After a long sixteen-hour flight, Simon returned to Los Angeles. It was still Sunday evening, June 25, Eastern Time in the United States. Due to the time difference, major exchanges in Asia had already started trading for the new week.
The various measures taken in the past two days have obviously had an effect. When the Tokyo stock market opened, the Nikkei 225 index began to rise slowly.
It’s a new week in North America.
When Simon got up in the morning, the Nikkei 225 index finally closed at 36617 points the day before. Although this data has not yet reached the highest point last week, the unexpected crisis in Japan's financial market has been smoothly passed.
In recent days, many newspapers in North America have been talking about the news that Simon rushed to Australia to visit his girlfriend, causing the Japanese stock market to plummet, and even used a new phrase "Westeros effect" in a serious way.
The front page of the Los Angeles Times on Monday was still about this story, with a photo of Simon and Janet hugging each other at Melbourne Airport. The article re-introduced what happened in recent days, not forgetting to ridicule that Simon is now definitely the most unpopular guy among Japanese people, and predicted that he would want to travel to Japan for a long time in the future, but he would be refused entry. The possibility is as high as 100%.
Over in Australia, the agreement between Cersei Capital and the Japanese is progressing very smoothly. In less than a week, the two parties completed secret delivery in all aspects.
In the final agreement, the ownership of sub-funds No. 1 to 5 under Cersei Capital’s name was transferred to the Japanese, and Janet and Anthony were still responsible for management on the surface.
Janet wanted to fly to Los Angeles immediately after the transaction was completed. However, in order to avoid sudden personnel changes that would trigger outside speculation, the Japanese side required her to be responsible for running Cersei Capital for at least two more months. Of course, this was completely controlled by the Japanese side. Under the premise, Janet herself does not actually have any decision-making power.
For the benefit of everyone, Janet had no choice but to agree.
Two months is actually just about right.
The post-production of "Batman" will not be completed until September. Simon plans to take a long vacation after completing the film. The first stop in the plan is several major fashion weeks in September. At that time, Janet could just use this very reasonable excuse to leave.
Since she couldn't get away for the time being, Janet was not idle and began to prepare the operation team of Cersei Capital's sub-funds No. 6 to 10 in order to short the North American junk bond market in the second half of the year. The source of funds was naturally the Japanese who recently transferred to Cersei Capital overseas. $5 billion in cash in the account.
In order to keep their own layout secret, the Japanese also required that the funds from Cersei Capital cannot be transferred back to the country for at least one year, which everyone has no objection to.
Due to tax avoidance considerations, Simon had no intention of transferring the money back home in the short term. Various investors in Australia also hoped to continue to rely on Cersei Capital to obtain more returns.
Although settlement has not yet been carried out, according to the original ladder commission agreement, Simon's personal profit from this transaction can be roughly predicted.
With a capital of US$5 billion, excluding the principal of US$1.57 billion, the profit figure was US$3.43 billion.
In the original agreement, Simon only required a share of the profits generated by the US$970 million in external investment, not the US$600 million from himself and the Johnston family. The stepped commission plan is 20% for the portion within 30% of the profit scale, 30% for the portion between 30% and 100%, and 50% for the portion exceeding 100%.
Calculated from all aspects, the principal income Simon can obtain is US$1.093 billion, and the commission income is US$836 million. Counting the original principal of US$500 million, Simon's book share of the US$5 billion has reached US$2.429 billion.
In addition, the Johnston family has a principal of US$100 million and a book profit of US$218 million. The principal of other Australian capital was US$970 million, and the book profit was US$1.283 billion.
Although Simon will take more than half of the proceeds, however, at the end of this transaction, no external investor made a request for redemption or even partial redemption. Not only because of the original agreement, US$1.57 billion was converted into US$5 billion in less than half a year, and the profits of all parties exceeded 100%. As long as other Australian investors have normal thinking, they all know that Simon is completely worth such a high amount. Separate accounts.
Faced with such a huge amount of funds held by Cersei Capital, Simon gradually came up with some other ideas.
Of course, this is something.
I suddenly left Los Angeles for several days without any warning. When I came back, I naturally had to work overtime to make up for some work progress.
On the other hand, the competition for summer movies in North America is becoming increasingly fierce.
