Hollywood Hunter

After a long sixteen-hour flight, Simon returned to Los Angeles. It was still Sunday evening, June 25, Eastern Time. Due to the time difference, major exchanges in Asia have begun a new week of trading.

The various measures taken in the past two days have obviously worked. The Tokyo stock market opened and the Nikkei 225 index began to slowly rise.

New week in North America.

Simon got up in the morning, and the Nikkei 225 finally closed at 36617 the day before. Although this data has not yet reached the highest point last week, the unexpected crisis in the Japanese financial market has passed smoothly.

In recent days, many newspapers in North America have been talking about the news that Simon went to Australia to visit his girlfriend and caused the Japanese stock market to fall sharply. They also gave rise to a new term for the "Westero effect".

The news on the front page of the Los Angeles Times on Monday was still the same. The attached picture is a photo of Simon and Janet huddled together at Melbourne Airport. The article re-introduces what happened in the last few days, not forgetting to tease that Simon is definitely the most unpopular guy among Japanese now, and predicts that he wants to travel to Japan for a long time in the future, but he was refused entry. The possibilities are as high as 100%.

In Australia, the agreement between Cersei Capital and the Japanese is progressing very smoothly. In less than a week, the two parties completed the secret settlement in all aspects.

In the final agreement, the ownership of Cersei Capital's 1 to 5 sub-funds was fully transferred to the Japanese, and Janet and Anthony were still responsible for the management on the surface.

Janet wanted to fly to Los Angeles as soon as the transaction was completed. However, in order to avoid sudden personnel changes from causing speculation, the Japanese side required her to be responsible for operating Cersei Capital for at least two months. Of course, it was completely remotely controlled in Japan. Under the prerequisites, Janet actually has no right to decide.

For the benefit of everyone, Janet had to agree.

Two months is actually just right.

The later stage of "Batman" will not end until September. Simon plans to take a long vacation after finishing the film. The first stop of the plan is Milan Fashion Week in September. At that time, Janet can also use this very reasonable excuse to leave.

Since she could not get out for the time being, Janet was not idle, and began to prepare the operation team of Cersei Capital's 6-10 sub-funds in order to short the North American junk bond market in the second half of the year. Naturally, the source of funds was the Japanese recently transferred to Cersei Capital overseas. $5 billion in cash in the account.

In order to keep its own layout confidential, the Japanese also require that Cersei Capital’s funds cannot be transferred back to China for at least one year. No one has any objection to this.

Out of tax avoidance considerations, Simon had no plans to transfer the money back to China in the short term. Investors in Australia also hope to continue to rely on Cersei Capital to get more benefits.

Although the settlement has not yet been conducted, according to the original step-by-step agreement, Simon's personal profit from this transaction can be roughly predicted.

5 billion US dollars of funds, excluding 1.57 billion US dollars in principal, the profit figure is 3.43 billion US dollars.

In the original agreement, Simon only asked for a profit margin on the proceeds of the US$970 million in external investment funds, and he and the Johnston family's US$600 million did not need to do so. The tiered deduction scheme is that the part within 30% of the profit scale will be deducted 20%, the part from 30% to 100% will be deducted 30%, and the part exceeding 100% will be deducted 50%.

Calculated from all aspects, Simon can obtain a principal income of 1.093 billion US dollars and a commission income of 836 million US dollars. Counting the original capital of US$500 million, Simon's book share in the US$5 billion of funds has reached US$2.429 billion.

In addition, the Johnston family’s principal amount of US$100 million has a book profit of US$218 million. The principal of 970 million US dollars in other Australian capital, the book profit was 1.283 billion US dollars.

Although Simon wanted to take more than half of the income share, no Australian investor requested redemption or even partial redemption after the transaction ended. Not only because of the original agreement, it took less than half a year to convert 1.57 billion US dollars into 5 billion US dollars, and all parties’ incomes exceeded 100%. As long as other investors in Australia are thinking properly, they all know that Simon is worth such a high amount. Split accounts.

Faced with such a huge amount of funds held by Cersei Capital, Simon has gradually developed some other ideas.

Of course, this is something.

