Hollywood Hunter

Seven awards for the best film and best director of "Dancing with Wolves", the best supporting actress and the best original screenplay of "A Man and a Ghost", the best actress of "Ten Days of Crisis", Pixar The Oscar's best animated short film of 3D animation "Little Lion", this is the cumulative win of the movies produced by Daenerys Entertainment at the 61st Oscar Awards.

If you don’t count other honorary awards, Daenerys Entertainment’s total of 11 awards, accounting for exactly half of all 22 film awards, has become the biggest winner of this year’s Oscar just like the Golden Globe in January.

Simon has little interest in attending any parties recently. However, as a boss, both emotions and reasons need to be revealed at the celebration party.

We arrived at the Gucci theme party at the Beverly Hilton with Sofia, and it was almost ten o'clock.

Shuttle in the party crowd to congratulate tonight's winners, Simon soon came to a middle-aged man who was chatting with John Lasseter and Ed Cartermoor.

The middle-aged man named Roger Ellers is an animated film director and screenwriter dug from Disney by Pixar Animation Studios. He has participated in Disney's "The Adventures of Oliver" and other films, and is also the award-winning 3D animation short film tonight Director of "Little Lion".

In original time and space, Roger Ellers happened to be the director of the Disney 2D version of "The Lion King" movie.

From the end of 1988 to the present, for more than two years, Pixar has been developing animation technology related to "The Lion King" while making "Toy Story".

The "Little Lion" won by the Little Golden Man tonight is a concentrated expression of Pixar's technological development achievements in the past two years.

The short five-minute film, through a short adventure of a little lion living on the savanna, fully demonstrates the magnificent African savannah scene and animal hair rendering technology in 3D animation mode.

Now that I have successfully won the Oscar for Best Short Film, it is enough to prove that Pixar's technology has reached the level that can produce the 3D version of "The Lion King", and the film will be officially launched in the near future.

Simon congratulated Roger Ellers on winning the award, and said: "I will take time to watch the story version of "The Lion King" in the last few days, Roger, this is a gift from me to Jenny. If you mess up Now, my wife will be very angry."

Although it was only an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, Roger Ellers was still quite excited tonight. Hearing this, he immediately nodded confidently: "Simon, I assure you, this will definitely be a very exciting story. "

Simon smiled, then turned to John Lasseter, and said, "John, how long will it take to complete "Toy Story", you have already overrun a lot?"

In the initial plan, Simon hoped to complete "Toy Story" with US$30 million.

However, perhaps due to the natural perfectionism of any artist, "Toy Story" is estimated to be several months to complete, but the team led by John Lasseter has already spent $33 million.

Although Simon had a smile on his face, John Lasseter was quite nervous.

Pixar Animation is definitely the most ‘white rice’ department of Daenerys Entertainment.

From being bought by Simon in 1988 to now, more than two years, other departments of the company can be described as thriving, but Pixar Animation has always only spent money but has not produced.

Therefore, everyone knows that "Toy Story" can be described as a last-ditch battle for the Pixar team. Once it fails, even if there is another chance to comeback for "The Lion King", the Pixar team will definitely not have a good life for the next two years.

After careful consideration for a moment, John Lasseter said: "Two months, Simon, give us another two months."

"Toy Story" is scheduled for November at the end of this year, and time is actually very sufficient. However, if the project lasts for one more month, it will definitely be an extra large expenditure. Naturally, the sooner it is completed, the better.

Simon pays attention to Pixar's work progress every month. He is still very satisfied with the effect of the completed "Toy Story" samples, so he is not in a hurry.

The first 3D animation film will inevitably encounter various problems. Considering the project's profit prospects, Simon can barely tolerate the overspending behavior of the Pixar team.

However, Simon would not show this kind of indulgence, he still banged on his lips.

Continuing to chat with John Lasseter and others for a while, Simon looked at Jennifer beside him, confirmed that everyone who should be greeted had already greeted him, and planned to leave.

Just after coming to the door of the party hall with the female assistant, Ella Deutschman walked over, with a few Asian men and women around him.

Arriving in front of Simon, Ella Deutschman explained: "Simon, Zhang and the others want to say hello to you."

Among Daenerys Entertainment's many nominations tonight, there is also a "Ju Dou" which was nominated for best foreign language film. This is also the first time across the ocean to be nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film.

Simon initially signaled Deutschman to increase his attention to and introduction of Asian films, but he did not show too much additional attention to "Ju Dou".

