As a country with separation of powers, legislative authority in the United States primarily rests with Congress.
Once elected, the core work of senators and representatives is to propose, draft, amend, or repeal various bills based on the actual conditions across different sectors of American society.
Every year, the U.S. Congress receives thousands of bills of all types, ranging from major national issues to trivial matters.
Of course, bills differ greatly in importance.
Take Hollywood for example. One of the recent lobbying priorities of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which primarily assists the major Hollywood studios, is to repeal the restrictions on mergers between Hollywood studios and American public television networks.
Repealing this legislation would involve industrial changes on the scale of tens of billions of dollars.
On the other hand, members of Congress naturally cannot simply sit in their offices and invent bills out of thin air.
Most bills arise from communication between the public, unions, business owners, interest groups, federal agencies, and members of Congress.
This has given rise to countless professional lobbying firms in the United States that serve as intermediaries between various groups and lawmakers.
Although American lobbying inevitably involves behind the scenes power struggles and interest exchanges, the process is overall quite formal. At least on the surface, no congressman would be foolish enough to accept meals, gifts, or bribes from people who obviously want something from them.
To advance a bill, the first step is to establish connections, usually through lobbying firms.
Without access to the right channels, everything else is useless.
It is worth noting that most lobbying and consulting firms are founded by politicians who have left positions at various levels of American government. The more senior the politician, the higher the fees. This is another form of high compensation to maintain integrity.
Given the huge number of bills submitted to Congress each year, one can imagine how lucrative their income is.
Once connections are established, others will not help persuade a congressman to submit a bill based on empty words, nor will they directly put money into certain hands on your behalf. If you want to promote a bill, you must collect and organize the relevant data and materials yourself to demonstrate the necessity of enacting or repealing it.
After obtaining sufficient data, the congressman drafts the bill and submits it to Congress, after which it enters the review, debate, and voting stages.
The process after submission is often where the real contest occurs.
In most cases, the more important the bill, the less likely it is to pass solely because the evidence is solid and the data is detailed.
This requires the promoters to employ every possible method: political maneuvering, mutual compromises, public opinion campaigns, interest exchanges, and countless other tactics.
The frequent clashes between the White House and Congress over annual budget bills, which sometimes even lead to government shutdowns, are the most visible example of this kind of contest.
Of course, most of the darker confrontations that take place behind the scenes are not visible to ordinary people.
The bill concerning restrictions preventing operators from participating in telecommunications equipment manufacturing that Simon discussed with Joseph Schlapp this time was a relatively important economic bill. From proposal to final vote, it would likely take two or three years and might need to be lobbied together with other telecommunications regulatory bills.
After more than an hour of discussion, the two men settled some initial details. After seeing Joseph Schlapp off, Simon boarded a plane at the Westchester County Airport near Greenwich and returned to the West Coast.
By the time he reached Dume Point, it was already lunchtime on the West Coast.
After having lunch with Janet and chatting casually about his New York trip, Simon went to Daenerys Studios in the afternoon.
Today was Monday, May 20.
The following Friday would mark the official opening of the 1991 summer movie season.
However, today held another significance. Far away in France, another Cannes Film Festival had just concluded its closing ceremony.
There was a nine hour time difference between Los Angeles and Cannes. In the afternoon, after arriving at Daenerys Studios, Simon soon received the award results from Cannes, where it was already night.
Of the two films Daenerys Entertainment had entered into the main competition, the Coen brothers' Barton Fink and Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, neither won the highest honor, the Palme d'Or. Fortunately they did not leave empty handed. Barton Fink won the Best Director award, and Samuel L. Jackson from Jungle Fever won the Best Supporting Actor award.
In Simon's memory, Barton Fink had originally been expected to win the Palme d'Or at this Cannes festival.
However, in the previous three years, two of the three Palme d'Or winners had been American films. One was produced by Daenerys Entertainment and one was distributed by the company.
This time, the Cannes jury apparently felt the need for some balance.
The eventual Palme d'Or winner was La Belle Noiseuse by French director Jacques Rivette.
Jacques Rivette was not particularly famous, but one of the female leads was very well known. Her name was Jane Birkin. The notoriously expensive yet extremely popular Hermès Birkin bag was named after her.
