Malibu.

It's Monday, July 10th.

In the villa on the west side of Cape Dume, in the new week, Simon woke up at six o'clock in the morning.

Last night, I talked to Janet on the phone about the cabin design of the Boeing 767 until late, when the bedroom was still littered with a lot of faxed design drawings from Melbourne.

Since he decided to buy a Boeing 767 first, Simon contacted Boeing after returning from Melbourne last time.

However, Simon then sent Boeing's sales representatives directly to Melbourne to discuss the specifics with Janet, and the only decision he made was the choice of specific models.

The latest model in the Boeing 767 family is the 767-300ER, but Simon chose the 767-200ER.

The 200ER is only slightly inferior to the 300ER in terms of fuselage length and load load, but it is on par with the 300ER in terms of cruising range, and Simon has been renting the 200ER before.

Moreover, the most critical reason why Simon chose the 200ER is that this medium-sized passenger aircraft has low requirements for take-off and landing airports, and the runway length required for take-off with a full load is only 1.7 kilometers, which can be met by most airports in the world. In comparison, the runway length required for the 300ER to take off is 2.4 kilometers, which is not supported by many airports in smaller cities. On Simon's last trip to Europe, the runways of the city's airports were less than 2 kilometers long, whether in Cannes or Florence.

Boeing's offer for the selected model is $60 million.

When Janet approached a Boeing sales representative, the first thing she did was haggle. Simon isn't the kind of big customer who orders 10 or 20 planes at once, but as a public figure, he buys Boeing's products as private jets to better brand them than those big customers.

Moreover, the purchase of private jets is indeed negotiable.

After negotiations, the transaction price between the two parties was finally determined to be 50 million US dollars, almost 20% off. Of course, this is only the price of bare metal, and the internal equipment and decoration and other aspects have to be calculated separately.

Simon has never been a stingy man in spending money, but he hates being wronged the most, and he is very pleased that his wife can save money on a top villa in this deal. After signing the contract, including the assembly and renovation time, the aircraft will probably be delivered in November at the end of the year.

Get dressed and get up, simply tidy up the surrounding artwork, and the bedroom will be tidy again.

This is actually a credit to Jennifer.

Janet wasn't in Los Angeles, Catherine had gone to New York, and Simon's villas in Malibu, Palisades, Beverly Hills, and Janet's on the east side of Cape Dume were all taken care of by Jennifer, and the female assistant took time out of the week to clean several properties, so Simon didn't have to worry about it at all.

Catherine has also been helping to keep an eye on two properties in New York recently, and Angela Arendz, president of Gucci USA, will be in charge of it in her absence.

As for Europe, after the completion of the Gucci acquisition, in order to save money, Sophia originally planned to return a Falcon 50 business jet leased by the company, and finally kept it in order to be able to travel quickly between different cities in Europe in order to help Simon take care of many properties.

Janet had warned Simon that the house could become dilapidated and weathered if left vacant for too long, but now that it is regularly and carefully maintained, Simon no longer worries about this.

Washing, fitness, showering.

Seven o'clock.

Leave the house on time.

Breakfast was at a nearby restaurant, and by the way, I also made an appointment with the head of the construction team of Cape Dumei Manor to discuss the construction progress of the 'Iron Man Villa'. Simon's attitude towards the villa was like that of the Westeros Mansion, built to the exact specifications of the art class, and he was not in a hurry, with a slow work mentality, only seeking perfection.

End breakfast and drive to Santa Monica.

Simon flipped through today's Los Angeles Times in his car and looked first at the cover index.

Skip the words 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Reverse Fall' to find a headline of the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum and head straight to the international news pages.

Today is the 11th day of the release of "The Sixth Sense", what Simon can do has already been done, and the box office in the first week has also met the best expectations in his heart, and he doesn't need to worry too much about the next things.

Comparatively speaking, the just-concluded 'U.S.-Iraq Business Forum' is something that Simon has been paying close attention to lately.

The Iran-Iraq war, which lasted for eight years, finally ended at the end of last year, and the eight-year attrition, Iraq's domestic economy, people's livelihood, and other aspects have withered to the extreme.

