Seven major awards including Best Picture and Best Director for "Dances with Wolves", Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay for "The Last Day", Best Actress for "Danger", Pixar The 3D animation "Little Lion" won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. This is the cumulative win for films produced by Daenerys Entertainment at the 61st Academy Awards.
If you don't count other honorary awards, Daenerys Entertainment's total of 11 major awards accounts for exactly half of the total 22 film awards. Just like the Golden Globe Awards in January, it became the biggest winner of this Oscar.
Simon has shown little interest in attending any parties these days. However, as a boss, you need to show your face at the celebration party both emotionally and rationally.
Arriving at the Gucci theme party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Sofia, it was almost ten o'clock.
Walking through the party crowd to congratulate tonight's winners, Simon soon came to a middle-aged man who was chatting with John Lasseter and Ed Catmull.
The middle-aged man’s name is Roger Ahlers. He is an animated film director and screenwriter hired by Pixar Animation Studio from Disney. He has previously participated in Disney’s “The Adventures of Olivier” and other films, and is also tonight’s award-winning 3D animated short film. "Little Lion" serves as director.
In the original time and space, Roger Ahlers happened to be the director of Disney's 2D version of the "Lion King" movie.
From the end of 1988 to the present, for more than two years, Pixar has been developing animation technology related to "The Lion King" while producing "Toy Story".
"Little Lion", which won the statuette tonight, is the epitome of Pixar's technological development achievements in the past two years.
The five-minute video, through the short adventure of a little lion living on the savannah, comprehensively demonstrates the magnificent African savannah scenes and animal hair rendering technology in 3D animation mode.
Now, it has successfully won the Oscar for Best Short Film, which is enough to prove that Pixar's technology has reached the level that can produce a 3D version of "The Lion King", and the film will be officially launched in the near future.
After Simon congratulated Roger Ahlers for winning the award, he added: "I will take time to look at the storyboard presentation of "The Lion King" in the next few days. Roger, this is my gift to Jenny. If you mess up My wife will be very angry."
Although it was only an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, Roger Ahlers was still quite excited tonight. After hearing this, he immediately nodded confidently and said: "Simon, I promise you, this will definitely be a very exciting story. "
Simon smiled, then turned to John Lasseter and said, "John, how long will it take to complete "Toy Story"? You have already overspent a lot?"
In the original plan, Simon hoped to spend $30 million to complete "Toy Story."
However, perhaps due to the natural perfectionism of any artist, "Toy Story" is expected to take several months to complete, but the team led by John Lasseter has already spent $33 million.
Although Simon was smiling, John Lasseter was still nervous.
Pixar Animation is definitely the most "freeloader" department of Daenerys Entertainment.
From the time it was bought by Simon in 1988 to now, more than two years ago, other departments of the company have been prospering, but Pixar Animation has been spending money without producing any output.
Therefore, it is clear to everyone that "Toy Story" can be said to be the last stand of the Pixar team. Once it fails, even if there is another chance to make a comeback with "The Lion King", the next two years for the Pixar team will definitely not be easy.
After thinking carefully for a moment, John Lasseter said: "Two months, Simon, give us another two months."
"Toy Story" is scheduled to be released in November at the end of this year, so there is actually plenty of time. However, if the project continues for one more month, it will definitely be an additional large expenditure. Naturally, the sooner it is completed, the better.
Simon pays attention to the progress of Pixar's work every month. He is very satisfied with the effect of the completed "Toy Story" sample, so he is not in a hurry.
The first 3D animated film will inevitably encounter various problems. Considering the profit prospects of the project, Simon could barely tolerate the overspending behavior of the Pixar team.
However, Simon would not show this indulgence, and still slapped him on the mouth.
After continuing to chat with John Lasseter and others for a while, Simon looked at Jennifer beside him, made sure that everyone who should say hello had been greeted, and planned to leave.
As soon as she arrived at the door of the party hall with her female assistant, Ella Deutschman walked over, accompanied by several men and women with Asian faces.
Coming to Simon, Ella Deutschman explained: "Simon, Zhang and the others want to say hello to you."
Among the many nominations for Daenerys Entertainment tonight, there is also "Ju Dou" which was nominated for the best foreign language film. This is also the first time that the other side of the ocean has been nominated for the Oscar for the best foreign language film.