Therefore, the film did not win the Golden Man.

Looking at the few big coffees who can only look up in his previous life, Simon smiled, and shook hands with a few people one by one: "Hello, Mr. Zhang. And, Miss Gong, your performance in "Ju Dou" is very wonderful ."

During this greeting, Simon directly used Chinese.

The few people in front of them all showed surprised expressions when they heard Simon's fluent Mandarin, even Ella Deutschman's expression was a bit strange.

After all, they are people from two worlds, just a few simple words, saying that next time there is a chance to cooperate again, Simon will leave the Beverly Hilton Hotel with his female assistant.

I still have to go back to Cape Dumei Manor tonight.

Janet has just been pregnant, and even if a woman doesn't mind, Simon is very concerned about her emotions in these small details, so she has never spent the night outside during this time.

Leaving with the female assistant is just to take her home.

As the car shuttled through downtown Los Angeles in the middle of the night, Jennifer keenly sensed some slight emotional changes after Simon greeted the Orientals just now. This is a...maybe called a lonely mood, but didn't say anything. , Just holding the man's arm and gently leaning over.

In fact, there have always been many secrets in his man.

It's just that he doesn't say, she won't deliberately pursue it.

Sending the female assistant back to her uncle George Norman's house, Simon did not stay and continued to return to Malibu.

As usual, the next day was a report on this Oscar.

Daenerys Entertainment won half of the petty golds, and naturally became the focus of media discussions.

Fortunately, although there are some political correctness factors in it, "Dancing with Wolves", which won seven awards, did not cause much controversy. On the contrary, many media still noticed other Daenerys Entertainment products. The fact that excellent films are not nominated.

In addition, some people have also noticed that Simon himself was absent from this year's Oscars.

It's not just the absence of the Oscars, but Simon did not receive any personal nomination at this year's Oscars. For a while, some media began to speculate whether Simon was planning to stop.

After all, with Simon’s current wealth, there is really no need to shoot movies by himself.

In the face of media inquiries, Daenerys Entertainment denied the media's speculation, but also said that Simon may not be able to pick up the guide in person for a long time in the future.

Due to the Oscars ceremony and the Easter schedule, the box office of "Dancing with Wolves" once again experienced a wave of rebound. From March 22 to March 28, during the week of the Oscars awards ceremony, the reversal fell by 59%. At US$6.54 million, the film’s cumulative box office reached US$139 million.

On March 29th, the Easter schedule opened in the second week.

Two other films related to Daenerys Entertainment, "Children in the Cornfield 3" and "Crazy Night" produced by Universal Pictures were released.

New World Pictures invested a budget of 10 million US dollars for "Children in the Cornfield 3" and adopted many of the latest CG special effects to try to make this horror film series hit the box office of "Most Ghost Street".

However, within the first three days of the painting, the North American box office of "Children in the Cornfield 3" was only 6.73 million US dollars. The box office in the first week is expected to be between 9 million and 10 million. The total North American box office is expected to be about 30 million US dollars.

Making money is certain, and there is still some gap between the "Men Ghost Street" series.

Of course, compared with the box office level of the first two films of 15 million US dollars, the expected double box office increase of "Children in the Cornfield 3" is still very obvious, so the fourth part of the series will still maintain the production budget level of tens of millions of dollars.

"A Crazy Night", produced by John Hughes, only had a box office of 4.02 million U.S. dollars in the first three days. The reputation of the film is far inferior to "Home Alone", which is still in theaters.

The production budget of this romantic comedy movie is 11 million U.S. dollars, and the total box office in North America is expected to be less than 15 million U.S. dollars. It only relies on North American theaters for distribution, and it is unlikely to recover the cost.

After "Crazy Night" was released at the box office, the other studios that had chased John Hughes madly because of the success of "Home Alone" all calmed down a bit and involuntarily transferred more factors of the success of "Home Alone" to Simon. .

After Easter on March 31, time entered April 1991.

AOL’s three-month free trial program is just over.

In the past March, the number of AOL reservation users still reached 1.5 million, and a total of 1.09 million free trial users were accessed again.

Among the 970,000 trial users in February, the number of users who eventually converted to official users reached 560,000, which is another increase compared to the official user conversion rate in January, reaching 57%.

Relying on the data of the first two months, AOL predicts that among the 1.09 million free trial users in March, the number of formal users will reach more than 600,000.