Saddam Hussein received the 'enthusiastic' help of many Western allies in the war with Iran, and it took only eight years for the war to last. Now, if Iraq's economy is to be revived, the assistance of these partners will certainly be needed.

The partners were indeed very enthusiastic.

Although it is the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, the oil giants of major Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France all gather in Baghdad.

During the two-week business forum, Iraq hopes to receive $40 billion in funding from its Western allies in order to revive its domestic economy.

The allies were not stingy and promised with their mouths, but they also put forward their own conditions, that Iraq needed to privatize its own country's oil resources, or most of them, so that international oil giants such as Mobil, Faithful, and Shell could better help Iraq develop its oil resources and help restore Iraq's domestic economy.

According to the exploration data of geologists from various countries in the 80s, Iraq can be said to be the world's largest undeveloped oil producing area other than the Soviet Union, and although its overall reserves are not as good as those of Saudi Arabia, it has great potential.

Seeing that the 'allies' wanted to directly hand over Iraq's oil sovereignty to themselves, and Saddam Hussein was not kicked in the head by a donkey, it was naturally impossible for him to agree.

Without oil, what is left of Iraq?

As a result, the business forum failed to reach any substantive agreement, and all that remained was a superficial amina.

Simon watched all of this coldly, knowing in his heart that this was probably the beginning of many stories for the next twenty years.

Arriving in Santa Monica, Simon rushed directly to Daenerys' special effects headquarters, where he had to discuss some final changes to the CG shots with the special effects team of "Batman" in the morning.

Jennifer is already waiting for Simon at Daenerys VFQ.

Asking the female assistant to gather more information about the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, Simon took over his work schedule for today.

The morning's work has been decided, and at noon I made an appointment with Jonathan Friedman for lunch.

In the afternoon, it starts at one o'clock.

Check the progress of Toy Story (1 hour), 1 hour to demo the video game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1 hour to hear a brief progress report from the financial audit team, half an hour to visit Wayne Huyzzanga, Chairman of Blockbuster, and 2 hours to watch a rough cut of "Angel Messenger" and discuss changes with the main creative team.

At six o'clock, the evening was still a working meal with Amy.

The schedule also lists a number of documents that Simon needs to review as soon as possible, which can only be scheduled for the evening.

Walking into the office building of Daenerys' special effects headquarters, Simon read his work schedule as he walked, and the female assistant handed over the box office data report for the past three days of the weekend.

Simon only skimmed through it and turned his mind to today's work.

Compared with Simon's bland reaction, early this morning, seeing the box office data report of the past weekend, the whole Hollywood was a little uneasy.

In three days from July 7th to July 9th, "The Sixth Sense" successfully withstood the pressure of all new and old films, and compared with the first weekend, the film not only did not fall at the box office the following weekend, but achieved a box office rebound of 6.8%, collecting another $24.73 million in three days.

Although some media judged that the weekend and full week box office ratio of "The Sixth Sense" in the second week would return to the normal range of 60% to 70%, and the weekday box office could not have the high proportion when the word-of-mouth first week was just fermented, however, the three-day data of $24.73 million in the second weekend still exceeded the best expectations of even Daenerys Entertainment's own team.

Ten days after its release, the total North American box office of "The Sixth Sense" has quickly accumulated to $66.08 million.

In comparison, "Ghostbusters 2" fell sharply at the box office the following week, and the ten-day box office figure for the same period was only $58.76 million. If "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" does not count the first two days of early opening, the box office figure for the corresponding ten days is only $67 million, although the data is better than "The Sixth Sense", but compared with the rebound of "The Sixth Sense", the box office decline of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" in the second weekend reached 27%.

After "The Sixth Sense", "Lethal Weapon 2" won the second place on the list with a three-day box office figure of $20.38 million.

The box office in the first three days of the first weekend earned 20.38 million, and if it weren't for the sudden rise of "The Sixth Sense", Warner Bros. would almost have been eager to prepare for the celebration party.

Disney's old film "Honey, I Made My Child Smaller," which was released in June, came in third this week, grossing $9.43 million and accumulating $59.24 million in two and a half weeks. Relative to the $18 million production cost, the film has been a huge success.

