While NATO's large-scale bombing of Yugoslavia dominated the world's mainstream media headlines, far away in Hong Kong, China National Offshore Oil Corporation quietly canceled the Hong Kong stock listing ceremony planned to be held on March 26, declaring the complete failure of CNOOC's listing plan.
China’s current presence is really not very strong.
Therefore, even if I learned from Chen Qing that after the CNOOC team confirmed that there was no hope of a complete listing, several senior executives held their heads and cried in the suite of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, and some even had the idea of jumping from the hotel building, but at the level of international public opinion , except for some professional financial media, there are very few reports on this matter on other platforms.
Maybe that's a good thing.
After all, the news of failure is too big, and it will definitely be more difficult to try again next time.
When James Raybould received Mr. Wei from CNOOC, Simon was actually in New York. As for the total financing of US$2.5 billion, Simon was just a matter of words.
Nothing was done.
As the old Chinese saying goes, getting on the pole is not a business.
At his core, Simon has always been the kind of person who has no expectations for the so-called 'gratitude' emotion of humans, because it goes against human nature and goes against genetic instinct. Therefore, he never felt that as long as he gave enough, he would get enough in return.
Although this is Simon's personal creed, it is still somewhat idealistic.
All in all, friends must be friends, and business must also be business.
If others do business with you because of the word friend, you are lucky. If someone you think is a close friend doesn't do business with you, that's actually normal. If you feel resentful because of this, you should be the one who reflects on it.
In addition, according to Chinese news, although the IPO ended in failure, the CNOOC team did not receive much blame.
After all, the international situation is there.
The outbreak of war, the sharp fall in international oil prices, and the stock market shocks in various countries... These are all force majeure events with extremely low probability in commercial activities.
As the NATO air force continued to bombard Yugoslavia, the time came to April 1999.
Easter in 1999 was on April 4th.
The Easter season in North America has started a week in advance.
Daenerys' first movie this year is "American Pie 2", which will be released on March 26.
In fact, if it were another studio, with the excellent results of the first part of "American Pie", the sequel would definitely be placed in the more popular summer schedule.
Daenerys didn't do this because it was too crowded.
Moreover, it happens to be the spring break time for college and high school students in the United States. These people are also the main moviegoers of the "American Pie" series. It is just right to place this sequel on March 26.
Although its reputation has declined compared to the first film, "American Pie 2" still easily earned a box office of US$47.93 million in its first week from March 26 to April 1.
There is no suspense about entering the 100 million yuan box office club.
Immediately afterwards, on April 2, the week of Easter, "Resident Evil" produced by Daenerys' New World Pictures and Daenerys, MGM and Westinghouse, which has now purchased Columbia, were jointly produced by MGM. "Public Enemy", which Mei is responsible for publishing, leads the opening.
In addition, the American version of "Love Call Transfer" scheduled for Valentine's Day continued to earn 5.16 million US dollars in the box office week from March 26 to April 1 before Easter, and the cumulative box office reached 129.77 million US dollars, just shy of 130 million US dollars. .
With the coming of Easter, the market popularity of the American version of "Love Call" will inevitably rebound. It should have a box office potential of no less than 10 million US dollars in the future, pushing the total local box office to more than 140 million US dollars.
Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that the American version of "Ai Hu" was officially launched in mainland China theaters on March 25.
After all, it is a remake of "Bringing Glory to the Country", which has attracted a lot of attention in the Mainland. Counting the extra Thursday on March 25, the box office revenue of the first box office week exceeded 67 million yuan in eight days, which was higher than the previous Spring Festival celebrations. The first-week box office of "Party A and Party B" is even higher, and the total box office in mainland China is expected to exceed 200 million. This echoes last year's Chinese version of "Love Hu".
Simon doesn't pay much attention to the Chinese box office of the US version of "Love Call", which is only a little over 20 million US dollars and has a lower share. Instead, he sees from it that historically, the past few years in the late 1990s were supposed to be the best years for Chinese films. During this dark period, no matter whether it was a domestic film or an imported film, only a few films could make over 100 million yuan every year.
Now, under the influence of Simon's big butterfly, things have obviously changed a lot.
Let’s just say that from 1999 to now, China’s domestic films, “Party A and Party B” and “Flash Girls” during the Lunar New Year, and the American version of “Aihu” which was greenlit and released quickly, are already three A film that has achieved a box office of over 100 million yuan.
Next…
Simon can only hope again that what happened in May will not happen.
In fact, after the war broke out, although he could not clarify certain intentions, Simon still asked his personal military consultant Celia Miller to pay closer attention to various trends in Washington related to the war. Not only that, the Pentagon and NATO officials have once again expanded cooperation with the Uighur private army stationed in Ukraine.
Although air strikes are mainly used, ground support is still necessary. For some tasks with extremely high risk factors, in order to reduce the casualties of official troops and reduce the possible pressure of public opinion, it is undoubtedly the most cost-effective to hire private troops who will not be counted as injuries.
Therefore, before and after the outbreak of this war, in addition to the previous cooperation, nearly a thousand additional Uighur private troops infiltrated into Yugoslavia in batches. While performing missions for NATO troops, it was his own armed forces after all, and Simon was also able to grasp first-hand information on the front lines of the war.
Speaking of Ukraine, Simon went to Rivni again after Easter.
Ukraine has also been in a state of turmoil recently.
The day after NATO launched an air strike against Yugoslavia, a group of hardline members of the Ukrainian parliament suddenly launched a motion, hoping to cancel their commitment to a non-nuclear country and rebuild Ukraine's nuclear arsenal. The subsequent vote actually received more than half of the votes of 231 of Ukraine's 450 members of parliament.
As soon as the news came out, the United States, the European Union and Russia immediately expressed their stance and unanimously opposed it.
NATO Secretary-General Solana also publicly threatened at a press conference that once the Kiev authorities make substantial moves to acquire nuclear weapons again, Ukraine will become the next Yugoslavia.
As for the result, Simon, as a later person, certainly knew it.
Nuclear weapons cannot be demolished and built whenever they want. For Ukraine, since the abolition of martial arts, it is even more unrealistic now.
First of all, no one is allowed to live in the neighborhood.
NATO Secretary-General Solana's threat is definitely more than just words. Once Ukraine restarts nuclear weapons manufacturing, it will be tantamount to voluntarily giving up its currently neutral and harmless status. If the Kiev authorities want to protect themselves, they must completely fall to the United States and Russia. However, this is a deadlock, because if you completely fall to one side, you will inevitably encounter a fierce reaction from the other side.
Secondly, a more practical reason is lack of money.
In the past year of 1998, affected by the financial crisis that spread from Asia to the world, Ukraine's domestic economy was in dire straits. Compared with 1997, the GDP for the whole year not only did not increase, but also plummeted by 16%, falling from more than 50 billion US dollars to Less than $42 billion.
It's hard to make a meal without rice, not to mention that it is difficult to say how many "smart women" Ukraine will have left after being poached by various surrounding countries, and whether it can support a new nuclear weapons program.
In any case, Simon's trip to Ukraine after Easter was to appease the uneasiness of the Kiev authorities. By the way, he also took a look at his family's property here and a group of beautiful women.
Speaking of which, Ukraine suddenly came up with the idea of acquiring nuclear weapons again. The reason is very simple. After so many years, especially after NATO launched air strikes in Yugoslavia, the Eastern European countries have finally completely woken up.
Got cheated.
At that time, a number of former Soviet Union countries, including the largest leader, Russia, rushed to break away from the red camp. One of the important reasons was that Western countries promised to help Eastern Europe develop its economy after the disintegration so that they could have three meals a day. A beautiful life with meat to go around, cars to drink every time.
However, after so many years, the Garden of Eden that I once dreamed of has not been seen at all, but has become more and more dire.
The war launched by NATO against Yugoslavia made the Eastern European camp who were waiting for a better life completely give up their last vestige of illusion.
Liar!
You are all liars!
However, whether it is resentment or jumping, the old ticket is destined to be an old ticket, and the broken ship has been damaged to the point that it is impossible to repair it.
I can't go back.
Therefore, the so-called enlightenment is destined to be in vain.
As far as Ukraine is concerned, even though the Kiev authorities have clearly begun to make some noises about re-establishing rapprochement with Russia and strengthening alliances, after so many years of operation, the influence of Western agents in the Ukrainian government has become deeply entrenched, and it is impossible for the pro-Russian faction to succeed.
After leaving Rivni, Simon quietly went north to St. Petersburg, Russia.
Compared with Yeltsin's tense attempt to put his old partner back into office last year, someone's appointment as prime minister went very smoothly. With the joint support of external capital such as the Kremlin, Russian oligarchs and the Westeros system, the Russian State Duma The appointment was unanimously approved in just one meeting.
The main reason is that many people, especially the local Russian plutocrats with closely related interests, after learning about someone's information in detail, probably feel that this is a guy who is easy to control.
After all, there was really no sense of existence in the past.
What's more, there are some overseas capitals, such as the Westeros system, that can be guaranteed together, so you can sit back and relax.
Simon didn't meet anyone during his trip to St. Petersburg. It was unnecessary, and if the secret was revealed, many of the previous arrangements might be in vain. This time, the main purpose was to meet Yeltsin's second daughter Tatyana.
Tatiana conveyed someone's greetings, and also requested that the Westeros system invest more in Russia, and once again mentioned the idea of developing St. Petersburg into a Russian special economic zone.
Simon refused for the time being.
not the right time yet.
