Hunting in Hollywood

With various health check-ups, notifying friends and family, and organizing a pregnancy diet and routine, Simon and Janet were busy from Tuesday to Friday. Naturally, the weekend was also spent at home together.

The situation was so significant that the media inevitably caught wind of it.

Deciding to address the situation head-on, they officially announced via the Igritte portal: The Westeros family was expecting their first child.

Congratulations and well-wishes from all quarters followed the announcement, stirring lively discussions in the media.

Some analyzed the implications of whether Simon Westeros' first heir would be a boy or a girl, others speculated on the wealth the child would inherit, and there were guesses about what name the Westeros couple would choose for their child, among various other topics.

Anthony Johnston flew in from Melbourne to Los Angeles with his family on Friday, representing the family to visit his newly pregnant sister.

Once it was confirmed that Janet was indeed pregnant, she discreetly donated $10 million to several children's charities, including UNICEF, under the name of the Simon & Janet Westeros Foundation. According to Janet, this was to accumulate good fortune for the little one in her womb, hoping that the child would grow up healthy and safe.

Westerners view charity as part of their social duty, often also seeking corresponding social prestige; they don't usually embrace the concept of 'accumulating good deeds ensures future blessings' found in Eastern traditions.

Simon thought Janet's idea might have been influenced by her consistent study of Chinese in recent years—her proficiency had reached a level where she could directly read the traditional Chinese version of "Dream of the Red Chamber."

Being inherently Eastern at heart, Simon naturally didn't object to Janet's approach.

Because she was successfully pregnant, Janet, who had wanted to forget her 31st birthday, ended up celebrating modestly. However, the celebration was just a small dinner at Dumay Cape Estate with close friends and relatives, far less lively than Simon's birthday party the previous month.

After the birthday dinner, Anthony and his family returned to Australia after a week in Los Angeles, and Simon finally resumed work.

Janet, on the other hand, began her maternity leave immediately.

Not working anymore.

Starting maternity leave just over three weeks into pregnancy...

The prerogative of a pregnant woman.

Who would dare object?

Fortunately, Janet had always maintained a management style that largely delegated responsibilities, managing Cersei Capital mostly from a high-level perspective. Therefore, her absence didn't significantly affect the operation of Cersei Capital.

Of course, even though Janet started her maternity leave early, Simon couldn't truly let go of Cersei Capital.

Currently, Cersei Capital and its subsidiaries—Cersei Fund Management, Apollo Management, and Black Rock Asset Management—were handling over $21 billion in assets. The first two managed around $3 billion each, primarily dealing in low-risk stocks and bonds and fixed-income investments, while Black Rock Asset Management had grown to $15 billion.

Although the heads of these subsidiaries were carefully selected from the top talents on Wall Street, no one could guarantee that these professional managers wouldn't make outlandish decisions if given too much power without strict supervision.

Instances of fund managers on Wall Street making unilateral investment decisions that led to huge losses for their companies were not uncommon.

Simon remembered that around this time, Solomon Brothers, a company comparable to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, collapsed later this year due to a bond bidding scandal exposed by a fund manager, eventually disappearing from the list of Wall Street banking giants after a few years.

Janet's role in Cersei Capital was half strategic direction and half financial oversight.

After her leave began, Cersei Capital quickly reorganized to establish an investment committee. Simon, James Redbird, and the heads of the three subsidiaries joined the investment committee.

Simon took on the role of overall control, while James handled financial oversight.

All significant investments from Cersei Capital now required approval from the five-member investment committee. As the controlling shareholder of Cersei Capital, Simon still retained a veto power.

However, Simon's internal decision was to interfere as little as possible with Cersei Capital's management.

Unless it was a project doomed to fail in his memory, he wouldn't actively obstruct the decisions of the subsidiary fund managers. A competent boss should be able to tolerate subordinates' failures. The primary purpose of setting up the investment committee was just to prevent the subsidiaries from becoming unbridled in Janet's absence.

Janet was never particularly passionate about the operations of Cersei Capital, and now that she was pregnant, she would surely focus more on her child. If the investment committee proved effective, this system could be maintained in the future.

