After accompanying Sofia for a week, Simon left Rome and returned to Los Angeles on February 6. The woman stayed at the manor in the southern suburbs of Rome to continue raising the baby. Until the baby is born, most of Melisandre's affairs will be handed over to her deputy Angela. Ahrendts was in charge.
While Simon is away from Hollywood, in addition to the successful conclusion of the Sundance Film Festival and the hosting of the 52nd Golden Globe Awards Dinner, there is another thing that has just passed during the box office week from January 27 to February 2. It happened naturally: "Toy Story 2", which was released during Thanksgiving last year, continued to earn US$4.31 million after its 11th week of release. The cumulative box office officially exceeded the US$300 million mark, reaching US$300.56 million, becoming the 1994 The third movie of the year to hit $300 million at the domestic box office.
"Suicide Squad," another local $300 million film, grossed $10.37 million in its seventh week of release from January 27 to February 2, with a cumulative box office of $278.36 million, just short of the $300 million mark. There is only a gap of US$22 million, and it is only a matter of time before the threshold is successfully crossed.
In addition, "Red Zone", released on January 27, can be regarded as a good start for Daenerys Entertainment in 1995.
In the first seven days of its opening, with its excellent reputation and 1,736 screening screens, the box office of "Red Zone" reached US$14.19 million in its first week, with the average ticket sales exceeding US$8,000 in a single week. Although it did not reach the sales level of over 10,000 US dollars, in 1 It is still a niche Hong Kong film in such an unpopular schedule at the end of the month, and its results have exceeded everyone's expectations.
When Simon returned to Los Angeles, the second weekend box office of "Red Zone" had also been released. The three-day drop in the second weekend was only 27% year-on-year, with a revenue of 6.34 million U.S. dollars. The cumulative box office in the ten days after its release exceeded 20 million, reaching 20.53 million U.S. dollars.
In comparison, the production cost of "Red Zone" was only US$7.5 million, and as a co-investor, New World Pictures, a subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment, only received the film's investment share in North America and Europe with an investment share of US$2.5 million. With omni-channel distribution rights, the film’s initial publicity budget in North America was only US$3 million.
Now, a total investment of 5.5 million U.S. dollars has earned more than 20 million U.S. dollars in box office in 10 days. The total North American box office may reach 35 million to 40 million U.S. dollars, not to mention Europe and subsequent video and TV channels. Taken together, , the total return this movie brings to Daenerys Entertainment may exceed that of many blockbuster projects.
Now that "Red Zone" has been successful, "Rush Hour" can also be successfully put on the agenda.
The previous "Rush Hour" script was basically compiled on the fly according to the routines of Hong Kong movies, and it was specially tailored for Jack Cheng. It was also a standard and even somewhat common Hollywood buddy movie model. Simon came up with a similar idea that did not exist. Possibility of crash.
However, Simon did not do the writing himself. He just proposed a rough script idea with New World Pictures president Danny Morris and asked him to find a screenwriter to improve it on his own. The key to the success of "Rush Hour" is the wonderful pairing of Jack Cheng and Chris Tucker, and the details of the plot are not that important.
Malibu, Daenerys Studios.
The time is already Wednesday, February 8th.
Back in Los Angeles, Simon has devoted much of his energy to a series of film projects currently in development or already in production at Daenerys Entertainment.
Work started at nine o'clock this morning, three hours, three consecutive production meetings, one about "Charlie's Angels", "The Mummy" and "Game of the Jumanji", which were among the four external cooperation projects finalized last year. Three, and the other "The Bourne Supremacy", as part of the 'Agent Cinematic Universe', will not be launched until after the release of "Charlie's Angels".
Of the three projects that have been launched, the first to be released is "The Mummy" in collaboration with Fox. It is initially scheduled for next summer, and "Charlie's Angels" and "Jumanji" will have to wait until the end of next year.
None of the three partners are satisfied with this arrangement, but there is nothing they can do about it.
After all, there is still the problem of too many projects.
Unless you want to kill each other, there will definitely be no suitable schedule this year. Even next year, the blockbusters that have been finalized include the reboot of the new 007 movie, "Sleepy Hollow" directed by Tim Burton, Dan Nelise collaborated with Paramount on "Mission: Impossible 2" and another sequel in the DC Cinematic Universe, "Wonder Woman 2."
