Fox couldn't wait to hold a press conference the next day, announcing the official launch of "Terminator 2" as one of Daenerys Entertainment's 10 film projects.
Counting "Terminator 2", Daenerys Entertainment has confirmed 6 of the 10 films it plans to collaborate with.
The global box office of "Terminator" back then was only over 78 million U.S. dollars, but it instantly established Schwarzenegger as a top action actor in Hollywood. This shows the influence of this movie. Therefore, the project of "Terminator 2" immediately attracted strong attention from the media and movie fans.
James Cameron has already completed the script of "Terminator 2". With the green light jointly given by Daenerys Entertainment and Fox Pictures, the film is expected to start shooting in the middle of the year and be released in the summer of next year.
After the weekend, preparations for "The Fugitive" also achieved a breakthrough.
Harrison Ford has officially joined the film, and his salary is also confirmed to be US$10 million.
The basic salary of male stars such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford has exceeded 10 million continuously, which means that the salary of Hollywood's top stars has officially entered the era of tens of millions of dollars.
The salary of filmmakers actually represents their status in Hollywood.
Without the emergence of Simon, due to the rapid expansion of the film market and the improvement of the economic situation, a large amount of hot money poured into Hollywood, and the 1990s would have been the era when top filmmakers had the strongest voice in Hollywood. This strength will continue until the rise of special effects movies in the new century.
Now, relying on the success of "Batman Begins", Simon has actually pioneered a film operation model in advance that is driven by IP and technology rather than relying on stars.
Of course, most people don't realize this yet.
Entering the new week, although Schwarzenegger agreed to participate in "Terminator 2", Simon still looked for the project "Kindergarten Police".
In my memory, "Kindergarten" is not completely a dark horse project. In addition to Schwarzenegger, the film's director Ivan Reitman is also very famous in Hollywood. He is the director of the "Ghostbusters" series and has two films. A few years ago, he also collaborated with Schwarzenegger on the relatively unconventional "Dragon Brothers and Mouse Brothers".
Schwarzenegger's agent mentioned at the reception at Joe Roth's house that Arnold was considering starring in Reitman's new film "Kindergarten."
However, because most people regarded the success of "The Mouse and Dragon" as an accident, Schwarzenegger did not have enough confidence to participate in another family-style comedy, so he finally chose "Terminator 2" .
After Simon learned about the general situation of "Kindergarten Police", he gave up the idea of competing for this project. This is not only because Reitman had to choose other actors after Schwarzenegger gave up, but the main reason is that the project has been signed by Universal.
As long as MCA can be successfully merged this year, Simon will have obtained this project, and there is no need to make any more moves now.
In my busy schedule, another week has passed quickly.
In the week from February 2 to February 8, "Batman Begins" took in another US$20.35 million with a 13% drop, bringing the cumulative box office to US$347.11 million.
However, this week, the movie that received the most media attention was still "Driving Miss Daisy."
In the ninth week of its release, the second week of its large-scale production, due to the recent continuous spread of word-of-mouth and popularity, the box office of "Driving Miss Daisy" not only did not fall back, but actually experienced a reverse decline, although it was only a weak 0.5%. But it was beyond the expectations of many people.
With a box office revenue of US$8.18 million in a single week, the cumulative box office of this originally unremarkable movie suddenly reached US$27.55 million.
With a box office of $27.55 million, it seems incomparable to any movie at the top of the list. However, among all 502 movies that entered theaters in the past year, "Driving Miss Daisy"'s box office performance of US$27.55 million has already ranked it 43rd on last year's box office list. It can be said that the box office performance exceeded 90% of the movies last year.
And, this is just the beginning.
After the box office results of "Driving Miss Daisy" were released last week, various box office evaluation agencies generally predicted that the film's total North American box office is expected to exceed US$60 million.
Now, with the film's large-scale opening in its second week, the excellent box office results are almost the same as the previous week, and Daenerys Entertainment has once again increased the number of screening screens for the film to 1,302 this week. The North American box office potential of "Driving Miss Daisy" clearly exceeds many people's wildest predictions.
This is likely to be another 100 million dollar box office club movie.