Immediately afterwards, Simon asked someone what he planned to do next, and Tatyana did not hide it.
Nowadays, it is really difficult for Russia to achieve any political achievements that can accumulate enough reputation internally in the short term. Therefore, it can only do so externally.
This is actually a suggestion Simon made very early on.
Apparently, the Kremlin and someone decided to adopt it.
Not only that, while quietly preparing for the second Chechen War, Russia also planned to exert more influence in Yugoslavia, which was being bombed. Before that, in the years after the disintegration, it can be said that in order to gain the favor of the West, Russia was completely It retreated again and again, voluntarily giving up its original influence in many areas.
Tatiana spoke of this incident without complaint.
Simon just laughed it off.
Again, I definitely can’t go back anyway.
After leaving St. Petersburg, Simon went to nearby Finland to stay for a day, then headed south again, flying to Italy.
The Universal Studios Rome, which has been in preparation for a long time, was officially opened a week before Easter. Simon did not attend due to his schedule, so he always wanted to come and take a look this time.
Although there is only a bay across the country and a war is going on on the other side, horses are still running and dancing on the Italian side.
After doing enough marketing in advance and taking advantage of the Easter holiday, only two weeks after its opening, the number of tourists received by Universal Studios Rome exceeded the 1 million mark. During the two days of Easter weekend, the number of tourists every day They all reached 150,000. The reason why it is an integer is because the number of tickets on that day is limited to 150,000 to ensure tourists' visiting experience.
With a good start, Universal Studios Rome's expected goal of exceeding 10 million visitors in the first year of its opening appears to be a piece of cake.
With Easter gone, what the Universal Studios Rome team has to do next is to pay attention to the details and solve as many small bugs as possible in all aspects of Universal Studios Rome that may affect the tourist experience before the arrival of the popular summer season. Lose.
Also, the overall situation of Universal Studios in Rome has been basically decided, and Daenerys Entertainment can obviously consider the next Universal Studios.
Simon's goal is clear, China.
And it must be the mainland, either Beijing or Shanghai, forget about Hong Kong.
This matter is difficult to say, easy to say, but not easy either.
In short, there is no rush.
If we contact now, Simon will be satisfied if it can be completed and opened in ten or eight years. By then, China's economy will also develop.
As for other places besides this, Simon no longer considered it.
The failure cases of Disneyland Paris are still there. There is no need to be greedy for too much. Areas that are not suitable for theme parks cannot be overpowered, otherwise they will only become useless or even a drag.
Simon returns to North America, and the first week of the Easter season comes to an end.
The two major Daenerys-related films that opened on April 2, New World Pictures' "Resident Evil" and MGM's "Public Enemy", have achieved very good results.
The first is "Public Enemy". As a blockbuster with an investment of 70 million US dollars, the original timeline of the two "Bourne Supremacy" two-parter Paul Greengrass partnered with Harrison Ford and Jessica. The Chastain duo did an excellent job of meeting Simon's expectations for this project.
After the film premiered in advance, the comprehensive media score reached 8.9 points, almost reaching the classic level. Many film critics highlighted Paul Greengrass's shooting techniques and excellent control of rhythm. Jessica Chastain, who made a small appearance in "The Ghost Story", also received awards for her performance in this orthodox blockbuster. Received unanimous praise from the media.
Finally, in the first seven days from April 2 to April 8, the box office revenue of "Public Enemy" reached 51.67 million US dollars. Considering the market capacity during the Easter period and the competition during the same period, this is quite an outstanding result. 51.67 million US dollars in the first week, there is no suspense about breaking 100 million. How high it can go in the future depends on the next curve.
All in all, the three partners are quite satisfied.
"Resident Evil" followed closely. This sci-fi horror film also won praise from the media and the public for its new approach to the zombie theme. The comprehensive media score reached 8.1 points. The first-week box office was second only to "Public Enemy". Earned US$31.78 million in seven days.
With an opening of over 30 million, local distribution will definitely have no problem recouping the production budget of 35 million US dollars.
Moreover, although it is difficult to break the 100 million mark in China, according to feedback, in some overseas markets where the film was launched at the same time, the market performance of "Resident Evil" and "Public Enemy" are actually about the same. Considering that the zombie themes such as Japan have not yet been released, The New World Pictures team expects the overseas box office to be more than double that of the local country.
The outstanding performance of the movie version has laid a very good popularity foundation for the upcoming release of the "Resident Evil" game.
Then there’s “American Pie 2,” which is in its second week of filming.
Faced with the impact of two strong new films, "American Pie 2" dropped 45% in the second week and collected another US$26.76 million. In two weeks, the cumulative box office of this sequel, a low-brow campus comedy with an investment of only US$30 million, quickly reached 7,469. With a high of 10,000 US dollars, and still excellent results compared to the first film, the New World Pictures team directly included "American Pie 3" in the development plan.