Entering April, Simon began devoting more energy to Daenerys Entertainment's film business.
The flagship project of the DC Cinematic Universe, Batman: The Dark Knight, completed final editing at the end of March and smoothly received a PG-13 rating. Its release date was set for June 7. In the first week of April the film launched its final two-month sprint of large-scale pre-release publicity.
The previous January, Warner Bros.' fully funded Flash, still produced by Simon, had quietly begun shooting in Melbourne, Australia. The expected production period was three to four months, with a release date of December 20 in the Christmas window.
Daenerys Entertainment's Wonder Woman, scheduled for next summer, would probably start filming in June.
Outside the DC Cinematic Universe plan, because Simon had postponed Superman's production, the originally assigned director Martin Campbell had been loaned to MGM to shoot GoldenEye.
At the insistence of the Broccoli family, which jointly held the 007 copyright with United Artists, the male lead for GoldenEye remained Timothy Dalton. However, Martin Campbell was the original director of the Brosnan version of GoldenEye.
Of course, Famke Janssen, already confirmed as Wonder Woman, would not be playing the Russian female agent who killed with her long legs this time.
Whether intentionally or not, Sherry Lansing had placed a certain "older-man killer" on the final shortlist for the Russian female agent and had specifically asked for Simon's opinion.
Simon did not think the sweet-girl type Catherine Zeta-Jones could deliver the crazy, bloodthirsty aura Famke Janssen had brought to the original GoldenEye. Considering that MGM would soon become the Johnston family's business, he did not accept Lansing's suggestion, which might have carried some "good intentions."
Simon's consistent attitude toward casting in his film projects was simple: if the role was suitable, he was very happy to grant a few favors. But if it was not suitable, he would never gamble with investments that routinely ran into the tens of millions of dollars.
Come to think of it, many Hollywood project failures were actually caused by improper casting full of personal favors and backroom deals. The proportion of such failures among all failed Hollywood films was still very high.
Hollywood's film industry system had an extremely powerful side, yet it could also appear very unprofessional at times. It was only because of the strong gambling nature of film investment that wins and losses seemed heavily influenced by luck, which masked many of those unprofessional factors.
At the root of it all, Hollywood filmmakers were used to spending other people's money while only earning their own service fees.
When you spent other people's money, losing it never hurt too much.
Daenerys Entertainment, however, was money Simon spent from his own pocket.
Because it operated on a self-financing model and every project represented an investment of at least several million and often tens of millions of dollars, of course every decision had to be made with extreme caution.
Not only Batman: The Dark Knight, but every other Daenerys Entertainment film scheduled for the summer window, whether the co-productions Terminator 2, The Fugitive, and A Few Good Men or the Universal titles Backdraft, Jungle Fever, Problem Child 2, and Fried Green Tomatoes that had been taken over, all began their final stage of summer publicity campaigns after entering April.
After the Oscars, once Pixar had accumulated enough technology, production of the 3D version of The Lion King officially started.
At the same time, another major project for 1992, Jurassic Park, had its script successfully completed under Simon's personal involvement. In April the project formally entered pre-production casting. Principal photography was scheduled to begin at year-end, with a confirmed release window at the end of next year.
Taken together, Daenerys Entertainment's key self-distributed projects for 1992 had already reached four titles: the summer releases Wonder Woman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, plus the year-end releases Home Alone II and Jurassic Park.
Simon's earlier decision to extend the DC Cinematic Universe development cycle had not been without benefits.
If the pace of two films per year had continued, projects like Jurassic Park might have directly competed with major DC releases, often resulting in both sides losing out.
As for the other project Simon had promised Spielberg, Schindler's List, because there was now ample time, Spielberg was no longer rushing to shoot it back-to-back with Jurassic Park. The film was scheduled to begin production in the second half of next year and release in 1993.
In addition, Daenerys Entertainment's other co-production projects were also part of Simon's recent focused work schedule.
Of the original ten-film plan, four had already been released. This summer window would see another three: Terminator 2, The Fugitive, and A Few Good Men.
The remaining three consisted of one at MGM and two at Warner Bros.
Last year, to get Paramount to stop blocking the MCA acquisition, Simon had also promised them three co-production films.
If the one director contract he still owed Disney was included, Daenerys Entertainment's external co-production projects totaled seven.
