Hollywood Hunter

Chapter 58

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The Spice Girls are simple, Daenerys Entertainment has been discovering teenage pop singers over the years, replicating them easily, even if they fail, it's not relevant.

Instead, the Harry Potter series, such a super IP, if this is butterfly off, it would be a real pity.

Inside the forward cabin study of a Boeing 767.

Simon was thinking about all this in two minds when the A-girl knocked on the door and delivered a freshly organized document: "Boss, this is from Chris Lee."

Two days ago at the Jonathan's reception, Simon met the president of Sony's Columbia Pictures, Chris Lee, chatted a few words, and the next day had a message sent over, asking Chris Lee to organize a copy of all the projects being incubated by Sony Pictures information to himself.

It's actually some sort of trial run.

Sony has lasted so many years in Hollywood, if it was before, foreign investment in Hollywood to linger, in fact, in line with Simon's planning, the times have changed, since Daenerys Entertainment does not intend to retain the strength to seek coexistence, it is also time to sweep the Japanese out of Hollywood drivers.

Once upon a time in history, with big breakout series like "Men in Black" and "Spider-Man," Sony managed to survive the tough times around the year 2000 and hold its own in Hollywood for a long time. Now, since the Japanese are to be let out of the game, Simon needs to control Sony as much as possible to appear again similar to the sudden emergence of a big-selling film variables.

Chris Lee was one of the pawns that Simon tried to land.

Since Chris Lee put the information over, it is clear that the Hollywood executive not only comprehended Simon's intentions, but also decisively delivered this pitch that Simon requested.

Simon took the file handed over by the A-girl and flipped it open, finding that the information given by Chris Lee was more detailed than what he had requested, and included Sony's film list for this year, as well as internal evaluation tendencies for various incubation projects, etc.

After several years of continuous losses, the two major labels controlled by Sony, Columbia and Samsung, are expected to produce a total of only 11 films this year, including seven from Columbia and four from Samsung Pictures.

In addition to "Walking with the Devil," which was released in the Easter slot and failed miserably at the box office, the key films of 1997, including "Anaconda" and "Absolute Power" scheduled for the summer, and "As Good as It Gets" and "Starship Troopers" for the year-end slot, are all small films with budgets of $30 million or less.

This is simply very different from Simon's memory of Sony's 1997 film list.

A little combing of the information in the mind, once in history, the year 1997 can be described as a year of Sony's great return, the annual box office list of the previous life, Sony has occupied four, respectively, "Men in Black", "Air Force One", "as good as it gets", "My Best Friend's Wedding".

It was because of the four films sold in one year that Sony survived the most difficult period and waited until after the millennium to rely on the "Spider-Man" series to stand on its feet.

This time, things have obviously changed too much.

The first is the strong impact of Daenerys Entertainment, and Sony's consequent years of losses, so that the Japanese electronics giant, like several other Hollywood studios at the moment, has had to take the initiative to cut back on film production. Eleven films for its two labels is not too few, to say the least, and not even 10 on Fox's side this year.

However, compared to the once 1997 or success or failure of "Men in Black", "Air Force One", "Walking with the Devil", "Starship Troopers", "The Fifth Element" and a series of big hits, this time, the budget of $50 million heavy bomb, there are only four "Walking with the Devil", "Absolute Power", "As Good as It Gets" and "Starship Troopers".

A more careful analysis of the four main films spread over the summer and end of the year is also very interesting.

Absolute Power" is a crime drama film directed by Clint Eastwood again, the old cowboy since the death of Steve Ross in the year no longer hanging on the tree of Warner.

Anaconda", the typical Hollywood monster adventure film, once starring Jennifer Lopez, and is a typical big bad movie, but the box office is quite good, plus the video market hit, followed by the production of a series of sequels, some of them as the "Fae" follow-up directly into the video and DVD market.

This time, because Jennifer Lopez has to be busy with the judging of American Idol, the female lead was replaced with Demi Moore.

Obviously still the influence of the big butterfly that is Simon.

Without the rise of Daenerys Entertainment, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore would have been very prosperous in the nineties.

