It's a new week. Since most of the TV dramas for this fall season won't air until October, several reality shows from Daenerys Entertainment continue to dominate viewership.
'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?', airing three times a week, is a completely G-rated, all-ages reality show, enjoyed by almost everyone from the elderly to children. The second episode of 'Survivor', airing at 8 PM on Monday, saw its peak viewership directly surge to a high of 25.65 million, practically guaranteeing it the viewership championship for this fall season. The only regret about this TV show is probably that it only has 13 episodes. 'Big Brother' and 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills', airing on Wednesdays, have also seen steady growth in viewership due to a lack of competition.
Finally, CBS's previous attempt to independently produce a game-show reality series, without Daenerys Entertainment, also premiered this week and achieved a good average viewership of 13.6 million for its first episode. While not outstanding, it made the other three TV networks, which generally maintained a conservative attitude towards reality shows, regret their decisions immensely.
It's evident that major TV networks will certainly invest effort in creating their own exclusive reality shows in the coming years. Once a hit emerges among them, Daenerys Entertainment will surely be unable to maintain its current initiative and substantial profits.
However, Simon was not overly concerned about this. In his memory, reality shows developed for over twenty years, and only a few truly reached a phenomenal level. The viewership data for 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' and 'Survivor', two once-popular reality shows, far surpassed 'Big Brother' and 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills', which is enough to prove that creating a hit is by no means an easy task.
After two days of careful deliberation and revisions over the weekend and subsequent weekdays, Daenerys Entertainment resubmitted the revised version of 'Scream' to the MPAA's rating committee.
It was already late September, and the company had originally hoped for the film to be released on October 28th, during the Halloween season, and had already invested a lot of human and material resources in early promotion. However, due to delays caused by the re-rating, Daenerys Entertainment had not yet signed formal distribution contracts with major North American theatres. Seeing this situation, Simon secretly began to make other preparations.
Santa Monica.
In a conference room at the Daenerys Visual Effects office building, it was September 28th, a Wednesday.
Simon stood in front of the presentation board, personally introducing the script outlines for the two animated films, 'Toy Story' and 'The Lion King'. Around the conference table, in addition to Mark Silvestri and several other senior executives from Daenerys Visual Effects, were Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, two former Pixar executives who had recently joined the company.
After that phone call with Jobs on the flight to Australia, James Raybould, Amy Pascal, and others had been working together for the past month to complete the integration and acquisition of Pixar, which was now completely finalized.
Daenerys Entertainment ultimately paid $20 million to acquire all of Pixar's software and hardware departments. Jobs and Pixar's original shareholders all relinquished their equity, and Daenerys Entertainment gained full ownership of the RenderMan software suite, completely addressing Daenerys Visual Effects' previous shortcomings in the technical rendering process.
After completing the acquisition, Simon's first request was to relocate Pixar entirely to Los Angeles.
Most of the executives and employees, including Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, agreed to this, but inevitably some refused. Alvy Ray Smith, another key technical figure at Pixar at the time, left the company as a result. After Simon's attempts to retain him were unsuccessful, he let him go. 3D animated films were an important strategic move for Daenerys Entertainment in the coming years, and to maintain as much direct control as possible, he did not intend to let Pixar remain in San Francisco, as it did in the original timeline.
Simon had originally intended to rename Pixar to Daenerys Animation, but Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, and others hoped to retain the Pixar name. This was not a critical point, so Simon agreed.
The main purpose of this meeting was to discuss the details of porting Pixar software like RenderMan to SGI professional graphics workstations, as well as the plans for the two 3D animated films.
Pixar was originally positioned as a professional graphics workstation company, but its technology couldn't compare to SGI's, only having the software advantage of RenderMan and other programs. To integrate Pixar's software and Daenerys Visual Effects' proprietary effects software as much as possible to improve efficiency, Simon intended to abandon the development of Pixar computers. Pixar could then focus on software and animation business.
