hunt hollywood

Simon was a little surprised.

In my memory, Qintex Group did not successfully acquire MGM, what is going on now?

After reading the statement document handed over by Jennifer, it turns out that Qintex Group has recently successfully sold a resort in Brisbane for US$4.3 million. The bond has also received support from many Australian investment institutions.

Putting down that page of statement, Simon said: "Qintex is clearly insolvent, yet there are still so many people stupid enough to join in the fun."

Jennifer looked at Simon's profile, and said: "After the release of the Forbes rich list last month, Hollywood's attraction to capital has increased significantly. Orion is also discussing financing issues with a Canadian company recently. If you get the money , this company may survive the crisis.”

Simon tapped the document on his knee and said, "Orion can't survive the crisis. I'm still waiting to buy the company's film library."

He always kept in mind Nancy Brill's proposal to Simon, and Orion does own a batch of very high-quality film copyrights.

Jennifer smiled and said, "Is that why you didn't give Orion a place in the 10 projects this time?"

Simon nodded and said: "Yes, of course there is also the matter of Orion's arrears of "Pulp Fiction". The situation of this company is getting worse and worse. If you cooperate with them again, you will definitely be in arrears, or even completely unable to recover the funds."

Among Daenerys Entertainment's 10 foreign cooperation film projects, 5 have been confirmed. In addition to the high-quality projects themselves, Simon also has various pertinence in the selection of cooperative companies.

Fox is because of the Murdoch family, Disney and Warner Bros. are because the two parties have cooperated very happily before, and Columbia is because of Matthew Broderick. In the end, it is likely to be your own.

For the rest of Paramount, MGM and second-tier Orion, Simon does not plan to cooperate with them unless necessary.

Perhaps, after Qintex completes the acquisition of MGM, the company will also lift the ban.

After all, it is an Australian company.

Speaking of which, compared to Orion, MGM's film library is actually richer. This company was very powerful in the golden age of Hollywood.

Simon also deliberately inquired about the capital game played by Ted Turner and Kirk Kerkorian a few years ago. In the end, Turner Broadcasting Company only left the TV broadcast of MGM's film library before 1986. rights, and it is not a permanent authorization, it will expire in 2003.

Therefore, although it is dilapidated, MGM is still the largest film company in Hollywood.

According to the information provided by Janet before, Simon is sure that even if Qintex can buy MGM this time, the company will not last long.

If we can take over MGM at that time and the plan to merge with Universal can be implemented smoothly, Daenerys Entertainment will definitely become the media company with the richest content resources in Hollywood, and at the same time, it will be able to maximize the business of Blockbuster’s retail chain channels. potential.

The Gulfstream IV landed at Santa Monica Airport just over 40 minutes later.

It was only six o'clock in the afternoon.

Simon sent the female assistant back to rest, and came to the headquarters of Daenerys Entertainment again.

Before Amy got off work, the two discussed some company matters.

"Scream 2" hits theaters this Friday.

Going forward, on October 10th, Daenerys Entertainment's comic-adapted fantasy comedy "Angel" starring Daryl Hannah officially landed in North American theaters, with a screen size of 13 yuan. The junk bond market thing, Simon didn't pay much attention to the movie.

From October 10th to the first week of October 13th, "Angel" earned US$10 million. According to the forecast of the decline curve of the next weekend, the film's total box office in North America is about US$19 million.Compared with the production cost of 716 million US dollars, it is not considered a success, but it is not too much of a failure. It is enough to easily recover the cost through post-production operations.

Compared with other films at the end of the year such as "Angel and God" and "Scream 2", "Batman" is naturally still the top priority.

The publicity budget of "Batman" is as high as 2500 million US dollars. Although Warner Bros. Pictures is responsible for the distribution, Daenerys Entertainment's publicity team is also involved. The two companies are working hard at the same time, which shows that they attach great importance to this movie .

《蝙蝠侠》的正式上映日期为12月22日，第一款15秒预告片在这个月初就已经登录北美各大电视台，下个月开始，影片还会陆续推出30秒时长和1分30秒时长的其他几款预告片。

Adam Baldwin, Valerie Golino and other main creators have recently invested in the promotion of the film.

Although he pays close attention to the announcement and release details of "Batman", Simon does not plan to participate in the film's promotional activities too much, and only plans to show his face on some TV talk shows when the film is about to be released in December.

