After dinner, Simon took Janette straight back to Palisades.
Inside the Chevrolet SUV, Neil Bennett, who was driving, kept the car very steady. Simon leaned against the window, seriously contemplating his meeting with Mike Medavoy tonight.
Mike Medavoy's reaction to 'Pulp Fiction' was more negative than Simon had anticipated, which made him a little worried.
The reason the original Pulp Fiction achieved such immense fame was not just its inherent quality, but also the relentless public relations efforts of the Weinstein Brothers, which were a crucial determining factor.
Judging by the 18 Oscar nominations this year, Orion's strength in awards campaigning is no less than that of the later Miramax, but if Orion executives view Pulp Fiction negatively, expecting them to campaign for the film as vigorously as the Weinstein Brothers once did is clearly unrealistic.
Furthermore, Simon's age remains the biggest variable limiting Pulp Fiction's recognition for awards.
In any case, he is still not yet 20 years old.
Speaking of which, Simon actually doesn't lack other options. But based on his previous contract with Orion, this contracted second film wasn't worth bringing out certain ideas for.
In the contract Simon signed with Orion to push the distribution of 'Run Lola Run', his basic salary as director and screenwriter combined was only $500,000.
Although Simon retained the right to renegotiate the profit-sharing terms, this new film would not yield him much profit regardless; the best outcome might only be profit-sharing terms similar to those for 'Final Destination'.
But compared to 'Final Destination', Simon needed to invest more energy into a film he personally directed.
Since he couldn't obtain sufficient profit, Simon decided to choose a film he was more interested in, which could also solidify his reputation as a stylized director.
Jonathan will naturally handle the specific profit-sharing contract for 'Pulp Fiction' with Orion, but the upcoming negotiation to sell off the distribution rights for 'Run Lola Run' is also a time-consuming chore.
Furthermore.
Whether it's 'The Butterfly Effect', 'Final Destination', 'Pulp Fiction', or 'When Harry Met Sally', all these projects still have a lot of work that needs to be pushed forward quickly.
Furthermore, considering the scheduling of the three films 'Final Destination', 'Pulp Fiction', and 'When Harry Met Sally', Simon realized that the year-end slot this year and Easter next year would clearly be suitable for inserting at least one more film.
Time is money.
But Simon is currently either short on money or short on time.
Moreover.
These are only matters related to film.
Regarding the US stock market crash in the second half of the year, Simon remembers the date very clearly: October 19th, Black Monday. To gain sufficient profit from this financial turmoil, besides raising a large sum of capital beforehand, he definitely needs to do a lot of other preparatory work, which also requires time and energy.
Simon frowned in deep thought the whole way, and Janette quietly leaned beside him, refraining from interrupting.
By the time they returned to the Palisades mansion, it was already nine o'clock in the evening.
Simon entered the villa, saw the message indicator light flashing on the living room phone, walked over, and pressed play.
Janette followed him closely.
The call was from Amy Pascal.
In the message, Amy expressed concern about the outcome of Simon's afternoon meeting with the Wells Fargo Bank executive, and then brought up another matter: a vice president from Mattel contacted her today, hoping to discuss the development of merchandise and toys based on 'Run Lola Run'.
Mattel is one of the world's largest toy design, manufacturing, and sales companies, with Barbie Dolls of various types as its main product.
After listening to Amy's message, Simon immediately perked up again.
Merchandise.
Merchandise for a film that is almost certainly the North American box office champion of the year.
This could definitely be another large source of income.
When Simon personally designed small props like the pendulum clock and ring in 'Run Lola Run', he actually had this idea in mind. Since most of these props and even Lola's own image are original creations, based on the copyright law rule of creation equals ownership, the copyrights for these props and characters belong to Daenerys Pictures.
Lately, with so many things happening simultaneously, Simon hasn't had the energy to attend to these matters.
Now.
Since others have come knocking, naturally, he couldn't miss this opportunity, and he needed to plan it out properly.
After quickly calculating by the phone, Simon turned around, intending to go to the study, only to find Janette standing behind and to his side. Because Simon turned around suddenly without warning, the woman was clearly startled, her eyes wide open.
Seeing Janette's reaction, Simon smiled apologetically, reached out, cupped her delicate face, and kissed her, saying, "Honey, why don't you go take a Shower first? I still have some things to attend to".
All day today, or rather, all these recent days, watching Simon busy himself constantly, Janette had been contemplating a few things.
At this moment.
Seeing Simon quickly heading upstairs, Janette followed him up.
Arriving at the bedroom, Janette took off her evening gown and absentmindedly took a Shower. Instead of putting on the silk bathrobe she usually liked, she changed into a set of women's shirt and white trousers with a slight office lady style.
After examining herself in the dressing mirror, Janette went to Simon's study.
Unlike the large downstairs study where he met with Wells Fargo Bank Senior Vice President Paul Olsen that afternoon, this was another small study inside the mansion, located next to the second-floor bedroom, making it very private.
Janette rarely came here on weekdays.
She always felt that many of Simon's secrets might be hidden in this study. Although she was very curious about everything concerning her boyfriend, if he didn't voluntarily tell her, Janette never deliberately probed.
The study door was not closed.
Janette knocked on the doorframe and walked in.
