I’m in Hollywood - Chapter 828

[Chapter eight hundred and twentieth listen to destiny]

High-speed text

first

The second day of the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations for mobile phone synchronization, it happened to be Friday.

With the large-scale release of Sony’s “Mr. Sweetheart” and Paramount’s “Star Trek: First Contact”, the most popular Christmas season at the end of the year is announced.

MGM’s “Mission: Impossible 2”, which had a strong schedule at the end of the year, after the first-week box office of more than 82 million US dollars, the cumulative box office number in three weeks has reached 165 million US dollars, and the total box office of 19 countries that have been released overseas has also exceeded 100 million. At the dollar mark, there was a lot of limelight for a while.

Kevin Costner, who had a big somersault in “Future Water World”, has returned to the ranks of Hollywood superstars with his strong performance in “Mission Impossible 2”.

Although MGM negotiated two sequels at one time during the downturn after the failure of Kevin Costner’s “Waterworld”, the launch of “Mission Impossible 3” will not be too much.

However, because “Mission: Impossible” has the most eye-catching box office performance among the three series of the Secret Service Cinematic Universe, it is conceivable that the future “Mission: Impossible 4” will even be a big secret agent alliance movie with a deeper crossover. MGM will not be able to do so. Avoid another pay tug-of-war with Kevin Costner.

Of course, this is strictly a blissful annoyance, and any Hollywood studio eagerly awaits a similar annoyance.

Firefly’s New Line Pictures’ “Rush Hour”, which opened during the Thanksgiving holiday, grossed $14.38 million in the fourth week, reaching a total of $101.66 million. At the current box office trend, “Rush Hour” can also reach at least $140 million at the North American box office.

In the eyes of the outside world, compared with the relatively sluggish box office performance of the Firefly headquarters this year, the new line, which focuses on low-cost films below $30 million, has performed extremely well.

The scale of New Line’s production and distribution this year is a total of 16 films. If you do not count “Jedi Boys 2”, which was shifted by Eric to next summer’s release, the average production cost of the remaining 15 films is only 16 million US dollars. According to In terms of released films, New Line has invested only 240 million yuan in film production throughout the year, which is not much different from the production cost of “Titanic”.

However, in terms of return rate, the four best-performing films of New Line this year, “Rush Hour”, “Seven Deadly Sins”, “Death Is Coming” and “Red Zone”, are expected to total $350 million at the North American box office, and the other 11 Movies, although there are many failed films with a box office of only two or three million, the cumulative total box office of the ten films has also exceeded 120 million.

Usually, low- and medium-budget films tend to have strong local cultural characteristics, making it difficult for them to make a difference in overseas markets.

However, with the help of the overseas box office of “Seven Deadly Sins” more than double the domestic box office of 220 million US dollars, the overseas box office figure of the new line’s annual release film also reached 560 million US dollars.

According to comprehensive statistics, in 1996, New Line Pictures, with a production budget of 240 million US dollars,

achieved a total box office of 1.03 billion US dollars worldwide, excluding peripheral income such as later video tapes and TV broadcasting rights, only the box office. , the profits directly brought to Firefly Group exceeded 200 million US dollars.

“Titanic” only won an irrelevant Best Screenplay nomination at the Golden Globe Awards nomination conference. Although there have been many voices of doubt, the general trend in the media, because of the failure of the Golden Globe Award nomination, is not enough for “Titanic”. The voice of the “Titanic” looking bad is even more clamorous.

The news of “Rush Hour” breaking through 100 million at the North American box office happened to appear in the media on the same day as the Golden Globe nomination. As the producer and distributor of “Rush Hour”, New Line Cinema and “Titanic” have a very contrasting overall performance. The annual production budget also appears in the media’s field of vision.

Also with a production budget of about 200 million US dollars, New Line’s 15 low-cost films in 1996 created a global box office of more than 1 billion US dollars, while the desperate “Titanic” has an uncertain future at this time. In the eyes of most people , it is almost inevitable that the film will face huge losses.

This strong contrast has undoubtedly poured cold water on the big investment and big production trend that has emerged in Hollywood in recent years. There are many reflections in the media. The latest issue of “The Hollywood Reporter” is eye-catching on the front page. location, and a large-scale report was devoted to this.