Simon originally asked Deutschman to pay more attention to and introduce Asian films, but he did not show much extra attention to "Ju Dou".
Therefore, the film did not receive a statuette.
Looking at the big names in front of him who he could only look up to in his previous life, Simon smiled and stepped forward to shake hands with them one by one: "Hello, Mr. Zhang. And, Miss Gong, your performance in "Ju Dou" was very exciting. .”
Simon directly used Chinese in this greeting.
Several people in front of me showed surprised expressions when they heard Simon's fluent Mandarin. Even Ella Deutschman had a strange expression.
After all, they are people from two different worlds. After just a few polite words and saying that they would work together again next time, Simon left the Beverly Hilton Hotel with his female assistant.
I still have to go back to Dumei Point Manor tonight.
Janet was just pregnant, and even though the woman wouldn't mind, Simon cared about her emotions in these small details, so he never stayed out overnight during this period.
He left with his female assistant just to take her home.
As they drove through downtown Los Angeles late at night, Jennifer keenly felt some subtle changes in Simon's mood after he greeted the Orientals just now. This was a... mood that could probably be called loneliness, but he didn't say anything. He just held the man's arm and leaned closer.
In fact, my man has always had many secrets.
But if he didn't tell her, she wouldn't pursue it deliberately.
After sending the assistant back to her uncle George Norman's house, Simon did not stop and continued back to Malibu.
The next day, as usual, there were reports about this Oscar.
Daenerys Entertainment won half of the statuettes, which naturally became the focus of heated discussion in the media.
Fortunately, although there are some politically correct elements in it, "Dances with Wolves", which won seven awards, did not cause much controversy. Instead, many media still noticed some other films produced by Daenerys Entertainment. The fact that Outstanding Film was not nominated.
In addition, some people also noticed Simon's "absence" at this year's Oscars.
It’s not just that Simon was absent from the Oscars, but that Simon did not receive any personal nominations at this year’s Oscars. For a while, some media began to speculate whether Simon planned to stop acting.
After all, with Simon's current net worth, there is really no need to shoot movies himself.
In the face of media inquiries, Daenerys Entertainment denied the media speculation, but also stated that Simon may not be able to pick up the guide tube himself for a long time in the future.
Due to the Oscar ceremony and the Easter schedule, the box office of "Dances with Wolves" rebounded again. During the week of the Oscar ceremony from March 22 to March 28, the decline reached 59%, and then closed again. 6.54 million US dollars, and the film’s cumulative box office has reached 139 million US dollars.
On March 29, the second week of the Easter period begins.
Two other films related to Daenerys Entertainment, "Children of the Corn 3" and "One Wild Night" produced by Universal Pictures, were released.
New World Pictures invested a budget of US$10 million for "Children of the Corn 3" and also used many of the latest CG special effects, trying to make this horror film series hit the box office level of "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
However, after three days of filming, the North American box office of "Children of the Corn 3" was only US$6.73 million. The box office in the first week is expected to be between 9 million and 10 million. The total North American box office is expected to be about US$30 million.
Making money is certain, but there is still some gap between it and the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
Of course, compared to the $15 million box office level of the first two films, "Children in the Cornfield 3" is expected to double the box office growth is still very obvious, so the fourth part of the series will still maintain a production budget level of tens of millions of dollars.
"One Night," produced by John Hughes, only had a box office of $4.02 million in its first three days. The film's reputation is far inferior to that of "Home Alone," which is still in theaters.
The production budget of this romantic comedy movie is US$11 million, and the total North American box office is expected to be less than US$15 million. It only relies on North American theater distribution, and it is unlikely to recover the cost.
After the box office of "One Wild Night" was released, other studios that were originally chasing John Hughes because of the success of "Home Alone" have calmed down a little, and involuntarily transferred more factors for the success of "Home Alone" to Simon .
After Easter on March 31, time entered April 1991.
That's the end of AOL's three-month free trial program.
In the past March, the number of online reservation users in the United States still reached 1.5 million, and a total of 1.09 million free trial users have been connected again.
Among the 970,000 trial users in February, the number that eventually became official users reached 560,000. Compared with the official user conversion rate in January, the conversion rate increased again, reaching 57%.
Relying on data from the first two months, AOL predicts that among the 1.09 million free trial users in March, the number of official users will reach more than 600,000.
