hunt hollywood

Late last year, Steve Ross had recently begun chemotherapy for a recurrence of prostate cancer he had privately battled for five years.

Simon also knew that this media tycoon, who was the same age as Rupert Murdoch and Sam Redstone, would pass away this year if nothing happened.

Ross is 65 years old.

For those who have reached the top of this social pyramid, 65 years old is actually not that old.

Murdoch and Redstone, who are similar in age, are still in control of their own media empires even after nearly 30 years.

For an ambitious person, losing to time is undoubtedly a great regret.

Rose was very happy with Simon's visit, and told his family to prepare a sumptuous lunch in advance, and invited some guests to accompany him.

After a boisterous lunch and dismissing the others, Steve Ross and Simon strolled through the estate in East Hampton.

As one of the best summer resorts for the rich in New York, East Hampton, which is still in the coldest time of the year, is not so eye-catching.Recently, it happened that there was a snowfall, covering the wild grass and dead trees, and the sight of it was white and decaying.

Putting his hands in the pockets of the windbreaker casually, and chatting about some things about the DC movie universe, Simon looked around again and said, "It's quiet enough here, but it seems a little too cold, Steve, I still suggest you go to Los Angeles, then The climate on the side is more suitable for self-cultivation."

Steve Ross also wore a chunky black trench coat and a hat.

Chemotherapy has left him with very little hair.

"I still prefer the east coast. Besides, Time Warner's headquarters is also here. You know, Simon, I can't leave recently."

Of course Simon knew.

Just two years later, the news that Rose would earn an annual salary of $1991 million through his work in 7900 once again became a hot topic of media controversy.Moreover, after last year's merger, Ross also drew up a ten-year salary agreement for himself, which will continue to be implemented even after his death.

Simon can feel that the cumulative annual salary of more than 1 million U.S. dollars for two consecutive years and the ten-year salary contract are obviously the rhythm of Rose's arrangements for his funeral.

The various disadvantages caused by the merger of Time Warner have not been completely eliminated, and Rose's huge annual salary has undoubtedly once again aroused strong dissatisfaction among other factions within Time Warner.

There are too many memories in his mind, of course Simon knows the horror of cancer.

Huge wealth can ensure that a person will not be financially burdened by cancer. However, cancer is difficult to cure after all, and the disease varies from person to person.Some people can continue to live for decades after suffering from cancer, completely no different from normal people, but some people are menacing and come to the scene of life in a blink of an eye.

In Rose's current situation, changing to a more comfortable environment will not help.

Simon and Ross don't actually have a deep friendship. However, this self-made media tycoon who eats both black and white has a strong personality and is very good at winning over and making someone feel good about him.

Clint Eastwood has only been arranging films for Warner Bros. in the past ten years, which is influenced by Ross.Spielberg even regarded Ross as his father, and "Schindler's List" in the original time and space was dedicated to Ross.

Although the number of contacts is not much, Ross also gives Simon a feeling that is very worthwhile.

The two continued to walk for a while, and Rose's wife came over and called her husband and Simon to return to the villa. Rose's current body is not suitable for staying in the cold outdoors for a long time.

Back in the warm living room, the two sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and Rose said again: "There is one more thing, Simon, I hope you can help."

Simon nodded, motioning for Rose to speak.

"It's like this. I hope that next, um, Terry and Bob can take over my current CEO position together. I have already greeted Steven and the others. Of course, if they can get your support, the two of them would like to It would definitely be easier to take over Time Warner."

The Terry and Bob Rose mentioned were Terry Semel and Robert Daly, two of Rose's most trusted aides over the years.

Terry Semel has served as the CEO of Warner Bros. Pictures in recent years, and Robert Daly is responsible for Warner Bros.'s communications business.

In Simon's memory, after Rose's death, Time Warner's CEO was indeed Terry Semel and Robert Daly.

Daenerys Entertainment is now cooperating very closely with Time Warner. In the stock issuance last year, Simon also bought 100 million shares of Time Warner. Although the proportion is very low and he has no voting rights, Simon Weiss Tello owns Time Warner, which in itself means too many things.

Therefore, Simon does now have the strength to support the heir that Ross wants to promote.

Moreover, helping Terry Semel and Robert Daly to the top will definitely help Daenerys Entertainment's follow-up cooperation with Time Warner.

At least, there will be no unexpected changes in the DC movie universe.

Since Terry Semel and Robert Daly are the co-CEOs of Time Warner in his memory, Simon certainly doesn't mind giving this favor, so he nodded seriously and said: "No problem, Steve, I will support them when the time comes. So, what about the chairman?"

Ross smiled helplessly when he heard this question.

