At the end of the morning's work, Simon dined at noon with Amy Pascal, Mark Belford and other senior executives in the management restaurant.

The conversation at the dinner table was about Disney's recent turmoil.

Things still have to start with Robert Redford's "Behind the Scenes" directed last year, Simon used a small trick to deliberately push the project to Disney, and the film ended up costing $40 million, but the final result was unsatisfactory. As a result, Disney not only gave up the high-quality schedule at the end of last year, but also almost lost it to the schedule cemetery in January and February of the new year.

Finally, under Redford's insistence, "Behind the Scenes" was released at the same time as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3" on April 1.

It's a pity that compared to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3" and the subsequent blockbuster "Detective Plane Head", the first week box office of "Behind the Scenes" was only $6.19 million.

Not only that, but due to the impact of the two blockbuster films in the same period, when it was hastily drawn four weeks after its release, the total box office of "Behind the Scenes" in North America was only $16.35 million, and the box office share only barely offset Disney's publicity costs, considering the dismal prospects for overseas and peripheral distribution caused by the failure of the domestic box office, "Behind the Scenes Lies" will bring Disney a net loss of at least $30 million.

The failure of "Behind the Scenes" is a microcosm of Disney's increasingly dismal situation in the past two years, and it has also become a trigger for the outbreak of internal contradictions in the management of the old film studio.

From 1984 to the present, Michael Eisner, who was also a subordinate of Barry Diller, and Jeffrey Katzenberg have worked closely together in the early days, through the high-concept film model inherited from Barry Diller and the exploration of the commercial potential of Disney's classic animation, Disney is thriving in the second half of the 80s, once launched "Three Dads and a Baby", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and "Supreme Detective" and other top 10 grossing films on the annual list, re-screenings of Disney's classic animated films and the release of videotapes have repeatedly brought huge profits to Disney.

Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, one is the CEO of Disney and the other is the head of several Disney-owned studios, because of differences in corporate management and personal compensation, the two have unwittingly accumulated deep contradictions.

For example, in 1988, after Disney experienced a bumper prospect, Michael Eisner received a prize of $6.8 million, however, due to the special accounting rules of studios under major studios to deliberately create losses in order to avoid taxes, Jeffrey Katzenberg's bonus figure was a pitiful 'zero', and the conflict between the two sides has been made public once.

According to the original agreement, in 1994, that is, this year, the contract of Disney's second-in-command, the current president Frank Wells, expired, and Katzenberg would become the successor of Disney's president. However, Michael Eisner did not intend to let Katzenberg take over as president, but recently quietly discussed with Michael Ovitz, the president of CAA, who is also his neighbor and friend, about joining Disney.

The Hollywood circle is very small, and the news spreads unexpectedly, and Katzenberg directly confronts Eisner.

happened to encounter the box office failure of "Behind the Scenes", Michael Eisner did not hesitate to put "Behind the Scenes Lies" and Disney's film performance in the past two years on Jeffrey Katzenberg's head, and the result was that the executive who had worked for Disney for ten years angrily announced his departure.

In the past, the conflict between Eisner and Katzenberg also broke out this year, but the trigger was the accidental death of Frank Wells in a helicopter crash while out skiing during Easter in 1994. At that time, Disney's situation was far better than this time and space, but Eisner still did not want Katzenberg to take over as president, which eventually led to Katzenberg's departure, Disney lost Katzenberg, and the film business declined in the second half of the nineties, which eventually led to Michael Eisner's forced resignation.

Now, because of Simon's big butterfly, Frank Wells has not suffered a helicopter accident, but the Disney president's contract will still expire in August this year, and Wells is 62 years old this year, and has no intention of renewing the contract, planning to retire early to enjoy life, Disney still needs to choose a new president of the company.

And then there were the recent changes.

Disney's management turmoil is largely due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment.

The current Daenerys Entertainment is similar to Disney twenty years later in Simon's memory, when Dibao shared half of the share in the top ten annual box office lists in North America almost every year through several trump cards such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney animation, live-action adaptation of fairy tales, and Star Wars series, and suppressed other big Hollywood studios to the point of no arrogance.

