Hollywood Hunter

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Santa Monica.

In a five-story office building on 2nd Street not far from the headquarters of Daenerys Pictures, this was originally the headquarters of a real estate company.

Last year's stock market crash led to the collapse of the North American housing market. In order to save money, the dismal real estate company moved to the Ocean Park area in the south. Simon rented the entire five-story office building and used it as the office space of Daenerys special effects company.

Speaking of which, although this office building is not as large as the two-story office building of Daenerys Pictures headquarters, and there is no separate parking lot, the total area of ​​the five-story office building is still larger than that of Daenerys Pictures. There are a lot of headquarters, but they just meet the needs of Daenerys special effects company.

After a few months of adjustment, Simon has integrated the two companies, alias-research company and wavefront-technologies company, which were acquired at the beginning, and the original wavefront-technologies company founder Mark Silves is the president of the new company.

During this period, Daenerys special effects have been continuously recruiting and recruiting horses. In just over three months, the number of employees has reached more than 110, which is twice as large as that of Daenerys Pictures.

However, compared with Daenerys Pictures' continued to make huge profits through projects such as "When Harry Met Sally" and "Who Will Be a Millionaire", Daenerys special effects are still completely burning money State, Simon also intends to incorporate Daenerys special effects into the upgraded Daenerys Entertainment in the process of integrating New World Entertainment.

The time is already July 26, in the afternoon.

In a small conference room of Daenerys special effects, Simon, Terry Semel, and Mark Silves of the special effects company were sitting around their desks watching a scene on the projector.

In just three months, a series of actions such as acquiring two companies, hiring employees, and purchasing expensive graphics workstation equipment have cost Simon more than ten million dollars. Naturally, he will not let more than a hundred people idle.

The development of film special effects is actually driven by various projects, and Simon has been providing Daenerys special effects with various project ideas for "Batman" and even the planned "Ghost Love". , and let these people research solutions and make various cg special effects shots to practice their hands just like making 3D animated short films.

On the projector screen, a large group of bats passed through the city streets like a terrifying dark cloud. Although there was no sound, such a scene still made people feel a little scalp numb. Mark Silves personally operated the video recorder to play the footage of less than ten seconds several times, and the staff reopened the curtains that had just been closed.

Simon played with the pencil in his hand, waited for the room to light up, and said to Mark Silves: "The synthetic effect is very good, but the bat doesn't look real enough. I hope it will be more refined by then."

"It's a rendering problem," Mark Silves explained, and then added: "Simon, if we can, we would like to re-develop a rendering software based on the existing technology, with sufficient funds and manpower. It will take about a year to complete.”

The production of film CG special effects is roughly divided into several steps of modeling, rendering and synthesis.

Two companies previously acquired by Simon, alias developed 3d modeling software, which is probably the predecessor of maya. The technical achievements of wavefront are more inclined to post-synthesis, and there is a technical shortcoming of rendering between the two.

The so-called rendering is to make the original digital CG model present the real object effect through a series of complex lighting, shadow and texture effect operations.

Speaking of which, Pixar's famous renderman rendering tool has been developed. This software can not only be used for 3D animation production, but also suitable for cg special effects rendering of live-action movies. However, Jobs still has no intention of letting go, and Simon does not intend to pin his hopes on Pixar anymore.

"I can agree with you to do this," Simon nodded and said, "However, "Batman" can't wait for a year. From now, you only have eight months at most. Eight months later, "Batman" ” will enter the post-production stage.”

Mark Silves thought for a while and said, "Eight months is no problem. We can take the lead in perfecting the technology needed by "Batman"."

The two continued to chat for a while, and Mark Silves left the conference room with several executives.

After the others left, Terry Semel, the CEO of Warner Bros. Pictures, who had been quietly listening in, said, "Besides the schedule has to wait until the end of next year, I'm getting more and more optimistic about Batman."

Simon knew that Terry Semel called specifically in recent days to see the progress of the preparations for "Batman", and the fundamental purpose was more than that, but he still followed the other party's topic: "A good movie is always about Take the time to grind."

Terry Semel stopped detours and said, "Simon, I heard that Pascal is looking for a new project recently?"

"Yeah," Simon didn't deny it, and said, "The company is too small, and suddenly I find that everyone has finished what they are doing, and there will be no more movies to come out in next year's popular schedule."

Terry Semel simply said directly: "So, how about our cooperation?"

"Um?"

Terry Semel said: "I remember that you were interested in the copyright of the "Bourne Bourne" novel in Warner's hands at the beginning of the year. It happened that our company also wanted to start this project recently, so it's not as good as Warner.

Working with Daenerys Pictures. "

Simon smiled, but did not dismantle it.

If it wasn't for the film itself, Warner Bros. would likely make "The Bourne Bourne" as a miniseries to sell to networks this fall, a common practice among production companies following a writer's strike.

The film version of "Mission Impossible" that Paramount has been brewing also aborted because of this strike. However, Paramount has already released "Crocodile Dundee 2" and "Journey to America" ​​this summer. The box office is expected to break. This year's blockbuster is definitely a good harvest, so there is no need to seek cooperation with Daenerys Pictures like Warner.

Simon heard the news that after the film version was aborted, Paramount has planned to restart the production of the TV version this fall.

Terry Semel noticed the smile on Simon's face, and his heart was also bitter.

Unlike the consecutive blockbuster films from companies such as Paramount, Fox, Daenerys, and even Orion this summer, Warner Bros. Pictures' summer box office results are extremely mediocre.

