In its fourth week of release, "L.A. Confidential" faced the pressure of "Jurassic Park 3" and still managed a single-week decline of 43%, earning US$8.89 million.
Obviously, this is actually because the box office volume of "L.A. Confidential" is already very small. Facing the giant of 160 million in the first week, the box office of less than 10 million has nothing to do with the overall situation.
However, as for "L.A. Confidential" itself, with a cumulative box office of 86.01 million US dollars in four weeks, it is basically certain that it can enter the 100 million yuan box office club from the originally predicted range of 50 million to 100 million US dollars.
With a cost of US$35 million, a promotion of US$15 million, and a domestic box office of over 100 million, "L.A. Confidential" has directly entered the profit cycle.
Considering that the film itself has a classic reputation of more than 9 points, "L.A. Confidential" will obviously have a lot of success in next year's awards season. This also determines that the film's subsequent video tape and TV channel distribution will be more profitable and long-term. Rather than being like ordinary popcorn movies, after the theater stage, the follow-up is often weak.
In sharp contrast to "L.A. Confidential" is "2013 The Postman" produced by Sony Pictures.
In the week after its release, "2013 Postman" dropped 53%, which doesn't seem too disastrous considering the crushing performance of "Jurassic Park 3".
However, the problem is that the film's first weekend box office was only $21.19 million.
The drop reached 53% the next week, and the single-week revenue immediately dropped to within the 10 million range, with only 9.95 million US dollars left, and the cumulative box office for two weeks was 31.14 million US dollars.
With a cost of US$75 million, including a relatively conservative US$25 million in publicity and distribution, the production cost of "2013 Ultimate Postman" also reached US$100 million.
Now, it's 31.14 million US dollars in two weeks. According to the current box office trend, the possibility of 50 million domestically is very low. Even if it is not a complete box office failure, such a defeat is enough to make people feel sad.
Not only that, whether it was budget overruns during the film's production stage or the fact that the schedule was directly bet on a week before a big movie like "Jurassic Park 3", Sony executives in Japan once again felt that Columbia Pictures a few years ago The frustration of being completely out of control.
Sony was rumored to be leaving Hollywood more than once in the 1990s, but at the same time as the 1997 financial crisis, Sony Pictures happened to produce "Men in Black", "Air Force One", "As Good As It Gets" and other films that year. The series ranked among the top ten blockbuster movies of the year, which gave the shaky Sony movie business a big boost. Only then did it survive the crisis and did not fail like Panasonic.
This time, Sony has no such luck.
Los Angeles.
Sony Pictures Headquarters in Culver City on Friday, June 12.
On the last day of the working day, it was still breakfast time. Chris Lee, the president of Columbia Pictures, received a notice asking him to rush to the company as soon as possible in the morning. He had a premonition in advance. When he saw Howard, the president of Sony America Branch, who suddenly appeared on the West Coast, Stringer, Chris Lee is not surprised at all.
There is inevitably some anxiety.
After following Simon Westero's hints and doing this series of small actions, Chris Lee was worried that he would be kicked out directly. However, think about Peter who almost destroyed Columbia and still walked away with a generous salary. ·For Cooper and Jon Peters, these small actions of theirs seem to be nothing.
What's more, there is still a contract, and it is impossible for Sony to provide evidence that he deliberately made small moves and terminate the contract rashly. He can get a very generous compensation.
Not only that, through some private operations, Chris Lee also transferred Simon Westeros and the "Air Force One" project he mentioned last year out of Sony. If he really wants to leave his job, he can do it seamlessly. A freelance producer started with "Air Force One", and Simon Westeros would not hesitate to compensate him for this.
A conference room at Sony Studios.
Chris Lee understood when he heard that Howard Stringer requested that all projects in development be suspended and that the few films being filmed must also undergo strict supervision.
The overall situation has been decided.
The Japanese are really leaving this time.
Howard Stringer was obviously in a very bad mood. After the brief meeting, only Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO John Kelly was left to discuss the details, and everyone else was sent away.
Chris Lee understands this quite well.
