Janette was attending a fundraising cocktail party for the Malibu cityhood lobbying effort that evening; she was now a member of the community committee. Simon had no interest in such social gatherings, so after work, he made plans to have dinner with Kevin Costner and others to discuss the upcoming filming of 'The Bodyguard'.
'Batman' was set to begin filming next January. Simon would lead the crew to Australia after New Year's Day, and this departure would last at least three months. During that time, he basically wouldn't return to Los Angeles unless there was something extremely important.
'The Bodyguard' and 'The Sixth Sense' were both top-priority projects for Daenerys Entertainment next year. To personally ensure the creative teams' filming aligned with his vision and to make timely adjustments before leaving Los Angeles, both films were scheduled to start production in December.
It was already past eight in the evening when he returned to Malibu. Janette wasn't back yet, so Simon sat alone on the living room sofa, flipping through scripts gathered by Ira Deutchman while multitasking by glancing at the dailies playing on the television.
Based on information from his memory, Simon had already found the production company for 'Sex, Lies, And Videotapes'; this film hadn't been butterfly-effected away.
Although 'Sex, Lies, And Videotapes' was planned by a relatively unknown independent producer, Robert Neumeier, the main investor was MCA/Columbia Home Entertainment, a joint venture between Universal and Columbia. This company, in which each of the two major film studios held a 50% stake, primarily focused on purchasing video rights for films worldwide for distribution.
Due to the nature of MCA/Columbia Home Entertainment, after investing $500,000, the largest single portion of the $1.2 million total budget, into the 'Sex, Lies, And Videotapes' project, it had already secured the video rights for the film.
Post-production for 'Sex, Lies, And Videotapes' was complete, and an entry application had been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Simon had obtained the dailies through the Sundance channel in a very 'reasonable' manner and had already handed them over to Ira Deutchman.
Simon didn't see any familiar movies among the dailies Ira Deutchman handed over, but he did discover a very interesting script: 'Short Cuts'.
A multi-threaded narrative style always tests a director's guiding ability, and 'Short Cuts' was definitely a masterpiece of multi-threaded storytelling in Hollywood. In his memory, this film, adapted from a series of short stories by novelist Raymond Carver and directed by Hollywood ensemble master Robert Altman, perfectly depicted the lives of ordinary people in Los Angeles through a style of cleverly interlacing the stories of eight families.
After the film was released back then, some film festivals even established a 'Best Ensemble Cast' award specifically for 'Short Cuts'. Paul Thomas Anderson's later film 'Magnolia' was entirely influenced by 'Short Cuts'.
Although 'Magnolia' seemed to have more influence due to Tom Cruise's participation, Simon still preferred films like 'Short Cuts' that were purely story-oriented without deliberately adding so-called deep meanings.
The original version of 'Short Cuts' wasn't released until 1993, but Simon wasn't surprised to get the script now.
According to Ira Deutchman's notes, Raymond Carver had just passed away this year. Robert Altman, who loved Carver's novels, had always hoped to bring his work to the big screen.
The reason 'Short Cuts' in the original timeline was delayed for five years was mainly because the current Robert Altman was in a real slump. This great Hollywood director, who had directed classics like 'M*A*S*H' and 'Nashville' in the seventies and had already received two Oscar nominations, hadn't produced a single decent work since entering the eighties. Most of the films he had shot in recent years had box office results of only a few hundred thousand dollars.
Hollywood is very practical; no matter how glorious your past record is, if you can't bring profit to the film company, you are destined to be quickly discarded. Moreover, the disadvantages of 'Short Cuts' were also very obvious: it not only lacked commercial selling points, but its expected duration would be as long as three hours, both of which would make investors flinch.
However, after reading only a small portion of the script, Simon had already decided to greenlight the project.
'Short Cuts' would definitely become another classic work by Robert Altman; there was no doubt about that.
Since the quality of the film could be guaranteed and it had gimmicks like being the peak of multi-threaded narratives, achieving a profit would be easy as long as it was managed properly. Furthermore, the film wasn't without elements that audiences 'loved to see'; Simon still had a very deep impression of Julianne Moore's nude scenes in his memory.
