Simon had never expected Barry Levinson to stay silent after being stripped of post-production control on Rain Man.
What he hadn't anticipated was the speed: the very next day, The Hollywood Reporter ran a front-page story headlined "Barry Levinson Forced Off Rain Man Post-Production," painting Levinson as the victim and detailing—vividly—Simon's alleged interference from the first day of shooting to the director's abrupt dismissal.
As if perfectly orchestrated, that same morning Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise both gave interviews to CNN, publicly condemning Simon's disrespect toward creative talent.
By Friday the Directors Guild of America weighed in with a statement announcing an investigation into whether Daenerys Entertainment had violated a director's rights.
And just like that, in a matter of days, Daenerys Entertainment found itself at the center of another media storm.
Hollywood had always been a producer-driven town.
From the early-eighties uproar when Tobe Hooper was sidelined by producer Steven Spielberg on Poltergeist, to the much later Justice League directorial debacle Simon remembered, directors being removed from projects was hardly rare.
But the general public cared little for industry norms.
Fueled by relentless media coverage, a routine occurrence was quickly inflated into something bordering on scandal.
New York.
Morton Street, Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan.
Less than a mile from NYU, a nine-story red-brick building housed the East Coast headquarters of New World Entertainment.
New World occupied six of the nine floors. Of the company's 110-plus employees outside Marvel, half worked here and half in Los Angeles. Six floors were more than enough for fifty people—a consequence of several rounds of layoffs.
Because the company focused heavily on television production, it had historically maintained a large East Coast staff. In the past six months nearly half had been let go, but the lease on the building had yet to expire.
Today was August 2.
After a month of financing and due diligence, Simon formally signed the acquisition agreement with New World chairman Larry Kupin. Executives from both companies had gathered in New York for the occasion.
The signing ceremony ended in the morning; after lunch the key executives reconvened in the building's largest conference room.
Though Simon had already purchased several superior buildings in Midtown, tenants there would not vacate until around 1990, after which demolition would follow.
During the afternoon session he instructed management to buy the red-brick building outright and establish it as Daenerys Entertainment's permanent East Coast headquarters.
With the ongoing decline in North American real estate, and Greenwich Village hardly prime territory, acquiring the modestly sized tower would cost well under twenty million dollars. Daenerys's projected growth over the next few years would easily fill the entire structure. Any surplus space and time could be used for renovations.
Rapid expansion demanded property acquisitions.
Of course, the primary reason was Simon's personal preference for owning his own domains—and he could certainly afford it.
On the West Coast he had yet to find a suitable headquarters site, so that decision remained on hold.
Despite the long summer days, the meeting covering personnel changes, financial planning, and project discussions—ran until night fell over Manhattan. Yet with Daenerys thriving and many New World staff having narrowly escaped unemployment only to join a promising new owner, no one complained.
Afterward, Daenerys hosted a welcome reception for all New World employees at a nearby hotel.
Most guests drifted away contentedly around ten o'clock.
Simon, however, had no time to relax. Before the reception ended, he returned to the office with Amy Pascal, Robert Remme, and Robert Iger who had smoothly departed ABC to join Daenerys—along with a few others.
They settled into a small conference room. Jennifer personally brought coffee for everyone. Simon accepted his cup with a quiet thank-you, though his expression remained serious.
"Simon, if this keeps escalating, many prominent directors may hesitate to work with us out of concern," said Robert Remme, the most senior among them. "It's a serious problem. We need to issue a clarification and push back quickly."
No one would have gathered late at night after an exhausting day unless it was urgent.
The topic, naturally, was the Levinson dismissal and its fallout.
Simon had refused to let the controversy slow Daenerys's momentum. He had completed the New World acquisition on schedule, securing both the company and most crucially Marvel Entertainment. Still, he could not ignore the past few days; the studio's PR team had been working around the clock to contain the damage.
What puzzled him most was why Barry Levinson had chosen to make the conflict so public and why CAA's fingerprints were all over it. Without the agency's backing, Levinson alone could never have amplified the story so rapidly.
At the end of the day, everyone was in the business of making deals.
Though Simon had no intention of compromising, standard practice would have CAA reaching out first rather than escalating publicly.
After all, while media sentiment leaned toward Levinson, plenty in Hollywood saw clearly.
Which studio hadn't fired a director or two?
If CAA threw a tantrum every time one of their clients felt slighted, future cooperation would become impossible.
Yet in the past days Simon had heard nothing from CAA.
Absently twirling a pencil—a habit—he suddenly noticed he always seemed to have one within reach. Glancing at Jennifer, who had quietly taken a seat beside him after serving coffee, he let the thought go.
His gaze lingered briefly on the pale curve of her neck exposed by her ponytail before he refocused. He nodded to Remme, then looked at the others. "What do the rest of you think?"
Amy frowned in thought but stayed silent.
Robert Iger spoke up. "This whole affair feels… overly hasty on their part."
Simon raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
Iger gathered his thoughts. "If my information is correct, you removed Levinson only recently, and the story exploded the very next day. It's too deliberate, too eager."