Simon left Los Angeles last Wednesday night. Immediately afterwards, the box office of "The Bodyguard" in its third week was released. Compared with the second week, the film's box office dropped only a weak 11%, with a revenue of 17.86 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office reached 61.55 million U.S. dollars.
The following Friday, three new films were released in the North American summer season at once, namely Disney's science fiction-style family comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", Columbia Pictures' "The Kid 3" and Orion Pictures' ’s musical biopic “Fireballs.”
Although none of the three new films had a box office hit in the first week like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Ghostbusters 2", they still had a significant impact on the box office of many old films.
From June 23 to June 29, the week after Simon returned from Australia, the box office decline of "The Bodyguard" expanded to 21% compared to last week, collecting another US$14.11 million.
Although "The Bodyguard" lags behind "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", "The Kid 3" and "Ghostbusters 2" on the weekly box office list, it only ranks fourth. However, within four weeks of its release, this film, which was not expected by everyone, has already reached a cumulative box office of US$75.66 million.
In addition, the box office of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" shrunk to US$12.07 million in the new week, ranking fifth, with a cumulative box office of US$140.23 million.
Among the three new films, Orion Pictures' "Fireballs" did not meet expectations. This musical biopic about the life story of the famous American rock singer Jerry Lee Lewis has a production budget of US$12 million and a production scale of 1,417 US dollars. , but the box office in its first week was only US$6.28 million, and its reputation was also very average.
In the new year, except for the unexpected hit "The Adventures of Abby" in February, which earned $40 million at the box office, all other films released by Orion Pictures ended in failure. Due to the continued deterioration of its financial situation, Orion couldn't wait to release the video in February this year, just after the three-month window for the next release of "Pulp Fiction."
Moreover, after Simon personally collected debts from Mike Medowa at the last party, Orion Pictures is still delaying in settling the box office share of "Pulp Fiction" that Daenerys Entertainment deserves. Daenerys Entertainment has done its utmost to tolerate Orion Pictures' half-year delay in dividing the company's share of the deal.
In order to prevent Orion Pictures from suddenly going bankrupt and completely unable to recover the royalties, Amy has recently been considering taking legal measures.
On June 30, a new week, "The Sixth Sense" that Simon had secretly had high hopes for was finally released.
Compared with the opening scale of "The Bodyguard" which exceeded 2,000 screens, "The Sixth Sense" only had 1,673 screens in its first week. This relatively conservative release strategy is actually Simon's intention. He hopes to reserve enough room for the film's reputation to ferment through a smaller screening scale.
Until its release, the plot of "The Sixth Sense" was still kept strictly confidential. The early marketing strategy adopted by Daenerys Entertainment only focused on Simon and De Niro, with the very traditional purpose of simply increasing the popularity of the film. .
Simon has always believed that the fundamental reason for the huge success of "The Sixth Sense" in the original time and space with a global box office of more than 600 million US dollars is not just a simple plot reversal, but also the emotional core of the film and many other factors are crucial. .
However, the plot twist between humans and ghosts at the end is undoubtedly an important catalyst for the success of the film.
Therefore, during the film's promotion stage, neither the various press releases nor interviews with the main creators mentioned or hinted at the final reversal of the film. Simon's fundamental strategy is to let the audience discover this reversal on their own, rather than Through hints of early publicity.
If you know in advance that the film will have 'surprises', it may even have the opposite effect in the end, making some people feel that it is 'just that'.
After all, in the long history of movies, similar plots have not happened before.
As for the theme type of "The Sixth Sense", most fans who paid attention to this movie could only get a general impression of a 'horror movie' before the movie was released. Even if the TV trailer is released in the final stage, the information the audience can get is basically that it is a story between a psychologist and a psychic boy, which also includes some misleading horror movie-specific footage.
Because "The Sixth Sense" should fundamentally be regarded as a pseudo-horror film with a core of family warmth, in terms of marketing audience, Daenerys Entertainment did not target teenagers as accurately as "Scream" did. Targeting audiences of all ages, this has also led to a significant increase in publicity and distribution costs.
Some fans have been hesitant to watch the movie because of the conservative strategy of "The Sixth Sense" in the film promotion stage. Because of Daenerys Entertainment's strict confidentiality of the film's plot and various unusual events during the publicity stage, Here, the entertainment media with a keen sense of smell are becoming more and more curious.
