hunt hollywood

Last year, in order for Paramount to give up blocking Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, Simon promised the other party 3 cooperative films.

If you count the director contract that Simon still owes to Disney, Daenerys Entertainment has a total of 7 external cooperation projects.

Finally, sort out the copyrights of scripts and novels that Daenerys Entertainment has continuously bought in the past year. In addition to several major IPs such as "Mission: Impossible" and "Jurassic Park", Daenerys Entertainment also obtained IP rights in 1990. Two other copyrights published.

Both are comics, a sci-fi comic "Men in Black" written by a cartoonist named Lowell Cunningham, and a children's comic "Shrek".

After all the statistics, Daenerys Entertainment's current copyright library includes the entire Marvel superhero system, DC's Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman's Big Three, the entire Thor King's Middle-earth series, "Mission: Impossible" " and "The Bourne", the two major spy series, the "Charlie's Angels" series, which bought the copyright from Columbia Pictures, and the "Fast and Furious" series, which was originally obtained from Roger Corman, the king of B-movies. The "Forrest Gump" that started with the search, the long-lasting "Jurassic Park" series in the original time and space, and "Men in Black", "Shrek", and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" that have been put into development series, the old film "The Mummy" series in the 30s with great adaptation value in the global copyright library, etc., all the hoarded original time and space are the copyrights for big sales, which is enough for Daenerys Entertainment to develop for 30 years above.

In terms of animated films, Daenerys Entertainment has also acquired Pixar, which has developed blockbuster 3D animated films such as "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo", and "Monsters, Inc.", in advance.

It could be argued that even if Simon started outright now as the boss, even if only half of all those rights were as successful as Simon remembers, Daenerys Entertainment's film business would be strong enough to remain strong in Hollywood for a long time.

What's more, of course Simon will not let go. Daenerys Entertainment has carefully built a team for several years, which is enough to support the development of these precious copyrights.

I have been tossing and turning in various film studios, production meetings, post-production meetings, actor auditions, publicity meetings and other film affairs for a month, and the time soon came to May.

This year's Cannes Film Festival will open on May 5. Daenerys Entertainment still has two films shortlisted for the main competition this time. The film industry has taken over Spike Lee's new film "Jungle Fever," which will be released this summer.

Ella Deutschmann led the team to Cannes a week early.

Simon wanted to take this opportunity to go to Europe with Janet for a rest.

However, Janet is less than three months pregnant, and the doctor's advice is that it is best not to fly. The woman plans to stop flying during the entire pregnancy. This is actually one of the reasons why she let go of Cersei Capital Management.

Although she no longer takes care of Cersei Capital, Janet is not doing nothing all day long, she just spends as little time as possible.

The little brain who was used to only turning seven points at first has now reduced to three points.

Point Dume Manor.

The time is July 5rd, Sunday.

James Raybould was rushed here from Los Angeles International Airport by his daughter, and the Simons were already waiting outside the Baker Villa.

Although it's a day off, there are some very important things to discuss today.

In short, it is the assets, cash and liabilities of the entire Westeros system.

After exchanging pleasantries, everyone came to a small meeting room in the villa.

Seeing the ABCD four girls in the villa who took the initiative to serve tea and pour water like his own daughter, James Raybould once again felt a little tired.

Raised for nothing!

However, just thinking about it, James quickly turned his attention to business.

Since the stock market crash in 1987, Simon's personal assets have grown rapidly in a few years.

At the same time, the entire Westeros system is absolutely costly.

Especially in the two consecutive acquisitions of MCA and Bell Atlantic in the past year, although the final loan ratio was not as high as originally expected, the debt scale of the entire Westeros system has reached the level of tens of billions of dollars.

In this era when the market value of giant companies such as General Motors, IBM, and General Electric is still generally 600 billion U.S. dollars, debts of tens of billions of dollars are a very heavy burden for most companies, let alone the money. It's basically Simon's personal liability.

In recent years, the expansion of the Westeros system, in addition to Simon's gains in several major financial markets, has mainly relied on the lucrative Daenerys Entertainment for blood transfusions.

The just-concluded Gulf War can be regarded as the last big market that Cersei Capital's fund hedging business can take advantage of in the next many years.

Therefore, it is unlikely to obtain billions of dollars in funds from the financial market.

