At around five o'clock in the afternoon, the audition for the male lead in "Ten Days of Danger" ended.
There were only three candidates in this final round of small auditions, and the last person to audition was Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith's husband.
Simon originally did not think that Don Johnson, whose style was more of a tough guy, could play the role of a writer well, but with the help of some connections in the Griffith family and after watching Don Johnson's carefully prepared audition tape, he changed his view. .
Moreover, Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon are the same age, and an alternative CP effect can also be formed between the two.
After discussing the character's insights, performing excerpts from the script, and finally the heroine Susan Sarandon came to play the role in person, the audition took a full hour and a half. Don Johnson's male lead was basically finalized, and all that was left to do was to make a production. The film studio is discussing details such as salary with Don Johnson's agent.
After get off work, everyone left the audition room laughing and chatting.
After the others left, Don Johnson, who stayed at the end, said to Simon: "One more thing, Simon, Mei and I plan to hold a christening ceremony for Dakota on the 16th next month. I wonder if you are free to attend, little one. You chose the guy’s name.”
A few months ago, at a party celebrating the box-office hit of "Lethal Weapon 2," Simon casually named the Johnsons' soon-to-be-born daughter the 'original' Dakota Johnson out of fun. He almost forgot about it later. thing.
When the child was born in October, the Johnsons actually used the name and spread the news that Simon had chosen the name himself.
A certain newborn girl attracted a lot of media attention. After Vanity Fair offered a hefty price tag, a photo of the Johnson family of three finally appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in November. The interview article once again specifically featured Mentioned the naming of Simon.
Simon's interpretation of Dakota's name, 'Eternal Smile,' has even sparked controversy among some linguists.
"It's the 16th of next month," Simon thought for a while and said, "Don, I'm not sure if I will be in Los Angeles then. If I am, I will definitely attend."
"Batman" will be released on December 22. Warner Bros. has confirmed that the Los Angeles premiere of "Batman" will be on December 20. Simon does not plan to be too involved in the specific promotion of the film, so before December 20 Most likely won't be back.
Don Johnson didn't know Simon's arrangements. After hearing his promise that he would definitely attend as long as he was in Los Angeles, he happily reached out and said, "Then it's settled."
Simon shook hands with Don Johnson and said with a smile, "Of course."
The main creator of "10 Days of Danger" has basically been finalized, and among the 10 movies planned to be released next year, only "Pink League" is left.
Now that the ban on CAA has been lifted, the crew has officially extended an invitation to Tom Hanks.
Tom Hanks has firmly become a first-line actor after "Future". However, he has not yet shown the strong box office appeal of many veteran actors, so the salary quote given is also a satisfactory US$5 million. Simon There was no haggling.
Sony, which had just acquired Columbia Pictures, was at the stage of spending money with great ambitions, but Simon limited the budget of "Pink" to US$25 million.
Tom Hanks took away US$5 million, and Geena Davis received US$2 million. The original director Penny Marshall also worked with Hanks on "Future" and was promoted to the front line. The director's salary was also US$500. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
The three main creators took away 12 million U.S. dollars and secured another 10 million U.S. dollars in filming expenses. There was not much left for the salaries of other supporting actors. Madonna, who was so overrated in the original version, will definitely not be hired again, and many supporting roles can only earn low weekly salaries.
However, for projects led by Simon himself, there will definitely be no shortage of actors in today's Hollywood even if they are reversed, so the tight budget will not affect the quality of the actors.
In addition to the projects that have officially started production, Simon has also been looking for the remaining slate of the 10-film plan.
The next day is Thursday, November 16th.
"One Flew Over" starts filming tomorrow, and the film's premiere will be held in the evening at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
The lively premiere started at 5 p.m. Simon attended alone. He stopped briefly on the red carpet to take photos and then went directly into the theater. At 8 o'clock, the premiere ended, and most of the invited guests went to a nearby hotel to attend the after-party.
Simon originally planned to leave early, but was stopped by Terry Semel.
