Hollywood Hunter

Robert Iger came from the East Coast not only for the "Beverly Wife" thing, ended the meeting with Simon and Amy, he hurried to Burbank to participate in the production of the new season of "The Ultimate Police Network" meeting.

Although the strike is over, Daenerys TV did not have enough time this year to pick new TV series projects.

However, as long as it can ensure the production of the company's four reality TV shows and successfully complete the five TV series projects that New World Entertainment renewed last year, Daenerys Entertainment will be able to completely consolidate its own in the field of TV program suppliers after the autumn file. Strong position.

Burbank.

The original headquarters of New World Entertainment is located on the Ventura Boulevard where the Santa Monica Mountain North Film and Television Production Company gathers. Within five kilometers, there are many studios such as Disney, Universal Studios and Warner Studios.

However, compared to the large-scale park area of ​​tens of hectares such as Universal Studios, New World Entertainment only has a three-story office building, which is now temporarily a branch of Daenerys Entertainment, the company’s distribution department and TV. Departments are located here.

In the screening room, the sample of "Shrieking" without subtitles was played, and the lights were on. Simon walked to the stage and looked around Amy Pascal, Robert Rem, and some other core employees of the distribution department. , Clapped his hands and said, "Let’s start with a light topic, which can be called the "Horror Movie Survival Guide". If you are the protagonist in a horror movie and want to live, what do you think you should do, you should not what?"

Everyone looked at each other a little.

Simon waited for a moment and simply pointed to his senior woman: "Amy, you say it first."

Amy thought for a while and said, "Never say'I will come back soon', because then it will never come back."

Everyone laughed.

Simon also smiled and said: "Well, although it has been said in the movie just now, it is still your pass. What about the other, Bob?"

This is the release conference of "Scream".

Robert Rem had previously provided Simon with a distribution plan for "Scream", saying that he could ensure that at least 1,000 screens were drawn, and that he had developed a marketing strategy mainly aimed at the young audience.

Decades of work experience in Hollywood has made Robert Rem's work in this area seem easy, but it is also inevitably quite satisfactory and has not reached the point of satisfying Simon.

Hearing Simon point to himself, Robert Rem could only think for a moment and said, "Don't get entangled with strangers on the phone."

"It counts."

Simon nodded and nodded to the others in the projection room.

Everyone talked and talked about it, Simon finally said: "Look, this is a very good promotional point. Weiss made a very good film, from the beginning of Cathy's killing to the end of the film, Everywhere is full of thrills and suspense, and the horror atmosphere setting of the film has reached a peak. But on the other hand, I guess you must have just thought that this movie uses too many conventional plots of traditional horror films, so It feels a bit old-fashioned, right?"

Some employees in the screening room nodded subconsciously.

Simon waited for someone to answer, then put away his expression and said solemnly: "But this is wrong. As a film distributor, what you need to do is to discover the advantages of a movie as much as possible, even if it does not have any advantages. Try to find ways to turn its shortcomings into advantages, and transmit this concept to the audience. Just like, you just think the plot repeats the old stereotypes, but I think this is the selling point. So, what you want to do next is to be careful A "Horror Movie Survival Guide" is brewed and then published in a magazine that the viewer will notice. Now, will you give me some other ideas?"

Feeling Simon’s gaze on the stage, there was a moment of silence around him, and finally a younger employee raised his hand and said, "Mr. Westeros, I heard that the original idea of ​​this film came from you.

Simon nodded and said, "Yes."

"So," the young man hesitated and summoned the courage to say: "We can reveal this point. Simon Westero, because he was worried about causing controversy like Instinct again, gave up his right to sign. To a great extent inspire the curiosity of the audience.

"Very good," Simon nodded. "What's your name?"

Hearing Simon's approval, the young man immediately let go of his heart and said, "Mark Belford."

"Let Mark join the "Scream" team," Simon said directly to Robert Rem, who was sitting in the front row, and then looked at the crowd, saying, "Who has any ideas?"

Can attract the attention of the boss, others began to speak actively.

After discussing for about half an hour in this way, Simon concluded: "If you are careful enough, you will find that Hollywood is being adapted quickly. In this summer, Paramount Pictures has adopted two fully-saturated films "Alligator Dundee" Both "2" and "Journey to the United States" have achieved unexpected success, and this is the trend of Hollywood's future films. The traditional strategy of relying on long-term screenings to accumulate word of mouth and continuously attract audiences into the theater will gradually be eliminated. We must follow changes in Before a movie is released, try to put it into the audience's view as much as possible so that it can succeed."

Speaking of which, Simon paused briefly before continuing: "To do this, we must abandon the traditional film marketing concept and try to find as many as possible without revealing the content of the film in advance but which can arouse the audience. The means of publicity by the audience. Actively provoking controversy, hype the protagonist scandal, early release of the insider, etc. are actually very effective means. Of course, you must also understand that these are basically auxiliary, cinema posters, TV Trailers and magazine advertisements are the main channels for expanding the popularity of a film. You must flexibly combine various publicity strategies according to the specific situation of a film."

After saying this, Simon looked at everyone in the projection room and said, "I am very busy. I will only say this once today. It is your business to understand and execute. If you are done, you will get a generous salary, If you don’t do well, I will kick you out of the company without hesitation. So, always remember, don’t prejudice any film, in your eyes, it should be the best, what you have to do It is to find all the selling points of a movie as much as possible and then bring it to market."

Screening room.

When Simon's words fell and there was a moment of silence, everyone subconsciously applauded.

Simon did not have too much nonsense, and when everyone was quiet again, he announced the adjournment.

