System in Hollywood

When he acquired Marvel earlier, he also had them assess companies like Google.

As a result, the Google that would be worth nearly $2 trillion in 20 years is currently valued at only $200 million.

However, due to his cheat-like abilities, his primary targets remain MGM and Universal. In addition to these, there's Netflix, which is still focused on DVD rentals and losing money year after year, as well as Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which will dominate the Hollywood visual effects market for the next two decades.

Of course, if he could acquire Lucasfilm, ILM's parent company, before Disney does, that would be even better.

After some pleasantries and agreeing to a few unavoidable party invitations, Wayne handed over the job of selling the film rights to Sera and Mia. Under the envious gaze of others, he openly left the company with Martina and two others.

Over the next few days, through Mia, Wayne gradually learned about the first-round offers from various distribution companies.

The continuous success of *Admission Notice*, *Happy Death Day*, and *Gifted*, along with the high quality of *The Dark Side* itself, and most importantly, Miramax's strong start with Harvey, meant that several distributors, including the major seven studios, were offering deals similar to Miramax's guarantee-plus-revenue-sharing model.

Moreover, the payment terms were more favorable; as long as the box office hit a certain number, the payment would be made directly without waiting for the theater settlements.

The highest outright purchase offer, excluding online rights, came from Warner Bros., offering $44 million in the first round.

At this price, the return on Hemera Pictures' investment in this film would reach a staggering 320%.

The highest guarantee-plus-revenue-sharing offer came from Miramax, who had just tasted success and had strong confidence in the Wayne-James Wan collaboration.

Harvey wanted Miramax to break free from Disney's control, and to do so, he couldn't miss any money-making opportunities. In the first round, he offered a $25 million guarantee and an additional $3.5 million for Hemera for every $10 million in box office revenue over $70 million—a very sincere offer.

If *The Dark Side* could reach the same global box office as *Gifted* at $140 million, Hemera Pictures would earn $49.5 million from this film.

Of course, even with this offer, Miramax wouldn't lose out.

If the box office hit $140 million, they would make about $10 million from ticket sales alone, and with DVD market earnings, the total revenue would still exceed $30 million.

After all, suspense films tend to sell better in the DVD market than films like *Gifted*.

However, that was likely Miramax's limit, as they lacked the international distribution channels that the major seven studios had.

Sure enough, once the second round of negotiations began, Miramax was essentially out of the running.

Among the big seven, even Disney, which had been tightfisted earlier, increased their offer to $46 million, while Universal and Warner Bros., which had more confidence in Wayne, offered $47.6 million and $48 million, respectively.

Realizing he needed to keep the major studios from seeing Hemera as a threat, Wayne eventually chose to go with Warner Bros. after careful consideration.

After the third round of negotiations, the final deal was settled at $49 million.

Even for a giant like Warner, they would need global box office revenue of over $100 million just to break even, as marketing costs also factored in.

But as long as *The Dark Side* didn't have the disastrous start that *Gifted* had, Warner believed reaching that target wouldn't be too difficult.

On January 27th, the day after *Gifted* finished its theatrical run, Sera completed the deal with Warner Bros. on behalf of Hemera Pictures, receiving the funds the same day.

After receiving this capital, even after setting aside the $15 million recently allocated to Marvel, Hemera's account still had a staggering $66 million in liquid assets available for discretionary use.

Of course, this time Wayne had no intention of paying those high taxes again.

Aside from reserving $6 million for daily operations and $15 million for *The Bourne Identity*'s marketing, he planned to spend the rest of the money before tax season.

"Here's the information from Sera on Apple, Google, Netflix, ILM, and Pixar Animation."

"Thanks."

By the end of January, the temperature in California had risen to around 17-18°C. After lunch, Wayne sat in the second-floor sky garden, enjoying the breeze and sunshine while reviewing the stack of documents Hannah had just printed.

Meanwhile, Hannah quietly admired his increasingly handsome and captivating side profile as he focused.

After a moment, Wayne activated his system panel.

[Name: Wayne]

[Remaining Film Investment Fund: $35.8 million]

[Current Film Projects:]

[*The Bourne Identity*: Production Budget $56 million, $51 million invested so far]

[*Resident Evil 1 & 2*: Production Budget $65 million, $27.2 million invested so far]

[*Mean Girls*: Production Budget $13 million, $4.5 million invested so far]

[*Taken*: Production Budget $35 million, $4.3 million invested so far]

With the triple return from *The Dark Side*, *Taken* had now entered pre-production.

The script for *Taken* had been completed two days earlier, earning Wayne $2 million in screenwriting fees. If he also played the male lead, who had about the same screen time as the third female lead in *Mean Girls*, he could pocket another $6 million.

So, in total, he had about $55 million at his disposal.

It wasn't a small sum, but it wasn't a huge amount either.

"Apple's market cap is still around $8 billion. Even if I invested the entire $55 million in Apple stock, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Besides, according to the original timeline, Apple will continue to lose money for the next two years until it hits bottom at a $3 billion market cap in 2003 before rebounding. Buying Apple stock now would be a losing proposition."

"Buying Google stock, on the other hand, might be a good option. If I remember correctly, Google is set to patent its page ranking system this September, which will lead to a significant stock surge."

(End of chapter)