Simon returned to Los Angeles, and this year's summer blockbuster season officially kicked off with the release of Steven Spielberg's 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'.
'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' adopted an unconventional Wednesday opening date, premiering on May 24th. The film opened in 2,327 theatres and grossed $9.9 million on Wednesday and Thursday, easily surpassing United Artists' action film 'Road House', which also opened in the same week.
'Road House' opened on May 19th, a normal Friday release. Its first seven-day box office was $8.24 million, with an estimated total North American gross of around $30 million. While far from comparable to 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade', 'Road House's box office was not a failure relative to its $17 million production cost.
It's worth noting that the male lead of 'Road House' was Patrick Swayze, the original male lead of 'Ghost'.
To ensure the success of 'Ghost', Simon had no intention of replacing the lead actors. During his time away from Los Angeles, Daenerys Entertainment had already finalized contracts with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze for this classic romance film.
Patrick Swayze rose to first-tier stardom two years ago with the hit musical film 'Dirty Dancing', which grossed over $200 million worldwide. His final negotiated salary was $5 million.
Besides being Bruce Willis's wife, Demi Moore didn't have any notable works. If not for Simon's insistence, Amy would have been unwilling to cast her, so during negotiations, she kept the salary very low, offering only $300,000, slightly above a newcomer's price, with an additional contract for a first-look option on another film. With a group of Hollywood actresses closely eyeing this project, Demi Moore knew she had no bargaining chips and quickly agreed after only a minor quibble over details.
In addition, African-American actress Whoopi Goldberg also agreed to play the role of Oda Mae Brown, the psychic, in 'Ghost'.
Daenerys Entertainment officially announced the main creative team for 'Ghost' on May 29th. Filming is set to begin in August, with a tentative release date for next summer.
However, because Daenerys Entertainment had greenlit a large number of films in recent months, this news did not cause much of a stir in the media. Hollywood was more focused on Daenerys Entertainment's first summer blockbuster, 'The Bodyguard', which was about to be released.
Over the past few months, a series of films released by Daenerys Entertainment had not achieved particularly impressive results. If 'The Bodyguard' continued this lukewarm trend, the immense halo that this rapidly rising company had accumulated in 1988 would undoubtedly dim.
Moreover, according to some vague rumours circulating in the industry, the internal test screenings for 'The Bodyguard' were not very good.
Daenerys Entertainment's tight-lipped approach to the film's reputation until a week before its release, never holding any public media or fan screenings, undoubtedly confirmed these rumours.
Los Angeles.
Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills.
It was already May 31st. This morning, the soundtrack album release conference for 'The Bodyguard' was grandly held at the Century Plaza Hotel. The album will officially go on sale next Monday, three days after the film's release. Before this, 'The Bodyguard's lead actress, Whitney Houston, had thoroughly prepared for her screen debut and this third album.
After the press conference, Daenerys Entertainment hosted a luncheon at the Century Plaza Hotel to entertain the film's main creators and the media reporters invited to attend today.
Inside the banquet hall.
Clive Davis, president of Arista Records, Whitney Houston's record label, chatted warmly with Simon for a moment while holding a glass of champagne, then turned and walked towards Whitney Houston, his expression involuntarily becoming a bit more serious.
Arista Records was originally a record label subsidiary founded in the 1970s with the support of Columbia Pictures. After more than a decade of various transitions, it is now a subsidiary of the German Bertelsmann Music Group. Clive Davis has served as president since the company's inception, and after many hardships, Arista Records finally saw a turnaround with Whitney Houston's rise to fame four years ago.
Whitney Houston's collaboration with Daenerys Entertainment on 'The Bodyguard' was also the result of Clive Davis's vigorous promotion.
Now, however, he had some regrets.
It seemed that since the end of last year, Daenerys Entertainment had lost its lustre, with none of the films released in the first half of the year becoming blockbusters. That alone wouldn't be so bad, but now, even before 'The Bodyguard' was released, some doubts about the film's quality had already spread.
As for 'The Bodyguard' soundtrack album, to facilitate this collaboration, Arista Records made significant concessions in the original contract. The album was co-produced by Arista Records and Daenerys Entertainment's nascent record division, with Simon Westeros personally serving as a consultant.
As a condition of the cooperation, Daenerys Entertainment would take 50% of the album's gross profit.
Clive Davis originally thought Simon Westeros would provide excellent songs like 'Celebration', which he wrote for Madonna. However, what Arista Records received was essentially a mixed album consisting of covers and Whitney's own old songs. The album's lead single was even an old song from the 1970s, 'I Will Always Love You', originally sung by Dolly Parton.
Whitney Houston's first two albums achieved impressive global sales of over 10 million copies each. Seeing that this excellent momentum was likely to be broken, Clive Davis found his label's star, who was currently socializing, pulled her aside, and began to quietly impart techniques for shifting blame.
If 'The Bodyguard' failed, the prospects for this soundtrack album were even more concerning.
Clive Davis now only hoped to shift as much responsibility as possible onto Daenerys Entertainment to prevent Whitney Houston's career from being impacted.
On the other side of the banquet hall.
As Clive Davis walked away, Amy Pascal came over to Simon.
Compared to Clive Davis, who was only concerned about "The Bodyguard," Amy was worried about the commercial performance of both 'The Bodyguard' and 'The Sixth Sense' in the upcoming month of June. However, when she approached Simon, she spoke of something else: "Bob went to New York on Monday. Normally, this wouldn't be anything special, but someone in New York happened to see him having dinner with an executive from Sony America".
Simon understood that Amy's "Bob" here referred to Robert Rehme.
During that lunch in Cannes, Simon naturally heard Rehme's hint that he wanted a raise, but he didn't respond, only mentioning it privately to Amy and asking her to pay attention.