Finally, after reviewing all the script and novel copyrights Daenerys Entertainment had continuously purchased over the past year, besides the major IPs such as Mission: Impossible and Jurassic Park, the company had also secured two other major copyrights published in 1990.
Both were comics. One was the sci-fi comic Men in Black written by a cartoonist named Lowell Cunningham, and the other was the children's comic Shrek.
When everything was tallied, Daenerys Entertainment's current copyright library included the entire Marvel superhero system, DC's big three of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the complete Tolkien Middle-earth series, the Mission: Impossible and Bourne spy franchises, the Charlie's Angels series whose rights had been bought from Columbia, the Fast and Furious series originally obtained from B-movie king Roger Corman, the quietly acquired Forrest Gump, the original-timeline evergreen Jurassic Park series, plus Men in Black, Shrek, the already-developed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, the 1930s Universal library title The Mummy with high adaptation value, and many more. All these accumulated copyrights that had been massive hits in the original timeline were enough for Daenerys Entertainment to develop for more than thirty years.
On the animated film side, Daenerys Entertainment had already brought in Pixar, the studio behind the original-timeline hits Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., and others.
It could be said that even if Simon now completely stepped back and became a hands-off boss, and even if only half of these copyrights achieved the success they had in his memory, Daenerys Entertainment's film business would still be able to maintain a dominant position in Hollywood for a very long time.
Moreover, Simon of course had no intention of letting go, and the carefully built team at Daenerys Entertainment over the past few years was more than capable of developing these valuable copyrights.
After shuttling between various film sets, production meetings, post-production sessions, actor auditions, marketing meetings, and other film-related matters for a full month, time quickly arrived in May.
This year's Cannes Film Festival would open on May 9. Daenerys Entertainment once again had two films in the main competition section: the Coen brothers' new Highgate Pictures film Barton Fink and Spike Lee's new film Jungle Fever, which had been taken over from Universal and was scheduled for this summer window.
Ira Deutchman had led a team to Cannes a week early.
Simon actually wanted to use the opportunity to travel to Europe with Janet for a short rest.
However, Janet was not yet three months pregnant. The doctor's advice was that it was best not to fly. The woman had decided not to fly at all during the entire pregnancy. This was actually one of the reasons she had stepped away from managing Cersei Capital.
Although she was no longer handling Cersei Capital, Janet was not idle all day. She simply tried to use her brain as little as possible.
She had originally been used to turning her little mind on seven notches. Now she had reduced it to three.
Dume Point estate.
It was May 5, a Sunday.
James Rebould was picked up by his daughter at Los Angeles International Airport and driven over. Simon and his wife were already waiting outside the Shell Villa.
Although it was a rest day, today they needed to discuss some very important matters.
In short, it was a comprehensive review of the Westeros system's assets, cash, and liabilities.
After exchanging greetings, the four of them entered a small conference room inside the villa.
Seeing the ABCD girls and his own daughter busily serving tea and snacks just like proper young ladies, James Rebould once again felt a wave of exhaustion.
He had raised her for nothing!
Still, he only thought it for a moment before quickly turning his attention back to business.
Since the stock market crash of 1987, Simon's personal assets had grown at a staggering speed over the past few years.
At the same time, the entire Westeros system had been spending money like water.
Especially with the two major acquisitions of MCA and Bell Atlantic that had just been completed the previous year. Although the final loan ratio had not been as high as originally expected, the Westeros system's total debt had still reached the ten-billion-dollar level.
In an era when the market caps of giants such as General Motors, IBM, and General Electric were generally only five or six hundred billion dollars, ten billion dollars in debt was an extremely heavy burden for most companies, let alone the fact that this money was essentially Simon's personal liability.
Over the past few years, aside from Simon's gains in several major financial moves, the Westeros system's expansion had mainly relied on the highly profitable Daenerys Entertainment to provide blood transfusions.
The Gulf War that had just ended had been the last major market the Cersei Capital funds could exploit for hedging operations in the coming years.
Therefore, the possibility of obtaining another billion-dollar-level sum from the financial markets was not high.
On the Daenerys Entertainment side, although the company's 1990 net profit had reached an astonishing 1.12 billion dollars, this year, because of the MCA acquisition, Daenerys Entertainment's debt had increased by seven billion dollars in one go. Adding previous accumulation, Daenerys Entertainment alone now carried more than eight billion dollars in debt. The annual principal and interest payments alone would exceed one billion dollars.
