Because there are three more little ones, breakfast time in Shell Villa seems full of energy.
This is Monday, May 16th.
There are seven members of the family in the restaurant. Simon and his wife are sitting together as usual. Veronica is next to Melbourne, the female assistant is taking Nick, and Janet is taking Seattle next to her. She is happily teaching the unusually precocious little girl how to set the table. The food and utensils on the table are read one by one, and occasionally a certain food is rewarded for sucking, which makes little Nick drool in the special baby seat opposite. The two little ones are only six months old and are just joining in the fun. They can't take anything else except milk for the time being.
Seattle Xiaoxiao took a bite of the dragon fruit granules and spit it into the spoon obediently. Janet smiled and praised her, and noticed that the youngest son opposite looked at her with his eyes wide open, and gestured to reach the spoon across the dining table to seduce him. Said: "Little one, call mommy, and I'll give you something to eat."
Little Nick obviously couldn't scream, he just babbling and opened his mouth, his little face full of expectation.
Then, Janet decisively put the spoon back into her mouth, looking like she was enjoying it. The little guy who was tricked by his own mother finally couldn't help it and burst into tears.
The female assistant rolled her eyes at Janet, took little Nick out of the baby seat and gently coaxed her. She lifted up her clothes to feed the baby, and then she stopped crying.
Janet glanced at the female assistant who was feeding the child, then glanced sideways at her man, and finally turned to Seattle, like a wolf grandma: "Syl, do you want to eat too?"
Seattle nodded his head slightly, and his voice was still very soft, but he pronounced clearly: "Yeah."
Janet immediately showed a successful expression and shook her head with regret: "No..."
As Janet spoke, she felt that even her eldest son across from him was looking at her strangely. Simon could only pretend as if nothing had happened.
Unexpectedly, Janet was still causing trouble. She whispered something into Seattle's ear, then carried the little guy to the spacious dining table and said with a smile: "Go."
The female assistant looked at her daughter lying on the table and said helplessly: "Jenny, stop making trouble, I can't feed two children."
Janet smiled slyly, and gently pushed the little girl who was obviously hesitant. The child's beautiful eyes looked at both sides of the table, and then crawled towards Veronica.
Seeing her aunt's face change from surprise to rosy, Janet suddenly laughed out loud with schadenfreude and patted the table lightly.
Now that it had been made clear, Simon's life experience was no longer hidden from the female assistant. When she saw her daughter walking towards Veronica, she was worried that she would be embarrassed, so the female assistant wanted to take the child over first, but there was still a baby in her arms. The little one was so excited that he couldn't get up for a while.
Fortunately, before Seattle could reach its 'destination', Simon stood up, picked up his daughter, and handed it back to the overjoyed Janet.
Janet took the child, but did not encourage her to go to Veronica's side. She hugged the little girl with a smile and praised: "Sil is so smart..."
The female assistant noticed the slightly weird atmosphere in the restaurant and took the initiative to find a more formal topic and asked Simon: "Hillary is visiting our house at noon. Are you really not going to show up in person?"
Hillary, of course, is Hillary Clinton.
The president's wife is here to act as a lobbyist this time, for the Hearst Group.
Washington may be indifferent to the Hearst Group, which is now being demolished by everyone, but it cannot ignore the more than 20,000 employees of the Hearst Group and the union forces behind them. After all, these all mean votes. Last Friday, several major print media unions jointly submitted a petition to the White House demanding intervention in the Hearst Corporation mess. After a brief communication between the White House and Los Angeles, Clinton sent Hillary to come and speak in person today.
Simon has no intention of letting go of the Hearst family.
As for the $1 settlement condition, Simon was on the one hand to take away any capital that might allow the Hearst family to recover, and on the other hand to prevent the Hearst family from being desperate and choosing to lose both sides. After all, rabbits will bite when they are anxious.
People are always like this. As long as they have some hope or think they have room for change, they often won't go to extremes.
The Hearst family's hesitation after Simon made the offer was completely within his expectations.
When the female assistant asked, Simon knew what she was thinking and echoed: "Since the president's wife is here and you are hosting her, I won't join in the fun."
Both men in the White House are smart people.
If Simon doesn't come forward in person, the other party should understand his thoughts and won't pester him anymore.
The relationship between the Westeros system and the Clintons is far from reaching the point where they can advance and retreat together. Based on their respective positions, it is impossible to be that close. The two parties are basically in a relationship where cooperation benefits both parties. Simon will not 100% full support for Clinton, and the White House will not be 100% obedient to the Westeros system.
Of course, both sides also know their own importance. Even if it is impossible to completely advance and retreat together, no one will give up such a powerful ally easily.
