In the western suburbs of Melbourne, the abandoned factory that Daenerys originally bought has been continuously constructed in recent years and has become a comprehensive film and television base covering an area of 50 hectares, which is comparable in size to the Malibu Daenerys Studios in Los Angeles. , the difference is that the building density is much sparser.
Mainly, what Australia lacks most is probably land.
There are a total of 9 large studios in Melbourne Studios, of which only 3 are regular studios. The other 6 are virtual studios specially used for special effects shooting. Other post-production centers, special effects studios and other supporting facilities are also available.
Through the continuous lobbying of the Westeros system and other stakeholders, the preferential film policies of the Australian government and domestic states have not only not been reduced due to the increasing number of Hollywood movies filmed here in recent years, but their support has continued to increase.
A large number of film projects have started filming in Australia, making this the only large-scale modern film and television base in the southern hemisphere operating at full capacity.
Melbourne Cinemas has invested more than US$300 million, and it was once thought that it might become a drag on Daenerys Entertainment. After all, Daenerys already owns two cinemas in Malibu and Burbank in Los Angeles. Now, this film and television base not only has no losses, but while meeting its own needs, it can also contribute very considerable income to Daenerys Entertainment through venue equipment rental and other film and television project orders.
After finishing his trip to Africa and completing the "Sword of Damocles" project that had been secretly advancing, after Easter, Simon's attention finally turned to the "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" project that will be completed at the end of April.
As a super blockbuster focusing on special effects, through careful early planning, the shooting cycle of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is only 3 months, starting at the end of January and wrapping up at the end of April. However, post-production will take up to 6 months. It will take about three months to complete, probably in October of the second half of the year.
He had been away from North America for two weeks and could not stay away for too long. In order to complete the work here as soon as possible, on April 17, the day after Easter, Simon began spending more than 10 hours a day in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Inside the city.
Go through all the shots shot in the past few months one by one, personally finalize the editing plan and participate in the editing, discuss the post-production special effects plan with the special effects team, and so on.
The work is trivial and arduous.
People who don’t know what is going on always think that film directors play the role of designers. In fact, this profession is more inclined to engineers, and many of the tasks require hands-on work.
Because movies, especially blockbuster movies, are themselves a very huge project.
Simon has no longer personally directed this series since "Batman Begins", but as the leader of the entire DC movie universe series, his job is not easy at all. Just like now, Roland Emmerich only He needs to focus on the project "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". For Simon, it is just a project of the DC movie universe. While he is distracted by this project, he also needs to take into account the planning of related projects in the next two years. This is not something that can be accomplished with just a few words.
From April 17th to April 21st, for five days and working more than 10 hours a day, Simon finally completed the follow-up work on "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
Not only that, these days, Simon also sorted out the layout of the Westeros system in terms of private military power.
Mainly Africa.
For Africa, Simon is positioned as a disguised training ground for the Westeros system. Since the Rwandan genocide broke out last year, Simon has withdrawn the Westeros mercenaries stationed in Rwanda in this year, and has continued to These forces have re-infiltrated into the industries of the Westeros system in various African countries, and have remained active in the African region in the form of security teams or military advisors.
Any army that is separated from the battlefield environment for a long time will inevitably lead to a continuous decline in combat effectiveness.
The Westeros system already has enough core industries with lucrative profits. The core of Simon's series of industrial layouts in Africa is just to raise troops and train them. Whether they make money or not is only secondary. This is perfect for Africa. Even after more than ten or twenty years, this continent has never been completely peaceful.
African warlords are actually very smart.
They are actually very repulsive to peacekeeping forces from other countries or mercenaries with government backgrounds, such as South Africa's EO, because these people know very well that modern Western armies can easily destroy their rule.
Simon quickly and easily withdrew the Westeros mercenaries from Rwanda in the second half of last year, which caused many African countries, including the Rwandan authorities, to lower their guard against the Westeros system.
Not only that, over the past year, the Westeros system has also used a lot of lobbying power in Africa, conveying only one message. Simon Westeros is just a businessman and has no interest in their regime. Africa is purely for business. As long as you give enough benefits, the Westeros system can give you everything you want. Weapons and equipment are very simple. National development is no problem. Recognition by Western society is also easy. .
The key is the exchange of benefits.
