Simon's total appearance time at Madonna's solo concert on the night of June 23rd was less than 20 minutes, yet it provided countless media outlets with enough dense hype material for an entire week.
The flaming guitar at the opening was undoubtedly the target of most fan attention.
Even before the concert ended that night, many people began inquiring about the origin of the guitar in Simon's hands.
The Los Angeles Times obtained detailed information about the flaming guitar immediately and even interviewed members of the guitar's production team. The exposed information made most eager guitar enthusiasts shy away.
Setting aside the production cost of over $100,000 and the fact that Westeros had specifically applied for a design patent, even if it were actually replicated, the weight of the guitar itself was not something an average person could handle.
It should be noted that the flaming guitar, which seemed to be handled with ease by Simon that night, was much larger than an average guitar due to the installation of an all-metal flame-throwing system. Its weight alone exceeded 20 kilograms, whereas general guitars rarely exceed 5 kilograms.
Most people can, of course, lift a 20-kilogram weight.
However, for a musical instrument, a weight exceeding 20 kilograms means that even with a shoulder strap, few guitarists could perform freely under such a downward pull.
Unless they were sitting down.
However, few people would have the gall to sit down and hold a domineering double-necked flaming guitar as if they were cradling a delicate acoustic guitar while playing.
Just thinking about it is a bit embarrassing.
Of course, even with these various obstacles, it didn't stop many people from yearning for the flaming guitar.
In the aftermath, there was a steady stream of people trying to buy the guitar from Simon through various channels, with the highest bid even reaching $3 million. However, Simon refused them all; Janette already intended to keep the guitar in their soon to be completed Point Dume Manor villa.
Because of the flaming guitar, some media outlets couldn't help but focus once again on Simon's formidable personal combat prowess. The video of his ten consecutive KOs at the Melbourne boxing arena earlier this year was brought out for another round of hype.
The flaming guitar was naturally out of reach for most people.
However, the guitar single record titled 'Fire' officially went on sale the following Monday, and sales exceeded 1 million copies in just five days.
As for the other two new songs, 'Hung Up' and 'Ghosttown,' Madonna planned to release them in her next album. Therefore, if fans wanted to collect them early, they could only look forward to the upcoming release of the concert video tape.
Of course, a large number of people certainly recorded the concert video that night directly with their home VCRs.
Besides Madonna's team, the biggest beneficiary of this concert was undoubtedly ABC, which had paid a heavy price for the live broadcast rights. Their $6 million bid brought ABC a staggering average of 36 million viewers, peaking at 43 million.
Such viewership figures were already comparable to the Academy Awards Ceremony.
However, for the Academy Awards Ceremony, a bid of $6 million was simply unthinkable.
Despite the massive gains, everyone also understood that this concert had too many non-replicable factors.
To ensure the box office of the concert itself, most singers would not easily allow TV stations to broadcast live. After all, doing so might make a quick fortune in the short term, but it would dampen the enthusiasm of fans to watch the performance on-site.
Madonna's team naturally understood this logic; the decision to use a live broadcast format this time was more out of promotional necessity.
Now, the results had far exceeded expectations.
After that night's concert, although Westeros would no longer be involved, the tickets for Madonna's remaining tour dates in North America and Europe were all sold out within the following few days.
Amidst the heated media discussions, there was naturally no lack of controversy.
The petite girl named Jennifer, who rushed onto the stage during Simon's final appearance, was once suspected by many media outlets of being a pre-arranged plant.
As for the reason.
Many media outlets felt that the scene at the time was simply too perfect.
A beautiful girl as delicate as a doll.
Westeros's perfectly timed comforting.
And, finally, that rendition of Elton John's 'Rocket Man'.
Particularly the final song, 'Rocket Man,' became a 'bug' pointed out by many sceptics.
In a commercial concert, any song, let alone a cover, even the singer's own original songs, sometimes requires special authorization.
If Simon Westeros had not obtained authorization from Elton John and the company holding the copyright to 'Rocket Man' beforehand, singing this song at will would be an infringement and subject to a lawsuit.
However, the news that followed broke the media's doubts one by one.
The whole thing was indeed an accident.
