Daenerys Studios, Los Angeles.

Girl A held a folder in her arms, looked up at her watch, and greeted her boss who had just finished a meeting with Pixar's management.

"You've got a year to go, John, and I'll see it after the New Year. ”

John Lasseter, who had just been reprimanded, leaned slightly sideways and followed Simon's side, and said, "I promise, Simon, that I will do it as soon as possible." ”

After Simon finished talking to John Lasseter with a cold face, he walked straight to Girl A and asked, "Next?"

"Everyone has arrived at the viewing party of "Horror Ghost". ”

Simon nodded and walked out quickly, and Girl A hurriedly followed.

Returning from the East Coast, Simon has spent the last few days combing through Daenerys Entertainment's film projects for the next two years, and has just discussed with the Pixar team about another Pixar 3D animated film "Bug Squad", which will be released at the end of next year.

Compared with films such as "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo", "Bug Squad" is a low part of the Pixar animated series, both in terms of word-of-mouth and box office.

As for why, there are many questions.

One of the main ones, in Simon's view, is that the main story line tends to the love of two ants, the "male protagonist" Felik out of love for Princess Yating, rose up against the grasshopper army, and finally had a lover finally married, this theme seems too adult, not suitable for all ages. In addition, this is not a real-life fairy tale of princes and princesses, it is difficult for people to have a sense of substitution, so a seemingly inconspicuous problem has largely caused "Bugs" to be at a low point in the Pixar animated series.

Looking at the others, "Toy Story", the core is friendship, suitable for all ages. "Finding Nemo", which set a box office record, focuses on family affection, which is more suitable for all ages. and Simon, the big butterfly, who has changed from 2D to 3D and still created a box office miracle under the intervention of Simon's big butterfly, although the story is taken from "The Prince's Revenge", the core is growth, which is still suitable for all ages.

It's very simple: on the premise of ensuring quality, the wider the age group of the audience, the higher the box office will definitely be.

Simon raised this issue at the beginning of the project, but the Pixar team obviously did not strictly implement it, after all, under the continuous success, anyone will inevitably be impetuous, so at the meeting just now, Simon was rarely angry and forced the Pixar team to modify this, dilute the love line between Felik and Princess Yating, focus it on friendship, and add a more likable and easier to sell around the insect circus scene.

Leaving Pixar's headquarters and returning to a screening room on the third floor of the borough, the creators of "Horror and Ghosts" such as director Peter Jackson, actor Ben Stiller and actress Mia Sara have arrived, as well as several New World Pictures executives such as Danny Morris who are responsible for the project's distribution.

Everyone greeted each other briefly and quickly sat down.

Simon walked to the middle of the second row with the best view, took a memo from the female assistant sitting on the left, just glanced at it a few times, and felt a faint fragrance of strange women coming from the right side, turned his head to look, "Horror Ghost" heroine Mia Sara sat down next to him, and saw Simon look over, this big beauty with a golden age Hong Kong actress temperament is very in line with the aesthetics of the Oriental, and her expression was slightly worried: "Mr. Westeros, can I sit here?"

Simon just nodded slightly, and his eyes fell back on the memo in front of him that introduced the general situation of "Horror Ghost", and quickly read the information.

The lights in the screening room soon dimmed and the screen lit up.

Peter Jackson's first draft of "Horror Ghost" tells the story of Frank, who accidentally obtains psychic powers, colludes with a ghost friend to cheat money, only to encounter evil spirits and murder, and finally the triumph of good over evil.

The original script, in Simon's opinion, was terrible.

Speaking of which, Western ghost movies usually have a big flaw, that is, the lack of a mature model for human beings to fight ghosts, which also leads to the fact that many horror movie protagonists often defeat ghosts by accident, or a lot of completely incomprehensible routines, and even love and so on, which is very far-fetched.

Just like the original "Horror Ghost" script, the protagonist's first victory over the evil spirit turned out to be two machine guns conjured up by a dead sheriff.

.

In comparison, oriental ghost films, especially Hong Kong films, have quite convincing complete routines, glutinous rice, ink fountains, spirit runes, dog blood, donkey hooves, etc.

In the Conjuring Movie Universe created by Daenerys Entertainment in recent years, Simon personally intervened to continuously improve a set of Westernized exorcism models, and the effect was very good. As for this "Horror Ghost", Simonte threw Jackson a Hong Kong film "Mr. Zombie", asking the other party to watch it several times to find inspiration to revise the script again, and perfect the original "Horror Ghost", which is neither scary nor comedy, into a qualified commercial film.

