After the Thanksgiving period started, in a full week from November 17 to November 23, the best-selling "Beauty and the Beast" that started the painting in the first seven days of the first week was US$68.73 million, easily winning the weekly box office championship.

This result ranked third among Pixar's four animated films, lower than the $87.31 million in the first week of Toy Story 2 and $70.31 million in the Lion King's, and only higher than the $46.73 million in the same period of Toy Story in 1991. Of course, even though it ranked third, the box office of "Beauty and the Beast" of $68.73 million in the first week of "The Beast" still makes many Hollywood movies out of reach.

The second-ranked White House Race, the second-placed White House, earned $13.49 million in box office in the first seven days of the first week.

Even if it can take a slightly better curve, the local box office of the film is only about 50 million US dollars, and the huge production budget of 62 million US dollars can only be said to be that Sony has paid another expensive tuition fee.

"Soul Conjuring 2", also owned by Daenerys Entertainment, occupies the third place on the list.

In the fourth week of the release, even if the themes are not conflicting, "Soul Conjuring 2" was still hit by "Beauty and the Beast". The box office fell by 38% in a single week, and continued to earn US$10.39 million. The cumulative box office of the film successfully reached the threshold of the 100 million box office club, reaching US$105.12 million.

The fourth is an old film released on October 20, called "The Dwarf", which is a novel adapted from a black comedy, produced by MGM, directed by Barry Sonanfield, starring John Travolta and Renee Russell, and the production cost is $30 million.

With an excellent media score of 8.7, although the first week of "The Short Man" was only 16.78 million US dollars, it successfully made a very beautiful long-term trend.

In the fifth week of the release from November 17 to November 23, "The Dwarf" fell by 36% in a single week, earning $6.09 million, and a cumulative box office of $59.61 million.

Simon actually knew about this project and personally selected the heroine Renee Russell, who was quite stunning in the original version. However, after the film was completed, MGM was not very confident about the project's commercial prospects, so it was released in the unpopular schedule at the end of October. These Simon did not interfere anymore. The main reason was that such unpopular schedules in October were such as October, which actually happened to be suitable for non-mainstream films that rely on reputation to survive.

The success of the project was also expected by Simon.

Moreover, what Simon cares more about is Barry Sonanfield, the director of "The Dwarf".

This is the director of the "Man in Black" series in the original time and space.

It just so happened that the copyright of "Men in Black" has long been acquired by Daenerys Entertainment.

Simon has no intention of launching the "Man in Black" series in the short term. After all, until 1997, Daenerys Entertainment's list was basically filled.

The $100 million "Chetou Island" finally won the fifth place in the box office list for a week.

The box office started with a tragic box office, and no miracle happened afterwards. In the first seven days of the week, the cumulative box office of "Cut Throat Island" ended up being 4.96 million, and it failed to even break through the $5 million threshold.

After calculation, the opening scale of 2,505 screens is only 1,980 US dollars in the first week.

Hollywood studios and North American theaters usually sign a two-week guaranteed screening contract, part of which will be four weeks, and then adjust it according to the specific box office status.

Now, the museums with less than $2,000 in the first week of "Cuttue Island" have reached the threshold of lower-end. You should know that the "Beauty and the Beast" at the top of the weekly box office have reached $25,600, which is more than ten times that of "Cuttue Island". The attendance rate is low, but the operating costs of theaters will not be reduced. Even if you only need to continue to be screened for a week, you will face losses. Many theaters either negotiate with Paramount to reach a compromise agreement, or simply tear up the contract to pay the penalty. Anyway, they insist on removing most of the canvases of "Cuttue Island".

When a new box office week begins, the number of screens of "Cut Throat Island" has plummeted from 2,505 yuan to 1,196 yuan.

On November 24, the Thanksgiving period entered its second week, and the number of films in North American theaters increased to 7.

Four of them are commercial films with a scale of more than 1,000 yuan, namely the new film "Casino Storm" produced by Warner Bros. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, the family comedy "Good Things in Two" produced by MGM, the Johnny Depp thriller "The Critical Show" produced by Paramount and the "Silver Line" starring Wesley Snipes, the black action starring Wesley Snipes produced by Sony Pictures.

Three small-scale new films, two of which are from Gaomen Pictures, namely "72-hour life and death line" directed by Sean Penn and another French drama "Love Under the Stars", and finally the drama "Two Five Cents" produced by Paramount Orion Films starring Al Pacino.

