Sofia, who was chatting with a guest, felt a big hand hug her waist, looked at the man beside her, and said teasingly: "I thought I wouldn't see you tonight."
Simon nodded to the guest opposite and said to Sophia, "It's time for us to go back."
"OK."
Sofia agreed with a smile, and the two greeted some necessary guests and walked out of the auction house together.
After getting in the car, Sofia smartly did not mention a certain woman at the reception, but said: "Agnelli just asked me about some details of the Westeros system's investment in China. It seems that he does not intend to give up." Enter China.”
Sofia also listened to the conversation between Simon and Gianni Agnelli in the auction house lounge.
Simon said: "That's for sure, but whether it can succeed is another matter."
"I think he still wants to work with us."
"The key is the issue of control. If Fiat enters China, Agnelli will not give up control of the project. If it cannot take the initiative, I will not participate, so we can't reach an agreement at all."
Sofia looked at the little man beside her, with a hint of provocation and admiration in her tone: "If it were me, I would be very willing to take a step back. This is to cooperate with Simon Westeros."
“If everyone could make rational and correct choices, it’s hard to imagine how beautiful the world would be.”
"Anyway, with you here, my world is the most beautiful."
Simon reached out to grab the woman's face and kissed her. He suddenly turned serious and said, "It's useless to please me anymore. I'm very tired this afternoon. I won't do anything tonight."
Sophia rolled her eyes at someone, leaned over again, and the two kissed each other again.
Set off again early the next morning.
At Milan Malpensa International Airport, Simon said goodbye to Sofia who came to see her off. He boarded the gangway and just entered the Boeing 767 cabin when he was greeted by a crescent-eyed woman he had just met at the cocktail party last night.
"Oh, Simon, it feels like a dream. Maybe I'm crazy. We just met last night, and today I'm going to the United States with you. And it's my first time going to the United States. I'm not even very proficient in English."
Alessandra Martinis said this in Italian, but she already held Simon's arm naturally and couldn't help but look around.
This was also her first time taking a private jet. She didn't expect it to be such a luxurious Boeing 767, and the man next to her made Martinis feel like a dream.
Simon Westeros.
No matter what the outcome will be, this will be enough to write down in my memoirs in the future, if there is a memoir.
This is why she agreed without thinking when the man invited him last night.
The 33-year-old Alessandra Martinis is already married to a descendant of a wealthy French aristocrat. However, compared with Simon Westeros, her husband can only barely maintain respectability. The family has absolutely nothing to offer.
The reason why she married her a few years ago was that Martinis hoped that her husband's family, which was connected to the French film and television industry, could help her develop her career. Unfortunately, she miscalculated. Until now, she has been a reluctant starlet in France's third tier.
So, when she met Simon last night, when this man expressed interest in her, she was decisive and desperate.
After all, once missed, such an opportunity may never come again.
All in all, it was an elopement.
After leading the woman to the living room in the middle of the cabin, Simon motioned for the woman to sit down on the leather chair near the porthole, and he sat next to her. A Weijia maid took the initiative to come over and help Alexandra fasten her seat belt.
Simon also fastened his seat belt skillfully and said to the confused woman beside him: "There may be some bumps during takeoff. We can move freely after it stabilizes."
Alexandra nodded quickly.
She didn't know this, and thought there were no restrictions on private jets. Fortunately, she didn't make a fool of herself by asking randomly just now.
After the waitress fastened her seat belt and left, Simon looked at the cautious look of the woman next to him and asked with a smile: "Ali, have you had breakfast?"
Alexandra subconsciously wanted to nod, but she still said honestly: "Not yet."
I didn't sleep all night last night.
After dawn, she was busy packing up and waiting for the car sent by Simon to pick her up. She rushed over immediately without even thinking of eating.
Simon said: "It's okay not to have breakfast. I'll let them prepare it later."
"Thank you, Simon, you are so considerate."
Girl A came over at this time, holding a stack of information in her hand, handed several newspapers to Simon, and sat down opposite.
Simon took the newspaper and saw that Alexandra was slightly embarrassed by Girl A's coldness. He helped introduce her: "This is A, my assistant."
Alessandra took the initiative to reach out and said in English that was obviously not very proficient: "Hello, A, I am Alessandra Martinis, you can call me Ari."
