Among the series of blockbuster movies next year, Kevin Costner's new film "Waterworld", which was influenced by Simon the Big Butterfly, was transferred from Universal to Warner Bros., and will start shooting at the end of June. The original planned shooting period is three months. .
However, because it was not considered that Hawaiian water filming would be affected by tides, the expensive movie sets were repeatedly destroyed by waves. In addition, after the project started shooting, there were changes in directors and revisions of the script due to creative differences. Now three months have passed. The filming of this post-apocalyptic survival-style action blockbuster is less than half-way through.
Warner Bros. has set a budget of $70 million for "Waterworld."
Due to the budget overdraft caused by the continuous reconstruction of the water scenery, and the fact that hundreds of people were working in Hawaii to chew horses, the film had already burned through more than 50 million US dollars after three months of filming. The original budget of 70 million US dollars has naturally become a joke. .
A large amount of money has been invested, and Warner Bros. is in a difficult position and has to continue to inject funds into this project.
There are rumors in the circle that Warner hopes to complete this project within a budget of US$100 million. Only Simon knows that the previous "Waterworld" burned a total of US$175 million.
It’s still the simplest reason: it’s hard to get off the tiger.
70 million to 100 million, 100 million to 175 million. If you don’t want all the initial investment to be wasted, you can only keep adding more, which will eventually create a disaster.
In the past, Panasonic rushed to get rid of this big burden within a few years after acquiring Universal. This was largely due to the serious loss of control of "Waterworld". Knowing that it could not make it in Hollywood, it had to get out early.
In comparison, "Jurassic Park 2", which also started filming in Hawaii earlier, was successfully completed two weeks ago and entered the post-production stage.
In addition to the fact that Daenerys Entertainment never lets the film's creators keep a considerable degree of control over various projects, Michael Bay's excellent film skills were also clearly revealed during the filming of this blockbuster.
Warner has fallen into the big pit of "Waterworld" and cannot extricate itself. Another trap set by Simon in the first half of the year, "Cutthroat Island", is also being steadily advanced by its two partners, Paramount and Carlock. Because it involves a large-scale naval battle scene, the early preparations for the film are relatively complicated. The filming of this blockbuster will not start until the end of the year, and the release date will only be at the end of next year.
The family discussed various movie topics at the dining table. It was not until the end of the meal that Simon looked at Janet, who was chatting with Seattle after watching the female assistant put little Nick in her arms and started to pack the dishes and walk to the kitchen.
Janet whispered a few more words to her daughter, then handed the little girl to Simon and said with a smile: "Jenny has also prepared a bunch of scripts for you. This weekend, you can read the scripts while taking care of the children at home. .”
When Simon heard what Janet said, he quickly understood why the female assistant who had already given up work and focused on family life suddenly became interested in movies again today.
After all, it was still diverting his attention.
It is indeed better to let your man focus on movies than to think about murder and arson all day long.
Simon is very aware of the changes in himself over the past six months.
We also know that the higher you go to the top of the pyramid, the more wild beasts are rampant. If you are a sheep, even if you pretend to be a sheep, the result will be very miserable. Now that he has reached his current position, unless he can immediately give up many of the things he already owns, the future development of the Westeros system will inevitably have to deal with many things.
According to widespread public opinion, both high-level politics and large groups are inherently evil.
This is actually not true at all.
Because the interests involved at the top of the pyramid are too great and the living space is too narrow, if you want to maintain your status, you must use various means that go beyond the rules of ordinary people. During this period, it is inevitable that some fish, shrimps, shells and crabs living at the bottom of the pyramid will be affected.
Even if Simon is willing to give up something now, what he gets is unlikely to be goodwill.
Some will simply see the weakness of the Westeros system and covet more, until they can carve up everything Simon has now.
However, since the female assistant has made arrangements, Simon will stay at home to take care of the children for two days on the weekend, and read a lot of scripts from various parties to prepare for the next stage of Daenerys Entertainment’s external cooperation plan. Prepare.
New week.
The first major event is the official release of the financial information software Alia.
