Batman had entered the final stages of editing. Simon spent the morning deep in post-production work on the film and the entire afternoon in back-to-back distribution meetings.
It was Monday, August 7.
This Friday's release of Uncle Buck, the last new title of the summer would officially close Daenerys Entertainment's summer slate.
To date, the company had released seven films this year: Blue Angels, Metropolitan, Sisters, Hellraiser II, Thelma & Louise, The Bodyguard, and The Sixth Sense. The Bodyguard and The Sixth Sense alone were enough to carry the studio's entire annual performance; the others had bright spots of their own.
Heading into the second half of the year, ten more Daenerys-related titles awaited release, counting Uncle Buck.
Flying Over Innocence and Batman would be distributed by Warner Bros., locked for November 17 and December 22 respectively.
The remaining eight, Uncle Buck, Sweet Sister, Woman on the Roof, Angels in the Outfield, Scream 2, My Left Foot, the Gucci documentary, and Driving Miss Daisy, would be handled by Daenerys's three in-house labels, spread across the final five months.
At the same time, with subsidiaries now established in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, and other key overseas markets, Daenerys's international distribution had been running nonstop since the four films from late last year, starting with Scream.
The overseas focus for the second half would be the three summer blockbusters.
Burbank.
Daenerys Entertainment offices. The four-hour meeting wrapped at five o'clock.
Most people headed home. Simon and Ira Deutchman had agreed to watch a cut of Driving Miss Daisy, so they'd stay another couple of hours.
In the conference room.
Amy had noticed Simon's unusually good mood since breakfast. Once everyone else left, she called him back, motioned for Ira to go ahead, pulled up a chair, and sat down beside him.
Simon knew she wanted to talk. He settled back in and smiled. "What's up?"
"It's this," Amy said, choosing her words carefully. "Robert came to see me this morning."
Simon had a pretty good idea what it was about and simply nodded for her to go on.
"From what I've heard lately, Sony originally planned to install Robert as head of TriStar after the acquisition. Because of the ten-picture deal, they've clearly dropped that idea. Robert says he's no longer asking for a raise. Instead, he wants the company to cover a property he's found on Manhattan's Upper East Side, three million dollars."
Robert Rehme's contract had just passed its one-year mark at the end of July; he'd already collected the full three-million-dollar bonus stipulated in the original deal.
Simon had been keeping an eye on Robert's moves.
If Sony hadn't backed off to secure a slot in the ten-picture slate, Simon probably would have received a resignation letter by now.
Seeing Simon lightly tapping the tabletop without answering right away, Amy pressed on. "Compared to the fifteen-million-dollar extra bonus package for The Sixth Sense team, Rem's request isn't excessive. Everyone can see what he's accomplished this year."
The Sixth Sense was now in its sixth week.
Last Friday, under the tiered theater split, Daenerys had received its first payout, $106.13 million from the first four weeks' cumulative $150.02 million domestic gross. With a global projection of $600 million, the film would still deliver at least another $150 million in theatrical share alone.
After all costs, Daenerys stood to clear no less than $220 million in net profit from theatrical over the next year, with equally rich video and television revenue to follow.
Over the full profit cycle, The Sixth Sense would contribute at least $500 million in net profit to the studio.
Meanwhile, recent events had begun shifting some of Simon's long-held views.
The billions parked overseas and the steadily appreciating massive assets under Westeros Company had made him realize that, though certain plans weren't ready yet, he already possessed wealth he could never spend in a lifetime.
Then the frenzy over the ten-picture co-production slate had shown him that sometimes sharing profit didn't just protect him; it could yield unexpected power and even greater returns.
The announcement alone had instantly defused the WGA investigation, forced Orion to settle the withheld Pulp Fiction share, silenced MGM's threats over Rain Man litigation, prompted Sony,m on the verge of acquiring Columbia to abandon poaching plans, and earned Simon a far warmer reception at last night's party than ever before. All of it signaled a dramatic surge in influence for both Daenerys and himself personally.
That influence was a form of invisible power.
At the same time, though Daenerys was only putting up half the investment on the ten films and had voluntarily waived distribution fees, Simon's foreknowledge meant the projects he chose were almost guaranteed hits. In effect, Daenerys was siphoning nearly half the profit that would otherwise have gone entirely to other studios.
Hearing yesterday about Steve Ross gifting sports cars to the Lethal Weapon crew had driven home another lesson: money spent on people was still "consumption" and often returned unexpected dividends.
That morning over breakfast, Simon had discussed a fifteen-million-dollar bonus plan for The Sixth Sense team with Amy.
De Niro would get five million, pushing his total compensation to Hollywood's current top tier of ten million. The producer got two million, the director two million, the child actor playing Cole one million, and the remaining five million was split among supporting cast and key crew.
