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Simon didn't know how Janet worked.But on the following Thursday afternoon, after completing the first formal contact on the issue of follow-up distribution rights, Mike Medova called in a hurry, and even accused Janet of being too ignorant with a bit of grievance in his tone. I hope Simon can continue to show up in person and not let a woman mess around.

Although he had some doubts, Simon would not rashly listen to Mike Medova's one-sided words.

However, after getting off work that day, before Simon had time to ask Jenny about the negotiation process in the morning, the woman brought back another contract: Mattel bought out the dolls of a series of "Run Lola Run" characters for $230 million distribution rights.

Even if the box office is hot, the peripheral copyright of "Run Lola Run" is definitely far from being comparable to super IPs such as "Star Wars".

Moreover, as a toy company that mainly produces Barbie dolls, Mattel must only have Laura in its fancy character image, and Manny and other characters are obviously not popular with consumers.Therefore, Janet sold a simple Lola doll distribution rights for $230 million, which was far beyond Simon's expectations.

According to some information in the industry, Simon's previous highest expectation for this business was only about US$150 million.

That being the case, Simon naturally no longer doubted Janet's ability, and left everything to her with great confidence.

In addition, Simon subsequently made appropriate adjustments to the two companies in his hands.

After a left-handed and right-handed operation, the box office share, sale income, peripheral revenue and other income related to "Run Lola Run" will all be transferred from Daenerys Films to Westeros Corporation.

This kind of separation is to adapt to Amy's contract. The two parties have reached an agreement before signing the contract. Amy's 5% of the company's net profit share does not include the related income of "Run Lola Run".

Immediately afterwards, also in order to avoid further entanglement with Janet's financial situation, Simon drew up a formal supplementary contract in the name of Westeros Corporation: as an investor accounting for 61.5% of the shares, Janet The revenue share obtained from "Run Lola Run" only needs to be settled before December 12 this year.

This supplementary contract means that before the payment is settled, Westeros is completely free to operate the funds for reinvestment, and the extra profits generated do not need to be shared with Janet.

Simon also plans to conduct stock index futures operations in the name of Westeros in the second half of the year, and even more investment actions in the future.

After these two aspects were settled, some potential interest entanglements hidden around Simon after "Run Lola Run" was suddenly too successful were also completely straightened out.

Deep down, Simon is still an insecure person after all.

If he doesn’t get it over with, he’s even worried that he’ll encounter a certain situation described by the hero in “When Harry Met Sally”: two people stop loving each other one day, and turn against each other for a dinner plate worth $8 Who should it belong to, hysterically wasting $1000 in phone bills, arguing endlessly over the air.

Janet obviously saw this in Simon's character, so she took the trouble to write out IOUs for him to stamp.When a woman knows that she is doing this, Simon will not resist, but will feel very relaxed.

While Simon adjusted his two companies, many other things began to move forward more efficiently because Janet shared the release of "Run Lola Run".

Mattel is very eager to launch the Lola doll as soon as possible, which is actually quite understandable.

Therefore, after the signing was completed, the other party transferred 230 million US dollars into the Westeros account within three days.Simon then injected $100 million into Daenerys Films in the name of a loan. Amy Pascal finally no longer had to hire assistants out of her own pocket, and the company began to officially recruit more people.

With the money, Amy quickly negotiated the script of "When Harry Met Sally".At $15 in the end, it wasn't cheap, but it definitely wasn't expensive for Simon either.

However, in order to win the script, Daenerys Pictures also promised Nora Ephron that the company will start the project within a year, and the production budget will not be less than 1000 million US dollars.

If the contract is breached, the copyright of the script will automatically return to the other party.

As for "Pulp Fiction," Simon had a first draft of the script the following week, not having to juggle the release of "Run Lola Run."

Although Orion Pictures was very pessimistic about this project, Jonathan Friedman helped Simon negotiate a share contract comparable to "Death Comes".

It's also a $2000 million guarantee.

With a box office of more than 2000 million US dollars, Simon gets 10% of the North American box office share and 5% of the North American video tape sales share.

Although there are too many accidents in the box office success of "Run Lola Run", after all, it is almost confirmed as the North American box office champion of this year.Therefore, it is more than enough for Simon to get paid by first-line directors.

Orion signed Simon's next film contract with a basic salary of 50 US dollars, but since the sharing terms were not finalized at the beginning, they can only give a sharing agreement equivalent to Simon's worth at this time.

