After a long 16-hour flight, Simon returned to Los Angeles on Sunday evening, June 25, Eastern Time, and due to the time difference, the major exchanges in Asia have already started a new week of trading.

The various measures taken in the past two days have clearly had an effect, and the Nikkei 225 index began to slowly rally as the Tokyo stock market opened.

A new week in North America.

Simon woke up in the morning, and the Nikkei 225 index ended the previous day at 36,617 points. Although this data has not yet reached the highest point of last week, the unexpected crisis in the Japanese financial market has been smoothly passed.

Many newspapers in North America have been talking about Simon's rush to Australia to visit his girlfriend in recent days, triggering a sharp drop in the Japanese stock market, and a new phrase for the 'Westeros effect'.

The news on the front page of the Los Angeles Times on Monday was still the same, with photos of Simon and Janet hugging together at Melbourne Airport. The article recounts what has happened in recent days, and does not forget to joke that Simon is definitely the most unpopular guy in Japan right now, and predicts that he wants to travel to Japan for a long time to come, and the probability of being denied entry is as high as 100%.

On the Australian side, Cersei Capital's agreement with the Japanese is going very well. In less than a week, the two sides completed the secret settlement in all aspects.

In the final agreement, the ownership of Cersei Capital's sub-funds 1 to 5 was transferred to the Japanese, ostensibly by Janet and Anthony.

Janet wanted to fly to Los Angeles as soon as the deal was completed, but in order to avoid sudden personnel changes that would cause speculation, the Japanese side asked her to be responsible for running Cersei Capital for at least two more months.

For the sake of everyone, Janet had no choice but to agree.

Two months, in fact, is just right.

The post-production of "Batman" will not end until September, and Simon plans to take a long vacation after completing the film, and the first stop in the plan is several major fashion weeks in September. When the time comes, Janet can also leave with this very reasonable excuse.

Since she couldn't get out for the time being, Janet was not idle, and began to prepare the operation team of Cersei Capital's No. 6 to No. 10 sub-funds, in order to short the North American junk bond market in the second half of the year, and the source of funds was naturally the $5 billion in cash that the Japanese recently transferred to Cersei Capital's overseas accounts.

In order to keep their own layout secret, the Japanese also demanded that the funds of Cersei Capital not be transferred back to China for at least one year, which no one disputed.

For tax avoidance, Simon did not plan to transfer the money back to China in the short term, and various Australian investors also hoped to continue to rely on Cersei Capital to get more income.

Although it has not yet been settled, according to the original tiered commission agreement, Simon's personal profit from this transaction is roughly predictable.

$5 billion, excluding $1.57 billion principal, the profit figure was $3.43 billion.

In the original agreement, Simon only asked for a profit cut on the $970 million generated by the outside investment, and he and the Johnston's $600 million did not need to do so. The tiered commission plan is 20% for the part within 30% of the profit scale, 30% for the part between 30% and 100%, and 50% for the part over 100%.

All things considered, Simon can earn a principal return of $1.093 billion and a commission income of $836 million. Counting the original principal of $500 million, Simon's book share of the $5 billion has reached $2.429 billion.

In addition, the Johnston family has a principal of $100 million and a book profit of $218 million. The principal amount of other Australian capital was US$970 million, and the book profit was US$1.283 billion.

Although Simon wanted to take more than half of the proceeds, none of the outside investors requested redemption or even partial redemption at the end of the deal. Not only because of the original agreement, but in less than half a year, $1.57 billion was converted into $5 billion, and all parties had more than 100% of the income.

In the face of such a huge amount of money held by Cersei Capital, Simon gradually came up with some other ideas.

Of course, that's an afterthought.

Leaving Los Angeles abruptly for a few days without warning, it is natural to have to work overtime to make up for some work progress when you return.

On the other hand, the competition for the North American summer season is also becoming more and more fierce.

Simon left Los Angeles last Wednesday night, and immediately after the box office of "The Bodyguard" came out in its third week of release, the film still fell by only a slight 11% compared to the second week, earning $17.86 million and reaching a cumulative box office of $61.55 million.

