After another day on the West Coast after Saturday, Simon flew back to Los Angeles on Monday morning.
At the same time, the box office data for the three-day weekend from November 21st to November 23rd was released, which is a very exciting result for Disney.
Three days after its opening, "Terminator 3", which adopted the same female Terminator routine, had a first weekend box office of US$44.26 million, leaving a gap of nearly 10 million US dollars behind the second place "A Bug's Life" with US$35.91 million. , the box office is expected to be between US$60 million and US$70 million in the first seven days of the week.
Disney, controlled by the French Vivendi Group, has two core blockbusters this year. The summer release of "The Fifth Element" ended in failure, with a domestic box office of only more than 60 million U.S. dollars. Vivendi, which has been pushing the group to enter the entertainment industry Jean-Marie Mérieux, the head of Di, was frustrated.
This time, I finally relaxed a little.
Although, the final cost of "Terminator 3" was as high as 130 million U.S. dollars, which was 30 million more than the 100 million U.S. dollars of "The Fifth Element". An additional 50 million U.S. dollars was invested in promotion, but the opening number in the first week was 60 million to 7,000. In North America, the film is expected to reach between 150 million and 200 million US dollars.
Coupled with Schwarzenegger's stronger overseas appeal, the global box office of this sequel is very likely to be the same as "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". Therefore, in the theater stage, "Terminator 3" may Make a small profit. The failure of "The Fifth Element" comes first, which is a result that makes Vivendi very satisfied.
After all, you can’t compare to Daenerys, right
It is rumored that Jean-Marie Merieux also held a video conference on Monday to affirm the performance of the Disney management team, claiming that this was a good attempt, and stated that Vivendi will continue to try.
For Hollywood, the biggest achievement of "Terminator 3" is to finally end the streak of consecutive weekly wins for films related to Daenerys Entertainment that I don't know when it started.
This shows that everyone still has a way to survive.
All right.
Although upon closer inspection, if Daenerys and Fox hadn't actively given up the rights, Disney would have had no chance to get involved in the "Terminator" series.
What Simon saw was the cost control of "Terminator 3".
"Terminator 3" in 2003 burned US$200 million. This time, Vivendi has been strongly interfering in Disney's operations, especially cost control, behind the scenes in order to avoid Sony's responsibility again. Therefore, even though Cameron was also invited to serve as the producer, the cost was still relatively well compressed to US$130 million. This is the main reason why Vivendi was so relaxed after the three-day box office of the project was released over the weekend.
Among them, Schwarzenegger's fixed base salary is US$15 million, and the rest is settled on a share basis. This is also a result that Simon has been quietly promoting over the years, successfully locking Hollywood's fixed salary ceiling at US$15 million, rather than the original salary ceiling. 20 million of them. In comparison, Schwarzenegger once took away 30 million in cash in the original "Terminator 3", which is really outrageous.
As we enter a new week, time flies so fast that Thanksgiving Day on November 27th comes almost in the blink of an eye.
On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, two other new films, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "The Man in the Sky" were also released as scheduled. In the same box office week, five important commercial films competed on the same stage, and will eventually be released from November 21st to November 21st. The total North American box office for the box office week of the 27th pushed to more than 200 million US dollars, reaching 220 million US dollars.
"Terminator 3" ranked first, with a final box office of US$67.06 million in the first seven days.
This result cannot be compared with the DC movie universe blockbusters or Daenerys Entertainment's "Jurassic Park" series, but compared with the $56.93 million in the first week of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", it is 10 million higher Above, Vivendi can indeed be satisfied.
The second place is "A Bug's Life", which earned $54.39 million in its first week.
Due to the series of hits of Pixar animation, especially the huge success in the sales of peripheral products in addition to the box office, the cost of Daenerys's 3D animated film has been rising steadily. By the time of this "A Bug's Life", compared with the previous The highest "Toy Story 2" was US$80 million, this time it has officially risen to US$100 million, which is not far behind even in the face of "Terminator 3".