Of course, there is a very obvious difference between this contract and "Death Comes", the videotape sales share that Simon can get is limited to North America.Because Orion does not have global distribution capabilities like Fox Pictures does.

In addition, Orion also requires that the project budget must be controlled within 800 million US dollars.

If it exceeds, for every $100 million in the budget, Simon's two share will be reduced by 1% and 0.5% respectively, and the calculation model will be directly rounded up.However, Orion also promised to provide certain sharing terms for big-name stars who are willing to lower their pay to participate in the show.

The last "Death is Coming", the project progressed the most smoothly.

The company quickly selected a director candidate. It was Wes Craven, who helped New Line Films to shoot "A Nightmare on Elm Street" a few years ago, and his personal style is also very suitable for "Death Comes".

Moreover, Wes Craven is also a client of WMA. Although he has the success of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "The Girl Next Door" directed by Wes Craven for Warner last year seemed tepid, with a box office of only [-]%. Just hit the cost line.

Under the recommendation of the agents of both parties, Simon and Wes Craven had a meal together and talked about the whole project in detail, and the matter was finalized.

Speaking of which, Simon naturally clearly remembers that Wes Craven was also the director of the famous "Scream" series in the 90s.

Simon didn't come up with "Scream" right away for similar reasons as he chose "Pulp Fiction" as his second film.Projects with higher box office potential should naturally be reserved for themselves as much as possible.In recent years, due to the lack of funds and channels, Simon can only cooperate with other film companies for the time being, and the bulk of the profits will definitely belong to these companies.

On Janet's side, the first peripheral sale contract was finalized, and the woman subsequently negotiated the original soundtrack of "Run Lola Run", video games and other peripheral product authorizations, bringing more than 800 million yuan to Westeros again. Dollars come in.

4月6日，猎户座影业最终做出妥协，以3500万美元高价买下《罗拉快跑》的北美录像带和电视播放发行权。4月9日，影片的海外版权也被华纳兄弟以同样的3500万美元买下。

Although it will take a month for these two sales payments to arrive in succession, the total income of 7000 million US dollars is a full 1000 million US dollars higher than Simon's original expectation.

Coupled with the $2000 million loan from Wells Fargo Bank that has already been credited to Simon's personal account, and the expected $3000 million box office share when "Run Lola Run" is released in North American theaters in a few months, even if some necessary expenses are removed, Simon can also contribute The October stock index futures run raised more than $10 million.

During the busy period between Simon and Janet, the 59th Academy Awards ceremony came to a successful conclusion.

"Platoon" produced by Orion Films won the best picture, best director and other awards without any suspense. The box office of this film just happened to break through the $1 million mark recently.

At the same time, after the box office of 2336 million US dollars in seven days in the sixth week, "Run Lola Run" received another 2122 million US dollars and 1634 million US dollars in the seventh and eighth weeks respectively.As of April 4, the North American box office of "Run Lola Run" has reached 9 million US dollars.

Although the single-week decline began to expand, there is almost no suspense for the total box office of "Run Lola Run" to exceed 2 million.What everyone is curious about is just how far the film's final cumulative box office can reach.

So until April 4th.

In the first week of the Easter schedule, Simon's second movie "Butterfly Effect" after returning to this era was finally officially released.

Although the previous internal test screenings have not been well received by critics, considering the popularity of "Run Lola Run", Fox Pictures still arranged 1263 opening screens for "The Butterfly Effect".

As a relatively popular schedule, "Butterfly Effect" is naturally impossible to monopolize.

Also released at the same time is "Back to the Future" starring Michael Fox's "Prosperity Road". This comedy film produced by Universal Pictures has 1336 screens and a production cost of 1200 million US dollars. All aspects are slightly better than "Butterfly Effect".

Chapter 090 One-sided bad reviews

West Hollywood.

The time was 06:30 in the afternoon, Peter Butler had dinner with his girlfriend Peggy after get off work, and the two hurried to the theater near their residence.

Although he already had a good personal relationship, Peter Butler still failed to learn the official content of "The Butterfly Effect".So he left work on time today, a rare occasion, and couldn't wait to see it.

Peter's girlfriend, Peggy, is a tall, thin white girl with glasses and a demure appearance.

The two sat down in the theater, and Peggy couldn't help but said: "Peter, it is said that the film critics didn't give very good reviews of "The Butterfly Effect". Do we have to watch this movie?"

Due to the poor feedback from critics in the first test screening, Fox had been careful to conceal the test screening effect of "The Butterfly Effect" before, and did not hold a public screening before the filming began.

