, and the box office successfully exceeded 100 million in three days.

Nowadays, breaking the 100 million yuan box office in three days has become one of the criteria for measuring whether a movie is successful.

It's clear that the movie "Zombies vs. Vampires" is a success.

The end of July has arrived, and the movie "Jurassic Park" has successfully broken the 700 million US dollar mark, and is not far from the 730 million US dollar box office record of "Sadako".

As the three days of the weekend passed, there was no lightning or thunder in the sky on July 30th. It was a very ordinary day. However, the movie "Jurassic Park" surpassed "Sadako" for the first time and became the number one box office in film history.

When the news was reported in the newspaper, the whole United States was in an uproar.

What’s funny is that on the next day, not only did the box office of “Jurassic Park” soar again, but the single-day box office of “Sadako” also exceeded five million US dollars.

This is outrageous!

It turned out that because "Jurassic Park" wanted to catch up with "Sadako", the popularity of the movie "Sadako" also soared. From the previous single-day box office of less than one million, it once again exceeded one million US dollars.

After "Jurassic Park" surpassed "Sadako" in box office performance, the popularity of both films soared.

Many people are curious, why hasn’t "Sadako" been taken off the shelves yet after being released for more than a year?
So we all went to the cinema to watch it again, but we were still too scared to watch it a second time.

No matter how outrageous it was, Zhao Mancang could still accept it.

The current Sam movie market has been completely transformed by him from the original time and space.

The early boom in the film market may attract more attention from bigwigs like Lyndon Johnson, but so what?

With the current scale of Zhao Mancang's business on Sam's side, he can fight back at any time.

After "Jurassic Park" became the number one box office in film history, that is, in the first few days of August, it was able to continue to maintain a daily box office of 20 million US dollars. Starting from August 5, the daily box office fell below 20 million, and was only more than 16 million US dollars.

Even so, the total box office of "Jurassic Park" exceeded 800 million US dollars.

In this light, it should not be a big problem for the movie "Jurassic Park" to break the billion-dollar record in film history.

It can be said that 20th Century Fox made a lot of money this time.

The top spot in the film box office rankings was previously held by Universal Pictures, but now it has been taken over by 20th Century Fox.

I don’t know when it will be the turn of other film companies.

Paramount Pictures is very ambitious. It has already built a studio in the exotic country to shoot the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring".

However, as a representative work of cold weapon movies, it is not easy to shoot "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" well.

Just preparing thousands of pieces of armor, 20,000 sets of clothing and other preliminary preparations is already an extremely huge workload.

The most important thing is that this movie is not just one film, but a trilogy shot together, so the shooting time will be unexpectedly long, and the film technology used is also very advanced.

The total investment in the trilogy has exceeded 500 million US dollars, and this is just the filming cost, not including the subsequent marketing costs.

However, Paramount Pictures believes that the trilogy "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" will definitely achieve very good box office results, and most importantly, the movie-related products will definitely make a lot of money.

According to the filming period of this movie, it was released around 1970.

In order to win the championship in the box office rankings in film history, MGM also had its own ambitions. The company also prepared "Star Wars", which also took five years to sharpen its sword, preparing to successfully win the throne of the championship in film history after entering the 1970s.

Not to mention Universal Pictures, they hope to regain the box office champion in film history.

But now, after breaking through 800 million US dollars, the box office of "Jurassic Park" continues to soar, and the speed has not slowed down, which is really outrageous.

It can continue to earn more than 10 million US dollars at the box office every day, steadily moving towards 1 billion US dollars.

On August 1st and August 8th, 20th Century Fox released a horror comedy "Ghostbusters", while Universal Pictures released "Superman".

What is surprising is that the box office performance of these two films was disappointing. The box office on the premiere day was only over 20 million, and did not break 30 million US dollars.

In other words, both movies broke the 100 million yuan mark in about four days, not three days.

On August 15th, Warner Bros. Pictures finally released the movie "Cretaceous Age".

Many people knew that this was a follow-up movie, and no one expected that Warner Bros. would release such a dinosaur movie so quickly.

It’s no secret that the movie’s box office was really good. On the 15th, it took home the title of the day with a box office of 34 million US dollars.

However, another movie released on the same day, "Tootsie" produced by MGM, regained the box office championship on Friday.

And after Friday, "Tootsie" has always been the champion of the single-day box office rankings.

Even so, the follow-up film "Cretaceous Era", although it invested more than 40 million US dollars, still broke 100 million US dollars at the box office a week later.

Such an amazing box office result left everyone dumbfounded.

How is this possible?
But that's the truth!

Then Warner Bros. was sued by 20th Century Fox for copyright infringement and failure to pay copyright fees.

Dinosaurs are the copyright of 20th Century Fox, including all the dinosaurs in the movie "Jurassic Park", which are all copyrighted by their company.

Warner Bros. Pictures used the dinosaur images designed by 20th Century Fox without obtaining authorization, and did not even modify the data.

This is definitely an infringement.

There are also plots of movie scripts, etc., which are all infringements and are extremely serious in nature.

When Jack saw the movie subpoena, he originally wanted to pretend not to see it, but as the incident escalated, the media were reporting on it, and the stock of Warner Bros. Pictures, which had been rising sharply, now plummeted.

So, he had to have someone deal with the matter.

The negotiation team came to the conference room of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. Following the failure of the last negotiation, the two sides sat down together to negotiate again.

There is no way to avoid talking about it. The losses brought by "Cretaceous Age" will not be what Jack and other shareholders want to see.

"What? You've increased the compensation again? The copyright fee has also increased to 80 million US dollars?"

When Clint Richard heard what the representative of 20th Century Fox said, he was stunned.

This isn't the way a lion opens its mouth, is it?
The total box office of "Cretaceous Era" is only 136 million US dollars, but 20th Century Fox is demanding 80 million US dollars in copyright fees and 30 million US dollars in compensation.

It's simply outrageous.

How the hell can we talk about this?

They are simply treating Warner Bros. as a big grudge.

My goodness, that adds up to 110 million U.S. dollars. The movie box office is just box office, it’s not like Warner Bros. Pictures got 130 to 160 million U.S. dollars.

If Warner Bros. really agrees to 20th Century Fox's compensation and copyright fees, then wouldn't all their work be in vain?

But given the current situation, it seems they have no choice but to agree.

After Jack heard the news, he did not agree, but the next day, the media reported it, and then the stock price of Warner Bros. Pictures plummeted again.

20th Century Fox informed the media that the copyright fee for dinosaur merchandise they received from cinemas was $300 million as stated in the contract.

The copyright fees are jaw-droppingly high, but that's the reality.

After the news came out, Warner Bros.' stock price plummeted, but the box office of the movie "Cretaceous" soared.

The market doesn't know what's going on. There are obviously many good movies on the market, but they still choose a follow-up work like "Cretaceous Age".

Maybe, probably, or perhaps it's because I'm tired of watching "Jurassic Park", so I watched the movie "Cretaceous Age".

Many people still like dinosaur movies because they are novel.

Negotiations for the sky-high copyright lawsuit are still ongoing, but this has not affected the box office success of "Cretaceous Era" which exceeded 160 million US dollars.

At this time, the total box office of the movie "Tootsie" has exceeded 200 million US dollars.

(End of this chapter)