In fact, Kyle himself was quite surprised that he was able to acquire a series of copyrights of "300" so quickly.
Because the author of "300" is the famous comic master Frank Miller!
He has created famous comics for DC such as "Batman: The Dark Knight", "Superman and Batman" and so on;
During his time at Marvel, he participated in the creation of many comics including "The Amazing Spider-Man", "Daredevil" series, "Elektra" series, "Fantastic Four" series, etc.
The "Sin City" comic series he created for Dark Horse Comics pushed him to the altar.
He is a well-known figure in the field of comics in America.
"My impression of Frank Miller is that he is a master of comics, that's true, but he is also notoriously difficult to deal with!"
"It has a very bad reputation among major Hollywood companies!"
Kyle couldn't help but recall.
Not to mention other things, just the "Sin City" series of movies starring Bruce Willis, its film production company negotiated with Frank repeatedly in order to obtain the copyright, and the negotiation lasted for as long as a year; and the production company also paid 15% of the North American box office share for this.
Yes, you read that right!
It means 15% share of the North American box office, not the net profit share.
In other words, through the "Sin City" series of films, Frank Miller received a share of more than 50 million US dollars from the production company.
This price far exceeds the film and television copyrights of many well-known comics!
"I only spent $10 million to get the film and television rights to Spider-Man."
"Frank is really dark!"
Not only that, Frank, who tasted the sweetness of success in the movie "Sin City", became even more outrageous in the future.
"I want to be a film producer and I must be the number one producer!"
"I also want to be listed as the director of the movie!"
"15% of the box office share?"
"No! Without 20% of the North American box office share, please don't bother me!"
"If necessary, I will even be the director of the comic book adaptation movie myself!"
Well, Frank Miller is such a person who causes headaches for major Hollywood film companies.
As a comics artist, does he understand film production?
Well, even if he does, how can he compare with those senior Hollywood film producers? !
As for this time, Kyle was able to acquire the relevant copyrights of "300" so quickly and successfully because Frank had not yet started the later "vampire" mode.
Before 1997, among the many comic copyrights owned by Frank, only the film and television copyright of "RoboCop" was quite famous. The others were either too niche or he was still hiding them and was reluctant to sell them at a low price.
"300"?
What is that?!
"300" is just an inconspicuous one among the many comic copyrights in Frank Miller's hands.
Therefore, Kyle only paid $1.2 million to acquire the copyright of a series of "300".
Well, of course there's also a 3% share of North American box office net profits.
Kyle really doesn't want to give any share!
But Frank is not short of money!
If they can't come to an agreement, he'll just not sell it.
Frank said at the time: "Without a share of the movie box office, I will never sell any comic book copyrights."
When Kyle first heard this, he wanted to slap him in the face on the spot.
You are so shameless!
In fact, this result is a blessing in disguise.
He has money;
There are many copyrights in hand;
He is not worried at all about not being able to sell the many comic copyrights he has.
In the original time and space, Frank took on the role of producer of "300" with a tough attitude. His extremely amateur level of film production dragged the film's production process for more than two years before it was completed.
His various tough stances have greatly damaged the interests of the production company.
....
After a long discussion between Kyle and director Zack, Zack Snyder left Page Pictures contentedly.
This time, although he was not able to start the preparation work for "300" immediately, he still took away a film script from Page Pictures.
Not "300"!
It's the script of "The Purge"!
Well, capitalist Kyle certainly won't let him wait for the 10-month window period, but will exploit him severely.
The Purge is a relatively low-budget film among the many Hollywood series, and Kyle happened to have seen all four of its films in his previous life. The first film in the series cost less than $10 million to make, but its global box office was close to $100 million.
Even though this revenue ratio is not as good as the famous "Saw", it is not much different.
"It's not that I haven't thought about making a Saw movie, but I only heard about it in my previous life but never saw it~!"
You only regret not having read enough books when you need them!
When Kyle was a student in his previous life, he liked all types of Hollywood movies, whether they were high-budget popcorn blockbusters or low-budget genre films.
However...after I started working, I rarely watched niche Hollywood movies.
When I go to the cinema to watch movies, most of the time I watch domestic comedies. Well, even if I watch Hollywood movies, I watch all kinds of special effects blockbusters.
...
...
End of January 1997.
Kyle left the Burbank area where he had been staying for a long time and drove to Silicon Valley early in the morning.
Heading to Silicon Valley today, there's something big going on!
Today, ICQ will hold its first share expansion meeting, which is also the A round financing meeting.
None of the representatives invited to attend the Series A financing meeting are weak. They are either today's Internet giants IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco, or large Wall Street investment banks such as ****, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.
In fact, Kyle disagrees with ICQ starting its Series A financing at this stage.
Well, I am firmly against it!
Because the number of ICQ users today is just over 4 million, and it has not shown its future potential at all. If it were to launch a round A financing now, it would only be underestimated by the market.
However, the ICQ founding team including Weisger and Wadi are determined to raise funds.
"ICQ's development has now reached a bottleneck and requires huge development funds."
Regarding this point, Kyle, Weisger and others hold the same attitude.
"If you need funds, I can make additional investments. Of course, I can even provide the company with an interest-free loan of $10 to $20 million for further expansion."
But the point of disagreement was that as the founding team, they were unwilling to allow Kyle to continue to hold 45% of the shares, which was enough to threaten their controlling stake.
They were eager to bring in other shareholders to check and balance Kyle, who owned a large number of shares.
To this end, they did not hesitate to kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of their own!
Well, even if Kyle had signed a priority follow-up investment agreement with them, which was enough to ensure that the shares would not be diluted, he would still be targeted by a number of giant companies and even famous Wall Street investment banks!
Man, no matter which one of them it is, Kyle can't afford to offend him at this stage!
There is no doubt that Kyle's shares will be diluted.
It is obvious that Kyle, who is currently the largest individual shareholder of ICQ, is no longer as close to Weissger and others as before, and is even beginning to be on opposite sides.
There are irreconcilable contradictions between the two sides.
Of course, this is not uncommon.
For most companies, when they reach a certain stage of development, the game between the company's management and shareholders becomes a normal and common behavior.
"It seems like it's time for me to start over."
Kyle thought to himself: "The long-planned Internet company LinkedIn has finally come to fruition."