Capítulo 304: Chapter 304: The Buzz
Santa Monica Airport.
Compared to other small jets at the airport, the Boeing 767-200ER was truly a behemoth.
Simon patiently finished reading the script for "Home Alone" before rushing over.
The crew members personally selected by Janet were still patiently waiting for him. There were eight of them, divided into two teams, each consisting of two pilots and two flight attendants, all Australians, and all women, which was a specific request from Simon. This private plane, much like a residence of Simon's, was something he preferred not to have men piloting.
The four female pilots were all around forty years old, previously full-time pilots for Australian airlines, and even before that, they had served in the air force, each with at least ten years of flying experience.
Simon had paid a hefty price to recruit these four, offering high annual salaries. In addition, their families were entitled to benefits provided by the Westeros company, and they only needed to work in this position for ten years before they could retire early.
The other four flight attendants were purely decorative.
After introductions, Simon climbed the boarding stairs into the cabin, followed by the four flight attendants, who volunteered to show him around the various facilities inside.
With $15 million spent on refurbishments, every detail inside the cabin was close to perfection.
The minimalist decor in black and white tones, like piano keys, every arrangement screamed of sophistication and expense, with a living room, dining room, study, bar, bedroom, meeting room, and more, all included. The interior space available for passengers was over 300 square meters, with a very private duplex suite in the front cabin, giving the impression of being in a real apartment.
However, it was, after all, a medium-sized jet, and in the end, it wasn't as spacious as Simon had imagined.
Even though the crew had just gone through a sixteen-hour long flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles, after Simon's inspection, he was so eager, like a child with a new toy, that he requested the crew to take off again for a round trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Cersei Capital's operations in the U.S. junk bond market were ongoing, so Janet hadn't come to Los Angeles with him.
Simon also had a lot of things to handle lately. The two agreed to meet again in mid-November, probably flying to Finland first to fully acquire Nokia's mobile communications equipment division.
The next day was November 3rd, Friday.
Simon was unusually woken up by the ring of his phone, just past five in the morning.
James Rebel called to say that photos of Simon's newly acquired Boeing 767 had appeared in several newspapers on the East Coast, and James sent some faxes over afterwards. To keep a low profile, there were no markings related to Simon on the Boeing 767; from the outside, it looked no different from a commercial airliner.
However, the only Boeing 767 parked on the runway at Santa Monica Airport in the photos was unmistakably Simon's ride, since the footage of Simon meeting with the crew and then boarding the plane the previous afternoon had all been secretly captured.
The articles were generally written in a gossipy tone about this matter, but there was no shortage of criticism for Simon's extravagant behavior.
Private jets are very common in the West, but there are only a few who use a medium-sized jet capable of carrying two to three hundred people as a private vehicle, like the famous Air Force One, which is entirely a state apparatus, and the vehicles of the heads of Middle Eastern oil nations are also supported by their states.
Immediately after, newspapers on the West Coast also began reporting on Simon's private jet after dawn.
Santa Monica Airport is really not large, and its security is not particularly tight. Discovering that more media had heard the news and rushed over wanting to take more photos of the Westeros flight vehicle, Simon hurriedly ordered the crew to take the Boeing 767 into the air and temporarily fly to San Jose Airport in San Francisco for parking.
In addition, Santa Monica Airport clearly was no longer a suitable place to store the plane.
After consideration, Simon had someone contact Los Angeles International Airport, planning to rent a hangar there to store his plane.
Compared to Santa Monica Airport, Los Angeles International Airport is bustling with hundreds of various types of planes at any time, making it a case of hiding in plain sight; another Boeing 767 wouldn't stand out at all.
Simon, out of an ingrained instinct to not show off wealth, hid his Boeing 767, which only made the media buzz even more heated, with the criticism of Simon's extravagance and waste becoming louder, eventually forcing the public relations departments of both Westeros Company and Daenerys Entertainment to start putting out fires.
In the midst of this buzz, the second week of the North American Halloween season quietly ended.
From November 3rd to November 9th, after the first full week's box office of $31.77 million, "Scream 2" saw a 33% drop in its second week, bringing in another $21.29 million, accumulating a box office of $53.06 million over two weeks.
Compared to the first installment, although the sequel's drop was steeper, the over $50 million box office in two weeks was beyond many people's expectations.
In the same period, the cumulative box office of films like "Alien Monster" and others released at the same time generally did not surpass "Scream 2"'s one-week performance.
On November 10th, "Scream 2" was still hot in theaters, and another new film from Daenerys Entertainment's Highgate Studios, "My Left Foot", was quietly released.
"My Left Foot" had only won a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year but still attracted significant attention. Ella Doichman, under Simon's instructions, had always taken this film very seriously, choosing the November 10th release date also in consideration of the upcoming awards season.
As a film that was destined to rely on a long-term word-of-mouth screening strategy, "My Left Foot" could not compare with "Scream 2" in terms of opening scale, debuting on only 112 screens, following Highgate Studios' radial distribution model, with the first batch of screens focused in major core cities across North America.
Interestingly, "My Left Foot" was not actually Daenerys Entertainment's focus for the Oscars that year.
That honor belonged to "Driving Miss Daisy", set for release in early December. Therefore, the November release for "My Left Foot" mainly aimed to accumulate box office through nominations.
As for "Driving Miss Daisy", Simon had already seen the completed film, which was of the same quality as the original.
Moreover, the greatest advantage of "Driving Miss Daisy" was that both of its main actors were elderly, telling a story about two old people, and it also touched on a very politically correct racial issue, perfectly aligning with the tastes of the Oscar's older judges.
Outside of movies, Daenerys Entertainment's Blizzard Studio's release of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video game was also gradually catching the media's attention.
___________________
(Support with power stones, comments or reviews)
If you guys enjoy this story, In support me on Patreon and get access to +200 advance Chapters
Read Ahead
Patreon.com/INNIT
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder