Corporate IPOs usually choose to set the listing date on Thursday or Friday, so that in the event of an emergency, the weekend closure can provide a buffer for the IPO company to solve the problem.

July 12, when AOL was listed, was Friday.

Of course, the IPO has been smooth sailing so far.

Even with mental preparation, the 106% share price increase throughout the day on Friday exceeded many people's expectations. The closing price of $43.25, the market capitalization of $7.46 billion, and Simon Westeros's wealth appreciation of $4.9 billion all stirred the nerves of countless people.

A company that continues to burn money and lose money obtained a price-earnings ratio of 72 times on the day of listing, and all parties are admiring and envious at the same time, they are also discussing whether this company is worth such a stock price.

In this atmosphere of discussion, in the new week, AOL stock prices inevitably began to correct.

Even so, for five consecutive trading days from July 15 to July 19, AOL's market capitalization remained at a minimum of more than $5 billion.

After paying all the investment banking, lawyers, etc., AOL finally received more than $430 million in funding.

With the success of the IPO, AOL immediately began the second phase of the free trial program.

Because it has accumulated enough fame, the discount of this free trial is no longer as big as in the first half of the year, users only have 1 hour of free trial time every day, and if they want to exceed 1 hour, they must become official users.

In addition, users of the free trial must also pay a certain deposit for installing the device, and once the trial period is over, the deposit will not be refunded until the user returns the device such as the demodulator. If you become a regular user, this part of the deposit will be directly converted into the network fee, and you can also get an additional part of the subsidy.

In addition to the second phase of the free trial plan, AOL will further increase its investment in its own infrastructure network construction, which is the most expensive project.

Therefore, the deposit measure is actually mainly a way for AOL to increase its own cash flow.

Also on July 12, the day of AOL's IPO, Daenerys and Warner Bros.'s "The Outlaw" opened in North American theaters.

Harrison Ford had already tried a similar action movie about his survival after being involved in a conspiracy three years ago, and that film was directed by Roman Polanski called "The Night of the Outlaw in Paris", but it didn't cause much response at the box office.

This time, "The End of the Outlaw", both in terms of the film's word-of-mouth and publicity efforts, far exceeds "The Night of the Outlaw in Paris".

With the completion of the story in one go, the film's comprehensive media score reached 9.1 points. The Los Angeles Times commented that the film "has a smooth and tense plot that gives people a sense of adrenaline-like tension."

Warner Bros. had previously focused most of its attention on "Batman: The Dark Knight", and "The Outlaws" was inevitably ignored to a certain extent.

However, in the first week of filming, relying on only 2,340 screens, "The Outlaw" still earned a box office of $37.61 million, with an average of more than $16,000.

The first-week box office of $37.61 million also left "Batman: The Dark Knight" and "Terminator 2" behind, and successfully won the box office champion position in the new week.

In comparison, Disney's new film "Tiger Detective", which opened at the same time, only grossed $5.27 million in the first seven days of its opening.

On July 19th, a new week in the second half of the summer season, North American theaters once again logged in two new films, namely "One Family in the Four Seas" produced by the original Universal Pictures and "The Adventures of Abi Adi 2" by Orion Pictures.

"Four Seas Family" is an old-time American gangster movie similar to "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Scarface".

"The Adventures of Abi Adi 2" is the sequel to Orion's sci-fi comedy two years ago, and the first film has grossed more than $40 million in North America, which is also a blockbuster.

In addition, this is also a comedy series in which Keanu Reeves participated.

Keanu just relied on Catherine's "Shocking Point" at the beginning of the year to transform into a tough guy actor, and gained a lot of popularity, and the silly performance in "The Adventures of Abi Adi 2" is very ruinous.

In the week from July 19 to July 25, "One Family from All Seas" only earned $8.79 million at the box office with 1,513 screens, barely exceeding $5,000 per museum.

As a key project of Orion, the start of "The Adventures of Abi Adi 2" is not bad, with 1620 opening screens, and the box office in the first week is 15.66 million US dollars, with an average of nearly 10,000 yuan, and the opening data is more than twice that of the first part.

