Santa Monica.

In a screening room at Daenerys Entertainment headquarters, when another "Batman" demo was played on the screen, the assistant stepped forward to whisper a reminder, and Terry Semel realized that it was five o'clock in the afternoon.

Recalling the previous more than three hours of watching the movie, Semel's heart was filled with a strong shock.

Today is Friday, May 5th.

Simon was in an unexpected coma in February, and Semel flew to Australia to visit as Warners' representative, but because of the special circumstances at the time, he couldn't find time to watch the footage of "Batman", and today is the first time he has seen the dailies.

Because the post-editing and other work of "Batman" were synchronized with the shooting, Simon returned to Los Angeles in just a week to roughly complete the first version of the six-and-a-half-hour rough cut sample of the film.

Terry Semel arrived in the afternoon, intending to spend an hour roughly looking at the dailies, but ended up in the room all afternoon, not even knowing when Simon, who had been watching the dailies with him, had left.

Even though it's time to get off work, Terry Semel still has the urge to finish watching all of the remaining three hours of dailies.

How can a movie be made like this?!

It was a thought that Semmel repeated countless times as he watched the dailies.

In the preparation of "Batman", Semel expressed concern when he heard that Simon would use live-action shooting as much as possible.

Live-action shooting can indeed increase the audience's sense of substitution, but at the same time, it is easy to make the whole movie mediocre. Because in essence, "Batman" should be a science fiction movie, and it is soft science fiction, and this type of film should pursue a sense of surreality.

is too close to reality, and the creator fails to fill the film with enough exciting superhero elements, and as a result, it will easily make the audience have a psychological gap of 'this is not the superhero world they imagined'.

Once so, the film is doomed.

Therefore, in Warner's many fruitless preparations over the years, directors who are interested in taking over the "Batman" project basically tend to shoot on set and create a Gotham City in the studio.

Now, Terry Semel has completely lost his original worries.

It's just that most of the dailies haven't been carefully graded before they have been carefully graded to show the same level of stunning shots as "Lola Run", which makes Terry Semel confirm this. Simon's original "Lola Run" has become a teaching sample film for many film schools, but in Semel's opinion, many of the shots in the "Batman" dailie are even better than "Lola Run".

Through the exquisite use of lighting, color, composition and other elements, Simon captures the real city street scenes like oil paintings painted by top artists, and some of the pictures are even enough to be printed and hung on the wall as works of art.

Moreover, the overall cold and rich dark tone style is enough to visually give the audience a kind of surrealist psychological suggestion, making people feel that this is not only their own city, but at the same time Gotham City in the comics.

Of course, if it's just the stunning style of the shot, it won't make Semel feel shocked.

Although the young man's mastery of the technical details of the film has reached the Oscar level, it is not impossible for other films to imitate it, as long as they are willing to spend money to invite a group of master behind-the-scenes teams.

What really struck Semel was the content, especially the action scenes in the dailies.

Hollywood's traditional action movies, the more high-end ones are Bruce Lee's kung fu back then, and the performance of action stars with deep skills such as Shange Winton on the screen is also remarkable, but most of them are still ordinary fists and feet that lack beauty in your back and forth. Because of the lack of highlights, the most popular thing in Hollywood in recent years is the gunfight action movies of Stallone and others, where the topless muscular man carries a machine gun and ignores the enemy's bullet rain all the way.

Terry Semel has actually seen some oriental kung fu movies, but he also feels that the action design of those films is too complex and lacks practicality.

Simon's action design in "Batman" made Semel feel strongly that he seemed to have seen the future of Hollywood action movies.

Fighting, there are no old-fashioned street drunk fights, Batman's fist-to-flesh but by no means simple sense of strength makes people's blood boil, and Catwoman's lightness and extreme display of women's physical advantages are also blood-pumping.

Chasing cars, there is no impact and explosion for no reason, but the vehicle that shatters and rolls over in front of the big screen is more shocking than directly blowing up a bunch of cars.

The shootout, the brainless rush without the rain of bullets, the thrilling duel between the death shooter and Batman, and the oppressive feeling of the CG synthetic bullet in slow motion made Semel hold his breath. It turns out that a bullet can also be the protagonist of a shot at a certain moment.

In addition to these mainstream action scenes, details such as Batman's wingsuit flight, the use of props such as the Batmang, and Catwoman's use of gymnastics skills to leap between the rooftops of the city are enough to become a textbook for future Hollywood commercial films.

Terry Semel can't wait to see the final result of the film, and Simon has done a perfect job with these details, and as Hollywood's best screenwriter, Semel doesn't think the plot of the film will be inferior to these details.

Even, Semel had a vague feeling in his mind that this groundbreaking superhero action movie was also going to achieve a groundbreaking box office figure.

However, this feeling is not good.

Remembering that DC had sold both Batman and Wonder Woman to Daenerys Entertainment, and Warner did not raise any objections to the transfer of Superman's copyright, Semel felt a strong sense of remorse. He is now very adamant that Warner must have made a series of irreparable mistakes with the rights to these three superheroes.

After all, although there is a time limit on those licensing contracts, in reality, if the stakes are too great, the copyright owner will not be able to let go anyway.

Just like the original copyright of "Superman", although "Superman 4" failed at the box office, as far as Semel knows, Simon still spent $6 million to buy back the copyright of "Superman" from the Sarkinde family with only a 5-year period.

Moreover, although DC's original contract with British producer Alexander Sarkinder was due to expire in 1992. However, according to the automatic renewal clause in the agreement, as long as the copyright of "Superman" is not put on hold for a long time, after 1992, if Sarkinde is still interested in making a sequel, the license period will be automatically extended.

Now, the power of these terms is in the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.

