Following the continued success of Toy Story 2, The Mask ranked second on the charts. After experiencing a steep 38% drop in its second week, The Mask saw its decline narrow to 23% in its third week, earning $17.65 million and bringing its three-week cumulative box office total to $77.66 million.
Daenerys Entertainment secured another film in the 1994 $100 million box office club.
Paramount's classic sci-fi sequel Star Trek: Generations slipped from second to third place on the chart. In its second week, the film's box office dropped by 31%, earning $15.94 million, with a two-week cumulative total of $39.05 million. The projected domestic total of $60 million to $70 million was not a blockbuster but was reliably consistent, ensuring that Paramount would continue the series.
Ranking fourth was Interview with the Vampire, starring Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt. The film's weekly drop narrowed to 19%, earning $14.11 million and bringing its three-week total to $67.92 million. Given this positive trend, the chances of Interview with the Vampire joining the $100 million club increased significantly.
In fifth place was MGM's The War Zone, which in its third week saw a 27% drop, earning $10.53 million for a cumulative total of $53.03 million.
Outside the top five, Disney's Cool Runnings opened in sixth place with $9.64 million. This crime comedy, with a production budget of just $10 million, exceeded expectations at the box office, though only relative to its modest budget. With a domestic total projected at around $30 million, it would turn a small profit, but far from the heavy-hitters dominating the box office.
The Haunting in Connecticut, last week's seventh-place Halloween horror film, held steady in the same position with a 33% drop, earning $6.39 million and bringing its cumulative total to $99.61 million, poised to break the $100 million mark.
Sony Pictures' $60 million comedy Junior, featuring the gimmick of a pregnant man, suffered a 49% drop in its second week, earning just $4.99 million, plummeting from sixth to eighth place with a two-week total of only $14.79 million.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's new film had a poor start, and the second-week 49% drop dashed hopes of even reaching the initial $30 million threshold. With average per-theater earnings dropping to just over $2,800, most theaters pulled the film after December 1, effectively ending its run in just two weeks.
A year of frequent failures led to renewed rumors that Sony was considering exiting Hollywood.
In the original timeline, Sony had barely managed to hold on, with sporadic successes preventing complete failure. Aside from using content to support its interests in hardware industries like VCRs, DVDs, and Blu-ray, Sony occasionally enjoyed modest successes, keeping its performance from looking too bleak.
This time, however, Daenerys Entertainment's overwhelming dominance in Hollywood had severely squeezed the survival space of other studios. The strong grew stronger, and the weak grew weaker, making Sony's struggle even more arduous.
Despite the swirling rumors, Simon knew that Sony had no plans to exit Hollywood, at least not in the short term.
This was partly due to the persistent determination of Sony's founder, Akio Morita.
After the massive losses caused by Sony's investment in Columbia Pictures, Morita had resigned as chairman, but his influence on Sony remained strong. The main reason, however, was the imminent promotion of DVD technology. With the DVD standard divided into two competing camps, Sony needed to maintain its content resources to avoid repeating the mistakes of the VCR business.
Sony's continued presence in Hollywood aligned with Daenerys Entertainment's interests.
Much like Simon's behind-the-scenes push for Vivendi to acquire Disney, a Hollywood major studio controlled by a foreign company was much easier for Daenerys to suppress, overtly or covertly. If Sony relinquished Columbia Pictures back to a domestic company, Daenerys, as the industry giant, might face backlash if it continued to dominate.
Simon had considered offering Sony one of Daenerys' ten upcoming collaboration projects if they were struggling to stay afloat. But since it was clear Sony had no plans to leave, he dismissed the idea.
With the box office week from November 25 to December 1 over, the Thanksgiving release period came to a successful close.
On December 2, a new box office week began. The public shifted their attention back to work, and the North American film market entered a lull between the Thanksgiving and Christmas release periods.
However, this week still saw the release of a commercial film with over 1,000 screens, Trapped in Paradise. Produced by Fox, the film opened on 1,286 screens and followed three young men who rob a small-town bank, leading to a series of comedic events. Clearly, Fox had little confidence in the film, opting to release it in the quiet December 2 slot, hoping for a miracle.