Among the seven new films, only Martin Scorsese's "Casino Storm" is considered a bombshell, with a production cost of $52 million.

The initial negotiation partner of the project was Daenerys Entertainment, and Simon = was pushed to Warner Bros. Pictures.

This is not because Simon is not optimistic about this project. Although the box office of the film is indeed unsatisfactory in memory, Simon's main reason for doing this is that Daenerys's film list is already full and there is a lack of appropriate schedules.

Martin Scorsese's project has gradually become less favored by Hollywood in recent years, but this is a director Simon admires and admires. Simon insists that Hollywood should not only be left with commercial films such as super-English movies or animated movies for the sake of profit.

The movie genre is too scarce, and the ultimate harms the interests of Hollywood. Daenerys Entertainment is basically equivalent to half of Hollywood, so it harms the interests of Daenerys Entertainment.

If Warner Bros. Pictures had not taken over this project at the beginning, Simon also planned to take over Daenerys Entertainment himself, but the schedule would inevitably be delayed.

MGM's "Good Things in Two" still follows the development strategy of Simon personally determining a few blockbusters and medium- and low-cost films for this studio. The production cost of the film is only $10 million, starring Olsen's twins, which is the twin sister of Elizabeth Olsen, the former Marvel Scarlet Witch actor. The film's opening screen is 1,545 yuan.

"The Critical Shot" starring Johnny Depp and "The Storm" starring Wesley Snipes are also low- and medium-sized films with a cost of less than $30 million.

Simon remembers the last three award-winning movies, and the quality of the films he watched in advance was also unsatisfactory and basically belonged to cannon fodder.

With the tragic first week of box office data of "Cutting the Throat Island" released, and the failure of "Dance Girl", which costs $50 million in production this summer, the main investor of the two projects, Carlok Pictures, a cross-river that has been in Hollywood for many years, has been completely over.

Simon has been thinking about this in recent days.

In the 1990s, due to the continued opening of the overseas film market and the rapid recovery of the global economy, the overall upward trend of the Hollywood film industry did not slow down due to the continuous falls of a film company.

If some measures are not taken, more capital will definitely come in and disrupt the situation.

This is actually another manifestation of the warmth of thinking.

If you have money, you always hope to gain some fame. The Hollywood world is undoubtedly the best shortcut to becoming famous. Even if you don’t have a lot of money in your hands, invest in some projects, and get the title of executive producer, you can successfully enter this glamorous circle and be favored by those big stars who can only be seen on movies and TV screens. Indirectly, it can also enhance the popularity of investors’ behind-the-scenes companies around the world, killing multiple goals.

Therefore, foreign capital poured into Hollywood, and this kind of thing was inevitable.

If you can't block it, you can only lose it.

Take the initiative to open up some places for foreign capital.

Or, even if you want to play alone and try it, you must be within the control of the Westeros system.

If possible, it is better to clear other industries.

For example, in the field of new technology.

Therefore, this week around Thanksgiving, Simon has been frequently discussing and consulting response strategies with all the core backbones of the Westeros system.

When Thanksgiving is over, many ideas are basically taken shape.

The three brands of Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters will still not be opened to the public, which is the first thing to be sure of.

The former Hollywood studios had a serious reliance on external funds, mainly because restrictive policies in the media industry curbed the diversified expansion of Hollywood giants. The lack of revenue channels made it impossible for large studios to form their own sustainable cash flow, so they could only continue to raise funds and borrow money. When the project made money, most of the funds had to be returned to the investor, and when the project lost money, it often formed the studio's long-term debt.

MGM, which was tortured to the point where she almost couldn't get any longer in the 1980s, declined to this vicious cycle of constant failure.

Daenerys Entertainment has been growing up since childhood, and with a series of projects under its sequel to profits, it can be said that Hollywood's only large studio that successfully completed self-sufficiency in funds. Even Warner Bros. Pictures, which is backed by Time Warner, cannot do this.

In Simon's memory, only Disney is the only one who really does this.

To form sustainable cash flow, no longer rely on external funds, you will be responsible for your own profits and losses. If you are a simple large studio, the risks will still be very high, and you may not be able to last for many years and return to the status quo. While Daenerys Entertainment has achieved self-sufficiency in funds, it has also encountered a good opportunity for the United States to continue to open up its policies to the media industry. Through continuous mergers, it has successfully diversified its enterprises, so it has greatly increased its risk resistance.