Simon was standing by the wall in the study, which held a large white whiteboard. He held a fountain pen in one hand and a receiver in the other, talking to someone on the line.
A long list of nouns had already accumulated on the whiteboard.
Soundtracks, poster collections, video games, character dolls, butterfly clocks, T-shirts, rings, magazines, image licensing... these were clearly potential merchandise options for 'Run Lola Run'.
Below the slightly scattered list of nouns were a few names and some contact numbers.
Seeing that Simon was busy discussing with the person on the other end, he just nodded at her and made a casual gesture. So Janette walked over to the bookshelf on the other side, scanned the row of folders, and casually took down a blue folder and opened it.
It was a stack of newspaper clippings.
Each page of the manually bound draft pages was pasted with small, square newspaper articles.
The news on the first page was from the Los Angeles Times, titled 'New World Pictures Acquires Marvel Entertainment'.
She read the content curiously.
"New World Pictures formally reached an acquisition agreement with Marvel Entertainment on Thursday. A spokesperson stated that the move is aimed at expanding the company's comic publishing and television animation businesses".
"Marvel Entertainment is one of North America's largest comic production companies. The company's assets include Marvel Comics in New York, Marvel Comics in the UK, Marvel Productions, and an animation studio in the San Fernando Valley, California. Its roster includes popular superheroes like Spider-Man, The Hulk, and the X-Men".
"In 1985, Marvel Entertainment's annual revenue was $72 million, with a profit of $5.1 million"
"Previously, Marvel Entertainment Group's parent company, Cadence Industries Corporation, formally entered bankruptcy liquidation proceedings. Neither party disclosed the detailed terms of the transaction, but industry rumours suggest the Marvel Entertainment Group was sold for roughly $40 million to $50 million".
"The transaction is expected to be completed entirely by the end of the year".
Having known him for over half a year, Janette had never seen Simon read a comic book, so she didn't know why the young man would be interested in such a piece of news.
She tilted her head and read the article carefully again, but still found no clue. Besides a handwritten date annotation 'November 21, 1986' in the blank space on the page, there was nothing else.
So she had no choice but to flip to the next page.
Most of the subsequent pages were still simple news articles marked with simple dates, with very few annotations.
After flipping through most of the folder, another clipping caught Janette's attention.
This was the list of nominees for the 59th Annual Oscar Awards, announced in late December last year.
However, the clipping only kept a small section: the nominations for the three Best Animated Short Films. A red marker circled one short film called Luxo Jr., and next to the usual 'December 20, 1986' annotation was the word: Pixar.
Pixar.
Janette remembered this time that the animation segment at the beginning of 'Run Lola Run' was done by this animation studio, which seemed to be a rare 3D animation studio.
Marvel Comics, 3D animation.
Ha.
Is the young man interested in animated films?
Thinking this, Janette casually turned another page of the clippings.
This time it was professional news about a software company named 'Microsoft' conducting internal testing for a new version of its operating system. It was also accompanied by an assessment of Microsoft's recent stock price; due to the continued fervour of the North American stock market, Microsoft's market value officially surpassed $1 billion.
After reading this piece of news carefully again, she still had no clue.
All these clippings seemed scattered and lacked any central theme or pattern. Janette even used her little brain to ponder for a rare moment, but still couldn't grasp any connection between them.
Seriously, she had no choice but to put the folder back in its original position. Janette turned and walked back toward the man.
Simon's other call was nearing its end. He was listening to the person on the other end and writing a name and a string of phone numbers on the whiteboard.
"Well, thank you for your help, Peter. I'm truly sorry to bother you so late... Haha, of course, let's grab a meal sometime," Simon finished, casually pressing the hang-up button on the nearby landline. Only then did he turn to Janette, who had been lingering by his side for a while, and looked her up and down, saying, "It's quite late already. Why did you suddenly change into this outfit?"
Janette spread her arms and turned around in front of Simon, asking, "How is it?"
Although Janette wasn't as tall as Kathryn, she definitely had the kind of figure that looked stunning whether she was wearing clothes or not.
Hearing this, Simon nodded without hesitation and smiled, saying, "Very tasteful. Put on high heels later. Oh, by the way, was this outfit expensive?"
Janette immediately understood the subtext of Simon's words and glared fiercely at the man.
Reaching out, Janette took the receiver from Simon's hand and set it aside. She pushed the man to sit down on the study sofa, then sat across from him and said seriously, "Simon, I told you before that I would help you. So, for the subsequent distribution negotiations for 'Run Lola Run', I will talk to them. And you can also hand over all this merchandise work to me. You just need to do what you want to do".
Simon, who had been smiling, put away his grin when he heard Janette's completely serious words, and said, "Jenny, this will be very tiring".
Janette shook her head and stated firmly, "I've decided".
Simon and Janette looked at each other for a moment. Finally, he nodded and said, "Alright. But if you ever feel like stopping, just tell me immediately".
Janette's usual lazy and relaxed demeanour had left too deep an impression on Simon. Deep down, he was still somewhat chauvinistic, and he didn't feel there was anything wrong with that, so he didn't have high expectations for Janette's intention to help him work.
Perhaps because his expectations were too low, Simon was genuinely surprised in the days that followed. He also finally realized the calibre of the Columbia University top student whom Kathryn had once casually mentioned could leave Buffett speechless.