After finishing lunch with Terry Semel, Simon returned to Daenerys Entertainment headquarters and resumed the afternoon's work.
These past days he and Amy, along with the other senior executives, had been reworking the new company's film and television production and release schedule. They had originally planned to put in weekend overtime to finalize everything before his Australia trip, but the Forbes list had kept him tangled in obligations all weekend, forcing the discussions into the workweek.
Aside from the reality formats Daenerys Pictures had already prepared and the renewed scripted series inherited from New World, the company had no plans to develop new television projects this year. That side of the business was quickly settled.
The focus was on film production and distribution.
Post-merger, the new company's distribution operations would begin next month.
Beyond the seven films released in the first half of the year, New World still had six titles awaiting release.
After screenings and discussion, three were selected for theatrical runs: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, Heathers, and Hellraiser II. The remaining three would go straight to video.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark was a horror-comedy brand actress Cassandra Peterson had cultivated for years. Its biggest selling point was arguably the star's ample, barely concealed cleavage beneath her black gown.
Simon rated the B-movie highly unimpressive and saw no theatrical potential. He had initially wanted to send it direct-to-video. But New World had already done preliminary marketing and even commissioned Marvel to create tie-in comics.
With no other theatrical release planned for September, Simon reluctantly agreed to a recut for limited theatrical rollout capped at five hundred screens.
Heathers was a low-budget indie starring Winona Ryder, fresh off her breakout in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. It explored teenage disillusionment through a series of high-school murders.
After viewing the cut, Simon immediately decided to submit it along with Daenerys-backed Some Girls and Metropolitan to the following year's Sundance Film Festival.
Given its minimal commercial prospects, theatrical release was slated for February or March.
Hellraiser II was New World's attempt to mimic New Line's Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The original, made for one million dollars, had grossed over fourteen million a solid return, if far short of Freddy Krueger's numbers.
The sequel's budget had risen to three million. With the first film's built-in audience, profitability seemed assured.
New World had originally targeted a Christmas release.
Pre-merger that would have been sensible, but now the combined distribution team needed to prioritize Daenerys's established slate. Hellraiser II was pushed to Easter next year.
Beyond MGM's December 16 slot for Rain Man, the three Daenerys-produced and self-distributed films Scream, Steel Magnolias, and Dead Poets Society had their dates locked during these discussions.
Scream: October 28.
Steel Magnolias: November 18.
Dead Poets Society: December 23.
Michael Hoffman's Some Girls, Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, and Katherine Bigelow's Blue Steel were all in post-production; exact dates remained fluid but were expected in the first half of next year.
On the production side.
Of New World's projects in development, Simon retained only the one originally intended for Brooke Shields Angel Errant. Everything else was canceled.
Among the cuts: Kevin Costner's Revenge and Dolph Lundgren's Marvel adaptation The Punisher.
Revenge, a morality tale about a retired naval officer who seduces his best friend's wife and suffers the consequences, was to have been directed by Tony Scott Ridley's brother and a bona fide A-list director after Beverly Hills Cop II.
Simon simply could not comprehend the film's intended message. Despite co-financing from a Columbia-affiliated entity, the twenty-million-dollar budget exceeded his tolerance, and he dropped it.
As for The Punisher.
Simon had read the script. Apart from the title, it bore no resemblance to Marvel's classic character merely a B-grade Rambo knockoff. No reason to keep it.
During the strike Bruce Joel Rubin had completed the two scripts Simon had commissioned: The Sixth Sense and Ghost.
Simon shelved Ghost for now and green-lit The Sixth Sense.
Robert De Niro had signed a two-picture deal for Dead Poets Society and The Sixth Sense. With the former wrapped, he could move straight into the latter.
With the writers' strike over, Daenerys had also begun receiving a flood of pitches. Simon selected several strong scripts.
One was titled The Bodyguard.
Yes the very film that, in the original timeline, starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston.
Its writer, Lawrence Kasdan, was a Hollywood heavyweight, having scripted the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises.
Yet The Bodyguard written in the mid-seventies had languished for over a decade, reportedly rejected by more than sixty producers. Most studios considered the plot too formulaic and the diva's mansion sequences too expensive.
Thus, despite Kasdan's pedigree, Daenerys acquired it for a mere three hundred thousand dollars.
Another was Amy Heckerling's comedy Look Who's Talking the one where babies speak with adult thoughts and voices. In the original timeline John Travolta starred, Bruce Willis voiced the infant, and the film cracked the annual top ten.
This script too had been overlooked, allowing Daenerys to secure it. Hardly surprising: Hollywood's most coveted projects were usually locked up years in advance by the majors.
Travolta's Pulp Fiction association made him unsuitable for the wholesome Look Who's Talking. A new male lead would be needed.
Ultimately, The Sixth Sense, Batman, The Bodyguard, and Look Who's Talking were positioned as Daenerys Entertainment's flagship releases for next year.
The original-timeline global blockbuster The Sixth Sense (over six hundred million worldwide) and the somewhat lesser The Bodyguard were tentatively slated for summer. Look Who's Talking and Batman would target Thanksgiving and Christmas, respectively.
Strictly speaking, however, these were Simon's decisions alone.
None of the four fit Hollywood's current "hot" genres; The Bodyguard had been dismissed for over a decade. Simon saw no need to justify his choices he simply expected Amy and the team to execute diligently.
Moreover.
A preliminary tally showed Daenerys Entertainment already had ten confirmed releases for next year: Heathers, Some Girls, Metropolitan, Blue Steel, The Sixth Sense, The Bodyguard, Angel Errant, Look Who's Talking, and Batman.
Projects in development and acquisitions planned by the buying team would add at least as many again.
That meant Daenerys's production and distribution slate for the coming year would rival the majors. Amid this avalanche of titles, even if The Sixth Sense and the other three achieved their original-timeline numbers, they would no longer stand out as glaringly as this year's hits had.