This year's Easter fell on March 31, with the Easter film period starting on March 22.

For this Easter, Daenerys Entertainment mainly promoted two films: Madonna's ambitious "Truth or Dare" concert documentary and "Children of the Corn III."

If including Universal Pictures, there was also "One Crazy Night," produced by John Hughes

.

"One Crazy Night" tells the story of a supermarket clerk and a runaway heiress encountering two thieves during an overnight shift at the supermarket. The plot setup has many similarities with "Home Alone," not because it was riding on its coattails but because it was filmed last year, and the similarity was just typical of John Hughes' mass production style.

Simon didn't have high expectations for the box office of this relatively obscure film, but its lead actress was noteworthy—Jennifer Connelly from "Once Upon a Time in America." At 21, she was definitely at the peak of her attractiveness.

As March progressed toward the end of the month, the summer blockbuster season was not far off.

Simon began focusing more on a series of films related to Daenerys Entertainment.

During the core summer period of June and July, the four films—"Batman: The Dark Knight," "Terminator 2," "The Fugitive," and "Few Good Men"—were all collaborations with external studios, distributed by Warner Bros., Fox, Warner Bros., and MGM, respectively.

Besides the four mainstream commercial films, Daenerys Entertainment was independently releasing three niche films from Highgate Studios.

Due to the anticipated takeover of MCA, this was also a deliberate arrangement by Simon.

The distribution team at Daenerys Entertainment would use this summer's distribution tasks to complete the takeover and integration of Universal Pictures.

Unfortunately, Simon was disappointed that Universal Pictures' summer films "Backfire," "Jungle Heat," "Problem Child 2," and "Family Business" did not seem to have the potential to be big sellers.

Reviewing Universal Pictures' 1991 film slate, only "Cape Fear" and "Fried Green Tomatoes," tentatively scheduled for the end of the year, seemed to have decent box office potential. However, these films' North American box office receipts still did not break $100 million, indicating that Universal Pictures might not have a blockbuster this year.

The fluctuating performance of Hollywood studios was evident.

This also underscored just how dominant Daenerys Entertainment had been in Hollywood in recent years.

To minimize or reduce the losses from Universal Pictures' 1991 film operations, Daenerys Entertainment recently canceled the production and distribution plans for seven of Universal's films. However, since most projects were already in substantial production phases, many of which were completed, the number of films left still reached 16.

On the Daenerys Entertainment side, the three labels confirmed to release 23 films in 1991.

Adding both, the new Daenerys Entertainment would launch a total of 39 films in 1991.

Fortunately, Simon had already planned ahead.

Of the 23 films from Daenerys Entertainment itself, 11 were from Highgate Studios. Although niche independent films and art films had repeatedly created box office miracles in recent years, their overall impact was still limited, so they wouldn't greatly disrupt the mainstream commercial film ecosystem.

After re-planning, six of the 16 films from Universal Pictures were also categorized under Highgate Studios.

In total, Highgate Studios would release 17 films in 1991, all leaning towards niche independent and artistic nature.

Additionally, New World Pictures was assigned 11 films, mainly thrillers, horrors, and lowbrow comedies.

The mainstream commercial films also totaled 11, including collaborations like "Batman: The Dark Knight" as well as Daenerys Entertainment's own releases like "Toy Story."

This clear three-tier distribution system would become the main framework for Daenerys Entertainment's future film business.

Each distribution system would operate on the scale of a mainstream production studio.

Although Daenerys Entertainment still maintained an open collaborative attitude externally, the restructuring of its film business clearly carried a strong aggressive stance.

Traditionally, major studios usually released only about ten to twenty films annually, seldom exceeding thirty. After the restructuring, Daenerys Entertainment's annual film release scale would reach forty, naturally squeezing the living space of other Hollywood studios under the essentially fixed capacity of the North American film market.

Simon would not hold back due to the pressure felt by other Hollywood studios. In the previous years, he had already provided enough easing chips. Moving forward, Simon planned to personally promote further consolidation of major Hollywood studios, aiming to reduce the number of media giants to five or even fewer.