Faced with the information conveyed by Simon, the smart warlords certainly knew how to choose.
In addition to Rwanda, Angola on the west coast of Africa soon became another case of happy cooperation with the Westeros system.
This country, which was originally a Portuguese colony, fought a civil war for decades due to the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the group that gained the upper hand was actually the group supported by the Soviet Union and had been recognized by the United Nations. Instead, It was the other side that the United States once supported that gradually declined, and the reconciliation that the two sides briefly reached in 1992 fell into civil war again because a presidential election failed to satisfy the opposition.
After the Westeros system contacted Angola, the current president of Angola, Dos Santos, quickly gave a positive response. This Angolan leader who was once supported by the Soviet Union knew very well that if he wanted to completely eliminate domestic opposition, he must put an end to it. Possible support from the United States behind the scenes.
The two sides hit it off immediately.
The Westeros system not only provided Angola with a large amount of cheap arms from Ukraine in the past year, but also facilitated Dos Santos's visit to the United States. After the Black Hawk Down incident, Washington did not want to get too involved in African affairs. However, since the other party came to the door, of course it had to accept it, so they also hit it off. This visit announced that Angola’s internal opposition had been completely abandoned by the United States.
In this process, the Westeros system obtained the right to develop various types of resources in Angola.
Moreover, for these industries, Simon not only did not take them for nothing, but also quietly took part of the shares in exchange for cash or arms to make friends with dignitaries in the Angolan government. The relationship between the two parties unknowingly became closer, and even Weirui Sentelecom has easily entered the Angolan market. Although it does not have much business for the time being, it is only building a local mobile communication network around Luanda, the capital of Angola, but it is definitely a pioneering work for Africa, which is currently backward and closed.
The most important point is that Simon also quietly deployed more than 300 Westeros mercenaries in Angola through military consultants, corporate security and other reasons.
The small number of people and the scattered distribution did not cause any objection from Angola.
Not only that, Simon visited Angola a few days ago, and President Dos Santos also offered to obtain the support of 200 Westeros mercenaries in addition to the 100 military advisers to train the authorities' troops. Of course, there is no money. After so many years of civil war, Angola has been in ruins, but it can be paid for with resources.
Counting another negotiated arms order, the two transactions eventually resulted in the ownership of a large coffee plantation covering an area of about 150,000 acres, equivalent to 600 square kilometers, in southern Angola.
It is said to be a plantation, but to be more precise, it should be a planting area.
After all, the area is too big.
However, as long as taxes are paid in accordance with regulations in the future, these 150,000 acres of land will be equivalent to Simon's private territory.
Unlike Simon, who has unknowingly expanded to more than 2 million acres of private land in Tasmania, Australia, such a high-quality coffee growing area has a very high economic value given the huge demand for coffee in Western society.
Simon's landownership extended to Africa.
Of course, it is still incomparable to those super landowning families in Australia who own tens of millions of acres of land.
The root of this matter is not land.
The coffee plantation was one that Simon himself selected from several options offered by the Angolan authorities.
Because the area where the Angolan opposition is entrenched is southern Angola.
The coffee growing area selected by Simon was still in the hands of the opposition a few years ago. The two sides fought fiercely and fought for it. The local residents either died or fled and very few were left. Large areas of high-quality coffee growing area became ownerless. The land is still frequently harassed by quietly infiltrating opposition armed forces, and the Westeros system needs to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to resume production.
However, such an area is exactly what Simon wants.
Being close to an area where the opposition is active and often being harassed by armed forces, the security tasks are quite heavy. It is natural to send more people to guard the area.
Moreover, such a large coffee planting area will inevitably require a large number of local laborers to take care of it. After the situation is completely stabilized in the future, a gathering area will definitely form. At that time, it will also facilitate the Westeros system to carry out some other operations. As long as it is done properly, it will It is easy for these people to feel a sense of belonging to the Westeros system.
All in all, the success of Angola's layout has made many African countries show enough intention to make friends and cooperate with the Westeros system.
Simon is no longer impatient now, and plans to moisturize things quietly and quietly, it doesn't matter ten or twenty years.
This was until April 22, when the Simon family finally left Melbourne.