Therefore, US$54.39 million in the first week is not a failure, but it does not meet Daenerys Entertainment’s expectations.
This is the fifth 3D animated film produced by Pixar, the previous four being "Toy Story", "The Lion King", "Toy Story 2" and "Beauty and the Beast".
Among all the five 3D animations, the first-week performance of "A Bug's Life" is only slightly better than that of Pixar's groundbreaking "Toy Story", which had 46.73 million US dollars in the same period. The other three films, "Toy Story 2", had a first-week revenue of 87.31 million US dollars. , "The Lion King" was US$70.31 million, and even "Beauty and the Beast" received US$68.73 million in its first week.
Historically, "A Bug's Life" was a relatively sluggish Pixar film. Simon originally tried to make some adjustments to eliminate the love element in the film and replace it with a more family-friendly friendship element. Unfortunately, it didn't work. achieve reversal.
Of course, with such a start, failure is not considered a failure.
It can only be said that it was not very successful.
According to feedback from peripheral channels, the sales of peripheral products of "A Bug's Life" are not as good as those of previous works. It seems that people don't like bugs after all.
And then.
The third place was taken by the old film "Contact" which opened the week before. In the second week of its release, this US$90 million blockbuster released by MGM once again took in US$24.17 million, with a total box office of 63.8 million in two weeks. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
Judging from the current box office trends, breaking 100 million is not a big problem.
However, the production cost is 90 million yuan, and the promotion and distribution is 30 million yuan. The local production cost is only over 100 million yuan. It will definitely not meet the expectations of the producer and can only rely on overseas performance.
The fourth place once again went to the new film "The Rainmaker". This US$40 million drama took in US$16.27 million in its first week.
Obviously, even though "The Rainmaker" has the participation of Francis Coppola, Danny DeVito and Matt Damon, it has also been adapted into "Gannet", "Sugar-coated Trap" and "A Time to Kill" The latest novel by John Grimson was a hit, but it failed to continue its previous success.
16.27 million US dollars in the first week, and the local revenue is expected to be only about 40 million US dollars.
Through overseas and follow-up channels, Paramount will not lose money and may even achieve a small profit, but it is basically a waste of time.
The fifth place once again went to the old Adam Sandler comedy dark horse "The Wedding Singer", which also took in US$15.9 million the next week, and a total of US$45.36 million in two weeks.
Simon is a dark horse in the eyes of the outside world, but Simon doesn't see it that way.
The former "The Wedding Singer" was released on Valentine's Day in early 1998, and the domestic box office reached 80 million US dollars. This time, judging from the current trend, it is still about US$80 million. Simon initially expected that "The Wedding Singer" would hit a local hit of over 100 million when it was switched to a more popular schedule, but unfortunately he failed to do so.
Even so, Adam Sandler, who was born in "Saturday Night Live", will rely on "The Wedding Singer" to confirm his status as a Hollywood first-line comedy star. Coupled with the bad boy gang that can be successfully established next year, Hollywood's new generation of comedy star lineup will be very rich.
For studios, having more choices naturally means more affordable remuneration offers.
Comedy has always been a key genre in the film industry, and Simon's goal is to prevent this genre from being monopolized by a few top comedians.
Because it is a popular Thanksgiving period, the films after the top five are still worth mentioning, such as "Alien 4" and "The Conjuring 3", which ranked sixth and seventh at the same box office.
"Alien 4", which ranked sixth, took in US$11.59 million at the box office the week after its release, and its cumulative box office in two weeks was US$36.24 million.
With a production budget of US$75 million, the domestic box office is expected to be only about US$50 million. Unless overseas can harvest three to four times the local box office, Fox's losses are almost certain.
Especially when the box office of "Terminator 3" was released, Murdoch personally called Simon and complained that if he had known that Fox would continue to make "Terminator 3", at least it would not be as bleak as the current "Alien 4". The other side of the story is that Fox only let go of the copyright after following Simon's advice, and they need compensation.
There is definitely no compensation.
Hollywood is a big casino, you buy it and leave it, you are responsible for your profits and losses.
