Daenerys Entertainment films collectively garnered the following awards at the 61st Academy Awards: 'Dances With Wolves' won seven major awards, including Best Picture and Best Director; 'Ghost' won Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay; 'Misery' won Best Actress; and Pixar's 3D animated short film 'The Little Lion' won Best Animated Short Film.
Excluding other honorary awards, Daenerys Entertainment's total of 11 major awards accounted for exactly half of all 22 film awards, making it the biggest winner of this year's Oscars, just as it was at the Golden Globes in January.
Simon had little interest in attending any parties recently. However, as the boss, it was only right that he made an appearance at the celebration party.
Arriving at the Gucci-themed party at the Beverly Hilton with Sophia, it was already close to ten o'clock.
Weaving through the party crowd, congratulating the evening's winners, Simon quickly approached a middle-aged man who was chatting with John Lasseter and Ed Catmull.
The middle-aged man, Roger Allers, was an animation film director and screenwriter poached by Pixar Animation Studios from Disney. He had previously been involved in Disney films like 'Oliver & Company' and was also the director of the award-winning 3D animated short film 'The Little Lion' tonight.
In the original timeline, Roger Allers was the director of Disney's 2D version of 'The Lion King' feature film.
From late 1988 until now, for over two years, Pixar had been developing animation technology related to 'The Lion King' while also working on 'Toy Story'.
'The Little Lion', which won an Oscar tonight, was a concentrated embodiment of Pixar's technological development achievements over the past two years.
The short five-minute film, through a brief adventure of a little lion living on the vast savanna, comprehensively showcased the magnificent African savanna scenes and animal fur rendering technologies in 3D animation.
Now, having successfully won the Oscar for Best Short Film, it was sufficient proof that Pixar's technology had reached the level required to produce a 3D version of 'The Lion King', and the film would officially begin production soon.
After congratulating Roger Allers on his award, Simon added, "I'll make time to watch the storyboard presentation for 'The Lion King' in the next few days, Roger. This is a gift from me to Janette, and my wife will be very angry if you mess it up".
Although it was just an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, Roger Allers was still quite excited tonight. Upon hearing this, he immediately nodded confidently and said, "Simon, I promise you, this will absolutely be a wonderful story".
Simon smiled, then turned to John Lasseter and said, "John, how much longer until 'Toy Story' is finished? You've already gone over budget quite a bit".
In the original plan, Simon had hoped to complete 'Toy Story' for $30 million.
However, perhaps due to the natural perfectionism of any artist, 'Toy Story' was estimated to take a few more months to complete, yet John Lasseter's team had already spent $33 million.
Although Simon had a smile on his face, John Lasseter was still quite nervous.
Pixar Animation was absolutely the most 'freeloading' department under Daenerys Entertainment.
From the time Simon acquired it in 1988 until now, well over two years have passed, while all other departments of the company had been thriving, Pixar Animation had only been spending money without any output.
Therefore, everyone knew that 'Toy Story' was a make or break battle for the Pixar team. If it failed, even if they had another chance to turn things around with 'The Lion King', the Pixar team's next two years would certainly not be easy.
After careful consideration for a moment, John Lasseter said, "Two months, Simon, give us two more months".
'Toy Story' was scheduled for release in November of this year, so there was actually plenty of time. However, extending the project by even one month would mean significant additional expenses, so the sooner it was completed, the better.
Simon monitored Pixar's progress every month, and he was very satisfied with the completed samples of 'Toy Story', so he wasn't anxious at all internally.
As the first 3D animated film, it was inevitable to encounter various problems. Considering the project's profit prospects, Simon could just about tolerate the Pixar team's overspending.
However, Simon would not show this indulgence, and still gave them a verbal warning.
After chatting with John Lasseter and others for a while, Simon looked at Jennifer beside him, confirmed that all the necessary greetings had been made, and prepared to leave.
Just as he and his female assistant arrived at the entrance of the party hall, Ira Deutchman walked over, accompanied by several men and women of Asian descent.
Coming before Simon, Ira Deutchman explained, "Simon, Zhang and his team want to say hello to you".
Among Daenerys Entertainment's many nominations tonight, there was also 'Ju Dou', which received a Best Foreign Language Film nomination. This was also the first time a film from across the ocean had received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Simon had initially instructed Deutchman to pay more attention to and introduce Asian films, but he hadn't shown too much extra attention to 'Ju Dou'.