Therefore, until yesterday, the word of mouth of "The Butterfly Effect" was only circulated among a small number of people in Hollywood.But now, the first batch of film reviews about "The Butterfly Effect" in the afternoon evening paper have been released, and it is naturally difficult to cover up the film's media response.

As a reporter, Peter Butler naturally learned about this earlier, but he still believed in his own judgment more.

Scanning the audience in the hall that gradually increased as the screening time approached, Peter Butler replied: "Peggy, don't you like "Run Lola Run" a lot? Simon's movie should not disappoint everyone too much." .”

Peggy is the same age as Peter. She is 31 years old this year and works as a designer in an advertising company.

Although she admired Simon's previous "Run Lola Run", she has always been a very sensible girl, and she has passed the age of star chasing. She is not as popular with Simon Westeros as many young people.

However, considering the relationship between her boyfriend and the other party, Peggy didn't speak too harshly, she just shrugged and said, "Maybe."

After waiting patiently for a few minutes, the lights in the auditorium dimmed.

Peter Butler looked around again, and the attendance rate in the auditorium that can accommodate [-] people has exceeded [-]%, which is a very good statistic.Obviously, with the popularity of "Run Lola Run", the box office of "Butterfly Effect" in the first weekend will not be too bad anyway, the key still depends on the subsequent box office trend of the film.

During this period, "Run Lola Run" was an unexpected success, Simon Westeros naturally became famous, and Peter Butler also received a lot of attention within the "Los Angeles Times" company because of a series of interviews with Simon.

As the largest newspaper in the western United States, the Los Angeles Times has a large editorial and reporter team of more than 1100 people.It is definitely not an easy task for Peter Butler, a young reporter in his early thirties, to attract the attention of high-level officials.

Correspondingly, Peter Butler unknowingly leaned towards Simon in his personal position.Subconsciously, Peter Butler has even made a decision. As long as the movie is not too horrible, he will definitely say a few good words for Simon.

on the big screen.

After a routine pre-roll and label opening, Matt Dillon's protagonist, Ivan, walks cautiously through a dimly lit corridor and breaks into an office.Afterwards, amidst the violent banging of security guards and doctors on the door, Ivan, who was hiding under his desk, quickly wrote down a series of last words in his notebook, and then started playing a video tape.

In the violent picture shaking, the camera has returned to Ivan's childhood.

In the screening hall, watching the actor's childhood scenes turned into warm colors, Peter Butler was still recalling the opening wedge just now.

Very good suspense creation, just this, Brian De Palma has successfully attracted the curiosity and attention of the audience.In the next 10 minutes, various strange behaviors of Ivan's childhood appeared on the big screen one by one, continuing to arouse the curiosity of the audience.This continued until Ivan became an adult, and the mysteries began to be revealed one after another.

East Coast.

New Haven, Connecticut.

It's past ten o'clock in the evening, and she will officially graduate from Yale next month. Jennifer Raybould has become increasingly busy recently, and she didn't find time to watch Simon's new movie with her friend Lisa Collins until eight o'clock in the evening.

At this moment, as the crowd walked out of the theater together, the two girls looked at each other in dismay, not knowing how to evaluate the "Butterfly Effect" just now.

Is it a good movie?

Compared with "Run Lola Run", which is amazing in all aspects such as plot, camera, and soundtrack, "Butterfly Effect" does not have much to comment on except for the idea of ​​repeatedly traveling back to the past.

Is this a bad movie?

The plot of the film is very complete, and it is cleverly interspersed and interlocking.Compared with those really bad movies that make it difficult to remember the plot after watching it, many details in this movie are worth recalling.

simply put.

As two senior movie fans who often go to the cinema, it is difficult for Jennifer and Lisa to get anything that can impress them from this movie.And, in all fairness, they don't like the despair expressed in this movie too much from the bottom of their hearts.

perhaps.

This is just a script that guy wrote casually, and his next directed work is definitely worth looking forward to.

Just as Jennifer was thinking about it, an obviously raised voice suddenly came from beside her: "This movie is so cool, it's even more exciting than "Run Lola Run". I think we should find time to watch it again."

Following the voice, Jennifer turned her head and glanced. Behind her and Lisa were three young boys aged seventeen or eighteen.

Seeing Jennifer turning her head, the eyes of the three boys all lit up, and then the other two boys also echoed, and they also quickened their pace together, rushing to the side of Jennifer and Lisa.