Calculating this, in the first quarter alone, AOL will gain more than 1.5 million new users.
Including user accumulation before 1991, it is expected that by the end of April, the number of official paying users of AOL will reach more than 2.3 million.
Under such a strong growth momentum, because there were still a large number of users who had reserved free trials in the past few months but had not successfully accessed it, AOL officials soon announced that the free trial activities would continue until all the remaining 2.5 million reserved users had access. Free trial opportunity available.
The remaining 2.5 million reservation users, even if the conversion rate is 50%, can once again bring about 1.25 million official paying users to AOL.
Therefore, after the free trial is completely over, the number of AOL users will reach more than 3.5 million.
Based on the average monthly consumption of a single user of US$30, it is expected that starting in the second half of 1991, AOL's monthly revenue will reach more than US$100 million.
Whether it is solid revenue data or high growth rates visible to the naked eye, they are constantly stimulating AOL's IPO valuation.
Morgan Stanley, which officially signed a contract to underwrite AOL's IPO, finally confirmed AOL's IPO valuation at US$2.5 billion after several consecutive adjustments.
With a valuation of US$2.5 billion, AOL is expected to raise US$375 million based on a planned 15% issuance ratio of new shares.
Taking into account the rapid growth of AOL's own revenue, after completing the IPO, the company will completely get rid of the financial troubles it has been entangled in before.
On the other hand, with the efforts of AOL and other regional Internet service providers in North America, it is expected that in the first half of 1991 alone, the number of World Wide Web platform users in North America will exceed 5 million, and the number of users will reach 10 million throughout the year. Seems very relaxed.
This growth rate far exceeds Simon's initial expectations.
No wonder I remember that after Jeff Bezos saw the 2,300% annual growth rate of the Internet industry, he quickly switched from the financial industry to join it.
As the most important content platform of the World Wide Web system, the Igret Portal has gradually received more and more attention with the explosive growth of the number of World Wide Web users.
You know, in this era, the average sales volume of the largest newspaper in North America is only more than 2 million copies.
During this period, the Yigrit portal, which quickly became famous for its coverage of the Gulf War, has a total number of users in North America of more than 3 million.
Although the user base of Yigret Portal is too scattered, at this time, no one dares to ignore this rapidly growing new media platform.
Therefore, in the new quarter advertising sales campaign of Yigrit Portal in late March, Yigrit received a total of more than 12 million US dollars in advertising orders from IBM, Intel, Microsoft and other technology giants.
Although it is difficult for traditional daily necessities advertising to achieve much effect on the Internet platform, it is obvious that as an emerging new technology media platform, the Igret portal is suitable for technology giants such as IBM to promote their products.
Jeff Bezos accurately grasped this point and specially customized a series of advertising programs specifically for various technology companies. The advertising order of US$12 million may be insignificant compared to traditional media giants, but it is a leap forward for the Yigrit portal.
Prior to this, the main source of income of Igret was only the sales of IE browser software.
Therefore, after this quarterly advertising sales event at the end of March, advertising business revenue has officially become a revenue focus of Yigret Portal.
At the same time, the industry is generally once again aware of the strong monopoly advantage of Igret Portal on the World Wide Web content platform.
You know, a portal website that only provides news information may not be technically difficult, but it is not that easy to integrate functions such as email, personal homepage, online forums, and online games in addition to news information. thing.
More importantly, Igret also has very strong patent barriers.
This is the fundamental obstacle that makes it difficult for other technology companies to copy the portal business.
On the World Wide Web platform, even web images that many people think are very simple, are actually professional format images specially developed and registered by Yigrit with technology patents. Not to mention technologies such as JavaScript scripting language involved in underlying applications.
Although Daenerys Entertainment maintains a very open attitude towards licensing, more and more other websites joining the World Wide Web platform can easily obtain authorization by applying, and the authorization is free. However, it is not difficult to imagine that if someone plans to make a commercial website similar to the Yigrit portal and can successfully obtain the technology license from Yigrit, that would be a fool.
Simon hopes that Internet content websites can flourish, so he does not intend to restrict the emergence of other content platforms. Doing so will not be beneficial to the expansion of the World Wide Web platform itself.
However, if it only licenses patents for open content and cannot access patent licenses for related technologies such as email, online games, and future online payments, it will be difficult to build a similar website to compete with the Igret portal.