At more than five o'clock in the afternoon, the audition for the actor in "Ten Days of Danger" ended.

There were only three candidates in this final round of small-scale auditions, and the last one to participate in the audition was Don Johnson, the husband of Melanie Griffith.

Simon didn't think that Don Johnson, who had a tough-guy style, would be able to play a writer's role well, but at the request of some connections in the Griffith family, and watching Don Johnson's carefully prepared audition tape, he changed his opinion.

Moreover, Don Johnson is the same age as Susan Sarandon, and an alternative CP effect can also be formed between the two.

Discussing the perception of the role, performing the script fragments, and finally the heroine Susan Sarandon personally came to the scene, this audition took an hour and a half, Don Johnson's actor was basically finalized, and then only the producer and Johnson's agent discussed the details such as salary.

It's past the end of work, and everyone leaves the audition room laughing.

Saying goodbye to each other and waiting for most of the others to leave, Don Johnson said to Simon: "One more thing, Simon, May and I are planning to hold a baptism ceremony for Dakota on the 16th of next month, I don't know if you are free to attend, the name of the little one was chosen by you." ”

A few months ago, at the box office success celebration of "Lethal Weapon 2", Simon casually chose the name of the 'original' Dakota Johnson for the Johnsons' soon-to-be-born daughter out of amusement, and he almost forgot about it later. The child was born in October, but the Johnsons really used the name and spread the news that Simon had chosen the name himself.

A newborn girl has attracted a lot of media attention, and after Vanity Fair magazine offered a hefty price, a photo of Johnson's family of three finally appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in November.

"On the 16th of next month," Simon thought for a moment and said, "Don, I'm not sure if I'll be in Los Angeles then, and if I do, I'll definitely be there." ”

"Batman" will be released on December 22, and Warner Bros. has confirmed that the Los Angeles premiere will be on December 20, and Simon doesn't plan to get too involved in specific publicity matters, so it is likely that he will not be back until December 20.

Don Johnson didn't know Simon's arrangement, and when he promised to be there as long as he was in Los Angeles, he happily stretched out his hand and said, "Then it's decided." ”

Simon and Don Johnson shook hands and smiled, "Of course." ”

The main creator of "Ten Days of Danger" is basically finalized, and only "Pink Alliance" is left among the 10 films planned to be released next year.

Now that the CAA ban has been lifted, the crew has also officially sent an invitation to Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks has been firmly in the ranks of first-line male stars after "Flying Over the Future", however, he has not yet shown the strong box office appeal of many veteran male stars, so the salary offer he gave was also a decent $5 million, and Simon did not bargain.

Sony, which had just won over Columbia Pictures, was in the stage of going on a big spree, but Simon limited the budget of "Pink League" to $25 million.

Tom Hanks took $5 million, Gina Davis was paid $2 million, and the original director Penny Marshall was also promoted to the first line after working with Hanks in "Flying Over the Future", and the director's salary was also $5 million, and after ensuring the $10 million shooting fee, there was not much left for the salary reserved for other supporting actors. Madonna, who played soy sauce in the original version, will definitely not be invited again, and many supporting roles can only get a low weekly salary.

However, with the project led by Simon himself, Hollywood will definitely not lack actors even if it is upside down, so the tight budget will not affect the quality of actors.

In addition to the official start of production, Simon has also been looking for the remaining list of 10 films in the project.

The next day is Thursday, November 16.

"Flying Over Innocence" will be officially released tomorrow, and the premiere of the film will be held in the evening at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

The lively premiere began at 5 p.m., and Simon attended alone, stopping on the red carpet for a short time to take photos before heading straight inside the theater.

At 8 o'clock, the premiere ended, and most of the invited guests went to a nearby hotel for an after-party.

Simon was planning to leave early, but was stopped by Terry Semel.

In the banquet hall of the hotel, after some entertainment, Semel and Simon came to a corner together: "That's it, Simon, next month's "Time" magazine of the year, Time Company has confirmed it." ”

Seeing Semel's congratulatory expression, Simon still didn't understand and said, "Me?"

"Of course, who else but you have this qualification?" Terry Semel laughed: "Speaking of which, you already have this qualification in the first two years, so you can arrange to shoot a set of cover photos recently, and of course, you can't shirk this interview." ”

Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Simon sighed inwardly, he certainly knew what that meant.

As a weekly magazine with great influence in the world, the cover character of each issue has attracted much attention. Some people even falsify their fake covers for Time magazine in order to gain fame. Time magazine's Person of the Year is the top priority of Time Magazine's annual cover character.

Therefore, the cover of such a magazine is definitely not so good.

In fact, some media were already predicting that Simon would become Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1988, but in the end, Time would rather give the place to the 'endangered earth' than fall on Simon. In the face of doubts from the outside world, Time magazine explained that Simon was too young to meet the criteria to be the man of the year.

This year it suddenly reached the 'standard'.

This is certainly not accidental, in fact, it is a matter of course.

If you think about it a little, you can understand that this is the result of Warner's strength, and Times and Warner Bros. have gotten rid of Paramount's entanglement and have officially reached a merger and acquisition agreement.

Simon became the richest man in the Federation at the age of 21 this year, with sufficient qualifications, and in order to be able to build momentum for "Batman" to be released next month, this year's "Time" Magazine Person of the Year is naturally unlikely to fall on anyone else.

After all, there has never been a media in this world that can really maintain absolute impartiality and neutrality, and since Time magazine is already under the command of Warner in the new era, it is natural to favor the interests of the company.

Simon clearly remembers that after the release of "Wonder Woman" in the original time and space, as the treasure in the palm of Warner Bros., all the main creators of the "Wonder Woman" project have been "carefully cared for" by Time Warner's media, and Patty Jenkins, the director of "Wonder Woman" who has no qualifications at all, was nominated for the "Time Magazine" Person of the Year that year, on the grounds that it is far-fetched and outrageous that "Patty Jenkins redefines how the world should view women".