In addition to Trapped in Paradise, three other films opened in limited release this week: the classic literary adaptation Little Women by Daenerys Entertainment's Highgate Pictures, the biopic The Poet and His Lover from Paramount's Orion Pictures, and Warner Bros.' documentary Bauhaus.
The original Little Women was produced by Sony Pictures and did well both at the box office and during awards season, with Winona Ryder receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Daenerys Entertainment's version was essentially a preemptive move to capture that success.
Simon made some changes to the original film's cast. While Susan Sarandon and Kirsten Dunst retained their roles, the lead actress was swapped out. Simon, who had never been particularly fond of Winona Ryder, replaced her with Mia Kirshner, a Canadian-born Russian actress Simon had met at the Sundance Film Festival earlier that year.
In Simon's view, Mia Kirshner's acting was on par with Winona Ryder's, lacking only the right opportunity.
That's how Hollywood—or perhaps the whole world—works.
Some people strive relentlessly and get nothing, while others enjoy the resources that others can only dream of, almost as if they're squandering them.
Now standing at the top of the pyramid, Simon had no intention of changing this reality.
In fact, he couldn't change it.
After all, Simon himself was the greatest beneficiary of such unfairness.
Simon had yet to act on his feelings for Mia, though he was deeply attracted to the dark, brooding quality beneath her innocent exterior. He looked forward to bringing out that quality and showcasing it on the big screen.
Little Women opened on 23 screens.
Upon release, the film received excellent reviews, scoring 8.7 from the media. Mia Kirshner's performance didn't disappoint, with many critics noting the emergence of this suddenly prominent actress. Some critics, aware of the casting switch, had initially expressed regret that Winona Ryder wasn't cast, but they quickly changed their tune.
Of course, the positive reviews of Mia Kirshner were partly due to the influence of WMA.
After Simon chose Mia, WMA positioned her to directly rival Winona Ryder, who was represented by ICM.
The biopic The Poet and His Lover from Orion Pictures clearly aimed for awards consideration. The film opened on 17 screens, but unfortunately, it received lukewarm reviews, making any awards chances slim and even putting its box office prospects in jeopardy.
Warner Bros.' Bauhaus was riding the wave of the documentary trend that Daenerys Entertainment had sparked in recent years. Opening on 31 screens, it received decent reviews and had a shot at an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
While Simon was busy with various major projects at Daenerys Entertainment in Los Angeles, The Man from Earth quietly began filming on December 7 on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada.
Simon planned to spend a day or two overseeing the project in person, but before that, he headed to San Francisco on December 8.
December 8 marked exactly one month since the midterm elections.
During this time, nothing major had happened, significantly reducing the likelihood of any future incidents. Simon, whose nerves had been tightly wound, finally began to relax.
With this operation completed, the Westeros system's political maneuvers would shift to a slow, steady approach. Last month, Simon had promised several Washington power brokers that he would not influence more than 10% of congressional members but made no such promise regarding state and local elections.
The American electoral system is a bottom-up structure, where each level of election, from the most basic municipal races, can influence the final outcome of the presidential election. While maintaining his influence in Washington, Simon planned to quietly lay the groundwork in key states and counties to steer American politics in critical moments.
Returning to the present, the purpose of Simon's trip to San Francisco was to discuss a settlement between the Westeros system's big three—Cisco, AOL, and Egret—and the Federal Department of Justice's antitrust investigation.
Simon's earlier conversations with several Washington power brokers had had their intended effect. Of course, the Westeros system's assertiveness during the midterm elections had also played a role. No one in Washington wanted to cross Simon, just as the Westeros system's targeting of the NRA had made a big splash but ultimately did little harm.
As a result, the months-long antitrust investigation and settlement negotiations began to show signs of progress.
Most antitrust investigations in the United States never reach the final trial stage. Even the famous Microsoft antitrust case in Simon's memory ended in a settlement with the DOJ.
After proposing his plan to leverage the country's new tech giants to dominate the global market, the top executives from Cisco,
AOL, and Egret were invited to a series of secret meetings in Washington.
No matter how politicians think, they couldn't resist the allure of Simon's plan.
