This year's edition of the Festival de Cannes opens on May 11.

On May 9, Simon and his entourage set off from Los Angeles and flew to New York first on the Gulfstream IV they had just received, and then flew directly to Cannes.

As Gulfstream's latest long-range business jet, the Gulfstream IV has a range of 7,800 kilometers and can easily complete a transatlantic flight of about 6,000 kilometers.

However, the Gulfstream IV, which carries about 20 people, actually has only 12 seats for passengers.

Simon, Janet and Jennifer occupied the three, Orion Pictures President Mike Meadowis also went this time, as well as Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, Samuel L. Jackson, Madonna and Sean Penn and other main supporting roles, everyone boarded the plane and immediately filled the entire cabin, and this was with Simon's two bodyguards, Neil Bennett and Ken Dixon, as the pilots, and the rest of the entourage could only take another commercial flight.

France time is nine hours ahead of the West Coast of the United States, and after a total of 11 hours of flight from 10 a.m. Los Angeles time, it was already 6 a.m. on May 10 when they arrived in Cannes.

Cannes Airport.

De Niro and Travolta, two long-established A-list superstars, have each confirmed that they will live in a friend's mansion in Cannes, Madonna and his wife have also rented an apartment in advance, and the rest of the rest follow Mike Meadow to Orion's ready-made hotel.

Naturally, Simon did not fall to the point of staying in a hotel with everyone.

After agreeing on a meeting time in the evening, Simon and his family took a car to the Le Canet district in the northeast of Cannes, and after more than half an hour, the car tossed and turned several times on the winding mountain road of Lecane, and then drove into an iron gate at the top of the mountain.

Simon got out of the car and walked to the southern edge of the courtyard, looked at the unobstructed view of Cannes and the bay beyond, and nodded, "I love it here." ”

Janet leaned over and said, "It's a lot like our house in Palisad, but it's bigger, with a total area of 1.5 hectares, which is more than three times the size of the property in Palisad." ”

While the two were chatting, a brown-haired woman in a light gray professional suit came over with a stack of papers, smiled and introduced herself in fluent English: "Hello, Mr. Westeros, Miss Johnston, I'm Sophia Fesse, do you need me to show you two in detail?"

The purchase procedures had been completed before Simon and Janet arrived in Cannes, and Simon was also very aware of the details of the property, so when he heard this, he still nodded and said, "Okay." ”

"Please come with me," Sophia Fessie made a gesture of please, and walked slightly sideways to Simon's side towards the mansion, gesturing to the villa at the entrance, "This is the annex, which is used to house security guards and servants, and the former owner, Mr. Brent, is a very preferential employee of the former owner, so the design of the annex is also very exquisite." Let's go straight to the main villa, which covers an area of 18,000 square feet and has a total of 69 rooms on three floors, including a total of 16 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, other libraries, gymnasiums, screening rooms, and oh, and a very spacious basement that was originally used as a wine cellar......"

After 11 hours of continuous flight, Simon and Janet were already very tired, and after a brief introduction from Sophia Fesse, Simon sent each other away.

Thousands of miles away, although this hilltop estate can be bought, it is impossible to arrange it at will like in Los Angeles, Simon just asked Sophia Faisi, the agent, to change all the sheets, bedding and sofa covers in the villa in advance, rearrange the kitchen, and leave nothing else to do for the time being.

From the information left by Sophia Fessie, they found the order number of a nearby restaurant, had breakfast, sent Neil and Jennifer to their own convenience, Simon and Janet went to the master bedroom on the third floor.

After taking a shower, coming out of the bathroom in his dressing gown, looking at the sun shining brighter on the spacious terrace outside the bedroom, Simon suddenly lost much sleepiness and walked straight to the terrace.

Looking down at the balustrade of the terrace, the buildings in the manor house are typical of the Spanish style, with red roofs, white walls, columns, curved shapes, and fountains. Although he was not at all interested in this architectural style, Simon saw the information about the estate in Los Angeles and immediately decided to buy it.

