Chapter 126: Splitting the Money

Chapter 126: Chapter 126: Splitting the Money

"Yeah, there might be small-budget films, but big-budget pirate movies haven’t appeared for many years," Irene sighed. "The production cost for my project is a bit high, so the senior management at Fox must have quite a few concerns. Why don’t you ask your father and see what their actual stance is?"

Loren was stunned for a moment, but seeing Irene’s eyes, he quickly reacted. "Okay, I’ll ask for you, but I don’t really understand these things, so I might not be able to find out anything useful."

Irene waved her hand. "It’s fine. I just want to know Fox’s attitude—whether they are completely unoptimistic about my film or if there is room for negotiation."

Loren nodded.

Just then, Irene’s phone rang. It was a call from Shelly Ovitz.

"One piece of good news, one piece of bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?" It was impossible to tell his preference just from his voice.

"Let me guess. Universal and Warner Bros. have both flat-out rejected our project, right?" Irene answered calmly.

"Congratulations, you guessed right, but there’s no prize. And it’s not just them. Paramount has also clearly indicated to me that they are not optimistic about your new project. They would prefer you to continue making campus comedies or romantic comedies."

This was basically in line with what Irene had expected, though she hadn’t anticipated that Paramount would give up so quickly.

"What about Disney? Since I’ve already successfully guessed the bad news, the remaining news from Disney must be good, right?"

A slight chuckle came from the other end of the line. "I received some news, though I don’t know if you’ll consider it good news. The day before I submitted the project proposal to Disney, they held an internal meeting. The meeting was led by Disney senior management, who specifically invited the famous producer Jerry Bruckheimer to tailor a film for them to open up their live-action movie market."

Irene inexplicably began to feel nervous.

"And after Jerry Bruckheimer finished discussing with Disney’s senior management, he had a preliminary idea."

"It seems we’ve collided," Irene said, pre-empting Shelly’s next line.

"Congratulations, you guessed right again. They want to design a film based on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland, and our project perfectly fits their requirements."

Irene frowned. It was hard to say whether this was really good news or bad news. "Go on."

"The problem now is that although our project is viewed favorably by Jerry Bruckheimer, they don’t intend to bring us on board. After all, we have never worked with Disney, and they don’t trust us much. So, Irene, if Disney comes forward to buy your project proposal, would you agree?"

"..."

Irene really hadn’t expected things to develop into this situation. All her subsequent plans were centered around Pirates of the Caribbean. If she were to sell this project, it would mean all her previous efforts had gone down the drain. How could she be willing to accept that?

"Has there been no response from Fox yet?"

"Not yet. That old Fox Adelaide has been stalling. I suspect they want to see how The Italian Job performs upon release before deciding whether to produce Pirates of the Caribbean." This point also aligned with the profit-seeking principles of capitalists.

"Let’s not reply to Disney for the time being. Establishing a new project isn’t that easy. I won’t sell the project proposal. If they’re capable, let them bypass me and make a blockbuster pirate movie."

Irene’s voice was incomparably firm. Anyway, she had already registered it with the Writers Guild, and she had had Shelly circulate the project proposal to all the major film companies. She didn’t believe Disney would dare to copy her plot and make a similar film.

If they were truly bold enough to film it, Irene would show no mercy regarding infringement fees.

But if she could avoid reaching that point, she shouldn’t. Falling out with Disney would do her no good.

She still needed to think of other ways to persuade Disney.

"Haven’t we still not received the profit share for Mean Girls?" Irene suddenly remembered that her rightful earnings had not yet arrived.

"Yes. In fact, the good news I wanted to tell you is that Fox is going to split the money with us. They’ve asked us to go to the Fox Building the day after tomorrow for a meeting to discuss the profit sharing and the release date for The Italian Job." Mentioning this, even Shelly’s voice involuntarily rose a bit.

One must know that Mean Girls had a North America box office of 166 million USD alone, and the global box office even reached 187 million USD. There was also the related video copyright sold for 8 million USD, and the television copyright earned 6 million USD.

If Irene hadn’t hired a professional team of lawyers and accountants to supervise such a large sum of money, she really wouldn’t have been able to rest easy.

But it wasn’t that she didn’t want to receive the profit share as soon as possible. It was that when the contract was signed, it had already been specified that the profit share would be paid in full within six months of the film leaving theaters.

In fact, this kind of payment period is already considered short in Hollywood. There are plenty of cases in Hollywood where they drag it out for a year or even several years before paying the investors. If it weren’t for The Italian Job hanging in the balance, Fox wouldn’t have been so kind as to notify them in advance about splitting the money.

In the conference room on the top floor of the Fox Building, Irene sat on the side, listening to Shelly and them constantly clashing.

There wasn’t much to say about the North America profit share, but the authenticity of the overseas revenue was hard to guarantee. Fortunately, the overseas box office wasn’t very high, so the room for Fox to manipulate things was small, and Irene didn’t really care much about it.

The North America box office for Mean Girls totaled 166.13 million USD. According to the signed distribution agreement, after the theater chains deducted fixed expenses such as taxes, Fox Pictures received a total of 80.63 million USD in box office revenue share.

15% of that was taken as a distribution fee, and another 10 million USD was deducted for marketing and distribution expenses. After that, 58.53 million USD remained.

Then, after paying the remaining salaries of the relevant cast and crew as well as other expenses related to industry associations, the final balance was 55 million USD.

The main investment companies this time were Irene’s Echo Pictures and Fox Pictures. There were no other investors to split the money with, so the two parties could enjoy the profit share according to their respective investment ratios.

Irene’s Echo Pictures accounted for one-third of the production costs and could take away 16.5 million USD. After deducting taxes, there was roughly 13.5 million USD left.

Looking at it this way, it seemed that the gains this time were not as much as what was obtained from Legally Blonde before, but besides the North America box office, Irene also enjoyed other income.

After Mean Girls officially left theaters in North America, Fox Pictures had been negotiating with Blockbuster, the largest video rental chain in North America, regarding the basic video transfer fee and rental sales commission. The latter belonged to long-term income and didn’t have much to do with Echo Pictures. The former, after multiple rounds of negotiations, reached an agreement on the figure of 9.2 million USD.