The last week of May 1990 slipped by quietly, with the summer season having already begun under the banner of Back to the Future Part III and Fire Birds.
During the week of May 25 to May 31, the most talked-about thing was not those two new releases, but Batman officially leaving theaters in North America.
From its release on December 22 last year to its North American run ending on May 31, Batman stayed in domestic theaters for a total of twenty-three weeks. Its final North American gross reached $436.86 million, not only setting a record for a film's initial theatrical run, but also surpassing Star Wars and E.T., two blockbusters that had crossed $400 million only after re-releases.
At the same time, by the last week of May, Batman had also accumulated $390 million overseas.
Although most major foreign markets had already opened, judging by current release progress abroad, Batman still had at least another $100 million of overseas potential. Reaching the $1 billion worldwide mark would be difficult, but a $900 million global total was already all but certain.
Ignoring inflation, a worldwide gross above $900 million pushed Batman straight onto the throne as the highest-grossing film in Hollywood history.
And it was not just box office. In the first half of the year alone, Batman merchandise sales had already exceeded $1.5 billion.
Even though most countries and regions, including North America, would soon wrap up their theatrical runs, adding another $500 million in merchandise sales in the second half of the year was not a problem at all. The film's merchandise revenue might even surpass the original full-year forecast of $2 billion.
The brighter Batman;s performance became, the heavier the pressure on Jan de Bont, the director Simon had personally selected to take the helm of Batman: The Dark Knight.
That pressure was not only internal. Fans who feared a cinematographer who had never directed a film might ruin the sequel raised a fuss every few days. After the Ygritte portal went online, the forums even spawned a dedicated fan group called "We Don't Want Jan de Bont."
To calm people down, Daenerys Entertainment and Warner Bros. had to repeatedly hint that the true helmsman of Batman: The Dark Knight was still Simon himself, and that Jan de Bont would only be an "executor."
When Jan de Bont even received death threats from Batman fans demanding he quit, Simon had no choice but to send him far away to Melbourne ahead of schedule. And Simon could clearly sense the fire bottled up inside the new director. That only made Simon more confident in his choice.
Batman was the last Daenerys-related film from last year's slate, and with it leaving theaters, Daenerys Entertainment's other late-year releases had essentially come to their conclusions as well.
The earlier Scream 2 finished with $112 million domestically. Its overseas run was also nearing the end, with a total around $93 million, bringing the global cumulative to $205 million. While its overall performance was weaker than the first film, it remained Hollywood's most successful teen horror franchise.
The Thanksgiving release Flight Over Innocence ultimately settled at $163 million in North America. Hit by the impact of Batman, it landed slightly below its initial expectations. Overseas, by the end of May, it had reached $130 million, with an estimated additional potential of around $30 million. Worldwide, it was likely to reach $320 million.
The fashion documentary The Gucci Documentary finished at $41.63 million in North America. Because Gucci spared no effort in its promotion, caring more about marketing than profit, overseas performance was even stronger. By the end of May it had already surpassed $62 million abroad. With a global total breaking $100 million, The Gucci Documentary not only became the most successful fashion documentary in Hollywood history, it also significantly boosted Gucci's brand recognition.
Thanks to the influence of The Gucci Documentary, Hollywood already had more than three fashion documentaries in production, with countless more projects being floated.
Highgate Pictures' flagship from last year, Driving Miss Daisy, also wrapped its domestic run before Batman left theaters. It broke $100 million in North America, reaching $106.5 million.
Compared to its $7 million production cost, Driving Miss Daisy not only made Highgate Pictures an absolute fortune, it also once again proved the enormous commercial potential of low-budget prestige films.
However, because of the film's strongly localized tone, its overseas performance was underwhelming. Even with the Best Picture Oscar as a halo, by the end of May overseas box office sat at just over $26 million, with total overseas potential estimated at around $30 million.
While the media debated Batman leaving theaters, the two new releases from the previous week were not completely forgotten.