Simon is a man of rules.
The seventh-placed "The Conjuring 3" grossed $11.43 million at the box office in its fourth week of release, slightly behind "Alien 4". Of course, "Alien 4" will definitely not be complacent about that lead, because the cumulative box office of "The Conjuring 3" has reached 129.72 million US dollars in just one month after its release.
Even if there is no hope of hitting 200 million in the local market like "The Conjuring", with the current trend of the film, it will not be a problem to collect another 30 million in the future. The local market is expected to be 160 million, plus "The Conjuring 3" has already begun to sell well overseas, even if the project The cost is the highest in the Conjuring movie universe, but Daenerys Entertainment can still make a fortune.
And then.
The eighth place goes to another Paramount film, "The Legend", which was released on Wednesday during the Thanksgiving holiday. It opened for two days and earned US$9.16 million.
John Hughes, who once created the "Home Alone" series, has been silent for many years. He originally hoped that this blockbuster, which cost 80 million US dollars, would create another miracle. However, the opening of 9.16 million in two days heralded the first one that would follow. Over the three-day weekend, the box office may only be around US$20 million to US$30 million.
If a similar family comedy can take the long run like it did in earlier years, its opening results are actually not bad, and it is very likely that it will hit the 100 million yuan mark in the future.
Now, the outlook is uncertain.
No. 9 "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," directed and starred by Clint Eastwood, was on the same Wednesday schedule and opened for two days, earning $4.03 million.
Taking into account the film's cost of US$35 million, 4.03 million in two days, which means that the revenue in the next three days will hardly exceed 10 million, and the total box office may only be about 20 million.
Same failure.
After the death of Steve Ross, the old cowboy not only stopped making movies for Warner alone, but also seemed to break the long-standing record of no losses. It can only be said that things are unpredictable.
After the week of Thanksgiving, the new box office week that starts on November 28 is still a continuation of the Thanksgiving period.
With a series of films already gathering together, there are no new films to be released on a small scale this Friday. A number of old films have also received their last chance to perform. The trend of this box office week will basically determine the film's performance. Follow-up potential.
However, if the biggest entertainment news of the past week is not a series of Thanksgiving movies, it is a video game.
"Counter-Strike OL".
After its official release on November 21, the game achieved sales of more than 140,000 units on the first day.
Daenerys Entertainment promptly followed up and invested an additional US$20 million in follow-up publicity. In addition, the media resources controlled by the Westeros system were deployed across the board, and the game itself was extremely attractive to players. Similar to the word-of-mouth effect of a phenomenal movie, in the end, from the time it was released at 9 a.m. last Friday to 9 a.m. on November 28, in a full week, "Counter-Strike OL" finally sold 1.13 million units. .
According to the price of $69, in just one week, the game's sales reached $78 million, which was higher than the first-week box office of "Terminator 3", the weekly champion in the movie market during the same period.
Not only that, because "Counter-Strike OL" adopts an all-online sales model this time, 73% of the sales are directly from Daenerys Entertainment's own game mall, which means there is no need to pay the platform's commission. That, therefore, the revenue of 78 million U.S. dollars, excluding the part of the commission that needs to be paid to Ygrit's Steam mall and other platforms, fell into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment, still reaching 61 million U.S. dollars.
This is equivalent to seven days. Excluding the subsequent additional publicity expenses of 20 million, the initial investment of 50 million US dollars will be fully recovered directly.
And, everyone can see that this is just the beginning.
Industry media generally predict that "Counter-Strike OL" will become a super-hot game like Nintendo's "Super Mario" and even create an era.
The era of online games.
Prior to this, the equally popular "Happy Ranch" and the follow-up "Happy Ranch" could only be regarded as a foreshadowing.
Because "Farm" is obviously non-replicable, the development cost of this game is extremely low, only 1.5 million US dollars. Due to its excessive success, related online Flash games have been overflowing in recent years, but there are no more. A popular game like "Farm Farm" appears.
Therefore, "Happy Farm" can only be regarded as an accident.
