hunt hollywood

Eileen obviously couldn't GET, but said: "The Mellon family is much stronger than the Hearst family, I advise you not to mess around."

Simon nodded, seeing the concern and reminder in the girl's eyes, he said with a smile: "In order to avoid being messed up by others in the future, and even affect our children, of course I will not mess around easily, and it must be within the rules. "

Seeing that Simon understood what she meant, Irene stopped talking.

Simon glanced at the stack of documents and was also moved.

Through the investigation of the Mellon family these days, Simon found that, compared with the Hearst family, which trapped itself in the media field, the property map and network of the Mellon family were almost subconsciously working for the Westeros family. The ultimate goal template for spreading.

At the current stage, the Mellon family has Mellon Financial Group, which controls a large number of local city banks in financial capital, Alcoa, which ranks among the top in global production capacity in mining capital, GTI Corporation, which controls a large number of domestic railways in transportation capital, and pharmaceutical capital. In my memory, Warner Lambert was acquired by Ruihui for a huge sum of 900 billion U.S. dollars, and energy capital holds shares in the famous Chevron Corporation.

All of these listed companies have a market value of more than [-] billion U.S. dollars, and their annual profits are quite rich and stable, which generally constitute the current asset base of the Mellon family.

Over the past century, the Mellon family's shareholding in these enterprises has been very small, basically less than 10%. As for Warner Lambert or Chevrolet, it is less than 5%.However, the Mellon family directly or indirectly controls a large number of board seats of these companies and affiliated companies through the hundreds of family funds, trust funds, and charitable funds holding shares in these companies and the network of contacts built over a century. Therefore, although they only hold a small amount of shares, the Mellon family still has a considerable say in these companies.

Among them, GTI, an industrial transportation company, still has Timothy Mellon as the CEO and is directly controlled by the Mellon family.

This is the capital background of the entire Mellon family, although it has only a few billion dollars in assets, it can affect the [-] billion industrial empire.

With a small, broad and intricate capital structure, even if the Westeros system has formed an absolute crush on the scale of the Mellon family's involvement in the industry, if Simon wants the Mellon family to decline in the short term like the Hearst family , The traditional suppression methods simply don't work.

Because once Simon attacks the Mellon family, it will touch a huge capital system involving finance, medicine, energy, mining and other fields.

And that's just at the capital level.

Through the continuous donation of dozens of funds of various types under the names of almost every family member for more than a century, the Mellon family has woven a larger network of contacts in the fields of politics, economy, and culture.

As far as education is concerned, the foundation of the Mellon family has almost donated to Harvard, MIT, Yale and even overseas Cambridge, Imperial College and other top-ranked universities in the world. Once there is a conflict with the Mellon family, if the family background cannot compete with it , maybe as long as the other party says a word, they can shut their opponents out of the gates of a large number of prestigious schools.

That's what's really ingrained.

Simon wants to suppress the old money of the Mellon family. According to the rules, he can only extract the capital that the Mellon family relies on through a long period of time, and then slowly cut its network of contacts, and finally completely lose the family. influence on the Federation.

As the foundation of the Westeros system is firmly established, it begins to expand to traditional industries that are still controlled by a large amount of old money capital on a global scale. A conflict with the old money system in the United States and the world is almost inevitable.Therefore, Simon did not intend to give up just because he found that the bone of the Mellon family was too difficult to crack. Instead, he became more motivated and regarded it as a trial. The Troy system will be vulnerable to a single blow.

Chapter 1064 The strong get stronger

When Simon was with Irene on Martha's Vineyard on the east coast, Los Angeles on the west coast was still in the mansion on the hillside of Palisades bordering Malibu and Santa Monica. Daenerys Entertainment was here at night. Had a pretty big party.

The main purpose is to celebrate the box office of "Annabelle" breaking [-] million and the complete formation of the Conjuring film universe. The main creators of "Boogie Nights" and many other Hollywood filmmakers who have made friends with Daenerys Entertainment have also been invited. , can be regarded as a large-scale gathering for emotional contact at the end of the year.

