Inside a manor on the outskirts of Greenwich, in upstate New York.
The date is January 7th.
The New Year has passed, and 1993 has officially begun.
Just the day before yesterday, the Time Warner Group officially confirmed its new management team through an extraordinary general meeting. Gerald Levin succeeded Steve Ross as the new chairman of the Time Warner Group. Steve Ross's two protégés, Robert Daly and Terry Semel, were appointed as Co-CEOs of Time Warner Inc.
Although the official management has been confirmed on the surface, in reality, this power arrangement born of mutual compromise has left the Time Warner Group fragmented and disorganized internally.
Despite being the nominal top leader, Gerald Levin can only control the business operations that originally belonged to the Time Inc. system. The two Co-CEOs still firmly control the various companies under the Warner Bros. umbrella.
The day after the new management team was confirmed, *The Wall Street Journal* published an article commenting on the "synergy" within the company.
The key reason Time Inc. and Warner Bros. merged in the first place was the management of both companies vigorously promoting "corporate synergy" to the outside world, claiming that once merged, Time Warner would significantly increase its competitiveness and overall revenue through cooperation in movies, television, magazines, and other business sectors.
However, the reality is that in the three years since the merger in early 1990, the synergy that shareholders hoped to see has not appeared. Time Warner remains a disorganized mess internally, with instances of HBO and Warner Bros. Pictures even undermining and clashing with each other over movie television rights. This management transition has also been fraught with constant turmoil.
Not only that, the entire Time Warner has been unable to escape a heavy mire of debt due to the original merger.
In short, in the view of *The Wall Street Journal*, the original merger was a complete and utter failure, merely satisfying the personal ambitions of Time Warner's management to blindly expand the scale of the enterprise.
Faced with criticism from *The Wall Street Journal*, Time Warner officials immediately issued a public rebuttal, but it failed to stop the company's stock price from falling further.
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At the start of the New Year, Simon has remained in New York these days due to various matters.
Watching the sudden criticism of Time Warner by *The Wall Street Journal* with cold detachment, Simon realized that this minor public relations storm would have another important impact on Warner.
During several contacts at the end of last year, Terry Semel had revealed to Simon his hope to further expand the diversity of Warner Bros. Pictures in the production field.
In practice, this meant imitating the current operating model of Daenerys Entertainment's three labels, venturing into the thriller and arthouse genres that New World Pictures and HighGate Pictures excel at.
For Warner Bros., the simplest way to do this was undoubtedly through acquisition.
With the group's management transition complete, even if power hadn't shifted much, the new executives needed to show some results, even if only for appearance's sake, to signal a fresh start.
In the original timeline, it was precisely in 1993 that Time Warner acquired the booming New Line Cinema. Over the following years, it gained super-blockbuster franchises like the *Rush Hour* series and *The Lord of the Rings* series because of it. The New Line subsidiary label even once rivaled the development of the main label.
This time, due to the rise of Daenerys Entertainment, New Line Cinema lost its first domestic blockbuster series to cross the $100 million mark, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*. It was also forced into a steady retreat in its own specialty of thrillers and horror by New World Pictures, leaving its strength far less noticeable than in the original timeline.
Compared to the original timeline where it had to sell itself to Time Warner—which monopolized Hollywood's film distribution channels—to expand further, the current New Line is seeking a buyer primarily just to survive.
Consequently, the appeal of this second-tier label was not as great as in the original timeline. Combined with *The Wall Street Journal* article accusing the previous Time Warner merger of being blind expansion, the plan to acquire New Line or other second- and third-tier film companies to increase production diversity would certainly have to be shelved to avoid further controversy.
Lacking a buyer, New Line Cinema, which has already fallen into operational difficulties due to over-expansion in the last two years, is likely to go bankrupt before the end of this year.
Influenced by the success of Daenerys Entertainment's three parallel labels, other Hollywood studios have more or less attempted to emulate the model. Simon couldn't stop this, but suppressing a struggling second-tier film company was easy for the current Daenerys Entertainment.
