Chasing Stars in Hollywood

After visiting Steve Ross, Simon wrapped up his East Coast business and headed straight to Kennedy International Airport to return to Los Angeles.

Upon arriving at the Point Dume estate, it was just past 2 PM on Saturday on the West Coast.

Entering the villa, A-Girl Alison Norris came to greet him, informing Simon that Janet was out shopping and not at home. However, Mrs. Veronica Johnston had arrived that morning.

Simon went to the nursery on the first floor of the villa, where Veronica was holding Muriel, standing by the glass window overlooking the ocean, seemingly whispering something to the little one.

Seeing Simon, Veronica was a bit surprised, pausing her movements before greeting him. "You, Janet said you might be back on Monday."

"I finished everything there."

Simon responded, walking over to the nearby sofa and sitting down, looking at Veronica, who was dressed in a casual light green knit dress. He didn't say anything further.

Just as he sat down, D-Girl Deborah walked in, holding a bottle of milk.

Seeing Simon on the sofa, Deborah was also a bit surprised but quickly smiled and greeted him. She handed the bottle to Veronica and asked, "Boss, would you like something to drink?"

Simon shook his head. "You go ahead."

Deborah nodded and left the room, trying to act nonchalant, but once outside, she patted her chest lightly.

It always feels strange when the boss and his wife's aunt are together.

After Deborah left, Veronica hesitated before bringing the baby over to the single sofa beside Simon. She carefully tested the milk's temperature on her hand, then tasted it herself before feeding it to the baby.

"I came over this morning. I had some things to do and thought I'd visit Muriel. I'll be heading back tomorrow."

Veronica's voice sounded again, explaining as if to herself.

Simon nodded slightly and continued watching Veronica feed the baby.

After the little one drank most of the bottle, Veronica put it aside, gently wiped the baby's mouth, and then gazed at the child in her arms, her soft eyes filled with a bit of a daze.

After a moment, Simon suddenly said, "In a few months, when the baby is able to fly, you should take him to Australia."

Veronica looked up, seemingly not understanding what Simon meant.

Simon paused before explaining, "Janet and I have a lot to do, and you can help look after him for a while."

As the CFO of Johnston Holdings, Veronica wasn't exactly free. However, after Simon's explanation, she didn't hesitate at all and nodded. "Okay." Then she added, as if to justify herself, "Everyone is looking forward to having Muriel in Australia for a while."

When Janet returned about half an hour later and heard Simon mention this, she didn't object. After being 'sealed' by the baby for a year, she was looking forward to having some freedom.

Although it felt a bit strange, she had no concerns about leaving the baby with her aunt, especially since there was a big family in Australia to help. She wouldn't be worried at all.

If the baby wasn't too young, she would be eager for Veronica to take the little troublemaker away the next day.

This year's Golden Globes ceremony is on January 18, a Saturday.

As the weekend ended, the 49th American Film and Television Golden Globes awards ceremony drew closer.

Compared to the memories, the changes in the nominated films for this year's Golden Globes were increasingly evident.

In the original memory, the Best Drama Film at this Golden Globes should have been "Bugsy," a biographical crime thriller directed by Barry Levinson, similar to "Scarface."

However, this time, Simon didn't see "Bugsy" in the North American theaters last year.

After the entanglement with Daenerys Entertainment and the box office failure of his last film "Avalon," although Daenerys Entertainment hadn't shown any obvious targeting of the filmmakers, no studio in Hollywood dared to collaborate with Barry Levinson.

Not only that, but the influence of CAA, which should have reached its peak in recent years, was completely absent under Simon's deliberate support of WMA and ICM to balance things out.

A talent agency, after all, is just an adjunct to Hollywood's film industry.

Simon wasn't too concerned about "Bugsy," but he was surprised to find another significant film missing from the nomination list when reviewing the new week's Golden Globes nominations.

Disney's 2D animated film, "Beauty and the Beast."

In the original timeline, the 2D animated film "Beauty and the Beast," released at the end of 1991, not only grossed over $200 million in North American theaters but also won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy and became the first animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

Now, this film was missing.

Simon could easily find out what was going on in Hollywood and, after a few inquiries, found that the situation was related to Pixar.

"Beauty and the Beast" was a project that Simon's butterfly effect had disrupted.

The matter traced back to the production process of 2D animated films.

Traditional 2D animated films are entirely hand-drawn by animators frame by frame.

For a 2D animated film, even with a 90-minute duration, that's 5400 seconds. At 24 frames per second, it requires 129,600 drawings, and that's the theoretical number. In practice, due to inevitable scrap and other factors, the workload is much higher.

However, a skilled animator can only draw 10 to 20 drawings a day.

Each animator has their own drawing style, and to ensure the consistency of the animation film's style, the number of animators involved in a project should not be too many.

Therefore, Disney's animated films in the past typically had a production cycle of 4 to 7 years.

In the original timeline, Pixar introduced a professional graphic computer that completely changed the traditional animation production process, significantly speeding up the drawing and coloring of 2D animated films. This allowed Disney to release a 2D animated film almost every year in the early '90s.

It was this graphic computer that led to Pixar's collaboration with Disney on "Toy Story" and subsequent events.

However, this time, Simon bought Pixar in advance.

Pixar's graphic computer still existed but was no longer for sale.

As a result, Disney's animation department continued with the old and slow hand-drawn production process.