Thinking so, Simon didn't refuse, but said, "But, Terry, I'm going to Europe this weekend." ”

"It's not a problem, as long as you cooperate, they will send someone to Europe to take pictures and give you an interview, and the time will be about the end of the month. ”

"Let them contact my assistant when the time comes. Simon nodded, he had received too much attention in recent years, but he didn't get too excited, and changed the subject: "It's really ruthless for you to claim $1 billion from Sony for Cooper Peters Productions." ”

Sony has confirmed that it will put Peter Cooper and Jon Peters, two veteran Hollywood producers, at the helm of Columbia Pictures, for which not only did it offer high pay terms, but also bought their production company for $200 million in cash. However, Cooper Peters Productions was originally affiliated with Warner Bros. Pictures, and as soon as Sony completed the acquisition of this production company, Warner filed a lawsuit against Sony, claiming $1 billion for Cooper Peters Productions' breach of contract.

Terry Semel heard Simon mention this and laughed, "You know Steve, he doesn't like Japanese people reaching into Hollywood, this is our territory." ”

Simon knew that Warner finally knocked out $600 million from the Japanese and became Sony's first 'tuition' in Hollywood, and admired Steve Ross's methods, but also secretly reminded himself not to make similar mistakes.

After the premiere, the next day, "Flying Over Innocence" officially opened on a large scale in North America with 2,206 screens.

"Back to the Future 2," the sequel to Universal Pictures' 1985 box office champion Back to the Future, is scheduled for Wednesday, November 22.

In order to avoid the edge of "Back to the Future 2", a total of 6 new films were released on November 17, among which Daenerys and Warner Bros. collaborated on "Flying Over Innocence", Paramount's "Harlem Nightclub" and Orion Pictures' "Phantom Sea Innocence" were released on nearly 2,000 screens.

Daenerys and Warner Bros. Flyby Innocence is certainly not to be underestimated, but other studios seem to think that Flyby Innocence is a bit easier to deal with.

As for next week, in addition to the release of the Gucci fashion documentary officially named "The Mark of Gucci" by Daenerys Entertainment's Gaomen Pictures, "Back to the Future 2" can be said to dominate the Thanksgiving Week schedule.

Ira Deutchman was also puzzled by Simon's decision to stick to "The Mark of Gucci" against "Back to the Future 2", but Simon didn't explain much to him.

In memory, compared with the annual box office champion data of the first domestic box office of more than 200 million US dollars, the box office of the sequel to "Back to the Future 2" has directly shrunk by half, compared to the various resources invested by Universal for this film, although the box office of "Back to the Future 2" still exceeded 100 million, it is far from meeting the producer's expectations, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a failure.

"Back to the Future 2" is not as strong as the outside world thinks, and "The Mark of Gucci" will naturally not be too impacted.

On the other hand, because a lot of preparation had been done in advance, with Simon's permission, Nancy held another meeting on Friday about the acquisition of EA, and James Raybould flew in from the East Coast this time to participate.

Simon's money from both the Japanese and U.S. markets is still overseas, and Nancy plans to make official contact with EA this weekend, and it is likely that the money will not be needed. However, after the summary of all aspects of income in the second half of the year, Daenerys Entertainment will not have too much of a problem to win EA within the budget of $350 million, even if it does not rely on the funds in the hands of Cersei Capital.

After the meeting about the acquisition of EA, Simon sent the others away and formally discussed the plan to acquire MCA with Amy and James.

After brokering the deal between Sony and Colombia, Michael Ovitz should already be pushing Panasonic to buy Universal parent MCA, but the deal will be as close as Sony's acquisition of Colombia. Simon had plenty of opportunities to cut his beard.

Simon's plan to acquire MCA had previously only been revealed slightly to the female assistant, and both Amy and James were very surprised, followed by excitement.

If it can win the MCA, Daenerys Entertainment will become the largest studio in Hollywood, and the company's previous shortcomings in records, television, content accumulation and theme parks will also be immediately remedied.

Of course, this is not without its problems.

MCA's market capitalization is now close to $4 billion, and both Amy and James believe that Daenerys Entertainment may have $8 billion in funds to prepare if it wants to take over the company.

It's no secret that MCA chairman Lou Vasalman made an $8 billion offer to Sony last year.

Knowing how North America will be in the coming year, Simon is more optimistic than Amy and James, knowing that it won't take that much money to complete the acquisition. However, even if it were to reach $8 billion, that figure would not be too much of a problem for Simon.

The operation of the US junk bond market ended a few years ago, and the capital volume of Cersei Capital was enough to reach $8 billion. Then, the volatility in oil prices caused by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War was enough for Simon to continue to make a lot of money.

Entering the nineties, the prices of the big Hollywood studios will only get higher and higher, and the sooner you win Universal, the better it will be for Daenerys Entertainment.

Of course, this cannot be done overnight.

Simon just told Amy and James about his plans this time, so that they could start some relevant preparations now. Compared with EA, which has a market value of less than $200 million, if you want to win a company like MCA, which is already a giant in this era, it will be at least next year to officially make a move.

At the same time, Simon did not plan to take a hostile takeover this time, so he did not let James start buying MCA shares in advance. Although this can save some money in future acquisitions, it can easily be misunderstood by MCA management, making Lou Vasalman and others think that Simon is going to launch a hostile takeover.

Saving $100 million or two to trigger hostility among MCA management is more than worth the cost of a multibillion-dollar business.

Janet would arrive in Los Angeles around 2 p.m., end the meeting with the two, and after everyone had lunch together, Simon rushed to Los Angeles International Airport to pick up people. ()

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