Hollywood Hunter

The time entered October, and the end of the year was approaching. Many films started the final stage of publicity.

Starting from Halloween, Daenerys entertains four major projects at the end of the year, which are "Seven Deadly Sins", "The Lion King", "Mission Impossible" and "Schindler's List".There is also a DC film universe film "Steel Bone", Simon is only the producer, the project is entirely operated by Warner Bros.

In the afternoon, a special parent-child activity was arranged.

Take Janet and the little guy to Daenerys Studios to watch "The Lion King" into a film. This is Simon's first visit to Daenerys Studios after taking a vacation.

It's a pity that two months before Melbourne, two years old, is obviously not interested in cartoons, the little guy was only held out by the A girl after staying in the screening room for less than ten minutes.

Simon'Jiangjiongji' accompanied Janet and several executives of Daenerys Entertainment to watch the film.

Several other movies are not mentioned. As the most important project at the end of this year, Simon can't be completely indifferent.

Compared with the 2D version in memory, the 3D version of "The Lion King" seems to Simon to be perfect in every aspect. The production budget of the film reached 60 million US dollars, far exceeding the first "Toy Story" in Pixar Studios. The 35 million US dollars of production costs, most of which are spent on improving the various 3D technologies required for film production.

Although the expenditure is huge, the entire Daenerys entertainment management believes that such an input is worth the money.

The excellent box office and huge peripheral income of "Toy Story" have proved the broad market prospects of 3D animation films. Even if the "Lion King" box office is not satisfactory, the various technologies accumulated through this film can also be applied to other animated films, and Unlike live-action movies, it is usually only a one-time investment.

Out of confidence in "The Lion King", the scale of the film's announcement this time also reached US$30 million.

With a total investment of US$90 million in production and distribution, apart from Simon, Daenerys Entertainment basically does not expect this film to be able to recover costs through North American distribution. What you value more is the peripheral output of "The Lion King" and Daenerys Entertainment promotes the entire industry chain of records, games and theme parks.

Because of the importance attached to this project, the schedule of the film has been carefully adjusted.

November 19.

This is the first week of the Thanksgiving schedule, and it will span the entire year-end schedule to maximize the room for the film market.

In order to make way for "The Lion King", Warner Bros. originally intended to file Thanksgiving's "Steel Bone" was transferred to December 24 by Daenerys Entertainment's energy.Following the "Mission Impossible" released a week after "The Lion King", the two films will not cause too much conflict because of the difference in genre.

Simon actually didn’t think about rushing Mission Impossible to Christmas, but it’s just too obvious and unnecessary.

Speaking of this, the news of the "Lion King" project spread very early in Hollywood because it was a gift from Simon to Janet, and other Hollywood studios can judge Daenerys Entertainment’s contribution to this project without guessing. Always, therefore, genres such as animated movies or family comedies that may compete with "The Lion King" have voluntarily avoided this Thanksgiving.

Now we only need to wait for the 3D version of "The Lion King" to be as popular as the original time and space.

At the end of the screening, Janet kissed Simon's face and left the screening room.

Simon continued to listen to several executives introduce the progress of the "Lion King" announcement and the promotion strategy of surrounding products, and then left the screening room.

This screening room is located in the office loft of the Pixar studio on the second floor of the studio.

After watching the film and the meeting, the other people left their busy business, Simon went to another office in the Pixar workspace, and John Lasseter personally introduced to Simon the story version of another 3D animated movie that he just finished. .

"Beauty and the Beast".

As a French fairy tale created in the 18th century, "Beauty and the Beast" no longer has copyright issues.When it was confirmed that Disney had abandoned the project, Simon let Pixar quietly set up the project.

Now that "Lion King" has been completed, the team in charge of "Lion King" will then directly start to produce "Beauty and the Beast".

Of course, the same is the 3D version.

In addition, the production progress of "Toy Story 2" has also been completed by more than half, and the preliminary plan will be fixed by the end of next year.

Finally at the end of work, Simon found the mother and son of Janet playing in the rest area and found Veronica also appeared here, patiently accompanying Melbourne to build blocks.

Today is October 1, Friday.

Veronica came here at about the same time, and Simon was about to leave for San Francisco to spend the weekend with a female assistant.

Say hello and continue to play here for a while, everyone will return to Dumei Cape Manor together.

"AOL's finances are not too problematic. However, this company seems to be too aggressive. Comprehensive technical audits and monthly price changes in disguise will definitely cause this company to continue to lose money. If it continues to expand to other regions of the United States, , The loss next year may reach the level of 1 billion US dollars."

In the Dumei Cape estate, Veronica is introducing Simon to the work of this time.

In the past half a year, AOL not only began to fully upgrade the ADSL network, but also officially launched a monthly package with a minimum of $29, which completely changed the previous time charging model. In fact, it was a large-scale price reduction in disguise.

Although the monopoly agreement initially restricted several large operators in the AOL operating area from entering the ISP field, due to the development prospects of the Internet industry, in the past few years, many small Internet service providers have emerged within the scope of the AOL .

The ADSL network upgrade and monthly package plan have enabled AOL to gain a decisive market competitive advantage in one fell swoop, which is a devastating blow to other competitors.

It stands to reason that with these two sets of killers, AOL should completely stabilize its existing sphere of influence before expanding, which seems to be more secure.However, neither ADSL nor monthly subscriptions cannot be imitated, especially the latter.

Therefore, AOL must quickly penetrate the opponent's territory before other regional operators respond.

To achieve this goal, there is actually only one way to burn money.

Unlike AOL, which only rented other operators' line networks to provide Internet access services, AOL now attaches great importance to the laying of its own network lines under the development strategy imposed by Simon.

