May 21st marks the closing of the 43rd Cannes Film Festival in France.
This year, Simon Westeros did not attend Cannes; instead, Elara Doitchman led the company team.
Garon Film, in collaboration with several European film companies, invested in Giuseppe Tornatore's second feature, "A Journey of Kinship," which competed in the main event but, unlike last year where Simon's maneuvering edged out "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" for the Palme d'Or with "Cinema Paradiso," "A Journey of Kinship" won nothing.
David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" won this year's Palme d'Or amidst a severely polarized critical reception.
In the original timeline, due to controversy, "Wild at Heart" struggled to find a distributor and had to be released by the production company itself.
Simon is not fond of "Wild at Heart," but he didn't stop Doitchman from acquiring the North American distribution rights. He remembers that despite the controversy, "Wild at Heart" performed reasonably well at the box office.
Besides "Wild at Heart," Doitchman also bought another film from Cannes, a niche movie for North America called "Ju Dou." Originally, the North American rights for "Ju Dou" would have been with Miramax, and it even received a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 1991 Oscars.
From Simon's earliest "Run Lola Run" to this year's Oscar winner "Driving Miss Daisy," along with the commercial success of films like "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" and "My Left Foot," the art film market in Hollywood has seen a revival. Major studios are increasingly pushing into this space, which has also led to a more robust art house cinema network over the past few years.
This move by major studios is significantly squeezing the space for independent film distributors.
After consistently outmaneuvering projects like "Cinema Paradiso," "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," and "My Left Foot," even though only one of these was acquired by Daenerys Entertainment, the Weinstein brothers, as Simon anticipated, are finding it increasingly difficult to operate in Hollywood. At this point, Miramax is nearly out of the game.
It was under these circumstances that Garon Film acquired "Ju Dou" and plans to import more Asian films for North American distribution.
After a year of testing, Simon has loosened the reins on Elara Doitchman, planning to increase the annual film release count of Garon Film to over 10 in the next two years, replacing Miramax's industry position.
Not just Miramax, Daenerys Entertainment's emergence is also squeezing another independent film distributor that was supposed to rise this year—New Line.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was supposed to be New Line Cinema's first global box office hit to cement its status in Hollywood, eventually leading to the peak of "The Lord of the Rings" series.
Now, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is a project under Daenerys Entertainment and set to premiere this summer. Simon firmly controls the entire Tolkien series rights.
Daenerys Entertainment's New World Cinema is also making moves in the horror genre, traditionally New Line's stronghold. The "Scream" series has surpassed New Line's mainstay "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series. New World Cinema has also successfully continued the "Poltergeist" and "Children of the Corn" series.
The Easter holiday release of "Children of the Corn II" on April 13th, with a production budget of $3 million, grossed nearly $25 million in North America by the end of May.
Following last year's "Poltergeist II," "Poltergeist III" is set to premiere at the end of the summer season in August.
Although the "Children of the Corn" and "Poltergeist" series cannot compare with the box office earnings of the "Scream" series, they provide a stable revenue and profit for New World Cinema, which supports the development of other projects.
Simon has also begun guiding New World Cinema's manager, Danny Morris, to explore another lucrative genre—lowbrow comedies.
In the original timeline, the 1990s saw comedians like Jim Carrey and Mike Myers break open the market for Hollywood lowbrow comedies. Carrey's "Dumb and Dumber" and Myers's "Austin Powers" both achieved over $100 million in North American box office, both initially supported by New Line.
Having intercepted Miramax's potential, Simon's next target is New Line.
On the Friday following the Cannes Film Festival, May 25th, Hollywood's 1990 summer blockbuster season officially begins.
Universal's "Back to the Future Part III" and Paramount's "Fire Birds" kicked off the summer.
Following the relative disappointment of "Back to the Future Part II" compared to the original, Universal is not highly confident about
Part III, releasing it just as the intense summer competition begins.
Paramount's confidence in "Fire Birds" is even lower, especially considering last year's situation where Paramount 'stole' the "Rocketeer" and "Fire Birds" projects from Daenerys Entertainment.
Last year, the comic book-based sci-fi movie "The Rocketeer," starring Tom Cruise and Meg Ryan, hoped to make big returns for Paramount. Despite a production budget of $45 million and marketing costs of $20 million, it only managed to recoup just over $43 million at the box office, far below expectations.
The backstory of "The Rocketeer" is no secret in Hollywood, and Daenerys Entertainment even used the opportunity to promote the idea that a project they liked might not succeed in others' hands, easing their subsequent rights acquisitions.
Additionally, to make room for "The Rocketeer," Paramount moved Oliver Stone's potential hit "Born on the Fourth of July" to this year's Easter holiday, releasing it on April 20th.
However, lacking the boost from awards season nominations, despite receiving universal acclaim, "Born on the Fourth of July" managed only $33 million in box office over five weeks, far below the $70 million achieved in the original timeline.
Oliver Stone, already displeased with Paramount scheduling his film during Easter, publicly criticized Paramount's marketing strategy after confirming the film's reception, stating that "Born on the Fourth of July" should have performed much better.