Therefore, the film did not win an Oscar.
Looking at the several big names in front of him, whom he could only look up to in his previous life, Simon smiled, stepped forward, and shook hands with each of them one by one: "Hello, Mr. Zhang. And, Miss Gong, your performance in 'Ju Dou' was very wonderful".
Simon used Chinese directly when greeting them.
The people in front of him all showed surprised expressions upon hearing Simon's fluent Mandarin, and even Ira Deutchman's expression was a bit odd.
After all, they were people from two different worlds. After a few simple pleasantries, expressing hopes for future collaborations, Simon and his female assistant left the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
He still had to return to the Point Dume estate tonight.
Janette had just become pregnant, and even if she didn't mind, Simon was very considerate of her feelings towards these small details, so he had never spent a night out during this period.
Taking the female assistant with him was just to drop her off at home on the way.
As the car drove through downtown Los Angeles late at night, Jennifer keenly sensed some subtle emotional changes in Simon after he greeted those East Asians. It was a kind of... perhaps it could be called melancholy, but she didn't say anything, just leaned gently against his arm.
Her man, in fact, always had many secrets.
But if he didn't say, she wouldn't deliberately seek them out.
After dropping off his female assistant at her uncle George Norman's house, Simon did not stop and continued back to Malibu.
The next day, as usual, was filled with reports about this year's Oscars.
Daenerys Entertainment winning half of the Oscars naturally became the focus of media discussion.
Fortunately, although there were some politically correct factors involved, 'Dances With Wolves', which won seven major awards, did not cause too much controversy. Instead, many media outlets still noted the fact that some other excellent films produced by Daenerys Entertainment had not received nominations.
In addition, some also noticed Simon's personal 'absence' from this year's Oscars.
It wasn't just his absence from the Oscar ceremony, but the fact that Simon himself hadn't received any personal nominations at this year's Oscars. For a time, some media even began to speculate whether Simon intended to retire from filmmaking.
After all, with Simon's current wealth, there was indeed no need for him to personally direct films anymore.
In response to media inquiries, Daenerys Entertainment denied the media's speculation but also stated that Simon might not be able to personally pick up the director's megaphone for a long time in the future.
Due to the Academy Awards ceremony and the Easter holiday season, 'Dances With Wolves' saw another rebound in box office. In the week of the Oscar ceremony, from March 22nd to March 28th, the decline reversed by 59%, earning an additional $6.54 million, bringing the film's cumulative box office to $139 million.
On March 29th, the second week of the Easter holiday season began.
Two other films related to Daenerys Entertainment, 'Children Of The Corn III' and Universal Pictures' 'Career Opportunities', were released.
New World Pictures invested a budget of $10 million in 'Children Of The Corn III' and used many of the latest CG special effects, attempting to make this horror film series achieve the same box office heights as 'A Nightmare On Elm Street'.
However, after three days of opening, 'Children Of The Corn III' ultimately only grossed $6.73 million at the North American box office, with an estimated opening weekend gross of between $9 million and $10 million, and a total North American box office expectation of approximately $30 million.
It's certainly profitable, but there's still a gap compared to the 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' series.
Of course, compared to the $15 million box office level of the previous two films, the estimated doubling of box office growth for 'Children Of The Corn III' is very significant, so the fourth instalment of the series will still maintain a production budget level of about ten million dollars.
John Hughes' produced film 'Career Opportunities' only grossed $4.02 million in its first three days, and its critical reception was far inferior to the still-showing 'Home Alone'.
The production budget for this romantic comedy film was $11 million, and its total North American box office is expected to be less than $15 million, making it unlikely to recoup its costs relying solely on North American theatrical distribution.
After the box office results of 'Career Opportunities' were released, other studios that had been frantically pursuing John Hughes due to the success of 'Home Alone' calmed down a bit, unconsciously attributing more of 'Home Alone's success to Simon.
After Easter on March 31st, the time entered April 1991.
America Online's three-month free trial program officially ended.
At the start of March, America Online's reserved user count still reached 1.5 million, with an additional 1.09 million free trial users connected.
Among the 970,000 trial users in February, the number who eventually converted to official users reached 560,000, and the conversion rate for official users increased again compared to January, reaching 57%.
Based on the data from the first two months, America Online predicted that among the 1.09 million free trial users in March, the number converting to official users would reach over 600,000.