Pixar computers had never produced a complete, refined product, let alone any profit, otherwise, they wouldn't have been a burden to Jobs. Therefore, Ed Catmull and others did not object to Simon's suggestion to cancel hardware R&D.
However, after listening to Simon introduce the scripts for 'Toy Story' and 'The Lion King', Ed Catmull said, "Simon, with our current technology, implementing the plan for 'Toy Story' isn't difficult. But for 'The Lion King', if we want to vividly portray animal movements and details like fur, current technology isn't up to that standard yet".
"That's your job", Simon said, looking at Ed Catmull and then scanning the others in the conference room. "I don't know much about technology, but I do understand that current hardware technology is sufficient to support you in achieving these things. The hardware platform is like a paintbrush; what you need to do is develop software that can achieve the special effects. This is equivalent to the paint. Finally, we don't lack animators, so I only expect to see the results I want".
Mark Silvestri then added, "Simon, this will take a long time".
Simon turned to Mark and said, "Don't use such a vague description as 'a long time'. It's too general. You need to tell me exactly how long?"
Upon hearing this, Mark Silvestri exchanged a few whispered words with Ed Catmull, then looked up again and said, "To develop the technology required for 'The Lion King' and complete the effects testing, given the current scale of the R&D teams at Daenerys Visual Effects and Pixar, it will take at least two years. And that's assuming ample funding".
"No problem", Simon readily nodded. Two years was already much less than he had anticipated. "You can appropriately recruit some more staff, but exercise restraint. A company that is too large in its early development stages is not a good thing. I can guarantee your funding, and then you give me the results I want". Simon finished, then turned to John Lasseter and asked, "John, do you have any issues on your end?"
The story script for 'Toy Story' was the result of Simon's numerous phone discussions with Lasseter over the past month. Hearing Simon's question, John Lasseter, who already had a clear plan, said, "I need three years".
It is well known that 3D animation production cycles are long. In the original timeline, Pixar managed to release an animated film approximately every two years, which was actually the result of several teams working simultaneously. An animated film, from the script stage to the final cut, generally requires three to four years or even longer, and this cannot be accelerated simply by increasing the number of animators. An animation film crew that is too large would certainly severely impact the quality of the film.
"In that case, this meeting concludes here", Simon announced, ending the meeting. He then said to Mark Silvestri, "How are the Batman cape effects coming along? I'd like to see the results".
During the concept art phase for 'Batman', Simon realized that Batman's cape in the film was a very troublesome issue. If a real cape were used entirely during Bruce Wayne's scaling of walls and leaping across rooftops, the effect would undoubtedly be disastrous. Simon therefore considered the possibility of a CG cape and tasked Daenerys Visual Effects with tackling the problem.
Mark Silvestri confidently stated, "We've just completed a 3-second CG shot of Batman's cape unfurling as he falls from a great height. Although it's only 3 seconds, the effect is absolutely stunning. I was planning to show it to you today anyway".
Everyone chatted and stood up, about to go see the sample Mark Silvestri mentioned, when Simon's assistant, Jennifer, approached him after taking a call and whispered, "Ms. Pascal called. She said the R-rating review for 'Scream' has been rejected again".
Simon stopped, gestured for Mark Silvestri and the others to help themselves, and asked, "Are those materials ready?"
Jennifer nodded.
Simon said, "In that case, please arrange a meeting for me with MPAA Chairman Jack Valenti, either tonight or tomorrow at noon. I want to talk to him".
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is generally a trade association, founded in 1922, representing major Hollywood film companies in lobbying for government film-related legislation, promoting audiovisual copyright protection, and establishing guidelines for audiovisual content, among other tasks.
For a long time, the member companies of the MPAA have not been static.
During its founding stage, MPAA members consisted of the eight major Hollywood film companies. In previous years, with the rapid rise of a group of second-tier Hollywood film companies, several companies such as Orion Pictures and De Laurentiis Entertainment also successively joined the MPAA. After the bankruptcy of De Laurentiis Entertainment and several other companies, they successively withdrew in the past two years. Currently, the main members of the MPAA are the traditional seven major studios and Orion.
