After the U.S. Department of Justice officially approved Daenerys Entertainment's acquisition of MCA, the merger process the two companies had already been advancing began to accelerate.
In the following week Daenerys Entertainment kept releasing one announcement after another about corporate finances, personnel changes, and more, leaving everyone dazzled. As a result, few people realized what these pieces of news truly meant.
At the press conference on the day the deal was approved, Daenerys Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal announced that the equity transfer to MCA shareholders would be fully completed before the end of February.
At the same time, all funds for the acquisition would be obtained through loans.
The next day Daenerys Entertainment revealed it would simultaneously partner with Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg on two projects: the dinosaur sci-fi film Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, which told the story of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II.
Although Daenerys Entertainment was not publicly listed, the announcement of these collaborations made the industry even more optimistic about the new Daenerys Entertainment Group, which had suddenly taken on an extra seven billion dollars in debt. It was not only because of the work with Steven Spielberg but also because of everything Schindler's List represented.
Soon afterward Amy Pascal, whose contract with Daenerys Entertainment was due to expire in March, announced her renewal.
The Hollywood power player who had helped Simon Westeros build Daenerys Entertainment into a major force in just a few years drew the most media attention with her new contract terms, sparking all kinds of speculation.
After days of heated discussion, the entertainment section of the Ygritte portal finally revealed the answer.
Amy Pascal's new contract would run for three years, with her base salary raised to seven hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. The profit-sharing clause remained exactly the same as the 1987 agreement.
Since Ygritte belonged to the same Westeros system, its report was essentially the official announcement.
Interpretations of the contract, however, did not stop.
Most media outlets had predicted a standard five-year Hollywood executive deal, the kind signed by studio heads like Michael Eisner, Peter Guber, and Sherry Lansing.
A three-year term therefore felt highly significant.
Industry analysts did not view it as a sign that Amy Pascal might leave Daenerys Entertainment. Otherwise the Westeros group would never have offered the same five percent of net profit plus the same equity package as four years earlier, when the company had been far smaller.
Studio chiefs typically received only two percent.
Even with the heavy debt pressure that would shrink profits in the coming years, a compensation package worth roughly ten percent of net profit was still an enormous sum.
Looking again at the three-year term, it likely pointed to another milestone.
Everyone knew that executive contracts had to be renegotiated before an IPO.
Daenerys Entertainment had just absorbed MCA, so launching an IPO right away would be unwise. Three years of integration felt exactly right.
At the same time, several deep cooperation agreements between Daenerys Entertainment and Matsushita surfaced in the media, finally explaining why Matsushita had withdrawn so cleanly from the bidding for MCA.
Among the flood of positive headlines, negative stories were inevitable.
Before the acquisition won approval, Daenerys Entertainment had barely three thousand employees. The two companies had posted similar revenue the previous fiscal year, yet MCA employed more than twelve thousand people worldwide.
When Westeros acquired Bell Atlantic it had chosen not to cut staff because rapid growth in mobile communications and the internet could naturally absorb the surplus workforce. Besides, Simon was not deeply familiar with the telecom industry and saw no need to slash costs through layoffs to handle the debt, so he left things alone.
MCA was different.
Daenerys Entertainment and MCA had many overlapping departments, and under the aging Lou Wasserman the studio had developed the typical big-company problem of severe overstaffing.
Layoffs were therefore unavoidable.
The Hollywood Reporter was the first to expose Daenerys Entertainment's possible plan for as many as three thousand job cuts after the merger.
Employment had always been a sensitive issue in American society.
For politicians, the employment rate was a direct measure of performance. For corporations, protecting jobs reflected both image and social responsibility.
Suddenly three thousand people might lose their livelihoods and the entire Hollywood community began to stir.
The three major unions that had reluctantly dropped their attempt to block the MCA deal immediately issued statements condemning the potential layoffs. North American media outlets and various California labor-protection organizations also turned their full attention to the matter.
The situation escalated until the newly elected California governor and several members of Congress publicly expressed concern.
Facing the mounting pressure, Daenerys Entertainment stayed silent for a few days before issuing a clarification: there was no plan to cut three thousand jobs.
However, the merger had created many duplicated positions, so some choices had to be made. The company could guarantee that layoffs would be strictly limited to fewer than one thousand people.
At the same time Daenerys Entertainment promised that over the next three years it would create at least one thousand new positions through business expansion.
The rumored figure of three thousand had dropped to one thousand. Criticism continued, but the public found the revised number far more acceptable.
While the merger moved forward, the North American Valentine's Day box-office window quietly opened.
Last year's Valentine's period had produced the surprise hit Pretty Woman. This year the media paid extra attention to Daenerys Entertainment's release.
Compared with Pretty Woman, however, the film Daenerys Entertainment was putting out felt distinctly non-mainstream. It was called Wayne's World.
Moreover, the most watched title in North American theaters was still the Christmas release Home Alone.
By February 7, one week before Valentine's Day, Home Alone in its seventh weekend took in another 12.93 million dollars. After seven weeks the phenomenon-level family comedy had accumulated 191.59 million dollars domestically.
On February 8 the Valentine's window officially began. New World Pictures, under the Daenerys Entertainment umbrella, released Wayne's World on 1,739 screens. Opening the same day were Warner Bros.' high-budget fantasy adventure The NeverE nding Story 2, directed by George Miller, and Columbia Pictures' TriStar romance LA Story.