Suddenly left Los Angeles for several days without warning, and naturally had to work overtime to make up for some work progress after returning.

On the other hand, competition in North America for summer vacations has become more intense.

Simon left Los Angeles last Wednesday night. Then, the box office for the third week of the "Bodyguard" was released. The film's box office drop was still only a slight 11% compared to the second week, with a total of $17.86 million and a cumulative box office of $61.55 million.

On the following Friday, the North American summer file launched three new films at one time, namely the Disney sci-fi-style family comedy "My dear, I made the child smaller", Columbia Pictures' "Longwei Kid 3" and Orion Pictures The music biopic "The Great Fireball".

Although none of the three new films had the same box office explosions in the first week as "Indiana Jones 3" and "Ghostbusters 2", they also had a significant impact on the box office of many old films.

From June 23 to June 29, the week after Simon returned from Australia, the box office drop of "Bodyguard" expanded to 21% compared with last week, and received another 14.11 million US dollars.

Although "Bodyguard" lags behind "My dear, I made the child smaller", "Longwei Kid 3" and "Ghostbusters 2" on the weekly box office list, it only ranks fourth. However, this film, which was originally not favored by everyone, was released for four weeks, but the cumulative box office has reached 75.66 million US dollars.

In addition, the box office of "Indiana Jones 3" in the new week shrank to 12.07 million U.S. dollars, ranking fifth, with a cumulative gross of 140.23 million U.S. dollars.

Of the three new films, Orion Pictures’ "Big Fireball" did not meet expectations. The production budget for this musical biopic about the life story of the famous American rock singer Jerry Lee Lewis was 12 million U.S. dollars, and the screen size reached 1,417. In the first week, the box office was only 6.28 million U.S. dollars, and the word of mouth was also very average.

In the new year, except for the unexpected hit "The Adventures of Abbie" in February, which won a box office of 40 million US dollars, the other films released by Orion Pictures ended in failure. Because of the continued deterioration of the financial situation, in February of this year, just after the three-month window of "Pulp Fiction" had passed, Orion could not wait to release the video tape.

After Simon personally collected debts from Mike Meadow at the last party, Orion Pictures still delayed the box office share of "Pulp Fiction" Daenerys Entertainment deserved. Tolerating Orion Pictures will be divided into delays for half a year, Daenerys Entertainment has done its best. In order to avoid the sudden bankruptcy of Orion Pictures, the share is completely unrecoverable, Amy has recently been considering legal measures.

On June 30, in the new week, Simon's secretly high hope "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" was finally released.

Compared with the opening scale of "Bodyguard" with more than 2,000 screens, the number of screens in the first week of "Sixth Sense of Supernatural" was only 1,673. This relatively conservative screening strategy is actually intended by Simon. He hopes to reserve enough space for the film's reputation through a smaller screening scale.

Until it was released, the plot of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" was still strictly confidential. Daenerys Entertainment's early marketing strategy was mainly based on Simon and De Niro, and it was very traditional to simply increase the popularity of the film. .

Simon has always believed that "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" has achieved a huge global box office success of more than $600 million in the original time and space. The fundamental reason is definitely not simply a plot reversal. The emotional connotation of the film and many other factors are very important. .

However, the plot reversal between humans and ghosts is undoubtedly an important catalyst for the success of the film.

Therefore, in the propaganda stage of the film, no matter it is the various drafts or the main creative interview, there is no mention or hint of the final reversal of the film. Simon’s basic strategy is to let the audience discover this reversal by themselves, not Through the hint of pre-propaganda.

If it is known in advance that the film will have a ‘surprise’, it may even have the opposite effect in the end, making some people feel ‘but this’.

After all, similar plots are not uncommon in the long film history.

As for the subject matter of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural", most fans who pay attention to this film can only get a general impression of a "horror film" before the film is released. Even in the final stage of the TV trailer, the only information available to the audience is basically a story between a psychologist and a psychic boy, with some misleading horror-specific shots attached.

Because "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" should basically be regarded as a pseudo-horror film focusing on family warmth. In terms of marketing audiences, Daenerys Entertainment did not target teenagers as precisely as "Scream", but For audiences of all ages, this has also led to a significant increase in the cost of publicity.

