The series of disputes between Minahan and Cannon can be traced back to the time when he and Yoram spent money lavishly.

At that time, they used Wall Street bond tycoon Milken to raise more than 400 million US dollars in junk bonds. However, both of them spent money very quickly. Among them, Minahan spent a lot of money on comic book adaptations, such as Superman 4

, and He-Man, the Unicron. But Yoram didn’t know anything about production, so his way of spending money was to buy theater chains, and he acquired Starlight Cinemas in Britain.

When the bullets ran out, the two's strategies changed from assisting each other to disrupting each other. Minahan's Superman IV failed due to lack of budget, and Yoram did not have enough money to acquire Ichijoin, a subsidiary of EMI.

Wire.

From then on, there was a rift between the two, and Cannon faced bankruptcy. At this time, Yoram's business talent played a more important role than Minahan's production talent. He attracted EMI, who wanted to enter Hollywood.

The company facilitated a merger and acquisition plan, so EMI injected capital into Cannon, temporarily solving the financial problem.

However, the interest on junk bonds was very high, and the new "cannon-EMI" did not dare to delegate power to Minahan to make large-scale productions. The company's income was still not enough to fill the big hole. When the stock market crashed, Wall Street financing channels were gone.

, Cannon faced the biggest crisis and almost went bankrupt.

At the critical moment when the SEC launched an investigation into the falsification of financial statements of Cannon listed companies, Yoram found an Italian banker, Giancarlo Parretti. With a huge amount of funds from Lyon Bank, he launched an investigation

Acquisition of cannon.

One of his conditions was to kick Minahan out of the Cannon and become the Cannon's talker himself.

"I anticipated Cannon's financial crisis in advance, so several of my confirmed new film projects all used 21st Century Pictures, which Cannon has signed a 20-part distribution agreement with, so..."

Minahan told the truth. He looked at Ronald, expecting the other person's reaction.

"This guy still had a plan for his cousin. It seems that he had already planned to run away. It was just Giancarlo Parretti's unexpected acquisition that disrupted his plan."

"What about the exit terms you mentioned?" Ronald asked again without comment.

"That's a supplementary clause that Yoram and I signed when the cannon was in crisis. If anyone else wants to buy our cannon, both of us must agree before it can be fulfilled. If one party doesn't agree, then they can withdraw.

Cannon, transfers the shares to another party.

If you are dissatisfied with the share price transferred by the other party, you can also automatically initiate a counter-takeover and acquire the other party's equity at the same price. This clause is automatically effective."

"I don't understand. It seems that you have arranged it very well." Ronald was puzzled. This kind of clause must have been designed by a lawyer. All conditions have been taken into account. If it is executed according to this clause, it should not happen.

What's the problem? Why hasn't Minahan figured out the conditions for his elimination yet?

However, Ronald was still a little embarrassed when he thought that back then, the two brothers were so good that they could imitate each other's handwriting signatures on each other's checks, and now they had to be so defensive.

"It's not that bastard Yoram..." Minahan turned around, "Ah... Bah..." spitted on the ground again, "That bastard forged my signature on the withdrawal contract, damn it

This Judas, this Milik, this Tobias..."

Minahan named several traitorous villains in Jewish scriptures in one breath and cursed them angrily.

"Stop throwing up, this is my office..." Ronald frowned. Minahan's behavior actually had some of the habits of his Russian-Jewish ancestors. When he said the name of a bad guy who betrayed him, he had to go to

Spitting on the ground means cursing.

"I sympathize with you, Minahan. But in order to acquire 21st Century Pictures, I have formed a team of lawyers, accountants, and my company's management to cooperate. I can't give up just because of your words. These people's

The fees are very expensive.”

"I know, Ronald, I can make a concession. You just need to let me pick a few movies that I have production rights for in the 21st century and let me take them away. I can talk about the rest. You know my character. If I can't continue to produce

movie, my soul will disappear.

This is an artist's request for approval from an artist, Ronald... I never thought that I would be in this situation today, and it's all Minahan's fault... ah... bah..."

Ronald stretched out his hand to stop Minahan, who was still spitting, "Let me think about it. Give me the list of movies you want... I will also have a meeting with the team to discuss..."

…

"Is Minahan deliberately playing tricks? If we acquire 21st Century, Cannon can prepare a severance package for Minahan. If he doesn't take away the movie project, he can get more cash. According to

The average return on the movies he produces is more cost-effective."

In the acquisition team, PricewaterhouseCoopers' accountant Ed Bastian took the production list, looked over it over and over, and then compared it with Cannon's list of films released over the years in the bankruptcy filing materials received by the court. He always felt that there was something in it.

question.

"No, when all Hollywood companies lay off their executives, they would rather give various preferential terms than cash. In this industry, ten people have projects and only one is rich." Lawyer Mickey Kan

Te has experienced many such drafting of terms for severing senior executives, and he understands it very well.

"But this Italian 'financier', Giancarlo Parretti, undoubtedly brought a high credit line from Crédit Lyonnais, which can be used just for this acquisition of the cannon.

Just 200 million US dollars." Ed Bastian still doesn't understand the logic of the entertainment industry.

"What does financier mean?" Ronald asked private lawyer Lindsay Doerr who was sitting next to him. He was a professional M&A team. There were many things that he didn't understand, and he still needed lawyer Lindsay to answer his questions.

"This means financier in English, but this title in Italian does not mean that the person has qualifications in the financial industry. It just means that he has corresponding financial knowledge or has made money through the financial industry.