The NeverEnding Story, adapted from a famous German children's book, had received a 26-million-dollar budget for its 1984 first installment. Although North American box office had been modest, just over 20 million, strong special effects helped it earn roughly 100 million dollars worldwide.
For The NeverEnding Story 2 Warner had brought in George Miller and invested a substantial 36 million dollars, making it the strongest contender for Valentine's champion.
Yet the actual performance of the films that week left many people stunned.
From February 8 to February 14, the first week of the Valentine's period, the top spot on the weekly chart went not to George Miller's The NeverEnding Story 2 and not to the perfectly timed romance LA Story, but to the non-mainstream, absurd, lowbrow comedy Wayne's World.
In its opening week the plot-scattered, vulgar comedy starring Saturday Night Live star Mike Myers took in 21.7 million dollars over seven days.
Even with Daenerys Entertainment's usual excellent marketing and mostly positive reviews calling it fresh and fun, no one had expected this odd comedy that seemed to lack any obvious selling points to break 20 million in its first weekend.
Inside Daenerys Entertainment many people knew Simon had personally chosen the project, but even New World Pictures president Danny Morris, who had overseen production, had believed that 50 million dollars domestic would be a miracle. Several executives had even set up a small betting pool.
Danny Morris naturally lost, yet he lost happily.
The surprising 21.7 million opening, combined with solid reviews and decent buzz, suggested Wayne's World had a good chance of enjoying a strong long run.
Fifty million domestic might be only the floor.
Because the film contained too many jokes that only Americans would understand, the distribution team held modest expectations for overseas earnings.
After Wayne's World, second place on the weekly chart did not go to either of the other new releases. It went once again to Home Alone.
In its eighth weekend the film lost the weekly number-one spot for the first time, yet its drop was a very respectable 21 percent, adding another 10.22 million dollars.
At the same time its domestic total officially crossed the 200-million-dollar mark, reaching 201.81 million dollars.
Given Home Alone's phenomenal momentum, the film would normally stay in theaters for about twenty-five weeks.
It was easy to predict that after eight weeks on release it could remain in North American cinemas for another four months.
Although its weekly gross would fall below 10 million starting next week, the following four months of screenings, including the family-friendly Easter holiday window, should allow it to collect another 80 million dollars without difficulty. In the end it still looked likely to reach the 280 million domestic total it had achieved in the original timeline.
An 18-million-dollar production budget returning 280 million in North America alone produced a return so insane that the entire Hollywood community could barely hide its envy.
Because of this recent string of events, plus the approach of a certain date, Simon Westeros, who had been trying to keep a low personal profile, once again became the unavoidable focus of the media.
February 22.
Simon Westeros's twenty-third birthday.
Although the media had spent the past weeks speculating that the Westeros system's ten-billion-dollar debt might crush his personal fortune, the truth was that in the single month since the Gulf War began, the steady victories of the multinational forces had allowed the American stock market, led by the war's dominant power, to shake off the shadow of conflict and rebound quickly.
In just one month the Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 23 percent from pre-war levels, and the S&P 500 had climbed 25 percent.
Looking back now, Simon Westeros's decision to complete the acquisitions of Bell Atlantic and MCA right before the war erupted could only be described as inspired.
If either deal had been delayed until after the war started, even ordinary market gains would have made it impossible for him to buy the two companies at the original prices.
After all, Westeros's original offer for Bell Atlantic had carried only a thirty-percent premium over the pre-bid stock price. The premium for MCA had been higher, but that was because the studio's share price had been severely dragged down by more than a year of sluggish economic conditions in the United States.
Two years earlier, when CAA president Michael Ovitz had sounded out MCA on Sony's behalf, Lou Wasserman had quoted eight billion dollars.
As for Bell Atlantic, Daenerys Entertainment had picked up a genuine bargain. Had the deal waited until after the war, Simon might have had to pay an extra two billion dollars.
Now the natural rebound in the overall American economy had already brought Simon handsome potential gains simply from the increased value of the two companies themselves.
If necessary he could easily ease the debt pressure on the Westeros system by selling portions of his stakes in either company.
More importantly, he did not actually need to do so.
After more than a month of financial audits, Daenerys Entertainment's 1990 annual report was finally released.
Through rich returns from film, television, games, consumer products, and soundtracks, the company's full-year net profit for 1990 had reached 1.12 billion dollars, one hundred million dollars higher than the original one-billion-dollar forecast.
Although last year's earnings had been quickly pulled out and reinvested elsewhere in the Westeros system, the ongoing revenue from previous hit films across all channels meant that Daenerys Entertainment, even before the MCA merger, could still achieve 1990-level profits in 1991.
Therefore the income from Daenerys Entertainment alone would be enough to cover every maturing debt in the entire Westeros system.
With the American stock market continuing its rebound and the three-year no-sale commitment on the earlier tech stocks now expiring, Westeros could, if needed, cash out massive sums from the technology sector at any time.
On top of that, the two newly acquired giants, Bell Atlantic and MCA, would themselves continue to generate enormous cash flow and profits.
Since the ten-billion-dollar debt posed no real threat to the Westeros system, it was easy to see that Simon Westeros's personal fortune, riding the recovery of the broader American economy, would not shrink at all. It would most likely keep growing.