"Oh—Isa—your taste is amazing—this vacation spot you picked is absolutely beautiful—"
"Haha—thanks—Steven, thank you for the compliment. I think it's beautiful too, so I—"
"What? What did you say? You bought this place? The entire coastline?"
"Of course~ this whole coastline is mine now~"
"0h—then how much did you spend? How much was this coastline?"
"Not much, just 450 million."
"How much?? 450 million??"
"Yeah~"
"OMG—450 million is 'not much'? I'd have to make ten movies to earn that kind of money!"
"Hiss—Steven, now you're being a bit too modest! 450 million is just about a year's income for you, why would you need to make ten movies? Not to mention, how much money did the Jurassic series make you?"
"Jurassic didn't actually make that much money."
"Hm?"
"Because it came out a bit early. And compared to your The Voice, my Jurassic really can't compete, can it? Jurassic only released three films in ten years, but your The Voice has a new season every year."
"Sigh—Steven, you're really no fun—
—"
"Why? Why do you say that? My friends all think I'm quite humorous."
"Because you're too modest. You're saying The Voice is more impressive than Jurassic just because it can keep going? But have you thought about it—when Jurassic ends, it can be rebooted, but when The Voice ends, it's truly over. Because a talent show's brand can't be used endlessly, but stories on the big screen can move forward or backward."
"Haha—Isa—I think you've got a point—but I also feel like—you're hinting that you want to make Jurassic, aren't you? If so, we can talk about the project right now."
"Uh—sorry, Steven, I'm not interested in dinosaurs."
"Oh? Then what are you interested in?"
"I'm interested in Star Wars."
"What? Oh—if that's the case, I can just give George a call. I'm actually interested in SW too, so—how about we just reboot the project? I'll direct, you play the new generation Skywalker? And as for the timeline—the recently finished trilogy was a prequel, so we'll just make a sequel trilogy?"
"Oh, I think your idea is pretty good, but I don't have time, you know."
"I understand! Harry Potter, right? But that's not important, because I don't have time recently either—
1
May 27, 2006.
Cayman Islands.
At her seaside estate, Isabella welcomed Steven Spielberg, who had come from afar.
The old man's visit to the Caymans at this time, to see Isabella, was purely because the war was over.
Once the content capital reached a consensus and completely purged the parasites and traitors within their ranks, the world became quiet again.
And in this internal industry-wide cleanup, every party walked away stuffed with profits.
For example—
Comcast, the true owner of MGM, swallowed up the Fox Broadcasting Network;
Time Warner acquired the publishing business of News Corporation;
Viacom took over News Corporation's telecommunications business;
And while embracing their gains, they also picked out the "excess" and "unwanted" portions from their plates;
Comcast carved out the financial team from the Fox Broadcasting Network;
Time Warner carefully removed financial publications from News Corporation's publishing division;
Viacom bundled up all financial radio assets from News Corporation's telecom business;
All of these ultimately fell into NBCUniversal's pocket;
After some simple transactions—
CNBC directly became the world's largest financial television channel.
As for why CNBC was not the world's largest financial company?
No way around it—
Dow Jones controls the Dow Jones Index.
Unless NBCUniversal acquires Dow Jones and controls The Wall Street Journal, they can never become the world's largest financial company. They can only remain the most influential financial media outlet in the television space.
While Comcast, Time Warner, Viacom, and NBCUniversal were patting their bellies in satisfaction, Lionsgate—having devoured 20th Century Fox—also sold Fox's global distribution company to DreamWorks.
However, Lionsgate did not sell its MPAA seat.
They needed that too.
But DreamWorks still obtained voting rights within the MPAA.
Because after acquiring Fox, Lionsgate dismantled its production lines, distribution lines, and content library into its own company. Fox then became a shell company that retained only an MPAA seat but had no real operational capacity. After that, Lionsgate sold half of that shell company's equity to DreamWorks.
With this move, Lionsgate and DreamWorks could share the MPAA seat.
Of course, this kind of arrangement might cause problems in the future. For example, if industry rules change and Lionsgate and DreamWorks disagree on those changes, whose position would the shared MPAA seat follow? Whose vote would it cast?
But—
No one cared about that right now.
There was no helping it.
There was only one MPAA seat.
Steven Spielberg wanted it.
Lionsgate's real owner, Frank Giustra, wanted it too.
And Spielberg couldn't eliminate Giustra.
Nor would Giustra make a move against Spielberg.
So—
A lot of things could only be left to fate.
One could only hope for a miracle in the future.
Besides that—
After swallowing Fox, Lionsgate also sold all of Fox's Star Wars rights back to George Lucas's Lucasfilm;
At the same time, Marvel's X-Men rights, its film division, and Blue Sky Studios were bundled and sold to Beaver Entertainment;
The latter two deals totaled only 500 million;
Because Rupert Murdoch had already donated 5.5 billion to Spielberg's charitable foundation.
