At this year's Sundance Film Festival, although a large group of famous filmmakers in his memory fell into Simon's sight, Simon did not have much contact with the others except for a brief chat with the Wachowski brothers at a festival-themed party after the premiere of "Trainspotting" in the evening.

Whether it's Christopher Nolan or Doug Liman, Jon Favreau and others, they are all just rookies at the moment.

The results of pulling out seedlings are often not very good.

Just like Jon Favreau, the reason why this grassroots filmmaker from the bottom of Hollywood can become one of the core creators of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that he has been in this circle for more than ten years and has accumulated a deep accumulation of long-term experience, and his sufficient experience allows Favreau to be able to work as a director, actor, screenwriter, producer, etc.

In fact, it's not just Jon Favreau, let's just say that this Sundance Film Festival, Christopher Nolan, Doug Liman and even Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are like this, climbing up from the bottom step by step, so they are familiar with all aspects of filmmaking, and their foundation is solid enough to go longer in the film industry.

The Wachowski brothers are a counter-example.

In the past, after the Wachowski brothers completed their debut novel "Amazing Flowers", their second work "The Matrix" began to become popular.

There is no denying the classicism and greatness of "The Matrix", but there is no doubt that the quality of the last two parts of the "Matrix" trilogy has declined significantly, and a large part of this is due to the fact that the Wachowski brothers' control of the project has increased significantly after the success of the first series, but the filmmaking ability of the two has not increased rapidly.

And after the "Matrix" series, the brothers directly began to eat their old books.

Daenerys Entertainment won the distribution rights of "Amazing Flowers" directed by the Wachowski brothers this time, and at the same time, it also took the opportunity to buy the script of "The Matrix" that the two had been planning for a long time.

However, Simon does not plan to start this project in the short term, and he has not thought about handing it over to others.

At the evening party, Simon personally discussed with the two about the arrangement after "Amazing Flowers". While promising the brothers that they could direct the "Matrix" franchise themselves and give them a sufficient budget, Simon's demand was that they must have at least one more low-budget film to gain experience, and he also planned to arrange for the two to join the upcoming "Alone Day" as assistant directors so that they could familiarize themselves with the production process of blockbuster films.

Two or three years after finishing another film and working on a big project. As long as there is a heart, it is enough for the brothers to accumulate more experience. In particular, the experience of participating in "Solo Day" not only allowed the two to familiarize themselves with the production process of the blockbuster, but also allowed the two to learn other people's film styles.

After that, it's a good time to start the Matrix series.

Moreover, after the end of the "Matrix" series, with a certain amount of accumulation, the Wachowski brothers may not be directly reduced to the situation of starting to eat their old books.

In addition to the Wachowski brothers, Simon also made arrangements himself.

After recognizing the short film "Ant Ridge", Goron Pictures offered Christopher Nolan the opportunity to make a feature film, Simon personally arranged for the British tentative film team to follow up, and Nolan also came up with a script change, called "Following".

This is already a typical Nolan-style interlocking suspense story.

The story tells the story of Bill, a writer who likes to stalk others for inspiration, meets a thief named Cobb, driven by curiosity, Bill begins to team up with Cobb, together to break into strangers' homes to spy on other people's privacy, in the process Bill meets and falls in love with a woman, the woman says that she is the mistress of a gang boss and wants to get out of control, but the other party has her intimate photos in her hands.

Caught in love, Bill uses Cobb's own skills to break into the gangsters.

Nothing came of it.

Bill then discovers that he has been fooled, and that the woman has led him into the old gang just to make him a scapegoat for another theft.

Realizing this, Bill voluntarily surrendered to the police.

Then it was discovered that the woman had died, and Cobb had disappeared. Instead, Bill himself became the murderer of the woman.

It turns out that all this is a game done by the gangster boss behind the scenes, because it is not the gangster boss who holds the secret of his mistress in his hands, but the fact that he just thinks. So the boss sent his subordinate Cobb to seduce his mistress, and the woman who listened to Cobb's lies set a trap with him to get the writer Bill into the house, in order to get Cobb out of a theft.

After succeeding, Cobb kills the woman, Bill becomes the scapegoat, and the big guy gets out completely.

This is the story line that Simon pulled out from Nolan's "Following" script, and Nolan, who is still a newcomer at the moment, not only sets up such an interlocking story, but also intends to use dislocation techniques such as multi-line narration and flashback interludes.

Simon still has no intention of pulling out the seedlings to help grow, and this time only gave Nolan a budget of $3 million, and also asked to revise the script.

Simon loved the interlocking story, but the multi-line narration and flashbacks were dispensed with, as they were all routines that newcomers had to use when they had limited resources to get noticed. Therefore, Simon's request is to go to those misplaced techniques without changing the suspense of the story, and finally reach the level where the audience can be surprised without playing routines.

This is actually the best way to hone a director's storytelling skills.

The other Doug Liman and Jon Favreau also got new film contracts with Daenerys Entertainment, and the budgets given are not high, but they also have considerable creative freedom.

At the end of the day, Simon returned to the hilltop villa southeast of Park City, and the time was already past ten o'clock in the evening.

There was no party tonight and the villa was still brightly lit.

The woman who stayed here last night was still there, and she didn't rest, scattered all over the villa, obviously waiting for Simon.

The living room on the east side of the villa hall is still occupied by four big goblins, chatting and watching TV, very leisurely.

Simon, who had taken off his coat and was dressed casually, came to this side, stopped Cindy Crawford and the others from getting up to say hello, looked left and right, and came to the couch occupied by Carla Bruni and Daniela Pusteva and sat down, next to a certain cannibal and shemale.

As soon as she sat down, Girl A followed in, handed Simon a document, poured coffee for the man, and left quietly.

This is the result of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony that just ended in Los Angeles.

