After Mike Myers joined Saturday Night Live last year, he created the "Wayne's World" sketch, using shameless parodies and anything-goes jokes to show the absurd fantasy world of the duo Wayne and Garth, with celebrities often popping in for cameos.
Inside Daenerys Entertainment's Greenwich Village office building.
Simon sat in the office he kept reserved for himself on the East Coast, holding the Wayne's World script.
If you judged it by standard Hollywood commercial-film formulas, the script was basically garbage. There was no clear main plot, the story was stitched together out of scraps, and even as a comedy it didn't have a typical Hollywood happy ending.
And yet, in Simon's memory, when it released in 1992, it pulled in $120 million at the North American box office and landed in the year's top ten. Mike Myers, a small-time local TV performer who'd spent years grinding at the bottom, finally tasted what it meant to blow up overnight, and throughout the nineties he stayed a first-tier comedy star with the Wayne's World and Austin Powers series.
After Wayne's World became a hit, people with sharp eyes began endlessly analyzing why it worked. Breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience. Amateurish humor. Mocking and imitating pop culture. The iconic use of "Bohemian Rhapsody." And so on, and so on.
Whether a film succeeded or failed, once you had the result, you could always reverse-engineer countless explanations.
Only Simon and New World Pictures president Danny Morris were in the office.
Simon was genuinely excited about Wayne's World. Danny Morris, however, didn't believe in it at all. But if Simon wanted something, Danny would do everything possible to lock it down, then fulfill his job to the letter.
He'd already missed one chance by giving up the helm of Highgate Pictures. He wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.
A company's rapid rise often brought out employees' hidden potential. Back when New World's lukewarm executives joined Daenerys Entertainment, they all performed better than they had before.
Of course, it also helped that Simon drove them like a mule, squeezing them nonstop.
Just weekend overtime alone, no one among the Hollywood Seven could compare to Daenerys Entertainment.
Danny Morris might have stepped away from Highgate, but his results as New World's president had made Simon very satisfied. That was why he sat firmly in the position.
Deep down, Simon had little tolerance for truly mediocre subordinates.
With the flood of memories from more than ten different lives in his head, Simon could easily catch all sorts of funny bits in Myers's script. He read with real enjoyment.
After skimming through the full script, Simon looked up and asked Danny Morris, "Do we have a budget estimate?"
Danny nodded. "There are a lot of location scenes in the script, and some will need sets built. Preliminary estimate is around twenty million."
Simon recalled the finished film he remembered.
Even though it was a raunchy spoof comedy, it still had plenty of big set pieces and small explosions. A twenty-million budget was not high at all.
Danny Morris studied Simon's expression. "If you think it's too much, I can talk to Myers and cut some of the expensive scenes. We should be able to bring it down under fifteen million. Or even ten million, if we really push."
"No need. Twenty million is fine," Simon said, shaking his head. "And Mike Myers's contract?"
"Two-picture deal. His fee for Wayne's World is one million, including both acting and writing. For the second film, the fee can increase by up to five hundred percent."
With the popularity he'd built through Saturday Night Live, Mike Myers was already a moderately known TV comedy star. A total of one million for leading actor plus writer was reasonable.
If the first film became a hit, whether for a sequel or a new project, a maximum raise to five million was both A-list level and still not as outrageous as Stallone or Schwarzenegger. It was a comfortable middle.
Simon had no further questions. He pushed the script back to Danny Morris. "One last thing, and it's the most important. Whether it's you or whoever ends up producing this project, you need to keep full communication with Myers and understand exactly where every joke and parody in this script comes from. If you don't even know where the laughs are, then there's no point in moving this film forward."
"I'm already doing that, Simon," Danny Morris said with a smile. "Honestly, it feels like I'm learning a whole new world."
"Then," Simon said, checking his watch, "it's almost noon. Let's eat. And bring Bob too."
Lunch with Danny Morris and Robert Iger naturally drifted into other company matters.
Over at New World Pictures, Sandra and her much older acting "senior classmate," Robert Duvall, had agreed to star in The Silence of the Lambs. The original director, Jonathan Demme, had also formally joined. The preliminary budget was $15 million. Filming was expected to begin in September, with a release date set for next August.
The finale of the Scream series, Scream 3, had also entered pre-production. The budget for this sequel was expected to reach $30 million, three times the first film, and the release slot was still locked for Halloween 1991.
After Children of the Corn 2 performed well over Easter, a third installment had entered early script development.
With the first two films' popularity as a base, New World Pictures set aside a $10 million budget for Children of the Corn 3, planning to follow the continuous story-line approach of Scream and build it into a mainstream horror series.
Peter Jackson's grotesque puppet film Crazy Fatty Variety Show had not made it into North American theaters, but through distribution across Australia, North America, and Europe, its one-million-dollar cost had already been recouped, and it had turned a decent profit.
So New World Pictures formally signed a new three-film deal with the New Zealand director. Jackson's next film was already set, and Simon had seen it too: Braindead, a classic zombie movie.
Counting the newly locked raunchy comedy led by Mike Myers, Wayne's World, New World Pictures already had five confirmed projects for next year.
Simon's target annual output for New World was similar to Highgate's, ten films. So Danny Morris was still hunting for more projects.
Over on the Daenerys Television side led by Robert Iger.
The 1990 spring season had ended long ago. Aside from The Beverly Housewives, other confirmed reality shows and TV series had begun preparing their next seasons. Among them, Seinfeld, personally selected by Simon, had its broadcast rights taken by ABC, something Simon deliberately arranged for long-term reasons.
