[Chapter 671: What Right Do You Have to Let God Punish Me?]
Eric groggily opened his eyes, realizing he had fallen asleep on the conference table. He pushed himself up, glancing at the spacious table scattered with various documents, sketches, coffee cups, and a few laptops.
Noticing Eric had lifted his head, Tina Brown, who was sitting on the other side and gently typing on her keyboard, smiled and said, "Good morning, Eric."
Eric nodded in response, his mind gradually clearing. He quickly recalled the events of the previous night. Due to an unexpected situation during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, Eric had to hastily supplement the marketing plan with a 'Cinderella incident.' After the meeting, everyone immediately started contacting various media outlets to revise the next day's press release. Unbeknownst to them, they had worked late into the night. Eric vaguely remembered falling asleep around four in the morning, unable to hold on any longer. He looked at the quietly busy Tina Brown and the LTD employees still working beyond the glass door and asked Tina, "You guys didn't rest all night, did you?"
Tina Brown raised an eyebrow in confusion at first but then realized something, laughing as she turned her laptop screen towards Eric. "Eric, this is the special report that came in overnight from Boston. Can you take a look and see if there's anything that needs changing?"
Eric caught sight of the striking image of a silver high-heeled shoe on the screen. Though he desperately wanted to take a hot shower and grab something to eat, he felt he couldn't refuse Tina Brown's request. As he reached for the laptop, a soft growling sound echoed in the meeting room.
Tina raised her eyebrows in curiosity but then realized what it was. "Sorry, Eric, I forgot you haven't had breakfast yet. Why not wait until later to look?"
Eric did not refuse. His exhaustion and hunger combined meant he really had no energy to work. Suddenly, he began to miss Kelly. If it were any other time, his caring assistant would have already prepared breakfast for him. But two days ago, Kelly had to return to Los Angeles for some urgent business.
Stretching his arms, Eric asked Tina, "Have you all had breakfast?"
Tina nodded and pointed at the steaming cup of coffee beside her. "We had breakfast an hour ago. By the way, there's a girl waiting for you outside."
As Eric stepped out of the conference room, he noticed one of the twins sitting quietly on the sofa in the lounge area, engrossed in a magazine. The twin stood up upon noticing him.
Eric had grown accustomed to the twins always being together; seeing one alone was somewhat unsettling. Realizing something, he tentatively asked, "Is the other girl in trouble or something, and you're here to take the heat?"
One of the twins shook her head seriously. "No, Master. The boss came by last night, saw you all working, and asked me to stay and take care of you."
Eric thought the girl was quite considerate and smiled, asking, "Are you the older twin? And where did Drew go?"
"I'm the older twin. My sister went to East Hampton with the boss."
Understanding it was Natasha standing before him, Eric instinctively tried to remember her sister's name but still came up empty.
"Oh well, let's just call you both Natasha, since they look exactly the same."
...
Both Eric and Natasha bantered casually, but the busy, or pretending to be busy, LTD employees around them looked bewildered upon hearing their exchange.
"Master... Master... Master..."
That title sounded so... retro.
The cool and collected Natasha had been quietly sitting on the sofa in the lounge area for several hours. All the staff working overtime silently speculated about her identity. Some male employees even dared to approach her for brief conversations. Although Natasha always responded politely, there was a clear aura about her that made her feel unapproachable. Everyone sensed that her demeanor wasn't one of arrogance, but it still kept others at a distance. Because of the Eastern European girl's snow-white skin and an aura of serene detachment, the male employees had silently dubbed her "Little Snowwoman" in just a few hours.
At the moment Natasha addressed Eric, a collective gasp echoed in the workplace, almost sounding like a symphony of heartbreak.
...
Feeling the sudden silence among his colleagues, Eric looked around in confusion. Once he scanned the room, everyone immediately resumed their activities as if nothing had happened. Eric didn't recognize anything wrong, and took the large bag offered by the twin. Opening it, he found a toothbrush and other personal items along with a towel. Chuckling, he said to Natasha, "I'm going to find a place to take a shower. Can you prepare breakfast for me? Anything will do."