Peter Jackson's biggest advantage over other directors with strong personalities is that he is pragmatic, listens to other people's opinions and is willing to cooperate with investors' requirements for improvements.

on the big screen.

The film begins with a farce, a castle is haunted, and the host family hires the psychic Frank to hunt ghosts.

It is enough to make people with a little IQ feel like a liar, and the male protagonist pretends to be in the castle, and finally says to the suspicious owner's family that he will get it, get paid and leave.

As soon as Ben Stiller, the actor of the male lead, appeared, he felt completely different from the original Michael Fox, the comedy star from "Saturday Night Live", who appeared with a very declining temperament that made people laugh. In comparison, Michael Fox, as the leading actor of the "Back to the Future" series, gives the impression of being more of a youth film niche than a comedian.

The perfect casting and the right story are just the beginning, which makes Simon a little more certain about the quality of the film.

The film continues.

Bidding farewell to his master's house, Frank drove away from the castle area, and in the carriage, two ghosts suddenly appeared sneakily from the back seat and under the car, first letting the audience confirm that there were really ghosts in the film.

However, at first sight, the two ghosts who made people think that they were trying to attack the protagonist's evil ghosts soon turned out to be just joking with the protagonist, they are friends of the protagonist with psychic abilities, and the ghost hunting scene just now is also a hoax between the two parties.

The wedge is here, and the background is basically explained.

The male protagonist is a psychic, has two ghost friends, and makes a living from deceptive ghost hunting. At the same time, from their conversations, the audience also learned that the so-called haunting of the castle just now was not 'haunted' by themselves, but they didn't know what the problem was.

During the driving chat, the plot took a sudden turn.

On the winding and dark night road, one man and two ghosts were discussing how to spend the money they had just gotten, when suddenly another car rushed straight towards him, Frank hurriedly dodged, and at the last sight saw a black shadow swept up from the roof of the oncoming car and disappeared in the direction of the castle manor they had just come.

Immediately, Frank's car crashed into a tree trunk on the side of the road.

The screen thumped, and the title of "Horror Ghost" and the subsequent opening credits appeared.

The five-minute wedge, in addition to the story, also satisfies Simon with special effects.

The original version of "Horror Ghost", the ghost special effects are very rough, giving people a strong sense of cheap five-hair, but this time it is produced by Daenerys Special Effects Australia, which has experienced many blockbuster tempering, and the ghost in the lens is faint, and it seems that it may disappear at any time when the wind blows, giving people the impression that this is probably the appearance of the soul after death.

In addition, the special effects company is only doing things after all, and Peter Jackson can skillfully apply special effects to this extent, and in Simon's opinion, he can already feel comfortable handing over the Tol King series to the other party.

As he was thinking about these things, a close voice came to his ear: "Mr. Westeros, I have always wanted to thank you in person for giving me this opportunity. ”

But it's Mia Sara, who is next to her who takes advantage of the opening of the film.

Simon's thoughts were interrupted, but he just hummed and looked up slightly towards the big screen.

So it was quiet.

The feature film begins with a funeral, the deceased is a clerk at the town museum, and although Frank is not responsible, he attends the funeral because of what he saw and heard that night, and meets the deceased's daughter, Lucy, who is played by Mia Sara.

Love at first sight.

In order to get closer to Lucy, Frank introduces Lucy to his profession and voluntarily reveals that her father may not have died of a heart attack, but was killed by an evil spirit.

Lucy, of course, doesn't believe in this nonsense, and has a bad feeling for Frank because of it.

Met the girl he really loved, Frank, who has never been a side hustle, decided to investigate the truth of the matter, and at the same time pursued Lucy, and the two ghost friends were also on the side, and there were a lot of jokes for a while.

At the same time, a series of bizarre deaths similar to Lucy's father's heart attack occur in the town.

When the heroine Lucy was seen taking a shower in the bathroom and Frank, who was guarding outside her window for safety, was struggling to peek at it, Simon in the screening room felt that his right thigh had been touched seemingly unintentionally, and Mia Sarah's voice was heard again with a little apprehension and obvious meaning: "Mr. Westeros, how am I doing?"

Simon frowned slightly, turned his head to look at the flattering Mia Sara next to him, raised his hand and reached through the girl's long silky hair, grabbed a slender neck, and exerted a little force.