And even at this point, the transactions among the content giants were not yet over.
Because Sony's interests were part of a separate game.
Although Sony did not touch Fox or News Corporation, they signed a cooperative agreement with all parties.
The agreement stipulated:
After Sony officially released its Blu-ray disc format, each company must ensure that 30% of their new annual releases would be distributed in Blu-ray format for home media, for a period of three years.
For example:
If Disney released nine film or television projects in a year after Blu-ray's launch, then three of them must be released on Blu-ray for home viewing.
As for how many discs each title would produce?
That would be calculated separately.
For content giants, this kind of broad cooperation would not harm their interests.
But for Sony—
Anyone who lived through the early 2000s and liked watching movies probably heard of BD and HD, right?
The former is Blu-ray Disc, Sony's format;
The latter is High-Density Digital Versatile Disc, Toshiba's format;
To consumers, the two formats are more or less the same;
But in the eyes of capital—
This is all money.
Whichever format becomes more popular will generate a continuous stream of patent royalties.
Even if Sony only earns 50 cents per Blu-ray disc, they could still make over a billion dollars annually from it.
Since the format war between BD and HD was Sony versus Toshiba and had nothing to do with Isabella, she only asked about it briefly before letting it go. And after moving past the topic of "distribution"—
In the future, Fox might still exist.
But from today onward, Rupert Murdoch would become history.
After silently mourning her unseen rival for a second, Isabella turned to discuss reconciliation with Spielberg.
That's right!
Spielberg's current role was actually that of a peace envoy.
Because of his close relationship with Isabella;
Because he had helped her win the war;
So, after purging the disruptive elements within their ranks, the content capital sent him to negotiate peace.
And as for that—
Isabella asked, "What are they thinking?"
Spielberg said, "Since the troublemakers affecting everyone's relationships are gone, they want to reach a peaceful settlement with you. You won't pursue their liabilities, and in the future they won't sue YouTube over the same issue."
Isabella smiled. "Do you think that's possible?"
Spielberg shook his head. "No."
"So?" Isabella raised an eyebrow with a smile.
Spielberg cleared his throat and said, "So, under my proposal, and with suggestions from Sumner Redstone and Howard Stringer, we've decided to reach a limited-compensation settlement with you—"
"We can promise in the agreement that as long as you remain the actual controller of YouTube, then the nine companies—actually eight, but Fox's name won't be removed, so it has to be written as nine in the agreement—"
"As long as you still control YouTube, our eight companies will not take YouTube to court over copyright issues."
"But at the same time, YouTube must actively cooperate with us on copyright protection."
"Our eight companies will provide YouTube with 200 million dollars each year to support the creation of a professional content review and anti-piracy response department. We don't require you to monitor backend data in real time, but this department must operate around the clock, respond within 48 hours after receiving our copyright protection notices, and remove infringing content within 96 hours to ensure the interests of our eight companies."
"Additionally, our eight companies will also reach an advertising cooperation agreement with you."
"In the next three years, our eight companies will spend no less than 700 million dollars annually on advertising on YouTube."
"The specific pricing model can follow the agreements between Google, Yahoo, and us."
"For example, if I give you 100 million dollars today, then over the next year, you need to display all my ads on your platform 100 million times. Of course, the specific details would need to be worked out case by case—"
"For instance, if I give you ads for Transformers and ask you to display them 100 million times, once you've completed that, the 100 million is used up. If I want more advertising later, I'll have to pay again."
"But if I give you ads for Indiana Jones and only ask for 30 million displays, and you continue showing them beyond that without our consent after reaching the target, we won't pay extra."
"I assume you understand what I mean?"
"Oh—Steven—I understand perfectly—" Isabella smiled and nodded. "I won't go into the specific business details with you, since others will handle that. But as for the proposal you've put forward—"
"I'm both satisfied and dissatisfied."
"You want to advertise on YouTube? I'm happy about that, but isn't 700 million from eight companies a bit low?"
"And while I appreciate your willingness to fund YouTube's review team, I can't help but feel—this arrangement seems like a trap."
"You wouldn't happen to demand that we delete all infringing videos on the site the day after the agreement is signed, would you?"
"If that's the case—"
"You expect everything to be deleted within 96 hours?"
"Honestly, 200 million isn't enough to hire that many people."
On the surface, the settlement terms did show considerable goodwill from the content capital toward Isabella.
But—
There were still pitfalls hidden beneath the polished surface.
For example, YouTube was required to actively cooperate with content capital on copyright protection.
If they really wanted to destroy YouTube, they could simply overwhelm it with a flood of notices.