Chevy Chase's "Funny Farm" in June ended up making just under $25 million. This month, Eastwood's new film "Tiger Detective", which was released at the same time as "Instinct", dropped by 33% compared to the first week's box office in the past weekend. It is difficult for such a decline to go out of the long-term. Also just over $30 million.

In contrast, although "Instinct" caused various controversies, the box office fell by only 17% over the next three days and collected another $13.91 million.

Counting the $23.92 million box office in the first week, the total North American box office of "Instinct" has reached $37.83 million within four days of its release.

Moreover, it was also the past weekend that Warner Bros.'s another family comedy "Little Caddy 2" opened with 1,556 screens and only had a box office of $3.96 million in the first three days of the first weekend, which ended in failure again. As of now, Warner Bros. has more than half planned to release 24 films this year, but the best box office performance is only Tim Burton's "Beetle Juice", which was originally undervalued. The North American box office is currently 71.63 million US dollars. It is estimated that Before the downgrade, the largest total box office in North America was only about 73 million US dollars.

What makes people even more helpless is that after "Beetle Juice", Warner's second-ranked film release in the first half of the year happens to be Chevy Chase's "Funny Farm", which currently only has a box office of 23.51 million US dollars.

The performance of such a film can only be described as bleak.

Terry Semel is a direct descendant of Warner Bros. chairman Steve Ross, so he's not too worried that the company's poor performance will affect his future. Steve Ross is a very short-sighted person. However, as a listed company, Warner Bros.’s film business performance is too bleak, and he, the person in charge, still has to take responsibility. Recently, even Steve Ross has begun to exhort him to improve Warner Bros. Pictures as soon as possible.

No one can guarantee that a high-risk business like a movie will always succeed.

Even Spielberg, who was highly sought after a few days ago, and the "Empire of the Sun" that he collaborated with Warner on last year, relative to the production cost, the box office can only be described as tepid.

However, the emergence of Daenerys Pictures completely broke the usual perception of many people.

Since the birth of "Lola Run" to the present, a series of movies related to Simon Westeros, "Lola Run", "Butterfly Effect", "Death Comes", "When Harry Met Sally" , "Pulp Fiction" and even the most recent "Instinct". Of the six films, five have reached the standard of the North American box office billionaire club. This cannot even be described as a miracle. This is simply a miracle.

It's no exaggeration to say that if Simon Westeros wasn't a hairy kid in his early twenties, he'd definitely be "God" in Hollywood right now. After the success of "Alien et", someone in Hollywood pointed to Spielberg and said, "Look, that is God", but Spielberg failed to continue the miracle of "Alien et".

Simon is also aware that his limelight has been getting more and more over the past year, and he has repeatedly related to making a few slightly mediocre films so that Daenerys Pictures is not so dazzling. However, just as there is a big hole in front of him, as long as people with normal thinking are hard to convince themselves to walk over and trip over themselves, Simon's subconscious is also very resistant to the idea of ​​deliberately making several failed films.

At this time, feeling Terry Semel's eager eyes, Simon spread his hands around and said, "Terry, you also saw that I am very busy now, and I don't have time to take care of too many things at all."

"You don't have to do this at all, Simon, none of us have the energy to juggle too many things," Terry Semel said: "As long as you agree to cooperate with Warner, we can invite all the people you want, and according to It is your will to make this film."

Simon thought for a while and said, "So, Terry, what about the specific cooperation plan?"

Terry Semel saw the drama and immediately said: "We can adopt the cooperation model of 'Instinct', Warner and Daenerys each own half of the equity, Daenerys Pictures is fully responsible for the production, and Warner Bros. undertakes the distribution. "

The biggest factor in the success of "Bourne Bourne" is the crisp action style and realistic shooting techniques. It is not impossible to make it more than ten years in advance. However, Simon also knows that if he cannot supervise the whole process, Hollywood is currently No director has yet mastered this project, and it is more likely to end up with a film that is completely different.

In fact,

On the project "Rain Man", Simon was already facing this problem.

After thinking for a moment, Simon still shook his head and said, "Terry, I have a lot of ideas for "Brunette", but I don't have enough time to personally supervise the realization of these ideas now."

Of course, Terry Semel didn't know how to work around it, and quickly said: "Of course other projects are also possible, Simon."

Simon shook his head slightly and smiled, and said, "Terry, if it's other projects, I don't necessarily have to cooperate with Warner."

Terry Semel also smiled and said, "Simon, what do you want?"

"Daenerys Pictures can cooperate with Warner on a project, the "Instinct" model. As a condition, I need two copyrights in Warner's hands, "Bourne Bourne" and "Wonder Woman."

"No problem," Terry Semel said very simply: "However, Warner must also retain the investment and distribution rights of these two projects."

"It's definitely not possible," Simon also shook his head and said, "I can't always tie the company's projects to other studios. For projects like "Instinct", based on the North American box office breaking 100 million, it's probably also overseas. To get such box office results, including the subsequent omni-channel operation, is only half of the rights and interests, and the partners may get hundreds of millions of dollars in profits during the entire operation cycle. Therefore, "Bourne Bourne" and "Wonder Woman" ", this is a bargaining chip."

The two bargained for a while, but Terry Semel was ultimately unable to agree.

Simon is also not worried that Warner will start these projects on their own. Everyone in Hollywood knows that different projects are definitely two complete results in the hands of different people.

Separated from Terry Semel, after busy with the afternoon's work, Simon got off work at more than six o'clock. Instead of returning to Malibu, he rushed to Beverly Hills.

Today is Sandra's birthday, and Simon had been invited to the girl's birthday party last week. However, although Janet also knew about this, she did not intend to join Simon this time, but her small eyes fiercely told him that he must go home before twelve o'clock.

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