“Since the early 1990s, Hollywood seems to have become more and more obsessed with ‘blockbuster’ movies, and it is undeniable that movies such as “Jurassic Park”, “The Mummy”, “Men in Black” have brought the relevant production companies. Extraordinarily huge profits, but we absolutely cannot ignore the failures of such big-budget films as “Cutthroat Island”, “Water World”, “Heroes of the Mountain” and “Phantom Heroes”, which have caused disasters to investors and production companies Sexual consequences. The tragic failure of “Cut Throat Island” has directly led to the huge acquisition of the Disney Group by Firefly Pictures, which was still very weak.”

“And this year, the Firefly Group, which has been successful in big production films, It seems that it will also be accompanied by the unprecedented investment of 215 million US dollars in “Titanic”, and it will encounter an ‘epic disaster’ as in 1912. On the other hand, New Line Pictures, Miramac, which mainly focuses on low-cost production Film companies such as Sri Lanka, relying on a cautious and steady production strategy, quietly developed and expanded, eroding the film market share.”

“Especially, New Line, a subsidiary of the Firefly Group, relies on its incompatibility with Titanic. The comparable annual production budget has driven the global box office of more than 1 billion US dollars. As of the first week of December, the box office share of New Line reached 7.8% of the total box office of 5.9 billion US dollars in North America in 1996, which is almost 7.8%. It’s on a par with Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures, the two established studios.”

“As a creative industry, Hollywood must, of course, through some high-budget investment projects, to achieve innovation and exploration of film production techniques, special effects technology, etc., in order to achieve the purpose of providing audiences with better film and television content. But at the same time, We also have to reflect, perhaps, Hollywood needs to go back to the ‘tent pole theory’ strategy once proposed by Mr. Barry Diller, use a small number of blockbuster films as tent poles, and hold up a large number of medium and low ‘curtains’ Budget films, this is the most orthodox way of survival for Hollywood film companies. On the contrary, if a film company wants to survive by only relying on a few ‘tent poles’, ignoring the existence of ‘curtains’, it is conceivable that when ‘wind and rain’ How tragic it will be.”

After the article in The Hollywood Reporter was published, a large number of media began to echo.

Eric was in New York and saw this article for the first time.

Although he has recently thought about the development trajectory of Firefly in recent years, Eric still scoffs at the views expressed in this article.

The popularity of big-budget movies is almost an inevitable trend in Hollywood, because not only does this type of movie have a strong natural influence, but also, such as “Jurassic Park” and other types of movies, not only can bring box office, video tapes and TV broadcasts It can even form a lucrative peripheral industry chain involving peripheral toys, computer games, franchise licensing, etc. The potential commercial returns are unmatched by medium and low-cost films.

Even if most low-cost films are successful at the box office, their commercial interests often stop at video tapes and TV broadcasting rights, while medium-cost productions such as “Jedi Men” and “Rush Hour” that have the potential for sequel development, After the success of the first, the production budget of the sequel will no doubt double, and it will inevitably enter the ranks of the big-budget films.

No matter what the outside media say, no matter how anxious the firefly management is, no matter how gloating other Hollywood film companies are, the release date of “Titanic” is still approaching day by day.

In the last week, “Titanic” launched a more intensive trailer bombing on the TV network under Firefly Group, and the prominent landmarks of major cities in North America also began to erect huge posters of “Titanic”. Film creators such as Long, Xiao Lizi and Rachel Weisz have landed on mainstream talk shows in North America. Although Eric did not directly participate in the final stage of the promotion of “Titanic”, he spent almost two or three in Southampton every day. Hours of communication with Firefly management, distribution department and main creative team in all aspects.

On December 19, the box office data for the first week of Christmas was released. The two new films “Star Trek: First Contact” and “Mr. Sweetheart” released this week earned $43 million and $24 million respectively. The box office in the first week, according to the box office trend of the two films, will not have much impact on the next release of “Titanic”.

The comedy “The Martians Playing on Earth”, which will be released at the same time as “Titanic”, is also not a big threat. After all, although it is starring Jack Nicholson, a veteran Hollywood acting superstar, no matter the production budget, pre-screening word of mouth Or the scale of publicity, can’t compare with “Titanic”.

Although other Hollywood film companies have the intention of sniping at “Titanic”, they still have a bit of dread and will not directly collide with “Titanic” with a heavyweight film.

The biggest enemy of “Titanic” is actually whether the film itself can be strongly welcomed by the market like the original time and space, and create the original box office miracle.

The final opening scale of “Titanic” is 2,770 theaters. Although Firefly hopes to have more than 3,000 theaters, because “Titanic” is more than three hours long and the industry’s one-sided view of the film has made many The theaters that are not too close with Firefly have refused to arrange for “Titanic”.

