Hollywood Hunter

After staying with Sofia for a week, Simon left Rome and returned to Los Angeles on February 6, while the woman stayed at the manor in the southern suburbs of Rome to continue raising her baby. Until the birth of the child, most of Melisandre’s affairs would be handed over to her deputy Angela. Ahrendts is in charge.

During Simon’s absence in Hollywood, apart from the successful closing of the Sundance Film Festival and the 52nd Golden Globe Awards, there was just another box office week from January 27th to February 2nd. It happened logically: "Toy Story 2", which was released on Thanksgiving Day last year, continued to receive $4.31 million after being released in the 11th week. The cumulative box office officially broke through the $300 million mark, reaching $30.56 million, becoming 1994. The third domestic box office released this year exceeded 300 million US dollars.

Another local US$300 million "Suicide Squad", in the 7th week of its release from January 27 to February 2, has a box office of 10.37 million US dollars and a cumulative box office of 278.36 million US dollars, which is far from the 300 million US dollar mark. There is only a gap of 22 million US dollars, and it is only a matter of time before the threshold is successfully crossed.

In addition, "Red Zone", which was released on January 27, was also considered a good start for Daenerys Entertainment in 1995.

Seven days in the first week of the opening of the painting, with its excellent reputation and 1,736 screens, the box office of "Red Fan District" reached 14.19 million US dollars in the first week, and the single-week pavilion exceeded 8,000 US dollars. Such an unpopular period at the end of the month is still a niche Hong Kong film, and such results have exceeded all expectations.

When Simon returned to Los Angeles, the box office for the next weekend of "Red Zone" was also released. In the second weekend, the three-day drop was only 27% year-on-year, and it received 6.34 million U.S. dollars. The cumulative box office for the ten days of screening exceeded 20 million to 20.53 million U.S.

In comparison, the production cost of "Red Fan District" is only 7.5 million US dollars, and as a cooperative investor, Daenerys Entertainment's New World Pictures only got the film in North America and Europe with an investment share of only 2.5 million US dollars. The omni-channel distribution rights, the film’s initial publicity budget in North America is only 3 million US dollars.

Now, the total investment of 5.5 million US dollars, 10 days in exchange for more than 20 million US dollars in the box office, the total box office in North America may reach 35 million to 40 million US dollars, not to mention the European and subsequent video tapes and television channels, etc. , The total return of this movie to Daenerys Entertainment may exceed many blockbuster projects.

Now that "Red Zone" has been successful, "Rush Hour" can also be smoothly put on the agenda.

The script of "The Rush Hour" was basically based on the Hong Kong film routines, and it was tailor-made for Jack Cheng, and it was a Hollywood standard or even a flood of brother film mode. Simon came up with a similar idea, but it does not exist. The possibility of a crash.

However, Simon did not personally perform the swordsmanship either. He just gave a rough idea of ​​the script with the president of New World Pictures, Danny Morris, and asked the other party to find the screenwriter to perfect it by himself. The key to the success of "Rush Hour" is the wonderful pairing of Jack Cheng and Chris Tucker. The details of the plot are not that important.

Malibu, Daenerys Studios.

It is already Wednesday, February 8.

Back in Los Angeles, Simon devoted most of his energy to a series of film projects that Daenerys Entertainment is preparing or has entered the production state.

Work started at nine o’clock this morning, for three hours, three consecutive production meetings, which were about "Charlie Angels", "Mummy" and "Game of the Brave". These were among the four foreign cooperation projects that were finalized last year. Three, and the other "The Bourne Shadow", as a part of the "Secret Agent Movie Universe", will not start until after the release of "Charlie Boy".

Of the three projects that have been launched, the first one to be released was "The Mummy" in collaboration with Fox. It is tentatively scheduled for the summer next year. Both "Charlie Girl" and "Game of the Brave" will have to wait until the end of next year.

The three partners are not satisfied with this arrangement, but they are helpless.

After all, there are too many projects.

Unless you want to kill each other, there is definitely no suitable schedule for this year. Even next year, the blockbuster that has been finalized will include the restart of the new 007 movie, Tim Burton’s "Driftwood", Dan "Mission: Impossible 2", a collaboration between Neris and Paramount, and another sequel to the DC movie universe "Wonder Woman 2".