Of course, there are also many experienced media and audiences who believe that whether it is the film's low opening scale or low-key promotion and marketing, it only shows Daenerys Entertainment's lack of confidence in "The Sixth Sense". In fact, executives within Daenerys Entertainment who have seen the finished film of "The Sixth Sense" generally lack confidence in this mediocre movie.
Los Angeles.
Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters in Santa Monica.
The time is the afternoon of June 30th.
In the large conference room in the office building, the meeting on arranging the company's mid-year financial audit started at two o'clock in the afternoon and has continued until now.
All the core executives of Daenerys Entertainment were present.
The mid-year financial audit that will begin next month, although not as detailed as the one at the beginning of the year, will also involve the Westeros company's accounting team to provide oversight. As the head of Westeros Company, James Raybould specially came from Los Angeles with Robert Egger in the morning.
In the first two quarters that are about to pass, although only "The Bodyguard" among the series of films released by Daenerys Entertainment was an unexpected box office hit, the company's revenue from its two core businesses of film and television is still very substantial.
In terms of movies, in addition to the new films in the first half of the year, the domestic release of blockbuster films such as "Scream" and "Steel Magnolias" at the end of last year has been completed one after another, and overseas distribution has been basically completed. "When Harry Met" released at the end of last year "Sally" video also achieved very impressive sales performance in the first half of the year, and funds from all aspects continued to withdraw.
In the field of television, the spring schedules of reality shows and TV series such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" have also come to an end. TV network settlement income and prepayments have also brought a large amount of revenue to Daenerys Entertainment.
All enterprises in the Westeros system have a total debt of 900 million U.S. dollars, which means that this year alone, the amount of principal and interest that Simon needs to repay will reach 200 million U.S. dollars, but he does not feel the slightest pressure.
Not to mention the huge amount of money that Cersei Capital has just obtained from the Japanese, it is just a show "Who Will Be a Millionaire" under Daenerys Entertainment. With the new season contract making a substantial profit concession, this real-life show The show continues to generate enough revenue to pay off Simon's personal debts.
However, although Daenerys Entertainment's profitability has reached a level that makes Hollywood colleagues jealous, Simon has no intention of being a confused boss. Too many memories from his two lifetimes have given him a deep understanding that for any company to continue to grow and develop, a strict financial supervision system is essential.
At five o'clock, the meeting ended.
The others dispersed, leaving Simon and James Raybould in the conference room to discuss Cersei Capital.
James is already aware of the transactions between Cersei Capital and the Japanese. The subsequent operation of the local junk bond market will require more cooperation from the Westeros Company.
The two communicated alone for half an hour before walking out of the conference room together.
Before Amy left, she walked over from her office after hearing Simon's conclusion to James' communication.
“Burbank has compiled daytime attendance data for ‘The Sixth Sense’, and some mainstream evening newspapers have also published film reviews. Overall, the feedback has been very good.”
A few days ago, "The Bodyguard" was an unexpected hit at the box office. Amy inadvertently expressed her satisfaction that it would be enough for a major film company to have a movie with a box office of over 100 million a year. The distribution rights of two key commercial films at the end of the year, "One Flew Over the Child" and "Batman," belong to Warner. Amy's words undoubtedly show that she is also the one who lacks confidence in "The Sixth Sense."
Judging from the way Amy is relaxed at this time, the performance of "The Sixth Sense" should have exceeded her expectations after it was released today.
Simon didn't comment too much, just smiled and said: "If there are no other arrangements, let's have dinner together and talk later."
Amy nodded and went downstairs with Simon, James and Jennifer. As she walked, she took out her Motorola Micro-TAC mobile phone from her bag and said, "I think we should remind Rem to communicate with the media to avoid tomorrow's There are too many movie reviews in newspapers that overtly reveal spoilers.”
Simon watched Amy lower her head to dial and glanced at the Motorola Micro-TAC.
After returning from Australia, Simon noticed that Amy, Nancy and others started to use this mobile phone that was only about the size of a palm and could be called a mobile phone. He didn't pay much attention to it at first.
However, looking at it now, a thought suddenly flashed in Simon's mind.
Um.
correct.
Nokia!