On the last day of this trip to Ukraine, Simon mainly visited several universities in Rivni and life science research institutes under construction or completed.
It's still about one of the goals of the 3G plan.
Ukraine will be the main research base in Europe for the goal of 'breaking through the time limit' of the 3G plan, for the same reason that the US military once set up a large number of biological laboratories in Ukraine.
There is no need to follow too many rules here.
Many research fields that may encounter strict regulations in other countries will basically face no obstacles in Ukraine, which is gradually collapsing and declining.
Moreover, the Ukrainian authorities will definitely support research on the Westeros system more than the US military’s biological laboratories.
No one wants to live longer.
In addition, compared to Africa, which is even more unruly, Ukraine has another major advantage: talent.
Ten or twenty years later, Ukraine feels like it is in decline. However, Ukraine during the former Soviet Union can be said to be the essence of the once powerful red empire.
Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's literacy rate reached over 90% very early. This land, which is only equivalent to less than 3% of the former Soviet Union, is not only the breadbasket of Europe, but also has dozens of institutions of higher learning, and is home to the former Soviet Union. It has rich human resources in cutting-edge industries such as aviation, military industry, shipbuilding, and nuclear energy.
It is rare for such a good pair of cards to be played to pieces.
Of course, these have nothing to do with Simon. Like many people, he is very happy to see a messy Ukraine, so that he can easily draw a circle in a place and become the city leader, and then use Ukraine as a testing ground for the 3G plan.
In addition to life science research, Simon will also make arrangements in Ukraine in areas such as aviation and nuclear energy, which are related to the other two goals. However, in this regard, the main purpose is to drain Ukraine's wealth.
After finally spending a day in Ukraine, Simon left that afternoon.
Back in New York, it was still Friday evening, January 16th.
The box office week just passed from January 9th to January 15th, and the box office data for the complete week of "Titanic" was released. The exact number was 38.11 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office reached 279.7 million U.S. dollars.
This super blockbuster, whose budget was seriously out of control during the production stage of the project, has reached twice the box office that many people originally expected. In the same week, the single-week box office of "The Flash 2", which almost everyone was optimistic about, only left 22.34 million. In US dollars, the box office of "Titanic" in its fifth week of release was still as high as 38.11 million US dollars. In this unpopular period that should have cooled down, the momentum has not diminished at all.
Simon spent the weekend in New York and returned to Los Angeles, where the 55th American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards were also held on Sunday, January 18.
Thanks to the unremitting efforts of Daenerys Entertainment, "Titanic" won four awards in the drama category: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Song and Best Original Dubbing.
Even if controversy is inevitable, there is no doubt that "Titanic" completely overshadowed all other films at this Golden Globe Awards, including a series of classic films produced by Daenerys Entertainment in the past year. Moreover, due to the strong public attention to "Titanic", the TV live broadcast of this Golden Globe Awards also reached the highest ratings in the past ten years.
Stimulated by its success at the Golden Globe Awards, the film's attention has increased significantly again.
The week Simon returned to Los Angeles, this phenomenon-level disaster romance movie unexpectedly reversed its decline again. In its sixth week of release from January 16th to January 22nd, the box office not only did not decline, but actually It increased by 13%, once again returning to the range above US$40 million, reaching US$43.06 million, and the cumulative box office also reached US$322.76 million.
At this time, everyone was once again confused about the film's box office trend.
In the sixth week of its release, the domestic box office was close to 300 million, and it was able to reverse the decline again, pushing the single-week box office volume to more than 40 million US dollars. If this is not a miracle, what is it? !
Before the Golden Globe Awards, based on previous box office trends, the industry generally believed that the local box office of the film would be between US$400 million and US$500 million.
This is already quite astonishing data.
Now, it has returned to the 40 million single-week box office range. With the super long-term trend shown by this movie, there will definitely be more than 200 million box office potential left in the future. Therefore, it may eventually reach the level of 500 million to 600 million, or even exceed 600 million, further approaching the super record of $703 million set by "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" two years ago.