Following this, "Fire Birds," a military movie about an Apache helicopter squadron, opened to poor reviews, failing to even come close to the box office records of "Top Gun" a few years earlier, let alone competing with "Back to the Future Part III."
Essentially, Paramount managed to botch three projects in succession.
Although in March, Paramount released the year's second box office surprise, "The Hunt for Red October," following the Valentine's Day release "Pretty Woman," Simon knows that the foundation laid by Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg for Paramount has been eroded. In the original timeline, Paramount Communications' chairman Martin Davis, who ousted Diller and his capable executives, ultimately had to sell Paramount to Sumner Redstone's Viacom.
In Palo Alto, San Francisco.
It's May 26th, and in between overseeing the DC movie universe and other business at Daenerys Entertainment, Simon also frequently flies to Silicon Valley, though he no longer stays for extended periods as before, usually returning the same day.
Today, Saturday, Simon flew to San Francisco to review an internet café project led by America Online.
Previously, Westeros Corporation had restructured the equity of Cisco, America Online, and Egritec.
The investment process in America Online was completed, increasing Westeros Corporation's ownership to 75%.
Simultaneously, Westeros Corporation acquired an additional 42.5% of Cisco's shares from other shareholders at a valuation of $300 million, increasing its stake to 57.5% for $127.5 million.
Moreover, after a year, the initial investment in Egritec was exhausted, and the company was still not generating sustainable revenue.
Westeros Corporation re-invested in Egritec at a valuation of $20 million, matching the amount.
Simon had initially given Tim Berners-Lee a 10% stake in Egritec. In this round of investment, Simon did not intend to dilute Lee's share but offered him an interest-free loan to maintain his stake.
However, the conservative Tim Berners-Lee was not keen on suddenly incurring $2 million in debt, resulting in his share being diluted to 5%.
As a result, Westeros Corporation's stake in Egritec increased to 95%.
In terms of personnel, John Chambers, formerly of IBM, joined Cisco at Simon's invitation, temporarily as president, with plans to replace current CEO John Morgridge by the end of next year.
From SUN, Carol Bartz and Jeff Bezos, whom Simon had recruited from Wall Street early into the internet industry, quickly adapted to their roles and began managing Egritec's day-to-day operations.
For America Online, the management team remained unchanged for now.
However, over the past month, due to increased exposure and marketing efforts, as well as the official launch of Egritec's graphical interface browser and portal services, America Online's performance saw a slight explosion.
In just one month, America Online's user base increased by 38,000, surpassing 100,000 users.
In fact, this was the culmination of personal computer users accumulating since the 1970s, setting the stage for this growth.
Simon remembers that when the internet industry began to boom, America Online's user base skyrocketed from several hundred thousand in 1993 to over ten million by 1996.
While expanding new users, Steve Case also efficiently upgraded America Online's existing customers for free, keeping some online gaming functions while installing modems and Internet
Explorer browsers better suited for web access.
Tim Berners-Lee's technical team aimed to further enhance Internet Explorer's dynamic web and graphics display capabilities to integrate America Online's existing online gaming functions into the browser.
To achieve this, Simon had already poached another computer language development team from SUN before recruiting Carol Bartz.
In the original timeline, this obscure team under SUN later developed the Java language, which was more powerful than C, and further introduced JavaScript, significantly enhancing web page display capabilities.
To secure this team, Simon agreed with SUN that Egritec would fund the team's expenses, with the Java language patents remaining with SUN, but the web-embedded language JavaScript patents belonging to Egritec.
Although JavaScript would take about a year to perfect, many features had already been implemented with the IE team's cooperation.
The sudden emergence of Egritec's portal, along with its online news, email, personal homepages, and forums, had begun attracting more media and public attention.
In a commercial street near Egritec.
Simon, Tim Berners-Lee, Carol Bartz, John Chambers, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Case gathered.
If someone were present to take a photo, they would realize years later what a formidable group this was.
The store was a prototype internet café initiated by America Online, the result of nearly a month's work since the America Online team moved to Silicon Valley.
Compared to the smoky, dim internet cafés Simon remembered, this one truly deserved the name 'café'. Simon's plan for the internet café was not profit-driven but aimed to promote the brands of America Online, Egritec, and Cisco. Thus, the café adopted a casual coffee shop layout.
The prototype spanned 50 square meters with only 20 of the latest IBM PCs running Windows 3.0, arranged either in pairs for couples, in private booths, or in rows conducive to interaction.
Not just for internet access, the café also offered various beverages and snacks, creating a relaxed and comfortable leisure environment.
Regarding pricing, Simon was tempted to adopt a subsidized operation model from his memories, primarily for brand promotion.
However, since America Online had registered the 'Internet Bar' brand and brought in IBM with a 40% investment, profitability had to be considered. Therefore, internet access was priced at $3 per hour, with beverages and snacks charged separately.
With movie ticket prices in the U.S. just breaking $4 in recent years, the $3 per hour rate at the internet café, given its more comfortable environment compared to cinemas, was still relatively low. Like many cinemas, the café might also rely on 'merchandise' like drinks and snacks for profit.
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