Santa Monica.
It's February 1st, a Thursday.
Simon arrives at the company headquarters at eight o'clock, with Jennifer already there, carrying a stack of documents into his office.
Since Simon has been deliberately delegating many tasks and has frequently been away from Los Angeles, Jennifer's authority, under Simon's guidance, has grown significantly. She almost takes on the role of Simon's spokesperson within the company.
In recent weeks, the female assistant has personally led the team responsible for the financial audit of the past year.
In the latter half of last year, thanks to the success of films like "The Bodyguard," "The Sixth Sense," and "Scream 2," the soundtrack sales of "The Bodyguard," the success of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video game, ongoing TV project revenues, and late 1988 releases like "Rain Man" internationally and on video, Daenerys Entertainment saw explosive growth in revenue.
Compared to the net profit of $110 million in the first half of the year, even after subtracting major expenditures such as the construction of Daenerys Studios and the acquisition of EA stock, Daenerys Entertainment's after-tax net profit for the last year is expected to exceed $500 million.
With the ample funds continuously supplied by Daenerys Entertainment, James Reubold has been steadily increasing investments in new technology sectors.
Currently, Westeros Corporation holds 21.3% of Microsoft's shares, of which 10% were acquired through loans from major shareholders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and the additional shares were purchased on the open market with funds provided by Daenerys Entertainment, prompting Gates to seek out Simon personally.
As the release date for Windows 3.0 approaches, and due to the leakage of the beta version, Microsoft's stock price has started to climb again.
Holding 21.3% of Microsoft's shares has exceeded Simon's expectations, and Westeros Corporation does not plan to increase its holdings further.
Westeros Corporation's stake in Intel has also increased to 15.6%, a result of additional purchases last year. For this approximately 5% stake, nearly $300 million was invested, all supplied by Daenerys Entertainment.
Sitting behind his desk, Simon receives today's schedule from his assistant, who, while placing the documents down, says, "The financial audit should be wrapped up by next week; here's a brief on that. Also, there is a compensation proposal from Warner Bros. for you to serve as the producer for 'The Flash' and 'Cyborg,' offering a base salary of $2 million per film plus 10% of domestic box office earnings. Lastly, here are some recently purchased novels and scripts, including Michael Crichton's dinosaur science fiction novel you mentioned."
Hearing about Michael Crichton's dinosaur novel, Simon raises an eyebrow.
Noticing Simon's expression, Jennifer explains, "Amy personally negotiated with Mr. Friedman because other studios were also eyeing Crichton's project, all making bids. The final settled price is $2.5 million, with $2 million for the novel's outright purchase and $500,000 for screenplay adaptation fees, the latter insisted by Mr. Friedman."
Simon nods, understanding why Jonathan insisted on this.
Being involved in the screenplay adaptation, Michael Crichton would also be eligible for additional revenue shares according to the Writers Guild's Basic Agreement after the film's release.
For an unpublished novel, a price of $2.5 million is indeed high.
Although Michael Crichton has made a name for himself in the literary world, his involvement in film projects before "Jurassic Park" has not been successful. Last year, Crichton personally directed a crime thriller, "The Edge of the Trap," with a production cost of $17 million but garnered a meager box office of $3.3 million, leading Columbia Pictures to a significant loss.
This is why Jonathan could easily lure him away from CAA to WMA.
If it weren't for Simon's expressed interest, Jonathan probably wouldn't have shown much enthusiasm for Crichton.
With these thoughts, Simon asks his assistant, "When is the novel expected to be published?"
"Crichton just completed the outline; it won't be ready until the end of the year at the earliest."
"Forward the project details to the special effects studio and have them come up with a CG dinosaur development plan soon; put everything else on hold for now."
Jennifer nods, noting this on her memo pad, and continues, "Also, Joe Roth from Fox called yesterday about 'Terminator.' He asked if you're free tomorrow night to discuss this?"
Simon is puzzled, "Tomorrow night?"
"Roth is hosting a party at his Coldwater Canyon home tomorrow night," the assistant says, tearing off a page from her pocket memo and handing it over. "Here's the address."
"You keep it," Simon pushes the paper back, smiling at his assistant, "How about we go together tomorrow night?"
Jennifer shakes her head, "I'm quite tired lately; I need to go home to sleep."
"How about I stop by after the party? Bel Air is close to Coldwater Canyon; just leave a window open for me."
The assistant's mouth curves into a smile, "My uncle has a very good shotgun at home, he might mistake you for a wild boar."
Jennifer still lives at her uncle George Norman's house. Perhaps because they are close enough, the female assistant doesn't seem to feel the kind of dependence that Simon does.
Simon puts on a scared face, yet curiously asks, "Why a wild boar?"
The assistant tilts her head, her ponytail swinging slightly, "Could be a rabbit too."
Better a wild boar than a rabbit! Simon feigns anger, "Out you go, the BOSS is starting work now."
Jennifer smiles, tidying up Simon's desk, and asks, "Do you want some coffee?"
"Just water for now, I'm cutting out caffeine."
She nods and leaves.
Simon looks over today's schedule again: a production meeting for "A League of Their Own" starting at nine o'clock, expected to take all morning.
Preparations for "A League of Their Own" are ready, with shooting to begin next week.
As a female-led film, this project is mainly managed by Amy. However, as one of the ten planned films, Simon still needs to attend the final production meeting.
Next, the rough cuts of "Ghost" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" are ready, and in the afternoon, he will discuss the final editing and music with the creative teams.