Given the success of classic 2D animated film re-releases in recent years, Disney's top brass renewed their focus on the animation department. However, this focus couldn't speed up animation production.

With limited production capacity, various projects had to be selected.

The information Simon gathered indicated that the script for "Beauty and the Beast" had indeed been proposed, but after several rounds of selection, Disney retained the higher-profile "Aladdin" project.

According to information from Disney, "Aladdin" is set to be released this summer, six months earlier than in the original timeline.

However, the cost of moving "Aladdin" up by six months was the complete abandonment of "Beauty and the Beast."

Simon knew that not only was this animated "Beauty and the Beast" a classic, but many years later, the live-action version grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, placing it among the highest-grossing films of all time.

Under the control of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Disney had long recovered from its early '80s slump.

Even though Simon had taken "Pretty Woman," Disney had released hits like "Good Morning, Vietnam," "Three Men and a Baby," and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in recent years. The re-releases and VHS sales of classic 2D animations also brought Disney substantial revenue.

However, compared to Disney of this period in the original timeline, today's Disney was still lacking in many areas.

One thing is certain.

If media industry regulations were relaxed in recent years, Disney would not have the strength to compete with Daenerys Entertainment for Metropolitan ABC Group.

All this was evidently due to Simon and Daenerys Entertainment's rise.

While Hollywood's film industry has been rapidly expanding in recent years, the market capacity remains limited for a period. Simon has advantages that other studio heads can't match, and Daenerys Entertainment's significant share inevitably put other studios at a disadvantage.

Among the major Hollywood studios now, only Warner Bros. might be stronger than in the original timeline.

Next might be MGM, slowly recovering from rock bottom.

"Jurassic Park" is set to officially begin filming on Kauai Island in Hawaii on January 21.

In the week leading up to the Golden Globes, Simon spent much of his time on the final preparations for "Jurassic Park," even spending two days in Hawaii.

The flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii is about the same as from Los Angeles to New York, just four hours.

Returning from Hawaii on Saturday morning, the Golden Globes ceremony was that evening.

Daenerys Entertainment had no particular ambitions for awards this season, so Simon could enjoyably attend the evening's ceremony with Janet.

Among this year's nominated films, Daenerys Entertainment's "The Piano" and "Thelma & Louise" were both nominated for Best Drama, and Catherine was nominated for Best Director for "Thelma & Louise."

Additionally, this year's Golden Globe nominations saw three women nominated for Best Director: Barbra Streisand for "The Prince of Tides," Jane Campion for "The Piano," and Kathryn Bigelow for "Thelma & Louise."

Having three women nominated for Best Director was a first in Golden Globes history.

To pave the way for the Oscars in March, Warner Bros. began campaigning after the nominations were announced, hoping to make Barbra Streisand the first woman to win Best Director at the Oscars.

Although "The Prince of Tides," "The Piano," and "Thelma & Louise" had lower

 media ratings than "The Piano" and "Thelma & Louise," Streisand's decades-long connections in Hollywood far exceeded those of Campion and Bigelow.

Of course, the most crucial reason was Daenerys Entertainment's deliberate withdrawal from this year's awards competition.

Due to this withdrawal, "The Silence of the Lambs," which should have shone this awards season, received only two Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Actress in a Drama. For the upcoming Oscars, Sandra didn't even intend to push for more nominations.

On Saturday night, the final results of the Golden Globes saw Oliver Stone's "JFK" winning Best Drama and Best Director.

This wasn't due to Warner Bros.' poor campaigning but was a strategic move.

After all, "The Prince of Tides" had lower ratings than "The Piano" and "Thelma & Louise." If Streisand had won, it would undoubtedly spark controversy.

Women winning awards is very 'politically correct.'

However, with three women nominated and Streisand's film ranked last, her victory would still be contentious, affecting the Oscar outcomes.

The Golden Globes' value is far less than the Oscars.

By comparison, if the Golden Globes persisted in 'discriminating against women' and awarding a male director, the media would undoubtedly sympathize with the three female directors and criticize Hollywood's gender bias until the Oscars.

In such an environment, the politically correct Oscars would have no choice.

At this point, with Daenerys Entertainment's films voluntarily withdrawing from the competition, and Streisand having enough resources and support in Hollywood, the result was inevitable.

As for "The Prince of Tides" winning?

History is written by the victors.

In the original timeline, Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar win was criticized as unworthy and lacking substance, but she was still an Oscar winner, and most media referred to her as 'Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow.'

Those who didn't win, no matter how much better their acting was, would never be referred to as Oscar winners in the media.

This is how history is written.

As expected, after the Golden Globes, many media outlets criticized the Golden Globe judges for gender bias, creating a media frenzy. The Golden Globes organization had to publicly address the controversy.

Shortly after the Golden Globes, the Oscar nominations were announced.

In the 64th Oscar nominations, Barbra Streisand, Jane Campion, and Kathryn Bigelow were all nominated.

Insiders knew Streisand's lobbying was the most evident, Campion was the most deserving, and Kathryn Bigelow's "Thelma & Louise" was excellent but often associated with Simon Westeros.

Comparisons are unfair.

With the Golden Globes controversy still simmering, another significant Hollywood news story broke.

MGM publicly announced that due to irreconcilable differences, the development of the next 007 film would be temporarily suspended.

The importance of 007 to MGM is unquestionable, so this news immediately drew strong media attention.

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