As for The Beverly Housewives, it would pause this fall season.
If everything went smoothly, it would restart in next year's spring season. A single fall-season break would not cause an irreparable loss of popularity.
After lunch, Simon crossed the Hudson River to Jersey City to meet up with Madonna and begin the final rehearsals for tomorrow night's concert.
In a blink of an eye, Saturday arrived.
The concert at Brendan Byrne Arena started at eight. Just after six, Lisa Collins rushed with her boyfriend, Frank Walken, to East Rutherford, New Jersey, outside Jersey City.
By the time they reached the area around the arena, even though she'd already seen plenty of reports in the media lately, Lisa Collins still felt it was unreal when she took in the sea of people around her.
There were just too many.
Surely it wasn't just a hundred thousand.
Two hundred thousand?
Lisa Collins couldn't count it.
Outside the venues for most superstar concerts, huge crowds always gathered, made up of people who couldn't get tickets. Their numbers were usually even larger than the audience inside. Brendan Byrne Arena could hold forty thousand, and the number of tickets sold was actually lower than that. If Lisa Collins hadn't gotten tickets through Jennifer, she probably wouldn't have been able to buy any at all.
After driving in circles around the dense ocean of people, Lisa and her boyfriend finally had to park two streets away and push their way on foot toward the arena.
In less than a kilometer, both sides of the road were filled with fans holding signs offering crazy prices for tickets. A regular thirty-dollar seat had climbed to three hundred.
Lisa tightened her grip on her bag, then hugged it against her chest. Inside were two floor tickets right below the stage, obtained through her best friend's connections. Seeing the frenzy around her, she felt certain that if anyone knew, they would pounce on her.
Still, she never imagined that guy had this kind of pull.
Just one cameo, three songs, and it drew this many people.
Because she could occasionally meet Simon through Jennifer, Lisa Collins gradually stopped feeling such distance from her idol. Now, her boyfriend even worked under Simon at Cersei Capital, which only closed the distance further.
But really, think about it. A concert with Westeros involved.
From that first "Flight of the Bumblebee," everyone knew how gifted he was in music.
Over the years, three phenomenon-level films, Run Lola Run, Pulp Fiction, and Batman, had built him a huge base of diehard movie fans.
And it was not only film and music. The occasional pieces of news that slipped out about the low-key man often made ordinary people like them feel awed.
Hollywood gossip had long claimed Simon Westeros was terrifyingly strong, that before he ever became famous he had broken people's legs, and that it even involved a Hollywood actor who had since vanished. But when the video of Westeros knocking out ten professional boxers in a Melbourne ring leaked, the suffocating brutality of it sent countless fans into a frenzy.
When Lisa saw the video, her first reaction was to call her best friend and tell her to touch him for her.
Touch him, touch him.
Touch him once and she'd be satisfied.
Then she got called a lovesick idiot.
She and her best friend had talked about it before. Allegedly, fan letters sent to him were counted by the sack.
Even though explosive news about him seemed to pop up every so often, he himself only grew more and more low-key. The few times he appeared on TV were only for a few minutes to promote a movie, and he often brought other actors with him, sitting quietly on the far side of the sofa, letting the stars do most of the talking.
Now, at last, he was going to appear in public at a concert.
And they said he would debut two new songs.
Of course she couldn't miss it.
With his wealth and status now, if she missed this, who knew whether she would ever see him on a stage like this again.
With her thoughts buzzing, Lisa finally squeezed into the arena with her boyfriend. Checking the time, it was already past seven.
In summer, the days stayed long, and golden sunlight poured over the entire Brendan Byrne Arena.
Even inside the arena, as she and her boyfriend walked toward the floor seats near the stage, people still tried to buy tickets off her at outrageous prices, clearly hoping to get closer to that guy.
Of course she refused.
Warm-up music was already playing on stage. Even though the concert was listed as starting at eight, Lisa had done her homework. Madonna had a habit of being late and often didn't actually start singing until nine.
But that was fine.
Lisa Collins wasn't that interested in Madonna anyway. If Madonna never came out, even better. Let it all go to Simon.
She and her boyfriend claimed a perfect spot near the stage, and Lisa couldn't help feeling a bit resentful toward her best friend. If Jennifer had come today, maybe Lisa could have followed her backstage and spent more time close to him.
Too bad her best friend wasn't interested in Madonna's concert.
And besides.
Jennifer could practically see him every day, and he had even played that song, "Blizzard," just for her.
The fed girl didn't understand the starving girl's hunger.
So Jennifer didn't bother coming to the East Coast.
Sigh.
Back then, Lisa should have been braver, chased after Jennifer, and become his assistant too.
Now he was married. The chance of getting close to him again was basically zero. And her best friend, who looked gentle but had vinegar in her bones, probably wouldn't allow it anyway.
Shaking off the tangle of thoughts, with an hour still to kill, Lisa started chatting with the people around her on the floor.
Sure enough, a lot of them were here for Simon.
Especially the petite girl next to her who introduced herself as Jennifer, holding a sign that read "Westeros I Love You." Her eyes burned with anticipation, and an unnatural flush colored her face. After Lisa said she was a Westeros fan too, the girl didn't react like she'd found a fellow believer. Instead, she looked wary, as if Lisa might steal Westeros away.
Hah.
You can be as obsessed as you want. Have you ever touched the real thing?
I have.
With that tiny sense of superiority, and with the feverish atmosphere all around, time flew without her even realizing.
Maybe she feared provoking the crowd, but Madonna, who usually ran late, only delayed by less than half an hour this time before she appeared on stage.
8:30 p.m.
The concert officially began.