In this way, only in the first quarter, AOL will gain more than 1.5 million new users.

Counting the user accumulation before 1991, it is estimated that by the end of April, the number of official paying users of AOL will reach more than 2.3 million.

With such a strong growth momentum, because a large number of users who booked a free trial in the previous few months did not successfully access, AOL officials soon announced that the free trial will continue until the remaining 2.5 million reserved users have all obtained End of free trial opportunity.

The remaining 2.5 million reservation users, even at a 50% conversion rate, can once again bring about 1.25 million official paying users to AOL.

Therefore, after the free trial activity is completely over, the number of AOL users will be able to reach more than 3.5 million.

Calculated based on the average monthly consumption of a single user of US$30, it is expected that from the second half of 1991, AOL’s monthly revenue will reach more than US$100 million.

Both solid revenue data and high-speed growth rates visible to the naked eye are constantly stimulating AOL's IPO valuation.

Morgan Stanley, which officially signed a contract to win the underwriting rights of AOL's IPO, after several consecutive adjustments, finally confirmed AOL's IPO valuation at US$2.5 billion.

With a valuation of US$2.5 billion, it is estimated that US$375 million will be raised in accordance with AOL’s 15% new share issuance ratio.

Counting the rapid growth of AOL's own revenue, after the completion of the IPO, this company will completely get rid of the financial troubles that have been entangled before.

On the other hand, with the efforts of AOL and other regional Internet service providers in North America, it is expected that in the first half of 1991, the number of users of the World Wide Web platform in North America will exceed 5 million, and the scale of 10 million users will be affected throughout the year. It seems very relaxed.

This growth rate far exceeded Simon's initial expectations.

It is no wonder that Jeff Bezos, after seeing the 2300% annual growth of the Internet industry in his memory, quickly switched from the financial industry to it.

As the most important content platform of the World Wide Web system, the Eaglet Portal has gradually received more and more attention with the explosive growth of the number of World Wide Web users.

You know, in this era, the average sales volume of the newspaper with the largest circulation in North America is only more than 2 million copies.

During this period of time, relying on the Eaglet portal, which quickly gained fame for reporting on the Gulf War, the total number of users throughout North America has exceeded 3 million.

Although the user base of Eaglet Portal is too scattered, at this time, no one dares to ignore this rapidly growing new media platform.

Therefore, in the new quarter advertising sales activities of Eaglet Portal in late March, Eaglet has received more than 12 million US dollars in advertising orders from IBM, Intel, Microsoft and other technology giants.

Although it is difficult for traditional daily necessities advertising to gain much effect on the Internet platform, it is obvious that as a new emerging technology media platform, the Eaglet Portal is suitable for technology giants such as IBM to promote their products.

Jeff Bezos accurately grasped this point and specially customized a series of advertising programs specifically for various technology companies. The US$12 million advertising order may be insignificant compared to traditional media giants, but it is a leap forward for Eaglet Portal.

Prior to this, the main source of income for Eaglet was the sales of IE browser software.

Therefore, after this quarterly advertising sales activity at the end of March, advertising business revenue has officially become a revenue focus of Eaglet Portal.

At the same time, the industry is generally aware of the powerful monopoly advantage of Eaglet Portal over the World Wide Web content platform.

You should know that a portal that only provides news information may not be technically difficult, but it is not so easy to integrate functions such as e-mail, personal homepage, online forums, and online games in addition to news information. Thing.

More importantly, Eaglet also holds a very strong patent barrier.

This is the fundamental obstacle for other technology companies to copy the portal business.

On the World Wide Web platform, even if it is a very simple web page picture to many people, it is actually a professional format picture specially developed and registered by Igreat. Not to mention the JavaScript scripting language and other technologies involved in the underlying application.

Although Daenerys Entertainment maintains a very open authorization attitude, more and more other sites joining the World Wide Web platform can easily obtain authorization as long as they apply, and authorization is free. However, it is not difficult to imagine that if someone plans to build a commercial website similar to the Eaglet portal, and can successfully obtain the technical authorization from Eaglet, then it is hell.

Simon hopes that Internet content sites will flourish, so he does not intend to restrict the emergence of other content platforms. Doing so will not benefit the expansion of the World Wide Web platform itself.

However, if it is only the patent authorization for open content, and there is no access to the patent authorization of related technologies such as e-mail, online games, and future online payments, similar websites are destined to be difficult to compete with the Eagle Portal.