Girl A did not deny face to someone in person, and shook hands with Alexandra.
The waitress who just helped fasten the seat belt came over again, checked with Simon, and then informed the crew to prepare for takeoff.
While Simon was chatting casually with Alessandra, he picked up the newspaper handed over by Girl A. It was a copy of the French "L'Ouest", the national daily newspaper with the largest circulation in France. Girl A had already marked this newspaper. The not-so-important but still conspicuous current affairs section is a commentary on yesterday's announcement by the Rwandan government that new evidence of French military involvement in the massacre had been discovered.
The position is very correct.
The article severely criticized the Rwandan government's accusations as completely groundless slander and a deliberate smear campaign controlled by some anti-French forces.
The newspaper did not identify which side the so-called 'anti-French forces' were.
There was also a note posted next to this report, explaining that although Le Ouest claims to be neutral, it is actually the mouthpiece of the French government. Simon immediately understood that it was probably like a major Chinese newspaper.
Then there was a copy of the French leftist's "Humanité".
Compared to the "Occidental" newspaper, which deliberately placed articles on related events on a lower page, "Humanité" directly put them on the front page, briefly recalling the Rwandan genocide that shocked the world two years ago. At the same time, the article strongly demanded that France The government established a special investigation team to investigate members of the French military who may have been involved in the massacre that year.
The article also criticizes a series of military policies of current President Chirac, especially the nuclear test plan that he has restarted since taking office last year.
After taking office in June 1995, the French government suddenly announced that it would restart nuclear testing. From September 1995 to January 1996, in less than six months, the French military conducted intensive nuclear tests on the French New Coredonia Islands in the South Pacific. Six consecutive nuclear tests. "Humanité" criticized Chirac's move as potentially provoking a new round of nuclear arms race and bringing the entire human race into an unknown and dangerous situation.
Looking at several other newspapers, the attitude and position are basically half and half.
It is not one-sided. In fact, you can imagine the pressure of public opinion faced by the French government at this time. After all, the crime of participating in the Holocaust is just like Germany. Once it is labeled, it will not be able to get rid of the stain for decades or hundreds of years, and it may even become a crime. original sin.
Because Chirac, a right-wing politician, came to power, the already disharmonious US-France relations became tense again.
Although Simon's use of Rwanda to attack France was motivated by personal grudges, it actually coincided with the general trend. This matter will not end with just a New York Times article yesterday, but will not end until the French government gives Simon an explanation in private.
Or, there may be no explanation, but a confrontation with each other.
Simon had no scruples about this either.
At that time, the Westeros system will at most lose some business in France, and it is difficult to determine what France will lose.
After quickly browsing a few newspapers, the Boeing 767 also took off smoothly and stabilized at high altitude.
Simon summoned a waitress and asked her to take Alexandra to have breakfast and take a look around the cabin. Probably understanding that Simon wanted to discuss work matters with his assistant, Alexandra followed the waitress and left obediently.
Only Simon was left alone, and then Girl A reported some things that Simon needed to know.
Today it’s mainly about movies.
"There is news from Los Angeles that Golden Harvest rejected our cooperation plan for "Police Story 4" and switched to Disney. Disney offered a 28% North American box office share plan, which was 5 points more than the share plan we gave. And he is willing to make more concessions in terms of publicity and follow-up channels. Danny's last attempt to retain him yesterday was ineffective, and he could only issue a restriction letter to Golden Harvest, requiring that the film not use the script ideas that the two parties had discussed in the past period, let alone The ‘Rush Hour’ series is kind of imitated.”
The Police Story series needs no introduction.
According to common sense, after the success of the "Rush Hour" series, Jack Cheng should focus his work on Hollywood. However, "Police Story 4" was a collaborative project that had been agreed to by the old club before the filming of "Rush Hour" started. With the relationship between Jack Cheng and Golden Harvest, of course they couldn't break their promise.
After "Rush Hour" became a hit in North America, Golden Harvest, which has been trying to enter Hollywood for so many years, will certainly not miss this opportunity. It will re-revise the already completed script and plan to make "Police Story 4" into a film that once again hits Hollywood. International films.
To put it simply, it means adding overseas characters and related storylines, and filming overseas.
Similar to "Red Zone".