First of all, I have to talk about the recent film market overview.

Today is Friday, November 11th, and the 15 Thanksgiving schedule officially begins.

In the box office week that just passed, from November 11th to November 8th, "Annabelle", which was released for the third week, continued to earn 11 million US dollars with a 14% single-week box office drop. At the beginning of the series, the cumulative box office reached 21 million US dollars, easily promoted to the 2729 million club, and at the same time it is expected to hit the first domestic box office of the Conjuring film universe to reach 1 million US dollars.

Another "Boogie Nights" produced by Daenerys Entertainment's Gaomen Films, in the fourth week of its release, received another 24 million US dollars with a steady decline of 669%, with a cumulative box office of 3549 million US dollars, basically recovering a total of 2000 million US dollars. The total investment in production and publicity has entered the profitable stage.

In stark contrast to Daenerys Entertainment's two blockbuster films, it is undoubtedly the pressure and anxiety of other Hollywood studios during the year-end schedule.

This pressure mainly comes from three movies, the new DC Movie Universe film "Wonder Woman 11" released on November 22 and the consecutive Christmas schedule "James of the Brave" and "Charlie's Angels".

Three super blockbusters.

Among them, "Wonder Woman 2" is the first DC movie universe blockbuster after "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice", which had a global box office of US$19.38 billion at the end of last year. The industry expects the local box office of the film to easily reach US$4 million.

As for "Game of the Brave" and "Charlie's Angels", one is a blockbuster with special effects joined by Stallone, and the other is a blockbuster project that is linked with the 007 series and is expected to develop into a spy movie universe. As long as the word of mouth does not collapse after the release, Basically, they are at the domestic box office level of [-] million US dollars.

Therefore, just three super blockbusters have basically locked in the box office of 8 million US dollars in the two major schedules at the end of the year, and the space left for other studio projects to move around is simply pitiful.

Speaking of which, since the schedules of the three films have been announced successively since last year, Hollywood has been planning to actively reduce or delay the development plan in order to avoid it.

Sony Pictures, which was really under pressure, simply adjusted the schedule of its new film "Ransom Storm" with an investment of 9 million US dollars before the marketing launch at the end of September this year. It was withdrawn from the planned 8000 Thanksgiving. , switched to the 1996 summer file.

The reason Sony gave was that they wanted more post-production time for the film, but if an old-school crime action movie is not a blockbuster with special effects, why does it need too much post-production time?

It is inevitable that there will be a lot of discussion, and it will inevitably have a negative impact on the film.

Sony had to.

Not only that, Sony also pulled Barbra Streisand's new film "Double-sided Mirror", which was originally scheduled for Christmas, back to the Thanksgiving file. To be precise, it is the week before the Thanksgiving file on November 11. After all, it is also to get more opportunities.

The first week from November 11th to November 8th has passed. Barbra Streisand has directed and acted in another psychological-themed film "Double-sided Mirror" following the acclaimed "Taos of Time", with a production of 11 million US dollars. The cost was 14 yuan for the opening screen, and the box office for the seven days of release was only US$4200 million, and the average box office was just over US$2489.

However, in the industry comments, Sony has taken a good move that is barely good.

If "Double-sided Mirror" is not promoted, but continues to be placed during the Christmas period to collide with many new and old blockbusters, this feature film with a reputation far inferior to "The Waves of Time" will only be reduced to cannon fodder, even if it has 4000 million domestic viewers. Don't even think about it, once the local theaters fail to make a splash at all, the follow-up channels will only be more difficult.

Let's talk about the beginning of the Thanksgiving file. The week before the release of "Wonder Woman 2", there are still two strong contenders, namely "Space Jam" produced by Warner Bros. Pictures and the classic sci-fi series "Star Trek 8" owned by Paramount. .