Even if there is no representative work after the "Ghosts and Men", Demi Moore still relies on the influx of hot money into Hollywood in the nineties, such as the "devil woman soldier", "" and other big-budget films, no matter how badly these projects pitted investors, Moore's salary of more than ten million dollars in a row is in the bag.

Of course, because the character was so badly defeated, by 2003's "Charlie's Angels 2", Demi Moore, who played the villain, was paid only $2 million.

Now, with the strength of Daenerys Entertainment, other big studios are not living easily, and hot money is not stupid, the number of inflows into Hollywood has been significantly reduced, but also by Simon's initiative to absorb part of the most direct result is that the opportunity for stars to eat hot money dividends is also significantly reduced. The other result is that the good old days of Hollywood's first-tier stars' $20 million salaries did not come, and the current ceiling of salaries was successfully stuck in the $15 million ceiling by Simon.

On a smaller scale, the butterfly impact is that Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are a couple that are far less well off than they once were.

In any case, Demi Moore still got the role of Sony's "Anaconda" this time, compared to Jennifer Lopez, who had just crossed the circle not long ago, although Demi Moore's curry is ultimately higher, the film's budget is still only $45 million, less than the threshold of $50 million heavy bomb.

As for how the box office this time, according to the inside information given by Chris Lee, the effect of "Anaconda" is not good, the prospects are not too optimistic.

Then there is the end of the year slot "as good as it gets".

This is the production of "mother and daughter", "fly over the future" and other top-selling Hollywood filmmaker James Brooks and the great movie star Jack Nicholson cooperation a drama, or also considered a romance, once in the history of the box office awards are considered a double success, not only again let Jack Nicholson Oscar called the emperor, but also into the annual box office list sixth place.

The final "Starship Troopers", needless to say, was another box office fiasco relative to the cost of breaking a billion.

Overall, "Walking with the Devil" has lost, the next four main hits "Absolute Power", "Anaconda", "As Good as It Gets" and "Starship Troopers", even if "As Good as It Gets" can be as good a seller as the original time and space, it is difficult to reverse the overall decline of Sony Pictures.

As long as there are no big surprises, in 1997, Sony Pictures will still end up in the red.

After reading Sony's 1997 film list, Simon again casually wrote down "My Best Friend's Wedding" on the draft paper at hand, and then casually scribbled it out.

This former top ten film at the box office was obviously a tailor-made project for Julia Roberts back then, so it was only natural that it was butterflied off. Since I thought of it, I definitely want to make it, a hand up is a billion dollar film, why not.

With that, Simon did not forget "Air Force One" to add another one.

This is also a top ten film.

Even if the budget is a little high, the cost performance is relatively low, the future to MGM or other studios, there is no problem.

Settle these, continue to turn down, soon found that the original "Air Force One" is still in Sony's incubation list, however, because Harrison Ford starring in "Walking with the Devil" cooperation experience is very bad, Sony executives launched the project's production progress, now, "Walking with the Devil" complete box office failure, if not accidentally, the next at least Sony certainly will not produce this film.

Simon saw here, no longer need to do so, casually annotated a sentence on the information.

Since Chris Lee gave a pitch, Simon will of course also pitch in. This project, can let each other quietly suppressed, when the Japanese rolled, can be taken out again, will also become a seniority.

Then again, Simon soon saw another project, "Godzilla".

Sony is in contact with the Japanese Toho rights, has not yet been negotiated.

Simon immediately made it a sniper target.

Once the 1998 Roland Emmerich version of "Godzilla", because Godzilla was made into a Tyrannosaurus rex led to a bad review, but because of the fame of this world-class IP, coupled with ultimately very stunning special effects, the global box office of nearly $ 400 million is not really a failure, Sony basically recovered the cost and achieved a profit.

This time, Roland Emmerich is still under the banner of Daenerys Entertainment, if you let Sony negotiate the rights, want to do worse than once Emmerich, probably not easy.

With Godzilla's worldwide fame, the box office is quite secure, a little carelessness may also explode a little.

Simon does not want to see Sony Pictures next to have any pop.