Calculated this way, America Online will acquire over 1.5 million new users in just the first quarter.
Including user accumulation before 1991, it is estimated that by the end of April, America Online's official paying user count will reach over 2.3 million.
Under such a strong growth momentum, and because a large number of reserved free trial users had not yet successfully connected in previous months, America Online officially announced that the free trial activity would continue until all remaining 2.5 million reserved users had received a free trial opportunity.
Even at a 50% conversion rate, the remaining 2.5 million reserved users could bring America Online another 1.25 million official paying users.
Therefore, after the free trial activity completely ends, America Online's user count will be able to reach over 3.5 million.
Based on an average monthly expenditure of $30 per user, it is estimated that starting from the second half of 1991, America Online's single-month revenue will reach over $100 million.
Both the solid revenue data and the visible high growth rate are continuously stimulating America Online's IPO valuation.
Morgan Stanley, which officially signed to underwrite America Online's IPO, after several adjustments, finally confirmed America Online's IPO valuation at $2.5 billion.
With a valuation of $2.5 billion and America Online's planned 15% new share issuance ratio, it is expected to raise $375 million in capital.
Coupled with America Online's own rapid revenue growth, after completing the IPO, the company will completely overcome the funding problems that had previously plagued it.
On the other hand, with the efforts of America Online and other regional internet service providers in North America, it is estimated that in the first half of 1991 alone, the number of World Wide Web platform users across North America will exceed 5 million, and reaching a scale of 10 million users for the entire year will seem very easy.
This growth rate far exceeded Simon's initial expectations.
No wonder Jeff Bezos, in his memory, quickly switched from the financial industry to the internet industry after seeing its annual growth figure of 2300%.
As the most important content platform in the World Wide Web system, the Ygritte Portal has also gradually attracted more and more attention with the explosive growth of World Wide Web users.
It's worth noting that in this era, the newspaper with the largest circulation in North America had an average daily sales of only over 2 million copies.
The Ygritte Portal, which rapidly gained fame through its coverage of the Gulf War during this period, already had a total user base of over 3 million across North America.
Although the Ygritte Portal's user base was too dispersed, at this time, no one dared to casually ignore this rapidly growing new media platform.
Therefore, in the Ygritte Portal's new quarterly advertising sales campaign in late March, Ygritte accumulated over $12 million in advertising orders from a host of tech giants such as IBM, Intel, and Microsoft.
While traditional daily necessities advertising still struggled to achieve significant results on internet platforms, it was evident that as an emerging new technology media platform, the Ygritte Portal was perfectly suited for tech giants like IBM to promote their products.
Jeff Bezos accurately grasped this point and specifically customized a series of advertising solutions tailored for various tech companies. The $12 million in advertising orders might be insignificant compared to traditional media giants, but it was a leap for the Ygritte Portal.
Prior to this, Ygritte's main source of income was only the sales of its IE browser software.
Therefore, after this quarterly advertising sales event at the end of March, advertising revenue officially became a key revenue focus for the Ygritte Portal.
At the same time, the industry widely recognized the Ygritte Portal's strong monopolistic advantage over World Wide Web content platforms once again.
It's important to know that a portal website that simply provides news and information might not be technically difficult, but integrating functions like email, personal homepages, online forums, and online games in addition to news and information is not an easy task.
More importantly, Ygritte also possessed a very strong patent barrier.
This was the fundamental obstacle preventing other tech companies from replicating the portal website business.
On the World Wide Web platform, even what many considered to be very simple web images were actually specialized format images specifically developed and patented by Ygritte. Not to mention technologies involving underlying applications such as the JavaScript scripting language.
Although Ygritte maintained a very open licensing attitude, more and more other websites joining the World Wide Web platform could easily obtain authorization simply by applying, and it was even free authorization. However, it's not hard to imagine that if someone intended to create a commercial website similar to the Ygritte Portal, being able to successfully obtain technical authorization from Ygritte would be a miracle.
Simon hoped for a flourishing of internet content websites, and therefore did not intend to restrict the emergence of other content platforms, as doing so would bring no benefit to the expansion of the World Wide Web platform itself.
However, if only content-related patent authorizations were open, and access to patent authorizations for related technologies such as email, online games, and future online payments was unavailable, similar websites would be inherently difficult to compete with the Ygritte Portal.