At noon, Simon had a meal in the small management restaurant with Amy Pascal, Mark Belford and other senior group leaders.

The topic we talked about at the dining table was about Disney's recent turmoil.

The story still starts with the film "Behind the Scenes" directed by Robert Redford last year. Simon used a small trick to deliberately push the project to Disney. The film eventually cost 40 million US dollars, but the final result was unsatisfactory. Disney not only gave up the high-quality schedule at the end of last year, but also almost threw it into the schedule cemetery in the first and February of the Chinese New Year.

Finally, with Redford's insistence, "Les Behind the Scenes" was released on April 1 and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3".

Unfortunately, compared to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3" and the subsequently popular "Detective Aircraft Head", the box office behind the scenes was only $6.19 million in the first week.

Not only that, when two hits and films were hit during the same period, the total box office of "Behind the Scenes" in North America was only $16.35 million, and the box office share only barely offset Disney's promotional and distribution expenses. Considering the bleak prospects of overseas and surrounding distribution caused by the local box office failure, "Behind the Scenes" will bring Disney a net loss of at least $30 million.

The failure of "Les Behind the Scenes" can be regarded as a microcosm of Disney's increasingly bleak situation in the past two years, and it has also become a fuse for the outbreak of internal conflicts at the management of this old film studio.

Since taking over Disney in 1984, Michael Eisner, who was also a subordinate of Barry Diller, and Jeffrey Carsonberg have cooperated well in the early days. Through inheriting the high-concept film model from Barry Diller and exploring the commercial potential of Disney classic animation, Disney was booming in the second half of the 1980s, once launched the top ten top-tier films on the annual list such as "Three Dads and One Baby", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Supreme Detective", and the re-release and videotape release of Disney classic animation movies have repeatedly brought rich profits to Disney.

Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Carsonberg, one is the CEO of Disney Company, and the other is the general manager of several Disney studios. Due to differences in corporate management and personal salary, the two have accumulated deep conflicts without realizing it.

For example, in 1988, after Disney experienced a bumper prospect, Michael Eisner received a $6.8 million bonus. However, due to the special accounting rules that the studios under the major film company deliberately created losses in order to avoid taxes, Jeffrey Carsonberg's bonus figure was pitiful "zero", and the conflict between the two sides had been made public once.

According to the original agreement, in 1994, this year, the contract of the second-in-commander of Disney and current president Frank Wells expired, and Katzenberg will become the successor of Disney president. However, Michael Eisner did not intend to let Katzenberg take over the president at all. Instead, he recently discussed with Michael Orwitz, who is also his neighbor and friend of President C.

The Hollywood circle is very small, and the news spread unexpectedly, and Kasenberg directly came to Eisner to confront him.

It happened to meet the box office failure of "Back to the Scenes Lies". Michael Eisner did not hesitate to put all the blame for "Back to the Scenes Lies" and Disney's sluggish film performance in the past two years on Jeffrey Carsonberg. As a result, the executive who had worked for Disney for ten years angrily announced his resignation.

In history, the conflict between Eisner and Katzenberg also broke out this year, but the fuse was Frank Wells' accidental death during Easter in 1994. Disney's situation was much better than this time and space, but Eisner still didn't want Katzenberg to take over as president, which eventually led to Katzenberg's departure. Disney lost Katzenberg. The film business in the second half of the 1990s fell all the way, which eventually led to Michael Eisner's forced step down.

Now, because of Simon's big butterfly, Frank Wells has not encountered a helicopter accident. However, the Disney president's contract will still expire in August this year. Moreover, Wells is 62 years old this year and has no intention of renewing the contract. He plans to retire early and enjoy life. Disney still needs to choose a new company president again.

Then there were various recent changes.

Disney's management turmoil is largely due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment.

Daenerys Entertainment is similar to Disney 20 years later in Simon's memory. At that time, Dibao divided half of the shares on the top ten annual box office lists of North America almost every year, and suppressed other major Hollywood film companies until they were completely out of style. In the end, the seven majors became six majors, six majors became five majors, Lion Gate, and the peak, which seemed to be rising rapidly, were even short-lived.