In 1990, Daenerys Entertainment's final revenue figure had been 3.96 billion dollars, while MCA's revenue had been 3.37 billion dollars.
With the merger of the two companies, the new Daenerys Entertainment's revenue scale would exceed seven billion dollars.
However, with the company's size suddenly doubled, its profit margin would no longer be as high as when it had operated with a light load.
Moreover, there were still huge debts that needed to be repaid over the next few years.
Therefore, the feasibility of drawing additional funds from Daenerys Entertainment to transfuse into other parts of the Westeros system was also low.
As for Bell Atlantic, although it was another cash-flow source with billions in annual revenue that could provide funds to the Westeros system.
Simon had no intention of bleeding Bell Atlantic. Instead he planned to inject additional capital to push the company's investment in mobile communications and the internet over the next few years. So this company could not be counted on either.
Since neither Cersei Capital, Daenerys Entertainment, nor Bell Atlantic could supply much more capital to the system, many enterprises within the Westeros system continued to thirst for funds.
Ygritte alone would probably need five hundred million dollars this year.
America Online, Nokia, Cisco, and several other companies were also big spenders.
Moreover, even if Westeros Company stopped investing in any new tech companies, Simon would still need to continuously inject capital just to maintain his shareholding percentages in the already-invested new-tech enterprises.
Next, Daenerys Entertainment also planned to launch the Osaka Universal Studios project with a total budget of around two billion dollars. Even with Matsushita sharing half the investment, Daenerys Entertainment itself would still need to contribute another one billion dollars.
Finally, the daily spending of Simon and his wife was actually quite large.
Of course, strictly speaking, the Westeros system did not face any real difficulty in raising capital. Because the entire Westeros system had been in a state of high-speed, prosperous development in recent years, major banks both in North America and overseas were very willing to provide Simon with loans.
The focus of today's discussion was still the routine review and re-planning of the Westeros system's capital movements.
Simon's personal financial foundation was extremely solid, and obtaining investment from banks was very easy.
However, if money was spent too casually without careful calculation, unnecessary expenses would quietly accumulate. If they kept piling up, one day they might trigger tangled debt problems or even create a domino effect.
Simon's personal finances had always been handled directly by Janet. The woman's little mind operating at seven notches was probably equivalent to an ordinary person's twenty or thirty. Simon had always been very reassured, and she had indeed kept everything in perfect order.
Outside of personal finances, James had also been extremely diligent in managing Westeros Company over the past few years. Simon himself had always placed great importance on financial oversight of the entire Westeros system.
Therefore, the possibility of a financial crisis erupting in the Westeros system was not high.
Still, Simon of course understood the principle of nipping problems in the bud, which was why he placed such importance on today's meeting.
"The construction of Osaka Universal Studios has Japanese banks very willing to provide us with funding. Over the next few years the yen, which has appreciated continuously for many years, may enter a depreciation cycle. I believe obtaining loans from Japanese banks would be very cost-effective."
"On the Ygritte side, Cersei Fund Management Company's profits this year should be enough to cover the company's expenses, so no additional capital raising is needed."
"Nokia has successfully developed its next-generation digital phone, and Europe's GSM network has begun entering practical application. The next stage of capital this company needs for development, the funds Melisandre requires to acquire Van Cleef & Arpels, the expenditures for Bell Atlantic's layout in mobile communications and other fields, the next-stage investment needed to maintain our shareholdings in non-listed companies such as Qualcomm, plus your own spending, we will probably need to secure another one to 1.5 billion dollars in loans this year."
"These are the expenditures. The batch of tech stocks we bought earlier, the three-year no-sale commitment has now expired. Aside from companies we plan to hold long-term such as Microsoft and Intel, I have recently reduced our stakes in several other companies to below five percent and gradually exited their boards. If an emergency arises, we can cash out five to ten billion dollars at any time. This sum will be enough over the next two or three years to cover all maturing debts outside of Daenerys Entertainment."
The small four-person meeting lasted an entire day.
James finally summarized everything and looked up at Simon and Janet. "There is one last matter. The construction plan for the Westeros Tower in Manhattan, do the two of you really intend to start it in the near future?"