Amy Pascal and Robert Rem stayed naturally, Simon returned to his position, took a bottle of water from Jennifer, took a few sips, and said to Robert Rem: "Bob, " "Scream", "Steel Magnolia" and "Death Poetry Society", I will give you a $5 million publicity budget. I will need all of this money for the first few months of the year Spend."

Robert Rem hadn't responded yet, and Amy was surprised: "Simon, this is too much. Moreover, "Steel Magnolia" and "Death Poetry Society" have not yet made a film."

"I've been staring at these movies in person all the time, and I'm very clear about their quality," Simon shook his head, and said: "And, the money is not just for the promotion of the three films, Amy, this For more than a year, you should have also discovered one thing. As long as there is a little news about me and about Daenerys Pictures, the media will swarm and hype. I don’t want this to continue. However, we have If you don’t have enough time to pay for these media, you can only use money to smash them.”

Amy Pascal and Robert Rem heard Simon's words and they immediately understood.

These days, Simon's dismissal of "Rainman" director Barry Levinson still hasn't stopped completely, and there will still be controversy in the media about the instinct and the results of the striker's strike on the screenwriter. Severe shock.

The foundation of Daenerys Entertainment is too shallow, and there is no time to make good media, which will cause this kind of situation.

Simon's strategy at this time will indeed be very effective.

Each of the three films cost US$5 million in advertising budgets, not only to maximize the claim of the film, but also to make Daenerys Entertainment a major customer of major North American newspapers, magazines and even television networks in a short period of time.

In this way, if there will be negative news such as'Simon Westero's arbitrary interference with the director's creation', various newspapers and TV stations will first consider whether they will lose Daenerys before reporting. The huge advertising orders that Entertainment puts on its own magazine every year.

In a capital society, the control of the media is fundamentally the control of capital. Other so-called personal relationships with good relationships are illusions.Whether it is the seven major studios or the brokerage industry giants such as CAA, the reason why they can form a close relationship with the media, there are very few explosive scandals, the root cause is still related to interests.

Today is already August 25th, Thursday.

Simon plans to rush to Australia next Monday to end his day's work. He also specifically talked about this with Amy.

Since we have to rush to Australia, it is naturally impossible to come back in just a day or two, confirm the shooting location of "Batman", negotiate tax refund with the Australian government and cooperate with shooting issues, meet with Janet's family, etc. The most conservative estimate is also Stay there for at least a week.

However, the trip to Australia has not yet started, and the next day, another thing happened suddenly.

On August 26th, Forbes magazine officially released two new lists: Forbes Global Rich List and North American Local Rich List.

In Simon's memory, the release time of the Forbes Rich List is very uncertain, sometimes in March at the beginning of the year, and sometimes in August and September in the second half of the year.

Of course, these are just minor details.

Speaking of that, before this year's list was announced, Forbes contacted Simon, hoping that he could cooperate with the statistics of relevant data. After Simon refused, there was no entanglement there.

Then suddenly the results of the list did not surprise Simon, and the whole world was greatly surprised.

because.

In the rich list of the new year, Forbes' statistics on Simon's personal net worth are finally $31.

Three hundred and one hundred million US dollars, this will not be noticed by too many people in thirty years, but in this era, it is a very huge amount of wealth.

You know, in this year’s list, the world’s richest man, Tim Yiming, has a personal worth of only 19 billion US dollars. In North America, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s personal worth is only 6.7 billion US dollars. , And only ranked 7th on the global list.

then.

Look at Simon's $3.1 billion.

On the list of the world's richest people, Simon was ranked 16th by this wealth.If this ranking is barely too dazzling, in North America, Simon’s personal ranking is second only to the first place of Sam Walton’s $6.7 billion and the second place of John Kruger’s 32 One hundred million U.S. dollars.

Ranked third!

From 1986 to 1988, two years after he was born, young people who had just reached their twenties and had no identity background suddenly surpassed most of North America’s tradition of accumulating tens of hundreds of years with a huge wealth of $3.1 billion. It is not surprising how the rich family has become the third richest person in the US in private wealth and the 16th in the world.

After the "Forbes" list was announced, many people's first reaction was even, it is absolutely impossible.

however.

The basis given by Forbes magazine is irrefutable.

Among the assets under Simon’s personal name, technology stock assets that can be fully queried from public filing data reached US$1.8 billion in Forbes’ previous month’s statistical cycle.

In addition, after continuously launching "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Instinct" and acquiring New World Entertainment, the integrated valuation of Daenerys Entertainment has also increased significantly.

Only the profitable "Who Will Be a Millionaire", considering the decline in popularity and ratings, the next three years will be enough to make a net profit of not less than US$500 million for Daenerys Entertainment and integrate New World Entertainment Since then, Daenerys Entertainment has not only become the top second-tier film company in North America after the Seventh, but it has also become one of the most important TV network program providers.

Combining various data, "Forbes" finally gave Daenerys Entertainment a valuation of up to $1.5 billion.

In order to make this valuation more convincing, Forbes also conducted a special survey. As a result, 96 of the 100 fund managers questioned on Wall Street expressed their willingness to use this valuation for Danny. Liz Entertainment invests.

Also.

Simon's undisclosed various non-listed companies and real estate, "Forbes" finally gave a valuation of 250 million US dollars.

This is also not from the void.

Westero initially reduced Motorola's huge amount of more than 300 million US dollars, half of which was used to increase the holding of public technology stocks, and the other half, about 150 million US dollars, was used for non-public investments. Westero Some time ago, another $100 million was loaned, which was also used for private investment.

Taken together, it is exactly $250 million.

Finally, after subtracting a total of $450 million in loans from Westeros and Daenerys Pictures, Simon Westero’s personal net worth—$31!