December 24th, Christmas Eve.
The highly anticipated "Cyborg" officially debuted in North American theaters on this day, with 3,106 screens.
The strength of the DC movie universe had been proven through five consecutive successful films, making "Cyborg" almost a monopoly for the holiday season. The other three films released the same day were small-scale projects with only a few dozen screens each.
Christmas Eve is traditionally a day for Western families to gather, typically not the best time for a movie premiere.
However, thanks to Warner Bros.' promotion, many fans chose to see "Cyborg" as part of their holiday celebration, flocking to theaters on the first day.
Compared to historically well-known superheroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, Cyborg, who debuted in 1980 and is African American, faced significant disadvantages. Warner wouldn't have had any confidence launching this project independently, but fortunately, it was a continuation of the interconnected DC movie universe, with a storyline closely tied to the summer hit "Superman," bridging past and future narratives. This greatly mitigated the lead character's disadvantages in popularity and ethnicity.
Especially notable was the film's reception.
The film employed many new technologies in its special effects, making Cyborg's visual appeal surpass even the robots in "Terminator." The storyline, though not stunning, was well-crafted, providing a complete origin story for the superhero Cyborg while laying enough groundwork for the future of the DC movie universe. Moreover, the need to maintain political correctness for the African American lead resulted in a strong critical reception, with the film earning a composite media score of 9.1, an excellent rating.
Despite it being Christmas Eve, Warner Bros.' marketing couldn't entirely overcome Westerners' deep-seated holiday traditions. "Cyborg" grossed only $14.16 million on its wide-release debut day, the lowest opening day for a DC movie universe project.
Before the media could declare the film a failure, its box office surged by 39% on Saturday, earning $19.73 million.
The following Sunday, "Cyborg" grossed $17.37 million.
By the end of its first weekend, "Cyborg" had grossed $51.26 million in three days, surpassing the $49.31 million opening weekend of "The Flash" two years earlier, also released during the Christmas season.
Although it ranked second to last among the six DC universe films, Warner had compared "Cyborg" to "The Flash." The marketing team had only expected it to perform similarly to "The Flash." Now, this superhero film, despite its various disadvantages, seemed poised to outperform the well-established Flash, thanks to the DC universe's halo, much to Warner's delight.
After its first weekend, from December 24th to December 30th, "Cyborg" accumulated $76.21 million, unsurprisingly topping the weekly box office chart.
The inclusion of "Cyborg" boosted the total box office for the last full week of 1993 to $193 million. However, the strong performance of "Cyborg" inevitably suppressed other films released at the same time.
Due to "Cyborg's" release, the most popular and family-friendly holiday film, "The Lion King," didn't experience a box office increase during Christmas week, but its decline was a mere 3%, earning another $27.61 million and bringing its six-week total to $237.29 million.
"Mission: Impossible," ranking third on the chart, wasn't as lucky, with its Christmas week box office dropping 19%, earning $20.52 million and bringing its total to $143.73 million.
Other films released during the same period saw mixed results, none comparable to the top three.
December 31st, the last day of 1993, marked the start of another box office week.
To avoid competing with "Cyborg," Fox's sci-fi thriller "Ghost in the Machine" took a risky strategy by releasing this week, opening on 1,031 screens, likely hoping to pick up some of the audience if "Cyborg" failed or if the film unexpectedly became a hit.
Unfortunately, there were no such surprises.
Earning just $730,000 on its opening day confirmed "Ghost in the Machine" as a minor player in the holiday season.
With New Year's Day falling on a Saturday, the week from December 31st to January 6th didn't see the usual post-holiday box office slump.
In its second week, "Cyborg" saw only a 26% drop, earning $56.39 million, bringing its two-week total to $132.6 million. Whether it could reach $300 million in North America would depend on its future performance, but surpassing "The Flash's" $253 million seemed easily attainable.
The phenomenally successful 3D animated film "The Lion King" remained in second place.