In its opening week, Back to the Future Part III launched on 2,019 screens and earned $27.76 million in seven days.
Compared to Part II, the final installment dropped again, and with lukewarm word of mouth, no one expected it to hold beautifully over time. Its projected North American total was roughly between $80 million and $100 million.
Still, Back to the Future Part III's results were decent, at least far better than the film Paramount had once hoped would challenge Top Gun's record, Fire Birds.
With a similar launch on 2,006 screens, Fire Birds earned only $7.55 million in its first seven days.
In a summer season this competitive, a per-theater average barely above $3,700 meant the film's screen count would be slashed hard in its second week, and within a month it would essentially be headed out of theaters.
Though the mainstream press did not dig too deeply into the backstory of The Rocketeer and Fire Birds, Hollywood itself had already spread it everywhere. Paramount had paid a steep price to snatch two projects from Daenerys Entertainment.
Then both failed.
And it was not only simple box office failure. Losing two of the strongest release windows, last year's Christmas season and this year's summer opening, would clearly damage Paramount's overall 1990 film performance.
After Back to the Future Part III and Fire Birds kicked off the season, June 1 brought two major releases on the same day: Daenerys Entertainment's Ghost and Sony's first heavyweight bomb since entering Hollywood, Total Recall.
After the May 30 premiere, Daenerys Entertainment once again released early reviews for Ghost on Thursday ahead of opening. Sony, cautious as ever, kept Total Recall's media response under wraps until after release.
Yet the comparison in reception turned out to be surprisingly unexpected.
Ghost did not receive the near-unanimous wave of critical praise that Daenerys Entertainment's summer opener last year, The Sixth Sense, had enjoyed.
The New York Times bluntly published a negative review, attacking Ghost as "a tired, stupid ghost movie, not remotely comparable to The Sixth Sense."
All told, Ghost's aggregated media rating came out to only 7.4.
In other circumstances, that would have been a solid score, but compared to Total Recall, which had been doubted from the start and was even rumored to be something Simon Westeros personally believed might fail, the gap was obvious.
Instead of the predictable "muscleman saves the world" film some critics had anticipated, Total Recall gave the press a pleasant shock. The Chicago Tribune praised it as "a remarkable breakthrough for Schwarzenegger while still preserving his signature style."
In its opening week, Total Recall played on 2,040 screens and hauled in $36.08 million, with a per-theater average above $17,000.
By contrast, Ghost opened on 1,521 screens and earned only $19.76 million in its first week, with a per-theater average barely reaching $13,000. It was still a major hit by any standard, but next to Total Recall it looked clearly weaker.
Right after that, on June 8, Harrison Ford's crime thriller Presumed Innocent and Disney's re-release of the classic animated The Jungle Book arrived.
Presumed Innocent was not an action film, but its reception was excellent as well.
And Disney's re-releases always had a stable audience.
This time, many people felt Daenerys Entertainment was finally going to stumble. After all, the reviews were not outstanding, the opening wasn't dazzling, and many outlets predicted Ghost's North American box office might end around $60 million.
Sixty million dollars was not a failure for a film that cost $20 million to make.
But for Daenerys Entertainment, that would be failure.
Only Daenerys Entertainment's distribution team, tracking real audience response at the ground level, could faintly sense a different possibility. Much like last year's The Sixth Sense, the film's word of mouth was spreading quietly from person to person, and the soundtrack album sales were surging in a way that suggested the movie might still have room to turn the tide.
Even so, no one dared to guarantee anything.
To avoid becoming a joke if word got out, the Ghost distribution team simply kept silent about those signals.
June 9, inside a mansion near Paradise Cove in Malibu.
After finishing a West Coast mini-tour and taking a brief breather, Madonna hosted a celebration party at her Malibu home.
And just yesterday, after another discussion with Simon, Madonna's team finally announced a long-awaited bombshell for fans. Simon Westeros would appear as a guest guitarist at Madonna's concert on June 23, held at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just west of New York City.
