Hollywood Hunter

On October 28, the same day Simon returned to Los Angeles, the 1994 Halloween file officially opened.

Daenerys Entertainment's "Horror Movie Universe" series of the second "mortuary haunted event" was officially released on this day. With the good start of "Harmoni", the number of opening screens of "mortuary haunted event" reached 2361, and the film production cost For 15 million US dollars, although the gimmicks of the "spiritual film universe" have accumulated considerable fame, the New World Film Distribution team has invested an equivalent of 15 million US dollars in budget.

The announcement of a movie is as important as the quality of the movie. This is the deepest feeling of more and more movie companies after the rise of the comprehensive distribution model in recent years.

Although it is not as good as the exaggerated proportion of the $15 million budget plus the $25 million promulgated by the summer season "The Soul", the ratio of the production budget of the "Morrow Haunted Event" and the cost of promulgation is equivalent, and it is generally announced in Hollywood that the budget rule is only half the cost In front of it, it is still quite rare.

Moreover, as long as the box office of the film meets expectations, the New World Films team will add additional investment in subsequent announcements.

A large proportion of the two consecutive films have been invested, and even at the expense of profit margins, Simon's main purpose is to make the'Zhaohun Movie Universe' brand as popular as possible.

As long as this can be achieved, the follow-up series of "Moving Soul Movie Universe" will be more effective in promulgating and distributing, and the various peripheral incomes of this series will also increase substantially.

In the early internal audition, the word of mouth for "Haunted Morgue in the Morgue" was roughly 7 points, which was obviously not as good as "Soul".However, through the operation of the Daenerys Entertainment Propaganda and Distribution Team, on the first day of the large-scale film opening, the public comprehensive media score still reached 7.8 points, which was close to excellent results. In addition, the film spared no effort to widely declare that many viewers For a time, choose to buy tickets to watch movies.

As a second-line schedule that is increasingly valued throughout Hollywood, "The Morgue in the Morgue" has more than 1,000 screens in the same period of time, as well as Sony's Frankenstein, Warner Brothers' "Silent Trap" and Disney's "Silver Trap". The Ultimate Warrior.

In the past two years, Sony no longer followed some of its original promises, and began to gradually abandon the Colombian label and use the Sony Pictures logo to produce and distribute movies. The movie Frankenstein, which aimed at the Halloween period, cost $45 million and invited Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter joined in the first line, and the number of open screens reached 2177.

However, after the large-scale opening of the film, the media has a poor reputation of only 3.9 points, and the box office prospects can be imagined.

Warner Bros.’s “Silence Trap” tells the story of a strange murderer accidentally investigated by a down-and-coming psychologist. The film is made up of Hollywood veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss and “Terminator” series actress Linda Hamilton Starring with Hollywood newcomer actress Liv Taylor, the production cost is 30 million US dollars, and the number of screens on the screen is 1251.

Compared to the "Frankenstein" 3.9 integrated media score, the "Silence Trap" word of mouth can only be described as broken. After opening the painting, the media is almost one-sided bad reviews, and the integrated media score is only 2.2.

In fact, despite its poor reputation, "Frankenstein" relies on a strong main lineup, and there is still a good chance of harvesting a wave of box office, or even a counterattack into a dark horse, because thriller and horror type movies are similar to vulgar comedy, Media evaluation is not a decisive factor, the key is to see whether the audience likes it.

It's just that there is almost no chance to turn over the "Silence Trap", which is directly contacted by the media.

Richard Dreyfus, the veteran actor Richard Dreyfus who once starred in Spielberg's "Great White Shark", "Third Kind of Contact" and "Forever", has also gradually become outdated in recent years, with poor box office appeal. As for the two actresses Linda Hamilton and Liv Taylor, there is no single box office power.

At last,

After opening the painting, the media reputation of "The Ultimate Warrior" is also pretty good, reaching the 6-point pass level.However, compared to the media popularity of "The Haunted Mortuary in the Mortuary", "Frankenstein" and even "Silent Cash", this biographical film is not much concerned at all.