Relying on his own prophet's advantage, Simon has done this now. Moreover, if you compare it carefully, Daenerys Entertainment is now stronger than Disney at its peak in Simon's memory. The result of this strength is that the living space of several other major Hollywood studios and second- and third-tier film companies is constantly compressed, and a series of domino effects have been triggered.

Disney, which was once the early 1990s, relied on top-notch animations such as "Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King", and other top-notch videos such as "The Pretty Beauty" and "The Supreme Detective", which was very popular in Hollywood.

Due to the emergence of Simon, many of the largest-selling projects that originally belonged to Disney were acquired by Daenerys Entertainment. In addition, other films developed by Disney were not good in commercial performance, which led to Disney, which had a rapid upward momentum in the late 1980s, has taken a downward trend in the past two years.

There are obviously more than Disney in the whole of Hollywood to have the same experience.

The seven giants in Hollywood can be described as vibrant at this time. One is Daenerys Entertainment and the other is Time Warner Group. Even MGM, which is personally supported by Simon, is still in the stage of recovery. As for the remaining four companies, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and Fox, in recent years, they have found that the Hollywood film market is recovering rapidly, but their business is becoming increasingly difficult.

As for Miramax and the New Line, which should have shined in the original time and space in recent years, it has completely disappeared from the perspective of the Hollywood circle.

Several of Hollywood's old sets have been around for more than half a century, and it is very difficult to completely destroy them.

Simon's goal in the short term is to knock down several Disney companies to the actual second-tier film companies. Hollywood only needs Daenerys and Time Warner to join the two top players for the time being.

Tolerating Time Warner and itself is due to the DC movie universe on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also due to antitrust considerations. After all, if there are many strong situations in Hollywood, then the other companies will only point all their fingers at Daenerys Entertainment. Now, with one more Time Warner, it can also share some of its firepower.

However, this is only temporary.

Simon's ultimate goal is the three-legged tripod that he had considered. Two of the big tripods are still Daenerys and Time Warner. The last one is either MGM built by Simon himself, or Blockbuster Entertainment, which has quietly planted the seeds. The remaining other majors will truly become second-tier lines that cannot be turned over and even completely disappeared.

In the small restaurant of Daenerys Cinema.

Nancy Brill's question interrupted Simon's thoughts: "Boss, do you think Michael Orwitz will choose to join Disney?"

Simon nodded: "It should be, but this may not be good news for Disney."

Everyone saw it and Robert Eiger, who came to the West Coast yesterday, said: "Eisner and Orwitz are very good friends, and I think they should work together."

Simon shrugged and said, "Without using conflict directly, personal friendships can easily be maintained. The key question is that Eisner and Orwitz are both used to being the strong character of being the top leader. Eisner cannot tolerate even Carsonberg, who is not so strong. How can we allow Orwitz to enter Disney to share his power?"

Amy asked, "Since that's the case, why did Eisner ask Orwitz to join Disney?"

Simon said: "It's very simple. He needs an excuse that is strong enough to squeeze Carsonberg out of Disney. If promoted from within Disney, it will be difficult for everyone except Carsonberg to convince everyone. Orwitz created C, implemented a project packaging mechanism, and a large number of Hollywood stars as behind-the-scenes fans. These can be the reason Eisner convinced the board of directors."

Amy asked, "What?"

Simon replied: "Then, Eisner should find out that in order to stabilize his power, he had to find a way to clear his former good friend out of the company."

Nancy suddenly glanced at the people around her and said, "I said, our boss is a guy who doesn't believe in people's hearts and always thinks about the worst."

Simon looked at his own small senior executive: "Why don't we make a bet?"

Nancy is not to be outdone: "Where is the bet?"

Simon smiled and said, "I happened to buy a batch of Mi-24 helicopters some time ago. If Orwitz did not rebel against Eisner after joining Disney, I will give you one."