Mia Sara only instinctively resisted slightly, but quickly relented and leaned over to the man's strength.

The screening hall is a five-by-five layout, because the big boss chose the second row, one left and one right also sat two big beauties, and the two extra positions on the edge Of course, no one was uninteresting to go up, but they all sat in the front and back rows.

Danny Morris in the front row was okay, and several New World Pictures executives in the back row who were fortunate enough to participate in this viewing of the film naturally quickly found that there was suddenly one less person around the big boss, but the two executives who happened to be sitting in the third row not only did not dare to have the slightest intention of inquiry, but were a little like sitting on pins and needles, worried that the big boss would misunderstand them and be unlucky. Sitting in a precarious position for a while, he still felt that it was inappropriate, so he quietly moved his body and took the initiative to retreat to a further position.

The story continues on the big screen.

After some mishaps, Lucy finally believes in the existence of the ghost, and suspects the truth about her father's murder, and begins to investigate with Frank. At the same time, because Frank can always be around the deceased, the town sheriff arrests Frank as a suspect, and the evil spirit also discovers that Frank is tracking him down and wants to kill the psychic.

So there was another climax of the film's man-ghost battle in the town's police station.

After the police station battle, the sheriff also sided with Frank, and the group got closer and closer to the truth.

Frank realizes that the ghost traps he used to deceive people don't work at all, and after a discussion with his ghost friends, he learns that the ghosts are afraid of items such as the sanctified cross in the church and the holy water used by the priest to baptize newborns, so he begins to prepare 'professional' tools.

The story soon comes to an end.

The truth is actually in the castle where Frank catches ghosts at the beginning, and the hostess's daughter Barbara has died and has been resurrected through an evil witchcraft. However, in order to maintain the state of the living dead, Barbara had to frequently incarnate as evil spirits to hunt the souls of the living for sacrifices in order to maintain her 'life'.

This also echoes some of the details in the opening wedge.

Then came the wonderful final battle, where good triumphed over evil, and lovers were finally married.

At the end of the screening, everyone moved to the conference room next door, during which Girl A quietly left with Mia Sara, and everyone present looked as if they had not heard of it.

Compared to the previous tantrum of "Bug Story", Simon is much more satisfied with "Horror Ghost", only proposed some changes to the details of the soundtrack, and briefly discussed the release during next year's Easter period with the New World Pictures team, and turned his attention to Peter Jackson and Ben Stiller.

Both are filmmakers that Daenerys Entertainment focuses on cultivating.

Eight years have passed since he was the assistant director of "Batman: Time to War", and now that it is certain that Peter Jackson has the ability to take control of the "Lord of the Rings" series, the project can naturally be launched.

However, because many projects in 1997 and 1998 had already been finalized, the first part of The Lord of the Rings would not be released until at least 1999, and Simon's tentative date was set at the end of 1999, so Jackson had three years to work on the Middle-earth epic series.

Of course, Simon's plan is still to shoot back-to-back in a trilogy, and given the amount of work required, three years is actually not a long time.

And then there's Ben Stiller.

As one of the cores of the former Rotten Boys, Stiller, with Simon's support, participated in two projects of Daenerys Entertainment in the second half of this year, back-to-back in Peter Jackson's "Horror Ghost" and directed Jim Carrey's "Cable Repairman" as a director.

Next, Simon also plans to have the other party participate in "The Hangover" in order to promote Atlantic City.

As long as "The Hangover" can be successful next year, even if it is not as good as it used to be, but the local box office will exceed 100 million, and the Rotten Boy Gang will basically take shape, enough to compete with most of the comedy stars of the older generation of Hollywood.

Of course, Simon doesn't plan to cooperate with the Rotten Boy Gang for too long, after all, the later it is, the lower the cost performance of this group of people, although the box office of the films produced is very guaranteed, but most of the revenue is divided by the main creator, and the studio often just makes hard money, which is completely inconsistent with Simon's concept.

I talked to the two, and the time was already off work.

With Peter Jackson and Ben Stiller now gone, Simon and Danny Morris discussed for more than an hour about the progress of New World Pictures' film projects in the next two years.

If this year is just a buffer, starting next year, Daenerys Entertainment will make full efforts to no longer leave too much room for other Hollywood studios, and the ultimate goal is to compress the number of large Hollywood studios and form a near-monopoly pattern in which Daenerys Entertainment dominates Hollywood.