They Merged First
Maybe in the next 20 years or so there will be TV serials about the biggest mergers and acquisitions in Russia at the turn of the 21st century, seeing that reality is generously supplying material for potential scripts, with abrupt and unpredictable plot changes and colorful, easily recognizable characters. Soap operas don’t have to be about bandits and cops! Even today, these true stories are of real interest to a wide circle of viewers, listeners, and readers, and they last longer than the most popular and best financed series.
There is no need to feel nostalgic for the so-called industrial romances of Soviet times. They were missing the main thing, that is, the scent of money, of big money, of really big money. Viewers like it when the cover of the videocassette shows how much the film has earned in distribution or, as a last resort, how much the director and producer blew on shooting it.
For example, the saga of YUKOS and Sibneft, which is very well known to the general public, to say nothing of the business community, is comparable in its twists and turns of plot to “The X-Files”. Every character sees what he wants to see, while the other characters look right through it. And no one gets it; in other words, an impenetrable mystery. And the characters pay for it! An English gentleman who is also an operetta villain; a prisoner in the Chateau d’Yf who has the treasure of Abbot Faria not in the future, but in the past; cunning courtiers involved in the traditional web of tangled intrigues; and Mulder and Scully’s big boss hanging invisibly over them all—now that’s a movie.
This is only one deal. The others have their own plots, main heroes, and episodic characters. The heroes, that is to say, the actors, are sometimes repeated. But isn’t it even more interesting for the viewer when he recognizes his idol right off?
After this, no can say that corporate mergers and acquisitions are dull. Take a look at the ten largest deals of 2003 chosen by our experts and convince yourself.
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 12, 2004
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