Nancy didn't feel that she shouldn't have been accused of the murder weapon of tens of thousands of African soldiers in Rwanda not long ago, and nodded and said, "Okay, I lost, I'll treat you to a meal."

Simon suddenly had a dissatisfied expression that you could even speak with such insincere conditions.

Everyone laughed.

Nancy was not showing any weakness in front of her boss and said, "Your bet is what you said yourself, and of course my conditions must be paid by myself. Moreover, you did not say that our bets must be equal."

Simon raised his hand depressedly and said that he had accepted the defeat.

In fact, when it comes to Disney's internal strife, everyone just thought of Daenerys Entertainment itself, but they quickly understood it.

With Simon, a strong boss, personally took charge, Daenerys Entertainment does not have the soil for high-level infighting. Simon has been promoting collaborative cooperation within Daenerys Entertainment over the years, and at the same time, it has unknowingly transformed Daenerys Entertainment into a relatively independent flat corporate structure for various departments.

Everyone has their own mountain, and most of them are directly responsible to the boss Simon, and there is no strong conflict of interest between them, so there is no soil for internal strife.

After all, once there are signs of internal friction, Simon's strength will surely soon extinguish the dispute in the cradle. This young boss seems to be very fond of everyone, but this is definitely not the case in his bones. If an executive needs to leave to ensure the internal stability of Daenerys Entertainment, he will do so without hesitation.

This flat corporate structure of Daenerys Entertainment also brings some hidden concerns. The most important point is that once a strong boss like Simon is lacking, it will be difficult for a second leader with enough power and prestige to solidly condense the huge Daenerys Entertainment together.

However, Simon is only 26 years old this year. Compared to some veteran businessmen who have built a business group when they are about to retire in their fifties and sixties, what he lacks the least is time, so he has enough experience to deal with many things.

A few jokes about Simon and Nancy's bets, Amy said another thing: "David Geffen has been trying to join hands with his good friends to set up a brand new big studio. Jeffrey is also one of his lobbying targets, and Steven. In this way, the establishment of this big studio should be a foregone conclusion."

In history, Hollywood billionaire David Geffen, joined forces with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Carsonberg to establish DreamWorks, which was very popular in Hollywood for a while. In the late 1990s, a large number of blockbuster films were produced in succession.

Unfortunately, because the foundation is not solid, the DreamWorks, which simply lack the perfect channel for film distribution, are not good. Most of the profits of many big-name films are either taken away by the large studios responsible for distribution, or divided up by the main creators such as Steven Spielberg, leaving the investors who initially invested in this "big film company" with huge investments, which is just a mess that keeps losing money.

Although the rise of Daenerys Entertainment is short compared to traditional Hollywood big-name productions, every step has been steadily taken from the initial small workshop to the acquisition of New World Entertainment to the acquisition of New World Entertainment to improve its production and distribution team to the final acquisition of MCA and the complete promotion of one of the seven major Hollywood films.

The Dream Factory of David Geffen and his three others is like building a large castle on the beach without even laying the foundation. It looks like a strong scenery on the outside, but it is vulnerable in its bones.

Simon did not intend to get involved in this, felt the intention in Amy's tone and said, "We don't need to pay attention to this matter, just do our job well."

Amy said: "Simon, I mean, maybe it can be allowed to work with MGM with this new studio."

Simon shook his head and smiled, "Even if we want to, do you think Steven would agree to work with us?"

As for the "Jurassic Park" series, although everyone is getting along well on the surface, in fact, the whole Hollywood knows that Steven Spielberg was directly fired by Daenerys Entertainment. As the pride of Hollywood who has been popular with stars since the 1970s, it is strange that Spielberg will continue to cooperate with the Westeros system in this tone.

Moreover, even if the other party agrees, Simon will not agree.

Simon's arrangement for MGM is also steady, and he re-cultivated his team by personally producing and distributing videos. If he reaches a cooperation with Spielberg and others' studios, MGM can only reduce production and adapt to the other party. The final result is that Spielberg and others' studios may eventually become a mess, and MGM will still be a lame in both "production" and "distribution" at that time.
Chapter completed!