At noon.
In an Italian restaurant near Santa Monica Beach, when Simon arrived, Terry Semel had already arrived early and was sitting at the table reading a newspaper. Seeing Simon appear, Terry Semel stood up and shook his hand, and the two sat down together.
Simon took the menu from the tall waitress with eager eyes next to him, opened it, and casually asked Semel opposite him: "Is there any news today?"
Because he has been so busy recently, it is difficult for Simon to spare too much time to pay attention to the news.
Terry Semel also opened his own menu and said with a smile: "The two presidential candidates spoke out at the same time during the interview, saying that once elected, they will formulate more stringent financial derivatives market supervision measures to avoid the "Western crisis". Luo incident' happened again."
Simon quickly ordered a lunch, handed the menu to the waitress, and said, "This has nothing to do with me. If they do this, they will only offend their Wall Street sponsors."
Terry Semel raised his eyes from the menu and looked at Simon, with a vague temptation: "You are not telling me that you will never set foot in the futures market again, are you?"
Simon was noncommittal about Semel's question, saying: "Stricter regulatory measures will only affect those who want to make huge profits through unconventional means such as insider speculation. At least the top ten in the Forbes list No one in the list relied on those means to get on the list, and I certainly didn’t do it either.”
Terry Semel couldn't help but think of some rumors in the circle. In fact, the Southern District Court of New York and several other major regulatory agencies have never completely given up on the secret investigation of Simon. However, so far, there is still no news that is not conducive to Simon.
Over time, those investigations were bound to fizzle out.
After ordering the meal and sending away the waitress who kept glancing at Simon, Terry Semel said: "Simon, we recently acquired Lorimar. You must know about this, right?"
Simon nodded, probably understanding why Semel mentioned this.
Lorimar Production Company, founded in the 1960s, is the largest TV program studio of this era. The company rose in the 1970s and reached its peak in the past few years. Then with last year's stock market crash and this year's screenwriting crisis, The strike declined rapidly.
A few months ago, Simon and Amy had gone to see the MGM studio in Culver City that Lorimar wanted to sell.
When he heard the news of Warner's acquisition of Lorimar at the beginning of the month, Simon also realized that this was probably the basis for Warner's television department to continuously produce many hit American dramas such as "Friends" and "ER" in the 1990s. Prior to this, Warner's television business was not very good.
Seeing Simon nod, Terry Semel continued: "I heard that you are interested in the MGM studio in Culver City. We happen to be planning to sell this part of the property. Do you still want it now? I guarantee the price will be very Affordable.”
Warner Bros. already has a very large filming base in Burbank and obviously doesn't need a second studio.
However, Simon did not hesitate and shook his head and said: "Terry, that studio is too dilapidated. Instead of buying it for large-scale renovations, I might as well choose a new piece of land and build a studio from scratch. This will be cheaper."
Terry Semel said: "But, Simon, unless it's a suburb, you'd be hard-pressed to find a 50-acre parcel in downtown Los Angeles."
Simon said indifferently: "The suburbs are nothing. When these studios were first built, they were all in the suburbs. It was only the continuous development of the city that they were enclosed in the urban area."
Terry Semel thought he could definitely pass the MGM studio to Simon, but he didn't expect him to show a lack of interest, so he had to give up and said: "Well, Simon, about the matter we discussed last time. , you have acquired Marvel Entertainment and have mastered the copyrights of a large number of superheroes such as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men. I am curious, why are you still interested in DC superheroes? If there is no good reason , is it difficult for Warner to hand over Wonder Woman to you again?"
"Marvel's superhero movies are too difficult to shoot, such as Spider-Man. With current technology, it is difficult for us to realize the scene of Peter Parker flying across the walls between metropolises," Simon replied without thinking too much: "That's quite true. In comparison, the possibility of DC superhero movies being turned into movies is very high. As for my purpose, Terry, it is obvious that I want to accumulate more copyrights, and Hollywood studios will do this. There is nothing to hide. Before me , Cannon Pictures bought the filming rights for Marvel’s most popular Spider-Man and DC’s Superman at the same time. Of course, the copyrights of these two superheroes are now in the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.”
"You are different from them," Terry Semel shook his head: "I remember at the Oscars after-party at the beginning of the year, you told me that you planned to make Superman and Batman link up, well, "Batman v Superman", you are That’s right, right? Now, you want Wonder Woman again.”
"Terry, I don't want to waste my time on these unnecessary words. Can you directly agree to Warner's terms?"
Terry Semel stopped beating around the bush and said: "Simon, Warner can give you both "The Bourne Supremacy" and "Wonder Woman". We can let go of "The Bourne Supremacy" completely, but "Wonder Woman" , Warner must retain 50% of the investment rights. However, unlike "Superman" and "Batman", Daenerys Entertainment can retain the distribution rights of "Wonder Woman". In exchange, Daenerys and Warner need to cooperate A project with a box office of over 100 million, whether it is your personal script or another project selected by Daenerys Entertainment, our profit sharing model of "Basic Instinct". However, if the local box office of this project we cooperate with does not exceed 100 million, , the contract will be automatically extended until it exceeds 100 million."
Simon quickly considered the conditions offered by Terry Semel in his mind, and quickly said: "In this case, it is impossible for me to hand over the distribution rights to Warner. It is difficult for a movie to achieve a box office of over 100 million in North America, but It would be too easy to make it less than that.”
"Of course I understand this," Terry Semel said with a smile on his face: "So, the distribution rights can belong to Daenerys Entertainment."
Simon thought for a moment and suddenly realized that doing so seemed to be more detrimental to Daenerys' entertainment.
Because Daenerys Entertainment's distribution capabilities are definitely not as strong as Warner's, and the profit-sharing model of "Basic Instinct" means that Daenerys Entertainment cannot use methods such as Hollywood accounting, but needs to spare no effort in publicity and distribution. .
After weighing it repeatedly for a moment, Simon finally made a decision, stretched out his hand to Semel, and said: "Deal."