The following Friday, three new films were released at one time in the North American summer season, namely Disney's sci-fi family comedy "Honey, I Made My Child Small", Columbia Pictures' "Longwei Kid 3" and Orion Pictures' musical biopic "Big Fireball".

Although none of the three new films had a first-week box office hit like "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" and "Ghostbusters 2", they also had a significant impact on the box office of many old films.

From June 23 to June 29, the week after Simon's return from Australia, the box office decline of "Bodyguard" expanded to 21% compared with last week, collecting another $14.11 million.

Although "Bodyguard" only ranked fourth on the weekly box office list, behind "Honey, I Made My Child Smaller", "Longwei Kid 3" and "Ghostbusters 2". However, in the four weeks after the release of this film, which was not favored by everyone, the cumulative box office has reached $75.66 million.

In addition, "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" shrank to $12.07 million at the box office in the new week, ranking fifth, with a cumulative box office of $140.23 million.

Among the three new films, Orion Pictures' "The Big Fireball" did not meet expectations, this musical biopic about the life of the famous American rock singer Jerry Lee Lewis has a production budget of $12 million, the opening scale reached 1,417 yuan, but the box office in the first week was only $6.28 million, and the reputation is very average.

In the new year, Orion Pictures released all of its films in failure, with the exception of a surprise blockbuster "The Adventures of Abi-Adi" in February, which earned $40 million at the box office. Because of the continuous deterioration of the financial situation, in February this year, just after the three-month window for the next three months of "Vulgar", Orion couldn't wait to release the videotape.

Moreover, after Simon personally collected his debt from Mike Meadows at the last party, Orion Pictures still delayed settling Daenerys Entertainment's share of the box office of "Vulgar". Tolerate Orion Pictures will be divided into half a year of delay, Daenerys Entertainment has done its best.

In order to avoid the sudden bankruptcy of Orion Pictures and the complete inability to recover the shares, Amy has recently been considering taking legal measures.

On June 30, a new week, Simon's "The Sixth Sense", which Simon secretly pinned high hopes on, was finally released.

Compared with the opening scale of more than 2,000 screens in "Bodyguard", the number of screens in the first week of "The Sixth Sense" is only 1,673. This relatively conservative release strategy is actually intentional on Simon's part, and he hopes to reserve enough room for the film's word-of-mouth to ferment through a smaller screening scale.

Until its release, the plot of "The Sixth Sense" was still in a state of strict secrecy, and Daenerys Entertainment's pre-marketing strategy was only based on Simon and De Niro, which was very traditionally aimed at simply increasing the popularity of the film.

Simon has always believed that the huge success of "The Sixth Sense" at the global box office of more than 600 million US dollars in the original time and space is definitely not just a simple plot reversal, but many factors such as the emotional core of the film are very important.

However, the plot reversal between humans and ghosts in the end is undoubtedly an important catalyst for the success of the film.

Therefore, in the promotional stage of the film, whether it is various press releases or interviews with the main creators, there is no element that mentions or hints at the final reversal of the film, and Simon's fundamental strategy is to let the audience discover this reversal by themselves, rather than through the hints of pre-publicity.

If you know in advance that there will be 'surprises' in the film, it may even have the opposite effect in the end, making some people feel that 'it's just that'.

After all, in the long history of cinema, similar plots have not been unprecedented.

As for the genre of "The Sixth Sense", most fans who pay attention to this movie can only get a general impression of a 'horror movie' before the film is released. Even in the final stage of the TV trailer, the only information the audience can get is that it is a story between a psychologist and a psychic boy, with some misleading horror-specific shots.

Because "The Sixth Sense" should fundamentally be regarded as a pseudo-horror film focusing on the core of family warmth, in terms of marketing audiences, Daenerys Entertainment does not target teenagers as accurately as "Scream", but for audiences of all ages, which also leads to a significant increase in publicity costs.