When re-planning the project, the first step is of course to select a Hollywood partner. The New World Pictures team of Daenerys Entertainment, which has had good cooperation in the past few times, is naturally the first choice. New World Pictures also responded positively.
However, due to the success of "Rush Hour", Jiahe, who was greatly emboldened, began to try to strive for more benefits. Especially when negative examples such as "Dark Man" happened to appear recently, Jiahe became even more determined.
At least this time it's impossible to sell off the copyright anyway.
After the re-planning of the project, the New World Pictures team is relatively optimistic about the box office expectations of "Police Story 4", which is only about US$50 million. After all, the project itself has some flaws that cannot be fully integrated into Hollywood. US$50 million is still worth considering. Based on the popularity of "Rush Hour".
All in all, it is impossible for New World Pictures to give too outrageous conditions. As a result, it was snatched away by other studios that were eyeing Hollywood, and eventually it fell to Disney.
When overseas films are distributed in North America, if the producers ask for a share, it is usually only a dozen points, and rarely exceeds 20%. Due to the nature of the film itself, the share that most distributors receive from theaters will be lower than The standard 55%, and the distribution share collected is generally higher than the Hollywood average.
Although the project "Police Story 4" is a bit special, Golden Harvest has absolutely no intention of letting outsiders get involved in the investment. New World Pictures only does distribution. It promises a 23% pure share of the full distribution package, which is quite generous. After all, this is a film with a clear DNA of Hong Kong films, and the risks are not small.
Moreover, if there is not enough profit motivation, why would New World Pictures give you the resources to distribute its own films? After all, film schedules and film resources are limited each year.
The share ratio given by Disney seems to be only 5 points higher than that of New World Pictures, but after further concessions in publicity and follow-up channels, even according to the optimistic box office forecast of US$50 million, there is basically not much profit, unless The movie was as successful as "Rush Hour."
It's just that this probability cannot be said to be absolute, but it is not much higher than the probability of a certain country's men's football team entering the World Cup.
After the female assistant finished speaking, she looked at Simon.
Simon just nodded to show his understanding.
The current state of Disney controlled by Vivendi is similar to that of Sony. They are eager to create a situation and launch some high-quality projects, so they are not so concerned about interests.
The outcome can actually be imagined.
Seeing that her boss had no intention of fighting for it, Girl A continued: "In China, after we sent out the invitation, several Chinese directors responded positively. This was a plan proposed by directors Zhang, Chen and others."
After "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was launched, and with the recent success of "Dark Man", in order to praise Jet Lee, Simon planned to simultaneously create several other costumed Chinese-language films, including martial arts, war, and fantasy, so he asked Chinese Some famous directors have issued invitations. The core is to showcase Chinese culture while catering to the tastes of Western audiences.
Moreover, the planned investment of US$15 million to US$30 million is only moderate in Hollywood, so the risk is controllable, but in China, in this era, it is an absolutely sky-high investment. Just like "The Opium War" being produced by Director Xie, with an investment of 100 million, which is equivalent to less than 15 million US dollars, it has already attracted the attention of the whole country.
Of course, Simon is not doing good things. Investing in these projects can be said to have multiple purposes.
First of all, it is to make money, and secondly, it can further shorten the relationship with the Chinese officialdom. Then, on the one hand, these big-budget movies can activate the Chinese film market, and on the other hand, they can also alleviate the Chinese film industry's backlash against the invasion of Hollywood films.
On the other hand, it is a bit of Simon's selfishness.
Such a large-scale investment can also maximize the use of China's film and television resources. Not to mention the beautiful mountains and rivers, it can also recruit several divisions of troops to shoot large-scale war movies with shocking scenes. Similar images are quite precious. And it has only been available for these few years. After the new century, both East and West will gradually no longer have them, and only special effects can be used.
Because of "Dark Man", Simon's first goal is actually "Hero".
When this movie was first released in China, it was widely criticized, but it was an absolute success at the box office.
Moreover, in the next ten or twenty years, when domestic audiences were subjected to a large number of bad movies, they discovered how well-made and sincere the blockbusters made at the beginning of the century were to open up the Western market. Looking back again, actors While the performances and camera images are perfect, even the storyline is actually quite worth remembering.
The old "Hero" was created by Lao Mouzi after the success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and there is no trace of it now.
