The time has entered October, and the end of the year is approaching, and many films have begun the final stage of promotion.

Starting from Halloween, Daenerys Entertainment has a total of four key projects at the end of the year, which are "The Seven Deadly Sins", "The Lion King", "Mission Impossible" and "Schindler's List". There is also a DC Cinematic Universe film, "Cyborg", in which Simon is only the producer, and the project is completely run by Warner Bros. alone.

A special parent-child activity was arranged in the afternoon.

Take Janet and the little one to Daenerys Studios to watch the "Lion King" film, which is also Simon's first visit to Daenerys Studios after taking a vacation.

It's a pity that Melbourne, who is two months away from turning two years old, is obviously not interested in cartoons, and the little guy only stayed in the screening room for less than ten minutes before being carried out by Girl A.

Simon watched the film with Janet and several Daenerys Entertainment executives.

As one of the most important projects at the end of the year, Simon can't be completely ignored.

Compared to the 2D version in memory, the 3D version of "The Lion King" is perfect in every detail in Simon's opinion, and the film has a production budget of $60 million, far exceeding the $35 million production cost of Pixar's first "Toy Story", most of which was spent on perfecting the various 3D technologies needed to make the film.

Although the expenses are huge, the entire Daenerys Entertainment management believes that the investment is worth it.

Toy Story's box office stellar and huge merchandise revenues have proven the potential of 3D animated films, and even if The Lion King doesn't do well at the box office, the technology accumulated through this film can be applied to other animated films, unlike live-action films, which are usually a one-time investment.

Out of confidence in "The Lion King", the scale of the film's publicity this time also reached $30 million.

With a total investment of $90 million in production and publicity, in addition to Simon, Daenerys Entertainment basically does not expect the film to recover its costs through North American distribution, and everyone values more about the peripheral output of "The Lion King" and the promotion of Daenerys Entertainment in the whole industry chain such as records, games, and theme parks.

Because of the importance attached to this project, the schedule of the film has been carefully adjusted.

November 19th.

This is the first week of the Thanksgiving schedule, and it will span the entire year-end schedule, which can give the film market room to the greatest extent.

In order to make way for "The Lion King", Warner Bros. originally intended to schedule "Thanksgiving" "Cyborg" was transferred to December 24 by Daenerys Entertainment. Following "Mission Impossible", which was released a week after "The Lion King", the two films will not cause too serious conflicts because of the difference in genres.

It's not that Simon hasn't thought about rushing "Mission Impossible" to the Christmas file as well, but it's too obvious to do so, and it's not necessary.

Speaking of which, the news of the project "The Lion King" spread in Hollywood very early, because it was a gift from Simon to Janet, and other Hollywood studios could judge that Daenerys Entertainment was always interested in this project without guessing, so genres such as animated films or family comedies that may compete with "The Lion King" actively avoided this Thanksgiving.

Now we just have to wait to see if the 3D version of "The Lion King" can be loved by the audience as it was in the original plane.

At the end of the screening, Janet kissed Simon on the cheek and left the screening room.

Simon continued to listen to several executives talk about the progress of "The Lion King" and the promotion strategy of merchandise before leaving the screening room.

The screening room is located in the office loft of Pixar Studios on the second floor of the studio.

After watching the film and the meeting, and the others left to go about their own business, Simon went to another office in the Pixar workspace, where John Lasseter personally introduced Simon to the story version of another 3D animated film that had just been completed.

Beauty and the Beast.

As a French fairy tale created in the 18th century, Beauty and the Beast has long been free of copyright issues. When it was confirmed that Disney had abandoned the project, Simon asked Pixar to quietly set up the project.

Now that The Lion King is complete, the team in charge of The Lion King will next jump right into the production of Beauty and the Beast.

Of course, the same 3D version.

In addition, the production progress of "Toy Story 2" has also been completed for most of the time, and the initial plan will be set for the end of next year.