Daenerys Entertainment, as long as there are no particularly huge changes, will basically not return to the state of relying on external funds.

This certainly does not mean that external funds are not required.

But with this money, Daenerys Entertainment can still live a very nourishing and long life.

There is no need to give up most of the profits. Diversification can also maximize profit operations for various income channels more precisely, thus forming the most virtuous and sustainable cycle.

After finally realizing this situation, Simon certainly would not reversal, and to reopen the door again in order to ease Hollywood's foreign capital.

In this case, although it has no direct equity connection with Daenerys Entertainment, MGM, which is also controlled by the Westeros system due to the Australian capital behind the scenes, has become a good platform. In addition, Time Warner and 20th Century Fox, which are closely related to Daenerys Entertainment, can also undertake this task.

As for the other companies, Simon's current strategy is to suppress without mercy. The ultimate goal is to make Disney and Paramount completely become second-tier film companies.

This is why the previous batch of foreign cooperation projects did not have the share of these studios.

After completing the IPO, Daenerys Entertainment has been linked with a large number of American investors, and Simon now has much less concern.

The method of guiding external funds is very simple after all.

Or take out some projects to invest in these external capital.

In order to avoid project failure, the studio will bear additional debts, this time it will not be debt financing, but direct investment with a common profit and loss.

Of course, Simon would not treat anyone as a fool.

Therefore, the selected projects will definitely be quite attractive.

Two videos have been finalized in the past few days.

First is the new film that Robert Zemegis is preparing for, called "Super Time and Space Contact".

The success of "Forrest Gump" is still vivid in my mind, so "Straight Time and Space Contact" is definitely attractive enough. However, Simon knew that the movie was not as successful as expected, costing 90 million US dollars, and the global box office in memory was only 170 million. Not to mention the subsequent channel revenue, the producer was still losing money in the box office.

So Simon handed over the project to MGM.

By introducing external investment, MGM only earns one issuance fee this time, which can also avoid risks to the greatest extent. After all, MGM is still bearing a large amount of debt that has not been paid off.

The other one is "Alien 2".

The first "Alien" was a great success because of Natasha Hensquqi's stunning debut. It was a sequel. However, Hensquqi was not willing to participate again. After all, he was Simon's woman, so everyone could not force it, so the project was put on hold.

During this period, MGM head Shirley Lansing personally mentioned to Simon, hoping that Simon would come forward to persuade a girl to show off in "Alien 2", even if it doesn't take off or show it. MGM can hand over this eye-catching task to other actresses, and Simon also agreed.

However, the cost of making a sequel will definitely increase significantly, and Natasha Hensquitch is just a guest appearance, so the risk will naturally increase.

Therefore, Simon asked MGM to only assume half of the investment at most and the remaining half was obtained from the outside.

In addition to these two attractive projects, there will definitely be other ones.

Simon's plan is to package at least five parts and introduce external investment together, just treat it as another "foreign cooperation plan". In order to show importance, if necessary, Daenerys Entertainment will also invest some money, and Warner and Fox can also participate.

On the other hand, for those hot money that is not too determined to invest in Hollywood, Simon hopes to introduce it to Silicon Valley.

Therefore, some popular projects incubated by the Westeros system, such as eBay, iPets, etc., will start a round of financing, and of course there will be no shortage of IPO operations.

In order to enable investors to gain the same reputation as investing in Hollywood through investing in these projects, the Westeros system will also use its own media resources to build momentum for it. For example, a Latin American tycoon unconditionally spent $100 million because he was optimistic about eBay just to seek a small amount of shares. As long as this kind of joke is spread, all parties can benefit.

These are very detailed operations, but Simon doesn't mind staring at them himself.

The entire Westeros system is now a very huge business empire. Simon cannot cover everything, and it is inevitable to control the general direction of operation.

However, if you only focus on the general direction, you will inevitably ignore the hidden dangers of various details, and the ultimate goal may be that the thousand-mile dike will be destroyed by the ant hole. Therefore, many times, Simon has to transform into a micro-manager and personally intervene in some details.

To a certain extent, this is actually more important than controlling the general direction.

Governing a big country is like cooking small fresh food.

There are too many cases in my mind. After sorting out and summarizing it over the years, I found that this ancient saying is definitely the most classic truth.
Chapter completed!