Santa Monica.
Inside a screening room at the Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, as another segment of 'Batman' footage finished playing on the screen, an assistant stepped forward and whispered a reminder.
Terry Semel then realized it was already five o'clock in the afternoon.
Recalling the three-plus hours of viewing experience, Semel was filled with a strong sense of shock.
Today is Friday, May 5th, 1989.
Semel, as a representative of Warner, flew to Australia to visit Simon during his unexpected coma in February.
Given the special circumstances at the time, he couldn't spare time to watch the 'Batman' footage, so today was his first time seeing the rough cut.
The post-production editing of 'Batman' was synchronized with the filming.
After Simon returned to Los Angeles, it only took him one week to roughly complete the first six-and-a-half-hour rough cut of the film.
Terry Semel arrived in the afternoon, originally intending to spend just an hour roughly browsing the footage.
However, he ended up staying in the screening room for the entire afternoon, completely unaware of when Simon, who initially watched the footage with him, had left.
Even though it was already after work hours, Terry Semel still had an urge to watch the remaining three hours of footage.
Can movies really be made this way?!
This was a thought that Semel repeated countless times while watching the footage.
During the preparatory stage of 'Batman', Semel expressed his concern upon hearing that Simon would use as much on-location shooting as possible.
While on-location shooting can indeed increase audience immersion, it can also easily make the entire film fall into mediocrity.
Essentially, 'Batman' should be a science fiction film, and a soft sci-fi at that.
This type of film should aim for a sense of the surreal.
If it's too close to reality, and the creator fails to fill the film with sufficiently rich and exciting superhero elements, audiences can easily experience a 'this isn't the superhero world I imagined' psychological gap.
If that happens, the film is doomed to fail.
Therefore, in Warner's many unsuccessful preparations over the years, directors interested in taking on the 'Batman' project generally favoured set construction, creating Gotham City within a studio.
Now, Terry Semel no longer had his initial concerns.
Even without careful colour grading, most of the footage already displayed a stunning level of cinematography comparable to 'Run Lola Run', which confirmed this for Terry Semel.
Simon's 'Run Lola Run' had already become a teaching sample for many film academies, but in Semel's opinion, many shots in the 'Batman' footage even surpassed 'Run Lola Run'.
Through his exquisite use of elements like lighting, colour, and composition, Simon filmed scenes taken from real city streetscapes as if they were oil paintings meticulously created by top-tier artists.
Some frames were even worthy of being printed and hung on a wall as works of art.
Moreover, the overall cool and rich dark tone style visually gave the audience a surreal psychological hint, making them feel that this was both their own city and the Gotham City from the comics.
Of course, stunning visual style alone would not have been enough to shock Semel.
While that young man's control over film technical details reached an Oscar level, other films could imitate it if they were willing to spend money to assemble a master-level behind-the-scenes team, so it wasn't impossible.
What truly shocked Semel was the content, especially the action scenes in the footage.
Traditional Hollywood action films, at the higher end, included Bruce Lee's kung fu from back in the day, and the performances of action stars with deep foundations like Jean-Claude Van Damme were also commendable on screen, but most were still ordinary brawls lacking aesthetic appeal.
Due to a lack of highlights, the most popular Hollywood films in recent years have instead been gun-action movies starring people like Sylvester Stallone, with shirtless muscle men carrying machine guns, tearing through enemy gunfire.
Terry Semel had actually seen some Eastern kung fu films, but he also felt that the action design in those films was too complex and lacked practicality.
The action scenes in Simon's 'Batman' made Semel strongly feel that he had already seen the future of Hollywood action films.
The fighting, without the clichéd street brawls, where Batman's powerful, yet not simple, visceral punches made people's blood boil, and Catwoman's agile and fierce movements, showcasing the advantages of the female form to the extreme, also made people's blood race.
The car chases, without gratuitous collisions and explosions, but the vehicles crashing and rolling towards the big screen were more impactful than simply blowing up a bunch of cars.
