After Simon and Semel's lunch, Daenerys Pictures and Warner Bros. soon began negotiations on the details of the Batman partnership.

While money doesn't guarantee a film's success, it's obviously easier to make a great movie with a high budget. Since Simon threw out $50 million with an ignorant and fearless nouveau riche temperament, Warner has also made up its mind to let Daenerys Pictures test the waters first.

After finishing "Batman", Simon happily accepted the eyes of some people looking at the fat sheep, and continued to accelerate the other things in the plan as a fat sheep.

On the other hand, on the Saturday after Simon and Semel negotiated "Batman", the 45th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards ceremony was held at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel, and Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" became the biggest winner of this year's Golden Globe Awards without suspense, and all five nominations for "Lola Run" fell through.

Regarding the encounter of "Lola Run" at the Golden Globe Awards, the media's reaction was questioning, ridiculing, regretful, and gloating, but Simon quickly brought this incident over. The Writers Guild of America nomination was ignored, and he didn't have much hope for the Golden Globes, and he wouldn't have much regret in the face of such a result.

Although "Lola Run" has the joint efforts of Warner and Orion, in terms of network resources and public relations strength, "Lola Run" certainly cannot be compared with Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun". Spielberg also returned empty-handed this time.

However, the nominations for the 60th Academy Awards, announced immediately after the Golden Globe Awards, once again gave Simon a glimpse of the conservative side of Hollywood.

Many people originally thought that "Lola Run" would definitely be able to win a few heavyweight nominations even if it didn't win the award, but it turned out that "Lola Run" only got an innocuous Best Editing nomination, and nothing else.

After analysis, everyone believes that this is mainly because of Simon's current complex identity.

If Simon was just a young director who had just risen in Hollywood, and "Lola Run" had achieved such dazzling results, the Oscars would definitely not mind giving him a boost.

But now, in addition to being a director, Simon is also a super-rich man with a net worth of more than a billion dollars. The judges may have felt that since Simon Westeros had made a huge amount of money in just over a year, it was not appropriate to give him credit right away.

In any case, regardless of the mentality, "Lola Run" was nominated for only one technical Best Editing.

Of course, the nominee for this award is still Simon.

At the beginning of February, negotiations for the "Batman" partnership were still ongoing, but Westeros signed another $20 million contract with the Tolkien Legacy.

Although the price paid was double the copyright of "The Lord of the Rings", Simon actually got more.

In addition to winning "Pokemon", Westeros also re-signed a license contract with the Tolkien Heritage Foundation for several of Tolkien's works for $20 million.

Under the 1969 contract, the producer who held the rights paid a 7.5 percent share of the net profits of the Tol King Legacy.

Now, Westeros has made a one-time payment of $20 million, the original sharing terms for "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" have been cancelled, and the "Pokemon" contract also does not contain a sharing clause, and Simon will hold the copyright to all three works until the end of the statutory copyright protection period.

In addition, the new contract expands the range of products that Westeros can develop and avoid future disputes.

Simon's memory is that because the 1969 contract did not explicitly cover digital game development rights, the Tol King Heritage Foundation claimed $80 million for Time Warner's illegal production of the Lord of the Rings online games. Although the lawsuit between the two parties was settled privately, the amount of compensation involved was definitely not $20 million.

The managers of the Tol King Heritage Foundation may not lack long-term vision, but after Simon raised the price of the copyright deal of about $1 million dozens of times, money has played its due power.

Perhaps both sides felt that they had taken a big advantage, and the deal was made, and neither the Tolkien Heritage nor the Westeros Company publicly disclosed the matter. As for the future, no matter what the outcome is, each has already bought and left.

To be sure, Simon himself wouldn't be 100% sure that the Thor King Middle-earth series would be as successful as it was in the original plane, but he would certainly have a much better chance of winning.

From mid-January to mid-February, negotiations between Daenerys Pictures and Warner Bros. lasted a month, and the detailed cooperation plan for "Batman" was finally finalized.