At eight o’clock in the evening, Eric and Katzenberg discussed the promotional strategy for the first week of “Titanic” by phone, hung up the phone, and stopped thinking too much about the film.

The manpower has been exhausted, and the next step is to obey the destiny.

Throwing the phone on the coffee table in the living room, Eric reached out and hugged his daughter, who was watching TV while leaning against Joanna with her beautiful blue eyes, and said, “Xia Xia, watching too much TV is not good. Can Dad read you a bedtime story?”

Hawaii struggled a little in Eric’s arms, still staring at the TV screen, and said in a dissatisfied tone: “But, Dad, I’m not sleepy.”

“Kevin You have already gone to bed, you have to rest early, you will be sleepy after listening to bedtime stories for a while,” Eric said, and Emma, who was sitting beside Drew, also got up and ran over, saying that she wanted to listen to bedtime stories together. , and blinked his big eyes and reached out for Eric to hug him.

Emma will be five years old soon, but the little guy seems to have a tendency to repeat the small stature of the previous life. Although he is two years older than Hawaii and Kevin, he is only a little taller than Hawaii at this time.

Eric picked up Emma easily, walked toward the little guys’ bedrooms one by one, and asked, “So, what do you want to hear?” The

TV disappeared from sight, seeing that things were irreversible, Hawaii’s little face was reluctant. Turning to Eric, he said, “Dad, bedtime stories are so boring. Can I read the Encyclopedia?” Eric said helplessly, “Baby, in that case,

Dad

will probably fall asleep first.”

During this conversation between the father and daughter, Joanna on the sofa couldn’t help but chuckle.

Eric has been under a lot of pressure recently. It’s not that they don’t know, except that the box office prospects of “Titanic” are bleak, because Clover Holdings, a subsidiary of Firefly, has a sudden impact on the popular technology stocks in the Nasdaq market during the three months at the end of the year. A massive investment of $1.5 billion, recently with the company’s financial statistics at the end of the year, it was announced that Eric had a dispute with David West, a member of the board of directors and one of the shareholders of Firefly Group, in Manhattan a few days ago. Buffett also passed The phone calls expressed doubt and dissatisfaction.

At this time, listening to Eric’s relaxed conversation with his daughter, Joanna and the others knew that Eric’s mentality was not greatly affected by the recent series of events, and they were relieved a little.

The next day, I woke up very early, looked at the watch on the bedside table, it was just after seven o’clock, and the sky outside the window was not yet bright.

There was no sleepiness anymore, Eric carefully left the little girl snuggling in his arms, put on clothes lightly, and walked out of the bedroom.

The snow that fell last week has not yet completely melted away, and the sky has turned grey again today.

The maids in the manor have already started preparing breakfast, and today’s newspapers have been placed on the coffee table in the living room. Eric sat down on the sofa and looked through them one by one.

These days, the topic of “Titanic” has experienced too much saliva, and the media seems to be a little tired of it. Although a large-scale painting started last night, because it was in the middle of winter, coupled with the long time of “Titanic” At three hours long, many people will inevitably give up watching the midnight show.

There are not many movie reviews about “Titanic” in the newspapers today. The overall evaluation is almost the same as the screening stage. The detailed media wind direction analysis will definitely have to wait for the report of the Firefly marketing department. Eric only relies on a few newspapers at this time. , and there is no major trend.

Nearing eight o’clock, UU reading www.sonicmtl.

com The twins Joanna and Natasha also got up one after another. Eric had just put down the newspaper and walked into the gym when his cell phone rang.

The call was personally called by Katzenberg from Los Angeles. It was only five o’clock in the morning in Los Angeles, but this was not a problem for Katzenberg. There were two workaholics at the top of Firefly Group, and one of them was It’s Katzenberg, and the other, of course, is not Eric, but Robert Iger. Compared with Katzenberg’s five hours of sleep every day, Robert Iger seems to be more ruthless. get up.

The two talked on the phone for more than ten minutes, and Eric temporarily put down the morning exercise and came to the study.

A huge white writing board is habitually hung on the entire wall of the study.

At this point, the wordpad says ‘titani’ at the top, and below is a list of tables.

Picking up the black pen next to him, Eric calmly wrote the midnight box office number of “Titanic” in the first box: $1.56 million.

Calm, tepid.

(To be continued.)

[End of this Chapter]