Needless to say, the "Star Trek" series is a rare Hollywood sci-fi evergreen, and this sequel cost 4500 million US dollars.

"Space Jam" is a combination of live action and animation, similar to Disney's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", which was a hit at the box office that year. Moreover, Warner not only used its famous cartoon character Bugs Bunny this time, but also invited the legendary Basketball superstar Michael Jordan participated in the show, which cost 8000 million US dollars and was full of ambitions.

It's a pity that there is more than one "Wonder Woman 2" in front of ambition, even the schedule from November 11th to November 15st is terrible.Because of the next box office week, November 11th will be the TV broadcast of the highly anticipated fifth Victoria's Secret show, and November 21th and November 11st will be the second "American Idol" autumn file that is still in full swing. Even if the final episodes are on weekdays, these two phenomenal TV shows that occupy three nights will still seriously impact the viewing data of the first box office week of the Thanksgiving file.

If "Ransom Storm" hadn't run away ahead of schedule, "Space Jam" might have been forced to run away.

However, thinking about next year's summer vacation and the end of the year, "Tornado", "Independence Day", "Titanic" and so on, in fact, there is not much room for failure, and it is impossible to go to 1998.

In the final analysis, the root of all this is that the current Daenerys Entertainment is too strong. Hollywood has such a big plate, Daenerys Entertainment has too much, and the living space of other studios is naturally getting smaller and smaller.In order to prevent the invested film projects from becoming cannon fodder, other Hollywood studios will only fall into a vicious cycle of being forced to reduce the scale of production, which will lead to a further decline in their own strength.

At a party at a Palisades mountainside mansion.

The heads of two talent agency giants, the WMA and CAA, happen to be discussing this issue.

Michael Ovitz, who was also considered a glorious moment in the 80s, was full of emotion: "If the current situation continues, at most five years, the saying of Hollywood's top seven will become a thing of the past. I think that by then, Daenerys Entertainment will be the only one At the same time, there are at most two or three second-tier brands that cannot compete with it, and the other labels are probably the only labels left."

They are all younger brothers now, so Jonathan Friedman, who was quite calm when he met his former rival, nodded slightly, and asked, "Who do you think will be left?"

"Relying on GE and owning the DC movie universe, Warner must be counted as one. Even if MGM can make the agent movie universe, it can only be counted as half. The remaining one and a half places, it depends on Fox, Disney, Paramount With Sony and their reserve capital, who is more able to hold on, and in addition, there is Simon's attitude."

"Considering News Corp., I think Fox should be one."

"Not necessarily," Ovitz said: "News Corp. is News Corp., Fox is Fox. Simon will definitely make friends with News Corp. For Fox, even Murdoch himself doesn't care much about it. He prefers to do it. TV, rather than movies with too much uncertainty. In fact, I also talked about this with Eisner recently, and he regrets that Disney falls into the hands of the French, and the possibility of its decline is the greatest.”

Friedman agrees with this point: "Simon doesn't seem to like France. However, Simon should be interested in Disney's theme park business."

"That's for sure, so Disney's label will definitely stay, just like Universal Studios. And, even if it already has Universal Studios, Daenerys Entertainment is now enough to eat Disney," Ovitz said. He couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's incredible to achieve this level in ten years."

Jonathan Friedman showed some nostalgia on his expression, and said with a smile: "Every time I think of the ambitious young man when I first met Simon, I feel that everything is normal now."

"It's a pity that you got a good deal back then, otherwise I would definitely beat the WMA to the ground."

"Frankly speaking, with the bad situation of the WMA at that time, I once thought about changing jobs to work with you, but luckily I met Simon."

When the two said this, they looked at each other and smiled, raised glasses to each other under the light of the lawn by the cliff, and sipped champagne. Jonathan asked again: "Speaking of which, the collar you and Eisner did Ying, how's it going?"

"The IPO has already started. If everything goes well, it will be listed in January next year," Ovitz said, but he was worried: "I hope it can catch up."