In this case, if it is only distributed in local theaters, excluding a total production and promotion budget of US$250 million, "Titanic" can still achieve considerable profits.
The most striking comparison is "The Flash 2".
In its fifth week of release, this much-anticipated film from last year’s Christmas season, even if the decline narrowed to 26%, the single-week box office still dropped from US$22.34 million last week to US$15.79 million, and the cumulative box office is only US$225.45 million. I don’t know. Unexpectedly, it has fallen behind the box office of "Titanic" by nearly 100 million US dollars.
There will definitely be more behind next.
Sundance, Park City.
"Blair Witch", which has attracted much attention due to its early viral marketing during this period, premiered on Saturday, January 24th.
When Simon arrived in Park City around noon, the 10 a.m. premiere had already ended, and some film critics had already given their first reviews online.
The most representative one is Roger Ebert, who has always been strict with the thriller genre because he failed to become a horror film screenwriter. This famous film critic gave a preliminary short review on his personal Facebook page. Praising the film's "wonderful structure and sophisticated techniques, it has successfully created another new pseudo-documentary template after "The Ghost Story"."
Because the film critics invited to the premiere have basically been screened to a certain extent, and most of them have positive reviews such as Roger Ebert.
Of course, there are not without dissent.
A columnist from the "San Francisco Chronicle" criticized the film as "another cliché camp hunt wrapped in a pseudo-documentary veneer."
Camping and hunting movies are a very common genre in Hollywood. The general structure is that a group of teenagers and girls go camping during the holidays and are then killed one by one by a perverted murderer. The typical example is the "Friday the 13th" series.
It's not wrong to say that "The Blair Witch Project" is another 'camp hunt'.
However, in the final analysis, there are only so many routines in Hollywood movies. The key is who can come up with new ideas. Just like the "Jurassic Park" series, if you push it a bit, it can also use a very clichéd camping hunting template. A group of people gather on a small island and are hunted one by one by a rather large 'murderer'. Think about it. ,Is it this way
"Blair Witch", which adopts the form of a pseudo-documentary and adds witch elements, has too many innovations compared to the truly traditional camping hunt.
In short, Daenerys didn’t even bother to refute the criticisms made by the reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. The overall positive feedback of the film has proven most people’s attitude towards the film. Next, in February When it is officially released on the 6th, it will be tested by the market.
Speaking of which, the New World Pictures team handling this project and even the main creators of "Blair Witch" are most worried about "Titanic".
The momentum of this super blockbuster is so strong, even if the momentum will slow down a bit in early February, the key is that during this period, "Titanic" occupies too much space, and it will inevitably suppress the exposure of "Blair Witch" Rate, and what this film, which uses a non-traditional viral marketing model, needs most is exposure and topics.
However, there is nothing to worry about.
No one knows how much the box office of "Blair Witch" will be, but the ferocious momentum of "Titanic" is well known, so "Blair Witch" can only be said to be unlucky.
A hilltop villa south of Sundance City.
I only had time to attend the premiere reception of "The Blair Witch Project" at noon, and Simon then returned here to start some work schedule.
The evening was the usual 'Westeros House Party'.
In addition, Simon finally finalized his itinerary and will fly to China tomorrow. According to the lunar calendar, tomorrow will be the 27th of the twelfth lunar month and he will arrive in Hangzhou on the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. Just like last year, this year is still a New Year's Eve without thirty. The twenty-nine is New Year's Eve.
I happened to go over to have New Year's Eve dinner with Lin Su's family and stay for a few more days.
Therefore some work must be dealt with as soon as possible.
In a reception room on the first floor of the hilltop villa, Simon was chatting with a newcomer who was participating in Sundance this time.
This newcomer’s name is Zack Snyder.
Of course it's Zack Snyder.