As the president of Sony's US branch, in addition to taking care of the marketing and sales of Sony's electronic business in the United States, Howard Stringer's main work is music and movies, of which movies are obviously larger than music. Now, the film business is about to be abandoned, and the music business has shrunk in recent years. It is hard to say how long Howard Stringer can continue to do this job.
None of this has anything to do with Chris Lee.
After returning to his office, after thinking for a moment, Chris Lee used the recently popular iBerry-10 business phone to send a brief email to Amy Pascal, talking about what had just happened.
Simon received the news in Geneva, Switzerland, on Saturday morning local time.
One thing that was expected, so there was no special explanation. Amy had already communicated with Michael Jordan, the head of Westinghouse who was determined to enter the media industry.
With the current situation in Hollywood, if Sony wants to get involved in the film business, it will not have much capital to take over. After all, outside of the United States, countries in Asia and Europe are still in the shadow of the financial crisis, and in the United States, apart from Westinghouse, there is no other company for the time being.
Simon's attention is still on Europe.
The first is the 50th anniversary celebration ceremony of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on Saturday, where all WTO member countries and applicant countries around the world gather together.
However, the situation is not one-sided.
At the same time as the celebration ceremony was held, there were also large-scale marches against globalization and the WTO in various parts of Geneva.
Simon specifically asked his team to make statistics and found that most of the reasons given by these opponents were to protest the outflow of local industries caused by globalization.
In fact, what worries us is the hollowing out caused by the subsequent outflow of real industries from Western countries.
There is no shortage of smart people and organizations with forward-looking vision in the world. The problem is that being able to see the future never means being able to grasp the future. The indifference of the mighty historical trend is that those who follow it will prosper, and those who go against it will perish.
Since the trend cannot be changed, the smartest way is to follow the trend instead of blocking it.
The traditional automobile industry is the best example.
The German automobile industry is undoubtedly the best in terms of globalization, which makes Germany's traditional automobile industry still very prosperous until more than ten or twenty years later.
A relatively counterexample is Italy.
Let’s not talk about the United States, because the domestic market in the United States is very huge. Even if the globalization of American car brands is not successful, they are still living well. In addition, as rising stars in Japan and South Korea, the automobile industry is constantly suppressed by the United States, the 'sovereign country', and there is not much room for maneuver.
Back to Italy.
As a local giant that basically controls the Italian automobile industry, Fiat has entered China twice and failed twice. A big reason is that Fiat is complacent and has a negative attitude towards industrial transfer in line with the trend of globalization. It is petty and petty, so it missed the opportunity. The last chance for the traditional automobile industry. In order to survive, Fiat had to merge with Chrysler to stay together.
These are all things for later.
Simon only stayed in Geneva for one day, attended official celebrations and met with the heads of delegations from several countries, and left the next day for Rome.
The main purpose of the Italian side was to once again check the construction progress of Universal Studios in Rome, as well as some entertainment arranged by Sofia.
The last stop was Rivni.
Rivni, built according to the concept of the Chinese Special Economic Zone in my memory, almost looks different every day.
Coming back, first of all, the city airport in the southwest suburb of Rivni has expanded from the original one runway to two runways. Before landing, I occasionally looked down and saw that the number of aircraft parked in the airport was significantly more than before, including many large aircraft such as Boeing 747.
In addition to the expanded airport, the entire city is also rapidly spreading to the surrounding areas, with construction sites everywhere, completely unlike what Eastern European countries should look like today.
What are the countries in Eastern Europe like now
If you look at the economic data, you can imagine.
Let’s talk about the most representative Russia. In 1997, when the Asian financial crisis occurred, Russia’s GDP data recovered briefly compared with previous years, rising from US$391.7 billion the previous year to US$404.9 billion. This year, according to the first five months According to statistics, Russia's GDP in 1998 is likely to plummet to about 270 billion US dollars.
A drop of more than 30%!
The shrinkage of GDP actually means a series of serious social problems such as currency devaluation and sudden increase in unemployment.
Similarly, even if Simon has established a prosperous experimental field in Ukraine, the entire Ukraine's GDP is expected to fall by more than 20% throughout the year.
Simon had just arrived in Rivni, and several core members of the Rovne Gang talked to Simon about these issues at the noon banquet, as well as a report from the Rivne Gang's internal advisory team on how to deal with the current situation.