However, the film's reputation has collapsed a bit, and it is expected that it will be difficult to get out of a long-term line.

The box office performance of the two new films is average, and the box office champion this week is still "The Outlaw", the box office fell by only 11% the next week, collecting another $33.36 million, and the cumulative box office in two weeks also reached $70.97 million.

Because Harrison Ford's salary was as high as $10 million, the production cost of "The Outlaws" eventually reached $40 million, and the publicity budget was $20 million.

With a North American box office of $70.97 million, according to the tiered sharing contract signed between Warner Bros. and the theater chain, Daenerys and Warner Bros. have recovered most of the production and publicity costs in just two weeks.

The start of more than $30 million for two consecutive weeks means that "The Outlaws" obviously has a very large box office potential.

In addition to "The Outlaw", which has an average box office in a single week, it is worth mentioning that in the week from July 19 to July 25, "Batman: The Dark Knight", which was released for the seventh week, officially exceeded $300 million at the North American box office, reaching $305.11 million.

However, the single-week box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" has also slipped to $15.11 million, behind "The Outlaw", "Terminator 2" and "The Adventures of Abi Adi 2", ranking fourth on the single-week box office list.

Based on the box office curve since the start of the film, Warner Bros. Pictures' distribution department predicts that the final North American box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" may be between $360 million and $390 million, and the 400 million mark should be hopeless.

In addition, the overseas box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" also exceeded $300 million a little earlier than in China.

Because there are still many overseas box office countries waiting to be released, Warner Bros. predicts that the expected overseas box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" will be between $500 million and $550 million, which is basically the same as the first part. The total global box office size is the same as that of "Batman: Time to War", which will be around $900 million.

"Terminator 2", which was released in the fourth week, had a single-week box office figure of $23.22 million from July 19 to July 25, ranking second on the weekly box office list, and the film's four-week box office has reached $153.3 million.

Simon found that the North American box office of "Terminator 2" is expected to exceed the figure of more than $200 million in the original time and space.

This is not surprising.

"Terminator 2" in the original time and space is produced by Hollywood outsider Carlock Films, and distributed by Columbia Pictures' Samsung label. Neither of the two companies can clearly compare with Daenerys and Fox in terms of production and publicity resources.

Of course, this time, "Terminator 2" can no longer become the North American box office champion in 1991.

On July 26, the summer of 1991, which began to end, was still two new films, namely "Few Good People" by MGM and Daenerys and "Broken Man" produced by Paramount Pictures.

The new version of "Few Good Guys" stars Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Demi Moore, and the story has been modified to become the story of a down-and-out but honest middle-aged lawyer defending two Marines accused of murder.

From the start, "Few Good Guys" was confirmed as a courtroom crime film like Harrison Ford's blockbuster "Pushing for Innocence" last year, and the film could not be distributed like a popcorn movie, and could only hope to go out of a long-term word-of-mouth line.

Fortunately, although the story has been revised, the film's media reviews are still excellent, and Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, and Demi Moore are enough to support the film's popularity.

In its first week of filming, "Few Good Guys" grossed $26.73 million on 1,902 screens, not as good as any of "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Terminator 2" and "The Outlaws," and the $13,900 show met Daenerys and MGM's expectations.

Moreover, in the first week of August, the second week of the release of "Few Good People", the box office of the film fell by only 13% in a single week, and it collected another $23.39 million. Such a box office trend has obviously ensured 100% the birth of another 100 million yuan box office club member.

Kevin Costner's new film "Robin Hood", released on August 2, once again brought a surprise to the producer, Warner Bros. Pictures.

This costume action film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures alone was placed on August 2, which shows its treatment in this summer file. However, the film grossed $39.19 million in its first week and seven days, which is better than "The Outlaws," which was released on July 12.

Subsequently, on August 9, "The Silence of the Lambs" produced by New World Pictures, a subsidiary of Daenerys Entertainment, basically announced the end of the summer of 1991.

Moreover, the comprehensive media score of "The Silence of the Lambs" is as high as 9.6 points, which also means that this is a perfect ending.