A little thought, Simon turned to the computer on his desk and sent an email directly to Amy Pascale, asking her to try to contact the Japanese and cut off the project.

The file flipped to the end and Simon managed to find a big hole.

A project Kevin Costner was lobbying for was called "2013 Ultimate Godsend," a science fiction adaptation of a novel about a post-apocalyptic wanderer who accidentally acquires a letter carrier's kit after the outbreak of nuclear war and begins to wander between gatherings pretending to be a letter carrier, accidentally becoming a spiritual leader among the post-apocalyptic inhabitants.

Obviously, Kevin Costner is not happy with the failure of "Future Water World", which is the momentum of the bar with the post-apocalyptic film.

However, because once also a heavy bomb that failed miserably, Simon also remembered very well.

Once upon a time in history, "2013 Ultimate Godsend" was invested by Warner and released at the end of this year. Now, because everyone is not very good times, Costner until now has not pulled investment, Sony is only one of the negotiating objects, and, more Chris Lee gave the information, Sony is obviously not too cold.

Now the problem is how to make Sony cold up.

In fact, the method is also simple, as long as Daenerys Entertainment expresses interest, like the "Bad Things" script that was just snatched away some time ago, this trick is also considered tried and true in Hollywood.

Of course, it is also necessary to avoid making a mistake.

Simon carefully considered some, in the end, did not choose to repeat the same trick, but intend to let Chris Lee himself to operate, even if the Sony executives of the Sony Pictures team card very dead, this side is not possible completely no operating space.

As for the specific how to engage?

Simon has full confidence in the ability of the Hollywood natives to fool the investors.

This is also another test.

After sorting through these, Simon quickly knocked out a memo on his computer and forwarded it to the A-girl email address, asking her to send someone to print it out and forward it to Chris Lee.

Also prompted not to use e-mail.

After all, this kind of thing is not suitable to leave evidence after all.

With that taken care of, Simon continued to be busy until the Boeing 767 landed at London's Heathrow Airport, a little after 9 p.m. local time on April 10.

It was late at night when he arrived at his mansion on Kensington Gardens Street in downtown London.

Simon just entered the door, but a small figure first swooped over, smiling and bending down to open his arms to catch, has been more than five years old little girl like a small koala hands and feet to Simon's body, shouted a 'Dad', and then the little head to Simon's shoulders, the eyes did not move.

It was obvious that she had fallen asleep.

Yulia Shulshikina with Ivana Antonenko and Natalia Banshikova three women walked up together, looking at the woman Nina was held in the arms of the man, quite considerate and spoiled look, Shulshikina inwardly can not help but some warmth, but reached out and said: "Sir, I'll do it."

Simon shook his head: "No, where is the bedroom, I will send the little one up."

So saying, Simon can't help but think of the six women who are pregnant at the same time.

All have been confirmed so far, all boys.

Six boys, ah.

Simon is simply a lot of pressure, a little cotton shirt is not.

The woman in her arms, although not much to meet on a regular basis, but also considered to give Simon a feeling of a little cotton.

Shulshkina heard Simon say so, and hurriedly led the way in front. Ivana Antonenko subconsciously wanted to follow, but also some regret, did not let his daughter Vera also wait together, if you can let the man also so spoiled, her status will also be much higher. On the contrary, Natalia Banshikova did not follow to join the fun, but welcomed the A-girls and Carmen Kaiser, helping to arrange the luggage and accommodation for Simon's entourage.

Upstairs in one of the bedrooms, Simon was just about to put the sleeping little one on the bed, but Nina woke up immediately and once again wrapped herself around Simon for a hug.

Simon had to hug again for a while, and when the little girl fell asleep again, he tried again and woke up again.

Shulshkina had to come forward and whispered, "Baby, daddy has to rest too, and you can see tomorrow, no pestering."

The little one, still wrapped around Simon on his hands and knees, sniffed and said, "Well, I'll sleep with Daddy, and Mommy, together."

Shulshkina blushed slightly and immediately shook her head, "No."

"Why?"

"......"

Simon saw Shulhikina speechless, smiled and said, "Because Nina is already a big girl, of course she can't sleep with mommy and daddy."