Simon looked through the creative ideas provided by several Chinese directors. The ideas were all pretty good, but "Hero" was safer. After all, it had already proven successful, so he planned to provide the creative ideas himself and let Lao Mouzi perfect them. This was not Simon is conservative, but considers China.
Daenerys Entertainment can afford to fail, but if China-specific projects fail, many goals will not be achieved.
While looking at the plans of several Chinese directors, Simon motioned for Alison to continue.
Girl A continued: "Also, over in the UK, the tentative film team has negotiated with Guy Ritchie and Peter Cattanoo for the roles of "Two Smoking Barrels" and "The Six Strongest Pigs" respectively. The cooperation agreement and the adaptation rights of "BJ's Diary" are still being negotiated, but there are only some final details left, so the problem is not big."
Simon's first stop on this European tour is the UK.
Some time before departure, Simon asked the British branch of Daenerys Entertainment to collect various popular books or movie scripts here, and finally personally selected "Two Smoking Barrels", "Six Pigs" and "Six Strong Pigs". BJ Birth Diary" three projects.
In fact, they have already paid attention to it.
During the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of this year, because he discovered Nolan in advance, Simon also thought of Guy Ritchie. However, he has always been accustomed to doing certain things more logically, so he chose the actor for this European trip. opportunity.
The previous "Two Smoking Barrels" was only released in 1998, and the script has now been completed.
Guy Ritchie's experience is somewhat similar to Quentin's. He worked as a film projectionist and then started shooting short films and music videos. After last year's short film "Hard Shell" attracted the attention of the industry, he began to work on his first feature film. The script "Two Smoking Barrels" is looking for investment. Historically, Guy Ritchie and his partners spent more than a year just to raise funds for the filming of "Two Smoking Barrels." The film was released in 1998 and became an instant hit.
Now, Simon cuts off the Hu in advance.
In addition, "Six Pigs" is as famous as "Four Weddings and a Funeral", and it even beat "Two Smoking Barrels" at the box office. This low-budget film tells the story of several laid-off workers who found a new way to become strippers during England's economic depression. It was produced with a mere £2 million in history and has grossed more than $250 million at the global box office, and it also earned more than $250 million in box office in the UK. Locally, it became the all-time box office champion.
It is also the debut feature film of director Peter Cattaneo. The reason why this supposedly unknown project came into Simon's vision was mainly because Robert Carlyle, the star of "Trainspotting", was purchased by Daenerys Entertainment during Sundance this year. The director of "The Six Strongest Pigs" came to Carlisle with the script and hoped that he could participate. Carlisle liked the story very much, and it happened that "Trainspotting" established contact with the team under Daenerys Entertainment, so he recommended it.
Taken down by Simon again.
The last "BJ's Diary" is a story series that has been serialized in a British newspaper since last year, just like "Sex and the City" already produced by Daenerys Entertainment. The original "BJ's Diary" was only released in 2001 with a cost of US$25 million. It sold a global box office of US$280 million and was made into a series of movies.
Now that he has met him, Simon will naturally not let him go.
In addition to China and the UK, in Italy, Simon also finalized two projects during this European trip, one is "The Pianist on the Sea" by Giuseppe Tornatore, and the other is Roberto Bernini's "The Pianist". He wrote, directed and acted in "Life is Beautiful".
Both are classic films that once enjoyed widespread popularity around the world.
In fact, whether it is the layout of China, the United Kingdom or Italy, it is an important part of the new stage of film strategy designed by Simon for Daenerys Entertainment, and Simon has been laying the groundwork for this in the past few years.
After the Hollywood movie pattern is determined, Daenerys Entertainment will no longer retain its strength starting this year, and the three brands will explode.
Similarly, globally, Simon also plans to fully blossom and invest more resources to support filmmakers in various overseas markets to produce excellent films. While providing diversified film sources for North America, it can also be directly distributed in relevant markets and earn profits on the one hand. , on the one hand, it can also reduce the hostility and backlash against Hollywood's invasion in various overseas markets, and at least reduce the resistance to the release of films produced by Daenerys Entertainment in various overseas markets.
For other individuals or companies, this full-blown plan is actually difficult to operate.
After all, no one is omniscient and omnipotent enough to be familiar with the film markets around the world. If you do this blindly, you are more likely to lose everything. With the advantage of being a prophet for two lifetimes, Simon happened to be a very special exception.