Hollywood Hunter

Santa monica.

A five-story office building on 2nd Street, not far from the headquarters of Daenerys Pictures, was originally the headquarters of a real estate company.

The stock market crash last year led to the collapse of the North American property market. In order to save money, the dismal real estate company moved to the Ocean Park area in the south. Simon rented out the five-story office building and used it as the office space for Daenerys Special Effects.

Speaking of this, although this office building is not as large as the two-story office building of the Daenerys Films headquarters and there is no separate parking lot, the total area of ​​the five-story office building still exceeds that of the Daenerys films There are many headquarters, but it just meets the needs of Daenerys Special Effects.

After several months of adjustments, Simon has integrated the two companies Alias-Research and Wavefront-Technologies, which were originally acquired, and the original Wavefront-Technologies founder Mark Silves served as the president of the new company.

During this time, the effects of Daenerys have been continuously recruiting, and the number of employees has reached more than 110 in just three months. The size of employees is more than double that of Daenerys.

However, compared to Daenerys Pictures’ continued to make huge profits through projects such as "When Harry Meets Sally" and "Who Will Become a Millionaire", Daenerys special effects are still completely burning money In the future, Simon also intends to incorporate Daenerys effects into the upgraded Daenerys entertainment company in the process of integrating new world entertainment.

The time is already July 26th, in the afternoon.

In a small meeting room for Daenerys special effects, Simon, Terry Semel and special effects company Mark Silvers and other senior executives are sitting around their desks watching a scene on the projector.

In just three months, a series of actions such as acquiring two companies, hiring employees, and adding expensive graphics workstation equipment have cost Simon more than $10 million, and he will naturally not let more than one hundred people idle.

The development of movie special effects is actually driven by various projects. Simon has been providing Daenerys special effects with various project ideas about "Batman" and even the planned "Human Ghost Love" in this period. And let these people research solutions and at the same time make various CG special effects shots as practice 3D animation short films to practice hands.

On the screen of the projector, a large group of bats passed through the city streets like a horrible dark cloud. Although there was no sound, such a scene still made people feel a bit numb.Mark Silvers personally operated the video recorder to play this footage with less than ten seconds, and the staff reopened the curtain that had just been covered.

Simon played with the pencil in his hand and waited for the room to light up, and said to Mark Silvers: "The synthesis effect is very good, but the bat doesn't look real enough. I hope it will be finer then."

"This is a problem of rendering," Mark Silvers explained, and said: "Simon, if we can, we want to redevelop a set of rendering software based on existing technology, with sufficient funds and sufficient manpower. Next, it will be completed in about a year."

The production of movie CG special effects is roughly divided into several steps: modeling, rendering and synthesis.

The two companies Simon previously acquired, Alias ​​developed 3D modeling software, which is probably the predecessor of Maya.Wavefront's technical achievements are more inclined to post-synthesis. Between the two, there is a rendering technical shortcoming.

The so-called rendering is to make the original digital CG model show the real object effect through a series of complex lighting, shadow and texture effect operations.

Speaking of which, Pixar's famous Renderman rendering tool has been developed.This software can be used not only for 3D animation, but also for CG rendering of live-action movies.However, Jobs still doesn't mean to relax, and Simon no longer intends to pin his hopes on Pixar.

"I can agree that you do this," Simon nodded and said, "However, "Batman" can't wait for a year. From now on, you can only have up to eight months. After eight months, "Batman" "It will enter the post-production stage."

Mark Silvers thought for a while and said, "It's okay for eight months. We can take the lead in perfecting the technology that Batman needs."

The two continued to chat for a while, and Mark Silvers left the meeting room with several executives.

Terry Semel, the CEO of Warner Bros. Pictures, who had just been quietly watching when other people left, said, "In addition to waiting until the end of next year, I am more and more optimistic about Batman."

Simon knows that Terry Semel has specifically called in recent days to see the progress of Batman’s preparations. The fundamental purpose is more than that, but he still follows the other party’s topic: "Good movies are always Take the time to grind."

Terry Semel no longer goes round the corner and says: "Simon, I heard that Pascal is looking for new projects recently?"

"Yeah," Simon did not deny, said: "The company is too small, and suddenly found that everyone has finished what they have in hand, and next year's hot schedule will not be able to take out the film."

Terry Semel simply said: "So, how about our cooperation?"

"Ok?"

Terry Semel said: "I remember that you were interested in the copyright of the "spy shadow" novel in the hands of Warner at the beginning of the year. It happened that our company also wanted to start this project recently, so it is not as good as Warner and Danny. Lisi Film Cooperates."

Simon smiled and did not take it apart.

If you are not interested in this film, Warner is likely to sell "Spy" into a mini-drama to the TV network this fall, which is a common practice of production companies after the strike of the screenwriter.

The movie version of "Mission Impossible" that Paramount has been brewing has also been aborted because of this strike. However, Paramount has just released the "crocodile Dundee 2" and "Journey to the United States" at the box office this summer. The 100 million blockbuster movie is definitely a good harvest this year, so there is no need to seek cooperation with Daenerys like Warner.

Simon heard the news that after the abortion of the movie version, Paramount had already planned to restart the production of the TV version this fall.

Terry Semel noticed the smile on Simon's face and was bitter in his heart.

Unlike the consecutive blockbuster films of this summer's Paramount, Fox, Daenerys and even Orion, Warner Bros.'s summer box office performance is extremely mediocre.

