Malibu.

The time is Monday, July 10th.

In the villa on the west side of Cape Dume, Simon woke up on time at six o'clock in the morning in the new week.

Last night I was on the phone with Janet until very late discussing the cabin design of the Boeing 767. At this time, there were still many design drawings faxed from Melbourne scattered around the bedroom.

Since he decided to purchase a Boeing 767 first, Simon contacted Boeing after returning from Melbourne last time.

However, Simon then sent Boeing's sales representatives directly to Melbourne and asked them to discuss the specific details with Janet. The only decision he made was the choice of aircraft model.

The latest model of the Boeing 767 series is the 767-300ER, but Simon chose the 767-200ER.

The 200ER is only slightly inferior to the 300ER in terms of fuselage length and load capacity, but its cruise range and other data are comparable to the 300ER. It can easily complete a long-term trans-Pacific journey of more than 10,000 kilometers. Simon has been renting the 200ER before.

Moreover, the most critical reason why Simon chose the 200ER is that this medium-sized passenger aircraft has lower requirements for take-off and landing airports. The runway length required for a fully loaded heavy take-off is only 1.7 kilometers. Most airports in the world can meet the requirements for take-off and landing. In comparison,

, the runway length required for the 300ER to take off is 2.4 kilometers, which cannot be supported by airports in many smaller cities. During Simon's last trip to Europe, the runway lengths of both Cannes and Florence were within 2 kilometers.

After selecting the model, Boeing quoted a price of US$60 million.

After Janet contacted the Boeing sales representative, the first thing she did was bargain. Simon was not the kind of big customer who ordered 10 or 20 airplanes at once. However, as a public figure, he purchased Boeing products as a private

Aircraft can play a better role in brand promotion than those big customers.

Moreover, the purchase of private jets is indeed negotiable.

After negotiations, the transaction price between the two parties was finally determined to be US$50 million, which was almost a 20% discount. Of course, this was only the price of the bare metal, and internal equipment and decoration were also calculated separately.

Simon has never been a stingy person in spending money, but he hates being taken advantage of the most. He is very pleased that his woman can save money on a top-level villa in this transaction. After signing the contract, assembly and decoration are included.

Waiting for time, this aircraft will probably be delivered for use in November at the end of the year.

Get dressed and get up, simply tidy up the surrounding artwork, and the bedroom will become tidy again.

This is actually Jennifer's credit.

Janet is not in Los Angeles, and Catherine has also gone to New York. Simon's villa in Malibu, Palisade, Beverly Hills and Janet's villa on the east side of Point Dume are all managed by Jennifer, with a female assistant

He regularly takes time to clean several properties every week, so Simon doesn't need to worry about it at all.

Recently, Catherine has been helping to keep an eye on the two properties in New York. In Catherine's absence, Angela Ahrendts, president of Gucci America, will be in charge.

As for Europe, after completing the acquisition of Gucci, in order to save money, Sophia originally planned to return a Falcon 50 business jet rented by the company. Finally, in order to be able to travel quickly between different cities in Europe, she could help Simon take care of many things.

The property was preserved.

Janet had warned Simon at the beginning that the house might become dilapidated and weathered if left vacant for too long. Now that it is maintained regularly and meticulously, Simon no longer worries about this.

Wash, exercise, shower.

seven o 'clock.

Leave the house on time.

We had breakfast at a nearby restaurant, and also made an appointment with the head of the construction team at Dume Point Manor to discuss the construction progress of the 'Iron Man Villa'. Simon's attitude towards that villa was just like the imagined Westeros Mansion, completely in accordance with art

He is not in a hurry when building to high-grade specifications. He has a mentality of working slowly and carefully, and only pursues perfection.

After breakfast, we drove to Santa Monica.

Simon opened today's Los Angeles Times in his car and looked at the cover index first.

Skip words like ""The Sixth Sense"" and "Reversal", find a news headline "U.S.-Iraq Business Forum Successfully Concluded", and turn directly to the international news page.

Today is already the 11th day since "The Sixth Sense" was released. Simon has already done all he can do, and the box office in the first week has reached his best expectations. He doesn't need to worry too much about the next thing.

Relatively speaking, the just-concluded ‘U.S.-Iraq Business Forum’ is something Simon has been paying close attention to recently.

The Iran-Iraq war that lasted for eight years finally ended at the end of last year. After eight years of consumption, the economy and people's livelihood in Iraq have declined to the extreme.

Saddam received "enthusiastic" help from many Western allies in his war with Iran, and the war was able to last for eight years. Now, if he wants to carry out post-war reconstruction in Iraq, he will definitely need the assistance of these partners.

The partners are indeed very enthusiastic.

Although it is a U.S.-Iraq business forum, oil giants from major Western countries such as the United States, Britain, France, etc. all gathered in Baghdad.

During the two-week business forum, Iraq hopes to receive $40 billion in financial support from Western allies to revitalize the domestic economy.

The allies were not stingy and agreed, but they also put forward their own conditions. Iraq needs to privatize its country's oil resources, or most of them, so that international oil giants such as Mobil, Trustee, and Shell can better

to help Iraq develop its oil resources and at the same time help restore Iraq's domestic economy.

According to the detection data of geologists from various countries in the 1980s, Iraq can be said to be the largest untapped oil production area in the world except the Soviet Union. Although the overall reserves are not as good as Saudi Arabia, it has huge potential.

Seeing that the "allies" were asking him to directly hand over Iraq's oil sovereignty, Saddam had not been kicked in the head by a donkey, so how could he agree?

Without oil, what would be left of Iraq?

Therefore, this business forum ultimately failed to reach any substantive agreement, and all that was left was a superficial harmony between the parties.

Simon watched all this with cold eyes, knowing in his heart that this was probably the beginning of many stories in the next twenty years.