In comparison, "Counter-Strike OL", which has independent client type characteristics, is obviously replicable.
Just like the obvious evolutionary trajectory of this series from the failure of 1.0 to the emergence of 2.0 and then to the explosion of 3.0, if other game manufacturers in the industry want to be lazy, they only need to refer to it and develop their popular stand-alone games into online mode development , maybe we can create the next miracle.
Not only that, but in various recent industry analyses, the advantages of this game are also very obvious.
That is powerful anti-piracy capabilities.
Copyright protection in the West is indeed strict, but just like the record industry, which has declined rapidly due to online music piracy in recent years, game piracy is also ubiquitous.
It is very difficult to prevent piracy in stand-alone games, but online games like "Counter-Strike OL" that require online activation can almost completely eliminate piracy. It is conceivable that this game’s ultra-high sales volume of 1.13 million in the first week is inseparable from its property of being insulated from piracy.
Therefore, some media even assert that the future of electronic games will be online games. Stand-alone games on consoles or PCs are likely to be completely eliminated in the future.
This argument was directly reflected in the relevant sectors of global stock markets in the past week.
Mainly Japanese console and game manufacturers, the stock prices of Sony, Nintendo, Capcom and other companies have plummeted. Nintendo's stock price has even fallen by more than 20% in just a few days.
In sharp contrast is Daenerys Entertainment.
The relevant public opinion guidance that the game business will become the next strong growth point of Daenerys Entertainment was launched at the same time as "Counter-Strike OL" was selling well. Also in just one week, the market value of Daenerys Entertainment once again reached the top In the range of more than 400 billion US dollars, together with the next-door Nasdaq, which also had a weekly increase of nearly 10% and almost broke through 500 billion US dollars, Yigrit continues to lead the North American stock market.
Even on Wednesday, November 26, the media suddenly revealed that Tinker Bayer's game console development plan was still in a strictly confidential stage, but it could not stop this trend.
Even relevant revelations have been refuted by many media as fake news.
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After all, Daenerys Entertainment's tendency to turn to online games in recent years has been very obvious. Not only "Farm", but also many other attempts such as the "World of Warcraft 2" online battle platform, these are actually very obvious proofs.
Therefore, it is obvious that some people are spreading the news that Tinker Bayer is developing a game console just to divert attention.
Everyone is discerning.
Faced with one-sided public opinion in the industry, a large number of companies have begun to follow the trend regardless of their purpose.
Not only the major game giants have announced that they will invest in the development of their own online games, but even Microsoft suddenly jumped out and announced the establishment of an online game department.
Many Internet companies that were trapped in the bursting of the new technology bubble also saw opportunities.
The biggest problem faced by a large number of crumbling Internet companies is the lack of sustainable business models. Even if they have tens of millions of users, they are unable to monetize their businesses. Eventually, they all fall away due to exhaustion of funds and the industrial winter.
Now, online games, this is the direction!
As a result, the success of "Counter-Strike OL" has caused the entire Nasdaq sector to rebound. Many venture capital companies that suffered heavy losses after the new technology bubble burst are also trying to turn their attention to the Internet again and try Discover opportunities.
As the man behind all this, Simon is happy to see everyone flocking to online games.
It's best to abandon the stand-alone machine completely.
As a latecomer, Simon knows very well that in the era of online games, the key for a game company to rise is to have traffic, a platform, and a huge user base.
The game itself is less important.
With sufficient resources, a game with the potential of 1 million players can even reach the 10 million user level through traffic diversion. And if there is a lack of resources, a game with the same potential of 1 million may only gain 100,000 players.
The end result is that the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.
And if we talk about traffic, platforms, and user groups, the current Internet and the Westeros system are basically in a state of near-monopoly advantage. Game companies that lack this advantage may occasionally come up with some hits, but in the end they cannot become big.
To put it bluntly, it’s still the same as a stand-alone game.
Companies that own console platforms are often the largest single-player game companies. Others can only follow behind and drink soup. Occasionally, they are lucky to catch a few meaty bones.