Obviously, as long as Daenerys Entertainment refuses to let go, Warner will not be able to get back the film and television rights of "Superman" anyway, and the same is true for the copyrights of "Batman" and "Wonder Woman".

What a mistake.

After a few minutes of sitting in the screening room, Semel stood up and walked to the door, asking the assistant next to him, "Is Simon still in the company?"

The assistant followed Semel out and replied, "Mr. Westeros left the company at three o'clock to go to the film crew of "Pretty Woman." ”

Terry Semel was a little puzzled: "Pretty Woman?"

The assistant explained: "Daenerys Entertainment just started filming a project this week, a romance film. Some time ago, the competition for the leading actor in the film was very fierce, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin, Daniel Day Lewis and other male stars all tried to fight for this script, but the role finally fell on a second-tier British actor, who is said to have been decided by Westeros himself, named Pierce Brosnan. The heroine is Julia Roberts in "Steel Magnolia", which seems to have been predetermined a long time ago. ”

As Steve Rose's right-hand man, Terry Semel has been busy in recent months in negotiations between Time and Warner Bros., ignoring a lot of news from the Hollywood side.

Looking back, he couldn't find out Pierce Brosnan's information, Semel instructed his assistant to sort out a resume for himself, and he was a little surprised, but he didn't expect Harrison Ford to start fighting for Daenerys Entertainment projects, and he couldn't negotiate it.

When I think about it, I feel relieved.

The two major series "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", which began in the late 70s, allowed Harrison Ford to continue to maintain the status of one of the few super-A-list male stars in Hollywood.

However, the release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" at the end of the month means that the two aces that Harrison Ford relies on will fall into silence for a long time. Ford's films outside of "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" have not been outstanding at the box office in recent years, and if he wants to maintain his coffee position after the hibernation of the two series, he must actively pursue some projects that are easy to sell.

Terry Semel left the screening room with his assistant, and Simon didn't come back from the "Pretty Woman" crew, but asked the staff to hand over an invitation to tonight's cocktail party.

Back in Los Angeles, Simon just had a short weekend of grooming before getting back to work.

The first thing to deal with is "The Bodyguard" and "The Sixth Sense".

The post-production of both films was almost completed, and Simon did not completely let go of his attention to these two projects when he was in Melbourne, and the final results met Simon's expectations. During this week, Simon personally adjusted some details of the two films, and the company will officially send them to the MPAA for rating next week.

The first TV trailer for "The Bodyguard" starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston has officially aired, with a schedule of June 2 and 2021 screens.

"The Sixth Sense", which is scheduled to be released on June 30, has also begun to release promotional materials, but the final stage of the publicity strategy has not yet been finalized.

Simon demanded strict secrecy about the plot of "The Sixth Sense" during the production of the film.

Up to now, in addition to a few core creators of the crew, many supporting characters don't even know the full plot of "The Sixth Sense". However, after the completion of "The Sixth Sense", Amy and Rem and other high-level executives generally felt that except for the final plot reversal, the film as a whole seemed very ordinary, and there were basically no bright spots.

If it weren't for the screenwriter of the film signed by Simon himself, and Robert De Niro in the role, the company would have no other choice, and Amy would even propose to Simon to adjust the schedule of "The Sixth Sense".

According to Amy, the sample of John Hughes's "Uncle Buck" worked well, but the film would not be completed until mid-June, so the company had to schedule it for a summer schedule like August 11.

In addition, John Hughes's second film this year, "Crazy Christmas Holiday", is also in the filming stage, which started filming after the completion of "Uncle Buck", produced by Warner Bros., and is scheduled to be released on Christmas slots.

Simon originally worked with John Hughes on "Uncle Buck" for "Home Alone" and retained a pre-emptive agreement for Hughes's script.

The script for "Crazy Christmas Holidays" was first sent to Daenerys Entertainment, and Simon naturally chose to give up.

However, halfway through the later stages of "Uncle Buck", John Hughes's "Home Alone" script inspired by "Uncle Buck" in the original time and space does not even have a shadow, and Macaulay Culkin does not appear in "Uncle Buck".

Simon plans to wait until the end of the year, and if John Hughes still hasn't come up with the script for Home Alone, he will have to 'reluctantly' himself.

In the afternoon, after watching samples with Semel at the company's headquarters for a while, Simon rushed to the crew of "Pretty Woman" and stayed until the end of work.

Except for the actor who did not use Richard Gere, "Pretty Woman" is basically the original cast.

The reason for giving up Richard Gere is similar to Simon's previous disregard for Sharon Stone in "Instinct", as for Pierce Brosnan, although he left the deepest impression on the audience in the original time and space is James Bond, but Brosnan's tall and handsome appearance and British gentlemanly demeanor are completely suitable for Edward Lewis, a personable wealthy Wall Street businessman.

The evening cocktail party was held in that mansion in Palisad.

After a few months away from North America, it is necessary to reconnect with everyone.

This kind of thing should have been prepared by Janet, Janet was in Australia, and Simon wanted to hand it over to Catherine.

However, Catherine has helped Simon take care of the construction of Cape Dume's estate in recent months, and Simon fainted when the woman flew to Melbourne for the first time, coupled with all the past, this kind of public closeness is not even bothered to ridicule the gossip tabloids, but Catherine, who is very thin-skinned, has always covered her ears and stole the bell.

Simon returned to Los Angeles, and Catherine, who had stayed at Janet's villa on the east side of Cape Dume, flew to New York on the pretext of preparing her next movie, and this time she obviously did not plan to cooperate with Daenerys Entertainment again, and she looked like she was drawing a line.

In the end, the preparation of the reception was handed over to Jennifer.

The female assistant is also not thick-skinned, and takes this matter seriously as official business, and even the guest list is drawn up with Amy's assistant Vanessa. As a result, what was originally planned as a small-scale cocktail party turned into a lively business reception.