Some fans have been hesitant to choose to watch the movie because of the conservative strategy of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" in the film promotion stage, because Daenerys Entertainment's strict confidentiality of the film's plot and the various unusual in the publicity stage However, entertainment media with a keen sense of smell seem more and more curious.

Of course, there are also many experienced media and audiences who believe that whether it is the low-level opening scale of the film or the low-key promotion and marketing, it is only Daenerys Entertainment's lack of confidence in "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural". In fact, Daenerys Entertainment's executives who have watched the film "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" generally lack confidence in this flat-screen movie.

Los Angeles.

Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters in Santa Monica.

The time is the afternoon of June 30.

In the large conference room in the office building, the meeting on arranging the company's mid-year financial audit started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and has continued to the present.

All the core executives of Daenerys Entertainment were present.

Although the mid-year financial audit that will begin next month is not as detailed as the one at the beginning of the year, the accounting team of Westeros will also participate in order to play a supervisory role. As the person in charge of Westeros, James Rebald came from Los Angeles with Robert Iger in the morning.

In the first two quarters, although the series of films released by Daenerys Entertainment only sold at the box office of "Bodyguard", the company's revenue from the two core businesses of film and television is still very substantial.

In terms of movies, in addition to the new films in the first half of the year, the local releases of big-selling films such as "Scream" and "Steel Magnolia" at the end of last year have gradually ended, and overseas distribution has basically been completed. The "Up Sally" video tape also achieved a very impressive sales performance in the first half of the year, and funds continued to be returned in all aspects.

In the field of television, the spring releases of reality shows and TV series such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" have also come to an end. TV network settlement income and prepayments have also brought a lot of revenue to Daenerys Entertainment.

All companies in the Westeros system have a total debt of US$900 million, which means that only this year, the amount of principal and interest that Simon needs to repay will reach US$200 million, but he has not felt the slightest pressure.

Not to mention the huge amount of money Cersei Capital just received from the Japanese. It's just a show of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" under Daenerys Entertainment. The new season of the contract has made a substantial concession. This is a real person. The continued income generated by the show is sufficient to support Simon's personal debt repayment.

However, although Daenerys Entertainment's profitability has reached the level that makes Hollywood counterparts jealous, Simon has no intention of being a confused boss. Too many memories of the two lives made him deeply understand that for any company to continue to grow and develop, a strict financial system is essential.

At five o'clock, the meeting ended.

The others dispersed, and Simon and James Rebald stayed in the conference room to discuss Cersei Capital.

James already knows about Cersei’s transaction with the Japanese, and the operation of the local junk bond market will require more cooperation from Westeros.

The two communicated alone for half an hour before they walked out of the meeting room together.

Amy hadn't left yet, after hearing Simon's conclusion James' communication, she walked over from her office.

"Burbank has compiled statistics on the attendance of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" during the day, and some mainstream evening newspapers have also published film reviews. Overall, the feedback is very good."

A few days ago, "Bodyguard" hit the box office unexpectedly, and Amy inadvertently said that it was enough for a big film company to have a film with a box office of more than 100 million yuan a year. At the end of the year, the distribution rights of the two key commercial films "Flying the Innocence" and "Batman" belonged to Warner. Amy's remarks undoubtedly showed that she was also the one who lacked confidence in "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural".

Seeing Amy's relaxed look at this time, the performance of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" after its release today should have exceeded her expectations.

Simon didn't express too much opinion, just smiled and said, "If there are no other arrangements, let's have dinner together and talk later."

Amy nodded and went downstairs with Simon, James and Jennifer. While walking, he took out his Motorola Micro-TAC mobile phone from his bag and said: "I think Rem should be reminded to communicate with the media to avoid tomorrow. There are too many public spoiler film reviews in the newspapers."

Simon watched Amy lower his head to dial, and glanced at the Motorola Micro-TAC.

After returning from Australia, Simon noticed that Amy, Nancy, and others have begun to use this mobile phone that is only the size of a palm and can be called a mobile phone. However, looking again at this time, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

Ok.

correct.

Nokia!