Busy and busy, Simon has increasingly felt that he is obviously unable to do what he wants, so he is very eager to pause and carefully plan the future of his personal business map.

In the next few days, Simon was still busy with the announcement of the company's various films at the end of the year and the preparation of a series of projects. Stanford University's campus network upgrade project based on Eaglet's 'WWW' technology was also quickly completed after Westeros' donation was in place. start up.

Naturally, Westeros Corporation's public relations department will not forget to conduct appropriate media publicity for this donation.

So until October 10th, when Simon was hosting the audition for the role of "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle", Jennifer suddenly sent a text message from Janet from Melbourne. The content was very simple, following up on the hedging of Cersei Capital The funds started to flee.

Many people are monitoring the operation of Cersei Capital. Similarly, Cersei Capital is also paying close attention to the dynamics of its peers.

Now that someone has begun to react, Simon completely let go of the matter, whispered to the female assistant to destroy the letter, and turned his attention to the audition in front of him again.

Because the heroine in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is also the anti-number one audition, the scope of casting is not large, but less than ten candidates are delineated according to the recommendations of major talent agency companies, and Simon is also inclined to the original version in front of him. Rebecca Demorny of "The Movie" will continue to play the female lead, so she directly named the other party to come to audition today.

Rebecca Demorny is one of the famous sexy actresses in the 80s. She once starred in Tom Cruise's famous film "Guaranteed Admission". The two also reported their engagement on the eve of the film's release.Of course, everyone in the circle probably knew what was going on, and the so-called engagement naturally disappeared later.

At the party a few days ago, Simon also met Rebecca Demorny, and the woman left him a very interesting 'business card'.

Rebecca Demorny is an artist under C, and if the time goes forward, Simon will definitely not use the other party.As Michael Ovitz and Barry Levinson and others terminated their contracts, and Daenerys Entertainment also released the ban on C, this matter is naturally no longer an obstacle.

After discussing character performance clips for the better part of an hour, Simon temporarily asked Rebecca Demorny to leave the audition room for a while.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was in charge of Disney's production business, waited for Rebecca Demorny to walk out of the room, and couldn't help but said, "Simon, isn't Demorne too beautiful, and her acting skills are still a bit poor. "

Simon flipped through the audition records in front of him, and said, "Jeffrey, a 30-year-old actress in Hollywood, has enough fame and a suitable image, and there is not much room for choice. De Morne starred in Coppola's " Sweetheart" and Cruise's "Guaranteed to Enroll" are famous enough. As for acting, I want to choose an Oscar-level actress, but Holly Hunter and Melanie Griffith are not suitable, Jay Sika Lange would be a good villain, but she couldn't be 10 years younger."

Chapter 302 Do You Really Want To Know? (build)

Although there were some differences with Disney, the protagonists of "The Hand That Rocked the Cradle" were quickly determined.

Not only Rebecca Demorny, the original villain No. 12, but also several other protagonists are also from the original cast. After another month of preparation, the film is expected to be launched in December.

In addition, "Sleeping with the Enemy", which will be released the earliest next summer, has officially started in North Carolina on the east coast.

On October 10, with the release of several new films such as "Scream 27", the Halloween schedule begins.

Due to the great success of films such as "Death Comes" and "Scream" in the Halloween schedule of the previous two years, Hollywood film companies have also paid more attention to this festival, and the schedule will inevitably become crowded.

In addition to "Scream 2," five other new films were released on the same day.Of course, only New World Pictures' "Scream 2", Universal Pictures' "Alien" and Warner Bros.' "Notice Yin and Yang" have opened more than 1000 screens. Small-scale hundreds or even a few screens.

Among them, "Alien" produced by Universal Pictures was produced by Ron McMillan, who had previously left Daenerys Entertainment.

Although Daenerys Entertainment and Universal Pictures cooperated in "Ten Days of Dangerous Love", there are still some articles about the popularity of "Alien" and "Scream 2" in the media.Universal played well and did not arouse too many conflicts. This kind of "touching porcelain" will increase the popularity of the two films, and Daenerys Entertainment will let it go.

Because of the failure of the sequels of "Death Comes" and "The Butterfly Effect" at the box office, Daenerys Entertainment is inevitably worried about the commercial prospects of "Scream 2".

