Chapter 393

Simon can roughly understand the mood of the people around him when they talk about "kid in charge".

The North American box office of "pretty girl" and "ghost" are nearly $200 million.

Now, it's the same thing with kid's home.

On the other hand, only sleeping with the enemy and the red fans alliance can reach the domestic box office level of US $100 million in the 10 foreign film projects of danielis entertainment, while the other two shakes the cradle hand and ten days in danger are only about US $80 million in box office potential.

Obviously, Simon obviously left the best project for Denise to entertain herself.

What's more, Columbia's Peter Cooper, fox's President Joe Ross and others may be even more puzzled as to why Simon can accurately select these blockbuster films.

For example, John Hughes is one of the most successful film makers in the 1980s, but he has never had a North American box office hit 100 million in the past, and the best local box office results are only about 70 million US dollars.

However, all of a sudden, "home by the kid" not only broke the embarrassing situation that John Hughes' films could not exceed 100 million, but the total box office in North America seems to be heading for 200 million dollars.

For traditional Hollywood filmmakers, film investment is like gambling. No one can accurately predict whether a film will sell. This is also the reason why Hollywood filmmakers insist that they do not personally participate in film investment as much as possible and only take labor fees.

Simon westero, in recent years, has been breaking the traditional Hollywood filmmaker's perception.

Simon, of course, doesn't answer questions for these people. He just talks about all kinds of trivial things that have happened in Hollywood recently. Now in this circle, if he does not want to, no one can let him take the initiative to disclose some information.

After chatting and socializing, he noticed that his personal lawyer, George Norman, was coming this way with some people. Simon nodded to the crowd and welcomed them with a smile.

Janet had just reminded George that she wanted to introduce some people to him tonight, mostly friends in his circle.

Simon and the Normans greet each other and look at each other casually. They are caught by the other couple unexpectedly.

The man in this couple is 40 or 50 years old, with dark complexion and obvious Latino origin. Women look much younger. They are in their thirties. They have short black hair and fair skin. They have the delicate charm of the rich ladies in Los Angeles.

Most importantly, Simon recognized the couple's identity at a glance, especially the identity of a woman, Robert and Chris Kardashian. If history does not change, the latter will be renamed Chris Jenna later. This is a powerful woman who later built the "entertainment Kennedy family".

Simon has seen too many people in the past few years who can only appear in the news. Although he once again laments that the world is too small, his face does not show any special expression.

However, at a glance of Simon, it's probably a woman's unique acuity. Four years ago, the young man just came to Los Angeles, stayed in a motel, worked as a part-time job, and was completely destitute. How could he donate $500000?

However, there is no doubt about the fact.

On the day when the Los Angeles Times exposed the news, a senior executive of the United Nations Children's fund confirmed the news in an interview with CNN.

Other media subsequently exposed a series of information, further confirmed the accuracy of this information.

Simon westero did donate the half million dollars.

It's unbelievable.

Although Simon didn't publicly respond to the donation of $500000 in winter, the fact is that Simon, who had the upper hand in the public opinion caused by Matthew Broderick, unconsciously began to win more people's favor.

Another piece of news is also eye-catching, which is the box office of the first week of "kid in charge".

From December 21 to December 27, "home by the kid" won the top spot in other films of the same period. In the first seven days of the first week, it grossed 41.93 million US dollars.

Under the impact of the strong box office data of "kid at home", only Universal Pictures' kindergarten SWAT barely broke through the $10 million mark in the first week of the other eight new films in the same period, and other large-scale new films such as Blair De Palma's "bonfire of vanity" and Sean Connery's "house of Russia" all took only $5 million in the first week Six million dollars.

However, this is only the beginning.

On December 28, in the new week, North American Theaters again launched a series of new films.

This week, however, only Sidney Pollack's and Robert Redford's "Havana" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather 3" are on the show.

Godfather 3 is a long-awaited movie.However, the film's early audition reputation is not satisfactory, Coppola's daughter Sophia Coppola's performance in the film has attracted one-sided criticism.

Havana, starring Robert Redford, tells the story of a gambler's ups and downs in the changing environment of Cuba in the late 1950s, but it doesn't splash much.

The production cost of "Havana" is as high as 40 million US dollars. Universal obviously has no confidence in the film. Although it has given a new year schedule, only 813 screens have been arranged in the first week. Facts have also proved that this film is a complete failure.

Only on Friday, December 28, the box office trend of the new week will be basically determined.

"Kid in charge" on Friday, just one day's income was as high as $9.91 million, down 15% from the same period last week.

Many people had expected that the box office of "home by the kid" would be booming, but the box office of "home by the kid" would go down on the basis of $41.93 million in the first week, which was beyond most people's expectation.

Then, from the weekend of December 28 to December 30, the box office of "home by the kid" was finally $30.16 million. Although the reverse decline was not as good as that on Friday, it also reached 13%.