The location is so good that the original owner would never have sold this property that was destined to increase in value if it were not a last resort.

Moreover, the opening price of 35 million francs, according to the exchange rate of the continuous depreciation of European currencies in the past two years, only needs more than 5 million US dollars. After Simon agreed to pay in cash, the odds were erased, and the two parties finally confirmed the deal for $5 million.

Although the value of real estate in Cannes at this time is far from comparable to that of Los Angeles, the three times the size, the castle-like villa, the excellent mountain view, and the $5 million are completely worth the price in Simon's opinion.

Janet also quickly came out of the bedroom, put her arms around Simon and looked at him together, and said, "What's wrong?"

Simon hugged Janet's thin waist and rubbed it, and said: "It suddenly occurred to me that if there were some bodyguards wearing sunglasses and submachine guns standing in the courtyard, it would completely restore many scenes from the movie, and my character would definitely be a big drug lord." ”

"It's tiring to sell drugs, and I don't make as much money as my man. Janet rubbed her cheek and said with a smile: "However, you must need one or two beautiful vases to accompany the scene, or I will call Kidman, you must have coveted her for a long time when she was chosen as the heroine, right?"

Simon shook his head and said, "No." ”

How could Janet believe it, wrinkled her little nose and said, "Hmph." ”

Simon smiled and reached out to pick up Janet and walked towards the bedroom, "Okay, even if there were some before, there are no more now." ”

Janet wondered, "Why?"

Simon gently threw Janet on the big bed, turned to draw the curtains, and said, "Last time I did a math problem for Ron Macmillan, and then I suddenly found that I didn't have much interest in women. ”

Janet turned around and lay on the big bed charmingly, and asked even more curiously, "What math problem?"

Simon walked over and sat down on the big bed and said, "It's nothing, I won't tell you, otherwise you will definitely think that I objectify women." ”

Janet blinked, turned to Simon's side and said, "You mean feminist? I'm not a feminist." ”

Simon put his arm around the woman and said, "Are you still a patriarch?"

"Why not? I'm a masculinist. ”

Simon reached into Janet's light pajamas and fumbled with his big hand, and when the woman narrowed his eyes like a kitten, he smiled and said, "I'm sure, you can't be a masculinist." ”

Janet pressed Simon's hand to withdraw and snorted, "Whoever says masculinists are men." ”

Simon remembered that many men also claimed to be feminists, and nodded in agreement: "Like, it is." ”

Janet suddenly opened her eyes again, looked at Simon and said, "You're going to get around, what kind of math problem?"

"Still don't want to tell you. ”

"Okay," Janet said no more, "but you've made Nicole Kidman popular, and if you don't want it, you'll be cheaper for someone else." ”

Simon smiled and pinched Janet's nose, "Are you sure you're not trying to find an excuse to bite me?"

Janet directly opened her little white teeth and bit Simon's shoulder, saying, "Where do I need to make excuses for biting you." ”

Simon actually understands why Janet bit herself on the night after the Oscars last month, perhaps because of a woman's unique sixth sense, and she felt that Sandra might be a threat to her, so she had a seizure.

But, obviously, Janet doesn't think Catherine and Jennifer can threaten her low position.

When you think about it, it seems that this is indeed the case.

Because of her age, it was difficult for Catherine to get together with Simon. As for Jennifer, the female assistant had no fighting power at all in Janet's eyes.

With these thoughts in his mind, Simon just patted Janet on the waist and said, "Sleep, there are still things to do at night." ”

The two slept until late in the evening, when Jennifer knocked on the door, and Simon and Janet woke up.

The opening ceremony will take place tomorrow, but Simon is actually going to get busy today, and there is a Hollywood filmmaker party in the evening, and the two have already confirmed that they will attend.

After waking up and washing up briefly, Simon and Janet set off for a hotel in the city.