The five-year licensing plan remains unchanged, and Daenerys Pictures paid $2 million for the rights to "Batman", compared to the $200,000 for "Spider-Man". The parties agreed that the first film would be invested by Daenerys Films, and Warner Bros. Pictures would receive the worldwide distribution rights for the film. If the first part is successful, Warner has up to 50% of the investment rights in the sequel. However, after the sequel is established, Warner must decide whether to participate in the investment within one month, and if the deadline is exceeded, it will be deemed to be automatically abandoned.

In terms of film distribution, Warner's position was very firm, and Daenerys Pictures only won the opportunity to renegotiate the sequel in terms of distribution commissions, and did not get the right to distribute independently.

In terms of peripheral products, because of the success of the "Star Wars" series of peripherals that year, this part of the revenue has become the focus of the tug-of-war between the two sides.

In the final contract, more than 10 pages of ink were spent on confirming that the merchandise was from live-action and comics, as well as various details such as the first and sequel, and the two parties negotiated the terms that Warner Bros.'s DC Comics would receive a one-time 10% share of the net profit of the peripheral products related to the live-action movie of "Batman" in the future, and the rest of the income would be determined by the investment share of both parties.

All in all, this is another cooperation plan that is very unfavorable to Daenerys Pictures like "Rain Man" some time ago.

But.

Winning the copyright of "Batman" is an absolute victory for Simon. Since he has eaten the copyright in his stomach, he has no intention of letting it go again. As long as you hold the copyright of "Batman", the initiative of many things in the future is destined to be on your side.

In order to be more 'proactive', a week after Daenerys Pictures officially signed a contract with Warner Bros., Simon bought the rights to "Superman" from British producer Alexander Sarkinder again by throwing money at it.

Obtained "Superman" and "Batman", collected Thor's Middle-earth series, and Simon's operation to collect the copyright has also come to an end.

Unconsciously busy, the time has come to the end of February, and a very special day has arrived.

February 22nd.

Simon's 20th birthday.

Halfway up in Beverly Hills, in a mansion, this is Sandra Bullock's new home.

After impulsively kissing a guy one night, she had to change her place of residence in the face of the ensuing frenzied pursuit by the paparazzi. Too much has happened in the past six months, and after Simon and Janet got back together, coupled with some thieves, Sandra found herself inevitably estranged a lot from Simon.

But.

Today is his 20th birthday party, and for such a valid reason, he will definitely go.

It's just that it always feels a little weird.

Think about my 20th birthday, when I was still in college, and I didn't know what the future would be.

He was 20 years old.

Alas.

Standing so high that people can't touch it, and they are not afraid of falling.

Hum.

It was already five o'clock in the afternoon.

Changing into a carefully prepared aqua blue evening dress, I just came out of the cloakroom, the doorbell rang, and I made an appointment with a makeup artist to come to the door, and now I just happened to arrive.

Assistant Gina ran to open the door, and Sandra carefully sat down on the living room sofa with the hem of her skirt. The TV in the living room had just been on, and only then did I notice that the CNN host and two other guests happened to be talking about Simon, and the screen behind them was still showing the live broadcast of the guy outside the Palisade mansion.

That's too exaggerated, isn't it?

It's just a birthday party, and it actually recruited CNN, and it was broadcast live.

But.

Thinking about what he's been doing since the summer of two years ago, CNN's reaction now doesn't seem too much.

Picking up the remote control and turning up the TV louder, Gina came in with a makeup artist, and she motioned for the other party to help her with makeup in the living room, but her eyes were glued to the TV screen, listening to the discussion between the host and the two guests with great interest.

