Chapter 163

The Cannes Film Festival opens on May 11.

On May 9, Simon and his party set out from Los Angeles, took the Gulfstream IV that they had just received, flew to New York first, and then went straight to Cannes.

As the latest long-range business aircraft of Gulfstream company, Gulfstream IV has a range of 7800 km, which can easily complete a transatlantic flight of about 6000 km.

However, for Gulfstream IV, which carries about 20 passengers, there are only 12 seats in the cabin for passengers.

Simon, Janet and Jennifer occupy the third place. Mike medova, President of Orion pictures, also went with him this time. Robert De Niro, John Travolta, Nicole Kidman, Samuel Jackson, Madonna and Sean pan played supporting roles. They immediately filled the cabin after boarding. These were Simon's two bodyguards With Neil Bennett and Ken Dixon personally as pilots, other people's entourage can only take another business flight.

French time is 9 hours earlier than the west coast of the United States. They set out at 10 a.m. Los Angeles time. After a total of 11 hours of flight, they arrived in Cannes at more than 6 a.m. on May 10.

Cannes airport.

When they got off the plane, the obvious coffee seats immediately appeared. De Niro and Travolta, two well-known first-line stars, had confirmed that they would stay in their friends' mansion in Cannes. Madonna and his wife had rented their apartment in advance, and the rest of them followed Mike medova to the hotel ready for Orion.

Simon naturally did not degenerate to the point of staying in a hotel with everyone.

We agreed a meeting time in the evening. Simon drove to lecane in the northeast of Cannes. After more than half an hour, the car went to lecane for several times between the tree lined winding mountain roads, and then drove into an iron gate on the top of the mountain.

Simon got out of the car and went to the southern edge of the courtyard. He looked at Cannes city and the Bay beyond. He nodded and said, "I like it here."

Janet came over and said, "it's very similar to the house in palisade, but it's bigger, with a total area of 1.5 hectares, more than three times that of palisade."

As they were chatting, a brown haired woman in a light gray business suit came up with a stack of papers. She introduced herself in fluent English with a smile and said, "Hello, Mr. westrow, Miss Johnston. I'm Sophia faessy. May I show you around in detail?"

Before Simon and Janet came to Cannes, the house purchase procedures had been completed, and Simon knew the details of the property very well. At this time, hearing the words, he nodded and said, "OK."

"Please come with me," Sophia faessy said with a gesture of "please." she slightly sidled with Simon and walked towards the mansion, gesturing to the villa at the entrance. "This is the annex, which is used to house security and servants. Mr. Brent, the former owner, is a very good employee, so the design of the annex is also very exquisite. Let's go directly to the main villa. The main villa covers an area of 18000 square feet. There are 69 rooms on three floors, including 16 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, three kitchens, other libraries, gyms and projection rooms. Oh, there is also a very spacious basement, which used to be used as a wine cellar... "

After flying for 11 hours, Simon and Janet were very tired. Simply listening to Sophia faessy's introduction, Simon sent each other away.

Thousands of miles away, although we can buy this hilltop manor, we can't decorate it as freely as we can in Los Angeles. Simon just asked Sophia fawcy, the agent, to replace all the sheets, bedding, sofa covers in the villa in advance and rearrange the kitchen, but he didn't move for the time being.

After breakfast, Neil and Janet are sent to help themselves. Simon and Janet go to the master bedroom on the third floor.

After taking a bath, he came out of the bathroom in his nightgown and looked at the more and more beautiful sunshine on the spacious terrace outside the bedroom. Simon suddenly didn't feel sleepy again and walked straight to the terrace.

Looking down from the balcony railings, the buildings in the manor belong to the typical Spanish style, with red roofs, white walls, porch columns, arcs and fountain. Although he didn't like this architectural style at all, Simon decided to buy it immediately after seeing the information of the manor in Los Angeles.

The geographical location here is really good. If it is not a last resort, the original owner will not easily sell this property which is destined to increase in value.

Moreover, the opening price of 35 million francs, according to the exchange rate of the continuous devaluation of European currencies in the past two years, only needs more than 5 million US dollars. After Simon agreed to pay in cash, the change was erased, and the two sides finally confirmed the deal at the price of $5 million.

Although the real estate value of Cannes at this time is far from being comparable with that of Los Angeles, the area of Cannes is three times as large as that of Los Angeles, the villa like a castle, the beautiful scenery on the top of the mountain, and the $5 million is totally worth the money in Simon's opinion.

Janet quickly came out of the bedroom, put her arms around Simon, followed his eyes and said, "what's the matter?"Simon put his arms around Janet, rubbed her waist and said, "it suddenly occurred to me that if some bodyguards with sunglasses and submachine guns were standing in the yard, it would completely restore the scenes in many movies. My character must be a drug lord."

"Drug trafficking is so tiring, and it doesn't make as much money as my man." Janet rubbed her cheek and said with a smile, "but you must need one or two beautiful vases to set off the scene, or I'll call Kidman. You must have coveted her for a long time when I chose her as the heroine?"

Simon shook his head and said, "No

How could Janet believe it? She wrinkled her little nose and said, "hum."

Simon grinned, reached for Janet, picked her up, walked to the bedroom and said, "well, even if there were some before, there's none now."

Janet wondered, "why?"