The party was about to begin, and the two had just walked into the banquet hall when Robert Redford, who happened to be chatting nearby, walked over.

Robert Redford can only be regarded as a cameo in "Vulgar", according to his coffee position, he does not have to attend this film festival at all, and Redford did not come for "Vulgar" this time, but for his own directorial work "The Battle of Beanfield".

"The Battle of Bean Fields" is the second work directed by Redford.

Compared to his first critically acclaimed "Ordinary People" eight years ago, "The Battle of Bean Fields," an adaptation of a New Mexico farmer's struggle against real estate developers to protect water, has been fairly well-received.

The producer, Universal Pictures, scheduled the film to be released in mid-March, and it has accumulated for nearly two months now, and the box office is just over $8 million. Compared to the film's production cost of $22 million, the North American box office is already doomed to lose.

In order to make up for the loss, Universal Pictures sent the film to the Cannes Film Festival to participate in the screening, in order to promote European distribution, Redford naturally led the crew to rush over.

After entering Hollywood for so many years, Robert Redford is used to seeing the ups and downs of movies, and at this time, he obviously did not receive the impact of the box office failure of "The Battle of Beanfields", greeted him warmly, and said: "Simon, you came just in time, I just happened to help you introduce you." ”

With that, Redford took Simon and Janet to the person he was chatting with and said, "William, this is Simon, Simon, this is William Goldman." ”

Simon smiled and shook hands, saying, "Hello, Mr. Goldman." ”

William Goldman is in his sixties, silver-haired, wearing a light gray plaid shirt, although his expression looks a little serious, but his mouth is very enthusiastic and talkative: "Hello, Simon, Bob has mentioned you in front of us more than once, and when we get back to Los Angeles, maybe we can get together again." ”

"Of course," Simon nodded, adding, "This is my girlfriend, Jenny." ”

William Goldman shook hands with Janet again, and the few casually chatted about some Hollywood trivia, without mentioning much about the Cannes Film Festival.

However, Simon knew that he unknowingly owed Redford a confession.

William Goldman is a Hollywood screenwriter, and his famous work happens to be "Haw Par Overlord", which made Robert Redford popular, and William Goldman has also been a Hollywood first-line screenwriter over the years.

If that's all there is to it, Redford's referral may not be a big deal.

However, William Goldman has another identity: he is one of the ten jury members of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Compared to the Oscars, the final award outcome of the Cannes Film Festival, where personal preferences are often very obvious, is actually more variable.

Whether it is before or for many years to come, the results of the Jury de Cannes are often very different from the evaluation of the outside media, and there are often films that are well received by the media but end up receiving nothing, and some films with poor media reviews will often cause upsets.

If there are no factors that are completely detached from the movie, then the ghost doesn't believe it.

In the original time and space, "Vulgar" defeated some of the most anticipated films such as "Red" and "Alive" from Kielowski's red-blue-white trilogy to win the Palme d'Or, largely because the chairman of the jury was Clint Eastwood.

Therefore, even if he knew that "Vulgar" would definitely have enough strength to win the award based on quality alone, Simon would not have the luxury of doing nothing and waiting for the festival to end and take the stage to accept the award, which would be naïve.

Simon has already learned about the 21 films of this year in advance, relatively speaking, the films nominated for this year can only be described as mediocre, except for the "Vulgar" that he took out, Simon did not find other movies with deep memories. Therefore, "Vulgar" actually has a greater advantage than the era of strong films in 1994.

However, PR is certainly still essential.

After patiently chatting with William Goldman for a while, Simon soon found another target at the party.

George Miller.

At last month's Oscars, Simon also met with the director who became famous with the "Mad Max" series, but unexpectedly, the Cannes Film Festival announced the jury list, and George Miller's name appeared again.

Simon and Miller certainly don't have much of a relationship.

But.

George Miller is Australian.

Because of Janet's relationship, Simon naturally has the attribute of getting along with the Australian gang.