The gunfights, without mindless charges through a hail of bullets, the thrilling duel between Deadshot and Batman, where in slow motion, the oppressive feeling of the CG-synthetic bullets whizzing by made Semel hold his breath.
It turned out that a single bullet could also become the protagonist of a shot at a certain moment.
Beyond these mainstream action scenes, details like Batman's wing-suit flight, the use of gadgets like Batarangs, and Catwoman's acrobatic leaps across city rooftops, in Semel's view, were all worthy of becoming textbooks for future Hollywood commercial films.
Terry Semel was now eager to see the final cut of the film.
Simon had already perfected these details, and as Hollywood's best screenwriter, Semel didn't believe the film's plot in the final cut would be inferior to these details.
In fact, Semel had a vague feeling that this groundbreaking superhero movie would also achieve groundbreaking box office numbers.
However, this feeling wasn't entirely good.
Recalling that DC had already sold the rights to Batman and Wonder Woman to Daenerys Entertainment, and Warner had not objected to the transfer of the Superman rights back then, Semel felt a strong sense of regret.
He now firmly believed that Warner had made a series of irreparable mistakes regarding the rights to these three superheroes.
After all, while those licensing agreements had time limits, in reality, if the interests involved were too great, the copyright holder would never let go.
Just like the 'Superman' rights back then, even though 'Superman IV' failed at the box office, Semel knew that Simon still spent a hefty $6 million to buy back the 'Superman' rights from the Salkind family, which only had 5 years left.
Moreover, although the contract DC signed with British producer Alexander Salkind was set to expire in 1992, according to the automatic renewal clause in the agreement, as long as the 'Superman' rights were not shelved for a long time, after 1992, if Salkind still intended to produce a sequel, the license term would automatically be extended.
Now, the power of these clauses was in the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.
It was clear that as long as Daenerys Entertainment didn't voluntarily let go, Warner would never get back the 'Superman' rights, and the same applied to the 'Batman' and 'Wonder Woman' rights.
A miscalculation.
After sitting in the screening room for a few more minutes, Semel stood up and walked towards the door, asking his assistant beside him, "Is Simon still at the company?"
The assistant walked out with Semel and replied, "Mr. Westeros left the company at three o'clock to go to the 'Pretty Woman' film set".
Terry Semel was somewhat puzzled: "'Pretty Woman'?"
The assistant explained, "It's a project Daenerys Entertainment just started filming this week, a romance film. A while ago, the competition for the male lead was very fierce. Male stars like Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, and Daniel Day-Lewis all tried to get the script, but the role ultimately went to a second-tier British actor, reportedly personally decided by Westeros, named Pierce Brosnan. The female lead is Julia Roberts from 'Steel Magnolias', which I believe was decided very early on".
As Steve Ross's right-hand man, Terry Semel had been busy participating in the merger negotiations between Time Inc. and Warner Bros. in recent months, thus neglecting many news from Hollywood.
After a moment of recollection, unable to find any information on Pierce Brosnan, Semel instructed his assistant to prepare a resume for him.
He was also somewhat surprised, not expecting Harrison Ford to be vying for Daenerys Entertainment projects, and failing to secure one at that.
Thinking about it carefully, he felt relieved.
The two major franchises, 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones,' which began in the late 1970s, allowed Harrison Ford to consistently maintain his status as one of the few top-tier male stars in Hollywood.
However, the release of 'Indiana Jones 3' at the end of the month also meant that the two major trump cards Ford relied on would enter a long period of dormancy.
Ford's films outside of 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' over the years had not performed well at the box office.
To maintain his star power after the two major franchises went dormant, he would undoubtedly have to actively seek out projects that were likely to be big sellers.
Terry Semel left the screening room with his assistant.
Simon did not return from the 'Pretty Woman' set, but only had a staff member hand over an invitation to that evening's cocktail party.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, Simon only took a short weekend break before diving back into work.