Natasha nodded and followed Eric as they left the work area.
...
Once the two disappeared, a voice rang out, half regretting and half resentful, "Oh God, punish these evil capitalists!"
At that moment, as luck would have it, another office door swung open. Emily, holding her phone and engaged in conversation, overheard the comment. She raised an eyebrow and exclaimed, "Sorry!" She quickly covered the receiver with her hand and scanned the work area sharply, her gaze locking onto one unlucky employee. "Jason, that was you yelling just now, right?"
Amidst a few chuckles, Jason, the young man, stood up looking defeated. "Sorry, Miss Brighton, I lost my composure."
Emily, however, remained furious, voice raised, "In the year since acquiring LTD, I haven't laid off a single person. Moreover, all your salaries have gone up by 10%! What on earth did I do to deserve that? Just one evening of overtime, and I've been burning the midnight oil over here too! What right do you have to ask God to punish me?"
Jason frowned as he defended himself. "Miss Brighton, I wasn't speaking about you."
"Oh..." Emily glanced around, "Are there two capitalists here? Do you think I'm an idiot?"
There actually was a second capitalist, and a super rich one at that. But Jason had already offended one little wildcat; he wasn't about to provoke a T-rex. "Sorry, Miss Brighton, I'm very sorry."
Just as Emily was about to say something, her phone seemingly hung up and immediately rang again.
"I don't owe you anything! If you think the working conditions at LTD are so unimpressive, then hand in your resignations to me," she shot a glare at the unfortunate Jason and tossed that line out, all while answering the phone, hastily walking through the work area toward the conference room.
As soon as Emily's figure disappeared, silence settled over the work area for a few seconds. Once it was clear no major figures were going to show up again, laughter erupted, filled with schadenfreude.
...
After breakfast, Eric returned to the LTD conference room, where the media information regarding the previous night's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was almost entirely compiled.
Most major newspapers had run detailed feature articles on the fashion show in their important sections. The front pages of many newspapers were dominated by the Victoria's Secret Angels in their glamorous outfits. In their quest to attract attention, editors dug deep to find angles to highlight - some focused on the models, others on the fashion, and some even on the music. Naturally, various opinions flooded the media. The Washington Post praised the show as a "stunning visual feast," while a critic from the Chicago Sun-Times disparaged it as an "outrageous spectacle."
With Eric's strong media resources at play, most of the negative comments hardly caused any ripples. Thanks to Yahoo's comprehensive web portal, ABC's Morning News coverage, and close cooperation with Hearst, News Corp., and The Washington Post, the combined force of online media, television, and print ensured that the public perception of the event, while not flawless, remained one of great anticipation. Diane Kruger's shoe-falling incident was cleverly rebranded as an industry fairy tale akin to Cinderella. Many people who originally paid little attention to the fashion show began to look forward to the moment of her shoe-fall.
...
Meanwhile, the marketing power generated from these months-long efforts was equally astonishing.
When Chris acquired absolute control of LTD at an exorbitant valuation of $2.4 billion earlier that year, most analysts in the industry held a pessimistic view of the deal, predicting that LTD's stock price would surely drop again post-transaction.
However, those individuals only calculated the beginning and didn't foresee the conclusion.
Initially, the reorganized LTD Group did indeed experience a decline in stock price. But after Eric announced the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, the continued six-month marketing push sparked astonishing growth in the sales of Victoria's Secret products.
As the most important brand under LTD, even after LTD merged with Brighton Fashion, Victoria's Secret still accounted for over half of the new group's market share. With the ongoing rise in sales and brand recognition for Victoria's Secret, LTD's stock market valuation, having initially dropped to $2.1 billion, began a slow ascent that lasted for six months. On the day following the fashion show, LTD shares surged again by 7.5%, with the valuation nearing $3.7 billion. Experts anticipated that following the airing of the fashion show on television in December, LTD's total market value would surpass $4 billion. Most importantly, this surge wasn't part of a capital bubble, as LTD's stock price at this point had solid backing from brand value and product sales.