Since the murder of Doris Fetcher was exposed, it is simply impossible for the Hearst Group to escape easily.
Simon's attitude was really the key to the whole thing.
The one-sided public crusade triggered by the murder of Doris Fetcher is time-sensitive after all, just like the News Corp. eavesdropping scandal in Simon's memory. Things have been turbulent for a while, but the Murdoch family has not been damaged and is still the world's leader. One of the most powerful media families in the world. Without the intervention of the Westeros system, the Hearst Group would have ended in the same way in this crisis. After all, the other party encouraged the assassination of the president and caused public outrage, and the result was only the closure of a newspaper.
The current situation is that, based on the murder of Doris Fetcher, the Hearst Group is also facing a comprehensive blockade and lawsuit bombardment from the Westeros system. The combination of the two is the most deadly. A single murder only acted as a catalyst, hastening the collapse of the Hearst Corporation.
If Simon could give up his total blockade of the Hearst Corporation and agree to a quick settlement of several huge claims and lawsuits, the Hearst Corporation would be able to breathe a sigh of relief, and it would be much easier for the Hearst Corporation to deal with the series of disturbances caused by the murder.
From the beginning of March to now, the Westeros system has actually been in trouble for more than two months. This all stems from the Hearst family's secret manipulation to expose the London girl incident, and the Hearst Group's subsequent quarrel with Simon after the two sides broke up. A massive unmasking attack.
It is only because the current Westeros system is strong enough, and the gossip exposed by the Hearst Group is far from as bad as the murder case, that it has not had too serious a substantial impact on the Westeros system.
However, Simon is still struggling to cope with the situation in the past two months.
Many planned schedules had to be cancelled.
"Suicide Squad" in Australia has been completed in April. As usual, Simon usually follows up on DC movie universe projects in person for at least a week, but this time he couldn't spare any time to go to Australia.
From the initial little discord to the current profound entanglement, it all stems from the endless entanglement of the Hearst family.
When Simon already had an absolute advantage, if he still took the initiative to let the opponent go, he would not be able to forgive himself.
This time, even if the rich Hearst family cannot be reduced to paupers all of a sudden, Simon will completely remove the Hearst family from the media industry and lose the huge media empire that supports their hidden power. Even if the Hearst family He can still retain some wealth, but he will also completely lose his former influence in this country.
Wealth and power have always been complementary to each other.
Without power, it will only be easier to continue to deprive a family of the remaining wealth.
Something Simon said to Lydia Hearst seemingly unintentionally when entertaining the Hearsts last week was no joke at all.
After breakfast, Veronica set off for New York. Janet was also going to go there. Black Rock Asset Management's merger and acquisition of State Street Bank's asset management department was at a critical moment. Because of the visit of the president's wife, the woman postponed her trip until tomorrow. After all, it was impossible for only a female assistant with a bad reputation to come forward to entertain her. Simon didn't care, but it would inevitably make Hillary feel slighted and offended.
Simon rushed to Daenerys Studios to start his day's work.
In order to avoid the edge of the super blockbuster "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" on June 3, the 1994 summer season officially opened last Friday.
A total of three new films were released in North American theaters on May 13, namely "Stargate" directed by Michael Bay, produced by Daenerys Entertainment, and "The Heart of the Race", a new film by the famous black director Spike Lee, produced by Columbia Pictures. ” and Disney’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” starring Meg Ryan.
The one that gets the most attention is undoubtedly "Stargate".
Since being announced as the director of "Jurassic Park 2" in early April and being picked out to direct the first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, Michael Bay's debut film has become the focus of much media discussion.
After several internal test screenings to roughly confirm the film's reputation, Daenerys Entertainment decisively invested a US$20 million promotional budget.
Including the film's production cost of 30 million U.S. dollars, the total investment in "Stargate" reached 50 million U.S. dollars, which is already a blockbuster level.
The new "Stargate" is indeed better than the original.
Michael Bay made full use of the action-adventure style that he would be good at later within the budget, and the plot no longer dragged out and was completed in one go.
The film no longer focuses on shaping the image of Jay Davidson's weird alien who is both male and female, but simply tells a high-concept story about humans leading alien natives to fight against evil aliens and gain freedom.
Although it is a high-concept movie at heart, the film's use of the wormhole theory is still very new in the Hollywood science fiction film genre, and this has therefore become a selling point of the film.
In terms of casting, Simon did not use James Spader, whose style is more suitable for literary films, or Jay Davidson, who became famous with "The Crying Game". The casting basically followed the routine of American commercial films, with an upright protagonist. A joking male partner and an eye-catching vase.