Before its release, the outside world basically didn't pay much attention to the film, which cost only $15 million and was distributed by Daenerys Entertainment's New World Pictures label.

However, many people in Hollywood circles are paying attention to this film, mainly because the heroine of the film is Sandra Bullock. This new generation of actresses, who relied on Simon Westeros's "Lola Run" to rise rapidly, has simply made most Hollywood actresses crazy with jealousy in recent years.

There are also rumors that "The Silence of the Lambs" is also a project that Westeros personally selected for Sandra Bullock, which cannot be ignored in the circle.

The accuracy of Simon Westeros' gaze has once again been demonstrated.

As soon as "The Silence of the Lambs" was released, the film's plot, performances and religious implications caused strong discussions in the media.

Robert Duvall, who has an Oscar winner and multiple Oscar nominations, is no less than Anthony Hopkins in the original, The Hollywood Reporter praised 'Robert Duvall's chilling performance enough for him to win a second Oscar', and director Jonathan Demmi and actress Sandra Bullock have also been frequently mentioned by the media.

The New York Times even predicted that "The Silence of the Lambs" could become the second horror film to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture after "The Exorcist."

Under the heated media and the marketing offensive of the New World Pictures team, "The Silence of the Lambs" earned $23.93 million in its first week of production on 1,561 screens alone, with an average of more than $15,000.

Although the start is not too impressive, with the media popularity shown by the film, no one will doubt that this film has the potential to hit the 100 million yuan mark.

With the official end of the summer file, the media suddenly discovered that a series of blockbuster films in the summer of 1991, if the box office or the expected box office is expected to exceed 100 million as the standard, there are a total of seven, in order of opening time, they are "City Hillbilly", "Batman: The Dark Knight", "Terminator 2", "The Outlaw", "Few Good People", "Robin Hood" and "The Silence of the Lambs".

Of the seven films, although Daenerys Entertainment released only "The Silence of the Lambs" alone, there are four other films related to Daenerys Entertainment, and only "City Hillbilly" and "Robin Hood" belong to Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, respectively.

With the highly gambling nature of the film industry, such a percentage of blockbusters is unprecedented.

Compared to previous years, the media and the industry are becoming more and more curious about how this situation happened, and whether Simon Westeros has the ability to turn stones into gold.

These superstitious views are naturally destined to go unanswered.

However, in a mid-August article, The Hollywood Reporter gave a relatively reasonable explanation.

Simon Westeros, or Daenerys Entertainment, has clearly drawn most of Hollywood's resources in recent years.

Take the most typical "Batman: The Dark Knight" as an example, the opening scale of more than 3,000 screens and the $80 million publicity budget for the first time are destined to squeeze the living space of other films in the film schedule, theater platform and publicity and distribution channels, and it is a very strong crowding.

Others, such as "Terminator 2", "The Outlaw" and "Few Good People", are actually the same.

Daenerys Entertainment chooses to cooperate with other studios, which seems to give up half of its benefits, but in fact, on the other hand, it occupies the resources that these studios deserve for their own films.

In addition, the 'blockbuster' films that have emerged in recent years have also departed from the previous Hollywood movies that could only try their luck.

From the beginning of the project, the blockbuster film has already had a strong box office advantage.

All in all, enough budget was invested in the production process, a sufficiently good creative team was selected, the most advanced film technology was applied, and there was a film all-rounder like Simon Westeros. The later release of the film occupies the best quality schedule in Hollywood every year and spares no effort to publicize and distribute resources, this series of movies, as long as the quality is not too bad, it is really not too difficult to sell well.

Therefore, the growing strength of Daenerys Entertainment films in Hollywood is largely not an accident.

Several other major studios are eager to cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment, except for phenomenal super-blockbuster projects like "Batman: The Dark Knight", it is difficult to say whether they have taken a big advantage or suffered a big loss.

Simon has always been worried that his unpredictable 'talent' in the film will cause unnecessary trouble, and this article in The Hollywood Reporter, although it will wake up several other major Hollywood studios, is also a result that Simon very much wants to see.