Of course, it is clear in the circle that Disney is trying to replicate the success of "Dancing with Wolves" or "The Last Mohigan". Unfortunately, in recent years, many similar themes have become cannon fodder because of this type of film It is fundamentally too far from the mainstream.

In addition, "Dancing with Wolves" and "The Last Mohigan" were played by Kevin Costner and Daniel Day Lewis respectively. Disney's "Ultimate Warrior", two starring Gu Both Macdonald and Don Camodi are unknown, and the film’s word of mouth has not exploded, and the ending can be imagined.

In any case, the four mainstream films with more than 1,000 screens, plus some lucky films from other small studios, the beginning of this Halloween period can be described as very lively.

Back in Los Angeles, Simon spent four consecutive days with the women and children at Dumei Point Estate.

It wasn't until November 2nd that after Halloween, did it start working again.

In fact, the four days of rest were not completely idle.

Inspired by the conversation with Grace, Simon personally conceived a new version of the rough script of "This Man From the Earth" in his free time, and handed it to Ella Doe, the head of high-end film industry on the first day of work. Chiman asked him to convene some university professors to discuss and make up for the scientific loopholes. At the same time, he began to enter procedures such as project selection and casting. He plans to complete it by the end of two months in order to participate in the Sundance Film Festival next year.

In addition, after careful consideration, Simon decided to name the screenwriter himself.

Such a story is destined to inevitably lead to many associations. Simon has left rumors like "psychic" and "alien", plus a label like "eternal life".

However, the most direct result of the personal name is that Simon initially became impossible to shoot this film at an ultra-low cost of $100,000.

In the budget plan submitted by Ella Doichman two days later, only the valuation of Simon's script is $250,000, and it also comes with a 10% global box office net profit share.

Simon Westero personally created a script, not to mention 250,000 US dollars, plus a zero will not lack buyers.

The reason for such a low valuation is mainly the positioning of the low-cost film "This Man is from the Earth." If it is a commercial film, Simon's current value can indeed add a zero directly, and the profit share will only be more.

Although Simon is the owner of the Daenerys Entertainment Group, he actually has a variety of clear contracts for various projects he participates in. These matters are still managed by Jonathan Friedman.

Just like the DC movie universe series, even if it is a single project of "Flash" and "Steel Bone" that Daenerys Entertainment does not participate at all, because of Simon's producer status, he can still get a share of the revenue from the two films. And this income is definitely not optional.

In the two series "Flash" and "Steel Bone", Simon, as the first producer, directly took 10% of the film's local box office.

The original local box office of "The Flash" reached 250 million US dollars, Simon's personal income was 25 million US dollars, and no one thought that Simon Westero was not worth the price.

With Simon's current net worth, he certainly didn't care about these gains.

However, the rules are the rules. After paying the labor, you should gain something. This is the rules of Hollywood. Simon is a person who is willing to obey the rules.

Including the entire Daenerys Entertainment.

Among the contracts that were re-established before going public, in addition to Simon personally finalizing the symbolic $1 basic salary, there are many other 5% annual group net profit sharing and additional option reward contracts.

Now, for "This Man Comes From Earth", only the screenplay valuation is 250,000 US dollars, and the total project budget cannot be 100,000 US dollars anyway. After all, this money is really paid to Simon, so the New World After careful evaluation, the film industry team made a budget plan of 1.5 million US dollars.

No matter how few, it is really impossible.

Although the entire circle has been paying close attention to Daenerys Entertainment's latest 10 foreign cooperative film projects recently, with the news of Simon Westero's personal creation of the new script, this matter immediately became the focus of the entire Hollywood.

The script is still under secrecy for the time being, but several major brokerage companies are operating for their artists.

Participating in Simon Westero's film, even if it is a zero-paying performance, there will be only good and no harm.