Called financier, or in Italian, finanziere..."

Ronald groaned and sat upright. He looked at the two professionals who were still discussing and said, "There is no need to doubt Minahan's purpose. I know this person. In order to make a movie, he once put a baby's

When his daughter was placed in a cradle as an extra, and her daughter might fall off the props, his first reaction was to let the camera continue instead of catching her."

"Pfft...", everyone laughed.

"All this man's passion is for making movies. If there is no movie to make, even if he is given twice the money, he will not agree."

"So, most of the list of film projects he gave is true?" Lawyer Mickey Kanter turned back to look at Ronald. This is where Hollywood people have a tricky eye and where artists gather together.

Nothing can be measured in money.

"I think it's in line with his usual taste..." Ronald picked up the pencil and checked out the names of several movies on the list.

"Spider-Man, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Phantom of the Opera, and the rights to adapt seven or eight of Edgar Allan Poe's horror novels..."

Everyone felt that it was impossible for Minahan to list all the film projects he wanted to bring to the new company. There must be some random people in this list to mislead daydreams.

But Ronald knows Minahan's taste very well. This is either a comic book adaptation or an opera or musical adaptation. Horror films are the genre that Cannon focused on at the beginning. The credibility of this list should be very high.

.

"You need to understand the copyright issues for these movies. I remember that Roger Corman sold the rights to New Century Pictures, which was acquired by Marvel, and owns the rights to the Fantastic Four and Captain America." Mickey Kan

I saw the problem.

In fact, the production rights of a movie are often complicated. Due to the difficulty of financing, it often goes through several production companies, and the contract is also full of clauses that non-professional lawyers cannot distinguish.

"Yes, I still remember that when Roger Corman was still a director, he made several horror films adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's novels. Let's also find out if we can remake these films.

"Ronald added that although the copyright of Edgar Allan Poe's novels has long expired, the film adaptations also enjoy the copyright. If these scripts are adapted and remade on Corman's films, then you have to ask him to buy the remakes.

that power."

This M&A team has many efficient members. Under the leadership of lawyer Kanter and PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Bastian, audits and background investigations began immediately.

Ronald called Roger Corman to ask him out, and invited him to eat at a new and popular creative restaurant and talk about movies.

"I'm glad you asked me first, Ronald." Coleman looked a little better. He found a new video tape market and made more than a dozen low-budget movies in succession. He was hit by the stock market crash.

The impact has begun to slowly improve.

"I don't think it's necessary to turn filmmaking into a slit-throat war like the Seven. Most of the films we make are medium- and low-cost movies, just to entertain the public. We are not making big productions like the Seven. We have to fight for less than seven

of top male stars, and roughly double the number of top female stars.

Besides, we are all oriented to the video tape market, and no one stipulates that you can only watch one video tape on the weekend."

Ronald took a sip of the juice, which smelled of a mixture of carrots and tomatoes. Although it was a product of green agriculture, it was surprisingly delicious.

"Yes, I have always felt that spending 30 to 40 million US dollars to make a movie is not necessary in most cases. There are places where America needs more money, such as improving education in public schools and providing medical insurance to the people at the bottom..."

Ronald smiled and agreed. Few people would have thought that Coleman, who has always made violent, horror, science fiction, and erotic B-level movies, is actually a leftist who pursues social justice at heart.

"The films of Edgar Allen Poe were the best-selling among my directorial works, and they were also the first color films I directed. But I didn't like them very much. Maybe it was because of the big distributor AIP at the time.

It pushed me too much to keep shooting Allen Poe and wanted to finish all his novels, so I was a bit rebellious.

If I had continued filming along this path, I might have been able to make big productions for the eight major studios."

Roger Corman began to reminisce about the past, "Allan Poe's novels have long been in the public domain, and anyone can make them. If you ask me, I'm very happy. In this way, I do have plans to remake the movie that year. If

If you want to take pictures too, you can tell me in advance. There are many novels written by Edgar Allan Poe, so we don’t want to crash."

"If you are willing to come back as a director, we can actually cooperate again and invest in filming together." Ronald feels that movies, especially movies adapted from famous writers, still need to control the rhythm. If both companies are filming

The same theme will undoubtedly drag down the box office.

It would be better if we all join forces, so that the quality of the shooting will be better. The movie is for viewing, and there is no situation where you buy a movie ticket and I can’t watch it. If we all work together to shoot, it is entirely possible that the overall box office will be better than if the two movies were shot separately.

It is many times higher, one plus one is greater than two.

"Then it's settled..." Roger Coleman stretched out his hand to shake Ronald's hand. The two of them could still maintain this gentlemanly demeanor that meant what they said.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The investigation work of the M&A team was carried out very quickly, and the results were placed on Ronald's desk three days later.

As a result and subtlety, neither Minahan Golan nor New Century Pictures has the complete filming rights to "Spider-Man", "Captain America", and "Fantastic Four". Or to put it another way, both of them can film

.

Marvel's comic adaptation rights were sold to Cannon Pictures for a five-year period. At that time, Marvel hoped that Cannon could produce Marvel comic characters like DC's "Superman IV". In this way, the company

You can also acquire toy companies and make a lot of money from derivative toy products.

But unexpectedly, Cannon's filming of "Superman IV" was so bad that his dream of selling the movie rights and making money from toys was shattered before it even got off the ground.
To be continued...