Simon was immersed in the script of 'Short Cuts' when a sound came from the living room. Before he could get up, Janette, wearing a beautiful black evening gown, floated in from outside. She had clearly been drinking; her face was flushed, and she giggled as she threw herself into Simon's arms.
Simon hugged the woman dotingly, nodded to Sophia Fessey who followed in holding a woman's trench coat, and then picked Janette up in a princess carry, following the woman's wishes to go to the bedroom for a Shower.
After some tossing around, he placed Janette, who had showered and changed into pyjamas, on the large bed. It was already past ten o'clock.
Simon wasn't very sleepy, so he planned to finish reading the script for 'Short Cuts'.
Coming to the living room, he found Sophia sitting in his original spot. The woman had changed into a very casual set of loose sweaters and lounge pants, curled up lazily on the sofa barefoot, holding a script in her hand while another daily was already playing on the television.
Sophia didn't seem to expect Simon to appear again.
She wanted to get up, but Simon waved his hand and said, "Carry on, I'm just here to get a script".
Hearing Simon say this, Sophia indeed relaxed immediately and subtly adjusted her posture.
The coffee table, which had originally been strewn with some scripts and videotapes, had clearly been tidied up. Simon rummaged through the cardboard box for a moment before looking up at the woman on the sofa, pointing at the script in her hand: "'short cuts'?"
Sophia Fessey nodded: "Mhm".
Simon stood up and reached out toward the woman.
Sophia didn't hand over the script; instead, she hugged it to her chest, looked up at Simon, and asked, "Boss, do you not like me living in your house?"
Simon looked at the woman on the sofa, who exuded a charming and mature intellectual aura. He took a slight step forward, tilted the woman's chin up, and stroked it as if savouring an exquisite piece of porcelain, saying, "I'm just afraid I won't be able to help myself. I think I could easily become an indulgent person".
Sophia clearly hadn't expected Simon's move. If it were any other man, she might have already slapped him, but looking up at that young and handsome face and with the wealth and power this young man possessed lingering in her mind, she couldn't muster any resistance; instead, her body felt a bit weak.
After a moment, Sophia finally gathered some strength. Feeling the fingers still stroking her face, she whispered, "You... you can't do this".
Simon indeed withdrew his hand, pulled the script from the woman's arms, and said, "Go to sleep early".
Sophia hadn't expected Simon to be so blunt, and she suddenly felt a bit lost. Seeing the man turn to walk out, she pursed her lips. When the man had already reached the door, she said, "I have something I want to discuss with you".
Simon stopped and turned to look back: "Hmm?"
Sophia dodged the man's gaze slightly before saying after a moment, "I will help you manage those properties in Europe well. But, besides that, I hope to do something more".
Simon leaned against the doorframe and said, "For this kind of thing, you can actually discuss it with Janette".
"Janette has no interest in these things", Sophia looked at Simon and said, "And, it's more convenient to discuss it with you".
"Alright, then what do you want to do?"
"I've studied the LVMH group that Bernard Arnault just integrated last year", Sophia said. Seeing no confusion in Simon's eyes, she continued, "I want to start with red wine".
"LVMH, huh", Simon smiled. He stood there and carefully looked at the woman on the sofa again, saying, "I like ambitious women, but do you think it's meaningful to take LVMH as a goal to strive for?"
Many people know Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Dior, and Tiffany, but they don't know that these luxury brands all belong to a vast luxury empire, LVMH. LVMH's founder, Bernard Arnault, has also ranked among the top of the Forbes rich list many times thanks to the LVMH group.
The LVMH group was only fully integrated with Louis Vuitton and some other luxury brands last year and was far from being as powerful as it would be later, but it was still not something just anyone could easily reach.
There was no trace of guilt in Sophia's eyes; instead, she raised her chin again and said, "How do you know if you don't let me try?"
Simon said, "What if you fail?"
Sophia's tone seemed to have a bit more confidence: "If I fail, I'll continue to be your housekeeper".
"Do you think I'm very generous to women?"