After all, Bloomberg’s lawsuit failed to affect the development pace of Aaliyah Company. With the unremitting publicity of the Westeros system media platform, the story of the establishment of Aaliyah Company by Girl B of the ABCD four girls around Simon was widely circulated. Some media The press release also half-truthfully hinted that the Alia software will obtain exclusive financial insider information from the Westeros system. In just a few days, this newly launched software has gained widespread attention across the country.
With the recovery of the U.S. stock market and the increasingly hot technology stock market, coupled with software prices that even ordinary people can afford, Alia's software sales easily exceeded 10,000 units within two and a half days of its launch.
This is because Girl B did not put the Alia software in the already widely recognized Yigrit software store.
Of course it's not because I can't bear the commission from the software store.
Girl B hopes that through more complete services, every software buyer can feel Alia's value for money. Therefore, Alia Company does not choose to let people actively download and purchase from the Internet, but every software buyer who intends to purchase the software Customers will receive one-on-one explanations from Aaliyah's customer service staff via phone or online.
This not only allows customers to understand the functions of Alia at the first time, but also tempers Alia's own team, making everyone in the company more familiar with this software.
Therefore, when the software was officially released, except for some members of the technical and data departments who had to stick to their posts, everyone else was temporarily pulled to serve as customer service, including Girl B herself.
It’s just that Aaliyah’s own employees are obviously not enough.
After reaching some cooperation agreements with Cersei Capital and Goldman Sachs on data sharing and customer diversion, Lady B also temporarily seconded 100 employees from the two companies to participate in customer service work. These were originally from the bond and stock sales departments. The employees, who had previously participated in the trial of Alia software, had become adept at accepting their own position change in less than a day.
Moreover, feeling the excellent development prospects of Aaliya Company, many seconded employees took the initiative to submit employment applications to the senior management of Aaliya Company after working more than ten hours of heavy overtime for several consecutive days, hoping to change jobs and become Aaliya Company. regular employees.
Girl B welcomed this and began communicating with Cersei Capital and Goldman Sachs.
Apparently not intending to give up easily, Bloomberg saw that neither the patent litigation nor the complaint to the SEC had an immediate effect, so it began to find fault again. Two days after the official release of the software, Michael Bloomberg personally went into battle in an interview with the media, accusing Alia of being involved in Spreading misleading and false information to users, and citing Aaliyah’s cooperation with Cersei Capital and Goldman Sachs, questioning the existence of insider trading.
The Westeros system is certainly not blindly defensive.
Salomon Brothers, which was already struggling after the national debt scandal two years ago, suddenly launched a $1 billion lawsuit against Bloomberg. The target was that the Bloomberg terminal allegedly misappropriated a large number of data analysis models within Salomon Brothers, and for the first time A lot of evidence was published on the Internet at one time.
Before the establishment of Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg worked at Salomon Brothers for 15 years, once reaching the position of partner. The first batch of Bloomberg employees were all from Bloomberg.
Therefore, it is conceivable that the design ideas of the Bloomberg terminal cannot escape some influence from Salomon Brothers.
In fact, although every financial giant on Wall Street has its own unique analysis model for bonds and stock markets, fundamentally, many things are the same, just like mathematical theorems, they are there, even if the user makes various transformations, It remains true to its roots, so there is no patent at all.
When Bloomberg sued Aaliyah before, it could only use software patent infringement as a weapon.
Michael Bloomberg has left Salomon Brothers for more than ten years. Salomon Brothers, which was prosperous in the 1980s, did not care about the establishment of a financial information company. Now Salomon Brothers has declined. Under other circumstances, it is unlikely. Have the strength to find trouble with Bloomberg.
However, if there are other factors behind this, everything will be logical.
Bloomberg filed a lawsuit against Aaliyah, looking for all kinds of troubles. Of course, the Westeros system will not allow Bloomberg to look like a man in a suit and tie. Let’s throw some dust on it first.
How many people in this world can be spotlessly clean
Not only that, many investment banks and funds on Wall Street that are closely related to the Westeros system have also said that they may consider strengthening cooperation with Aria Company and abandoning the use of old and expensive Bloomberg terminals.
Alia is unlikely to replace the full-featured and powerful Bloomberg terminal any time soon.
So, naturally, this is just a threat, but one that Michael Bloomberg cannot ignore.
Wall Street is paying attention to the hoopla surrounding Aaliyah and Bloomberg. In the wider public media, ordinary people are beginning to see more and more information about the new annual Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.
