The next day, another edition of the Sundance Film Festival closed.
The Grand Jury Prize went to a very low budget black and white drama called In the Heat of the Moment, which told the story of a down and out screenwriter and a failed producer who went to every length to raise funds and shoot their film.
Although Reservoir Dogs had been controversial in earlier media reviews, its reception had been quite good and the buzz for awards had been very high.
It was simply that because none of the jury members particularly liked the film for its overly raw depiction of violence, Reservoir Dogs ultimately came away with nothing.
Daenerys Entertainment had been purchasing films or scripts from Sundance almost every year in recent years, and the two sides had already formed an extremely close connection.
However, precisely because of this, in order to maintain the fairness of the Sundance award judging as much as possible, Daenerys Entertainment would not easily interfere with the judging process unless absolutely necessary.
After attending the festival closing ceremony, Simon returned directly to Los Angeles.
As for the follow up on Reservoir Dogs, a 2.5 million dollar project did not warrant too much of his personal attention.
In the original timeline, Reservoir Dogs had ended in failure for its North American release, yet it had also established a long term cooperation between Miramax and Quentin Tarantino that only ended with the Weinstein scandal.
After that long conversation the previous night, Kathryn had gone to New York.
She had once had very few choices and had been forced to shoot subjects she was not particularly interested in.
Now, after accumulating several films with decent box office results and with Simon's support, Kathryn no longer faced the worries that plagued many filmmakers just starting their careers. After being awakened by Simon, she decided to spend the next year or two carefully sorting through and developing some projects.
She also planned to make a trip to Europe.
The massive changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, along with the subsequent direction of those countries, had made Kathryn curious, and she even had the idea of shooting one or two documentaries first.
From The Gucci Documentary to True and Brave and last year's Ice World, the successive box office successes of three documentaries had turned the documentary category into one that Hollywood paid considerable attention to.
Simon himself was fine with whatever Kathryn wanted to shoot.
Money was not an issue.
Even if she made the original timeline's The Widowmaker, it would not matter. What Daenerys Entertainment lacked most right now was a major loss making project.
Of course, in all of Hollywood, Simon would only indulge Kathryn to this extent.
He would not even allow himself such freedom.
After the Sundance closing, it was already the end of January before anyone realized.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, the first matter to handle was Daenerys Entertainment's second round of layoffs.
Over the past month, after repeated reviews and assessments by the company's human resources department, a preliminary list of 800 people to be laid off had been drawn up. This number was slightly smaller than Simon had env isioned, but once the news was announced it still sparked media controversy.
The overall American economy was still at the bottom, and the federal unemployment rate had reached a new high in the just ended 1991.
If this had been any other company, layoffs at this time would not have been inappropriate.
Corporate survival was the most important thing.
However, when Daenerys Entertainment carried out layoffs, many people found it hard to accept.
One only needed to look at the box office data from the string of hits produced by Daenerys Entertainment last year to see the company's 1991 performance.
For a company with such outstanding operating results to insist on layoffs seemed, in the eyes of outsiders, a very irresponsible act lacking social conscience, the behavior of unscrupulous capitalists.
In reality, the 800 person layoffs, after factoring in all costs, would only save Daenerys Entertainment less than 200 million dollars per year. Yet Simon's insistence on the layoffs was not primarily to cut expenses but to ensure Daenerys Entertainment could continue operating with high efficiency.
Many corporate giants' big company diseases began with bloated personnel.
If Daenerys Entertainment wanted to maintain its high speed development momentum for as long as possible, it had to keep its employees in a constant state of crisis awareness.
No matter how well the company was doing, if you did not work hard you could still lose your job.
Therefore, without paying much attention to outside questioning, once the layoff list was finalized Daenerys Entertainment began implementing it rapidly. All 800 employees were cleanly dismissed within the following week.
Some unwilling employees even tried to organize a collective lawsuit. Daenerys Entertainment naturally had no fear of this.
The entire layoff process had been carried out strictly in accordance with American labor law provisions. It might have been lacking in moral terms, but there had been no legal violations.
Of course, allowing these people to pursue litigation would certainly damage Daenerys Entertainment's reputation.
Therefore, word soon spread through Hollywood.
If this batch of employees who had left Daenerys Entertainment continued to cause trouble, the doors of every studio in Hollywood would be shut tightly against them.