When he arrived in Santa Monica, Simon rushed directly to the Daenerys special effects headquarters. He had to discuss the final modifications of some CG shots with the special effects team of "Batman" in the morning.

Jennifer is already waiting for Simon at Daenerys' special effects headquarters.

After asking the female assistant to collect more relevant information about the 'U.S.-Iraq Business Forum', Simon also took over his work schedule for today from her.

The morning's work content has been determined, and I have an appointment with Jonathan Friedman for lunch at noon.

In the afternoon, start at one o'clock.

Check on the production progress of "Toy Story", one hour; Video game demo of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", one hour; Listen to a brief progress report from the company's financial audit team, half an hour; Wayne Hewitzan, Chairman of Blockbuster

The extra visit lasted half an hour; watching the rough cut of the film and discussing revisions with the creative team took two hours.

At six o'clock, it was still a working dinner with Amy.

In addition, the schedule also lists some documents that Simon needs to review as soon as possible, which can only be arranged after returning home in the evening.

Walking into the office building of Daenerys's special effects headquarters, Simon read his work schedule while walking, and the female assistant handed over the box office data report for the three days just past the weekend.

Simon just glanced through it briefly before turning his mind to today's work.

Compared with Simon's calmness, early this morning, after seeing the box office data report of the past weekend, the whole of Hollywood was a little uneasy.

During the three days from July 7th to July 9th, "The Sixth Sense" successfully withstood the pressure brought by all new and old films. Compared with the first weekend, the movie's box office for the second weekend not only did not drop, but actually achieved a 6.8

% rebounded at the box office, collecting another US$24.73 million in three days.

Although some media predict that the weekend and full-week box office ratio of "The Sixth Sense" will return to the normal range of 60% to 70% in the second week, the weekday box office is unlikely to achieve the high ratio it had in the first week when word-of-mouth was just beginning to ferment.

, however, the three-day figure for the second weekend of US$24.73 million still exceeded even the best expectations of Daenerys Entertainment’s own team.

Ten days after its release, the total North American box office of "The Sixth Sense" has quickly accumulated to US$66.08 million.

In comparison, "Ghostbusters 2"'s box office dropped sharply the next week, and its ten-day box office figure for the same period was only US$58.76 million. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" did not count the two days before its early opening, and the corresponding ten-day period

The box office figure was only 67 million U.S. dollars. Although the data was better than that of "The Sixth Sense", compared with the rebound of "The Sixth Sense", the box office of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" dropped by 27% in the second weekend.

After "The Sixth Sense", "Lethal Weapon 2" took second place on the list with a box office figure of US$20.38 million in its first three days.

The box office revenue in the three days of the first weekend was 20.38 million. If it weren't for the sudden rise of "The Sixth Sense", Warner Bros. would almost be able to prepare a celebration party.

Disney's old film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" released in June ranked third this week, with a box office figure of 9.43 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office in two and a half weeks reached 59.24 million U.S. dollars. Compared with the production cost of 18 million U.S. dollars

, this movie has already been a huge success.

Entering its sixth week, the box office of "The Bodyguard" has also dropped by 27%. It collected another 5.76 million US dollars in the three days of the weekend, ranking fourth on the list. This romantic film has bucked the trend of negative reviews and succeeded in five and a half weeks.

The box office has reached 93.69 million U.S. dollars, and is about to exceed 100 million.

The two films "Ghostbusters 2" and "The Last of Us", which were ahead of "The Bodyguard" last week, both saw sharp box office drops this weekend, and were overtaken by "The Bodyguard" in the rankings.

The box office of "Ghostbusters 2" dropped as much as 41% over the three-day weekend, and it collected another US$5.26 million, barely holding on to its fifth place, with a cumulative box office of US$85.52 million in three and a half weeks.

Outside the top five on the list, the new film "The Boss Goes on Vacation" only ranked seventh, behind "Raiders of the Lost Ark", with a box office of US$4.5 million in its first weekend.

Among this week's box office data list, the one that was more unexpected than Simon's was "Sex, Lies and Videotape." This literary film opened on 517 screens and grossed US$3.93 million in the first three days of the weekend. The total box office in the first week is expected to be

May top $6 million.

To be fair, Simon really hopes that this movie will fail. However, the box office data of 6 million US dollars in the first week means that "Sex, Lies and Videotape" has reached the level of a best-selling movie with an average theater average of over 10,000 US dollars. Compared with commercial movies, literary and artistic movies

It is also easier for the film to get out of a long run of slightly declining box office.

Based on this calculation, the North American box office of "Sex, Lies and Videotape" is at least equal to that of the original version, or even higher.

Based on some media feedback he read over the weekend, Simon can only judge that "Sex, Lies and Videotape" itself has certain blockbuster elements that can attract audiences to buy tickets, and it does not just rely on the film's award honors.

Although Simon won't be too frustrated because he failed to get a movie with a total box office potential of only 20 to 30 million US dollars in North America, he can't help but feel distressed by it.

The production cost of "Sex, Lies and Videotape" was only US$1.2 million. If the North American box office could reach US$30 million, the box office revenue alone would be enough to exceed many big-budget movies with tens of millions of US dollars invested.

Daenerys Entertainment was the first to express interest in this film, which is no secret in the industry. With the success of "Sex, Lies and Videotape", Daenerys Entertainment wants to easily win some projects and scripts in the future.

We will still face very fierce competition.

In fact, the unexpected box office success of Lawrence Kasdan's "The Bodyguard", which has been disliked by the industry for more than ten years, has destined that the entire Hollywood will continue to pay close attention to Daenerys Entertainment for a long time to come.

Simon is paying attention to "Sex, Lies and Videotape", but Hollywood is crazy about "The Sixth Sense".

"Why was this movie so successful?"
To be continued...