In the hotel banquet hall, after some socializing, Semel and Simon came to a corner together: "That's it, Simon, next month's Time Magazine Person of the Year has been confirmed by Time Company. "
Seeing Semel's congratulatory expression, Simon still didn't understand why, and said: "Me?"
"Of course, besides you, who else has this qualification?" Terry Semel said with a smile: "Speaking of which, you already had this qualification in the past two years, so you can arrange to take a group photo recently. Cover blockbuster, of course, you can’t shirk this interview.”
Time Magazine Person of the Year.
Simon sighed inwardly, of course he knew what this meant.
As a current affairs weekly with great influence around the world, the cover character of each issue attracts much attention. Some people even fake the cover of Time magazine in order to gain fame.
"Time" magazine's Person of the Year is also the top priority of "Time" magazine's cover character every year.
Therefore, the cover of such an issue is definitely not that good.
Last year, some media actually predicted that Simon would become Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1988, but in the end, Time Company preferred to give the spot to "The Endangered Earth" rather than fall on Simon.
Faced with doubts from the outside world, Time magazine explained that Simon was too young and did not meet the standards to become the person of the year.
This year it suddenly reached the 'standard'.
This is of course no accident, more like a matter of course.
If you think about it for a moment, you can understand that this is the result of Warner's efforts. Time Inc. and Warner Brothers got rid of Paramount's entanglement and have officially reached a merger agreement.
Simon became the richest man in the federation at the age of 21 this year. He has sufficient qualifications. In addition, in order to build momentum for "Batman" to be released next month, it is naturally impossible for this year's Time Magazine Person of the Year to fall on someone else.
There has never been a media in this world that can truly maintain absolute impartiality and neutrality. Since "Time" magazine already belongs to the new Time Warner Company, it is naturally biased towards the interests of the company.
Simon clearly remembers that after the release of "Wonder Woman" in the original time and space, as the treasure of Warner Bros., all the creators of the "Wonder Woman" project received "careful care" from Time Warner's media, so careful that they had no qualifications at all. Patty Jenkins, the director of "Wonder Woman", was shortlisted for Time magazine's Person of the Year that year. The reason was that it was so far-fetched that "Patty Jenkins redefined how the world should view women." .
Thinking like this, Simon did not refuse, and just said: "But, Terry, I am going to Europe this weekend."
"This is not a problem. As long as you cooperate, they will send someone to Europe to take photos and interview you, probably at the end of the month."
"Let them contact my assistant then." Simon nodded. He had received enough attention in recent years, but he did not feel too excited. He changed the subject and said: "You are here for Cooper- Peters Productions is asking Sony for $1 billion, which is really cruel."
Sony has confirmed that it will let two veteran Hollywood producers, Peter Cooper and Jon Peters, take charge of Columbia Pictures. For this reason, it not only offered high salary terms, but also acquired their production for US$200 million in cash. company.
However, Cooper-Peters Production Company was originally affiliated with Warner Bros. Pictures. Sony had just completed the acquisition of this production company, and Warner filed a lawsuit against Sony, citing Cooper-Peters Production Company's breach of contract. The claim is US$1 billion.
Terry Semel heard Simon mention this and smiled: "You know Steve, he really doesn't like the Japanese extending their hands into Hollywood. This is our territory."
Simon knew that Warner eventually took away US$600 million from the Japanese, becoming the first 'tuition' paid by Sony in Hollywood. He admired Steve Ross's methods and secretly reminded himself not to make similar mistakes.
After the premiere, the next day, "One Flew Over the Child" officially opened on a large scale in North America with 2,206 screens.
"Back to the Future Part 2," the sequel to the 1985 annual box office champion "Back to the Future" produced by Universal Pictures, is scheduled to be released on Wednesday, November 22.
In order to avoid the sharp edge of "Back to the Future 2", a total of 6 new movies will be released on November 17th, including "One Flew Over the Child" co-produced by Daenerys and Warner Bros., and "Harlem Nightclub" produced by Paramount and Orion Pictures' "The Dream" both screened around 2,000 screens.