In the past "Stargate", the heroine was a relatively unknown newcomer, but this time Simon personally appointed the famous Hollywood beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has unknowingly accumulated a lot of fame in recent years. The slightly darker complexion of the British actress fits the style of the alien indigenous girl in the film very well.
After "Stargate" opened on 2,296 screens last Friday, the final media score reached 8.2.
The media and the public have been observing Michael Bay with a magnifying glass since the "Jurassic Park 2" project was officially announced, so it is inevitable that they are a bit harsh. Under this circumstance, "Stargate" was able to receive an excellent media score of 8.2 points. Michael Bay's first feature film was a perfect answer.
The film's box office is even more satisfactory.
In the first weekend from May 13th to May 15th, the box office of "Stargate" in the first three days of its opening was as high as 25.63 million U.S. dollars. It only took three days to achieve the sales level of over 10,000 in the theater. It is expected that the box office in the first week The starting point will be around US$36 million. This box office performance far exceeds the other two blockbuster movies Daenerys Entertainment had released in 1994, "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Phantom". It is almost certain that the box office will exceed 100 million.
As long as the domestic box office exceeds 100 million, "Stargate" can recover all costs through North American theater distribution alone, and subsequent channels will directly enter the profit cycle.
On the other hand, as of May 12, the cumulative box office of "Four Weddings and a Funeral", which had been in theaters for 13 weeks, reached US$104.55 million, becoming Daenerys Entertainment's first domestic box office hit of over 100 million in 1994. Movie.
This past weekend, "Four Weddings and a Funeral" collected another US$680,000, bringing the cumulative box office to US$105.23 million. The box office for the whole week is expected to be around US$1 million.
This literary romantic comedy still maintains a screening scale of 563 screens. Although the box office in a single week is about to fall below 1 million US dollars, with the film's strong reputation and long-term trend, it will not be a big problem to continue to earn 5 million US dollars in the future. , the final local box office will reach about 110 million US dollars.
Not only that, the overseas box office of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is even better. As of last week, the film's cumulative overseas box office has reached 153 million U.S. dollars, and is expected to exceed the 200 million U.S. dollar mark, and the total global box office may reach 300 million U.S. dollars. Dollar.
With a production cost of US$5 million and a box office return of US$300 million, "Four Weddings and a Funeral" almost locked up the film with the highest box office return in 1994.
Another Jim Carrey comedy "Planet" had a cumulative box office of US$77.26 million in the five weeks it was released as of May 12.
However, this past weekend, affected by the impact of three new films including "Stargate", the box office of "Planet" dropped by 31%, with only 4.13 million US dollars collected in three days. The box office for the whole week is expected to be around 6 million.
With the official opening of the summer season, due to its popcorn-like and vulgar comedy themes, "Planet Detective" will definitely continue to deepen its box office decline in the face of pressure from new films. As of last weekend, this movie has a cumulative box office of 81.39 million US dollars. For a blockbuster comedy, it is not a big problem for the total domestic box office to exceed 90 million US dollars, but the possibility of exceeding 100 million US dollars is already very small.
Moreover, because of its low-brow comedy style that focuses too much on local American culture, the overseas box office of "Phantom" is not very good. As of last week, it has only made a total of 33 million U.S. dollars in box office. The total overseas box office is expected to be about 50 million U.S. dollars.
The global box office is expected to be US$140 million, compared to the film's total investment of US$25 million, which is certainly a huge profit. However, Simon knows that Jim Carrey's box office appeal has not been fully stimulated, and he can only look forward to the release of "The Man in Disguise" at the end of the year. Box office performance.
As for the failure to break the 100 million mark locally, Simon is actually not sorry.
The total box office of more than 90 million US dollars and entering the 100 million yuan club are more of a symbolic meaning, and they have greater meaning for actors, especially actors like Jim Carrey who have just become famous.
Moreover, because of Jim Carrey's restless behavior of trying to modify the original contract immediately after he suddenly became famous, it is just right that "Plane Head" stopped at the box office at more than 90 million US dollars. Simon is not a stingy person. If Jim Carrien is on his own terms, and after the consecutive hits of "Phantom" and "Granny in Disguise", he will definitely give him a big red envelope.
Now, the comedian is just starting to make a fuss about his fame, and unfortunately, Simon will have nothing to offer.
"The Man in Disguise," which is being produced back-to-back with "Planet," has been completed. If Jim Carrey continues to be a bad guy, Simon doesn't mind keeping him in the cold for a few years. Several other Hollywood studios may be willing to accommodate themselves for a star who can bring blockbuster movies, but Daenerys Entertainment has too many good projects to develop, and no one is indispensable.