Janet had a fundraising gala that evening for the Malibu incorporation campaign. She was now on the community board. Simon had no interest in that kind of socializing, so after work he met Kevin Costner and the others for dinner to discuss the upcoming production of The Bodyguard.
Batman would begin shooting in January. Right after New Year's, Simon would take the crew to Australia for at least three months and, barring anything urgent, would not return to Los Angeles in that time.
Both The Bodyguard and The Sixth Sense were flagship projects for Daenerys Entertainment the following year. To ensure the directors' visions aligned with his own and to make any necessary adjustments before he left, he had scheduled both films to start principal photography in December.
He got back to Malibu a little after eight. Janet was still out, so Simon settled alone on the living-room sofa, flipping through the stack of scripts Ira Deutchman had gathered while occasionally glancing at the television, where another sample reel was playing.
Using the information he remembered, Simon had already tracked down the production company behind Sex, Lies, and Videotape. The film had not been butterflied away.
Though the project had been initiated by the relatively unknown independent producer Robert Newmyer, the primary financing came from MCA/Columbia Home Entertainment, a fifty-fifty joint venture between Universal and Columbia whose main business was acquiring worldwide videocassette rights. After putting up the largest single chunk of the $1.2 million budget, $500,000, the company had secured the home-video rights.
Post-production was complete, and the film had been submitted to Sundance. Simon had obtained a screening copy through perfectly legitimate Sundance channels and passed it along to Ira Deutchman.
He had not recognized any familiar titles among the batch of tapes Ira sent over, but one script had caught his eye: Short Cuts.
Multi-strand narratives always tested a director's skill, and Short Cuts was the pinnacle of the form in Hollywood. Adapted from a series of Raymond Carver short stories and directed by ensemble master Robert Altman, it wove together eight separate families with extraordinary finesse, presenting an almost ukiyo-e panorama of ordinary lives in Los Angeles.
When it was released, some festivals had even created a special "Best Ensemble" prize for it. Paul Thomas Anderson's later Magnolia was clearly inspired by Short Cuts.
Though Magnolia had greater cultural impact, thanks in part to Tom Cruise, Simon preferred the purity of Short Cuts, a film that told its stories without layering on self-conscious meaning.
The original had not come out until 1993, so finding the script now did not surprise him.
According to Ira's notes, Raymond Carver had died earlier that year. Robert Altman, a longtime admirer of Carver's work, had always wanted to bring it to the screen.
The five-year delay in the original timeline had largely been due to Altman's fall from grace. The director who in the seventies had made classics like MASH and Nashville and earned two Oscar nominations for Best Director had produced nothing noteworthy in the eighties. His recent films had grossed only a few hundred thousand dollars each.
Hollywood was unforgiving. No matter how brilliant your past, if you stopped making money, you were discarded. Short Cuts also lacked obvious commercial hooks and was projected to run three hours, both serious deterrents to investors.
Yet Simon had barely read half the script before deciding to greenlight it.
Short Cuts would unquestionably become another Altman masterpiece. With that guarantee, plus the prestige of being the ultimate multi-strand narrative, profitability was almost assured if handled properly. And the film was not entirely without crowd-pleasing elements. Simon still had a vivid memory of Julianne Moore's nude scene.
He was deep in the script when he heard a sound in the hall. Before he could stand, Janet swept in wearing a black evening gown, clearly tipsy, cheeks flushed, giggling as she threw herself into his arms.
Simon wrapped her indulgently, nodded to Sophia Fache, who had followed carrying Janet's coat, and then scooped Janet up and carried her toward the bedroom so she could shower.
By the time he had her bathed, changed into pajamas, and tucked into bed, it was past ten.
Sleep was the last thing on his mind; he wanted to finish the script.
When he returned to the living room, Sophia was curled in his former spot on the sofa. She had changed into a loose sweater and relaxed trousers, barefoot, looking comfortably at home. A different reel played on the television, and she held a script in her hands.
She seemed surprised to see him again and started to rise. Simon waved her back down. "Stay. I just came for the script."
Reassured, she sank back, subtly shifting her posture.
The coffee table had been tidied. Simon rummaged briefly in the cardboard box, then looked at the woman on the sofa and pointed to what she was holding. "Short Cuts?"
Sophia nodded. "Yes."
He straightened and extended his hand.
Instead of handing it over, she hugged the script to her chest and looked up at him. "Boss, do you mind that I'm living in your house?"
Simon studied the elegant, mature woman, took one step closer, lifted her chin, and traced her jaw as though appraising fine porcelain. "I'm only afraid I won't be able to restrain myself. I think I could very easily become indulgent."