Relying on his prophetic advantage, Simon has already done this now, and, when carefully compared, Daenerys Entertainment is now stronger than Disney in the heyday of Simon's memory. As a result of this strong force, the living space of several other major Hollywood studios and second- and third-tier film companies has been continuously compressed, and a series of domino effects have been triggered.

In the early 90s, Disney relied on blockbuster animations such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King" and blockbuster films such as "Pretty Woman" and "Supreme Detective", which was in the limelight in Hollywood.

Because of Simon's appearance, many of the blockbuster projects that originally belonged to Disney were acquired by Daenerys Entertainment, and the commercial performance of other films developed by Disney was not good, which led to the rapid rise of Disney in the late eighties in the last two years.

In the whole of Hollywood, it is obviously not just Disney who has suffered equally.

The seven giants of Hollywood at this stage, which can be described as vibrant at this time, one is Daenerys Entertainment, the other is Time Warner Group, even MGM, which is personally supported by Simon, is still in the stage of recovery, as for Disney, Paramount, Columbia, and Fox, the remaining four, in recent years, they have found that the Hollywood film market has recovered rapidly, but business is becoming more and more difficult.

As for Miramax and New Line, which should have shone in recent years, they have completely disappeared from the field of vision of Hollywood circles.

Several old Hollywood brands have existed for more than half a century, and it is very difficult to completely extinguish them.

Simon's short-term goal is to knock Disney into the actual second-tier film company, and Hollywood only needs Daenerys and Time Warner to stand side by side for the time being.

Tolerating Time Warner side by side with itself is due to the DC Cinematic Universe on the one hand, and antitrust considerations on the other hand, after all, if there is a pattern of one superpower and many strong in Hollywood, then several other companies will only point all the fingers at Daenerys Entertainment. Now, with one more Time Warner, it can also share some of the firepower.

However, this is only temporary.

Simon's ultimate goal is still the three-legged tripod that he once considered, two of which are still Daenerys and Time Warner, and the last one is either MGM personally supported by Simon, or Blockbuster Entertainment, which has quietly planted the seeds, and the remaining other big ones will really become the second line that cannot be turned over at all, or even disappear completely.

In the management cafeteria of Daenerys Studios.

Simon's thoughts were interrupted by Nancy Brill's question: "Boss, do you think Michael Owitz will choose to join Disney?"

Simon nodded: "I think it will, but it may not be good news for Disney." ”

Everyone saw that Robert Iger, who came to the West Coast yesterday, said: "Eisner and Ovitz are very good friends, and I think the two should work together seamlessly." ”

Simon shrugged and said, "Friendships between individuals are easy to maintain without directly exploiting conflict. The key question is that Eisner and Ovitz are both strong personalities who are used to being the number one, and Eisner can't even tolerate Katzenberg, who is not actually that strong, how can he allow Ovitz to enter Disney and share his power?"

Amy asked, "In that case, why would Eisner ask Ovitz to join Disney?"

Simon said: "It's very simple, he needs a strong enough excuse to squeeze Katzenberg out of Disney, and if he is promoted from within Disney, it will be difficult for everyone else to convince except for Katzenberg." Ovitz's creation of the CAA, the implementation of the program packaging mechanism, and the presence of a large number of Hollywood's top stars as back-up fans could be reasons for Eisner's convincing board. ”

Amy asked, "And then?"

Simon replied, "Then Eisner should find that in order to secure his power, he has to find a way to get his former best friend out of the company." ”

Nancy suddenly glanced at a few people around her, and said, "I just said, our boss is a very distrustful guy who always thinks of the worst in the worst." ”

Simon looked at his little child executive, "Why don't we make a bet?"

Not to be outdone: "What about the stakes?"

