On the weekend of November 13th and November 14th, there were two consecutive election votes that caught Simon's attention.
The first one is in Australia.
On November 13, Australia once again launched a referendum on whether to turn from a monarchy to a republic to decide whether Australia would leave the British Commonwealth system and move towards a completely independent republic.
During the pre-opinion poll, 67% of Australian voters expressed their willingness to leave the Commonwealth. However, when the vote actually started, the results were unexpected. In the end, it failed with 43% to 57% of the votes.
As a piece of land that is the focus of the Westeros system as a base, Simon will certainly not ignore this matter.
However, it did not add fuel to the flames.
Although in theory, it seems that allowing Australia to completely separate from the Commonwealth would be more conducive to the Westeros system's control of the country, but in fact it is not.
Without leaving the Commonwealth, Australia is essentially an independent country. If it remains within the Commonwealth system, under the current world structure, it will be more conducive for the Westeros system to use Australia as its foundation and extend its tentacles. Reaching out to all aspects of the former Commonwealth countries. After all, the Commonwealth system not only has political and cultural consistency, but also has many economic connections.
If we leave now, perhaps the result will be like Britain's rash Brexit in the original time and space, which is very unwise.
Of course, if necessary in the future, turning the monarchy into a republic will only be a matter of one more vote.
The second one is the Ukrainian side.
After no one achieved an absolute majority in the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on October 31, the second round was held on November 14.
There is no suspense that current Ukrainian President Leon Kuchma won re-election with an absolute majority of 63% of the votes over Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Simonenko who only received 37% of the votes.
Since it was an expected result, Simon just asked the spokesperson there to congratulate Kuchma on his behalf.
Speaking of which, winter has already entered in Ukraine in October. Because the economic crisis is still ongoing, compared with last year, this year has eased slightly, but it is still very reluctant.
Even if the policies proposed by Petro Simonenko were not too drastic, it would not be impossible to defeat Kuchma in Ukraine's current extremely depressed economic environment.
After all, ordinary people only care about their own belly. Sometimes, even if it is a big pie, it is good.
The pie that Leon Kuchma drew is well-founded. Stabilizing the currency, introducing foreign investment, increasing agricultural support, etc. are all foreseeable. Moreover, the Rivno gang also cooperated very cooperatively to let Kuchma put his own success into practice. As an example.
As for Simonenko, such as interrupting the privatization process and re-initiating full nationalization, it sounds a bit scary.
Originally, everyone had nothing left, so if they wanted to nationalize, who would they nationalize
Then, within five years, the Ukrainian economy will be restored to the level before the 1990s.
It sounds weird. After all, under normal circumstances, no one would say that in ten years it would reach the economic level of ten years ago.
However, it is what it is.
Take the daily necessities that are currently scarce in Ukraine and even the entire former Soviet Union. Before 1990, the self-sufficiency rate could reach 80%. But now, in Ukraine, the proportion is relatively high, and the self-sufficiency rate is only 30%. All need to be imported.
By the way, half of the 30% self-sufficiency rate comes from Rivne Oblast, and all other Ukrainian oblasts and counties can only contribute the other 15%.
This is because the Rivne Gang prefers exports, otherwise it would definitely be able to provide more. After all, relatively speaking, exports are more profitable, but domestically, with the Ukrainian currency exchange rate going up and down, you really can’t make much money.
Probably like India.
India certainly does not have enough food, but large quantities of it are exported, making it the largest rice exporter in the world. As for what to do at home, the landlords don’t have enough food left, so they can’t take care of that much.
After the weekend, on another Tuesday, Simon flew to China again.
Mainly because of Chen Qing, the little guy was born successfully on the morning of November 16th, local time, which is the ninth day of October in the lunar calendar.
It was originally expected to be at the end of the month, but it was a few days ahead of schedule, but it had nothing to do with the premature birth. The fat girl weighed six pounds and three ounces, and was healthy.
Simon had been in close contact with Chen Qing during her pregnancy, and he could probably understand that it was because a certain girl wanted to drive the little girl out of her belly. After all, for more than half a year of pregnancy, Chen Qing felt like she was sealed away.
Moreover, if it is just sealed, it is actually nothing.
The key is that she is a girl.
Simon really didn't mind being a girl, and he finally got another little cotton-padded jacket. Unfortunately, a certain girl had the attitude of "I prefer boys over girls, I just want boys," so she gave the girl a very A traditional nickname, no two.
Chen Buer.
Anyway, this kind of thing is unreasonable. You say you favor boys over girls, aren't you yourself a woman
The answer is yes, so I don’t even look down on myself.
What else can I say
Simon arrived in Suzhou on Wednesday, November 17, and stayed with Chen Qing and her daughter for three days. He then transferred to Hangzhou and stayed for a weekend before setting off for Beijing.
In just a few days, the first week of the official Thanksgiving season in North America has come to an end.
November 12th to November 18th.
Last week's three blockbusters were not too disappointing, but if we only talk about the box office, there were no surprises.
The first place is not Daenerys' "Cars", but MGM's "Casino Royale", with a box office of US$75.11 million in the first seven days, compared with a production cost of US$90 million and a production cost of US$50 million. Xuanfa, such a start, as I said before, is neither a success nor a failure.
According to the trend of commercial films with saturated releases, the film grossed US$75.11 million in the first week, and the total domestic box office is expected to be around US$150 million.
The original version of "Casino Royale" was released in 2006, with a local box office of approximately 160 million.