Simon gently dropped Janet on the big bed, turned to draw the curtain and said, "last time I worked out a math problem for Ron McMillan, I suddenly didn't have much interest in women."

Janet turned and lay on the big bed, more curious: "what's the math problem?"

Simon came and sat down on the big bed and said, "it's nothing. I won't tell you, or you'll think I'm a materialized woman."

Janet blinked, turned to Simon and said, "you mean Feminism? I'm not a feminist. "

Simon hugged the woman and said, "are you still a male chauvinist?"

"Why not? I'm a male chauvinist. "

Simon poked his hand into Janet's flimsy pajamas for a while. When she squinted like a kitten, he said with a smile, "yes, you can't be a male chauvinist."

Janet held Simon's hand as she tried to pull it back and hummed, "who says a male chauvinist is a man."

Simon remembered that many men also claimed to be feminists. He nodded and agreed, "it seems that's true."

Janet suddenly opened her eyes again, looked at Simon and said, "you're going to go around. What math problem?"

"I still don't want to tell you."

"Well," Janet asked no more, but said, "but you've made Nicole Kidman popular. If you don't want it yourself, it'll be cheaper."

Simon grinned and pinched Janet's nose. "Are you sure you're not trying to make an excuse to bite me?"

Janet opened her white teeth directly, took a bite on Simon's shoulder and said, "I don't want to make excuses when I bite you."

Simon actually understood why Janet bit herself that night after last month's Oscar. Maybe it was a woman's sixth sense. She felt that Sandra might be a threat to herself, so she had an attack.

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

When you think about it, it seems to be true.

It's hard for Katherine to get along with Simon because of her age. As for Jennifer, the female assistant has no fighting power in Janet's eyes.

With these thoughts in his mind, Simon just patted Janet on the waist and said, "sleep. There's something else to do at night."

Simon and Janet didn't wake up until evening when Jennifer knocked on the door.

The opening ceremony will be held tomorrow, but Simon will be busy today. There is a Hollywood filmmaker party in the evening, and they are sure to attend.

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

The party is about to start. As soon as they enter the banquet hall, Robert Redford, who is chatting with people nearby, comes over.

Robert Redford can only be regarded as a guest star in vulgar novel. According to his position, he doesn't have to attend the film festival. Redford really didn't come here for vulgar novel, but for his own directing work, battle of doutian.

The battle of doutian is the second work directed by Radford.

Compared with his first blockbuster ordinary man eight years ago, battle of pea fields, a novel adapted from the novel about a farmer's struggle with real estate developers in New Mexico to protect water, has a very general evaluation.

Producer Universal Pictures has scheduled the film to be released in the middle of March. It has been nearly two months now, and the box office is just over $8 million. Compared with the $22 million production cost of the film, the North American box office is doomed to lose money.

In order to make up for the loss, universal pictures sent the film to the Cannes Film Festival to participate in the screening, so as to promote the European distribution. Naturally, Redford was duty bound to lead the crew to catch up.

After entering Hollywood for so many years, Robert Redford was used to seeing the ups and downs of the film. At this time, he obviously did not receive the impact of the box office failure of "battle of bean fields". He warmly said, "Simon, you're just in time. I'll just introduce you."

So Redford took Simon and Janet to the person he was talking to and said, "William, this is Simon. Simon, this is William Goldman."Simon shook hands with a smile and said, "Hello, Mr. Goldman."

William Goldman, in his sixties, is silver haired and wearing a light gray plaid shirt. Although he looks a little serious, he is very warm and talkative. "Hello, Simon, Bob has mentioned you in front of us more than once. Maybe we can get together again when we get back to Los Angeles."

"Sure," Simon nodded and said, "this is my girlfriend, Jenny."

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

Simon knew, however, that he was unknowingly in debt to Redford.

William Goldman is a Hollywood screenwriter. His famous work happened to be the tiger and leopard little overlord, which made Robert Redford popular at that time. In recent years, William Goldman has been a front-line screenwriter in Hollywood.

If that's all, Redford's introduction may not be much.

However, William Goldman has another identity. He is one of the ten judges of the Cannes Film Festival. Compared with the Oscars, the final award result of Cannes Film Festival is more variable.

No matter before or after many years, the evaluation results of Cannes Film Festival are usually quite different from the evaluation of the external media. There are often media reviews of a film which is good but ultimately fruitless, and some films which are poorly evaluated by the media are often cold.

If it is not completely separated from the influence of factors outside the film, then ghosts do not believe it.

In the original time and space, "vulgar novel" defeated some popular films such as "red" and "live" in kierlovsky's red blue white trilogy, and finally won the golden palm. The big reason is that the chairman of the jury was Clint Eastwood.

Therefore, even if he knew that vulgar novel would definitely have enough strength to win the award based on its quality, Simon would not expect to wait for the film festival to end and receive the award without doing anything.

Simon has known 21 films of this year in advance. Relatively speaking, the nominated films of this year can only be described as mediocre. Except for his vulgar novel, Simon has not found any other films with deep memory. Therefore, compared with 1994, vulgar novel has more advantages.

But public relations are certainly essential.

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 by virtue of the "Mad Max" series. Unexpectedly, after Cannes Film Festival announced the judging list, George Miller's name reappeared.

Simon and Miller certainly don't have much friendship.

But it's not.

George Miller is Australian.

Because of Janet's relationship, Simon naturally has the attribute of becoming a part of the Australian gang.