Simon smiled: "I happened to buy a batch of Mi-24 helicopters some time ago, if Ovitz didn't turn against Eisner after joining Disney, I'll give you one." ”

Nancy didn't feel that she shouldn't mess with the murderous weapon of tens of thousands of African soldiers who had been sweeping up tens of thousands of African soldiers in Rwanda not long ago, and nodded: "Okay, I lost, please have a meal." ”

Simon suddenly had a look of dissatisfaction that you could even express with such insincere conditions.

Everyone laughed.

Nancy did not show weakness in front of her boss, and said: "Your bet is your own bet, of course my conditions must be opened by myself, and you didn't say that the bets between the two of us must be equal." ”

Simon raised his hand depressedly, indicating that he had admitted it.

In fact, when it comes to Disney's infighting, everyone just thought of Daenerys Entertainment itself, but they soon understood it.

With Simon, a strong boss, Daenerys Entertainment does not have the soil of high-level infighting, Simon has been promoting the collaboration within Daenerys Entertainment over the years, and at the same time unknowingly turning Daenerys Entertainment into a relatively independent flat corporate structure of various departments.

Everyone has their own hills, and most of them are directly responsible to Simon, the boss, and there is no strong conflict of interest between them, so there is no soil for infighting.

After all, once there are signs of internal friction, Simon's strength will definitely quickly extinguish the dispute in the cradle. The young boss seems to have a big eye on everyone, but that's not the case in his bones, and he won't hesitate to do so if an executive needs to leave to ensure the internal stability of Daenerys Entertainment.

Daenerys Entertainment's flat corporate structure also brings some concerns, the most important point is that without a strong boss like Simon, it will be difficult to have a second leader with enough power and authority to firmly hold the huge Daenerys Entertainment together.

However, Simon is only 26 years old this year, and compared to some veteran businessmen in their fifties and sixties who are close to retirement to build a conglomerate, the last thing he lacks is time, so he has enough experience to deal with many things.

In response to Simon and Nancy's bet jokes, Amy said another thing: "David Geffen has been trying to unite a few of his good friends in recent years to form a new big studio, and Jeffrey is also one of his lobbying targets, as well as Steven, so the establishment of this big studio should be a certainty." ”

In the past, Hollywood billionaire David Geffen teamed up with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg to establish DreamWorks, which was in the limelight in Hollywood for a while. And in the late nineties, a large number of blockbuster films were produced continuously.

It's a pity that because the foundation is not solid, but the studio's lack of perfect film distribution channels DreamWorks is not good, and most of the profits of many blockbuster films are either siphoned off by the big studios responsible for distribution, or they are divided by Steven Spielberg, the main creators, leaving the investors who originally invested heavily in this 'big film company' just a mess that keeps losing money.

Although the rise of Daenerys Entertainment is relatively short compared to the traditional Hollywood productions, every step has been steady and steady from the initial small workshop to the acquisition of New World Entertainment to improve its own production and distribution team, and finally the acquisition of MCA to completely promote one of the seven major Hollywood productions.

David Geffen's Dream Factory is equivalent to building a large castle on the beach without even laying the foundation, which seems to be powerful on the outside, but vulnerable in the bones.

Simon didn't plan to get involved in this, feeling the emotion in Amy's tone, he said, "We don't need to pay attention to this, just do our job." ”

Amy said, "Simon, I mean, maybe MGM can work with this new studio. ”

Simon shook his head and smiled again, "Even if we want, do you think Steven will agree to work with us?"

For the "Jurassic Park" series, although everyone is happy to get together and disperse on the surface, in fact, the whole Hollywood knows that Steven Spielberg was directly fired by Daenerys Entertainment, as the pride of Hollywood who has been praised by stars since the seventies, it is strange that Spielberg Ken continues to cooperate with the Westeros system.

Moreover, even if the other party agrees, Simon will not agree.

Simon's approach to MGM is also steady, rebuilding his team by making and distributing the film himself. If a cooperation is reached with the studios of Spielberg and others, MGM can only reduce production to adapt to each other, and the end result is that the studios of Spielberg and others may eventually become a mess, and MGM will still be lame in both "production" and "distribution".