This one is 150 million, 7 years ahead of schedule. Considering inflation, it may be higher than before. However, compared with the previous "007: Specter", the gap is really obvious.
In the summer of 1996, "Spectre" opened with US$89.17 million in its first week. With its excellent reputation, it eventually reached US$307 million locally and US$778 million globally, making a huge profit.
However, it is undeniable that the unsatisfactory performance of "007: Casino Royale" this time is largely due to the overcrowded schedule.
If it were still a summer release, at least 200 million domestically would be no problem, and it is expected to steadily exceed 500 million globally. Even if the total cost is 140 million, it would still make a good profit at the theater stage.
no way.
After all, looking at other and even more second- and third-tier small labels that have been squeezed in recent years and have to actively reduce production output, MGM is definitely doing well.
The second place went to "Cars".
In its first week of production, this 3D animated film, whose story and subject matter are somewhat biased toward younger audiences, grossed US$63.55 million, which was also not as popular as the previous films.
However, as long as it can successfully survive the impact of "Cyborg 2" in the next week and throughout the end of the year, "Cars" will still have no problem with 200 million domestic sales.
What's more, Simon doesn't care too much about box office, the key is peripherals.
With the release of the film, Daenerys has become more convenient to monitor the surrounding areas because she has access to Hasbro channels.
Due to sufficient preparations for distribution in advance and the approaching Thanksgiving Day, the sales of toy peripherals for "Cars" are very hot. It was only the first weekend of the film's release. According to preliminary statistics, the toy sales in the three days easily exceeded 100 million, and considering that there is still Christmas in the future, this sales growth will only continue to accelerate.
The Hasbro team even gave a very bold prediction. By the end of this year, the sales of "Cars" peripheral toys in the United States alone are likely to quickly reach the level of 1 billion US dollars.
Considering that most of the toys this time are produced and sold through Hasbro's own channel, the gross profit of this series of toys attributed to Daenerys alone is expected to reach more than 65%, with toy sales of US$1 billion. , a gross profit of 65%...
Who the hell cares about box office!
As the news hit the newspapers, in just a few trading days, Daenerys' stock price, which was already considered to be ridiculously high by the capital market, increased by 6.3% in a week. At the close of Friday, Daenerys' total market value It has reached 778.1 billion U.S. dollars, even surpassing Ygritte, who has been pressing here.
Igret's market capitalization at Friday's close was $765.3 billion.
In addition, many of Hasbro's original shareholders regretted it greatly.
loss!
It’s really a loss!
However, there is of course no regrets. After all, the equity delivery procedures of both parties were completed in October.
What's more, according to Simon's original vision, if Hasbro didn't give in at the beginning, Hasbro would be mainly responsible for "Cars" at the end of the year, not to mention the peripheral toys, and whether they could cooperate again would be a problem.
In short, although it failed to win the single-week box office championship, "Cars" has basically determined its position as the biggest winner of this year-end schedule.
After all, the toy sales volume is US$1 billion, and this data is only limited to North America. There are no statistics on overseas markets yet. Even if the overseas proportion is not high, based on half of that here, the profit margin may be even lower. , but it was enough to exceed the box office revenue of most films at the end of the year.
As for the same as the surrounding areas.
Even "Cyborg 2", to be honest, there is no comparison, no.
Finally, there’s Air Force One.
The Columbia Pictures team, which was acquired by Westinghouse Electric, had high hopes for this film. The opening results were a bit disappointing, but not a failure. It made 45.69 million US dollars in the first seven days. The follow-up will be slightly stronger, and it will not be a problem to exceed 100 million, even if The trend is not satisfactory, and it is definitely above 80 million.
This is equivalent to a production cost of US$80 million.
If overseas can be slightly better than at home, most of the investment in production and promotion can basically be recovered, and with more peripheral operations, profits can begin.
Of course, the gap with Westinghouse's hopes is not small.
After three blockbusters, last week's four new films, "The Talented Mr. Ripley", which relied on plot to win but was not so popcorn, barely fell behind and ranked fourth. The next week's drop reached 39%, and it collected another 19.97 million. US dollars, with a cumulative box office of US$52.76 million.
Then there is "The Ghost Nun" in fifth place. Facing a large number of new films, it experienced a sharp drop of 53% in its third week of release. It continued to earn US$14.56 million, and the cumulative box office reached US$101.89 million. It has successfully entered the 100 million yuan box office club, but in the future, it may only have a potential of 20 to 30 million yuan, and the local box office is expected to be around 130 million US dollars.
Outside of the top five, the other films have all fallen within the tens of millions of US dollars, which means they have withdrawn from the competition in the Thanksgiving category. Needless to say.
On November 15th, a new box office week begins, which is also the week that is about to cross Thanksgiving.
There is still more than one new movie released this week, but there is only one new movie worth mentioning, and that is "Cyborg 2".
Warner Bros. officially held its world premiere on Wednesday ahead of schedule, and the word-of-mouth ban was lifted on Thursday. Not only did the comprehensive media score of 8.7 confirm the film's word-of-mouth, this time, the new DC superheroes such as Aquaman and Martian Manhunter also Joining the franchise is even more exciting for movie fans.
Warner Bros. claims to have spent an $80 million publicity budget on the entire project, plus a huge production cost of $160 million, for a total investment of $240 million. The number of opening screens of the film has also reached 4,166, and it is unabashedly heading towards the goal of breaking 100 million in the first week.