"That's right, Jim, Simon Westeros also reminds me of Howard Hughes, but he's even more legendary than Hughes. Westeros' first film was the North American box office winner, grossing $400 million worldwide, which is a complete miracle for his age. What's even more amazing is his operation in the stock index futures market last year, for five months, Westeros was completely close to the rise and fall of the S&P 500 index, buying and selling, as if he could fully predict the rise and fall of the index. ”

Another bespectacled female guest said, "But, Daniel, though, I think Simon Westeros has been completely out of control since last year's stock market crash." Especially in the recent period, his various capital operations have been almost disorderly, and he gambled with Motorola and sold all the other party's stocks. After a setback in his attempt to acquire New World Entertainment, he soon gave up. And Daenerys Films, Westeros is completely spending money, and our young rich man is said to have eight films in his project now, and if you count the recent "Batman" and "Superman", that's ten. I deliberately put together a list of films, and according to publicly available information, these films basically don't sell much, but the budget is generally higher than the average Hollywood average. Like that "Rain Man", have you heard of it?"

The male guest named Daniel just now nodded and said: "I've heard that a movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise is said to have been rejected by all major Hollywood studios before, and Daenerys Pictures seems to have signed a very unequal contract with MGM-United States." It's just that I always feel that Westeros should think otherwise, if anyone would think that a young man who can make a fortune of more than a billion dollars at the age of 20 is a fool. Well, don't doubt it, he's the fool himself. ”

"Hey, Daniel, are you talking about me?" the female guest retorted with a smile, "but I do think that Simon Westeros's behavior during this time is completely arbitrary." If this continues, it may not take a few years for his net worth to shrink significantly. ”

"That's just your speculation, Katie. When Howard Hughes made "Hell's Angel", everyone thought he might be going bankrupt, but it turned out that "Hell's Angel" grossed $8 million, and the $8 million in 1930 was definitely higher than the box office of "Star Wars" or "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". And, I think Simon Westeros' personal assets should be mostly concentrated in that batch of tech stocks. After reducing his holdings in Motorola stock, Simon Westeros is worth more than $1.3 billion in this part of the asset alone, according to the recent share price. ”

"There should be more," said the host sitting next to him at this time: "According to the information we have received, after the failure of the acquisition of New World Entertainment, Westeros has recently been absorbing shares of some technology companies. For example, Simon Westeros is said to have made a special visit to the San Francisco-based graphics workstation production company last month. According to the latest reported data, Westeros' stake in Silicon Map has reached 11%. There is also Oracle, with a shareholding ratio of 9%, and next, Microsoft, Intel and several other companies have increased their shareholding from the original 5% to more than 7%. By all accounts, Simon Westeros has invested at least half of the money he received from cashing out Motorola shares into the shares of these companies. Many investment institutions on Wall Street have also recently started to follow suit again, once again sharply boosting the technology stock sector. Now, Simon Westeros' stock assets should be worth close to $1.6 billion. ”

The male guest waited for the host to finish speaking, and then spread his hands to the female guest and said: "Look, it's still $1.6 billion, Simon Westeros's profit from the stock market crash last year was about $1.6 billion, and now, Katie, according to you, Westeros has been acting arbitrarily for a while, and his net worth has not decreased, but has increased again." ”

"But I still don't think that as long as Simon Westeros is a normal person, he won't work miracles forever. ”

The host suddenly said, "Katie, then, do you think Simon Westeros is normal?"

The male guest burst out laughing.

The female guest also smiled and said, "Well, Westeros is indeed abnormal. But what I mean by that is that as long as he's not an alien, I don't think that possibility exists, then he's definitely going to fail. Like Daenerys Films, Westeros may be able to guarantee box office success for one, two, or three films, but he can't guarantee them all. There is no shortage of box office hits every year, but their financial reports are often loss-making, and I know the Hollywood books, but I don't mean that, but the real losses. Why, it's because they have a long list of failed films in addition to those high-profile blockbusters. ”

The host waited for the female guest to finish speaking, patted his hand lightly and said: "No matter what the future holds, today is Simon Westeros's 20th birthday, this young man who has only risen for more than a year has created too many miracles, I believe everyone must be very curious about him, then, let's hand over the camera to the reporter in front again." ”