Thanks to this talking point and the prestige of the Palme d'Or, Ira Deutchman had already started contacting the rights holders, hoping to secure the North American distribution rights for La Belle Noiseuse.
Neither Barton Fink nor Jungle Fever won the Palme d'Or. They only received two secondary awards. This result actually aligned with Simon's expectations.
Daenerys Entertainment could not claim all the glory forever. Some restraint was necessary.
Moreover, Highgate Pictures' main focus for international awards this year was the Venice Film Festival.
Due to production scheduling, Jane Campion's The Piano was unable to participate in the just concluded Cannes Film Festival, but it had already been submitted to the main competition at this year's Venice Film Festival.
Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table from the previous year had received very positive feedback at Venice. The Piano was clearly more suited to Venice's artistic style than Cannes, and the film had a good chance of contending for this year's Golden Lion.
The connections Ira Deutchman and Sophia Fache had cultivated in the Italian entertainment industry would also strongly support The Piano in its bid for the top prize.
Aside from Cannes matters, after returning to the West Coast, Simon's main work this week was focused on The Flash, which had successfully wrapped in Melbourne and returned to North America.
As the lead producer of The Flash, Warner Bros. had shown considerable concern and dissatisfaction that Simon had not visited the Melbourne set even once during filming.
Simon did not argue the point. He truly had not had the time. However, he had devoted plenty of energy to the project, more than enough to justify the producer fee in his original contract.
For several consecutive workdays, Warner Bros. CEO Terry Semel spent time each day reviewing dailies with Simon.
Only after confirming that there were no major issues with the footage and after Simon personally finalized the post production plan did Terry Semel finally relax.
Time passed quickly, and it was now Friday, May 24.
The 1991 summer movie season had officially begun.
That week, six new films of notable scale were released. Apart from Highgate Pictures' Antarctic documentary Ice World and New Line Cinema's comedy Fred the Troublemaker trying to join the summer fun, the other four films all opened on over 1,000 screens.
The four films were:
Backdraft, a fire themed crime action film starring William Baldwin and Kurt Russell, still released under the Universal Pictures banner, opening on 2,036 screens.
Hudson Hawk, a comedic action film starring Bruce Willis from Columbia Pictures' TriStar label, opening on 1,621 screens.
Only the Lonely, the new romantic comedy from Chris Columbus, who rose to the A list the previous year with Home Alone, opening on 1,561 screens.
And finally, Disney's Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, a film based on the true story of a horse trainer, opening on 1,521 screens.
Ice World and Fred the Troublemaker opened on 687 and 821 screens respectively.
Perhaps because the competition was too fierce, or because none of the six new films had strong blockbuster potential, during the opening week of May 24 to May 30, not a single film in North American theaters exceeded 20 million dollars in weekly box office.
Universal's Backdraft ultimately claimed the weekly championship with a first week total of only 19.21 million dollars.
Surprisingly, second place went to an older Disney film, What About Bob?, which featured Bill Murray as a man who creates a series of comedic situations due to his constant, over the top anxiety about the world.
What About Bob? had opened the previous week. In its second week, thanks to growing word of mouth, it managed a 5 percent increase in box office despite facing new releases, earning 13.53 million dollars.
Bruce Willis's new film Hudson Hawk ranked third but fell sharply to 8.64 million dollars.
The production budget of Hudson Hawk reached as high as 65 million dollars.
With universally poor reviews and a weak opening of 8.64 million, and considering that commercial action films often drop around 50 percent in their second week, the film's total North American box office would probably not even reach 20 million dollars. Columbia Pictures was destined to lose a fortune, and its parent company Sony would once again pay a very expensive tuition fee to Hollywood.
Chris Columbus's new film Only the Lonely ranked fourth with 7.73 million dollars.
Given the film's 20 million dollar production budget, this was also a failure.
Next, in fifth place was not Disney's Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken or New Line's Fred the Troublemaker, but Ice World, which brought a refreshing coolness to the summer heat.
In its opening week, Ice World earned an unexpected 6.97 million dollars from only 687 screens.
Upon closer calculation, Ice World became the only film in the first week of summer to achieve a per theater average of nearly ten thousand dollars.
It is well known that for new films with wider releases, only those achieving a per theater average above ten thousand in the first week can be considered on the path to major success.