As soon as Simon opened the document, a faint fragrance was already approaching, glanced at Carla Bruni, who was pasted over, and asked with a smile: "Isn't the focus of your career in Europe, why did you come to the United States?"

Carla Bruni staggered her right leg on her left leg at will, and her body naturally began to tilt to the left, touching Simon, and laughing: "I'm here to please Gray, otherwise it will be difficult to get a job in the future." ”

That's true.

Since taking the helm of Elite last year, Grace has been reaping the power of the brokerage giant, and many John Casablanca-era executives who are reluctant to relinquish power have been swept away, and the results have been remarkable. At the end of last year, an article in Vogue magazine called Grace the new queen of modeling agency, even higher than John Casablanca's original godfather of modeling agency.

This is also true.

Backed by the support of the Westeros system, Grace not only personally grasped most of the top clients of Elite, such as Cindy Crawford, Linda Ivan Golinsta, Claudia Schiffer, etc., but also successfully reformed the structure of Elite.

The current Elite is already a model similar to that of Hollywood's CAA.

This is also the result of Simon's personal promotion, in order to help Grace carry out structural reforms, Simon also introduced Michael Ovitz to the other party, for Simon's sake, Ovitz also spared no effort in guiding Grace, and the two companies also established some cooperative relations.

As a result, Elite at the moment, because all the client's contracts have been transferred from a single agent to the company, no matter who leaves in the future, including Grace herself, will no longer be able to take a large number of clients with him like other modeling agencies.

It seems that the power is decentralized, but in fact, as long as Grace leaves the Elite without convulsions, she is the queen of the modeling agency giant.

Because as the president, she has absolute power, including hiring or firing any agent or model under Elite, and other agents want to do so, but they need to get Grace's approval, and the new contract also makes it much more difficult for those models to change jobs.

This status is exactly the same as that of Michael Ovitz, the number one person on the Hollywood power list in the original time and space.

It's a pity that Michael Ovitz made a wrong choice, voluntarily gave up his power, wanted to go further, but stepped on nothing, had nothing, and later wanted to return to the brokerage industry, and found that even he could not shake the status of CAA, so he could only retire.

Even two years ago, Grace never thought of having everything she has now, and women know very well why they can get this, without Simon's strong support, the reform of Elite will not succeed at all, so there is no ambition like Ovitz, and she only intends to stick to the position of president of Elite and carefully help a man take care of the company.

Because of this change in Elite, the Elite European team, which was almost self-reliant in Europe, was completely in the hands of Grace.

The advent of the information age has also made this remote control very convenient.

Elite is completely integrated, and its customers want to get more jobs, and it is inevitable to have a good relationship with a certain female boss.

Simon didn't answer Carla Bruni's words, looked at the information in his hand, and said: "Actually, you should understand that this kind of professional reform of Elite is good for all of you, just like Hollywood's CAA, a large part of the reason for the significant increase in star salaries in the eighties is that the CAA has a stronger voice in front of the studio. ”

Carla Bruni rubbed her toes on Simon's calf, unconsciously leaned closer, and said, "We know, hehe, speaking of which, Simon, you are the real boss of Elite." However, many of the target customers targeted by Elite are companies under the Westeros system, aren't you worried that our salaries will rise too high?"

As the woman spoke, her arm was already on Simon's shoulder, and the heat from the words reached Simon's ears.

The other three girls in the living room were of course not reconciled when they saw Carla Bruni so blatant, and Eva Herzkova interjected, "Kara, do you think Simon cares about the little money we make?"

Daniela Pusteva followed: "Yes, speaking of which, a magazine recently said that Simon's net worth this year may reach 1 trillion US dollars, 1 trillion, it's hard to imagine." ”

The two women gaged and immediately grabbed their attention.

Cindy Crawford, who was sitting next to Carla Bruni, did not let go of this opportunity, pressed Carla Bruni to lean over in reserve, and took the initiative to bring up another topic: "Simon, is this the result of the Golden Globes, we also watched it just now, it's a pity, the Super Bat Battle was not nominated, do you say it has a play in the Oscars?"

Simon shook his head, "Maybe, but you'll find out soon." ”

Today is January 21st.

The Oscars have been officially announced, and the nominations for this year's Oscars will be announced on January 29.

Carla Bruni said at this time: "Actually, it's not bad, didn't "Sense and Sensibility" win the Best Picture Award in the drama category, this should be the most valuable award at the Golden Globe Awards, heh, I've also seen Jane Austen's this, maybe I have time to find a movie to watch." ”

At the just-concluded Golden Globe Awards, "Sense and Sensibility" directed by Ang Lee produced by Goron Pictures became one of the big winners and successfully won the Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Picture in the Drama category.

The 3D animated film "Beauty and the Beast" in the musical comedy category naturally failed.

In addition, Daenerys Entertainment's nominated films also won five awards, including Best Director and Best Actress in a Drama, and the kind with very high gold content is also a big win. Although Simon is not in Los Angeles, there should be a celebration party there now, and Ella Deutchman has specially returned to Los Angeles during the day.

Living room.

When Cindy Crawford heard Carla Bruni's words, her eyes suddenly rolled, and she said, "Simon, I see that there is also a very good screening room in the villa, and there are so many copies, why don't we go to the movies?" ”

Compared to the brightly lit living room, the villa's private screening room can do a lot of things when the lights are dim.

Therefore, when Cindy said this, several other girls agreed and encouraged them together.

Simon didn't object, hurriedly skimmed through the materials in his hand, got up and walked to the private screening room of the villa with his arms around Carla Bruni, who had been unknowingly attached to him.

However, of course, it is better to watch a movie, so I called several other girls in the villa.

Blurry Sundance Nights.

In the villa on the top of the hill in the southeast of the small city, the wind and moon are boundless.