The Spice Girls are very simple. Daenerys Entertainment has been discovering teenage pop singers for many years. It is easy to copy them. Even if they fail, it does not matter the overall situation.
On the contrary, the "Harry Potter" series, such a huge IP, would be a pity if it was dropped by Butterfly.
In the front cabin study of a Boeing 767.
While Simon was thinking about these things, Girl A knocked on the door and came in, delivering a document that she had just compiled: "Boss, this is from Chris Lee."
At the cocktail party at Jonathan's house last Saturday, Simon met Chris Lee, the president of Sony's Columbia Pictures. They chatted for a few words and sent a message the next day, asking Chris Lee to compile a copy of Sony's Film industry is incubating all the film project information to themselves.
In fact, it is some kind of temptation.
Sony has been in Hollywood for so many years. If it were in the past, foreign capital could survive in Hollywood, which is actually in line with Simon's plan. Times have changed. Since Daenerys Entertainment no longer intends to retain its strength and seek coexistence, it should remove the Japanese from it. It’s time for Hollywood to be swept away.
In the past, with hit series such as "Men in Black" and "Spider-Man", Sony successfully survived the difficult period around 2000 and established a firm foothold in Hollywood for a long time. Now, since the Japanese are to be eliminated, Simon needs to control Sony as much as possible to prevent variables like "Men in Black" from appearing.
Chris Lee is one of the pawns dropped by Simon's temptation.
Now that Chris Lee has passed on the information, it is obvious that the Hollywood executive not only understood Simon's intention, but also decisively sent the letter of nomination.
Simon took the file handed over by Girl A and opened it, and found that the information given by Chris Lee was more detailed than what he requested, including Sony's film list this year, as well as the internal evaluation tendency of various incubation projects, etc. .
Having suffered losses for many years, the two major labels Columbia and TriStar controlled by Sony are expected to produce only 11 films this year, including 7 for Columbia and 4 for TriStar.
In addition to "Walking with the Devil," which was released during Easter and failed at the box office, the key films of 1997 include "Anaconda" and "Absolute Power" scheduled for the summer, as well as "As Good As Possible" and "Starship Troopers" scheduled for the end of the year. , the others are all small films with a budget of less than 30 million US dollars.
This is very different from Simon's memory of Sony's 1997 film list.
After sorting through the information in my mind, in history, 1997 was a year of great recovery for Sony. Among the top ten box office movies of the year, Sony alone accounted for 4 of them, namely "Men in Black" and "Air Force One". "No.", "As Good As It Gets" and "My Best Friend's Wedding."
It was precisely because of the best-selling four movies in a year that Sony survived the most difficult period at the time, and waited until the turn of the millennium to completely gain a foothold with the "Spider-Man" series.
This time, things have obviously changed a lot.
First of all, under the strong impact of Daenerys Entertainment, and Sony's subsequent losses for many years, the Japanese electronics giant, like several other Hollywood studios, had to proactively reduce film production. There are 11 movies from its two labels, which is not too few. Fox has not even produced 10 this year. However, compared with a series of big movies such as "Men in Black", "Air Force One", "Walking with the Devil", "Starship Troopers", and "The Fifth Element" that were successful or failed in 1997, this time, the budget reached There are only four blockbuster films with $50 million, including "The Devil Walks With The Devil," "Absolute Power," "As Good As It Gets" and "Starship Troopers."
After a more careful analysis, the main films distributed during the summer and the end of the year are also very interesting.
"Absolute Power" is a crime drama film directed and starred by Clint Eastwood again. The old cowboy has no longer hung on the Warner tree since the death of Steve Ross. In addition, The box office has always been guaranteed and it is popular with major studios. This time it was roped in by Sony and spent US$50 million to shoot this new film.
"Anaconda" is a typical Hollywood monster adventure film. It once starred Jennifer Lopez, and it was a typical bad film. However, the box office was not bad. Coupled with the popularity of the video market, a follow-up production was made. A string of sequels followed, some of which, like the follow-up to "Alien," went straight to video and DVD.
This time, because Jennifer Lopez is busy with her work as a judge on "American Idol", the heroine was replaced by Demi Moore.
Obviously it was still influenced by Simon, the big butterfly.
Without the rise of Daenerys Entertainment, the couple of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore would have been very nourishing in the nineties.
Even though there will be no representative works after "The Last Day", Demi Moore still relied on the large amount of hot money that poured into Hollywood in the 1990s to take on big-budget projects such as "The Devil" and "****" Movies, no matter how miserable these projects are for investors, Demi Moore's continuous salary of more than 10 million US dollars is still a lot of money.