Compared with last week's Christmas, this week, the new year's Day holiday on January 1 happens to be Tuesday, which means that not only three days on the weekend, but also two days on Monday and Tuesday can be included in the list of holidays with high box office revenue.

The last weekend of 1990 passed quietly, and 1991 was just around the corner.

Finally, from December 28 to January 3, due to the continuous new year's Day holiday, the box office of "home by the little devil" fell 15% in the next seven days compared with that of last week, and it earned $47.99 million again. In just two weeks, the box office of this unexpected phenomenal children's comedy has soared to $89.92 million, directly breaking all the box office records of John Hughes's previous films.

After the box office was released the next week, Denise entertainment officially announced the launch plan for the sequel of "home is a kid".

Because he signed three contracts with little actor Macaulay Calkin in advance, supporting actors such as Joe Percy are not box office celebrities who can start from the ground. Therefore, the main creators of the film will basically return in the sequel. John Hughes will continue to lead the program, with the pay package in line with the first.

In addition to home, godfather 3, released this week, earned $22.43 million in the first seven days of the week, surpassing the box office results of all other new films except home last week, but it can't hide the edge of home.

"Havana", created by Sidney Pollack and Robert Redford, can only be described as a fiasco at the box office.

After seven days of painting, it is still a hot time to cross the new year's Day holiday. However, the box office revenue of Havana in the first week is only 3.12 million US dollars, less than a fraction of that of home by the kid.

Universal Pictures has invested $40 million in the production budget for Havana, and with the box office of the first week of the film coming out, the project is almost certain to be wiped out.

Last week, Brian De Palma was also not a success in "the bonfire of vanity". Some media couldn't help but ridicule it. Danielis Entertainment's "the kid in charge" completely crushed the two celebrities who helped Simon a lot at the beginning, Brian De Palma and Robert Redford.

The only thing to be thankful for is that Brian De Palma was reminded by Simon not to use Tom Hanks as the hero of "the bonfire of vanity", and reduced the production budget of the film from more than 40 million US dollars to 20 million US dollars.

As a result, compared with Havana, bonfire of vanity, which grossed US $5.69 million in the first week, is expected to win about US $15 million in North American box office. Although Warner Bros. can't make much money from this project, it doesn't make as much money as universal.

Affected by the failure of the box office of "Havana" and the continuous delay of the MCA acquisition, the stock market opened after the festival, and the stock price of MCA showed a wave of shock again, which is very likely to fall below the $60 level.

As hundreds of thousands of troops in the Gulf region begin to finally gather, MCA shareholders are becoming more and more eager, and the management controlled by Lu wassalman is facing more and more pressure.

After several months of continuous operation, Bell Atlantic successfully won, which may hinder MCA's acquisition. Simon also removed the obstacles one by one. In order to give MCA a sense that danielis entertainment is very looking forward to the delay of this acquisition, Simon never attended the negotiation of this acquisition again in these days around the new year.

Lu wassalman and Sid schinberg understood that the trend had gone. After danielis entertainment promised two fairly well paid consultant titles, they finally accepted danielis Entertainment's $7 billion bid for MCA on January 7.

So far, the acquisition, which has been twists and turns for several months, has been finalized.

The day after the two sides reached an agreement, MCA shares were temporarily suspended from the New York Stock Exchange, and Denise entertainment also submitted the acquisition transaction review to the U.S. Department of justice.Compared with Bell Atlantic, the review of MCA will basically be a symbolic pass in the eyes of many people. No one thinks that after the US Department of justice approves the acquisition of Bell Atlantic by westero, it will suddenly veto the acquisition of MCA by Denise entertainment.

As a result, the deal is certain.

In Hollywood, the deal is still under review, and Denise entertainment management has begun to slowly take over the operation of MCA.

Universal Studios, MCA records, Losangeles Universal Studios, Orlando Universal Studios, USA TV network 50% stake, Putman publishing company, Cineplex Odeon cinema 40% stake and huge global film library and other assets.

Although MCA's debt ratio is very low, it has about 500 million US dollars of debt. As a result, the total value of the acquisition was ultimately $7.5 billion.

With the total transaction amount of Bell Atlantic totaling US $8.7 billion, in just a few months, two consecutive large-scale acquisitions, the total acquisition amount paid by westerlow system reached US $16.2 billion, of which cash accounted for us $14 billion.

At the end of last year, Simon returned $6 billion from overseas, excluding the huge capital gains tax he had to pay and some tax-free principal.

Once the two acquisitions are completed, the total debt scale of the whole westrow system will reach US $12 billion.

Simon is not only the richest man in the world, but also the one with the highest personal debt.

Many experts and the media have predicted that if Simon can't handle the huge debt problem faced by the westero system carefully in the next few years, or the US economic environment continues to deteriorate after the outbreak of the Gulf War, his personal wealth is likely to shrink as fast as the two tycoons in the media industry on the Forbes list last year Water.