Arundel Partners The Sequel Project 项目合作伙伴：the续集阿伦德尔.pdfVIP

Harvard Business School 9-292-140 June 12, 1992 Arundel Partners: The Sequel Project In April 1992 Mr. David A. Davis, a movie industry analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, Inc. in Los Angeles, was asked to look at and comment on an unusual business idea. The idea was to create an investment group, Arundel Partners, which would purchase the sequel rights associated with films produced by one or more major U.S. movie studios. As owner of the rights, Arundel would wait to see if a movie was successful, and then decide whether or not to produce a second film based on the story or characters of the first. The proposal was innovative in several respects. First, Arundel would purchase sequel rights before the first films were even made, let alone released. Second, the investor group would not make artistic judgments or attempt to select the rights for particular movies based on predictions of a possible sequel’s success. Instead, Arundel would contract to purchase all the sequel rights for a studio’s entire production during a specified period (one to two years), or alternatively, for a specified number of major films (15 to 30). Third, Arundel’s advance cash payments for the rights, at an agreed-upon price per film, would help finance production of the initial films. The idea was intended to capitalize on a few specific characteristics of the movie industry. Producing and distributing motion pictures was a risky business and predicting the success of any one film was extremely difficult, if not altogeth