In addition, there are the indispensable sequels to the "Conjuring Cinematic Universe" and some other mid- to low-cost key projects. With these three movies, the 1996 schedule is already extremely crowded. Simon's originally planned "Days of Independence" and the early envisioned "Justice League" will be postponed as a result, otherwise all films will not be able to achieve their due box office potential.
During the morning meeting, Simon and the production team basically finalized the production ideas for the three projects.
"The Mummy" co-produced with Fox will use the original plot in Simon's memory without making many changes.
The "Charlie's Angels" collaboration with MGM is a completely new concept, with Simon personally writing the script.
In the final "Game of the Brave", after weighing between the 1995 version and the 2017 version in his memory, Simon decided to use the 2017 version starring Dwayne Johnson, which was invaded by the game and invaded the game. Obviously the latter was easier to give. The audience brings a sense of immersion.
Even after adjusting for inflation, the box office of the 2017 version is much higher than that of the 1995 version. The global box office in memory is close to 1 billion US dollars.
The main reason why Simon hesitates is that if the Dwayne Johnson version is used, a male protagonist with a high salary needs to be selected, perhaps Schwarzenegger or Stallone. If it's just a one-time collaboration, it's okay. A salary of 15 million or even 20 million is no problem. The key is that if the first one is successful and it cooperates with big names like Schwarzenegger, the sequel will be very difficult.
Simon still clearly remembers that Schwarzenegger specially prepared a strong team of lawyers to negotiate with the film studio for "Terminator 3". The final investment in "Terminator 3" was as high as 200 million US dollars. The global box office of "Terminator 3" barely exceeded 400 million US dollars. Investors were busy, but Schwarzenegger easily received a huge salary of 30 million U.S. dollars. This is a typical case of movie companies working for stars.
Simon will not allow this to happen to Daenerys Entertainment.
What's more, the 2017 version of "Game of the Brave" still has four protagonists. Once the first part is successful, the salaries of the four protagonists will increase.
Now that the plan has been finalized, the first thing Simon has to solve is the issue of actors.
In the 2017 version in my memory, Sony was actually very economical. Except for Dwayne Johnson, whose salary reached 20 million U.S. dollars, the others were not considered big names. Therefore, the total production cost was only 90 million U.S. dollars, with a budget of less than 100 million U.S. dollars. , is no longer considered a blockbuster after more than 20 years, but the film's final global box office exploded to nearly 1 billion US dollars.
This time, Simon will not save money on special effects, but directly finalizes a budget of $100 million.
US$100 million in 1995 and US$100 million in 2017 are obviously not the same concept.
Not only that, Simon also plans to limit the main creative expenses to US$25 million, including the producer, director and four protagonists. For this, he can provide a certain profit share. If this version of "Game of the Brave" can still impact the 1 billion worldwide, even if he pays a share of 100 million US dollars to the main creators, Simon is very happy.
Also, you must sign a package contract with a capped salary in advance.
Simon didn't want the sequel to be shelved for a long time or even completely aborted after the success of the first film, due to various wranglings over remuneration.
Of course, if the project fails, Daenerys Entertainment also has the right to cancel the sequel directly without additional compensation. Daenerys Entertainment now has absolute initiative in Hollywood. In the past, stars pressured studios to sign various unequal contracts. At least this has been reversed with Daenerys Entertainment.
If you don't want to, then the opportunity belongs to others. Even the biggest stars can't stand the ups and downs many times.
After a busy morning, we had dinner with Amy Pascal at the executive restaurant in the studio at noon.
As soon as the waiter left after serving lunch, Amy Pascal mentioned something with a smile: "There has been a lot of noise in the media recently about your donation of AOL stock?"
Simon picked up the tableware, shrugged and said: "No matter what you do about this kind of thing, you can't avoid controversy. If you let them argue, it will annoy me and I won't donate in the future."
A few days ago, while Simon was still in Rome, in North America, the Westeros family began to fulfill their charity commitments at the beginning of the year and donated the first AOL worth US$1 billion to the Simon & Janet Westeros Foundation. The company's stock is used to help public universities, middle schools and primary schools across the United States build modern professional computer classrooms.
The promised donation is US$3 billion, and Simon will certainly not cash it in one go.
The first consideration is that the stocks in your hands are still increasing in value. Donating in batches can always save a little. No matter how much money you have, you still have to be prudent when it comes to budgeting.
However, this immediately triggered the first controversy. Some media believed that Simon's donation of US$3 billion had seriously shrunk, and criticized the crusade. Even though the spokesperson of the Westeros family clarified many times, some people still said " I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it. You just don't keep your word.