The 31-year-old Zack Snyder’s career journey is similar to that of Michael Bay and David Fincher. They both started by shooting music videos and commercials. This year, he finally produced his first movie and sent it to Sundance for exhibition. . Compared to the time when he didn't film his first feature film "Dawn of the Dead" until he was 37 years old, this time Zack Snyder entered Hollywood a full 6 years earlier. It was obviously due to the influence of Simon, the big butterfly.
The former Zack Snyder was full of criticisms from those who liked him very much, to those who hated him very much.
Simon is one of those people who really likes Zack Snyder movies. Of course, as much as I like it, Simon will not imitate many of the other's directing styles, such as being too focused on details and even the length of the film is always a bit out of control.
Frankly speaking, the director's cuts of many of Snyder's films are excellent, but as theatrical films, they are actually substandard.
The requirements for theatrical movies, especially commercial movies, must be controlled within three hours, and two hours is the best. In this regard, "Justice League", which caused huge controversy, Warner required two hours. There is nothing wrong with this. The only fault is that Warner's two-hour version of "Justice League" was so mediocre that it created the biggest tragedy in the DC movie universe.
Not much to say about this.
All in all, Zack Snyder is an excellent director who is capable enough and has his own personal style and even ideas. The key is whether he can use it well and whether he can find projects that suit him.
Just like Schneider's relatively most commercially successful "300", with a cost of US$65 million and a global box office of more than 400 million, this is an example of good use. In addition, there is also the other party's debut feature film "Dawn of the Dead". Although it is a remake, the story rhythm of the film is also quite brilliant. With an investment of tens of millions, the global box office exceeded 100 million, which is considered a blockbuster.
Then, starting from "Pretty Girls", Snyder began to attract both controversy and admiration.
The former Explosive Shell then got worse and worse. In Simon's opinion, it was the result of no longer preparing for retirement. And Snyder finally sadly quit the DC movie universe. Again, it can only be said to be inappropriate. What Warner wants is a commercial miracle like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Zack Snyder wants to instill some connotation and thinking into the audience, so conflicts are inevitable.
In any case, since Schneider has chosen to make his debut, Simon will naturally not let him go.
The film that the other party entered into the main competition of Sundance this time is a road movie, which combines science fiction elements with an apocalyptic background and tells the story of a group of apocalyptic survivors looking for a human gathering place to join a group to keep warm. A completely original new film inspired by Butterfly.
After chatting with him, I learned that Zack Snyder is a fan of the "Mad Max" series. The reason why he made such a movie similar to George Miller's famous work was also inspired by the "Mad Max" series.
Simon had watched the film in advance. The production cost was 10 million US dollars, the story was quite satisfactory, and the most outstanding part was the camera.
Even with a budget of only 10 million, Zack Snyder still successfully used his art skills. Only this can improve the film that can only be rated as a 6-point plot to a 7-point film. In addition, as a director with a background in commercials and music videos, the film's soundtrack also already has Schneider's later style, which can at least add another 0.5 points.
The debut film can reach 7.5 points, which is already quite successful.
Simon also told the New World Pictures team to try to buy the film, which was produced by an independent production company in New York.
In addition to discussing Snyder's film, the meeting between the two mainly focused on another project: "Resident Evil."
This is a project that Simon has been considering recently.
The game department of Daenerys Entertainment has completed the story planning of the "Resident Evil" game. Because it was Simon who came up with the idea and has intervened several times during the period, it is basically not much different from the previous ideas and story structure. It should be The characters and plots will still be there, and even the character design style of the next game, Simon asked for it to be more exquisite, unlike the realistic style common in Western games, which is too ugly.
At the same time, out of support for the series, Simon plans to make the movie ahead of time instead of waiting for the game to be released. Daenerys Entertainment's business focus in the next few years will be the game business. Making the movie in advance can also be regarded as a kind of promotion for the game.
After finalizing the idea, Simon also thought about the director of the film for a long time.
Former film version director Paul Anderson was Simon's initial first choice until he saw Zack Snyder's name in the main competition film materials at Sundance this year.