The gesture clearly caught her off guard. With any other man she might have slapped him, but gazing up at that young, handsome face and thinking of the wealth and power behind it, she felt no urge to resist. Her body softened instead.
After a moment she found her voice again, aware of the fingers still brushing her skin. "You mustn't do that."
Simon withdrew his hand, slid the script from her arms, and said, "Get some sleep."
She had not expected him to stop so abruptly and felt an unexpected pang of disappointment. As he turned to leave, she pressed her lips together, then spoke just as he reached the doorway. "I have something I'd like to discuss."
He paused and looked back. "Yes?"
She glanced away briefly, then met his eyes. "I'll manage your European properties well. But beyond that, I'd like to do more."
Simon leaned against the doorframe. "You could talk to Jenny about that."
"Jenny isn't interested in these things," Sophia said, looking straight at him. "And it's easier to discuss with you."
"Very well. What do you want to do?"
"I've studied the LVMH Group that Bernard Arnault consolidated last year." Seeing no blankness in his expression, she continued, "I want to start with wine."
"LVMH," Simon repeated with a faint smile, taking another long look at the woman on the sofa. "I like ambitious women. But do you think setting LVMH as your goal is realistic?"
Many people knew Louis Vuitton, Hennessy, Dior, Tiffany, but few realized those brands all belonged to a single luxury empire. Its founder, Bernard Arnault, had repeatedly reached the top of the Forbes list because of it.
The group had only just been formed the previous year and was far from the juggernaut it would become decades later, yet it was still far beyond most people's reach.
Sophia showed no trace of embarrassment. She lifted her chin again. "How will you know unless you let me try?"
"And if you fail?"
"Then I'll go back to being your housekeeper."
"Do you think I'm particularly lenient with women?"
"You are lenient with the women who belong to you, almost to the point of indulgence," Sophia said, holding his gaze. "I can be one of them."
"Prove it."
Without hesitation she answered, "Support whatever I want to do. I'll take no shares, no options, no salary. You can strip everything away at any time and leave me with nothing. Would that be proof enough?"
"Good," Simon nodded. "After all expenses, there should be just over twenty-six million left from the Crédit Lyonnais deal."
"Twenty-six point seven three million."
He smiled. "So you've already been planning." He nodded again. "Consider that your seed money. Let me see what you do with it, and then we'll talk about additional investment."
He left the room without asking anything more. [TL/N: From random woman to wife material real quick.]
The final month of 1988 arrived in the blink of an eye.
December 2, Friday.
In the week just past, Steel Magnolias, now in its second full weekend of wide release, continued the remarkably small drop it had shown over the previous weekend, falling only about 5 percent. It took in another $12.15 million over seven days and remained the weekly box-office champion.
After two weeks, including limited previews, its North American cumulative stood at $28.82 million.
In fifth week, Scream finally posted a larger decline, 27 percent from the previous frame, yet still earned $8.76 million. With no major new opener, it held second place.
Its five-week total had reached $73.37 million.
Given the traditional holiday bump still to come, the film needed at most four more weeks to cross $100 million domestically. Final North American gross was projected between $120 million and $130 million.
More gratifying than Scream's rosy numbers was the fact that Daenerys Entertainment received its first settlement payment that week.
In earlier contracts with the majors for When Harry Met Sally, Basic Instinct, and Pulp Fiction, Daenerys would not receive its share until after each film completed its domestic run.
Thus the final accounting for Pulp Fiction and Basic Instinct, both of which had come off screens in November, would arrive this month.
For a self-distributed title like Scream, however, Daenerys had negotiated monthly settlements from the beginning.
The film's first four weeks had grossed $60.51 million.
Per the agreement, after theater operating costs, Daenerys received 90 percent of the remaining split for weeks one and two, 80 percent for weeks three and four, declining by 10 percent every two weeks thereafter until reaching a floor of 20 percent.
Audited, the studio's share for those four weeks amounted to 71 percent of the total gross, or $46.15 million.
That single payment already represented more than 100 percent return on the Scream investment. More importantly, it signaled that Daenerys's cash flow was entering a healthy cycle.
Until now the studio had relied on last year's $100 million loan, outright buyouts from Final Destination and When Harry Met Sally, advance payments for several reality shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and occasional infusions from Westeros Cooperation.
Money had never been critically short, the studio could always borrow, but the operation had always felt one misstep away from a liquidity crisis.
Now Scream's settlement marked the beginning of a harvest season. December promised more: final payouts from Basic Instinct and Pulp Fiction, new installments from the reality shows during the winter hiatus, and the Christmas videotape release of When Harry Met Sally.
With cash flow turning sustainable, Daenerys Entertainment was finally, truly on solid ground.