Chevy Chase's "Funny Farm" in June ended up with less than $25 million at the box office.Eastwood's new film "Tiger Detective Soul", which was released at the same time as "Instinct" this month, fell just 33% from the first week at the weekend. This kind of decline is difficult to get out of the long-term. It is expected that the total box office in North America may be It is only more than 30 million US dollars.

In comparison, "Instinct" has caused various controversies, but the box office fell only 17% over the next three days the next weekend, and received another 13.91 million US dollars.

Counting the $23.92 million box office in the first week, four days after the release, the total box office in North America for Instinct has reached $37.83 million. This number may be difficult to catch up to the next grade.

Moreover, it was also the weekend just past, another Warner Bros. family fun comedy "Little Caddy 2", with 1556 blocks on the screen, and only $3.96 million at the box office for the first three days of the weekend, again ending in failure.As of now, Warner Bros. plans to release a total of 24 films this year. More than half of the plans for the release of this year's box office, but the best box office score is only Tim Burton's "Beetle Juice" that was not optimistic. The box office in North America is currently $71.63 million. Before the downgrade, the largest box office in North America was only about $73 million.

What is even more frustrating is that after "Beetle Juice", Warner's second-ranked film in the first half of the year happened to be Chevy Chase's "Funny Farm" with only 23.51 million US dollars at the box office.

Such film performance can only be described as bleak.

Terry Semel is the son-in-law of Steve Rose, chairman of Warner Bros., so he is not too worried that the company’s poor performance will affect his future. Steve Rose is a very short-sighted person.However, as a listed company, Warner's film business performance is too bleak, he is still responsible for this person in charge, recently, even Steve Rose began to tell him to improve the operation of Warner Bros. Pictures as soon as possible.

No one can guarantee a high-risk business like a movie has always been successful.

Even if Spielberg, the highly sought-after a few days ago, the "Sun Empire" that he worked with Warner last year, the box office can only be described as tepid compared to the production cost.

However, the emergence of Daenerys Pictures completely broke the usual perception of many people.

A series of movies related to Simon Westero, "Rola Run", "Butterfly Effect", "The Grim Reaper", "When Harry Meets Sally" , "Pulp Fiction" and even the most recent "Instinct", five of the six films have reached the standard of the North American box office billion dollar club, which can not even be described by miracles, this is simply a miracle.

If Simon Westeros is not a hairy kid in his early twenties, his prestige in Hollywood will definitely reach the level of "God", which is no exaggeration.After the success of "Alien ET", someone in Hollywood pointed to Spielberg and said, "Look, that is God." But Spielberg failed to continue the miracle of "Alien ET".

Simon also knows that he has become more and more popular in the past year. He has also produced more than a few mediocre films more than once in order to make Daenerys film industry not so dazzling.However, just as there is a big pit in front of it, as long as people with normal thinking can hardly persuade themselves to walk over and trip themselves, Simon's subconscious mind also resists the idea of ​​intentionally making several failed films.

At this time, feeling Terry Semel's eager look, Simon spread his hands around and said, "Terry, you also saw that I am very busy now, and there is simply no time to take care of too many things."

"You don't have to do this at all, Simon, none of us have so much energy to take care of too many things," Terry Semel said: "As long as you agree to cooperate with Warner, we can invite all the people you want, and follow You want to make this movie."

Simon thought about it and said, "So, Terry, what about the specific cooperation plan?"

Seeing a play, Terry Semel immediately said: "We can adopt the "Instinct" cooperation model. Warner and Daenerys each hold half of the rights. Daenerys Pictures is fully responsible for the production, and Warner Brothers is responsible for the distribution work. "

The biggest factor in the success of "Spy" is that simple and sharp action style and realistic shooting techniques. It is not impossible to produce it more than ten years in advance. However, Simon also knows that if he cannot monitor the whole process, Hollywood is currently No director has managed this project yet, and in the end it is more likely to produce a film with four different looks.

In fact, in the project "Rainman", Simon is already facing this kind of problem.

After thinking about it for a moment, Simon shook his head and said, "Terry, I have a lot of ideas about "Spy", but I don't have enough time now to personally monitor the realization of these ideas."

Of course, Terry Semel would not be unaware of the workaround, and soon said: "Of course other projects are also possible, Simon."

Simon shook his head slightly and smiled, saying, "Terry, if it's another project, I don't have to work with Warner."

Terry Semel also smiled and said, "Simon, what do you want?"

"Daenerys Pictures can work with Warner on a project, "Instinct" model, as a condition, I need two copyrights in Warner's hands, "Spy" and "Wonder Woman."

"No problem," Terry Semel said very simply: "However, Warner must also retain the investment and distribution rights of these two projects."

"This is definitely not possible," Simon also shook his head and said, "I can't always bind the company's projects to other studios. Projects like "Instinct", according to the North American box office's 100 million box office calculation, overseas also probably Being able to get such box office results, accounting for the subsequent omni-channel operation, is only half of the rights and interests, and the partner may get a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars in the entire operating cycle. Therefore, "Spy" and "Wonder Woman" "This is the bargaining chip."

The two bargained for a while, but Terry Semel finally failed to agree.

Simon is also not worried that Warner will launch these projects on his own. Everyone in Hollywood knows that different projects are definitely two complete results in the hands of different people.

Separately from Terry Semel, after busy working in the afternoon, Simon left work at more than six o'clock and did not return to Malibu, but hurried to Beverly Hills.

Today is Sandra’s birthday, and Simon had received an invitation to the girl’s birthday party last week.However, although Janet knew this, she didn't mean to participate with Simon this time, but her eyes narrowly told him to go home before twelve o'clock.