During this process, traditional major studios would inevitably be absorbed and disappear. As restrictions on horizontal integration in the media sector were lifted, the media giants would gain more monopolistic resources. It would become increasingly difficult for newcomers to rise in Hollywood.

Dumay Cape Estate.

Today was March 22, a Friday, and another week had passed unnoticed.

Since Janet's pregnancy, Simon had been making it a point to leave work at 5 p.m. every day.

Just entering the Shell Villa, Simon saw the hall filled with a dazzling array of children's products: strollers, formula, plush toys, Lego blocks, piles of clothes, stacks of little shoes... It looked almost like a flea market for children's goods.

Passing

 through the 'flea market,' Simon found the woman on the sofa by the glass wall, who was busy operating a toy truck on the floor with a remote control.

She was thoroughly enjoying herself.

The toy truck bumped against Simon's feet a couple of times, accompanied by the woman's playful voiceover: "Beep beep beep, daddy is blocking the road, move aside, daddy."

Simon couldn't help but laugh, walking over to the woman lying on the sofa, who was peeking out her head, and playfully smacked her bottom: "Buying so much stuff, does our home have a mine?"

Janet, although not understanding the cultural reference in Simon's words, responded confidently: "Yes."

Simon paused.

Well.

This home did indeed have a 'mine.'

Circling the sofa to sit down, he lifted the woman onto his lap, snatched the remote control from her hands, and the toy truck began to move again across the polished floor.

Hmm.

Quite fun.

Janet watched Simon quickly get 'involved' and reached out to snatch back the remote control: "That's for the baby."

Simon dodged: "Don't snatch it. The baby has to wait a few years, let daddy play for a while."

Janet rested her head on Simon's legs, made a few unsuccessful grabs for the remote, and eventually gave up, but couldn't help laughing joyfully.

After laughing for a while, Janet gently touched her belly and asked, "Simon, what should we name our little one?"

Simon responded, "What do you think?"

"I want you to choose."

"I'm not great with names."

"Yeah, like Seattle or something," Janet suddenly laughed again, smacking Simon lightly, "My child will not have such a strange name."

Simon also smiled, "How did Jennifer tell you about that?"

"Hmm hmm hmm."

Janet didn't explain, just hummed smugly.

Simon thought for a moment and suggested, "If it's a boy, let's call him Melbourne. If it's a girl, um, also Melbourne."

Janet swung her little fist at him: "I'll Melbourne you, I'll Melbourne you."

Simon didn't dodge, laughing: "You asked me to pick, and I think it's a good name—Melbourne, Melbourne Westeros."

Janet hit him again: "My child will not be named Melbourne, that's worse than Seattle."

Simon was easy-going: "Then you pick."

Janet rolled around on the sofa, still looking troubled, but eventually 'compromised,' "If it's a boy, then Melbourne is fine, for a girl, Seattle."

Simon playfully responded, "Don't fight with Jennifer over it, okay?"

Although the assistant had always been unhappy with the names Simon suggested beforehand, one could imagine the commotion if Janet took one away.

"I don't care, she can try having a baby before me."

"If Jennifer has a child first, I think you might secretly get rid of me in the middle of the night."

"I wouldn't." Janet shook her head, "I wouldn't wait until midnight, and I would get rid of you both."

"Really?"

"Fake," Janet reached out to touch Simon's face, "I couldn't bear to do that."

Simon breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good."

"But I won't let you off."

"Hmm?"

"You think about it."

"No need to think, you're already pregnant," Simon put down the remote control, leaned down to kiss her lips, "So, Melbourne it is?"

"It sounds terrible."

"You'll get used to it, who dares say Westeros sounds bad now?"

"Westeros never sounded bad."

"Like this, repeat 'Melbourne Westeros' a hundred times in your mind every day for a week, and you'll get used to it. The power of habit is strong."

"I still think 'Seattle Westeros' sounds better."

"That's because you've repeated it many times in your mind."

___________________

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