For Daenerys Entertainment, although the company’s net profit in 1990 reached an astonishing US$11.2 billion, this year, due to the acquisition of MCA, Daenerys Entertainment’s liabilities increased by US$70 billion at one time.Counting the previous accumulation, only Daenerys Entertainment itself has more than 80 billion US dollars in debt, and the amount of principal and interest that needs to be repaid every year will reach more than 10 billion US dollars.

In 1990, Daenerys Entertainment's final revenue figure was $39.6 billion, and MCA's revenue was $33.7 billion.

With the merger of the two companies, the new Daenerys Entertainment will have a revenue volume of more than $70 billion.

However, as the scale of Daenerys Entertainment doubles at once, corporate profit margins will no longer be as high as they were when they went light.

What's more, there are still huge debts to be repaid in recent years.

Therefore, it is not very feasible to obtain funds from Daenerys Entertainment to provide blood transfusions to other enterprises in the Westeros system.

In addition, Bell Atlantic, although it is also a source of cash flow that can provide funds for the Westeros system with annual revenue of billions of dollars.

However, Simon has no intention of drawing blood from Bell Atlantic, but plans to provide additional funds to promote Bell Atlantic's investment in mobile communications and the Internet in the next few years.Therefore, this company can't count on it.

Cersei Capital, Daenerys Entertainment, and Bell Atlantic are unable to send too much money to the entire system, but many companies in the Westeros system maintain a constant thirst for funds.

Only Eaglet needs to invest about 5 million U.S. dollars this year.

AOL, Nokia, Cisco and several other companies are also big spenders.

Moreover, even if Westeros no longer invests in other new technology companies, Simon needs to continue to inject funds if he wants to maintain the shareholding ratio of the new technology companies he has invested in.

Next, Daenerys Entertainment also plans to start the Universal Studios Osaka project with a total budget of about 20 billion US dollars. Even if Panasonic shares half of the investment, Daenerys Entertainment itself needs to spend another 10 billion US dollars.

Finally, the daily expenses of the Simon couple are actually very large.

Of course, speaking carefully, the Westeros system does not face the problem of difficulty in raising funds.Because the entire Westeros system has been in a state of rapid development and prosperity in recent years, major banks in North America and overseas are very happy to provide loans to Simon.

The focus of everyone's discussion this time is still the routine review and re-planning of the Westeros system's capital movements.

Simon's family background can be said to be very rich, and it is very easy to obtain investment from the bank.

However, if you spend your money too carelessly and without careful planning, you will accumulate a large amount of completely unnecessary expenses without knowing it.If the accumulation continues, the entangled debt problem may break out one day, and even form a domino effect.

Simon's personal financial problems have always been taken care of by Janet herself. The woman's small brain is turned up to seven points, which is equivalent to twenty or thirty points of an ordinary person. Simon has always been very reassuring, and the woman really took care of this matter Well done.

In addition to personal finances, James has also done his due diligence in managing Westeros in recent years, and Simon has always attached great importance to the financial supervision of the entire Westeros system.

Therefore, the possibility of a financial crisis in the Westeros system is unlikely.

However, of course, Simon also knows the truth of preventing the passing of time, so he attaches great importance to today's meeting.

"Several Japanese banks are very happy to provide us with financing for the construction of Universal Studios in Osaka. In the next few years, the yen, which has appreciated continuously for many years, may enter a depreciation cycle. I think it is very cost-effective to obtain loans from Japanese banks. "

"For Ygritte, the profit of Cersei Fund Management Company this year is probably enough to maintain the company's expenses, so there is no need to raise additional funds."

"Nokia has successfully developed a new generation of digital mobile phones, and the GSM network in Europe has also begun to enter the stage of practical application. The company needs funds for its next development, Melisandre needs funds for Van Cleef & Arpels, Bell Atlantic for The expenditure required for the layout of mobile communications and other fields, the next stage of investment required to maintain our shareholding in non-listed companies such as Qualcomm, and counting your own expenses, we will probably need another 10 billion to 15 billion this year dollar loans."

"These are expenses. The three-year promise not to reduce the holdings of the technology stocks I bought at the beginning has expired. Except for Microsoft, Intel and other companies that I plan to hold for a long time, I have recently reduced my holdings to 5% of other companies. At the same time, they have withdrawn from the boards of directors of these companies one after another. If there is an emergency, they can cash out five to one billion U.S. dollars in cash at any time. This amount of money will be enough to cover the repayments we need to make outside of Daenerys Entertainment in the next two to three years. due debts."