He didn't expect Rehme to contact Sony so quickly.
Or, more likely, Sony proactively contacted Rehme.
During this time, Sony's acquisition negotiations for Columbia Pictures had become fully public.
Coca-Cola, Columbia Pictures' largest shareholder, intended to cash out non-core businesses, and Sony urgently needed a Hollywood studio. Both parties' intentions for the transaction were very clear, so this deal was basically a done deal.
As he recalled, when Sony completed its acquisition of Columbia Pictures, the executives they found to run the company were Peter Guber and Jon Peters. Both were long-established, successful producers in Hollywood, having produced many films such as 'An American Werewolf in London'. The original script for 'Rain Man' was also first acquired by the Guber-Peters production company, which they co-founded, before it eventually landed in Daenerys Entertainment's hands. For this, both of them were credited as executive producers on the 'Rain Man' project.
However, these two, when they took over Columbia, bled Sony dry. Their excessive spending and continuous failures forced Sony, in the original timeline, to write down $2.1 billion in assets after firing them, resulting in Sony's largest loss ever.
Although Simon believed that anyone Sony hired to run Columbia would be far better than the two 'pit gods,' Peter Guber, from a Hollywood seniority perspective, he didn't think Rehme had the qualifications to compete with them.
Peter Guber and his partner had produced many successful films, but Rehme's strength had always been distribution. Before he took over New World Entertainment, he was the Vice President of Marketing and Distribution at Universal Pictures. During his tenure as CEO of New World Entertainment, the company never produced any films that could be called blockbusters.
Currently, Rehme is still only the president of Daenerys Entertainment, responsible for distribution.
The head of a Hollywood studio is usually promoted from the production department, like Michael Eisner at Disney and Joe Roth, president of Fox Filmed Entertainment. It's relatively rare for someone from the distribution department to become the head of a studio.
After a moment of consideration, Simon said, "In that case, pay more attention to the distribution department for a while".
Amy nodded and added, "Aren't you going to talk to Bob?"
Simon retorted, "Do you remember when he joined?"
"Around, August last year, I think".
Simon shrugged and said, "It hasn't even been a year, Amy. Frankly, I'm very satisfied with Bob's work. However, during the contract signing process, I already offered sufficient terms. a bonus ceiling of $3 million. This is comparable to executives in the marketing and distribution departments of major studios. Although the company has indeed made a lot of money, I don't feel I owe him anything. If he feels he hasn't received enough, then he can leave".
Amy paused, then said, "In that case, I'll start looking for a replacement for Bob's position".
Simon nodded slightly and then brought up another matter: "Regarding the marketing plan for the final month of 'The Sixth Sense', we need to adjust it again. Tell De Niro and the others not to deliberately hint at the plot twist in talk shows and interviews. Just follow the normal horror film promotion process, and the company's marketing copy should do the same".
Amy smiled wryly: "Simon, this will make the film even less appealing to most audiences".
"De Niro starring, plus my script, that in itself is an appeal. Amy, 'The Sixth Sense' isn't going to be a big commercial blockbuster with a high opening weekend. I'd rather it follow a long-term word-of-mouth curve".
After the soundtrack album release conference for 'The Bodyguard', the film's release date quickly arrived.
On June 2nd, 'The Bodyguard' officially opened in North America with a 2,021-screen release. Since the success of saturated releases for several films last year, it has become very common for major studio commercial films to open on over 2,000 screens.
Concurrently with 'The Bodyguard's release, the box office for 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade's first full opening week was officially released. From May 26th to June 1st, over seven days, Spielberg's commercial blockbuster raked in $46.01 million in North American theatres, surpassing 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi's single-week box office of $42.16 million and setting a new box office record.
Under the strong performance of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade', 'The Bodyguard' received dismal critical reception after its release.
Mainstream media outlets such as "Entertainment Weekly," "Variety," and "The New York Times" all gave 'The Bodyguard' negative reviews. "Variety" magazine's assessment, 'a messy disaster', was particularly harsh. Amy was so angry after seeing the review that she almost pulled all of the company's advertisements from "Variety".
Overall, 'The Bodyguard's media score barely broke 3 points, far from the passing mark.
However, amidst such overwhelmingly negative reviews, magazines like "Rolling Stone" did praise the film's soundtrack, but these positive comments did not affect 'The Bodyguard's overall reputation.
Affected by the negative reviews, 'The Bodyguard's box office for its opening weekend (three days) ultimately reached only $16.61 million.
Compared to United Artists' earlier film 'Road House', such box office results are certainly not a failure. An opening weekend of $16.61 million suggests a first-week box office that will comfortably remain above $20 million.
However, the media also widely predicted that 'The Bodyguard's opening week box office was largely the result of Daenerys Entertainment's tireless promotion. While the opening week box office was decent, due to its reputation, the film would likely follow a very disappointing box office curve, with a low probability of its total North American box office exceeding $50 million.
Compared to 'The Bodyguard's production cost of $20 million, a North American box office of $50 million is by no means a failure. However, compared to Daenerys Entertainment's series of stunning box office achievements last year, a $50 million box office for 'The Bodyguard' at this point would undoubtedly be a failure, signifying that Daenerys Entertainment had lost the miraculous box office boost it enjoyed last year.
In contrast to 'The Bodyguard', 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade', now in its third week, still boasted a second weekend box office figure of $21.23 million, with a corresponding box office drop of only 27%.
Moreover, the following week, 'Ghostbusters II', the sequel to Columbia Pictures' classic horror-comedy 'Ghostbusters', will also be released. To gain more leverage in its deal with Sony, Columbia Pictures is sparing no effort in promoting this highly anticipated sequel.
Under such extremely unfavourable circumstances for 'The Bodyguard', on Monday, June 5th, 'The Bodyguard' soundtrack officially went on sale in North America.