Now Time Warner, Ross personally served as chairman and CEO position.

Pushing Terry Semel and Robert Daly into the co-CEO position is probably the limit of Ross' layout.

"The chairman will probably be Levin."

Gerald Levin, the core executive of the original Time Company system, is also an important shareholder of Time Warner.

In the original merger, Gerald Levin was one of the important promoters of the opposite of the times.

However, because of Paramount Communications' involvement, Time Inc.'s merger with Warner Bros. was actually almost reversed. Many executives of the Time Inc. system did not gain much power and benefits after the merger.The otherwise good personal relationship between Rose and Levin has also deteriorated.

Because of Rose's suppression, Levin now only has the position of vice chairman with little real power.

However, once Rose passed away, Gerald Levin would unite with the power of the original Era company system, and perhaps Warner's senior management who had long been dissatisfied with Rose. And Robert Daly has more edge.

Simon actually had some bolder ideas, such as merging the entire Time Warner.

However, this idea is just a thought.

Controlling MGM by holding shares at the margin is already the limit that the current antitrust regulations and media industry regulations in the United States can tolerate.

Even if the control of the media industry is further liberalized, with the current size of Daenerys Entertainment, it will be difficult to merge Time Warner again.

What's more, Daenerys Entertainment itself also needs competitors.

Time Warner, fits right in as such a competitor in the future.

Of course, more may just be on the surface.

Time Warner, with constant internal strife, is unlikely to want to compete with Daenerys Entertainment.

Steve Ross took the initiative to make a compromise this time, planning to give up the position of chairman to Gerald Levin, which just created some excuses for the 'confrontation' between Daenerys Entertainment and Time Warner.

Chapter 459 Shelved (Revised)

After visiting Steve Ross, things on the East Coast were over, and Simon rushed directly from Long Island to JFK International Airport to return to Los Angeles.

Back at Cape Dumei Manor, it was just past two o'clock on Saturday afternoon on the west coast.

Entering the villa, girl A Alison Norris greeted her and told Simon Janet that she was not in the villa when she was out shopping.However, Ms. Veronica Johnston just arrived this morning.

Simon came to the baby room on the first floor of the villa. Veronica was holding Melbourne and standing in front of the glass window of the baby room by the sea, and seemed to be whispering something to the little guy.

Seeing Simon, Veronica was a little surprised, she paused while holding the child, and then greeted: "You, Jenny said you might be back on Monday."

"It's over there."

Simon responded, walked to the sofa next to him and sat down, looked at Veronica who was wearing a light green knit dress that was very homey today, but said nothing.

As soon as she sat down, Miss D came in with a feeding bottle in her hand.

Seeing Simon sitting on the sofa in the room, Deborah was also a little surprised, but she quickly greeted her with a smile, handed the bottle to Veronica, and asked, "Boss, do you want something to drink?"

Simon shook his head: "Go and do your work."

Girl D nodded, as if nothing had happened, and patted her chest lightly after she walked out of the room.

always feel.

My boss stayed with his wife's aunt, and the atmosphere was really weird.

After Girl D left, Veronica hesitated for a while, took the baby to sit on the single sofa next to Simon, carefully dripped some milk on the back of her hand to test the temperature, seemed uneasy, and went to After tasting it, it was fed into the little guy's mouth.

"I came over in the morning. Well, I have some things. I happened to come to see Moore. I'll go back tomorrow."

Veronica's voice sounded beside her again, explaining as if talking to herself.

Simon hummed unobtrusively, and continued to look at Veronica who was feeding the little one.

When the little guy drank most of the bottle of milk, Veronica put the bottle aside, gently wiped the corners of the little guy's mouth, and then looked at the child in her arms, her soft gaze was a little more dazed.

After a while, Simon suddenly said: "In a few months, when the child can fly, you can take him to Australia."

Veronica looked up, as if she didn't understand what Simon was talking about.

Simon paused, and explained: "Jenny and I both have a lot of things to do, and it just so happens that you come to help take care of it for a while."

As the chief financial officer of Johnston Holdings, Veronica is anything but idle.

However, after hearing Simon's explanation, Veronica nodded without hesitation: "Okay." She said, and added in a concealed manner: "Everyone is looking forward to Little Moore's going to Australia for a while."

Janet came back more than half an hour later. After hearing Simon talk about this matter, she didn't object. She was 'sealed' by the little guy for a year, and she was looking forward to some free space.

Although, it always feels a little weird, but she is not worried at all about leaving the child in the care of her aunt, not to mention there is a big family in Australia.

If it wasn't for the fact that the child was too young, she wished that Veronica would take away a certain little annoyance tomorrow.