The small meeting of four people lasted all day.

James Raybould finally summed it up like this, looked up at Simon and Janet, and asked: "There is one last thing, the Westeros Building construction plan in Manhattan, do you two really plan to start it soon? ?”

第410章 计划启动（修）

In order to model the "Avengers Building" in Manhattan to build a Westeros Building in Manhattan, Simon has successively bought a whole block of property and land between 59th Street and 60th Street east of Madison Avenue in Manhattan a few years ago. , a total of six buildings.

The residents in the six buildings could not be emptied in a short period of time, and it was not yet time to build the buildings. Simon took care of those buildings as commercial properties and signed two to three-year leases with most of the residents. .

The lease will expire one after another in the next year or two, and Simon's current net worth is enough to support the construction of the Westeros Building.

Therefore, hearing James' question, Simon nodded and explained: "The design work of the building has been going on for the past two years. Now the preparations are starting, and the ground will be broken at the end of next year. Only the main building will take about five years. Counting the later period When the renovation officially moved in, it was probably close to the new millennium. With such a long cycle, even if we need to invest more than 10 billion US dollars, we can calmly raise funds.”

Perhaps every boy has a dream of building a mansion in his heart.

Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, Twin Towers, etc., should all have similar motives behind the scenes.

James couldn't help thinking, knowing that Simon had made up his mind, he persuaded: "Simon, this is not just a matter of funds. Have you ever thought about it, a 2000-foot-high building, a 100-storey building, and millions of square meters Feet of interior space, these have to be filled in."

"Of course I have thought about it, Jim. I also know that many buildings often have some tenants first before they start construction. However, from now on, it will take at least seven or eight years before the Westeros Building is actually completed and put into use. Therefore, I I don’t think this matter needs to be too urgent, and we can look for tenants while building. And, worst of all, our own company can use this building.”

After this meeting, the construction plan of the Westeros Building was officially put on the agenda, and Janet was in charge of it herself.

In order to achieve the most perfect architectural effect in any of the smallest details of this building, Simon simply did not set a budget limit, and now he has enough confidence to pay more than 10 billion US dollars in expenses.

While Simon was busy with various matters within the Westeros system, in this May of 1991, other big things were happening.

The two major ruling parties in the United States have successively begun to plan for the 1992 US presidential election.

On the Republican side, relying on the momentum gained from the Gulf War, George Bush will almost without any suspense become the Republican Party's candidate for the next presidential election.

As for the Democratic Party, although it won the 1990 mid-term election, the Democratic Party is facing the dilemma of "no general in Sichuan". Until now, there is no presidential candidate who can compete with George Bush.

As we all know, American politicians participate in presidential elections. Usually, they can only have one chance in a lifetime, not counting re-election.

Once you fail, it will be even more difficult to get the party nomination.

Therefore, some bigwigs in the Democratic Party who have sufficient prestige and strength and are interested in the presidency, because they are afraid of the general trend that George Bush gained from the victory of the Gulf War, have chosen to avoid it.

Even if the tide is on the Republican side, someone will always have to fight George Bush.

So, this May, a young politician named Bill Clinton, who served as the governor of Arkansas, and Marlo Gummer, the governor of New York, who was too old to wait and see, successively announced that they would participate in the 5 U.S. presidential election.

However, what caught Simon's attention the most was the publicly expressed intention to run for the election of Ross Perot, a business tycoon with a net worth of more than US$400 billion, one of the top 20 richest people in the United States.

Ross Perot was very dissatisfied with the two major ruling parties in the United States, so he stated that he would form his own party to participate in the 1992 presidential election.

Simon remembered very clearly that in the original time and space, although the domestic reputation plummeted due to internal affairs, George Bush still had the advantage in front of Bill Clinton.

However, it was precisely because Ross Perot, a candidate who also leaned toward the conservative camp, took away a large number of votes from George Bush with a record 19% approval rate in the third camp, which led to George Bush's re-election failure. .

There are some more things to say. Bill Clinton, who had little hope of reaching the top, was unexpectedly stationed in the White House. He became one of the few presidents in U.S. history to be impeached by Congress.