Of course, because her character was so severely damaged, by the time of 2003's "Charlie's Angels 2", Demi Moore, who played the villain, only had $2 million in salary left.
Now, with the strength of Daenerys Entertainment, life is not easy for other major studios. Hot money is not stupid. The amount of money flowing into Hollywood has been greatly reduced, and some of it has been actively absorbed by Simon. The most direct result is that stars eat Opportunities for hot money dividends have also been significantly reduced, and the good era of 20 million salary for Hollywood's top celebrities has not yet arrived. The current salary ceiling has been successfully stuck at the upper limit of 15 million by Simon.
The butterfly impact on a smaller scale is that the couple Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are not doing as well as they once did.
Without "Pulp Fiction" which made Bruce Willis famous again in the late 1990s, the action star who relied on "Die Hard" to rise has now fallen back to the second tier.
As for Demi Moore, she still has to take on a film like "Anaconda" which is difficult to shine to the naked eye. Compared to Jennifer Lopez, who just broke into the industry not long ago, although Demi Moore's popularity is higher, the film's budget is still only 45 million US dollars, less than the 50 million US dollars blockbuster threshold.
As for the box office this time, according to internal information given by Chris Lee, the effect of "Anaconda" is not good, and the prospects are not too optimistic.
Then there's "As Perfect as It Gets" at the end of the year.
This is a romantic comedy co-produced by James Brooks, a well-known Hollywood filmmaker who has produced blockbuster films such as "Mother and Daughter" and "Future", and the great actor Jack Nicholson. It has also won double box office awards in its timeline. , not only once again made Jack Nicholson the Oscar king, but also entered the sixth place on the annual box office list.
Needless to say, the final "Starship Troopers" was another box office failure compared to the cost of over 100 million.
Overall, "Walking with the Devil" has failed, and the subsequent four main films are "Absolute Power", "Anaconda", "As Good As It Gets" and "Starship Troopers". Even if "As Good As It Gets" can be as blockbuster as the original "Time and Space", it will still be very popular. It is difficult to reverse the overall decline of Sony Pictures.
As long as there are no big surprises, Sony Pictures will still end up with a loss in 1997.
After Simon read Sony's 1997 film list, he once again casually wrote "My Best Friend's Wedding" on the scratch paper at hand, and then scribbled it out.
This film, which was once in the top ten box office of the year, was obviously tailor-made for Julia Roberts back then, so it was natural for it to be dropped. Now that I have thought of it, I must make it happen. With just a little effort, I can make a film that has exceeded 100 million yuan. Why not
Immediately, Simon did not forget about "Air Force One" and added another touch.
It's also a top ten movie of the year.
Even if the budget is a bit high and the price/performance ratio is relatively low, it will still be a good choice for MGM or other studios in the future.
After getting these things done, I continued to scroll through, and soon discovered that "Air Force One" was still on Sony's incubation list this time. However, because of the very bad cooperation experience with "Walking with the Devil" starring Harrison Ford, Sony executives postponed it. The development progress of this project. With "Walking with the Devil" a complete box office failure, if nothing else happens, at least Sony will definitely not develop this film again.
Seeing this, Simon no longer needed to cover up, and casually made an annotation on the information.
Now that Chris Lee has given his vote, Simon will certainly reciprocate the favor. This project can be quietly suppressed by the other party, and then taken out and made by oneself after the Japanese leave. It will also become a qualification.
Then, Simon soon saw another project, "Godzilla."
Sony is in contact with Japan's Toho for copyright, but has not yet reached an agreement.
Simon immediately listed it as a sniper target.
The 1998 Roland Emmerich version of "Godzilla" received negative reviews because the King of Monsters was made into a Tyrannosaurus rex. However, due to the huge fame of this world-class IP, and the fact that it was still shocking in the end Special effects, the global box office of nearly 400 million US dollars is not actually a failure. Sony has basically recovered its costs and achieved profitability.
This time, Roland Emmerich is still under Daenerys Entertainment. If Sony negotiates the copyright, it will probably not be easy to do worse than Emmerich did before.
With Godzilla's global fame, the box office is pretty guaranteed, and it might even explode if you're not careful.
Simon doesn’t want to see any more blockbusters from Sony Pictures next.
After thinking for a while, Simon turned to the computer on his desk and sent an email directly to Amy Pascal, asking her to try to contact the Japanese and intercept the project.
Turning to the end of the file, Simon successfully found a big pit.
Kevin Costner is lobbying for a project in Hollywood called "2013 The Ultimate God". This is a science fiction story adapted from the novel. It tells the story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer who accidentally obtains a set of postmen after the outbreak of nuclear war. Equipped with the equipment, he began to pretend to be a postman and wandered between various gathering places, and unexpectedly became a spiritual leader among the residents of the apocalypse.