Moreover, it is definitely the movie with the lowest budget and cost last year that has a box office of 100 million yuan.
While the media is generally attracted by "Driving Miss Daisy", Daenerys Entertainment's "Pretty Woman" is scheduled for Valentine's Day and will be officially released on February 9. Because it was the off-season for movies, the distribution team easily raised 1,563 screens for "Pretty Woman."
Compared to the original Richard Gere, the new version of actor Pierce Brosnan is less well-known, and Julia Roberts has only barely reached a level of familiarity in the audience's impression in the past two years. The advantage of using these two actors as starring roles is that the cost of the film is further reduced, only 10 million US dollars.
Because several early internal test screenings received very good audience feedback, Daenerys Entertainment decided on a strategy of making up for it through publicity if the actors were not famous enough. The budget investment for the early publicity alone reached 7 million U.S. dollars, of which 5 million Dollars are earmarked for serving ads to each platform.
As long as the film's box office in the first week meets expectations, the marketing budget will be immediately increased.
On the first day of filming, "Pretty Woman" did not receive universal recognition from the media, and the average movie score was only barely passing. This is still taking into account Daenerys Entertainment's public relations factors.
Time magazine unceremoniously criticized the film as 'a cliche Hollywood assembly-line production'.
The film critic of the "Chicago Reader" commented with irony, "The actor pays $3,000, and then they fall in love. This is really very Hollywood." "Entertainment Weekly" also criticized "Pretty Woman" in a satirical tone: "The story is that Roberts' character suddenly changed for the better after meeting a rich man, and learned to cry in the opera house."
However, these comments with a sense of superiority unique to intellectuals did not affect the film's reputation in the minds of the audience.
In fact, most ordinary people's requirements are not high, just a simple story that can resonate.
Moreover, the audience of "Pretty Woman" is much larger than that of "Driving Miss Daisy".
Coupled with Daenerys Entertainment's sparing-out promotional campaign to cater to the Valentine's Day atmosphere, "Pretty Woman" earned a box office of US$12.47 million in the three days of its opening weekend.
For the entire subsequent week, due to the significant increase in moviegoer numbers around Valentine's Day on February 14, the seven-day box office of "Pretty Woman" finally reached $19.16 million in its first week, edging out "Batman Begins" in one fell swoop. It held the top spot at the box office for seven consecutive weeks.
In the eighth week of its release, the box office of "Batman Begins" dropped by 19%, and it collected another US$16.51 million, ranking second. The cumulative box office reached US$363.62 million, steadily advancing towards the box office of 400 million US dollars.
This week's third place is no longer "Driving Miss Daisy", but "The Seven Years Storm", an action movie starring Steven Seagal produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, which earned 12.14 million in its first week. Dollar.
Under the impact of two new films, the number of screens for "Driving Miss Daisy" increased to 1,302 this week, and the box office still achieved an 11% decline, collecting another US$8.95 million, and the cumulative box office reached US$35.5 million.
In the off-season at the box office like February, when the reputation is not very good, the box office of "Pretty Woman" was able to get 19.16 million US dollars in the first week. The box office performance of "Pretty Woman" exceeded most people's expectations. This also allowed the film to gain more media attention, or controversy.
At the same time, among the audience, although there are also some people who do not agree with the concepts expressed in the film, most viewers like the film very much and begin to recommend it to people around them.
Therefore, in the second week of filming, with Valentine's Day already behind us, the box office drop of "Pretty Woman" was only a very weak 5.5%. The box office of the second week was US$18.11 million, which was almost not much compared to the first week. A clear decline. In just two weeks, "Pretty Woman" quickly accumulated a box office of 37.27 million US dollars.
There is no doubt that the first box office dark horse of 1990 was born.
Moreover, it is still from Daenerys Entertainment and it is still from Simon Westeros.
Simon has tried to stay out of the media spotlight as much as possible after the release of Batman Begins late last year. In order to achieve this goal, Simon's 22nd birthday on February 22 was spent quietly with Janet.
Now, with the renewed success of "Pretty Woman," the media's attention has once again turned to him.
The first news that attracted media attention was that the richest man in the federation, who had just celebrated his 22nd birthday, was to marry his girlfriend Janet Johnston next month.
