Santa Monica Airport.

The time is September 18th, Monday afternoon.

Nancy Brill stood by the airport runway with two other bodyguards who drove over to pick her up.

The Gulfstream IV landed and stopped, and the cabin door opened. Nancy saw Simon and two other beautiful women who were too tall for her to get off the plane, chatting and laughing. One of them, who was wearing a navel-baring T-shirt and denim hot pants, was even intimate with her.

He held Simon's arm tightly, and the two long legs exposed were dazzling.

The three of them approached. Simon was a little surprised by Nancy's appearance, but he introduced the woman next to him with a smile: "Nancy, this is Ella, and this is Jerry."

Ella Macpherson was a little curious about the petite woman who was still tall and tall. She didn't know who Nancy was. She let go of Simon's arm and politely shook hands with her to introduce her. Jerry Hall also came forward to greet her.

After the three girls had chatted for a while, Simon said to Ella Macpherson and Jerry Hall: "I still have work, how about I send you back first?"

"Okay," Ella Macpherson responded with a smile, then came over and hugged Simon, kissed her, and said, "It was a very pleasant weekend, Simon. I hope I have another chance next time."

"Definitely."

Simon patted the woman's admirable slender waist, hugged Jerry Hall, and then ordered Neil Bennett to drive the two women away.

After seeing off the two women, Simon and Nancy got into another car.

As the black luxury Mercedes-Benz drove out of the airport, Simon asked Nancy, who was still looking at him strangely, "What's going on with Alistar Records in such a hurry to get me back?"

Nancy did not rush to answer, but asked: "Are you with those two women?"

Simon smiled and raised his hand to move Nancy's head to his chest, and said with a smile: "Are you envious?"

When Nancy saw Simon joking about her height, she obviously changed the subject and criticized him unceremoniously: "A man with a love heart."

As he spoke, he gave the man a threatening look.

Simon immediately retreated and lowered his voice: "Keep it a secret for me and I'll give you a salary increase."

Nancy said disdainfully: "This is your private matter, I won't gossip. Well, but Ella Macpherson is fine, that, that Jerry Hall, it seems... who seems to be it?"

"

Simon interrupted Nancy's thinking, smiled and added more chips: "Twice the salary."

Nancy rolled her eyes and stopped worrying about the matter, but she did not forget to add: "Absurd man."

Simon put away his expression and said, "Okay, let's get down to business. I originally planned to come back tomorrow morning."

I attended a party at Jonathan's house the night before yesterday, and Simon left with two women afterwards.

In two lifetimes, Simon never intended to treat himself badly in this kind of thing, and he didn't care what others would think. As long as he had the chance to eat the woman he liked, he would not miss it.

Recently, the paparazzi around me have been chasing too closely, and I don’t want to be bothered by any messy things being revealed, so I asked Steve Ross to borrow a vacation villa with a private beach on Lanai Island, Hawaii, and then took the two of them.

A woman flew over and played happily all day and all night.

I have to say, the entanglement of four long legs is really unforgettable.

I was a little happy and wanted to come back tomorrow, but I got several calls from Los Angeles and had to return early.

Simon felt that if it was just a company matter, no matter how urgent it was, it wouldn't be so urgent.

There is probably a 'mastermind' behind the incident.

Um.

For example, a female assistant who likes to be jealous.

Of course Simon would not tell Jennifer about this, but women probably have instinctive intuition about this kind of thing.

Nancy no longer paid attention to Simon's personal affairs, took out a stack of documents from her bag and handed it over, saying: "According to the contract we signed with Alistar Records, the income from the soundtrack of "Bodyguard" will be settled every three months.

It was released on June 5th, and the first income settlement should be due on September 3rd, which is a Sunday. The record has been sold for exactly 14 weeks. It has not been released overseas yet, and the total domestic sales volume is 12.16 million copies."

Simon looked through the information handed over by Nancy and asked: "Then what?"

"When our person in charge asked for settlement, Alistar Records president Clive Davis kept pushing the envelope and hoped to change the terms of the contract to be settled quarterly in the calendar year, saying that this would be more convenient for Alistar.

The record was undergoing a financial audit. Although it was only three months, Alistar Records was obviously just delaying payment by doing this. I personally communicated with Clive Davis and struggled for two weeks until I was about to get off work last Friday.

Alistar Records just sent over the breakdown report and said that the funds will have to wait another week before they can be transferred."

Nancy said, reached over and flipped through the document in front of Simon a few times, and said: "That's it. 12.16 million album sales. According to the original agreement, we expected that the share we would get should be more than 30 million US dollars, Alistar

But the record company only gave us $23.19 million. This was simply too much, and Clive Davis probably included all of his company’s expenses in the past few months into the cost of the ‘Bodyguard’ soundtrack.”

Simon had some early exposure to the record industry.

For those singers who want to get ahead, the cost of producing and distributing records is indeed a huge expense. Some unknown singers will do almost anything to get record companies to help them release their albums.

However, once the album becomes a success, the profits can be huge.

For hot-selling records, the gross profit that the record company can get from each record will not be less than 50% of the selling price. For a phenomenal hit album like the "Bodyguard" soundtrack, the huge sales volume dilutes the cost.

The profit margin is higher.

The original contract signed by Daenerys Entertainment and Alistar Records was that each party would receive 50% of the gross profit of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack. To be precise, it was the revenue from record shipments minus production, marketing, distribution, and singer sharing.

After the expenditure, both parties share the remaining pre-tax profit 50-50.

In just three months since it was put on the shelves, the local sales of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack reached 12.16 million, with sales exceeding US$120 million. According to industry practice, Daenerys Entertainment's expected revenue share should not be less than US$30 million.