Daenerys' collaboration with Warner Bros. on "One Flew Over" is certainly not to be underestimated, but other studios seem to think "One Flew Over" is more 'getting along'.
As for next week, in addition to the release of the Gucci fashion documentary officially named "The Gucci Mark" by Daenerys Entertainment's High Gate Pictures, "Back to the Future 2" can be said to dominate the Thanksgiving Week schedule.
Ella Deutschman was also quite confused about Simon's decision to insist on competing "The Gucci Mark" with "Back to the Future 2", but Simon did not explain much to him.
In my memory, compared to the first annual box office champion with a domestic box office of more than 200 million US dollars, the box office of the sequel of "Back to the Future 2" has shrunk by half. Universal invested all available resources in this sequel film, with a production budget of only 40 million US dollars. Although the box office of "Back to the Future 2" still exceeded 100 million, it was far from the expectations of the producer. To use a word of failure, It's no exaggeration to describe it.
"Back to the Future 2" is not as strong as outsiders imagined, and "Gucci Imprint" will naturally not be too seriously impacted.
On the other hand, because a lot of preparations had been done in advance, with Simon's permission, Nancy held another meeting on the acquisition of EA on Friday. James Raybould even flew over from the East Coast to attend this time.
Cersei Capital's funds are unlikely to be transferred back to China in the short term. Nancy plans to formally contact EA this weekend, and it is likely that the money will not be used. However, after the revenue from all aspects is summarized in the second half of the year, it is not a big problem for Daenerys Entertainment to win EA within the budget of US$350 million even if it does not rely on the funds in the hands of Cersei Capital.
The meeting about the acquisition of EA ended, Simon sent the others away, and formally discussed the plan to acquire MCA with Amy and James.
After brokering the deal between Sony and Columbia, Michael Ovitz should have been pushing for Panasonic to acquire Universal parent company MCA, but this deal, like Sony's acquisition of Columbia, will also drag on for a long time. Simon has many opportunities to intervene. Hu.
Simon's plan to acquire MCA had only been slightly revealed to the female assistant before. Both Amy and James were very surprised, and excitement soon followed.
If it can win MCA, Daenerys Entertainment will become the largest studio in Hollywood. The company's past shortcomings in records, television, content and theme parks will also be immediately made up for.
Of course, this is not without its problems.
MCA's current market value is close to US$4 billion. Both Amy and James believe that Daenerys Entertainment may need to prepare US$8 billion in funds if it wants to win this company.
It's no secret that MCA Chairman Lou Vassalman made an $8 billion offer to Sony last year.
Because he is familiar with the economic trends in North America in the next year, Simon is more optimistic than both Amy and James, knowing that it will not take so much money to complete the acquisition. However, even if it reaches $8 billion, this number will not be a big problem for Simon.
The operation of the U.S. junk bond market ended two years ago, and Cersei Capital's capital volume was enough to reach US$8 billion. Next, the oil price turbulence caused by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War was enough for Simon to continue to make large sums of money.
Entering the 1990s, the prices of major Hollywood studios will only get higher and higher. The sooner Universal is acquired, the better it will be for Daenerys Entertainment.
Of course, this matter cannot be accomplished overnight.
This time Simon just informed Amy and James of his plan and asked them to start making some relevant preparations now. Compared with EA, which has a market value of less than US$200 million, if you want to win over MCA, a company that is already considered a giant in this era, it will take at least next year to officially take action.
At the same time, Simon did not intend to adopt a hostile takeover this time, so he did not let James start absorbing MCA shares in advance. Although this can save some money in future acquisitions, it can easily cause misunderstandings among MCA management, making Lou Vassalman and others think that Simon is launching a hostile takeover.
In order to save one or two billion US dollars, triggering hostility among MCA management is actually more gain than loss for a multi-billion dollar business.
Janet will arrive in Los Angeles around two o'clock in the afternoon. After finishing the meeting with the two of them, everyone will have lunch together, and Simon will rush to pick him up at Los Angeles International Airport.