From the initial fashion documentary Gucci Documentary, to Madonna's music documentary Truth or Dare during the Easter period this year, and now the Antarctic scenery documentary Ice World, Hollywood studios had helplessly watched as they tried to follow in Daenerys Entertainment's footsteps by releasing fashion documentaries, preparing music documentaries, and now landscape documentaries.
What made it even more maddening was that this documentary reportedly had a budget of only three million dollars. It was simply a birthday gift from the Westeros couple to a certain little girl.
The first week earnings of 6.97 million dollars had essentially recouped the production costs.
With this kind of opening, if they strengthened promotion slightly, allowed word of mouth and popularity to build further, and expanded the release appropriately, it would be no problem for the documentary to easily reach 30 million dollars at the North American box office.
Although 30 million dollars was still far from the performance of March of the Penguins in Simon's memory, in the eyes of other Hollywood studios it was already a rare success.
With a budget of only three million dollars, the North American box office return alone represented a tenfold return.
The Hollywood studios that had originally been following the trend and trying to replicate the success of Gucci Documentary and Truth or Dare all shifted their attention to scenic wonders around the world after Ice World's box office figures were released.
Some producers even began pitching adventure documentary projects set in Antarctica, the Arctic, the Amazon rainforest, and the Sahara Desert to the studios. A proposal for an African savanna exploration documentary even landed on Simon's desk.
However, among this series of projects, the one Simon paid closer attention to was Fred the Troublemaker.
Or more precisely, its production company, New Line Cinema.
In the original timeline, New Line Cinema had risen to prominence through the Nightmare on Elm Street series. After Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exceeded 100 million at the box office, it entered the sight of major studios. It was eventually acquired by Time Warner and later created major hits such as The Lord of the Rings and Rush Hour.
Now, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series had been taken by Daenerys Entertainment.
Having lost a franchise that could sustain a second tier studio's profits for several years, with the potential of the Nightmare on Elm Street series largely exhausted, and after several years of reckless expansion in production and distribution, this summer's Fred the Troublemaker was one of New Line Cinema's final attempts before its decline.
Fred the Troublemaker starred Carrie Fisher and Phoebe Cates. According to the information Simon obtained, the film's budget was approximately 6.7 million dollars. That number alone revealed how frugally New Line was operating.
Despite years of accumulated distribution resources, New Line had barely managed to squeeze this fantasy comedy into the summer schedule, yet the opening was disappointing. It earned only 4.39 million dollars in the first week and had virtually no chance of breaking the 10 million dollar mark.
Including marketing costs, the total investment for Fred the Troublemaker was around 10 million dollars.
Clearly, this was a failed project.
For Daenerys Entertainment, the failure of a 10 million dollar project was of little consequence.
New Line Cinema, however, with its relatively shallow foundations, could not afford many such losses.
Simon had checked New Line's 1991 release slate. They had as many as eleven films scheduled for theatrical distribution.
Apart from one Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Final Nightmare, Simon did not see any other film with genuine box office potential.
A movie company that had barely reached second tier status producing eleven films in one year would essentially be exhausting all the capital it had accumulated over the years. When combined with Simon's secret interference, the company would soon fall back into difficult straits.
Incidentally, another company Simon had been secretly monitoring, the Weinstein brothers' Miramax Films, had already degenerated into small scale workshop operations after missing turnaround films such as Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Cinema Paradiso.
Lacking any real production capability, the brothers could only acquire some European film rights over the past two years and try to earn whatever they could in North America.
In the end, just as the total number of movie tickets sold in the American market each year is relatively fixed, Hollywood's overall fortune is also limited.
Daenerys Entertainment's rapid growth over the past few years had not only seized a large number of hit films that originally belonged to other studios but had also claimed a significant share of Hollywood's other resources and foundations.
Even the other major studios felt tremendous pressure when facing Daenerys Entertainment, not to mention the second and third tier companies that lacked scale and had weak risk resistance.
Over these years, Daenerys Entertainment had continuously absorbed the best scripts, the most talented filmmakers, the hottest release dates, the greatest media attention, and the highest quality marketing resources in Hollywood.
Studios that had lost their original blockbuster projects might still be able to produce other decent quality films. However, with resources shrinking across production and marketing, those films that had been overshadowed by Daenerys Entertainment's releases simply could not compete at the box office anymore.