As the economic situation has once again deteriorated significantly, it is the breadbasket of Europe after all. Even if there is no famine this time just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the pressure on the lives of Ukrainian people can be imagined. The unemployment rate of more than 30% can almost be said to make ordinary people No one can see any hope.
In this situation, what most Ukrainians want is to escape.
The first target is of course Western Europe. Even neighboring Poland is much stronger than Ukraine.
However, because Ukraine is not a member of the European Union, it is not easy to travel to Western Europe legally. Therefore, Rivni has become the second top choice of Ukrainians.
As the economy deteriorated again at the end of last year and spread rapidly, the number of people from all over Ukraine who came to Rivni in search of opportunities increased significantly, which inevitably caused various problems.
Speaking of which, the key to the rapid development of Rivni lies in the strong control of the Rivne Gang controlled by the Westeros system over the entire Rivne state, which can be called a ceded and independent state. In addition, the Westeros system has sufficient With financial support, unlike the turmoil and chaos in other parts of Ukraine, including Kiev, the entire Rivne Oblast is thriving.
Development requires order, this is inevitable.
Too much foreign population is often like the problem of illegal immigration in developed countries. If it is not controlled well, the whole game will collapse.
Understanding the seriousness of the situation, Simon deliberately changed his schedule and summoned a group of senior officials from the Rivno Gang that afternoon to discuss countermeasures in detail. Speaking of which, Simon actually has quite a lot of experience in dealing with this kind of thing.
The general plan was quickly finalized.
First of all, the first one, which seems irrelevant but is actually very important, is to tighten the land policy in Rivne Oblast again. Even the sale and transfer of private land must be strictly regulated.
Anyone who wants to settle in an area cannot do without land.
This alone firmly controls the initiative of how many people can be accommodated in Rivne Oblast, especially Rivni, in the hands of the Rivne gang. Outsiders cannot gain a foothold on this land, and they can only leave without force.
Secondly, tighten the settlement policy.
This was the plan made by Rovno's consultant team, and Simon made some modifications.
Speaking of which, for example, in the large resettlement community on the northeastern outskirts of Rivni, Simon's initial consideration was to introduce people into the community on a family basis.
This proved inappropriate.
Introducing people on a family basis will certainly bring peace of mind to those who settle there, but it will also put huge pressure on the city's education, medical and other resources.
Therefore, the core of tightening the settlement policy this time is very simple. Rivni will try to absorb high-quality young labor groups who can create a lot of benefits for the city. As for the elderly and children who will only consume social resources and cannot provide sufficient contributions, It's a pity, I'd better stay in my hometown.
Finally, it is about fighting crime from both the black and white sides.
Why is the business environment in Eastern Europe recognized as bad? In addition to the inefficient bureaucracy that takes advantage of others, there is another reason: the collapse of social security. There have been too many cases in recent years. If you invest elsewhere, you will lose money at most. If you go to Eastern Europe, you will probably get your head blown off by an AK47.
In this case, who is willing to take risks
Eastern Europe, which has experienced turmoil and decline, is like a dried up pond. If it wants to restore its ecology, it must introduce a large amount of water.
Capital is the 'water' here.
Without the inflow of water sources, economic development would be impossible, leading to a vicious cycle.
After several purges, Simon has quite strong control over the government system of Rivne Oblast, which is enough to ensure an efficient and good business environment. As for the underground forces, they are basically their own. Compared with the previous two, this time it is more At most, it can only be regarded as a precautionary measure.
After finalizing the plan, Simon personally arranged some implementation matters the next day before finally returning to the established schedule.
The most important thing is to visit the UFMS base.
The UFMS private army and the Ukrainian Western Combat Command, which was quietly incorporated by Simon, are actually the basis for the Westeros system to control the Rivne region.
Just like later, a local snake governor in Dnieper Region was dismissed by the president. The oligarch governor directly used his private army to put pressure on the Kiev authorities in the name of protecting personal property. In comparison, a female oligarch who lacks her own armed forces can only end up behind bars.
By the way, the local snake governor who also controlled a large amount of Ukrainian media was the driving force behind a certain comedian president later.
This is the real oligarch.