Some fans have been hesitant to choose to watch the movie in the first place because of the conservative strategy of "The Sixth Sense" in the promotion stage of the film, because of Daenerys Entertainment's strict secrecy of the film's plot and various unusual features in the publicity stage, the entertainment media with a keen sense of smell are becoming more and more curious.

Of course, there are also many experienced media and audiences who believe that whether it is the film's low opening scale or low-key publicity and marketing, it shows that Daenerys Entertainment has insufficient confidence in "The Sixth Sense". In fact, Daenerys Entertainment's executives who have seen the finished film of "The Sixth Sense" generally lack confidence in the film with a flat plot.

Los Angeles.

Daenerys Entertainment Headquarters in Santa Monica.

The time was the afternoon of June 30.

In the large conference room in the office building, the meeting on arranging the company's mid-year financial audit began at two o'clock in the afternoon and has been going on until now.

All the core executives of Daenerys Entertainment were present.

The mid-year financial audit, which will begin next month, will be less detailed than the one at the beginning of the year, but will also be attended by Westeros' accounting team to provide oversight. As the head of Westeros, James Raybould came from Los Angeles with Robert Iger in the morning.

In the first two quarters of the year, although Daenerys Entertainment released a series of films with only "The Bodyguard" as a surprise box office hit, the company's two core businesses of film and television still generated very good revenues.

In terms of films, in addition to the new films in the first half of the year, the local releases of blockbuster films such as "Scream" and "Steel Magnolia" at the end of last year have ended one after another, and overseas distribution has basically been completed.

In the TV sector, the spring season of reality and TV series such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" has also come to an end, and the network settlement proceeds and prepayments have also brought a lot of revenue to Daenerys Entertainment.

The total debt of 900 million US dollars for all the companies in the Westeros system means that Simon will have to repay 200 million dollars in principal and interest this year alone, and he does not feel the slightest pressure.

Not to mention the huge amount of money that Cersei Capital has just received from the Japanese, but the show "Who Will Be a Millionaire" under Daenerys Entertainment, with the new season contract making a large concession, the continued income generated by this reality show is enough to support Simon's personal debt repayment.

But while Daenerys Entertainment's profitability has reached a point where Hollywood peers would be jealous, Simon has no intention of being a foolish boss. Too many memories of his two lives have made him deeply understand that if any company wants to continue to grow and develop, a strict financial supervision system is indispensable.

At five o'clock, the meeting ended.

The others dispersed, with Simon and James Raybould remaining in the conference room to discuss Cersei's capital.

James already knows about Cersei Capital's deal with the Japanese, and the next operation of the local junk bond market will need more cooperation from Westeros.

The two communicated alone for half an hour before walking out of the conference room together.

Before Amy left, she heard Simon end James's communication and walked over from her office.

Burbank's side counted the daytime attendance of "The Sixth Sense", and some mainstream evening newspapers also published film reviews, and overall, the feedback was very good. ”

A few days ago, the box office of "Bodyguard" was an unexpected hit, and Amy inadvertently said that it was enough for a big film company to have a movie with a box office of more than 100 million a year. At the end of the year, the distribution rights of the two key commercial films "Flying Over Innocence" and "Batman" both belonged to Warner, and Amy's words undoubtedly showed that she was also the one who lacked confidence in "The Sixth Sense".

Looking at Amy's relaxed appearance at this time, the performance of "The Sixth Sense" after its release today should have exceeded her expectations.

Simon didn't say much, just smiled and said, "If there are no other arrangements, let's have dinner together and talk later." ”

Amy nodded, went downstairs with Simon, James, and Jennifer, and took out her Motorola Micro-TAC mobile phone from her satchel as she walked, and said, "I think Rem should be reminded to communicate with the media to avoid too many public spoiler reviews in the newspaper tomorrow." ”

Simon watched as Amy lowered her head and glanced at the Motorola Micro-TAC.

After returning from Australia, Simon noticed that Amy, Nancy and others had started to use this mobile phone that was only the size of a palm and could already be called a mobile phone, and he didn't care too much about it.

However, looking at it at this time, a thought suddenly flashed through Simon's mind.

Well.

That's right.

Nokia!