Whether it was New Line or Miramax, or even Orion Pictures which was still struggling to stay afloat, under Simon's close watch, these companies had basically no hope of securing projects that could become major hits.
In recent years, films like *The Silence of the Lambs*, *The Crying Game*, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*, and others that should have belonged to these companies were all successfully intercepted by Simon. Furthermore, he used New World Pictures and High Gate Pictures to preemptively occupy the niche film sectors that mainstream studios used to ignore.
With New Line's fate destined to change, Simon also conveniently dealt with another company over the past few days.
Miramax.
Second- and third-tier film companies in Hollywood, much like Daenerys Entertainment in its early stages, rely heavily on bank loans to maintain operations.
Over the years, the bank providing funds to Miramax has been a renowned name on Wall Street: Chase Manhattan Bank. In his memory, this bank merged with J.P. Morgan around 2000.
Of course, it was specifically the film investment department within Chase Manhattan that catered to Hollywood.
The Weinstein Brothers over the years of turbulent management of Miramax have accumulated about $15 million in debt to Chase Manhattan Bank.
Fifteen million dollars is completely negligible for the current Daenerys Entertainment, but for a art-style film company that survives by picking up the scraps to distribute low-budget arthouse films, it is a massive sum.
Furthermore, according to the investigation, in addition to Chase Manhattan being the largest creditor, Miramax also has other outstanding debts, with total liabilities reaching $23 million.
Around the New Year, the Westeros System began discussing several cooperative projects with major American banks, primarily loan financing needed for the further development of various subsidiaries, as well as further cooperation between internet payment tools and physical banks.
For major American banks, the subsidiaries of the Westeros System are undoubtedly the highest-quality targets for lending, and each bank naturally strove to win them over.
Chase Manhattan was one of them.
To form as many beneficial connections as possible, the Westeros System habitually chose multiple partners.
During negotiations between Verizon Telecom and Chase Manhattan regarding a $300 million loan financing deal, Simon had James Rebould, who was participating in the talks, propose a condition to Chase Manhattan: call in the debt from Miramax early.
A small Hollywood company perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy was completely insignificant to Chase Manhattan.
The possibility of recovering all the debts from this struggling film company was slim. Chase Manhattan was actually already in the process of debt collection and was prepared to write it off as another bad debt.
In Chase Manhattan's eyes, the Westeros System's request was likely because this small company had offended Daenerys Entertainment in some way. Since the potential cooperation between the two sides went far beyond a single $300 million financing deal, they simply went with the flow, happy to do a small favor.
Thus, on the same day *The Wall Street Journal* criticized Time Warner's over-expansion, a third-tier film company headquartered in New York officially filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District Court of New York.
Although the development of the Westeros System had been smooth sailing, Simon always understood that business competition was never warm and gentle.
Cruelty is the essence of business.
He felt no burden in his heart after casually erasing a film company that should have shone brightly in the original timeline.
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In the drawing room of the manor villa, after lunch, Simon and his wife were discussing the next steps for the Westeros System in the telecommunications sector with James Rebould and Verizon Telecom Chairman and CEO Raymond Smith.
A week before last Christmas, the U.S. Congress officially passed a bill lifting the industry ban that prohibited telecom operators from entering the equipment manufacturing sector.
Although it was an act passed by Congress, it was largely seen as a way for the Bush Administration to accumulate as much political legacy as possible before the official transfer of power. Old Bush's departure was certain, and George W. Bush was also set to officially enter the American political stage.
Speaking of which, in the final months of the election, the Bush Administration had also been trying to push through some bills related to the new technology industry.
However, because the Information Superhighway Act had already set a high bar and had entered the final stages of discussion, the Bush Administration could not possibly claim a bill proposed by Clinton's running mate as its own achievement. Therefore, in the field of new technology, the White House appeared somewhat ineffectual.