As of now, AOL has two trunk fibers running through the federal east-west coast in the United States, and the total length of the fiber optic cable alone in North America has exceeded 150,000 kilometers, which means huge capital investment.

In the past history, many operators were in bankruptcy because of excessive investment after the bursting of the Internet bubble.

However, there is nothing wrong with investing heavily in infrastructure.

After the bursting of the Internet bubble, many companies went bankrupt, mostly because of completely blind investment and financial fraud like the Enron incident.

Many new technology enterprise managers simply don't know what they should do, but just follow the heart of the crowd.

AOL's development goals are very clear.

Build a nationwide ADSL high-speed broadband network, and promote the triple-play process of telephone, television and broadband after the federal government liberalizes telecommunications control.

ADSL technology is the future of Internet service providers. The former AOL missed the upgrade of dial-up Internet access to ADSL technology and quickly declined. Another reason is that AOL once mistaken its own development direction and ignored its own basic lines. Instead, the construction of the Internet has turned to Internet media, which has a large bubble.

Although AOL now also started the portal business, as long as the company is still under Simon's control, he will not allow AOL to follow the old path.

At this stage of the ADSL upgrade, monthly package and all-round expansion, although a bit radical, the direction is not wrong.

According to an operating rule of the Internet industry in memory, this is a comprehensive dimensionality reduction attack against competitors, actively suppressing the industrial environment to the worst state, so as to eliminate competitors one by one.

If they are other startups or operators who have just stepped into the ISP field, of course they dare not do this, in fact they have no strength to do so.

AOL, which has exceeded 26 million users in North America, already has this confidence, not to mention that the company has a more powerful Westero system behind it.

As long as it can unify the entire North American market, not to mention the annual loss of 1 billion US dollars, even if it doubles, Simon also has enough strength to allow AOL to lose more than 5 years in a row.

Five years, enough to eliminate most competitors.

Simon did not conceal these ideas from Veronica, and explained it carefully. Finally, he said: "As long as AOL does not go on a wrong path, temporary losses are acceptable. My only request is this The company's business and financial situation is completely transparent, at least to me, without concealment or fraud."

Veronica doesn't quite understand why Simon can be sure that AOL's current development route is correct, but she has no longer questioned, and understands what Simon just said, he only needs her help to focus on this company. It suffices, others don’t care.

After chatting with Veronica for more than half an hour, Simon looked at the time and said goodbye to everyone, and took the girl A and a group of bodyguards to the airport.

Los Angeles International Airport.

The private Boeing 767 is ready, and there are others waiting for Simon.

One of them is an ICM agent, a middle-aged white man in his forties.The other is a beautiful girl with a tall figure in her twenties, obviously with model attributes, and indeed a model named Natasha Henschy.

The middle-aged man saw Simon and greeted him very enthusiastically: "Hello, Mr. Westeros, I am Raul Bradley, Natasha's agent."

Simon shook hands with each other and looked at Natasha Henschy next to the middle-aged man, saying, "Let's get on the plane first."

Everyone naturally has no opinion.

Everyone got on the plane together, and more than ten minutes later, the Boeing 767 took off from the runway.

After the plane was stable, Simon briefly explained a few words and took Natasha Henschy to the front cabin.

Raul Bradley glanced at the figure of the girl following Simon's departure. Some envy and some regret. The envy is naturally a young man. It is regrettable that such a beautiful stunner himself certainly has no chance to get involved.

"Mr. Bradley?"

A figure in the ear immediately made Raúl Bradley take his gaze and look up at the girl A left by Simon: "Raúl, Miss Norris, you can call me Raúl."

Girl A nodded and said, "The boss has already settled on the "Xenomorphic". The next thing you have to do is just arrange for Miss Henschy to receive some performance training."

Raul Bradley nodded, thought for a while, and said: "I discussed this project with MGM. You know that Natasha has no performance experience. Will the film production progress be a bit urgent?"

"No," Alison shook her head. "The boss said that in this movie, the heroine does not need acting at all."

Raul Bradley reconciled again, with some emotion.

How many people in Hollywood are looking forward to such an opportunity without acting.

"So, that's what happened in the movie," Alison said, and then looked at Raul Bradley. "The next step is about Miss Henschy's arrangement. First, ICM needs to equip her with a The assistant must be a female. Secondly, this is very important. Mr. Bradley, within the next year, you must ensure that there are no other women around Miss Henschy, do you understand?"

"Of course," Raul Bradley nodded and subconsciously said, "Only, does it only take a year?"

Alison's tone did not change much, saying: "The longest year, maybe three months, maybe a month, maybe just a week."

"..."

Alison ignored the change in Raul Bradley's expression and continued: "To go back today, Miss Henschy can choose a house in Los Angeles. ICM only needs to give me the bill."

Raul Bradley hesitated and said, "Well, how much does it cost?"

Alison glanced with interest at Raul Bradley and said, "Well, Miss Henschy can choose it for her as long as she feels fit."

Raul Bradley suddenly thought of some rumors in the circle, nodded, and envyed him again.

Since Westero opened his mouth and said that he could choose at will, even if he chose a mansion of two to three million dollars.However, if you think about it carefully, if this is the case, for a certain vase, it is probably a problem to maintain this mansion every year.

As a barely second-tier model, Natasha Henschy's income is not high. Even if she relies on the opportunity of this "Xenomorphic" to become famous, because of the positioning of the vase, it will still be a second-tier in the future.

Alison waited for a moment and looked at the middle-aged man opposite: "Is there another thing, Mr. Bradley, did the medical report of Ms. Henschüch bring?"

"Oh, of course."

Raul Bradley's expression flashed some weirdness, but he quickly took out a document from his briefcase and handed it over.

Alison took the file, said nothing more, and turned it over seriously.