After the New Year, the final blockbuster box office period spanning from 1994 to 1995 quickly came to an end.
From December 30th to January 5th, "Suicide Squad" saw a decrease in its box office drop, narrowing to 17% in its third week of release, bringing in another $47.91 million, easily maintaining its position as the weekly box office champion. After three weeks, this DC Extended Universe anti-hero blockbuster had accumulated a total box office of $197.38 million.
With a near $200 million gross in just three weeks, even if the movie market cooled rapidly after the holidays, "Suicide Squad" was well on its way to comfortably surpassing the $300 million mark domestically.
With no new competition and the timing of the New Year, the North American box office for the week from December 30th to January 5th only saw a 15% drop compared to the Christmas week. Other films generally maintained their Christmas week box office levels, with some even showing an increase.
The 3D animated film "Toy Story 2" remained in second place, with a 13% drop, adding another $16.29 million, bringing its total box office to $270.98 million, just $30 million shy of the $300 million mark.
In third place was Macaulay Culkin's "Richie Rich."
Warner Bros.' holiday comedy, which had a disappointing opening week despite a $40 million budget, surprisingly saw a 14% increase in its second week, earning $14.03 million. However, despite this reversal, the two-week total of $26.35 million couldn't save Warner Bros. from a loss on this project given its significant cost.
Disney's holiday comedy "The Santa Clause" ranked fourth, with an 11% drop in its third week, earning $10.62 million, bringing its three-week total to $38.97 million.
Fifth place went to MGM and Capcom's co-produced film "Street Fighter."
The second-week performance of this popular video game adaptation was the most disappointing, with a 36% drop, pulling its weekly earnings below $10 million. In its second week, it grossed $9.01 million, for a total of $23.12 million.
Outside the top five:
"Louisa May Alcott's Little Women" in sixth place saw a 21% drop, earning $8.73 million in its third week, bringing its total box office to $31.76 million.
"I.Q." in seventh place, perhaps benefiting from being the only romance film of the Christmas season, saw a 16% increase in its second week, overtaking last week's "The Jungle Book," earning $7.71 million for a two-week total of $14.36 million.
"The Jungle Book" in eighth place dropped 12%, earning $7.27 million in its second week, with a total of $15.54 million over two weeks.
In addition to these films, following last week's entry into the $100 million club, "The Mask" grossed $3.32 million in its eighth week of release, also crossing the $100 million mark domestically, with a total box office of $100.37 million.
January 6th marked the first box office week after the New Year.
As for new releases, there were only two indie films with a combined screen count of fewer than 500, which weren't worth mentioning.
However, three films that had opened on December 23rd for awards season eligibility and received positive reviews—"Nell," "The Madness of King George," and "Legends of the Fall"—all expanded to wide release this week, each with over 1,000 screens. The most well-received during the limited release, "Legends of the Fall," even expanded to 2,005 screens.
Daenerys Entertainment would begin releasing its new films of the year starting on January 13th, though the first significant release wouldn't be until January 27th, with the Hong Kong film "Rumble in the Bronx." This was another attempt by Jackie Chan to break into Hollywood.
Last year marked a turning point from prosperity to decline for Hong Kong cinema.
Despite the release of classics like "A Chinese Odyssey," "Ashes of Time," and "Chungking Express," which would go down in history, severe overinvestment led to hundreds of films failing to be delivered on time, causing massive losses for many film companies and severely impacting investor enthusiasm. From here on, Hong Kong cinema would rapidly decline.
Moreover, this decline was partly due to the continued impact of Hollywood blockbusters.
Starting in 1994, Hong Kong cinema's survival space shrank, and Hollywood gradually dominated the vast Southeast Asian market.
Filmmakers like Jackie Chan and John Woo began venturing into Hollywood under these circumstances.
Aside from the upcoming "Rumble in the Bronx," John Woo's "Broken Arrow," a collaboration with Daenerys Entertainment completed last year, was set for release on February 10th, during the Valentine's Day period. Like David Fincher's new film "The Game," which was slated for a late summer release, the $50 million budget "Broken Arrow" was scheduled for February, largely due to Daenerys Entertainment's abundance of quality projects.