Finally finished work, Simon found Janet's mother and son playing in the rest area, and found Veronica also here, patiently accompanying Melbourne to build blocks.

Today is Friday, October 1st.

Veronica arrived at about the same time, and Simon was about to leave for San Francisco to spend the weekend with her female assistant.

After saying hello and continuing to play here for a while, everyone returned to Cape Dume's estate together.

"AOL doesn't have much of a problem financially, but the company seems to be too aggressive, and a comprehensive technical audit and a disguised price reduction in the nature of a monthly subscription will certainly lead to the company's continued losses, and if it continues to expand into other regions of the United States, it could reach a loss of $1 billion next year. ”

At Cape Doume, Veronica is presenting Simon to the results of her work.

In the past six months, AOL has not only begun to comprehensively upgrade the ADSL network, but also officially launched a monthly package with a minimum of $29, which has completely changed the previous hourly charging model, which is actually a large-scale price reduction in disguise.

Although the exclusivity agreement initially restricted the entry of several large operators in the US online operating area into the ISP field, due to the development prospects of the Internet industry, in recent years, many small Internet service providers have emerged in the US online sphere of influence.

ADSL's network upgrade and monthly plan gave AOL a decisive competitive advantage in the market, which was a devastating blow to other competitors.

It stands to reason that with these two sets of weapons of mass destruction, AOL should thoroughly consolidate its existing sphere of influence before expanding, which seems to be more secure. However, neither ADSL nor monthly subscription cannot be imitated, especially the latter.

As a result, AOL must quickly gain ground on the other side's turf before other regional operators can react.

There is really only one way to achieve this goal, burn money.

Unlike AOL, which only leased the line networks of other operators to carry out Internet access services, AOL, under the development strategy mandated by Simon, attaches great importance to the laying of its own network lines.

Up to now, AOL has two backbone optical fibers running through the east and west coasts of the United States in the United States, and the total length of optical fiber optic cables owned by the entire North American network has exceeded 150,000 kilometers, which means a huge amount of capital investment.

Historically, many operators have gone bankrupt due to overinvestment after the dot-com bubble burst.

But there's nothing wrong with spending heavily on infrastructure.

After the dot-com bubble burst, many companies went bankrupt more because of factors such as complete blind investment and financial fraud like Enron.

Many new technology business operators don't know what they should do at all, and just follow their inner herd mentality.

AOL's development goals are very clear.

Build a nationwide ADSL high-speed broadband network and promote the integration of telephone, television and broadband after the federal government deregulated telecommunications.

ADSL technology is the future of Internet service providers, the former AOL is missing the upgrade of dial-up Internet to ADSL technology and rapid decline, another reason is that the former AOL made a mistake in its own development direction, neglected the construction of its own basic line network, and turned to the Internet media with a large bubble component.

Although AOL has also started a portal business, as long as the company is still under Simon's control, he will not allow AOL to go back to the old path.

At this stage, ADSL upgrades, monthly packages, and all-round expansions are a bit radical, but the direction is not wrong.

According to a business principle of the Internet industry in memory, this is an all-round dimensionality reduction attack against competitors, and actively suppresses the industrial environment to the worst state, so as to eliminate competitors one by one.

If it is other startups or operators who have just set foot in the ISP field, of course, they dare not do this, and in fact, they do not have the strength to do so.

AOL, which has more than 26 million users in North America, already has such confidence, not to mention that the company has a more powerful Westeros system behind the scenes.

As long as it can unify the entire North American market, not to mention the annual loss of $1 billion, even if it doubles, Simon has enough strength to make AOL lose money for more than 5 consecutive years.

Five years is enough time to knock most of the competitors out of the competition.