Just these three tasks will likely keep him busy until six o'clock.
Setting the schedule aside, Simon picks up the documents left by his assistant. He puts aside the financial brief, planning to wait for the final audit report to save time.
The details for "Jurassic Park" were already explained by his assistant, so he sets them aside too.
After a quick review of the compensation proposal for "The Flash" and "Cyborg," Simon signs off on it, leaving the detailed contract negotiations to others at Warner Bros.
Finally, he looks through a stack of novels and script rights.
Like other Hollywood studios, as Daenerys Entertainment's operations have stabilized, it has continually acquired various novel and script rights. Of course, most of these acquisitions end up going nowhere.
Hollywood's hefty script development budgets are spent in this manner
.
However, these expenses are also factored into various other movie projects according to Hollywood accounting rules.
Apart from "Jurassic Park," there are seven other novels and scripts. Simon skims through them, noting various annotations, such as directors interested in the projects, stars wanting to participate, or producers' opinions on the scripts.
The Hollywood circle is quite small, or perhaps Simon's mind is too filled with information. Among the seven documents, Simon easily recognizes a familiar project: "Thelma & Louise."
In his memory, this is a film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, both critically acclaimed and successful at the box office.
The project annotation, written by Amy herself, notes that stars like Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer are interested in participating, so the project can be green-lit with an estimated budget of $15 million.
$15 million was considered a large budget a few years ago, but now it's moderately low.
Simon reads through the outline and suddenly thinks that this story might be a good fit for Kathryn. She is a staunch feminist and has already successfully directed a similar road-style movie, "Night of the Living Dead." She would be suitable to direct this project.
Thinking this, Simon takes a pencil and writes his comments on the document, instructing Amy to send the script to Kathryn.
Kathryn is about to start shooting "Point Break," but if she's interested in this project, Daenerys Entertainment can certainly wait for her to finish her current project before starting this film.
Apart from "Thelma & Louise," none of the other projects catch Simon's interest.
Next year's focus for Daenerys Entertainment will be on external collaborations like "Batman: The Dark Knight" and "Far and Away." There are many project slots available, so Simon grants the heads of the three labels sufficient authority to green-light projects, not wanting the increasingly large Daenerys Entertainment to rely solely on him.
After reviewing the documents brought by his assistant, it's almost nine o'clock.
The production meeting for "A League of Their Own" is being held at Daenerys Entertainment headquarters. Jennifer opens the door to remind him that the film's director, Penny Marshall, and others have arrived, and Simon heads to the meeting room.
The next day is February 2nd, a Friday.
Another week has passed from January 26th to February 1st.
Although "Batman: Battle Time" continues to dominate the weekly box office with $23.4 million, accumulating a total of $326.76 million, Hollywood's attention is captured by another initially unremarkable stage play adaptation movie.
"Driving Miss Daisy."
Clearly, this is another Daenerys Entertainment production.
Previously, at the 47th Golden Globe Awards on January 20th, "Driving Miss Daisy" won all three nominations it received: Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.
Following this, on January 22nd, the 62nd Academy Awards nominations announced that "Driving Miss Daisy" had secured nine nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, making it the most nominated film at this year's Oscars.
Including nominations for other films like "My Left Foot," "The Bodyguard," "The Sixth Sense," and "Metropolitan," Daenerys Entertainment garnered a total of 21 nominations at the upcoming Oscars, also leading among all studios.
The distribution rights for "Batman: Battle Time" belong to Warner Bros., and Terry Semel had hoped to lobby for a Best Picture nomination to boost the film's later box office performance. However, the Oscar judges were clearly uninterested in this commercially heavy comic adaptation, and the film ultimately received only three technical nominations, which were not counted under Daenerys Entertainment.
Of course, that's a side note.
Returning to "Driving Miss Daisy," until January 25th, the film had maintained a limited release status, increasing the number of screens to just over two hundred in the two weeks around the Golden Globes.
Altogether, from December 8th to January 25th over seven weeks, "Driving Miss Daisy" had continuously risen in reputation and popularity, but due to limited screening, its cumulative box office barely broke $10 million.
On January 26th, taking advantage of the high attention from the Golden Globe wins and Oscar nominations, GoMen Films drastically increased the number of screens for "Driving Miss Daisy" from 278 to 895, finally unleashing the film's box office potential.
In its first week of wide release, "Driving Miss Daisy" garnered $8.03 million with 895 screens, jumping from seventh place last week to second place, just behind "Batman: Battle Time."
After eight weeks in theaters, its cumulative box office reached $18.37 million, still seemingly modest compared to the sixth week's revenue of "Batman: Battle Time."
However, debuting to $8.03 million in its first week of wide release and placing second on the weekly box office chart, during this award season from the Golden Globes to the Oscars, "Driving Miss Daisy" is likely to maintain its box office heat. This film is destined to follow a very impressive long-term box office trajectory.
Based on the first week's revenue of $8.03 million, industry forecasts predict that the film's total North American box office could easily exceed $60 million.
With a production budget of only $7 million and a promotional scale nowhere near that of "Batman: Battle Time," an eight-week cumulative box office of $18.37 million is already enough for Daenerys Entertainment to recover all production and promotional costs.
An expected total box office of $60 million is certainly considered a major success.
Simon is well aware that the box office potential of "Driving Miss Daisy" could exceed $60 million.
However, one clear fact remains: Daenerys Entertainment has once again unwittingly created a box office dark horse.
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