If successful, the United States would not only hold unrivaled military power but also gain unmatched economic dominance in the Information Age. Unlike military dominance, which required massive defense spending, this economic power would generate substantial profits globally, helping to offset the nation's growing debt.
As this plan, beneficial to the nation, spread among top politicians, who could oppose it? Who would dare?
Don't you love America?
For the plan to proceed smoothly, the first step was to remove the shackles from the tech giants. The Westeros system wisely offered predetermined concessions, providing the DOJ with a face-saving compromise. Within a month, both sides had roughly agreed on the terms of settlement.
The first point: none of the three companies would be required to split up.
This was the Westeros system's absolute bottom line.
At least for now.
Cisco and AOL were not to be split up, and Simon was well aware of Egret's potential.
If Egret continued to expand in search engines, social networks, and e-commerce, maintaining its current industry dominance, it could eventually become a conglomerate worth over $3 trillion, equivalent to a combination of Google, Facebook, and Amazon from Simon's memory. Add in its monopolistic Internet software business and Egret's vast Internet investment portfolio, and it could become an even larger behemoth.
Not only would the federal government find such a company too conspicuous, but Simon himself had no interest in allowing such a massive entity to exist. Thus, Simon planned to break up Egret at the right time.
But not yet.
Egret still needed its scale advantage to conquer markets worldwide over the next few years.
Under the final agreement, Egret agreed to unlock the homepage of its IE browser. The new version of IE would no longer be locked to Egret's portal but would instead resemble Google Chrome from Simon's memory. The software's opening page would be a search engine tool with six customizable site boxes that users could set as shortcuts to their favorite websites.
Essentially, it expanded the homepage from one to six.
Of course, the single homepage option would still be available, and users could set it as they pleased.
To the average person, this concession might not seem significant.
But industry insiders knew that Egret's concession, though it didn't include opening up browser software patents as some had hoped, effectively relinquished its monopoly over the Internet interface. Now, everyone could compete on a relatively fair playing field to attract traffic.
Although the final settlement agreement hadn't been signed, the industry was already buzzing with excitement.
Internally, there was some dissent within Egret regarding Simon's decision to give up the Internet interface monopoly, with concerns that it was a self-destructive move that could impact the company's IPO next year. Even the four executives who had previously been persuaded by Simon thought the decision was premature. They believed that if a concession had to be made, Egret could have held out for another year or two, further entrenching its advantage.
Simon, however, refused to waste any more time on explanations, instead insisting that the management team carry out his directives.
Even Microsoft, which had once possessed a super interface like IE, had failed to achieve anything in the Internet space.
Egret had already built a strong enough foundation.
Maintaining the Internet interface monopoly would only breed complacency within the company.
Competition drives progress.
Moreover, while most industry players focused on the red-hot portal business, few noticed that Egret was formally bringing its search engine business to the forefront.
Beyond Egret, Cisco promised that no single equipment supplier would dominate the ISP equipment market. The maximum share any supplier could hold would be capped at 80%, with Congress set to pass legislation to enforce this.
As for AOL, the most significant concession was the termination of its exclusive agreements with the three major East Coast operators and a pledge not to sign any similar exclusivity deals in the future.
These were the main terms.
Of course, the final settlement agreement was far from simple.
In addition to the core terms, the settlement included numerous details such as patent transfers and anti-collusion measures, totaling 170 pages.
Arriving in San Francisco on December 8, Simon spent two days meeting with the heads of the three companies, making final adjustments with DOJ representatives. On December 12, both sides officially announced that the months-long antitrust investigation had been settled.
Of course, signing the agreement, adhering to it, and strictly adhering to it are entirely different matters.
In the past, Microsoft had been under DOJ antitrust scrutiny since the early 1990s, repeatedly settling and then breaching agreements until it nearly faced a breakup.
The core terms of the settlement would be honored, as they were the public face of the agreement.
But there was room for maneuvering with the finer details.
Maximizing profit is the nature of business.
Simon had no intention of intervening.
This settlement was already far from the Westeros system's bottom line. If conflicts arose in the future, they could always throw in a few more chips.
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