The logic was simple:
First, due to ongoing lawsuits, content capital had already identified countless infringing videos on YouTube.
Second, once YouTube signed the agreement, they could take a two-step approach to crush it.
Step one:
Transfer the 200 million dollars for copyright enforcement to YouTube's account.
At that point, they would hold the moral and legal high ground.
Step two:
Dump all collected infringement data onto YouTube and demand everything be removed within 96 hours.
If YouTube failed, it would collapse instantly.
After all, it would have agreed to those terms.
This wasn't paranoia on Isabella's part.
It was just that she no longer had any true friends.
And—
Barry Meyer and Robert Iger had previously advised her to give up YouTube.
When even your strongest allies prioritize their own interests above all else, negotiations like this can only be strictly business.
"So what are you thinking?" Spielberg asked with a smile, taking a sip of the fruit juice served by a waiter.
Isabella replied with a bright smile, "Since YouTube is still a startup—"
"In the first year after signing the agreement, we'll only handle 100 complaints per working day."
"The processing capacity can increase each year, but the daily workload cannot exceed 110% of the previous year."
"And since we're now partners, there's no need to deal with trivial videos, right?"
"For example—we'll only remove infringing videos longer than two minutes."
"I based that on the runtime of Tom and Jerry. Each episode is about seven minutes, so two minutes lets users watch at most a third, which won't significantly impact your interests."
"Also, requiring 24/7 availability is a bit excessive. The response time should be five working days after receiving a notice, and deletion should be completed within seven working days after replying."
"As for the money—"
"Let's round it up. 800 million for ads, 200 million for copyright protection. You'll pay us at least 1 billion per year."
"What do you think?"
Her light tone and blatantly insincere terms only made Spielberg smile wider.
He spread his hands, mimicking LeBron James. "I can't give you an answer right now. I'll need to go back and discuss it with them before I can give you a definite yes or no."
"No problem." Isabella took a sip of coconut juice, unfazed by the delay.
However, just as she thought the work-related discussion was over—
Spielberg spoke again. "Isa, do you still have the energy?"
Isabella blinked. "Of course. What is it?"
Spielberg sighed. "Something that came up because of your allocation plan."
"Your plan was excellent. Everyone is very satisfied."
"But after acquiring Fox, Lionsgate discovered a massive project within it, with a total investment possibly exceeding 300 million. They have the capability to handle it, but they—"
"Don't want to."
"???"
A project exceeding 300 million???
The moment Spielberg said it, Isabella felt her mind go blank. She couldn't think of anything in the world more expensive than Harry Potter or Transformers.
In fact, in the entire film industry, projects with higher budgets than those two were extremely rare. Aside from Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, there was only Avatar—
"?"
"Avatar?"
The moment that groundbreaking project came to mind, Isabella blinked.
At that instant, she recalled that Avatar had originally been a Fox project.
And since it was released in 2009, 2006 would indeed be right in the middle of its production.
So—
"Steven, are you talking about James Cameron's epic project?"
Isabella asked, full of suspicion.
"Hm? You've heard of it?" Spielberg seemed curious.
"A little." Isabella nodded. "If it's his project, then I understand Lionsgate's concerns—"
Although Titanic made James Cameron the king of the world, it didn't win over capital.
In the eyes of investors, he might be an excellent director, but not the best.
Because when it came to efficiency and budget control, he was terrible.
For the general public, spending ten years perfecting a film shows dedication.
But for capital—
Spielberg could make Schindler's List and Jurassic Park in the same year;
He could produce Indiana Jones and E.T. in the same year;
He could deliver Amistad and The Lost World: Jurassic Park in the same year;
He could release Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can in the same year;
He could premiere Munich and War of the Worlds in the same year—
Spielberg was the director capital loved most.
Of course, he had already become capital himself.
And while Titanic might be a timeless love story to audiences, at the table of capital—
No disrespect, but its return on investment was fairly average.
Cameron spent five years turning a 200 million investment into 1.8 billion at the box office.
But give Spielberg five years—actually, don't even give him that long. Give his students Chris Columbus or Robert Zemeckis five years, and they would earn studios even more money.
That's why major Hollywood studios didn't particularly like James Cameron.
When all capital found the "king of the world" a bit rigid—
It made perfect sense that Lionsgate didn't want to invest in his massive project.
"So what does Lionsgate want?" Isabella asked, gently shaking the coconut in her hand.
"They want to know if you have time," Spielberg replied after a moment. "The cast hasn't been finalized yet. If you're available and interested, they'll invest—"
Isabella laughed.
She understood immediately.
Lionsgate wanted to ride her popularity.
And as for that—
"Tell Lionsgate this: if they don't want to invest in the project, then sell it to me."
"Sell James Cameron's company to me."
"As for everything else—"
"Tell them even daytime dreams are still dreams."