"You are very generous, even indulgent, to your own women", Sophia looked at Simon and said, "I can do that".
"Oh, prove it to me".
Sophia said without hesitation, "You support what I want to do. Shares, options, or even salary, I want none of it. You can take everything away at any time and leave me with nothing. Can that prove it?"
"Very well", Simon nodded and said, "That money from Crédit Lyonnais, there should be over twenty million dollars left after paying all the fees".
"$26.73 million".
"Mhm, it seems you've been planning this for a while", Simon smiled and said, "This money will be your startup capital. Let's see how you do first, then I'll consider adding more".
After Simon finished speaking, he didn't ask further and turned to leave the living room.
The last month of 1988 arrived in the blink of an eye.
December 2nd, Friday.
In the past week, the box office drop for 'Steel Magnolias' in its second week of wide release was, like the previous three-day weekend, still controlled at around 5%. It collected another $12.15 million in the seven days of its second week, firmly holding the top spot for the weekly box office.
In two weeks, including the previous limited release, the cumulative box office of 'Steel Magnolias' had reached $28.82 million.
After 'Steel Magnolias', 'Scream', in its fifth week of release, finally saw a relatively large box office drop. Compared to last week, the box office fell by 27%, collecting another $8.76 million. Because no strong new films were released this week, the film still ranked second on the charts.
Moreover, the cumulative box office for 'Scream' over five weeks had already reached $73.37 million.
Considering that the box office for films in the upcoming Christmas season would see a certain rebound, in at most four more weeks, the North American box office for 'Scream' would be enough to break $100 million. The film's total domestic box office is expected to reach between $120 million and $130 million.
Compared to the booming box office of 'Scream' the most pleasing point was that Daenerys Entertainment received the first settlement share of the film this week.
In the contracts Daenerys Entertainment previously signed with The Big Seven regarding films like 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Basic Instinct' and 'Pulp Fiction', the company could only get its deserved share after the films were taken off the screens in North America.
Therefore, for 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Basic Instinct', which were taken off the screens one after another in November, the company would only be able to settle the final box office earnings this month.
But for self-distributed films like 'Scream', Daenerys Entertainment would naturally no longer allow the theatres to delay settling the share until the film was off the screens. Instead, they adopted a monthly settlement contract in the original agreement.
The cumulative box office for the first four weeks of 'Scream' was $60.51 million.
According to the original agreement, the share Daenerys Entertainment could get from the theatres decreased by 10% every two weeks. After removing operating costs such as theatre electricity, water, cleaning, and property management, the company could take 90% of the remaining share in the first and second weeks. The share for the third and fourth weeks decreased to 80%, and so on, until it reached a minimum share of 20%, after which it would no longer decrease.
After an audit, the share Daenerys Entertainment obtained from the theatres for the previous four weeks was equivalent to 71% of the total box office, ultimately amounting to $46.15 million.
This $46.15 million box office share alone was already equivalent to Daenerys Entertainment gaining over 100% profit from the 'Scream' project. Moreover, the settlement of this money further indicated that Daenerys Entertainment had started a healthy cash flow turnover process for the company.
Before this, Daenerys Entertainment mainly relied on last year's $100 million loan, the buyout shares of 'Final Destination' and 'When Harry Met Sally', advance payments for several reality shows like 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?', and cash transfers from Westeros Company to maintain operations.
Although there was no shortage of money and the company could obtain loans from banks at any time, this kind of operation always gave people the illusion that the capital chain might break at any moment.
Now, the settlement of 'Scream' could be said to be a beginning.
Because this December was entirely a harvest season for Daenerys Entertainment.
Next, the settlements for 'Basic Instinct' and 'Pulp Fiction' would also arrive. With the arrival of the winter break, the next stage of payments for several reality shows like 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' and 'Survivor' would also be paid. Daenerys Entertainment would also release the video of 'When Harry Met Sally' during Christmas, all of which would bring continuous cash to the company.
It could be said that as the capital flow entered a sustainable and healthy development state, the operation of Daenerys Entertainment would also thoroughly get on the right track.