Remme countered, "Bob, Ovitz has enormous pull in this town. A few phone calls would be enough."
"True," Iger conceded, "but if it were me, I'd try talking to Simon first. Only if that failed would I resort to this." He turned to Simon. "Ovitz hasn't contacted you, has he?"
Simon shook his head and looked to Amy.
She understood and explained to the others, "We've tried reaching CAA. They say Ovitz is in Japan."
"If CAA wanted to resolve this," Iger said, shaking his head, "that wouldn't stop them. The real issue is they don't seem interested in resolution. They just want to embarrass us."
Amy added, "That's what confuses me too. We're not one of the majors yet, but CAA wouldn't be foolish enough to burn bridges completely."
Remme offered, "Could the majors be orchestrating this from behind the scenes?"
Amy and Iger fell silent at the suggestion.
The summer season was winding down.
Though Paramount had scored two domestic hundred-million hits with aggressive wide releases, most of the spotlight had fallen on Daenerys.
Beyond Pulp Fiction and Basic Instinct, the studio had launched the game-changing reality hit Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which had shifted the entire writers' strike landscape. At the end of July it had also sold another reality format, Big Brother, to Fox Broadcasting for a million dollars per episode.
Unlike the ten-to-thirteen-episode seasons of something like Survivor, Big Brother ran a full twenty-three episodes per season.
Shot entirely within a single confined house, its production costs were comparable to Millionaire—both remarkably low.
Thanks to Millionaire's proven success, Big Brother had secured sponsorships that covered budget and generated profit. The twenty-three million from Fox was pure net revenue, with renegotiation rights for subsequent seasons based on ratings.
All told, the three reality shows already sold would bring Daenerys roughly two hundred million dollars in first-season net income alone—more than the annual profits of struggling majors like Columbia or MGM in recent years.
The taller tree catches the wind. Daenerys's dazzling performance had not gone unnoticed by competitors.
Yet in the conference room Simon immediately dismissed the idea of major-studio involvement.
Pulp Fiction and Basic Instinct had been enormous successes, but the partnering studios had shared handsomely in the profits.
For Pulp Fiction, projected to exceed $150 million domestic, Daenerys—having signed in the company's name—would receive only ten percent of box office and five percent of North American home-video sales. The lion's share went to Orion. Basic Instinct was split evenly with Fox, and both companies were profiting immensely; neither had cause for grievance.
The remaining majors either maintained active partnerships with Daenerys or hoped to establish them—none had sufficient motive for self-damaging sabotage.
Even the Big Four networks—aside from CBS, which had missed Big Brother and passed on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills—had every reason to keep relations smooth to protect their reality investments.
Motive?
Motive!
The word flashed through Simon's mind.
Michael Ovitz was no fool—sharp and deeply pragmatic. Without compelling incentive, he would never back Levinson's public tantrum merely to vent frustration.
So what was the real motive?
Listening quietly as the others debated, Simon reviewed the entire sequence of events. Moments later, understanding dawned.
"I think I know what's really going on," he said, lightly tapping the table to interrupt them. He turned to his assistant. "Jenny, arrange a morning flight tomorrow and reach out to Ovitz. He should be back from Japan by now. I want to meet him as soon as I land in Los Angeles."
Jennifer nodded.
The other three looked at him in puzzled unison.
Simon continued, "Amy, you remember all the nonsense on the Rain Man set? Hoffman, Cruise, Levinson—none of them believed in the project once filming began."
Amy nodded.
Because of that lack of faith, the production had been marked by apathy and disarray.
In the second week Hoffman frustrated by the prevailing attitude and other issues had shouted at the producers, "Go get Jack Nicholson; I'm done," and walked off. It had taken considerable effort to bring him back.
Later both he and Cruise openly referred to their characters as "two idiots in a convertible."
Clearly Levinson had shared the same mindset, judging by his behavior in post-production.
Feeling their expectant gazes, Simon explained, "Rain Man is a twenty-five-million-dollar production. Levinson, Hoffman, and Cruise all believed it would flop and damage their reputations. If you were in their position, facing a likely failure that could hurt your standing, what would you do?"
Amy, Remme, and Iger exchanged glances, the same realization hitting them simultaneously.
None spoke.
The answer was obvious.
Shift the blame.
Still, no employee wanted to appear too eager to admit such a tactic in front of the boss.
Simon saw from their expressions that they understood.
From the moment he had handed Levinson his seventeen-page memo of suggested changes, complaints about his "overreach" had begun circulating.
In hindsight it was clear: Levinson had been laying groundwork. Fresh off Good Morning, Vietnam and newly elevated to A-list status, a twenty-five-million-dollar flop would have been a serious setback.
Simon suspected Levinson had deliberately defied his notes in editing precisely to provoke removal a strategy that had succeeded.
Now, with the controversy raging publicly, even if Rain Man bombed spectacularly, media and public opinion would pin the failure on Simon. The principal creatives would emerge as victims.