To put it more bluntly, anyone who refused to settle down could forget about working in Hollywood in the future.
With Daenerys Entertainment's current influence, many people had no doubt the company possessed such power.
After all, even big names like Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise had seen their careers damaged under Daenerys Entertainment's targeting, let alone these small fry.
Moreover, even if they truly did not plan to work in Hollywood anymore, everyone still had to make a living. Yet probably no boss liked employees who, after being fired, continued to tangle endlessly with their former employer.
Besides, Daenerys Entertainment had indeed not violated any rules.
Forcing a lawsuit would lead to unpredictable results.
Thus the so called collective lawsuit quickly fizzled out.
After completing another round of layoffs, Daenerys Entertainment subsequently announced a salary increase plan.
The employees who had joined Daenerys Entertainment from MCA the previous year had still been kept at the relatively lower salary levels from their MCA days. In this salary increase plan, most of the former MCA employees saw their pay raised to the same level as the original Daenerys Entertainment staff.
Careful media calculations later found that this round of raises basically offset the entire labor cost savings Daenerys Entertainment had just achieved through the layoffs.
Once the news was released, it greatly reduced the negative impact brought by the layoff plan.
There had never been a shortage of clear sighted people in this world.
The salary increases that immediately followed the layoffs made many people understand that Daenerys Entertainment's layoffs were not aimed at pursuing profits but were more likely considerations for the company's own development.
After the salary adjustments, Daenerys Entertainment as a whole remained the company with the highest average salaries in Hollywood.
This also greatly increased the value Daenerys Entertainment employees placed on their jobs, thereby raising the vitality of the entire company.
Time entered February 1992.
In the final box office week of January, The Flash, which had been in continuous release for exactly six weeks, officially broke 200 million dollars at the North American box office, reaching 211.81 million dollars.
At the same time, from January 23 to January 30, The Flash still earned 10.77 million dollars in a single week. Given the film's long term box office trend, taking in another 40 million dollars afterward would be no problem at all. The Flash was guaranteed to break 250 million dollars domestically.
The Flash's box office success also made the execution of the DC movie universe plan even smoother.
The post production on Wonder Woman, scheduled for this year's summer, was nearing completion. The early preparations for Superman, Cyborg, and Batman: The Dark Knight Rises were all advancing steadily.
After Simon returned to Los Angeles from Sundance, Warner began inquiring about The Flash sequel.
The copyright to The Flash was held entirely by Warner. Even without Simon, Warner could develop a second film according to its own ideas.
However, since the first The Flash had achieved such outstanding results, the entire Time Warner, even the factions that stood in sharp opposition to Steve Ross, did not dare lightly disrupt such a favorable situation.
Therefore the actual control of the series had essentially fallen into the hands of Simon, this powerful producer.
Because Warner Bros. had also released major box office hits like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and The Fugitive last year in addition to Batman: The Dark Knight and The Flash, Warner's original resentment toward Simon for extending the DC movie universe production cycle had lessened considerably.
Malibu, Daenerys Studios.
It was February 5.
Disney CEO Michael Eisner arrived at the administrative area from the studio's north entrance. Upon learning that Simon was at Daenerys Effects on the second floor of the studio, he was led there as well.
The scheduled time was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the timing was perfect.
Simon had just spent two hours checking the post production progress on Wonder Woman and was now in the model effects department of Daenerys Effects.
Although CG was the major trend in Hollywood effects and the demand for model effects would decrease significantly in the future, it would never disappear entirely.
The model effects department at Daenerys Effects handled far more than the monster models ordinary people imagined. The superhero vehicles for the Batman series, the large dinosaur props for the recently started Jurassic Park, and the props needed for car chases, explosions, and other scenes in big budget films were all the responsibility of the model effects department.
Taking advantage of the gap before his meeting with Eisner, what Simon wanted to see was Poison Ivy's design.
In the final Batman: The Dark Knight, the two main villains were the Joker and Poison Ivy.
According to the basically completed plot setup, this concluding chapter of the Batman opening trilogy would once again let the Joker shine brightly. Yet for Simon, he was actually more looking forward to Poison Ivy's performance.
The actress playing Poison Ivy had also been confirmed.