Simon did not hide these thoughts from Veronica, explained them carefully, and finally said: "As long as AOL is not on the wrong path, temporary losses are acceptable, and my only request is that the company's operations and financial situation are completely transparent, at least to me, and there is no concealment or fraud." ”

Veronica didn't quite understand why Simon was able to determine that AOL's current development path was correct, but she didn't question it anymore, and understood what Simon just said, he just needed her help to keep an eye on the company, and nothing else was there.

After chatting with Veronica for more than half an hour, Simon looked at the time, said goodbye to everyone, and rushed to the airport with Girl A and a group of bodyguards.

Los Angeles International Airport.

A private Boeing 767 is ready, and there's someone else waiting for Simon.

One of them was a middle-aged white man in his forties, an agent under ICM. The other is a tall and beautiful girl in her twenties, who obviously has modeling attributes, and is indeed a model, named Natasha Hensquidge.

The middle-aged man saw Simon and greeted him very eagerly: "Hello, Mr. Westeros, I'm Raul Bradley, Natasha's agent." ”

Simon shook hands with the other party, looked at Natasha Hensquich next to the middle-aged man, and said, "Let's get on the plane first." ”

Naturally, everyone had no opinion.

Everyone got on the plane together, and more than ten minutes later, the Boeing 767 took off from the runway.

After the plane stabilized, Simon briefly explained a few words, and then walked to the front cabin with Natasha Hensquidge.

Raul Bradley glanced at the figure of the girl following Simon away, some envy and some regret, envy is naturally a young man, regret that such a beautiful stunner will definitely not have a chance to get involved.

"Mr. Bradley?"

A figure in his ear immediately made Raul Bradley retract his gaze, and looked at the A girl who was left by Simon: "Raul, Miss Norris, you can call me Raul." ”

Girl A nodded and said, "The boss has already decided on the matter of "Xenomorph", and the next thing you have to do is just arrange for Miss Hensquich to receive a certain amount of acting training. ”

Raul Bradley nodded, thought for a while and said, "I discussed this project with MGM, you know, Natasha has no acting experience yet, will the production progress of the film be a little rushed?"

"No," Alison shook her head and said, "The boss said that in this movie, the heroine doesn't need acting skills at all." ”

Raul Bradley responded again, with some emotion.

How many people in Hollywood are looking forward to such an opportunity that doesn't require acting.

"So, that's what the movie is," Allison said, looking at Raul Bradley again, "and then there's the arrangement for Miss Henswage, first of all, ICM needs to have an assistant for her, and it has to be a woman." Secondly, and it's important, Mr. Bradley, that in the next year, ICM has to make sure that there are no other women around Miss Henswage, you understand?"

"Of course," Raul Bradley nodded, and subconsciously said, "Only, does it only take a year?"

Alison's tone didn't change much, and said, "Up to a year, maybe three months, maybe a month, maybe just a week." ”

“......”

Ignoring Raul Bradley's change in expression, Allison continued, "Go back today, Miss Henswage can pick a house in Los Angeles, and ICM just needs to hand me the bill." ”

Raul Bradley hesitated and said, "That, at what price?"

Allison glanced at Raul Bradley with interest and said, "Well, Miss Hensquage can choose for herself, as long as she thinks fit." ”

Raul Bradley suddenly thought of some rumors in the circle, nodded, and felt a little envious in his heart again.

Since Westeros said that he could choose whatever he wanted, even if it was a mansion for two or three million dollars. However, if you think about it, if this is the case, it will probably be a problem for a certain vase to maintain this mansion every year.

As a barely second-tier model, Natasha Hensquich's income is not high, even if she relies on the opportunity of "Xenomorph" to become famous, because of the positioning of the vase, she can still only be regarded as a second-tier in the future.

Alison waited for a moment, then looked at the middle-aged man opposite: "One more thing, Mr. Bradley, did you bring Miss Henswage's medical report?"

"Oh, of course. ”

Raul Bradley's expression flashed a little strange, but he quickly took out a document from his briefcase and handed it over.

Alison took the paper, didn't say anything more, and looked at it carefully.