In addition, there are the indispensable sequels of the "Call of Souls Movie Universe" and some other low-cost key projects, plus these three, the 1996 schedule is already too crowded. Simon’s original planning of "Independence Day" and the earlier vision of "Justice League" must be postponed because of this, otherwise it will only prevent all films from reaching their box office potential.

In the morning meeting, Simon and the production team basically finalized the production ideas for the three projects.

"The Mummy" cooperating with Fox will adopt the original plot in Simon's memory without making too many changes.

"The Charlie's Girl", which was co-operated with MGM, is a brand-new idea, and Simon wrote the script himself.

In the final "Game of the Brave", Simon decided to use the 2017 version starring Dashi Johnson after weighing the 1995 version and the 2017 version in his memory. It was invaded and invaded by the game. Obviously the latter is easier to give The audience brings a sense of substitution.

Even if the inflation factor is removed, the 2017 version has a much higher box office than the 1995 version. The global box office in my memory is close to 1 billion US dollars.

Simon's hesitation is mainly due to the choice of a highly paid male protagonist, perhaps Schwarzenegger or Stallone. If it’s just one collaboration, it’s okay, 15 million or even 20 million in remuneration is fine. The key is that if the first film is successful, the sequel will be very difficult to work with with Schwarzenegger.

Simon still clearly remembers that Schwarzenegger specially prepared a strong team of lawyers for the "Terminator 3" to negotiate with the film party. In the end, the investment of "Terminator 3" was as high as 200 million US dollars, and the global box office barely exceeded 400 million US dollars. Investors are busy all the time, only Schwarzenegger easily received a huge salary of 30 million US dollars, which is a typical case of film companies working for stars.

Simon will not allow this to happen to Daenerys Entertainment.

What's more, the 2017 version of "Game of the Brave" is still set with four protagonists. Once the first episode is successful, the salaries of the four protagonists will rise.

Now that this plan is finalized, the first thing Simon has to solve is the actor problem.

In the 2017 version in memory, Sony is actually very economical. Except for Dashi Johnson whose salary reached 20 million US dollars, the other few are not big names. Therefore, the total production cost is only 90 million US dollars, which is less than 100 million US dollars in budget. , After more than two decades, it is no longer a blockbuster, but the final global box office of the film exploded to nearly 1 billion US dollars.

This time, Simon will not save money on special effects, but directly finalized a $100 million budget.

The US$100 million in 1995 and US$100 million in 2017 are obviously not a concept.

Not only that, Simon also plans to limit the cost of the main creative to 25 million US dollars, including the producer, the director, and the four protagonists. For this purpose, a certain profit sharing can be provided. If this version of "Game of the Brave" can still impact With 1 billion in the world, Simon is very happy to pay 100 million US dollars in share for a major creative.

There is also a packaging contract that stipulates the capped film must be signed in advance.

Simon doesn't want the success of the first episode, because of various wrangling in terms of pay, the sequel was stranded for a long time or even completely aborted.

Of course, if the project fails, Daenerys Entertainment has the right to cancel the sequel directly without additional compensation. Now Daenerys Entertainment has the absolute initiative in Hollywood. Once the star pressed the studio to sign various unequal contracts, at least Daenerys Entertainment has been reversed.

If you are unwilling, then the opportunity is someone else's. No matter how big a celebrity is, it can't stand up and down many times.

After a busy morning, I had a meal with Amy Pascal in the studio’s executive restaurant at noon.

The waiter had just delivered lunch and left, and Amy Pascal smiled and mentioned one thing: "Recently, the media about your donation of AOL stock has been very quarrelsome?"

Simon picked up the cutlery and shrugged: "No matter how you do this kind of thing, you can't avoid controversy. Let them quarrel just because it bothers me and I won't donate it in the future."

A few days ago, when Simon was still in Rome, on the North American side, the Westeros family began to fulfill their charitable promises made at the beginning of the year and donated the first US online company worth $1 billion to the Simon & Janet Westero Foundation. The stock is used to help public universities, middle and elementary schools throughout the United States build modern professional computer classrooms.

The pledged donation is 3 billion U.S. dollars, and Simon certainly will not honor it all at once.

The first consideration is that the stocks in your hand continue to increase in value, donating in batches can always save a little. Even if you have money, you still have to plan carefully.

However, this immediately triggered the first controversy. Some media believe that Simon’s $3 billion donation has been seriously shrunk and criticized the crusade. Even though the Westeros family’s press spokesperson has repeatedly clarified, some people are still the same. I don't believe I don't believe I don't believe you are a stubborn piety who speaks without faith.