The MPAA hired Jack Valenti, a former aide to US President Lyndon B. Johnson, as the association's chairman. This strong-willed politician stayed in this position for 22 years and would continue to do so. Jack Valenti's greatest contribution after taking office was the abolition of the infamous 'Hays Code' and the re-establishment of the 'Voluntary Film Rating System'. Of course, as things stand now, films that 'unwillingly' undergo rating basically find it very difficult to enter theatres and the video market.
Simon met Jack Valenti, who was already 66 this year, in Burbank in the Valley the next day at noon. The MPAA headquarters is located in Burbank, near the intersection of the 101 Freeway and Ventura Boulevard, not far from the headquarters of several major studios.
The agreed time was 12 PM, and Simon arrived fifteen minutes early. Jack Valenti entered the restaurant right on time.
"Simon, I've been looking forward to meeting you. The miracles you've created in the past two years are simply astonishing".
Simon shook hands with the serious-looking but very talkative old man in front of him, politely invited him to sit down, and said, "Thank you, Jack. I also greatly admire everything you've done for Hollywood over the years".
The two sat down and ordered two simple lunches.
After the waiter left, Jack Valenti noticed an open folder on the table in front of Simon. Although he clearly understood the young man's intention in inviting him, he couldn't help but ask curiously, "Simon, what were you just looking at?"
"North American box office data reports for the past few weeks," Simon directly handed over the folder and said, "Starting from September 9th, the summer box office ended. From September 9th to September 15th, the total North American weekly box office plummeted to $29.88 million. From September 16th to September 22nd, the total weekly box office was $25.67 million. Although last week's data won't be released until tomorrow, based on the previous weekend box office situation, the total weekly box office from September 23rd to September 29th should only be around $27 million. In comparison, last year, the North American weekly box office only dropped below $30 million in the 19th week".
Jack Valenti listened to Simon, glanced at the report in the folder, and sighed, "The strike's impact on the industry is truly immense".
Simon nodded in agreement and said, "I briefly checked the film release schedule for October. If Daenerys Entertainment's 'Scream' cannot be released on time on October 28th, throughout the entire October slot, there will only be 5 films opening on more than 500 screens. In the same period last year, that number was 9, almost a 50% reduction".
Jack Valenti hadn't expected Simon to directly shift the topic to 'Scream'. After some deliberation, he said, "Simon, the rating committee is very strict and fair. Your film really should be revised again."
"Really?" Simon retorted, raising a hand to point at the file in front of Jack Valenti. "Jack, below the report are two memos. One is the rating committee's revision suggestions for 'Basic Instinct,' precise enough to require a certain shot to be cut by 2 seconds. But the revision suggestions 'Scream' received are very vague, merely roughly asking us to revise some segments of the film that are even over ten minutes long. Can that be considered fair?"
Jack Valenti had just noticed that there were other documents beneath the box office report Simon handed over. He flipped it open, glanced at it, then closed it again, a hint of a wry smile on his face. He said, "Simon, you have to understand, coming to me is useless. Control over this matter is not in my hands".
Valenti had served as MPAA chairman for 22 years, and he indeed held high prestige within the industry, but ultimately, he was merely an employee of the major Hollywood film companies. If his actions over the years hadn't been entirely for the benefit of Hollywood, Jack Valenti would not have been able to remain in that position.
Therefore, Jack Valenti clearly couldn't change the desire of the traditional major film companies to suppress Daenerys Entertainment, the newcomer.
"Of course I understand," Simon nodded and said, "Jack, I just need you to help me relay a message to some people".
Jack Valenti made a gesture to indicate he was listening.
Simon glanced again at the document in front of Jack Valenti and said, "The North American box office has fallen below $30 million for three consecutive weeks, and I believe it will continue to do so for some time. The entire year-end box office will shrink. This was caused by the previous Hollywood writers' strike. Jack, why do you think the writers went on strike?"