However, the two women returned directly to North America with their children, but Simon was going to Europe. The first stop was Ukraine to deal with the extension of the African layout, then he went to Italy to visit Sofia, and then he went to the UK. The Conjuring 2, the third project in the Conjuring cinematic universe, is currently filming in London before returning to North America.
At the same time, Simon left this period, and the two-week Easter schedule in North America came to an end.
"Old Man 3" released on April 7 once again brought a surprise to Daenerys Entertainment.
The development of this project has been bumpy.
Daenerys Entertainment initially only signed a two-movie package deal with series creator Mike Myers. The first two "Today's Stars" films were successful, with the first one having a local box office of 120 million, and the second one even more. To 140 million, for the third film, without the constraints of a packaging contract, Mike Myers can naturally raise the price.
Simon did not give in at all.
The budget of the first part was US$20 million, and the second one was US$30 million. Due to the success of the first two parts, according to Hollywood practice, it was natural for the budget to double to US$60 million for the third part. Simon insisted on only giving a budget of US$40 million. . Daenerys Entertainment has no shortage of quality projects, and with just $40 million, it's either going to go ahead or cancel.
Of course, this time the sharing can be more relaxed.
This is also due to risk aversion considerations.
If it is produced with a production budget of US$60 million, which is doubled compared to the second part, plus a promotion budget of US$30 million, which is halved, the total cost of the third part will reach the blockbuster level of US$90 million. As a vulgar spoof comedy that relies on local culture, the overseas market potential of the "Tokyo" series has always been very small, and it basically can only rely on North America.
After calculation, even if the third film maintains the local box office of the second film of 140 million U.S. dollars, including overseas releases, Daenerys will only barely make up for it at the box office. The profits from the follow-up video tapes of this kind of disposable popcorn movie will also be Not too lucrative, all in all, very risky.
Even though this new sequel has broken the curse of the box office failure of the second part of this series in Simon's memory, Simon doesn't quite believe that the third part can still be a big success.
So stick to risk control.
Mike Myers didn't intend to compromise at first, until the summer movie "Honeymooners" failed miserably at the box office two years ago. A total investment of 30 million US dollars in production and promotion only brought less than 10 million US dollars to Sony Pictures. At the box office, the comedy star was relieved.
The final plan was a base salary of US$8 million plus a 15% project omni-channel profit share.
Because this series has two protagonists, the other male protagonist and the director who has been following up have all increased. This is the highest price Simon can accept. On the basis of the salary increase, the other two main creators also received an equal 7.5% of the project total. Channel profit sharing.
In the end, the production cost was 40 million plus 20 million for publicity, and the total budget was US$60 million.
Simon's initial expectation was that the box office of the final chapter of the series would exceed 100 million. Even if the task was exceeded, through overseas and subsequent video tapes and other channels, after deducting the cost, Daenerys Entertainment could recover a good profit, and the three main creators could also get it. A considerable share.
If the domestic box office falls below US$100 million, both parties may need to make up for it later.
The current result is that I don’t know if the three main creators have figured out the audience’s taste through the training of the first two films. Not only has the reputation of the third film improved significantly compared to the second film, but the overall media score has been a good 7.3 points. It rose to an excellent level of 8.1 points, and the box office was even more surprising.
With 2,893 opening screens in its first week, "Toy Fighter 3" grossed US$49.29 million in its first week of release from April 7 to April 13, an increase of US$6 million from the previous film.
This is not the end.
The original drop of "Toy Fighter 2" in the second week was 39%. For this type of comedy, this is a very normal trend. It is also in the Easter schedule, probably because it spans Easter on April 16. April In the week after its release from the 14th to April 20th, the box office of "Tokyo 3" dropped only 27%, which was much lower than the previous sequel, which collected another US$36.83 million.
In two weeks, the cumulative box office of this series finale has reached 86.12 million US dollars.
In an email communication with Simon, New World Pictures head Danny Morris also suggested whether it is necessary to develop another one. After all, Daenerys has not publicly announced that the series has ended.
You know, with a box office of US$86.13 million in two weeks, although the Easter period has passed, considering that there will be no other competitors until the summer season starts in May, and the reputation of "Toy Fighter 3" is so good, the local box office It is likely to break the $200 million mark.
The total cost was US$60 million, and the domestic box office alone exceeded US$200 million. It would be a pity not to develop a sequel.