The 17-year-old girl named Jennifer Brey from Florida, besides being a crazy fan of Simon, had no prior substantial intersection with Simon personally; that night was the first time the girl had met Simon in person.
As for 'Rocket Man'.
Simon had indeed infringed.
However, Madonna's team contacted Elton John and the record company holding the copyright to 'Rocket Man' immediately after the event.
Upon learning of the situation at the time and being paid a copyright fee, all parties expressed their understanding.
Elton John even praised Simon's performance during a media interview, expressing a desire for a chance to collaborate and so on.
Moreover, when 'Rocket Man', an old song released in 1972, quickly climbed to second place on the single bestseller list the following week, trailing only 'Fire', the song's copyright company was left with nothing but pleasant surprise.
Because Simon had taken Jennifer Brey backstage after singing 'Rocket Man', the petite girl subsequently became a focus of media attention. Both information that should and should not have been exposed was unearthed by the media.
Jennifer Brey was from Miami, Florida, born into an ordinary middle-class family. Her father was an employee at a food company, her mother was a nurse, and she had an older brother and a younger sister. The girl had been obsessed with Simon since 'Run Lola Run', and she had spent all the money she saved from part-time jobs over several years on that one concert ticket.
She had travelled alone by train from Miami to New York and waited outside the Brenda Barry Arena all day. Her pockets were empty, and she didn't even have a place to stay after the concert.
After Simon finished singing that night, he had originally intended to send the girl off the stage, but sensing that the young girl's mental state was already clearly abnormal and discovering she was alone, he took her backstage. Upon learning of her situation, he even arranged a hotel for her and a plane ticket back to Miami.
That was all.
After doing what he felt he should, sending a lone girl home safely, Simon paid no more attention to the matter.
However, the gossip-hungry media didn't think so.
Some speculated about whether anything had happened that night, some chased every bit of contact between the girl and Simon, and some talent agencies even tried to sign the girl.
None of this, however, had anything to do with Simon.
The day after the concert ended, Simon left North America and flew to Australia.
Cersei Fund Management Company had begun a new phase of positioning in the international crude oil market, Apollo Management Company was conducting the Simmons Company acquisition, and BlackRock also planned to buy at the bottom when the war caused turmoil in world stock markets.
It could be said that the upcoming July was crucial for Cersei Capital, so Janette did not return to Australia with Simon this time.
Jennifer accompanied him as planned.
The Female Assistant had personally overseen the construction of a log cabin by a lakeside within Simon's territory in Tasmania during this time, just waiting for a snowy day to arrive to spend some long-awaited time alone with Simon.
Over in Melbourne, a week before Simon arrived in Australia, 'The Dark Knight' had officially started filming.
Considering the benefits 'Batman Begins' had brought to Melbourne's film industry, tourism, and employment, the incentives for 'The Dark Knight' were further increased. The tax rebate ratio was raised to 20% from the previous 15%, and it still lacked the various restrictions attached to other films.
Simon didn't deliberately exploit any loopholes because of the Melbourne city government's lenient conditions; instead, he moved more of the film's production stages to Australia and even specifically bought the abandoned factory in the western suburbs of Melbourne used for the previous filming, planning to build a film production base.
The Australian branch of Daenerys Effects was also officially established.
Regarding the specific filming, although fans had some complaints about Simon's use of Jan de Bont, in reality, as the public announcements from Daenerys and Warner Bros. stated, control of the film remained firmly in Simon's hands.
The script was personally finalized by Simon, and unless he could be persuaded, Jan de Bont had no authority to modify it.
The crew was also entirely the team Simon had personally trained last time, which was enough to ensure that the technical details of the film remained consistent with the first one.
Furthermore, although Jan de Bont was the director in name, Simon also arranged two other assistants for him, Roland Emmerich and Martin Campbell. All three would later become A-list Hollywood directors, and they already possessed sufficient filmmaking experience and unquestionable talent.
Simon's requirement was for the three of them to cooperate closely, with many matters being executed only after joint discussion.
After pooling their wisdom, although Jan de Bont held the final decision-making power on set, Simon believed that de Bont, who cherished this opportunity immensely, would not be unwilling to absorb the correct suggestions put forward by the other two.