Firefly Investment and the Brighton family held 62% of LTD after the acquisition. When LTD's market value surpassed $4 billion, compared to the initial outlay of around $1 billion in total assets and cash, the Brighton family and Firefly Investment saw their stake increase in value by $1.5 billion in just a year, which equated to the net profits of the entire Firefly Group for that year.
After Fortune magazine disclosed these figures, the media, which had been eagerly calculating how much Eric would lose by stepping away from filming movies to create a "commercially worthless" lingerie show, quickly fell silent. After all, even if he produced a film with box office returns similar to Jurassic Park, it would be impossible to achieve a $1.5 billion return within a year.
...
After the fashion show, Eric finally found relief as the most stressful period of time eased. Once the media promotion fell into routine, he handed over all LTD's trivial work to Emily. He then focused on editing the television version of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. After November, with the holiday season approaching, various second and third-tier film companies began rolling out their movies starting in the second week of November.
Firefly planned to release only two films by the end of the year: Julia's romantic film comeback, Runaway Bride, and Nicolas Cage's starring role in Face/Off. Besides these two films, the project from Drew's Flower Films was Kevin Costner's version of Mission: Impossible.
With Brian De Palma's sophisticated suspense techniques combined with Kevin Costner's distinctive and restrained masculinity, the new Mission: Impossible, although lacking Tom Cruise, possessed its own unique charm. After the summer flop of Wyatt Earp, the success of Mission: Impossible could determine Kevin Costner's ability to maintain his status. Thus, Costner took great care in promoting Mission: Impossible, starting his promotional tours a month before the film's release.
The previews also garnered positive early reviews. Moreover, something else made Eric "delighted" was that amid the pay cut pressures he had initiated, Warner Bros., under various pressures, swiftly swooped in for Kevin Costner's long-prepared Waterworld, choosing Hawaii as the filming location just as in the original timeline. Eric's memory reminded him that it was due to Hawaii's frequent tides that had repeatedly destroyed the film set constructions, causing the budget to reach a jaw-dropping sum.
...
MGM originally planned to release Resident Evil at the end of the year. While this R-rated zombie film didn't quite fit the holiday season's vibe, going against the tide often yielded unexpected results. After all, the film's production budget ended up being just over $30 million. Including subsequent marketing, the overall cost would not exceed $50 million. With revenue from box office and video sales operating channels, the pressure to recoup costs and earn profits wouldn't be significant as long as the first installment gained traction, much like the original's sequels, which could become a stable profit project for DreamWorks. However, the post-production of the zombie film ran into some issues, causing it to be pushed back to the Easter period.
...
Sony's executive vice president, Shinichiro Umaoka, had started getting involved in the film business closely in the second half of the year. By the year's end, while Peter Guber still held the title of CEO of Columbia, he had essentially become sidelined. Sony began a vigorous search for the next Columbia CEO, with Michael Lynn, who had just left Firefly Films in September, even receiving an invitation. However, Michael had no intention of getting involved in the Sony-Columbia mess; he simply informed Eric of the news over the phone.
Though Peter Guber was destined to be kicked out, Sony didn't slack off in the distribution work for the Firefly collaboration, Jumanji. As the only CGI-based blockbuster this holiday season, Sony clearly had high hopes for Jumanji.
...
While all of Hollywood was busy preparing for the upcoming hot season, Eric had only flown back to Los Angeles for a Firefly Group end-of-year executive meeting before quickly rushing back to New York, diving back into the editing room of the ABC production department. Aside from agreeing to participate at the premieres for the two films Julia and Drew were producing, Eric did not intend to get overly involved in the film marketing aspects.
A good boss knows how to let go, that's something Eric recently learned from Buffett. Many of the companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway operate under such a harmonious principle. In a past interview, a manager from one of the subsidiaries was asked why their company performed so well. His answer was profoundly illuminating: he said, "Because Mr. Buffett forgot he acquired this company, and we also forgot that our company was ever acquired by Mr. Buffett."
As the scale of his assets grew larger, if Eric couldn't strike a reasonable balance between retaining power and delegating authority, he would undoubtedly be crushed under the weight of his responsibilities. Many times, Eric had even started to sense this pressure.
*****
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