Even the prime Easter slot, close to "Broken Arrow," was occupied by Daenerys Entertainment's continuously successful comedy series "Ace Ventura 3."
The script written by Simon Westeros, "The Man from Earth," was expected to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival at the end of January, but it could only be released in the less favorable late February slot. At least "Broken Arrow" had a Valentine's Day release.
With the domestic market becoming increasingly challenging, Simon's primary proposal during the first Daenerys Entertainment high-level meeting of the year was to maximize the expansion of overseas markets. In reality, Daenerys Entertainment had been focusing on this for several years, but now it would place even greater emphasis on utilizing the vast overseas market to maximize the commercial potential of its film projects and mitigate the risks posed by domestic market differences.
After returning to Los Angeles post-New Year, Simon busied himself with Daenerys Entertainment matters before heading to San Francisco on January 9th.
The 20-hectare Icarus Campus in Mountain View, planned since early 1993, had undergone more than a year of development and construction and was officially put into use after the New Year. Previously, Icarus employees had to work out of scattered rental offices throughout Silicon Valley, but now they were all moving into their new campus during the first week of the new year.
Simon had originally secured 300 hectares of land in the coastal area of Mountain View under Westeros Company, of which Icarus occupied only one-fifteenth.
Besides Icarus, which had sufficient funds to build its own campus, Simon had also built additional office space under Westeros Company, which was intended for rent to new tech startups in Silicon Valley. This office space was also put into use at the beginning of the year.
As Icarus moved in, closely related companies like Thinkable, Broadcast, and Instagram also moved into this office park in Mountain View.
A residential area developed at great expense in the northern coastal part of the office park was also opened earlier to Icarus employees or related company staff. Initially, it was only available for rent, and the rental rates were very low for Icarus employees. The residential area consisted mainly of standalone villas and three-story apartments, with 500 units each, totaling 1,000 homes, enough to comfortably accommodate 5,000 residents.
With the rise of the new tech industry, real estate prices in the Bay Area had already begun outpacing those in other U.S. cities.
Perhaps for now, the housing pressure on Bay Area tech employees wasn't too severe. However, in ten or twenty years, even the top tech company employees would find it challenging to purchase a home in the Bay Area. Simon even remembered news stories from his past about Google and Facebook employees living long-term in RVs.
The properties built under the Westeros Company name were primarily intended for rental, making it difficult to recover the initial investment in the short term. However, in the long run, not only would the continuous appreciation of these properties yield significant profits for Simon, but providing affordable rental housing for employees would also become a major advantage for Icarus in its competition with other tech companies in the future.
Of course, even with the discounted rentals, Simon wouldn't be losing out.
This "discount" was only available to employees of related companies. To benefit from it, companies like Icarus or others that wanted to offer similar perks to their employees would need to make up the difference in rent through subsidies.
Moreover, this arrangement wasn't a loss for Icarus or other companies in the park.
With the intense competition for talent in Silicon Valley, housing subsidies were a significant draw for attracting employees to new tech companies. Furthermore, because these properties were close to the workplace, they could greatly reduce commuting time and even encourage employees to work overtime.
Additionally, while renting out properties generates less immediate revenue than selling them, Simon could always use these assets as collateral to secure loans from banks if needed. Given the high growth rate of Bay Area property prices, just the annual appreciation would be enough to cover the interest on these loans and still yield a profit.
In short, this was a very profitable deal from every angle.
Upon arriving in San Francisco, Simon spent the entire day on January 9th attending an Icarus high-level meeting in the glass-and-steel modern office building in the Icarus campus. The main agenda was to review 1994 and plan for 1995.
Given the explosive growth of the new tech industry over the past year, Icarus, which held a monopoly in several sectors, also experienced explosive revenue growth, even more rapid than in 1993. The
company had already begun preparations for an IPO, with all necessary audits underway. To boost investor confidence, Icarus would be releasing its 1994 financial report next month.