In addition, Simon once again invited Joe Silver to serve as the producer responsible for the logistical support of 'The Dark Knight'.
With this series of advantageous conditions, if Jan de Bont could still mess it up, Simon would decisively kick him out.
The fact was, Jan de Bont naturally wasn't kicked out.
After Simon arrived in Melbourne and carefully checked the dailies filmed by the crew over the previous week, he very confidently became a hands-off manager.
Of course, in media reports, to soothe fans' concerns about the film's quality, Simon was still 'diligent' in following the entire filming process.
Unknowingly, time quickly moved into July 1990.
While Simon was not in Los Angeles, Daenerys Entertainment still began its financial audit for the first half of the year as scheduled, and Janette would occasionally help keep an eye on things.
Moreover, it wasn't just Daenerys Entertainment; because of the attention sparked by Simon's participation in that concert recently, some media outlets listed the facts and discovered that since stepping into Los Angeles in the summer of 1986, Simon Westeros had created a vast commercial empire in just four short years.
The entire Westeros System, with Westeros Company as its core, involved four major fields: entertainment, fashion, technology, and finance.
What was even more remarkable was that none of these four fields involved minor operations.
Among them, the most dazzling, Daenerys Entertainment, although its business scope was still limited to films and their related industries, had already firmly established itself among the giants in just these few years.
The curse of strong uncertainty and lack of sustainability in the film industry's performance was also broken by Daenerys Entertainment.
Since its inception, Daenerys Entertainment has never suffered a major loss on a film project. Instead, it has repeatedly used small investments to gain large returns, creating box office miracles with films such as 'Scream', 'The Sixth Sense', and 'Pretty Woman'.
The unfolding of the DC Cinematic Universe plan further showed the industry a brand-new path for the development of the film industry.
In the fashion field, Gucci, which was originally on the verge of bankruptcy, quickly regained its vitality after being taken over by Simon Westeros. Recently, industry institutions have valued Gucci at over $1 billion. Compared to the initial investment, Simon Westeros has already gained several times the return in terms of equity alone.
The technology industry could be said to be the field where Simon Westeros made his earliest large-scale bets.
Although Ygritte, one of the four 'women' under Westeros, still seemed quite small, the stock prices of companies like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, and Sun, which Westeros Company bet on during the 1987 stock market crash, have been rapidly increasing in value in recent years.
Especially Microsoft.
Since the release and massive success of the Windows 3.0 system in May, Microsoft's stock price has continued to rise sharply, now exceeding $5 billion, closely following Microsoft's close partner Intel.
The industry even predicted that by August, Microsoft's stock price could even double compared to its market value of around $3 billion at the beginning of the year.
Thus, setting aside the profits from absorbing Microsoft stock during the initial stock market crash, the 10% increase in holdings at the end of last year alone could bring nearly a 100% paper return to Westeros Company in less than a year.
Finally, the financial field.
Cersei Capital became famous overnight through two operations in the Japanese financial market and the US bond market last year. The exposure of Simon Westeros's $4.5 billion overseas cash reserves at the beginning of this year simply shocked everyone.
Although it has been trying to keep as low a profile as possible, every move of Cersei Capital continues to cause ripples on Wall Street.
Cersei Capital's current operations in the international crude oil market have not been a secret from the start.
Fortunately, the companies that can dig up information from Cersei Capital are not stupid; following along in secret is the way to go. Therefore, they have not spread this information everywhere and have even actively helped in this regard, which is why Cersei Capital has not become completely transparent to the public.
According to rough estimates, the total market value of the series of entertainment, fashion, technology, and financial enterprises involved by the tentacles of the entire Westeros System has exceeded $50 billion.
In this era, General Electric, which often ranks at the top of the Fortune Global 500, has a market value of less than $50 billion.
It is midsummer in July in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Southern Hemisphere has entered the coldest stage of winter.
Melbourne is located in a temperate maritime climate zone, so it basically doesn't snow in winter. The coastal areas of Tasmania are actually the same, but the inland areas extending dozens of kilometres are another scene.
The second week of July.
When a heavy snow fell in the area where the Female Assistant had built the log cabin, the two of them rushed over together.