In its seventh week, its box office fell by just 33%, earning another $18.36 million and bringing its total to $255.65 million, less than $45 million away from the $300 million mark.
Among the top three, "Mission: Impossible" experienced the steepest decline, with its weekly box office dropping 36%, earning $13.1 million and bringing its total to $156.83 million.
Despite the sharp decline, "Mission: Impossible's" overall box office performance had overcome the initial low opening caused by "The Lion King," with an expected domestic total of around $180 million. With a 55% profit-sharing ratio, Daenerys and Paramount could recover their entire $100 million production and marketing investment from the North American box office alone, with overseas earnings being almost entirely profit.
Although it couldn't match the DC universe projects or blockbusters like "Jurassic Park" and "The Lion King," Paramount was satisfied with "Mission: Impossible's" market performance and had officially launched plans for a sequel.
After spending over a week with his family during Christmas, Simon returned to work on January 3rd, following New Year's Day. Janet also flew to New York on the first working day of the new year, leaving her assistant at Cape Dume to look after their three children.
Veronica had flown to Australia for Christmas and returned to North America with Melbourne after the holidays.
After giving birth to Nicholas, Veronica had suggested resuming her work, but Simon and Janet had both gently avoided the topic, even assigning her the task of overseeing BlackRock Asset Management.
BlackRock Asset Management, the most conservative in investment strategy among the three core subsidiaries of Cersei Capital, held a massive $170 billion in total assets. Any issues could significantly impact the entire Westeros system.
To avoid personal limitations hindering the rapid expansion of the Westeros system, Simon and Janet were increasingly delegating power to the management team while strengthening financial, personnel, and legal oversight across various subsidiaries.
Veronica was one of the most trusted individuals for Simon and Janet and perfectly suited for this role.
At the beginning of the new year, Daenerys Entertainment's first major commercial move was to fully acquire the remaining shares of USA Network from Canada's Seagram Group.
Following the successful acquisition of Paramount Communications last October, Seagram Group, as a foreign investor, was restricted by federal regulations and had to sell its stake in USA Network.
USA Network was initially jointly owned by Paramount Communications and MCA, with both holding equal shares of 50%. After Daenerys Entertainment merged with MCA, half of the shares fell into Daenerys Entertainment's hands, giving Simon absolute control over USA Network.
In recent years, through popular reality shows like the "Goddess" series and hit programs like "Desperate Housewives," USA Network had grown rapidly. In less than three years, its subscriber base had grown from 21 million to 43 million, and its annual revenue had increased from $60 million to $330 million in 1993.
The network's net profit for 1993 was estimated to be around $40 million.
If not for federal media regulations, Seagram Group would never have agreed to sell such a rapidly growing basic cable network.
As the major shareholder, Daenerys Entertainment had the right of first refusal for the other half of USA Network's shares. However, with other federal media groups interested in these shares, acquiring them at a low price was unrealistic.
After more than two months of negotiations, Seagram Group finally agreed to sell its USA Network shares for $700 million in cash. Based on 1993's earnings, this represented a price-to-earnings ratio of 35, which, though not unreasonable, was quite high.
Even so, the success of "Mission: Impossible" made Seagram realize the importance of maintaining a good relationship with Daenerys Entertainment, facilitating the agreement.
Securing USA Network, Daenerys Entertainment announced its second major move in mid-January: reorganizing its gaming business.
After four years of investing in EA and two years of full ownership, the company's development hadn't been poor. Combined with Blizzard Entertainment, which primarily focused on console games, Daenerys Entertainment's gaming division's preliminary statistics for 1993 showed annual revenue of $1.16 billion and net profits of around $230 million, accounting for about one-tenth of the group's total annual net profits.
The global video game market in 1993 had a total output value of approximately $13 billion.
Daenerys Entertainment's gaming division's revenue accounted for nearly 9% of the global game revenue. While this achievement in a few short years would be remarkable for any other company, it didn't satisfy Simon.