.

Simon is not surprised that Alistar Records did this.

It is common for a Hollywood low-cost movie with a production budget of 5 million to sell 300 million globally but still be abruptly counted as a loss by the film company and refuse to pay the main creator's share. Alistar Records included a large number of other expenses into the cost in the report.

The method of diluting profits is completely leftover from Hollywood.

After just turning a few pages, Simon closed the report and asked Nancy: "Have you talked to Clive Davis?"

"I went to Burbank in the morning, and Clive Davis insisted that there was nothing wrong with the statement. I asked for a financial audit, and he said that if we had to do this, it might affect the follow-up of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack

Release. Simon, he is threatening us."

The expected global sales of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack are between 40 million and 50 million copies. According to current sales data, there is still a sales potential of at least 10 million copies in North America alone. In order to cooperate with the release of the "Bodyguard" movie overseas, basically

None are on the shelves yet.

The success of the "Bodyguard" movie was largely stimulated by the success of the soundtrack album, which everyone knows very well. When Clive Davis said these words, it was indeed a clear threat. Daenerys Entertainment

Currently, there is no ability to release a blockbuster album on its own, let alone worldwide distribution. In comparison, Alistar Records is backed by Germany's Bertelsmann Music Group and has a complete global distribution network.

If there is a stalemate between the two parties, as long as Alistar Records "passively slows down" on the subsequent release of this album, not only the album sales, but also the overseas box office of the "Bodyguard" movie will be severely affected.

Clive Davis dared to blatantly devour Daenerys Entertainment’s due share of profits by relying on the global distribution channels of Alistar Records and the entire Bertelsmann Music Group for the release of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack.

However, Clive Davis may think that Daenerys Entertainment can only swallow this dumb loss in order to ensure the overseas distribution of the "Bodyguard" movie and the subsequent sales of the film's soundtrack, but he overlooked one thing, Daenerys

Silk Entertainment is indeed very optimistic about the various benefits of "Bodyguard". However, for Alistar Records, this soundtrack album is also crucial.

After all, the only singer that Alistar Records can produce right now is Whitney Houston. Although Alistar Records only accounts for half of the revenue from the phenomenal best-selling album "The Bodyguard" soundtrack, it is still enough.

It will support most of the record company's performance in the next one or two years.

However, for Daenerys Entertainment, even without the revenue from "Bodyguard", a large number of other blockbuster projects can still bring huge profits to the company.

The most important thing is that Daenerys Entertainment is currently cooperating with other Hollywood studios on a large number of projects. If Simon chooses to back down on this matter, other studios will only follow suit in the future.

Santa Monica Airport is not far from Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, and the two arrived quickly.

Outside Simon's office, the female assistant was sitting busy behind the desk in the outer room. When she saw Simon and Nancy appear, she greeted them nonchalantly, but there was still a certain amount of guilt in her eyes.

Simon also pretended to be nonchalant and asked Jennifer to prepare two cups of coffee, then he and Nancy went into the office to sit down and asked, "What are you going to do?"

Nancy sat across from Simon's desk and said: "We share the copyright of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack album with Alistar Records. If I were to decide, I would immediately suspend all publicity and sales of this record until both parties agree.

Until the dispute is resolved. However, doing so will have a great impact on the subsequent release of this record, including the overseas release of the film. The past two months have happened to be the time when "The Bodyguard" has been intensively released overseas, including the UK, Spain, Italy, etc.

Filming has already started in overseas box office countries, and France, East Germany and Japan will also be released next month. These all need to be coordinated by the sales of original sound records. So, Simon, you still need to decide what to do."

"Then let's pause," Simon said without hesitation: "Moreover, this matter can't just be about recovering the share of Alistar Records' swallowed share. They should spit out double the amount they swallowed as punishment. The price of making a mistake is too high.

If you don't get a lesson, some people will forget it easily and will do it again next time."

Nancy looked at her boss uncertainly. She originally just wanted Alistar Records to spit out the profits it had swallowed up as soon as possible. The method of suspending record sales was already very tough, but she didn't expect Simon to go even further.

Alistar Records took at least 7 million U.S. dollars this time. Not only does it have to return all of it, but it also has to pay another 7 million U.S. dollars in compensation. This will definitely make Clive Davis heartbroken. You know, if there is no "Bodyguard"

"" exploded, the net profit of the small and small Alistar Records in the past year may have been only 20 to 30 million US dollars. 7 million, which is definitely a lot of money for Alistar Records.

After a pause, Nancy asked: "Simon, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Of course, we are now cooperating with the Big Seven on so many projects. If we are not tough enough this time, you can imagine how many similar troubles we will face in the future. This is also a warning to other collaborators, if they think they have something

The chips just want to threaten Daenerys Entertainment, I don’t mind just flipping the table.”

Nancy was also a strong woman at heart. Now that her boss had made up her mind, she stopped persuading her and left in a hurry.

As soon as Nancy left, Jennifer sent in several documents: "This is the promotion plan for "Batman", which Mr. Rem sent over this morning. The initial budget is US$25 million; and this is the "Batman" promotion plan.

List of candidates for several major supporting roles in "Sleeping Together"; Mr. Deutschman returned from Venice yesterday afternoon. He selected three films at this year's Venice Film Festival. This is the information..."

Simon watched the female assistant introduce a stack of documents to him one by one. He smiled and picked up the promotion plan for "Batman" and opened it. He said: "I am really a lucky guy. Without Jenny, life in Westeros would be ruined."

It’s a mess.”
To be continued...