In fact, even with this $1 billion donation, including past expenditures, the size of the Simon & Janet Westeros Foundation has already caught up with the family foundations of many old-money families that have lasted for more than half a century.
However, for those who don’t want to see this, it’s obviously useless no matter what you say.
Not only that, but some people were quick to object to Simon’s donation of stock rather than cash, arguing that he was deliberately avoiding taxes.
According to U.S. charity rules, if Simon cashes out the stock before donating it, even if you state that the money will be used for charitable purposes, you must pay capital gains tax before donating it.
The current capital gains tax rate is still 28%.
This means that if Simon directly donates cash, based on the US$3 billion donation commitment, an additional expenditure of more than US$1.1 billion will be incurred in the capital gains tax during the cash-out process. Of course, Simon will not do this kind of thing, and there are not many other things. Rich people do this.
Donate stocks directly, put the stocks into a charitable fund, and then cash them out, there will be no tax issues.
Not only that, Simon can also receive huge tax deductions.
Although it is not fully tax-deductible, and the tax-deductible ratio for stock donations is only 30%, which is much lower than the 50% for cash donations, based on the donation amount of US$3 billion, this is still a large amount of tax deduction, and , according to tax law, this money can also be deferred and gradually cashed out for five years like corporate loss tax deductions.
Calculated, after all the stocks worth US$3 billion are donated, the Westeros family can receive a tax deduction of up to US$900 million.
Simon's direct donation of stocks has saved US$1.1 billion in capital gains tax. After donating all 3 billion stocks, he can still get another US$900 million in tax deductions. Such an operation, in the eyes of many people, Simon Westeros actually Saving US$2 billion is equivalent to only donating US$1 billion, and the other US$2 billion is equivalent to using the federal government's tax revenue for charity.
This is simply insane!
Even though he had been psychologically prepared for the unscrupulous media's algorithm, which was far-fetched but very capable of attracting the public's attention, Simon still had no choice but to do it.
Moreover, as the discussion fermented, some media also questioned Simon's charity projects.
Spending US$3 billion to build computer classrooms for American public schools. Whether it is purchasing equipment or connecting to the network, it basically cannot avoid new technology companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and AOL in the Westeros system. This money will eventually flow back. into the hands of Simon himself.
If we calculate this again, Simon Westeros may not have donated a penny from beginning to end.
This is no longer something that can be described as crazy.
After all, the media industry in the United States is still too developed. This kind of questioning is not a direct personal attack like last year. If others question it, they will sue and launch a lawsuit bombardment, which will inevitably lead to a stronger backlash.
Simon just tried his best to let the media power of the Westeros system refute this.
Moreover, it is impossible for him to stop donating money just like he said in anger.
The charity that needs to be done should still be done.
After all, this is the basic strategy related to the future wealth inheritance of the Westeros family.
With such a huge asset, if you want to cross the inheritance tax threshold many years from now, you must pass it on through the name of a foundation as much as possible in the future. Of course, when the time comes, compared to the individual foundations of some old money families, if the Westeros family-related foundations do not want their scale to be too dazzling, they will definitely be broken into parts as much as possible.
Amy could also feel the helplessness in Simon's tone and asked, "Are you starting to feel distressed if you have too much money?"
When Simon heard this question, he shook his head and said with a smile: "That's true, I enjoy it, and I also like to see many people being envious and jealous of my personal asset figures."
Amy couldn't help but laugh: "Yeah, I think about it sometimes and I'm extremely jealous."
After a month-long rise in January, the Nasdaq index has exceeded 2,000 points. The prices of a large number of technology stocks held by Simon have also continued to increase in value along with the rise in the stock market. Now Simon's personal net worth has reached 500 billion US dollars. At least from the stock book, there is no moisture at all.
A personal net worth of US$500 billion has completely exceeded the limits of ordinary people's imagination. Those media and politicians who believe that Simon's personal net worth should be restricted from continuing to grow may gradually not know how to deal with it.
Judging from the current situation, the only way to stop Simon Westeros's personal wealth from continuing to increase is to break the rules of capitalist society and forcibly confiscate Westeros' assets.
This obviously doesn't work.
After all, no one wants the United States to become the former Soviet Union. If this can be done to Simon Westeros, other rich people may also be treated in the same way.
It will even gradually fill your eyes.
By then, no one will have any sense of security.