Chapter 409: Pixar's Work Progress

At the 61st Academy Awards, Daenerys Entertainment's productions garnered a total of 11 major awards including Best Picture and Best Director for "Dances with Wolves," Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay for "Ghost," and Best Actress for "Ten Days of Danger." Pixar's 3D animated short "The Little Lion" won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, marking Daenerys Entertainment as the biggest winner of the Oscars, much like the Golden Globe Awards in January.

Simon Westeros has recently shown little interest in attending any parties. However, as the boss, it is both reasonable and necessary for him to make an appearance at the celebration party.

Arriving at the Gucci-themed party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Sophia, it was already close to ten o'clock.

Mingling through the party crowd to congratulate tonight's winners, Simon quickly approached a middle-aged man chatting with John Lasseter and Ed Catmull.

The middle-aged man, Roger Ailes, previously a film director and screenwriter poached from Disney to Pixar, had worked on Disney's "Oliver & Company" and directed tonight's award-winning 3D short, "The Little Lion."

In the original timeline, Roger Ailes was actually the director of Disney's 2D version of "The Lion King."

From late 1988 to the present, over two years, Pixar has been developing animation technology for "The Lion King" while producing "Toy Story."

Tonight's Oscar winner, "The Little Lion," is a culmination of Pixar's recent technological advancements, showcasing the vast African savannah and fur rendering technology through a short adventure of a young lion living on the plains.

Having secured the Oscar for Best Short Film proves Pixar's capability to produce a 3D version of "The Lion King," which is set to begin production soon.

After congratulating Roger Ailes on his win, Simon said, "I'll take some time in the next few days to review the storyboards for 'The Lion King,' Roger. It's a gift for Jenny, and she'll be very upset if you mess it up."

Despite it being just an award for Best Animated Short Film, Roger Ailes was still very excited and confidently nodded in response, "Simon, I assure you, it will be a fantastic story."

Simon smiled and then turned to John Lasseter, asking, "John, how much longer until 'Toy Story' is completed? You've already gone over budget."

Originally, Simon hoped to complete "Toy Story" with $30 million.

However, perhaps due to every artist's inherent perfectionism, "Toy Story" might still take a few more months to complete, and John Lasseter's team had already spent $33 million.

Although Simon was smiling, John Lasseter was noticeably tense.

Pixar had been the most financially draining division of Daenerys Entertainment since Simon bought it in 1988. For over two years, while other departments thrived, Pixar had only been spending money without producing financial returns.

Therefore, everyone understood that "Toy Story" was a do-or-die project for Pixar. Failure would mean tough times for the team, even if they had another chance with "The Lion King."

After a moment's consideration, John Lasseter said, "Two more months, Simon. Just give us two more months."

The release date for "Toy Story" was scheduled for November of that year, so there was plenty of time. However, each additional month meant significant extra costs, so the sooner it was completed, the better.

Simon, who monitored Pixar's progress monthly, was very satisfied with the completed parts of "Toy Story," so he wasn't too worried.

The first 3D animated movie was bound to encounter various problems. Considering the project's profit prospects, Simon could reluctantly tolerate the budget overrun.

However, he didn't show this leniency outwardly and still reprimanded John Lasseter verbally.

After chatting with John Lasseter and others for a while, Simon looked at Jennifer, making sure he had greeted everyone important, and then prepared to leave.

Just as he and his female assistant were about to exit the party hall, Ella Doichman approached with a few Asian men and women.

Approaching Simon, Ella explained, "Simon, Zhang and the others wanted to say hello."

Among the many nominations from Daenerys Entertainment that evening was "The Scent of Green Papaya," which was the first film from across the ocean to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Simon had initially urged Doichman to pay more attention to and import Asian films but hadn't shown much additional interest in "The Scent of Green Papaya," which ultimately did not win an Oscar.

Facing several well-respected figures from his previous life, Simon smiled and greeted each one in fluent Mandarin, "Hello, Mr. Zhang. And Ms. Gong, your performance in 'The Scent of Green Papaya' was outstanding

."

Hearing Simon's fluent Mandarin, everyone showed surprised expressions, even Ella Doichman looked somewhat perplexed.

After brief pleasantries and mentioning potential future collaborations, Simon and his assistant left the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

They planned to return to Cape Dumont Manor that night.

Jennifer, who was newly pregnant, wouldn't mind, but Simon cared deeply about these details, so he never stayed out overnight during this period.

After dropping his assistant off at her uncle George Norman's house, Simon didn't linger and continued back to Malibu.

The next day, as usual, was filled with reports on this year's Oscars.

With Daenerys Entertainment winning half of the Oscars, it naturally became the focus of media attention.

Fortunately, although there were some politically correct factors involved, the seven major awards won by "Dances with Wolves" didn't cause much controversy. Instead, there was still considerable media attention on other excellent films produced by Daenerys Entertainment that didn't receive nominations.

Additionally, there were notes on Simon's 'absence' at this year's Oscars.

Not just his absence from the Oscar ceremony itself, but also the fact that Simon had not received any personal nominations at this year's Oscars, leading some media to speculate whether he was planning to retire from filmmaking.

Given Simon's current wealth, it indeed wasn't necessary for him to continue making films personally.

In response to media inquiries, Daenerys Entertainment denied the speculations but also indicated that Simon might not be able to direct personally for a long time in the future.

Following the Oscars and because of the Easter holiday period, "Dances with Wolves" saw another surge in box office revenue, earning $6.54 million in the week of March 22-28, bringing the film's total box office to $139 million.