Things naturally need to be done step by step.
With the ban on telecom operators entering equipment manufacturing lifted, Nokia could logically begin its push into the North American market.
In the original timeline, Nokia's market share in North America was actually never very high, primarily because the North American telecom equipment market was too closed, and sales channels were monopolized by telecom operators. It wasn't until many years later, when the iPhone appeared, that American telecom operators still monopolized over 90% of the telecom equipment market through the telecom plan bundling model.
This time, with Verizon's cooperation, Nokia's pace in opening up the North American market would no longer be as difficult as it once was.
America Online has been conquering territory in the Internet Service Provider field over the last two years. While supporting America Online's development of internet business, Verizon has also been vigorously laying out its own mobile communication network.
Possessing the highest quality markets in several major states along the East Coast and unhesitatingly locking in the second-generation GSM format—rather than wavering between different telecom standards like other operators, or even wasting resources by deploying different formats simultaneously—Verizon's layout in the mobile communication field far surpassed its peers.
Next, while deepening the mobile communication business in its existing markets, Verizon's next goal was still expansion.
Of course, to do so, they still had to resolve the antitrust restrictions from the AT&T breakup.
This was actually just a logical progression for the next few years.
Whether through public media or private lobbying, the Westeros System has been promoting the concept of "Triple Play" as much as possible over the last two years.
Broadband, cable TV, and home telephone—if these three networks could be merged into one, it would greatly save on operating costs for providers while offering cheaper services to users.
Antitrust laws in the U.S. are primarily aimed at preventing high prices resulting from telecom monopolies that harm consumer interests.
Now, with Triple Play, it would not only save social resources to a great extent but also maximize the provision of cheap communication services to consumers. Therefore, this concept has gained significant traction in both the media and American politics.
The continuous deregulation of the telecommunications industry is beneficial to the various telecom giants.
The concept proposed by the Westeros System quickly gained unanimous recognition within the telecom industry.
AT&T even published a report suggesting that once the telecom industry was deregulated and Triple Play was promoted, the American telecom industry could save hundreds of billions of dollars in costs annually. These cost savings could then be passed on to consumers to the greatest extent.
The discussion regarding Verizon and Nokia's entry into North America lasted all afternoon.
At dusk, after seeing off James Rebould and Raymond Smith, Simon and his wife officially boarded a plane back to the West Coast.
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The next day was Friday, January 8th.
The first box office week of 1993 officially came to an end.
During the seven days from January 1st to January 7th, due to the start of the work week, films in North American theaters all saw a significant drop.
In its third week of release, *Jurassic Park* saw a weekly drop of 35%, continuing to bring in $46.91 million.
At the same time, this unstoppable dinosaur movie saw its cumulative domestic box office in North America surpass the $200 million mark, reaching $210.46 million.
Another film from Daenerys Entertainment's year-end schedule, *Home Alone 2*, saw a 43% drop in its first week after the New Year, with weekly box office earnings of only $5.66 million and a cumulative total of $147.69 million.
Unlike the two commercial films that plummeted after the work week began, Daenerys Entertainment's awards season mainstay, *Scent of a Woman*, had a relatively healthy box office trend, with a drop of only 28% in the first week of the New Year. Another film, *The Crying Game*, also showed signs of its decline curve slowing down.
Meanwhile, for the just-passed year of 1992, the box office rankings as of December 31, 1992, have also been released.
*Wonder Woman*, from Daenerys Entertainment's summer box office season, with a massive box office of $371 million, became the 1992 annual box office champion without any suspense.
Although the box office momentum for *Jurassic Park* remains strong, it will be difficult for it to overtake *Wonder Woman*. Both internal and external predictions suggest that the domestic box office for *Jurassic Park* will likely settle around $350 million. However, judging from the market performance in overseas markets where they have already opened, it is still hard to say which of the two films will come out on top in the international box office.