If it was normal, Jennifer would be completely dismissive of this clumsy approach.But this time, she took the initiative to look at the boy who had just spoken, and asked, "Do you really think 'Butterfly Effect' is cooler than 'Run Lola Run'?"

"Of course, isn't the idea of ​​going back in time by relying on diaries cool enough?" The boy gestured without hesitation and said, "What's more, there is the butterfly effect. Changing a life in an instant, this is the real butterfly effect. And, finally returned to the mother's womb and strangled himself with his own hands, tsk, Simon Westeros is really a genius."

Listening to the boy next to him dancing and gesticulating excitedly, Jennifer felt that something flashed through her mind, but she couldn't catch it.Lisa, who was holding her arm, had a clearer expression on her face.

Saying that, he walked out of the theater unconsciously.

Seeing that Jennifer was about to leave, the three boys caught up again. The boy just invited him, "Hey, girls, how about going to a bar together? We know there is a bar nearby that doesn't check ages."

Before Jennifer could answer, Lisa had already said to the three boys with some sarcasm: "Forget it, little ones, we are not interested in dating minors."

After speaking with a smile, Lisa pulled Jennifer to the parking lot quickly, leaving the three boys behind.

After finding her own car, the two girls got into the car. After Lisa, who was in charge of driving, started the car, she suddenly reached out and gently grabbed Jennifer's beautiful golden ponytail. Still smiling, she said, "Let you tie this ponytail all day , be regarded as a little girl."

Jennifer shook her hair, reached out and slapped Lisa, and said, "Hurry up and drive, I'm a little sleepy."

Lisa turned the steering wheel and drove the car out of the parking lot. Seeing Jennifer still looking thoughtful, she said, "You're not thinking about Westeros, are you?"

Jennifer blushed a little, but immediately retorted: "You think so, you admire him so much."

Lisa was not as shy as Jennifer, and said bluntly: "Such a powerful guy, I just don't know when I will see you again. I don't plan to go to California, isn't your uncle his personal lawyer? Help me then Send back some autographed photos. And, if you can snatch Simon Westeros from Janet Johnston, I'll fly myself to Los Angeles and throw a party for you."

Jennifer heard Lisa's words getting more and more outrageous, blushing and reaching out her hand: "What nonsense are you talking about?"

Lisa opened her mouth, biting the small hand that was trying to cover her mouth with her neat white teeth, scaring Jennifer away, and then said with a smile: "I'm just saying what's in your heart, please work hard, Jenny."

"I've decided not to talk to you for the next 10 minutes."

Lisa laughed, seeing that Jennifer really didn't care about her, and drove the car indifferently.

After a while, I glanced at my friend on the co-pilot again, and saw that her blushing face was still a little worried, and suddenly said: "There is no need to worry so much, I think this movie may just be for those The hairy boys watched it."

With the first day of release of the film, reviews of "The Butterfly Effect" also appeared on various media platforms on a large scale.

"After "Run Lola Run", Simon Westero once again used his excellent imagination to construct a wonderful story for us to explore the countless possibilities of life. "Butterfly Effect" made me realize that the life of each of us, They are all made up of countless bits and pieces in the long river of time, you can't change, you can't get rid of it, you can't regret it. Real life is destined to have only one result."

Here's Peter Butler's review in the next day's Los Angeles Times.

Although during the viewing process, Peter Butler's perception of the film was similar to that of Jennifer's two daughters far away on the East Coast, he still wrote an article expressing his approval.

However, apart from Peter Butler, too many film critics in North America are very rude, expressing their disgust for "The Butterfly Effect" completely one-sidedly.

"No one can save these boring repetitions." - Variety

"Matt Dillon, who has had stellar performances in films like River's Edge and The Outsider, chose this movie as the biggest mistake of his life." --Entertainment Weekly

"Gloomy themes, muddled storytelling, boring characters, this is the most boring movie in a while." - "Film Salon"

"Simon Westeros may have tried to express some deeper philosophical thinking with The Butterfly Effect, but it ended up being a boring film that doesn't make any sense at all." - "New York Observer"

"..."

"..."

In this series of bad reviews, the "New York Times" writer Mark Hollington, who had raised doubts about Simon, reappeared again, saying unceremoniously that "The Butterfly Effect" is completely a very stupid and pretentious movie. Extraordinary chaotic film, I have absolutely no idea what Simon Westeros is trying to convey with such a disgusting film'.