This year's Golden Globe Awards ceremony is on Saturday, January 1.

After the weekend, the 49th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards Ceremony is approaching.

Compared with the information in memory, the changes in this year's Golden Globe nominated films are more obvious.

In my original memory, this year's Golden Globe Awards, the winner of the best film in the drama category should be a biographical crime thriller similar to "Scarface" directed by Barry Levinson "Bugsey".

It's just that this time, Simon didn't see "Buggy" in North American theaters last year at all.

After some entanglements with Daenerys Entertainment and the failure of the last movie "Avalon" at the box office, although Daenerys Entertainment did not show any obvious targets for the original filmmakers, Hollywood still did not The studio never dared to work with Barry Levinson lightly.

Not only that, C, who should have reached the peak of influence in recent years, has completely lost the strength of the original time and space in recent years under the balance of Simon's deliberate support of the two major brokerage companies WMA and ICM.

Talent agency companies are, after all, only appendages of the Hollywood film industry.

Simon didn't pay much attention to "Bugsy", but when he looked through the list of films nominated for the Golden Globe Awards in the new week, he unexpectedly found that another very important film had also disappeared from the list of nominations.

Disney's 2D animated film, Beauty and the Beast.

In the original time and space, the 1991D animated film "Beauty and the Beast" released at the end of 2 not only accumulated a box office of more than 2 million US dollars in North American theaters, but also successfully won the Golden Globe Award for Best Film in the Musical Comedy category, and became the first Animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Now, the movie is gone.

It is easy for Simon to understand some things in Hollywood right now. He ordered a few words casually, obtained the results, combined with the information in his memory, and finally found that the matter was still related to Pixar.

The project "Beauty and the Beast" was indeed slapped down by Simon, the big butterfly.

Things have to start with the production process of 2D animation movies.

Traditional 2D animation movies are completely hand-drawn by animators one by one.

For a 2D animation film, even if it is calculated as 90 minutes long, the total length of the film is 5400 seconds, 24 frames per second, and 12 drawings are required. This is still a theoretical figure.In the actual operation process, due to the unavoidable waste of manuscripts, etc., the workload is much larger.

However, a skilled animator can only draw 10 to 20 sketches a day.

Any animator often has his own painting style. In order to ensure the unity of animation film style, it is not appropriate to have too many animators participating in a project.

Therefore, in the past, the usual production cycle of Disney's animated films can reach 4 to 7 years.

In the original time and space, Pixar launched a professional graphics computer, which completely changed the production process of traditional animation films and greatly improved the drawing and coloring speed of 2D animation films. In the early 90s, Disney was able to launch a 2D animation almost every year. Movie.

It was this graphics computer that later led to Pixar's collaboration with Disney on Toy Story, and a lot of things that followed.

This time, however, Simon bought Pixar ahead of schedule.

Pixar's graphics computer still exists, of course, but it's no longer for sale.

As a result, Disney's animation film department still maintains the old and slow hand-painted production process until now.

Because of the success of re-releases of classic 2D animated films in recent years, Disney executives have re-emphasized the animated film department.However, this emphasis cannot increase the production speed of animated films.

In the case of limited production capacity, various projects must be screened.

According to the information collected by Simon, the script of "Beauty and the Beast" was indeed proposed, but after several trade-offs, Disney retained another more well-known "Aladdin" project.

According to Disney's information, "Aladdin" will be released in this summer, which is half a year earlier than the original time and space.

However, the price of "Aladdin" being half a year ahead of schedule was that "Beauty and the Beast" was completely abandoned.

Simon knows better that not only the "Beauty and the Beast" that has become a classic, many years later, the live-action version of "Beauty and the Beast" has sold more than 12 billion US dollars worldwide, squeezing into the forefront of the historical box office list.

Under the control of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Disney has long since emerged from its decline in the early 80s.

Even if "Pretty Woman" was taken away by Simon, Disney has produced blockbuster movies such as "Good Morning Vietnam", "Three Dads and a Baby", "Supreme Detective", re-screening and videotapes of classic 2D animations in recent years The distribution has brought very rich income to Disney.

However, compared with the Disney of this period in the original time and space, the current Disney is still far behind.

One thing for sure.

If the regulation of the media industry has been liberalized in recent years, Disney will not have the strength to compete with Daenerys Entertainment for the Metropolitan ABC Group this time.

All of this, apparently because of Simon and because Daenerys Entertainment turned out to be.

In recent years, the overall scale of the Hollywood film and television industry has been increasing rapidly. However, for a period of time, the market capacity is limited after all. Simon still has the foresight advantage that other studio executives cannot match. , other studios will naturally fall into a situation where one ebbs and flows.