However, it is probably because the "Scream" series is a complete story, rather than the sequels of "Death Comes" and "Butterfly Effect", which just apply the template of the first song and most of the main creators quit. Called 2" has not lost much popularity.

Coupled with Daenerys Entertainment's spare no effort in publicity and distribution, "Scream 2" won a box office of 2263 million US dollars in the first three days of the weekend, which has surpassed the box office data of the first seven days in the first week.

In comparison, "Alien", which tells the story of a small town attacked by mutated insects, only had a box office of US$591 million in the same period. Although it ranked No.2 on the weekend list, the figure was less than one-third of that of "Scream 2".

Warner Bros.' "Notice Yin and Yang" ranked third at the box office with $355 million in its opening weekend, and still did not pose any threat to "Scream 2".

After that, the other films on the weekend box office list are not worth mentioning.

Janet was not around for Halloween, and Catherine hadn't been to Los Angeles for a long time. The female assistant still lived at her uncle's house, and spent the festival with relatives. Simon had to randomly choose a party in the circle to pass the festival.

Santa Monica.

The time is already November 11, Thursday.

At Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, the meeting about Blockbuster's IPO lasted all afternoon.

After several months of preparation, Blockbuster has basically confirmed that it will conduct an IPO in January next year, planning to issue 1 million new shares, roughly equivalent to 1500% of the original 6800 million shares of the total share capital. The specific issue price of the IPO is still being negotiated with Morgan Stanley, which is responsible for the underwriting of the new shares. It is expected to be between 22 and 13 US dollars, and the total financing is about 15 million US dollars.

According to the estimated issuance price, Blockbuster’s valuation has more than doubled to nearly $4 billion compared to the $10 million when Daenerys Entertainment took a stake.

At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment will ensure that its 35% stake in Blockbuster remains unchanged by participating in the subscription.

Blockbuster chairman Wayne Huyzenga and his original partners combined their original shareholding ratios enough to compete with Daenerys Entertainment. After the IPO, Wayne Huizenga’s shareholding in Blockbuster was reduced to 7%, and several other partners, including Wayne Huizenga himself, had a total shareholding ratio of less than 20%.

Daenerys Entertainment, which still maintains a 35% stake, will therefore become the largest shareholder of Blockbuster with the strongest say.

After sending Blockbuster's executive team out of the company's headquarters, Simon was about to return to his office when Nancy Brill followed him: "Simon, the game "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" will be released tomorrow. Did you try playing the cassette that was handed over to you last time?"

"I've been too busy recently, please let me go, I've told you all the opinions I can give you." Simon took his little son and daughter executives to the stairs, spread his hands and said, "In addition, you Have you discussed taking over Daenerys Analytics with Blockbuster management?"

Seeing that Simon changed the subject, Nancy had to say: "No, I think the current state is not bad. The continuous collection of consulting fees from Blockbuster is enough to analyze the company's operations, and the headquarters itself can obtain many useful information more conveniently. information."

"You are right to think so, but after the company goes public, what shareholders may see is that Blockbuster pays a high fee to a consulting company that they may not need, and may even be used as illegal benefits."

"Since Blockbuster has chosen an IPO, even if it doesn't do so, there will still be other doubts," Nancy said indifferently, "Besides, if someone raises doubts at that time, the way to deal with them is actually very simple. Silk Entertainment can pay to buy out their shares."

Simon froze for a moment, then smiled and said, "Good idea."

Now that you have chosen to go public, in any case, accepting market supervision and questioning is fundamentally unavoidable.

Simon just isn't satisfied with the company's current 35% stake in Blockbuster. If someone really jumps out to find fault, Daenerys Entertainment can definitely buy back more shares with money.

When she came to the office, before Simon gave way, Nancy sat down across from his desk very familiarly.

Simon leaned on the leather chair, looked at the woman sitting opposite, and said, "If you feel uncomfortable, don't always wear high heels, it's not good for your health."

There was a clear flash of surprise on Nancy's face, and she didn't expect Simon to find such a small detail.

It is definitely not that easy to step on the sky for a long time. Nancy will never stand if she can sit on weekdays, and she will secretly take off her shoes in her office.It's just that she didn't intend to admit this to a man, and said bluntly: "No, I like wearing high heels the most."

Simon just shrugged his shoulders and lowered his head to flip through a script of "Home Alone" that John Hughes passed on this morning.