On March 29, the second week of the Easter period began.

Along with Daenerys Entertainment, two other films were released: "Children of the Corn III" by New World Cinema and "One Crazy Night" produced by Universal Pictures.

New World Cinema invested $10 million in "Children of the Corn III" and incorporated many of the latest CG effects, aiming to reach the box office heights of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.

However, after its first three days, "Children of the Corn III" only managed a North American box office of $6.73 million, with an expected first week of $9 to $10 million, and an estimated total North American box office of around $30 million.

While profitable, it was still far from reaching the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series levels.

However, compared to the $15 million box office of the first two installments, the expected doubling of revenue for "Children of the Corn III" was significant, ensuring that the series' fourth installment would maintain a production budget of around $10 million.

John Hughes' "One Crazy Night," a romantic comedy, only grossed $4.02 million over three days, performing far worse than "Home Alone," which was still showing in theaters.

With a production budget of $11 million, "One Crazy Night" was expected to gross less than $15 million in North America. Relying solely on domestic distribution, the film's chances of recouping its costs were slim.

After the box office results for "One Crazy Night" were released, the other production companies that had been eagerly pursuing John Hughes due to the success of "Home Alone" cooled their interest, shifting more of the credit for the success of "Home Alone" to Simon.

On March 31, after Easter, the timeline moved into April 1991.

America Online's three-month free trial was ending.

In March, AOL still achieved a subscription base of 1.5 million users, with an additional 1.09 million users trying the service for free.

Of the 970,000 trial users in February, 560,000 converted to regular subscribers, improving the conversion rate from January's 57% to an even higher rate.

Based on data from the previous two months, AOL estimated that of the 1.09 million trial users in March, over 600,000 would convert to regular subscribers.

In just the first quarter, AOL was expected to gain over 1.5 million new users.

Including the users from before 1991, by the end of April, AOL's number of regular paying subscribers was expected to exceed 2.3 million.

With such strong growth momentum, due to the large number of users still waiting for their free trial from previous months, AOL soon announced that the free trial program would continue until the remaining 2.5 million reserved users had all received their chance to try the service.

Even if only 50% of these remaining reserved users converted to regular subscribers, AOL could gain an additional 1.25 million subscribers.

After the free trial program ended completely, AOL's user base was expected to exceed 3.5 million.

Based on an average monthly expenditure of $30 per user, starting from

 the second half of 1991, AOL's monthly revenue was projected to exceed $100 million.

Both the solid revenue figures and the visibly high growth rate continuously stimulated AOL's IPO valuation.

Morgan Stanley, which officially secured the underwriting rights for AOL's IPO, adjusted the valuation several times, ultimately setting it at $2.5 billion.

At this $2.5 billion valuation, with AOL planning to issue 15% of new shares, the company was expected to raise $375 million.

With the high growth in AOL's own revenues, after the IPO, the company would completely overcome its ongoing financial difficulties.

As AOL and other North American internet service providers ramped up their efforts, just in the first half of 1991, the total number of World Wide Web platform users in North America was expected to exceed 5 million, and reaching 10 million users by the end of the year seemed very feasible.

This growth rate far exceeded Simon's initial expectations.

No wonder Jeff Bezos, upon seeing the internet industry's annual growth rate of 2300%, quickly transitioned from finance into this sector.

As the most important content platform in the World Wide Web system, the Igritte portal, with the explosive growth of World Wide Web users, increasingly gained attention.

Consider that during this era, the largest circulation newspaper in North America had an average sales volume of just over 2 million copies.

However, the Igritte portal, which quickly gained fame through its coverage of the Gulf War, already had over 3 million users across North America.

Although the user base of the Igritte portal was quite dispersed, at this point, no one dared to overlook this rapidly growing new media platform.

Therefore, during the Igritte portal's advertising sales activity in late March, Igritte accumulated over $12 million in advertising orders from giants like IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and others.

Although traditional consumer product advertising still struggled to achieve significant results on internet platforms, as an emerging new media platform for technology, the Igritte portal was an ideal venue for these tech giants to promote their products.

Jeff Bezos precisely grasped this point, specifically crafting a series of advertising packages aimed at various technology companies. The $12 million in advertising orders might seem insignificant compared to traditional media giants, but it represented a significant leap for the Igritte portal.

Previously, Igritte's main source of revenue was still the sales of IE browser software.

After this quarter's advertising sales activity, advertising revenue officially became a focal point for the Igritte portal's earnings.

At the same time, the industry once again recognized the Igritte portal's strong monopolistic advantage over the World Wide Web content platform.

While providing a portal for news information might not be technologically challenging, integrating additional features like email, personal homepages, online forums, and online games was not as straightforward.

Moreover, Igritte also possessed a strong patent barrier, which was the fundamental obstacle preventing other tech companies from replicating a portal business.

On the World Wide Web platform, even simple web page images, which many might consider straightforward, were actually developed and patented by Igritte as a specialized image format. This did not even include foundational applications like the JavaScript scripting language and other technologies.

Although Daenerys Entertainment maintained a very open licensing attitude, allowing more and more websites joining the World Wide Web platform to easily obtain licenses, and even offering them for free, it was clear that if someone planned to create a commercial website similar to the Igritte portal, obtaining technical licensing from Igritte would be nearly impossible.

Simon hoped for a diversity of internet content sites, as restricting other content platforms would not benefit the expansion of the World Wide Web platform itself.

However, if only content-related patent licenses were open and access to technologies related to email, online games, and future online payment systems remained restricted, it would be very difficult for similar websites to compete with the Igritte portal.

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