Of course, Jonathan knew what Ovitz was worried about, and he felt quite the same: "The Nasdaq is really crazy now. I sold all my technology stocks before voting in the general election. Frankly speaking, I made a lot of money. However, In the future, I plan to buy back some shares of the Big Three as a long-term investment, and I have absolute trust in Simon."

"Oh, I cleared the warehouse earlier than you. It was sold out in early October. Recently, my wife complained to me that it was sold out early, and I hope to buy some more."

"Don't listen to women about this kind of thing."

"Of course," Ovitz said with a smile, "I was a little worried that I couldn't control it, so I just invested all in two-year closed funds."

"Haha, I suddenly found that I need this too, can you introduce it to me?"

"Then I'll ask my assistant to send you the information tomorrow."

The two were chatting when they saw Amy Pascal, who was six months pregnant, walking with her husband Bernard Weinraub on his arm, and hurried up a few steps to meet her.

"Good evening, Amy, and Bernard."

"Good evening, Joe."

After Jonathan greeted, Ovitz also stepped forward and hugged Amy gently, looked at her belly and asked, "Do you know it's a boy or girl?"

"It's a boy, and we're going to name him Daniel."

"Oh, congratulations."

"Thank you."

After some pleasantries, Jonathan asked about something that Hollywood has been paying attention to recently: "Amy, I heard that "Titanic" in Australia is in trouble now?"

"Yeah, Tom has personally flown to Brisbane to keep an eye on it. Fortunately, if there are no accidents, it will finally be finished next month."

Michael Ovitz also asked curiously: "What does Simon mean? I remember he went to Australia for vacation last month?"

Amy didn't know what to say about her boss. Looking back on the whole project, she always felt that her boss was deliberately letting Cameron get out of control. Anyway, the current "big ship" can't be done without [-] million dollars, but this kind of Of course, you can't just talk about it with other people, just said: "Simon has been staring at it, everyone has a headache."

Jonathan reassured: "It's okay to do this once in a while. Hollywood has always been like this. You should rest more now and pay attention to your children."

"Thank you, Joe, you are so sweet."

The two did not ignore Amy's husband, Bernard, and chatted with each other about some current events after Clinton was re-elected recently.

Since she is in her current position, it is impossible for Amy to have too much rest time. Seeing that the three men were talking hotly, she greeted her and left alone, and went to the main creators of "Annabelle" to express her due congratulations.

As the most powerful woman in Hollywood at this time, she happened to be pregnant again. All the guests along the way greeted her attentively and carefully. Some people saw Amy chatting with the director of "Annabelle", and they couldn't help being envious.

The director of "Annabelle" is named William Malone. He is 43 years old this year, another typical late bloomer.

Or it is not a late bloomer. William Malone raised $1980 to shoot his first sci-fi horror feature film as early as 7. It sold well after release, and his second work was nominated for a Saturn Award. And was invited as the director of the drama version of "A Nightmare on Elm Street".

It's a pity that I got stuck in the TV circle afterwards.

This time "Annabelle" can be regarded as a turnaround. Although it has signed a harsh long-term contract with Daenerys Entertainment and has little autonomy as a director, but with the success of "Annabelle", William? Long also became famous in one fell swoop, and tonight he experienced a feeling of being surrounded by stars. The 43-year-old middle-aged man even felt the urge to cry when he was surrounded by all kinds of big and small coffee.

That's the way Hollywood is.

There is never a shortage of talents, what is lacking is just opportunities.

When Bernard Weinraub found his wife, Amy had just finished entertaining the crew of "Boogie Nights" and was talking to Linda Vargas. After walking in, she heard it was about "Saving Private Ryan" matter.

"That's what Simon means. Steven's strength is unquestionable. Except for sending an accounting team to follow up the finances, we will not participate this time. By the way, the hero of "Contact" has been delayed for so long, your last few days Is there any clue about the batch of lists God gave Simon?"