This is very similar to the situation in Simon's memory of a guy from a completely layman businessman who also stepped into the White House unexpectedly.

Coincidentally, it happened to be Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton, who lost another election.

Speaking of it, this is probably a kind of political ecology in the United States.

Those veteran political families with deep foundations or highly anticipated senior politicians ascended to the top, such as George Bush at this time, did not have similar "trouble".

Although Simon's political layout focuses on Congress, he will not spend too much energy in the White House.

However, this time, Simon still ordered James Raybould to establish contact with the Clintons in private, promising to fully support each other in the election.

It would be unwise to make such a promise when Clinton has not yet won the party's nomination.

It's just that icing on the cake is never as good as timely assistance. If you want to get more, you will naturally have to take greater risks.Since the focus of the layout is not in the White House, investing in a potential stock that is not optimistic, failure is a matter of course, and it will not have much impact on the Simon and Westeros system.

Greenwich, Connecticut.

Simon is preparing a birthday party in the manor here. Tomorrow is the 8th birthday of Sofia's daughter Gemma Fisher.The apartment Sophia bought in Greenwich was not too big, and Janet offered to lend her own estate to little Gemma to hold a birthday party.

Not only that, but tomorrow night the documentary about Antarctica, the birthday present that Janet promised little Gemma, will be played in the manor.

The documentary began to be produced last year and was finally named "Ice and Snow World" with a budget of 300 million US dollars.The content of the documentary is not mainly about penguins, but mainly about showing various scenery of Antarctica.

At the same time, after tomorrow night's "premiere" as a birthday present for Little Gemma, the documentary will also hit North American theaters next Friday.

As long as a good response can be obtained, with the experience accumulated in the first documentary, the "Emperor Penguin Diaries" project in Simon's memory will be launched again.

May happens to be the new year's promotion season for American dramas. Since Daenerys Entertainment wants to strengthen its layout in the TV field, Simon also came to New York in recent days to personally participate in the selection and preparation of some projects.

Janet couldn't come because she was pregnant. Although it was a weekend, Simon didn't return to the West Coast. Instead, he stayed here and planned to attend Little Gemma's birthday party before leaving.

In the evening, Sophia checked the layout of tomorrow's birthday party led by the housekeeper Alice and the girls, and came to the study on the second floor, where Simon was sitting behind his desk and seriously flipping through some documents.

Ben was about to sit down opposite Simon, but when the man looked up and saw her, he made a gesture to come over. Sophia hesitated for a while, then turned to Simon on the opposite side of the desk, and was embraced by the man.

I was a little apprehensive about what Simon would do, and after confirming that he was just hugging me, I felt relieved.

His face still couldn't help but get a little red.

This posture is more like an adult hugging a child, or a boy hugging his girlfriend.

However, she was so many years older than him.

I had to hypnotize myself as much as possible and turn my attention to the document in the man's hand: "What is this?"

Simon put his head on the woman's tender face, and explained: "A development plan for a data interface."

Sophia nodded, because her mind was wandering, but she didn't give birth to much interest.

Simon stopped talking after explaining, and continued to focus on the documents in his hand with his arms around the woman.

After the idea of ​​building an entire hardware system ecological chain around the USB interface came into being last time, things have progressed quite a bit during this period.

In fact, Apple has been developing a similar data interface since 1986. It was the 'FireWire interface (FireWire)' that was applied to many Apple computers in the 90s but failed to become popular.

In Simon's memory, the reason why this data interface, which actually appeared earlier than USB and has higher data transmission efficiency, has not been popularized is that on the one hand, the rapid decline of Apple in the 90s, on the other hand, the cost of the interface is too high and Apple, which holds interface patents, has a conservative and expensive licensing strategy.

To put it simply, the difference between the FireWire interface and the USB interface is roughly equivalent to the difference between CCD and CMOS, the core component sensor of a digital camera.

Because of advantages such as cost and energy consumption, CMOS is destined to be the application trend of consumer digital cameras in the future, and the same is true for USB compared to FireWire.

However, the current FireWire has taken the lead in terms of time.

If Simon had control of Apple, he would temporarily promote the FireWire interface as a transition, and wait until the cheaper and more convenient USB interface solution is completed, and then promote another standard.

It's a pity that Simon can't intervene in Apple's operations.