The most typical issue was that despite launching a series of successful PC and console games in recent years, the gaming division hadn't produced another blockbuster like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Moreover, the popularity of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sequels had inevitably declined.
As Daenerys Entertainment reached its peak in its core film business, its future growth
points would be television and games.
Unlike the music business, which was on a downward trend for the next 20-30 years, the gaming industry was different.
Currently, the total value of games across various platforms was comparable to the global film box office. Simon remembered that this figure would increase tenfold in the next 20-30 years, reaching a trillion-dollar scale.
Given the current development state of Daenerys Entertainment's gaming division, it would remain a giant in the industry if it maintained its current market share ten or twenty years from now.
No company can stay on top forever, and Simon wouldn't be blindly optimistic due to current successes. He also hoped the group's gaming division would go further.
To achieve this, reorganizing the existing gaming business was inevitable.
This was because Simon and the head of the gaming division, Trip Hawkins, had significant disagreements on management philosophy.
According to the group's management structure, the gaming business was overseen by Nancy Brier, and Trip Hawkins, the founder and former chairman and CEO of EA, normally reported to Nancy.
After successfully expanding Daenerys Entertainment's gaming business, Nancy had recently shifted her focus to Blockbuster Entertainment and the increasingly prosperous merchandising business driven by the DC movie universe, "Jurassic Park," "Toy Story," and "The Lion King." This inevitably led to neglect of the gaming division's management.
Trip Hawkins' management philosophy at EA involved producing top-quality games, a principle any gaming company would adhere to. However, he also insisted on strictly controlling the game's development process to minimize risks, which Simon couldn't accept.
Video games, like movies, music, and books, belong to the creative industry, where creativity is crucial for any game's success.
Trip Hawkins' strict control over game development stifled the creativity of development teams.
In the original timeline, despite maintaining a dominant industry position, EA's management philosophy, inherited from Trip Hawkins, led to excessive interference in game development, causing many talented studios to gradually decline after being acquired by EA. The result was increasingly commercialized sequels for users.
EA was thus dubbed the "industry cancer."
In contrast, Blizzard Entertainment, which highly valued game quality, released only a handful of games over decades but earned widespread recognition for its meticulous quality, making its market value higher than EA despite having fewer game titles.
Simon always emphasized budget control for Daenerys Entertainment's film projects, but if forced to choose between film quality and budget/schedule, he would choose quality. He inherently valued film quality more.
This is why Daenerys Entertainment worked with the notoriously over-budget James Cameron. Many DC movie projects, Pixar's two animated films, and several other projects under Daenerys Entertainment exceeded their initial budgets.
A mediocre film's shortcomings could be mitigated through marketing and the company's channels.
However, if a game's quality was poor, it wouldn't attract many buyers. Therefore, game quality was even more critical to Simon than film quality.
Under Simon's direct leadership, EA founder Trip Hawkins left the company with a generous severance package. Larry Probst, EA's former president, took over the restructured Daenerys Entertainment gaming division, continuing to report to Nancy Brier.
Post-reorganization, EA's development and distribution teams were separated, and EA's internal development teams were reorganized into highly independent studio models.
In the future, EA's main responsibility would be the distribution of PC and console games, while the management team would only oversee personnel and financial matters, leaving creative control to the heads of each studio.
Simon emphasized that EA only needed high-quality products.
Creative teams could exceed budgets, miss deadlines, restart projects, or even cancel unsatisfactory works, as long as they ultimately delivered quality games.
Of course, freedom would be limited.
Creative teams had to be accountable for all their actions.
Simon could tolerate failure but not continuous failure. Overruns and delays had to be for quality reasons; other reasons would lead to penalties.
After reorganizing the gaming division, Simon personally approved several studio acquisitions.
The most significant was a Los Angeles studio called "Silicon & Synapse," which had only been established for two years and hadn't achieved much success. However, Simon's interest lay in their current project, an RTS game titled "Warcraft."
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