Many people would be shocked.
Simon's demands of Icarus's management core were no longer about rapid growth but rather to slow down, focus, and further refine and enhance the core products of Icarus.
Another key topic was overseas expansion.
Simon hadn't forgotten his conversation with Clinton and other Washington insiders at the White House, and neither had Washington.
Overseas expansion and Icarus's strategy of slowing down to refine its core products were not mutually exclusive.
For basic services like portals, email, and search engines, the underlying technology wasn't difficult to replicate. Not only within the U.S., but many tech companies abroad had also begun launching similar products. To maintain its advantage in this competitive landscape, Icarus had to continually improve and optimize its offerings.
Users are very discerning.
Whether it's a search engine or social network, people can usually tell the quality of a product after using it a few times, and they naturally gravitate towards the best one.
In the past, Yahoo had introduced a search function very early on, but why did it later lose out to Google? Aside from major strategic missteps, Yahoo's primitive and clunky search tool was a significant reason why it was quickly overtaken by competitors.
In fact, thanks to years of accumulation, Icarus already had considerable advantages with its products. However, Simon remained vigilant, continuously instilling a sense of urgency in Icarus's top management at every meeting, reminding them that in an era of explosive information technology growth, a moment of complacency could lead to being overtaken by competitors.
Especially since the new tech industry was still in its early stages of development, Icarus couldn't afford to let its guard down.
After a busy day, Simon attended an industry gathering organized by John Chambers in the evening, finally returning to his hillside villa in Woodside after 10 p.m.
After relaxing with a bath and discussing the recent launch of Icarus's satellite map service with his former housekeeper Alice Ferguson, who had accompanied him back tonight, Simon was informed by the A-girl that there was a call from Kyiv.
Celia Miller and Ken Dixon had left for Ukraine on January 2nd.
Things were not going smoothly.
Upon learning of Simon's intention to replace the governor of Rivne Oblast, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma became quite uncooperative, openly expressing to Celia that the Westeros system was overstepping its bounds with such demands.
Simon, however, didn't back down.
On one hand, Celia continued to lobby Kuchma.
On the other hand, the Westeros system's arms trading company directly halted negotiations on the most recent deal with Ukraine.
During the 1990s, Ukraine's economy was in decline, and the country largely relied on arms sales to bring in some much-needed funds.
However, Ukraine didn't have much to sell.
Basic small arms or old Soviet heavy weapons had limited demand elsewhere. High-end strategic missiles and nuclear weapons were not something that could be openly sold. As a result, the production of more marketable helicopters or ships was constrained.
Moreover, these arms sales rarely lined the pockets of private individuals; most of the proceeds went to the state treasury.
The Westeros system's arms trading company, acting as a broker, had built a bridge for the export of Ukraine's otherwise hard-to-sell low-end weapons.
The key point was that there was a lot of room for maneuver.
Ukraine had plenty of low-end weapons, but Europe, Asia, and North America didn't need them. The best market would be Africa, but those countries couldn't afford to pay. Ukraine couldn't do what the Westeros system's arms trading company could by bartering; Ukraine needed money, not resources, and acquiring oil or minerals thousands of miles away was meaningless to them.
So, the Westeros system's arms trading company was crucial.
By decisively halting negotiations on new deals, Simon quickly made Kuchma realize the gravity of the situation. A large number of Kuchma's officials were dependent on this cash flow, and compared to that, a governor seemed much less significant. After all, Ukraine was not a major country like the USA; a governor there was about the equivalent of a mayor in the U.S.
After several days of bargaining, Kuchma finally agreed to all of the Westeros system's demands.
With the 10-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Kyiv, it was already 9 a.m. on January 10th in Kyiv when Simon received Celia's call. She had just had breakfast with Kuchma and obtained the presidential decree removing Yury Miloslav from his position as governor of Rivne Oblast. After ending the call and confirming the final details with her boss, Celia would head to Rivne's capital, Rivne City, to officially launch the purge.
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