Regarding this matter, in fact, media outlets have been stationed in Melbourne for a long time recently to follow up on the preparations for the wedding in real time.
Naturally, the media began to create various topics around Simon and Janet's wedding. The most discussed was undoubtedly Simon's personal wealth and various situations after the two got married. Because of the age difference between the two, many media outlets were not optimistic about the marriage. An article in the New York Times specifically reminded Simon to sign a prenuptial agreement.
Then, the topic naturally extended to how much money Simon has now.
6 billion U.S. dollars, this is a well-known and authoritative figure published by Forbes Rich List.
However, this is already the data from August last year.
What now
Along with such a topic, the Wall Street Journal suddenly exposed a full-year financial report of Daenerys Entertainment last year on February 23, the day after Simon’s birthday.
Although Daenerys Entertainment has to pay a lot of large expenses for company expansion, because Daenerys Entertainment has too many successful projects in the past two years that continue to provide huge income for this company that was only established for more than three years, Daenerys Entertainment last year was The net profit after tax reached an astonishing US$531 million.
This is indeed a very astonishing number.
In the past year, although the financial reports of many companies in the United States have not yet been released, according to data from previous years, the profit scale exceeded 500 million U.S. dollars, which is enough for Daenerys Entertainment to squeeze into the top 50 of the U.S. corporate profit rankings. .
Moreover, compared to Daenerys Entertainment’s qualifications, other companies with the same level of profits are all giant-level entities that have been operating for more than ten years.
Such as Motorola.
For the fiscal year ending in September last year, the electronics giant Motorola's full-year net profit was only US$490 million, which was its best financial performance in recent years.
At the same time, with the late-stage operations of multiple projects last year, especially "Batman Begins," many media have predicted that Daenerys Entertainment's profits this year are likely to double. Once this happens, it will undoubtedly be even more terrifying.
You know, Daenerys Entertainment is a company that Simon Westeros personally owns 100% of.
Not to mention this year, just based on last year’s profit scale of US$531 million and the most conservative price-to-earnings ratio of 10 times, compared with the US$3 billion valuation of Daenerys Entertainment made by Forbes last year, this rapidly rising Hollywood film company The company's market value this year is also enough to exceed $5 billion.
Not counting all of Simon Westeros' other assets, this alone is almost enough for him to maintain his position as the richest man in the Federation.
Some people not only asked, is Daenerys Entertainment really worth 5 billion US dollars
Movies have always been a high-risk business. They may be very good in the last few years, but they may be in the doldrums in the following years.
However, as soon as this question was raised, it was met with the most solid refutation.
Marvel!
Yes, Marvel Entertainment is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment.
The success of just one project, "Batman Begins," is expected to bring $1 billion in profits to the parties involved. This is just the beginning of the DC Cinematic Universe.
Now that the first film is successful, a huge plan of more than 10 movies has recently been announced. Under the personal control of Simon Westeros, even if it cannot achieve the opening results of "Batman Begins", it will definitely easily surpass Hollywood. most of the projects.
Moreover, the biggest advantage of the DC movie universe plan is sustainability.
This means that Daenerys Entertainment and Time Warner no longer have to bear the strong uncertainty of box office prospects every time like operating traditional film projects.
Therefore, anyone with a little foresight can undoubtedly see the potential of Marvel, which is completely owned by Daenerys Entertainment in addition to the DC movie universe plan.
Warner Bros. Pictures planned to sell DC for tens of millions of dollars a few years ago. Now, just because of the success of "Batman Begins", Steve Ross will not even offer $1 billion. Agree to sell. What's more, any of DC's popular superheroes may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Then, Marvel, which also owns a large number of superhero copyrights, is undoubtedly a super gold mine.
This alone is enough to support Daenerys’ entertainment value.
As a society where the media is operated commercially, if there is attention, there will be people digging for news.
After the "Wall Street Journal" broke the news about Daenerys Entertainment's annual financial report and attracted attention, another financial magazine "Fortune" suddenly exposed another piece of information, which directly detonated public opinion: Simon Westeros asked the United States Data on foreign assets registered with the Internal Revenue Service.
cash.
$4.5 billion!