The New York run would begin on June 20, with four shows in total.
They chose June 23 mainly because it fell on a Saturday, drawing more attention from fans. And because Simon confirmed his participation, Madonna's team sold the TV broadcast rights for a high price of $6 million before the news even spread. It was said they would also release a dedicated videotape afterward.
In truth, because rehearsal time was limited, Simon would not play through the entire show, and not every song needed a live guitarist.
To avoid fans feeling deceived, that detail had already been released in advance. Even so, once the June 23 date was announced yesterday, the phone lines for ticket orders exploded.
Madonna's Blond Ambition world tour, which began in April, was already past its halfway point.
Compared to the total box office of only $25 million from her last tour, this time, with the tour only halfway finished, revenue had already surpassed $30 million. Total ticket revenue for the full world tour had a strong chance of breaking $60 million.
Counting other income streams as well, Madonna was projected to bring in more than $30 million overall this year, and she was very likely to top the U.S. annual earnings rankings for actors and singers.
Judging by the scale of tonight's party alone, it was obvious how delighted the little woman who never hid her ambition was.
Simon and Janet lived nearby, and they had nothing urgent that night, so they came over naturally.
After chatting briefly with Madonna, who was holding the arm of her new boyfriend, Warren Beatty, and greeting a few other guests who came up to flirt and make small talk, Simon was about to take Janet to the dance floor when he unexpectedly spotted Terry Semel and Peter Guber.
One was the head of Warner Bros., the other was the head of Columbia. Simon was genuinely curious why the two of them were here.
Especially together.
After all, because of Sony's acquisition of the Guber-Peters company, Warner and Sony had nearly ended up in court. In the end, Sony had to pay a massive settlement to put the matter to rest.
But with a little thought, Simon was no longer surprised.
To Hollywood, Sony was still an outsider. No matter how ugly things got on the surface, people like Terry Semel and Peter Guber, veterans who had lived in this town for years, were still considered "their own."
If Simon had not rapidly established Daenerys Entertainment's foothold in Hollywood, then no matter how much money he made, to most Hollywood natives he would still only be an outsider.
This March, after Orion Pictures exited, Daenerys Entertainment smoothly took its place as a member of the Motion Picture Association, gaining control influence over the U.S. ratings apparatus. That was, in a very official sense, the confirmation of Daenerys Entertainment's status in Hollywood.
After a few warm pleasantries, it was clear Semel and Guber did not intend to linger, so they got straight to the point.
Sony was urgently preparing several big projects to announce its arrival in Hollywood with authority.
The one currently being negotiated was a new film Steven Spielberg was very interested in, adapted from the famous Peter Pan novel, titled Captain Hook.
Beyond Spielberg, Robin Williams was also likely to join.
Semel and Guber came to Simon personally this time to speak on Dustin Hoffman's behalf.
After cutting ties with CAA, Dustin Hoffman had spent a year in the UK doing stage work. Now the old Hollywood heavyweight wanted to return to film, and he was interested in the role of Captain Hook.
But the first thing that needed resolving was still Simon's attitude.
Of the four people forced to terminate their CAA ties because of the Rain Man incident last year, Tom Cruise's career had not taken much of a hit.
Even with last winter's failure of The Rocketeer, Cruise's Easter-season lead in Born on the Fourth of July still delivered a solid box office. And this summer he also had another Paramount collaboration, the racing film Days of Thunder, another very successful commercial picture.
Rain Man's director Barry Levinson also seemed to have moved forward without trouble, completing his new film Avalon.
Dustin Hoffman had stayed far away in Europe, keeping his head down and effectively yielding. That counted as a substantial concession. With decades of connections in Hollywood, if things truly turned into a war, he might not come out unscathed, but Daenerys Entertainment would get bloodied too.
So the one who ended up truly crushed on the beach was Meg Ryan, who had never had much to do with Rain Man in the first place.