In fact, even if it’s just this $1 billion donation, including past expenditures, the Simon & Janet Westeros Foundation has already caught up with the family foundations of many old money families that lasted for more than half a century.

However, for those who don't want to see this, what you say is obviously useless.

Not only that, but some people quickly objected to Simon's donation of stocks instead of cash, thinking that he was deliberately avoiding taxes.

According to the US charity rules, if Simon cashed out the shares before donating, even if you declare that the money will be used for charitable purposes, you must pay capital gains tax before donating.

The current capital gains tax rate is still 28%.

This means that if Simon donates cash directly, according to the donation commitment of 3 billion US dollars, the additional expenditure of more than 1.1 billion US dollars for capital gains tax in the cash-out process. Of course, Simon will not do this kind of thing, and there are not many other things. The rich would do this.

Donate stocks directly, put the stocks into a charity fund, and then cash out there is no tax problem.

Not only that, Simon can also get huge tax deductions.

Although it is not a full tax deduction, and the tax deduction ratio for stock donations is only 30%, which is much lower than the 50% of cash donations, it is still a large tax deduction based on the donation amount of $3 billion. According to the tax law, this money can be deferred for five years as a tax deduction for corporate losses.

Calculated, the $3 billion worth of stocks are all donated, and the Westeros family can get up to $900 million in tax deductions.

Simon’s direct donation of stocks has already saved US$1.1 billion in capital gains tax. After all the 3 billion shares are donated, he can get another US$900 million in tax deductions. In such an operation, in many people’s eyes, Simon Westeros is actually A saving of 2 billion US dollars is actually equivalent to a donation of only 1 billion US dollars. The other 2 billion US dollars is equivalent to using the tax due to the federal government for charity.

This is simply frantic!

For the unscrupulous media, which is a very far-fetched algorithm that is very attractive to the public, even if he has been mentally prepared before, Simon can only helpless.

Moreover, as the discussion fermented, some media also questioned Simon's charity project.

It costs US$3 billion to build computer classrooms for public schools in the United States. Whether it is purchasing equipment or connecting to the Internet, it is basically impossible to bypass the new technology companies such as Microsoft, Intel, and AOL in the Westeros system. This money is equal to the final return. In the hands of Simon himself.

Calculating this way, Simon Westero may not donate a penny from beginning to end.

This is no longer insanely capable of describing it.

After all, the media industry in the United States is still too developed. This kind of questioning is not a direct personal attack like last year. If others question, they must sue, and litigation bombing must be launched, which will inevitably lead to a stronger backlash.

Simon just tried his best to let the media power of the Westeros system refute.

Moreover, it is impossible to really stop donating money like he just said angrily.

The charity should be done.

After all, this is a basic strategy related to the future wealth inheritance of the Westeros family.

Such a huge asset, if you want to cross the inheritance tax threshold many years later, it will definitely be passed on through the name of the foundation as much as possible in the future. Of course, when the time comes, compared with the individual foundations of some old money families, if the Westeros family's related foundations do not want to be too dazzling, they will definitely be as small as possible.

Amy could also feel the helplessness in Simon's tone, and asked, "Is too much money also starting to worry?"

When Simon heard this question, he shook his head and smiled: "This is really not there. I enjoy it, and I like to see many people envy and hate my personal asset numbers."

Amy couldn't help laughing: "Yes, I think about it occasionally, but I'm too jealous."

After a month of rising in January, the Nasdaq index has exceeded 2,000 points. The price of a large number of technology stocks held by Simon has continued to increase with the rise in the stock market. Now Simon’s personal net worth has reached 500 billion US dollars. At least from the stock book, there is no moisture at all.

The US$500 billion in personal net worth has completely surpassed the limit of ordinary people’s imagination. Media and politicians who believe that Simon’s personal wealth should be restricted from the continued growth may not know how to respond.

Judging from the current situation, if you want to stop Simon Westero’s personal wealth from continuing to increase, you can only break the rules of capitalist society and forcefully seize Westero’s assets.

This obviously doesn't work.

After all, no one wants the United States to become the former Soviet Union. If this could be done to Simon Westeros, other rich people might also be treated like this.

Even gradually full of eyes.

At that time, everyone will have no sense of security.