Simon had given the role to Nicole Kidman.
There was actually a small coincidence involved.
In the original timeline, the role of Mia in Pulp Fiction had been played by Uma Thurman, who had then gone on to play Poison Ivy in the 1997 Batman & Robin.
Now Nicole had received the role of Mia in the new version of Pulp Fiction, and she had also been selected by Simon to play Poison Ivy.
Simon had of course not deliberately created this coincidence. It was simply that, compared with several other actresses of the same age, Nicole was indeed very suitable for the role in terms of acting skill, fame, and figure and temperament.
By comparison, Simon felt that Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy could not even be described as bad. It had been complete nonsense. Just that cheap looking green bodysuit had made people lose all fantasy about Poison Ivy.
Poison Ivy was supposed to be green, not merely wearing a green bodysuit.
Simon's initial design had referenced the Poison Ivy look from the game version of Batman: Arkham Knight.
However, after testing, the shirt that was fastened with only one button and left much skin exposed was clearly unsuitable for actual filming.
After repeated adjustments by the stylists, the long sleeves and hem of the "shirt" had been cut away. After further trials, the modified "shirt" had become a more textured deep red leather "jacket." Of course it was still short sleeved, with the hem length just below the breasts, giving it a feeling somewhat similar to a women's athletic crop top.
The idea of using plants to wrap the body had also been considered.
That would have better matched many of Poison Ivy's comic settings, but Simon had found it very hard to accept the fake feeling brought by plastic plants.
If this had been many years later, it would have been possible to have the actress wear a motion capture suit and directly add a layer of "real plants" via CG. Current technology could achieve this, but the effect was not particularly good and the cost was too high.
Therefore the final choice had been a sexy wine red cropped jacket.
Poison Ivy's game version triangle shorts design had also been modified into more conservative hot pants.
This had been done with practical filming in mind. Once a character model was completed in a game it would definitely not "expose" anything, but reality was not so certain.
Moreover, the actual effect of triangle shorts was not even as good as hot pants.
The most critical part, Poison Ivy's skin, would of course no longer involve the character simply putting on a cheap green bodysuit like Uma Thurman. Instead the skin would truly be painted green.
This was also the most complex part of Poison Ivy's image design.
Simply applying a layer of green would look extremely fake.
What Simon wanted was a very natural green, the kind where audiences would instinctively feel that this person should be green.
Therefore Poison Ivy's skin makeup needed to convey a natural chlorophyll texture, even incorporating details like the natural texture and imperfections of human skin.
In short, it had to give a sense of realism.
To achieve the effect Simon wanted, Daenerys Effects had specially assembled a team of effects artists and makeup artists responsible for the task. After several months of repeated attempts, they had only recently produced a makeup effect that gradually satisfied Simon.
When Michael Eisner entered the model effects department's work area, his gaze was immediately drawn to several sexy and slender "Poison Ivy" figures.
If he had not known where he was, he might even have thought he was seeing another race of people.
This was the final effect Daenerys Effects had created for Poison Ivy.
Nicole Kidman obviously had no time to personally follow the design process, so the several "Poison Ivy" figures were stand ins found by Daenerys Effects.
Although he felt somewhat dissatisfied in his heart that Simon was still multitasking even during their meeting, Eisner did not show it.
He warmly followed along with some comments. At the same time, as a filmmaker himself, Michael Eisner could not help envying the technical level of Daenerys Effects. A moment later, after sending away the several girls who had spent four hours on makeup only to be glanced at by a certain man a few times, Simon and Eisner finally turned to the actual matter at hand.
The matter concerned the attached film commitment Disney had signed with Simon back when he had been negotiating the distribution of When Harry Met Sally.
Watching Simon's status in Hollywood grow higher and higher, rumors had circulated more than once outside that Simon might never direct films personally again.
Disney did not intend to keep waiting.
After several prior communications, Disney's intention was to hope that this film commitment could be exchanged for a cooperation project with Daenerys Entertainment.
Simon definitely would not direct any films personally in the short term, so he had not rejected Disney's suggestion.
Moreover, as the original ten film plan was gradually completed, Daenerys Entertainment also needed to continue developing some external cooperation projects to maintain close ties with other Hollywood studios. Therefore Simon had arranged to meet Eisner in person today to discuss it.