"Ghostbusters 2" and "Longwei Boy 3", which were ahead of "Bodyguard" last week, both saw a sharp drop at the box office this weekend, "Ghostbusters 2" fell by as much as 41% in three days last weekend, and "Longwei Boy 3" had a very weak advantage over "Bodyguard" last week, and this week's decline of 53% directly made it slide out of many people's sight.

However, entering the sixth week, "Bodyguard" also fell by 27% at the box office, collecting another $5.76 million in three days over the weekend, ranking fourth on the list. This successful romance film has reached $93.69 million at the box office in five and a half weeks, and it is about to break 100 million.

"Ghostbusters 2" came in fifth, collecting another $5.26 million, and the sequel film grossed $85.52 million in three and a half weeks.

The new film, "Boss Goes on Vacation," came in at No. 7, behind Raiders of the Lost Ark 3, with $4.5 million in its opening weekend.

In this week's box office data list, Simon's surprise is "Sex, Lies, and Videotapes", a literary film with 517 opening screens, which grossed $3.93 million in three days in the first weekend, and is expected to exceed $6 million in the first week.

In all fairness, Simon was hopeful that the film would fail. However, the $6 million box office figure in the first week means that "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" has reached the level of a best-selling movie with an average of more than 10,000 museums. Compared with commercial films, literary films are also easier to get out of a slight decline in the box office for a long time. In this way, the North American box office of "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" can at least be on par with the original, or even higher.

Combined with some media feedback from the weekend, Simon can only judge that "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" itself has certain blockbuster elements that can entice audiences to buy tickets and enter, and does not rely solely on the film's awards and accolades.

Simon wasn't too upset to get a film with a total box office potential of only $20 million or $30 million in North America, but he was not immune to it.

"Sex, Lies, and Videotape" cost a measly $1.2 million to make, and if the North American box office can reach $30 million, the box office revenue alone is enough to surpass many big-budget films that invest tens of millions of dollars.

Daenerys Entertainment was the first to express interest in the film, which is no secret in the circle. With the success of "Sex, Lies, and Videotapes", Daenerys Entertainment will still face very fierce competition if it wants to easily win some projects and scripts in the future.

In fact, Lawrence Carsdan's "Bodyguard", which has been disliked by the circle for more than ten years, was an unexpected box office hit, which is destined to the entire Hollywood to continue to focus on Daenerys Entertainment for a long time to come.

Simon is following "Sex, Lies, and Videotapes," while Hollywood is talking wildly about "The Sixth Sense."

"Why was this film so successful?"

"Whoever seems to have a similar idea. ”

"The information of the main supporting actors in the film. ”

"Can you try to sign the next film contract for the film's little lead?"

"Do you want to let Daenerys Entertainment continue to be so strong. ”

“......”

“......”

Simon worked on a regular basis, and the talk continued to spread.

Time waits for anyone.

On July 14, the box office data for the new week was released.

The industry's prediction that the box office share of "The Sixth Sense" will return to normal on weekends and throughout the week has come true.

In the seven days of the second week, "The Sixth Sense" failed to maintain the reverse decline of last weekend, and the overall box office figure fell by 9% compared to last week.

However, the box office figure of $39.26 million still makes too many people feel mixed. You must know that the second full week box office of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" was only $30.85 million, and the second-week box office of "Ghostbusters 2" was only $19.92 million.

In the second week of filming, even though some of the screen size was added last week, the box office average of $20,352 for "Ghost Sixth Sense" still exceeded the best first-week numbers of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" and "Ghostbusters 2".

Because of this strong box office performance, Daenerys Entertainment managed to secure another 379 screens from the theatrical side this week, expanding the total number of screens released in "The Sixth Sense" to 2,308.

In addition, the number of new films released in the new week has also been reduced to two, namely "007: Murder License" by Luen Mei Company and Disney's re-release of the classic animation "Peter Pan".

It's just that although the sequel to the classic spy war series with a big production like "007's Murder License" was released this week, "The Sixth Sense" is so imposing, and the 007 series, which has been going downhill all these years, is destined to pose much of a threat to it.

As for re-release animations like "Peter Pan", it is obviously even less of a concern.