Relative to the film's expected windfall, it wasn't much. Yet voluntary post-release bonuses from studios were rare; Simon's two lifetimes held far more memories of companies scheming to withhold shares from talent after a hit.
Top star salaries were already hitting the ten-million mark.
To keep budgets in check and prevent studios from becoming mere support acts for stars, Simon would still push to suppress upfront pay. But he planned to introduce more equitable backend deals so talent could earn big on genuine successes.
As for the matter at hand.
Some of his thinking had shifted, but one thing hadn't: he still deeply disliked people who broke agreements.
Daenerys's smooth expansion of its distribution network this year rested fundamentally on a string of hits. Without those chips, no theater chain would have flocked to them, and overseas breakthroughs would have been impossible.
Simon actually valued Robert's contributions and was a sentimental man who believed in rewarding loyalty. If Robert had simply worked out his three-year contract diligently, Simon would have offered a renewal package that left him delighted.
Now, though.
Simon stopped tapping the table and nodded. "If that's what he wants, give it to him. Also, I want to consolidate all the overseas subsidiaries into one unified entity to handle international distribution and overseas production investment. Call it Daenerys International. Start looking for a manager. And the theatrical windows on last year's Scream quartet are closing, home video is about to explode. Daenerys Home Entertainment needs a dedicated head too."
Hearing his tone, Amy knew he was genuinely irritated. She hesitated, then said, "Maybe space those two moves apart a little?"
"If Sony hadn't backed off, I'd already have his resignation on my desk." Simon shook his head and looked at her earnestly. "I actually hate feeling indebted to people, it makes me uncomfortable. So whenever I can, I give you all more than enough. But I also hate when someone overestimates their own importance and demands what they're not entitled to."
Without waiting for a reply, Simon stood and headed out.
By the time he and Deutchman finished the Driving Miss Daisy cut in the studio screening room, it was seven o'clock. They grabbed dinner together. Instead of heading to his Trousdale Estates place in Beverly Hills, Simon drove back to the villa on the west side of Point Dume in Malibu.
Monday night in Los Angeles was Tuesday afternoon in Melbourne; the major Asian exchanges had closed.
When he called, Janet told him the Nikkei 225 had officially breached 38,000 at Tuesday's close.
Out of caution, they kept the topic brief.
Simon's intentions were too obvious, and America's history of wiretapping ran deep. No telling if his home phones were tapped. Lately, critical information traveled the old-fashioned way, by hand. Staff shuttled daily between Melbourne, Los Angeles, and New York.
Simon and Janet talked for over two hours, mostly planning their vacation starting next month.
He hung up at eleven, read scripts for another hour, then turned in.
The next morning brought more detailed reports.
On August 8 local time, Japan's benchmark closed at 38,076. Cersei Capital Funds 1–5, still nominally run by Janet and Anthony, hadn't followed Simon's original exit plan and remained heavily long. Their combined net asset value now stood at $3.29 billion.
Thanks to airtight secrecy, word of the ownership change hadn't leaked.
Given the market's momentum, Simon figured the Nikkei hitting 40,000 was entirely possible this time around.
Of course, it no longer had anything to do with him.
Per the established strategy, Cersei Funds 6–10 had recently begun building short positions in North American equities and bonds tied to junk-bond issuers.
Shorting individual stocks and bonds was far more complex than index futures and easier for targets to detect and counter. Still, the $200 billion junk-bond market and associated equities offered plenty of room for a mere $5 billion operation to maneuver without drawing much notice.
That had been Simon's reason for capping Cersei's size from the start.
With his current clout, opening the funds to outside money could have raised hundreds of billions. But a fund that massive would move markets simply by existing, and render itself useless.
On his last Melbourne trip, combining his memories with Janet's research, they'd locked in the North American playbook. Simon now only monitored broadly; he left the execution to others.
The WGA investigation.
After two weeks of negotiations, Daenerys reached a settlement: the studio admitted violating guild rules on the Scream and The Sixth Sense scripts, paid a $100,000 fine per script, $200,000 total and received the WGA's forgiveness.
Everyone understood it was simply Daenerys giving the guild a graceful exit.
As for Bruce Joel Rubin's compensation claim since both parties had signed voluntarily, the WGA ruled that Rubin had also actively violated rules and denied his request.
The original agreement hadn't broken federal law; the dispute hinged entirely on the guild's stance.
Without guild backing, Rubin had no chance in court and lawsuits in America were famously expensive. He lacked the resources to sue Daenerys anyway. After the WGA ruling, he quietly dropped the matter.
Most people recognized the ten-picture plan as the real reason the guild dispute ended. With it resolved, all of Hollywood and the media turned attention to the slate. Because Simon still hadn't announced his chosen projects, some were already starting to worry he might back out.