It's past the off-duty time, and because of the afternoon meeting, there are no other arrangements. Simon has long been used to leaving the company at six or seven o'clock, so he plans to read the script of "Home Alone" before leaving.

Seeing that Simon didn't pursue the matter of her high heels anymore, Nancy said again after a while: "Simon, do you think we can succeed in testing the waters in the field of video games?"

Simon didn't look up, but with a smile in his tone, he said, "You used dozens of pages of planning papers to encourage me to invest, but now you don't have confidence?"

"Of course not. I did everything I could, and if it were me, even if I failed, I would continue. The scale and profits of the video game industry are obvious to all." Nancy shook her head and said: "I just think that your attitude towards this project is a bit special."

"Why do you say that?"

"For example, you have very strict budget requirements for other projects under the company. The budget of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" has doubled, and you didn't say anything."

Simon looked up at Nancy, nodded and said, "Well, I really value this project from the very beginning."

Nancy was dissatisfied with this answer, and asked persistently, "What else?"

Simon raised his head and looked at the woman who leaned forward slightly with strong curiosity in her eyes, a smile appeared on the corner of her mouth, and said, "You really want to know?"

Feeling the gaze of the man opposite, Nancy suddenly understood something, and instinctively shook her head and said, "I don't want to!"

Simon turned his attention to the script in front of him again, and said, "Then go back and rest early."

Nancy paused, but she didn't get up, she still couldn't help asking: "If you're like this, aren't you afraid that one day, um, you'll suffer?"

Simon shook his head: "Not afraid."

Hearing what he said, Nancy remembered what Janet called a certain guy in private, and whispered something.

Without saying hello, he got up and left Simon's office.

When she came to the outside room, she saw that Jennifer was still dutifully guarding behind the desk. Nancy felt a little dissatisfied for no reason. She stepped forward and said, "Jennifer, do you want to have dinner together?"

Jennifer was a little surprised by Nancy's sudden invitation, and declined, "I still have something to talk to Simon."

Nancy came to the female assistant's desk and said, "Tell him now, I'll wait for you."

Jennifer just shook her head again.

Watching Nancy leave suspiciously, Jennifer sorted out the documents on the desktop, got up and knocked on the door, walked into Simon's office, and said, "Just now there was a call from Santa Monica Airport, the plane arrived at 6 o'clock, you have to go there Do you want to see it?"

The scheduled Boeing 767 200ER had been delivered a few days ago, but Simon sent the plane directly to Australia.

In my memory, there are a lot of news about private jets being bugged, and even the planes ordered by some heads of state are all oversized bugs. Simon doesn’t trust Boeing, or even the anti-tapping detection team in the United States, so let Janet starts with a full inspection of the plane.

Since the return was smooth, there should be no problem.

Raising his wrist and looking at his watch, Simon said to Jennifer, "Let's go to New York for dinner later, and we'll live there tonight."

Jennifer blushed slightly, and said, "Fly over now, and it should be one o'clock in the morning when we arrive at the east coast."

"Oh, I forgot about the jet lag," Simon thought for a while, and said, "Then go to Hawaii, it's still evening when we arrive."

Jennifer shook her head again, and said, "There's no house over there, do you want to stay in a hotel?"

Of course Simon would not tell Jennifer the last time he took two women to Hawaii for a weekend.The female assistant is different from other women, and he didn't want to borrow an apartment from others, so he simply said: "Then it's on the plane, you've seen the interior design of the cabin, it seems to be very good inside."

Jennifer's face was finally flushed, and she gave Simon a white look: "I don't want to be on the plane, you can fly as you like, I'm going to get off work."

Chapter 303 Hot Discussion (Revised)

Santa Monica Airport.

Compared to some of the other small jetliners at the airport, the Boeing 767 200ER is a complete behemoth.

Simon patiently read the script of "Home Alone" before rushing over.

Janet's hand-picked crew members are still waiting patiently for him.A total of eight people were divided into two groups. Each group consisted of two pilots and two stewardesses. All of them were Australians, and all of them were women.This private jet is like a residence for Simon, who doesn't like the same sex to be in charge of it.

The four female pilots are all around 40 years old. They were full-time pilots of some Australian airlines before, and they also had the experience of serving in the Air Force. All of them have at least ten years of flying experience.