The new Forbes 400 Richest Americans list will be released in the new issue of Forbes magazine on October 10.
Forbes Group also announced that relevant lists will appear simultaneously on Forbes' official website.
In recent years, because of a certain young tycoon's meteoric rise on the wealth list, many people have become numb to that figure that leaves no room for fantasy. However, it is this kind of meteoric rise that almost makes Everyone wants to know how much a certain guy's net worth has reached this year.
With the listing of Daenerys Entertainment Group in July, Simon has become a $300 billion rich man in many media. However, most media statistics are not as authoritative as Forbes magazine has accumulated over the years.
Malibu, Daenerys Studios.
In the blink of an eye, it’s October 7th, another Friday.
Simon has been staying in Los Angeles this week, focusing on various stages of production for Daenerys Entertainment on a series of film projects through the end of the year and next year.
The afternoon agenda is to discuss the film’s post-editing and special effects matters with the “Jurassic Park 2” team.
We held a meeting, watched the samples, and discussed the details with the special effects team. We were busy from two o'clock in the afternoon to more than five o'clock. At the end of the day, Amy Pascal personally brought the photographer over and asked Simon, Michael Bay and others to The main creator set up a pose for serious discussion in front of the console in the special effects studio. The images on the monitor on the console were all carefully selected, and then he took a series of photos before finishing the work with satisfaction.
The photos will be published as press releases on Daenerys Entertainment's official website, the group's official Facebook account, the Igrit portal and some print media platforms that have good relations with Daenerys Entertainment.
The title is probably something like 'Simon Westeros discusses post-production of Jurassic Park 2 with film creators'.
During this period, there have been media reports that Simon has completely let go of the management of Daenerys Entertainment Group, which has even affected the stock price of Daenerys Entertainment. This is probably the main purpose of some people.
The photos taken now are a kind of clarification and counterattack.
In fact, if Simon doesn't want to, no one can force him to do anything. Simon's strategy in the media at this stage is to make himself invisible as much as possible. However, as the effort of his own creation, Simon has a deep affection for Daenerys Entertainment after all. Amy brought it up when they had dinner together at noon, and Simon readily agreed.
It is just an internal photo of the studio. It can not only clarify that Simon has not given up his management of Daenerys Entertainment, but also have a promotional effect on "Jurassic Park 2". At the same time, it will not reveal much private information. It can be said that it is a swoop. get more.
After finishing the work here, Simon returned to the administrative area on the third floor of the cinema.
MGM CEO Shirley Lansing was already waiting in Simon's office with a man and a woman.
Seeing Simon come in, the three of them stood up to say hello.
The men and women around Shirley Lansing are Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson. They are a pair of half-brothers and sisters from the UK. They are also the two Broccoli families who control half of the copyrights of the 007 series. A new leader.
MGM used to be in a state of limbo until it was acquired by Sony, so it relied heavily on the 007 series that had been prosperous for decades. Because of this dependence, the Broccoli family, which owns half of the copyright of 007, has always had absolute control over this classic agent series.
Times change.
Today's MGM is no longer the shabby establishment that Simon remembered. A series of blockbuster films in recent years have allowed MGM to continue to recover. Coupled with Simon's support, there is no longer any dependence on the 007 series.
Everyone owns half of the copyright, and in fact has equal power.
When MGM no longer relies on the 007 series, the previous power structure will also change.
After cooperating in advance to develop "007: GoldenEye", the Broccoli family became tougher in the face of Simon's strong demand to take back control of the 007 series. However, MGM no longer relies on 007, but this series is where all the interests and glory of the Broccoli family lie. As a result, the initiative of both parties has been completely reversed.
As the previous generation head of the Broccoli family, Albert Broccoli, became old and frail and completely unable to manage, the two heirs began to soften their stance.
In 1991, "007: GoldenEye" was released, and the two parties fell out in early 1992.
Until now.
During this period, the Broccoli family tried to reconcile several times, but Simon did not agree.
Of course, Simon has no plans to permanently refrigerate the 007 series. He has been waiting for more than two years. Now that MGM has regained a certain amount of strength, it is enough to support the next stage of recovery and expansion. When the time is right, he will relent at the right time.