"Well, Simon finally chose one this time, from Australia, named Hugh Jackman."

Amy thought for a while, but she didn't have any impression, but said: "That's good. If the filming starts early next year and the actor is still uncertain, Bob will go crazy. I really don't understand why Simon is entangled in such a small role."

Linda said with a smile: "Simon said that he is very religious. If an actor who doesn't look like a priest is chosen to play the priest, he will have a shadow."

Amy just wanted to roll her eyes.

After chatting a few more words, Amy waited for her husband to greet Linda, and walked towards other guests with his arm.

Separated from Amy, Linda Vargas looked for a little among the crowd of guests, locked on the target, and walked over directly.

When the men and women who were chatting saw Linda approaching, they stopped talking and said hello.

The person in charge of casting for Simon Westeros is more popular than any big director and big producer in Hollywood, because big directors and big producers may not necessarily make actors popular, and this Simon Westero The opportunity given by Luo's spokesperson has a much higher gold content.

Linda just nodded slightly to the others, and motioned for a little girl to come to the railing near the edge of the cliff with a short-haired man in his 30s who accompanied her.

The man's name is Scott Lambert, and he is an agent under the WMA. He is a very ordinary agent. The most famous client under his name is Kiefer Sutherland, the son of veteran actor Donald Sutherland. , In addition, there are some child actors, like the girl beside me at this time, who is 12 years old this year and has just played a role in "Annabelle", named Scarlett Johansson.

Chapter 1065 Scarlett Johansson

Although he was just an ordinary agent under the WMA, Scott Lambert knew that Linda Vargas was famous. At this moment, Linda called him aside, and the man's eyes were filled with uncontrollable excitement. Asked: "Ms. Vargas, this... what's the matter?"

Linda was looking at the little girl next to the man, but when she heard this, she looked up at the manager and confirmed, "Scott Lambert?"

"Oh, of course, I didn't expect Ms. Vargas to know me." Scott Lambert was even more surprised and excited, and he quickly took out a business card and handed it to Linda: "Ms. Vargas, this is my card."

Linda took the business card and glanced at it, then looked at the little girl who was eager to try in her puzzled eyes, reached out and lifted the girl's chin: "Smile and show me."

The little girl from Lolita showed a shy smile obediently.

Linda shook her head: "Let go."

The girl grinned slightly, revealing a pair of unattractive small dies.She obviously knew this too, and subconsciously wanted to lower her head, but her chin was lightly held by the fingertips of the woman in front of her, and her expression turned pitiful without knowing it.

Linda watched the girl's expression change, just smiled, and said to Scott Lambert next to her, "Arrange her for orthodontic treatment in the near future. Also, come with me."

Then he turned and walked towards the villa.

Scott Lambert, who vaguely understood something, his eyes lit up, and quickly motioned for the little girl to follow. The three of them passed through the crowd and entered the villa, and soon found a few people who were chatting on the sofa in the corner of the hall.

Scott Lambert looked at the past, and they were all big names that were unattainable in the past, Robert Redford, Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, Tim Robbins, M. Shell Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon...so much so that the manager couldn't even muster up the courage to come forward to greet him.

However, all the big names didn't have any airs in front of Linda Vargas. Everyone greeted them warmly, and Michelle Pfeiffer also offered to give up her position to Linda.

Linda was not polite, and after she sat down, she motioned for a little girl who was also a bit embarrassed to come forward, and said to Robert Redford: "Bob, isn't there a little girl missing in the "Horse Whisperer" you are preparing? This is Scarlett, maybe let her try, Simon is very optimistic about her."

Hearing Linda mention Simon, everyone turned their attention to the little girl.

Linda also reminded at the right time that although the young girl who was not ignorant at all quickly reacted, she took the initiative to call out: "Mr. Redford, hello, my name is Scarlett Johansson, I am 12 years old, and I just starred in "Annabelle" , I also played Mr. Sean Connery's daughter in Warner's "Deadly Trap."