Kevin Costner is obviously unwilling to accept the failure of "Waterworld" and wants to compete with the apocalyptic film.
However, because it was also a blockbuster that failed miserably, Simon remembered it very clearly.
In the past, "2013 Ultimate God" was invested by Warner, released at the end of this year, and then disappeared. Now, because everyone is having a hard time, Costner has not attracted investment until now, and Sony is only one of the negotiating partners. Moreover, according to the information given by Chris Lee, Sony is obviously not too cold.
The question now is how to get Sony to catch a cold.
In fact, the method is simple, as long as Daenerys Entertainment expresses interest, just like the "Bad Things" script that was just snatched away some time ago. This method has been tried and tested in Hollywood.
Of course, avoid self-defeating situations.
Simon thought about it carefully, and finally decided not to repeat the same trick, but to let Chris Lee operate it himself. Even if Sony executives were very frustrated with the Sony Pictures team, there would be no room for operation at all.
As for how to do it specifically
Simon has full confidence in the ability of Hollywood natives to deceive investors.
This can be considered another test.
After roughly sorting this out, Simon quickly typed out a memo on the computer and sent it to Girl A's mailbox, asking her to have someone print it out and forward it to Chris Lee.
Also advised not to use email.
After all, this kind of thing is not suitable for leaving evidence.
With these things done, Simon continued to be busy until the Boeing 767 landed at London Heathrow Airport at around nine o'clock in the evening on April 10, local time.
It was already late at night when we arrived at the mansion on Kensington Garden Street in downtown London.
Simon had just entered the door, but a small figure rushed over first, bent down and opened his arms to catch him. The little girl, who was more than five years old, clung to Simon on her hands and knees like a little koala, shouted "Daddy", and then The little head rested on Simon's shoulder, and there was no movement in the blink of an eye.
He was obviously asleep.
For children, it is indeed too late.
Yulia Shulshkina walked forward with Ivana Antonenko and Natalia Banshikova, watching her daughter Nina being held in the arms of the man, quite considerate and doting With a drowning look, Shulshkina couldn't help feeling warm in her heart, but she stretched out her hand and said, "Sir, let me do it."
Simon shook his head: "No, where is the bedroom? I'll send the little guy up."
Saying this, Simon couldn't help but think of six women who were pregnant at the same time.
It has been confirmed that they are all boys.
Six boys.
Simon was so stressed that he didn’t even have a small cotton-padded jacket.
The one in his arms, even though he didn't see her much on weekdays, still gave Simon the feeling of a little cotton-padded jacket.
After hearing what Simon said, Shulshkina quickly led the way.
Ivana Antonenko subconsciously wanted to keep up, but she also regretted not letting her daughter Vera wait with her. If a man could dote on her like this, her status around him would definitely be much higher. However, Natalia Banshikova did not follow to join in the fun. Instead, she met Lady A and Carmen Case and helped arrange the luggage and accommodation for Simon's entourage.
Arriving in a bedroom upstairs, Simon was about to put the sleeping girl on the bed. Unexpectedly, the girl woke up immediately and pestered Simon again for a hug.
Simon had to hold her for a while longer, and when the little girl fell asleep again, he tried again and woke up again.
Shulshkina had no choice but to step forward and said softly: "Baby, daddy also needs to rest, and we can see him tomorrow, so no pestering is allowed."
The little guy was still wrapped around Simon with his hands and feet. Hearing this, he said, "Then, I'll sleep with dad and mom."
Shulshkina's face turned slightly red and she immediately shook her head: "No."
The girl was confused: "Why?"
“…”
Seeing that Shulshkina was speechless, Simon smiled and said: "Because Nina is already a big girl, of course she can't sleep with her parents."
The little girl obviously didn't understand the logic of cause and effect. She blinked her beautiful eyes, which were almost unable to hold up, and quickly said: "Nina is not old, Nina is only five years old."
"You are already a big girl at five years old," Simon said patiently, "Be good, if you don't obey me, your father will never visit you again."
The girl's arms around Simon tightened immediately, with a look of grievance on her face. She looked at her mother, and when she saw Shulshkina also nodded, she turned to Simon again: "Well, daddy wants to read a story to Nina. Former story.”
"Okay, but Nina needs to lie on the bed by herself first."
"Um."
After a lot of persuasion, the girl finally opened Simon's door and huddled on her little bed, trying hard to keep her eyes open as if she didn't want to fall asleep. Unfortunately, children are not good at staying up late. Simon took a children's book from the bedside and read less than two pages before the little person fell into a deep sleep.