The first order of business was 'The Bodyguard' and 'The Sixth Sense'.
Post-production for both films was largely complete, and Simon had not entirely let go of his attention to these two projects while in Melbourne, with the final cuts meeting his expectations.
During this week, Simon personally made adjustments to some details of both films, and they would be officially submitted to the MPAA for rating next week.
The first TV trailer for 'The Bodyguard', starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, had already aired, with a release date of June 2nd and an opening screen count of 2021.
'The Sixth Sense', scheduled for release on June 30th, had also begun promotional material distribution long ago, but the final stage of the marketing strategy had not yet been finalized.
During the production phase, Simon requested strict secrecy regarding the plot of 'The Sixth Sense'.
To this day, apart from a few core creative members of the crew, many supporting actors don't even know the complete plot of 'The Sixth Sense.'
However, after 'The Sixth Sense' was completed, executives like Amy and Rehme generally felt that, apart from the final plot twist, the film as a whole seemed very ordinary, with basically no highlights.
If it weren't for the fact that the film's screenwriter was Simon himself, and Robert De Niro was involved, and the company had no other options, Amy might even have suggested to Simon to adjust the release date of 'The Sixth Sense'.
According to Amy, the rough cut of John Hughes's 'Uncle Buck' looked good, but the film wouldn't finish post-production until mid-June, forcing the company to schedule its release for August 11th, at the very end of the summer blockbuster season.
In addition, John Hughes's second film this year, 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', was also in the filming stage.
This film started shooting after 'Uncle Buck' wrapped, was financed by Warner Bros., and was planned for a Christmas release.
Simon's original purpose in collaborating with John Hughes on 'Uncle Buck' was for 'Home Alone', and for that, he even retained a priority selection agreement for Hughes's scripts.
The script for 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation' was first sent to Daenerys Entertainment, and Simon naturally chose to pass on it.
However, with post-production for 'Uncle Buck' already halfway through, the script for 'Home Alone', which John Hughes was inspired to create in the original timeline after 'Uncle Buck', was nowhere to be seen, and Macaulay Culkin also did not appear in 'Uncle Buck'.
Simon planned to wait until the end of the year, and if John Hughes still hadn't produced the 'Home Alone' script, he would have to 'reluctantly' take matters into his own hands.
After accompanying Semel to watch some footage at the company headquarters in the afternoon, Simon rushed to the 'Pretty Woman' set for a visit, staying until after work.
Aside from not casting Richard Gere as the male lead, 'Pretty Woman' largely featured the original cast and crew.
The reason for abandoning Richard Gere was similar to Simon's previous decision not to consider Sharon Stone for 'Basic Instinct'.
As for Pierce Brosnan, although his most lasting impression on audiences in the original timeline was James Bond, Brosnan's tall, handsome appearance and British gentlemanly demeanour perfectly suited the role of Edward Lewis, a suave Wall Street tycoon.
The evening cocktail party was held at the mansion in Palisades.
After being away from North America for several months, it was essential to reconnect with everyone.
Janette should have been in charge of organizing such an event, but she was in Australia, so Simon wanted to entrust it to Kathryn.
However, Kathryn had been helping Simon oversee the construction of the Point Dume estate for the past few months, and she was the first to fly to Melbourne when Simon collapsed.
Coupled with various past incidents, even the gossip tabloids were too lazy to tease about their public closeness anymore, yet the thin-skinned Kathryn consistently buried her head in the sand.
When Simon returned to Los Angeles, Kathryn, who had been staying at Janette's villa on the east side of Point Dume, flew to New York under the pretext of preparing for her next film.
This time, she clearly had no intention of collaborating with Daenerys Entertainment again, appearing to draw a clear line.
Finally, the cocktail party preparations fell to Jennifer.
The female assistant, also not thick-skinned, earnestly treated this as official business, even drafting the guest list with Amy's assistant, Vanessa.
Thus, the originally planned small-scale cocktail party completely turned into a lively business reception.