Many Hollywood directors’ projects are often difficult to get popular. The most typical one is Steven Spielberg, the legendary Hollywood director. In these years, whether it is a director or a producer, if you randomly catch a fan Let him tell who Spielberg is popular with, and it's estimated that eight out of ten can't tell.

Because there really isn't.

In comparison, in these years, Simon-led films, screenwriters, directors, or producers have really embraced a large number of people.

From Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in the earliest "Rola Run" to "Pulp Fiction", the career of a group of male stars has revived and the Australian actress Nicole Kidman has become popular. To these years, Adam Baldwin, Valerie Gallino, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, etc., who came out of the DC movie universe series, can be described as brilliant.

Therefore, when High Gate Films reported that this time it would not invite famous actors but select roles from second- and third-line actors with excellent acting skills.

In this kind of close attention, Qu Si Gaofu, who has been given the advice of Simon and has begun to prepare for the third Wei Mi show on November 12, released on his Facebook and Instagram homepage that he is participating in the performance class. The photo, labelled'Small vase in Simon Westero's new movie', the popularity of this fast-growing baby-faced model in the past six months has skyrocketed.

The only thing missing from all kinds of disturbing news is Simon's personal dynamics.

For Simon, the focus of work after Halloween is no longer on the small project "This man is from the earth", but the ten foreign cooperation plans.

For ten projects, MGM has already received two in advance, namely "Thunderbolt" and "Spy", as for the deeper "Agent Movie Universe" plan, just like the original "Soul Movie Universe", the project has no Before success, MGM will not promote this concept in advance.

Compared with the previous foreign cooperation, the biggest change this time is probably that the ordinary low-cost film project has been difficult to meet the needs of other Hollywood studios.

Simon couldn't take the shot either.

Therefore, after "The Thunderbolt" and "Spy", after Terry Semel personally called Simon for communication in three days, Warner Brothers quickly got a place and determined it as Daenerys Entertainment. "Game of the Brave" has long held the copyright.

Warner got the project, and Fox, who has been a co-operative partner in these years, naturally cannot let go.

Rupert Murdoch has always been not too cold about the movie. The media tycoon from Australia has always been obsessed with newspapers and television. However, since he has the opportunity, he will certainly not let it go.The final project for both parties was "Mummy".This is a remake of an old film from Universal Pictures in the 1930s, and a mummy universe was almost derived from the original time and space. As a result, Atango ended up shooting "Mummy Movie" as "Cruise Movie".

After basically finalizing the four projects, Simon was no longer eager.

After all, these four projects are all series in nature. If you let it go for a young year, a movie will be enough to support a schedule.If all four projects are finalized at once, it will inevitably only generate strong internal friction.

In the process of negotiating these projects, Simon also had an unexpected gain.

A new film by James Cameron.

Shipwreck story.

"Titanic".

Although Simon basically selects these foreign cooperation projects based on memory, the outside world obviously does not know.During this time, a large number of scripts were sent to Simon, including James Cameron's big ship script, or, to be precise, just a story summary.

After filming "True Lies", James Cameron started a vacation as usual, and ran to the Atlantic Ocean to explore the ship that sank for the first time in 1912 and was sunk through for some reason, so a story idea was produced.

Although several consecutive films have cooperated with Fox, but because they are always overspending, there are still failures such as "The Abyss", and the relationship between Cameron and Fox is not good.

So, after the idea of ​​the story came out, Cameron's agent first earned the script to Daenerys Entertainment.

In recent years, the thought of filming the Titanic story is definitely more than James Cameron. Even in recent years, it happened to have a similar project. Several senior executives of Daenerys Entertainment were not originally optimistic about this type of shipwreck disaster. On the one hand, the budget must be huge, on the other hand, the story of the shipwreck is hard to play with too many tricks, and there is a huge suspense whether the audience likes it.

In the end, Simon himself was the final word.