Simon returned to Los Angeles from the East Coast at the end of a box office week from July 17th to July 23rd. It was another 'exciting' box office week for Hollywood.
The first is the successful re-election of "The Hangover".
The R-rated comedy, which received a response similar to what Simon remembered, dropped only 24% the next week, earning $43.02 million, ranking first on the weekly box office list.
The film's cumulative box office quickly reached 99.53 million US dollars in two weeks, almost exceeding 100 million.
Second place went to Warner Bros.' "Lethal Weapon 4."
The veteran action film starring Mel Gibson only made $34.69 million in its first seven days, disappointing Warner Bros.
Considering the film's mediocre reputation, even if there are no blockbuster films to follow, the local box office potential is estimated to be only about US$70 million to US$80 million.
Counting overseas production, only US$120 million in production costs can be recovered. This is certainly not a box office failure, but it is clearly far from what Warner Bros. expected.
Third place goes to "Saving Private Ryan," back in the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.
"Saving Private Ryan", which opened in its third week, took in US$22.94 million with a 33% weekly decline, and its cumulative box office successfully exceeded 100 million US dollars, reaching US$110.61 million. Judging from the current trend, there is obviously no hope for this movie to reach the US$200 million box office in North America.
Following in fourth place was "High School Musical."
The school musical starring Christina Aguilera continued to earn US$12.39 million in its fourth week with a relatively high drop of 39%, and its cumulative box office exceeded 100 million US dollars, reaching US$101 million.
The fifth place is "Jurassic Park 3", the most blockbuster movie this summer. It earned 10.97 million US dollars in a single week and will fall to less than 10 million US dollars next week.
It's already the 7th week of release, and the cumulative box office of "Jurassic Park 3" has reached 366.94 million U.S. dollars, which is not far from the 400 million threshold.
With the current trend, "Jurassic Park 3" has great hopes of breaking into the 400 million box office club.
After fifth place, there is a series of closing films in the box office range of 10 million.
Not to mention that the sixth "The Haunting of Morgue 3", which grossed $8.13 million in a single week, is still a movie produced by Daenerys Entertainment, and it is only in the top five. Except for one "Lethal Weapon 4", the other four are all from Daenerys Entertainment. Silk Entertainment's dominance has developed to the point where it has made other Hollywood studios somewhat numb.
Just as the saying goes, if you don’t break out in silence, you will perish in silence.
It just so happens that Daenerys Entertainment will acquire Blockbuster after the PolyGram acquisition. It is obvious that if this continues, there is really no way for everyone to survive. Therefore, taking the acquisition of Blockbuster as an opportunity, it will be a new box office week. When the news came out, Simon returned to the West Coast, and public opinion suddenly erupted.
Not surprisingly, this time it is Disney, which is currently the most alienated from Daenerys Entertainment in Hollywood.
On July 24, Disney, controlled by France's Vivendi, published an article directly on the "Hollywood Reporter", strongly opposing Daenerys Entertainment's full acquisition of Blockbuster, believing that this would further strengthen Daenerys Entertainment's control over Blockbuster. Hollywood’s monopoly.
Although other studios have not followed up, it is conceivable that if Simon were in the corresponding position, he would definitely support this matter even if it was not convenient to speak out publicly.
Therefore, following Disney's announcement, other reports discussing Daenerys' entertainment monopoly market appeared on other media platforms over the following weekend. These reports pointed the finger at Daenerys this time. Entertainment’s acquisition of Blockbuster, but anyone with a discerning eye can tell at a glance that the core is still dissatisfaction with Daenerys Entertainment’s increasing market share.
Of course, Daenerys Entertainment would not let public opinion ferment and quickly counterattacked.
Compared with other industries, Hollywood is actually a relatively fair and free competitive market. The only question is whether everyone can come up with good movies that the audience will buy. The problem now is that Daenerys Entertainment has been able to deliver a string of movies that have both wowed audiences and become blockbuster hits, and who can blame them if other studios can't
In short, Daenerys Entertainment's current high market share was not obtained through unfair means, but was a natural result of market competition, just like good products defeating poor products in the physical market.
In fact, everyone understands the truth.
That's why this time the target of the attack is Blockbuster.
Some media even once again cited the outdated Paramount Act, believing that the federal government should curb the vertical expansion of Daenerys Entertainment. What's more, Blockbuster is the largest video rental chain giant in North America and even the world. Once Dany is Liz Entertainment has full control and is likely to affect the distribution of films produced by other studios through peripheral channels.
All the more reason for Daenerys to entertain.
After getting rid of the authorized franchise business, even if Blockbuster is still number one, its market share is actually only 34%, and 66% of the market belongs to other rental service companies, large and small. In this case, even if Daenerys Entertainment has completely taken over Blockbuster. In order to ensure sufficient film sources and maintain its competitiveness, it will only become more friendly with other studios without rejecting their films.
Anyway, the truth is correct in every aspect.
Not only that, other video rental chains, large and small, soon jumped out and also opposed the acquisition.
The reason is more valid.
These rental chains are worried that after Daenerys Entertainment acquires Blockbuster, it will refuse or at least delay reducing the supply of content resources to them. With most of Hollywood's biggest hits now coming from Daenerys Entertainment, if Simon Westeros did this, Blockbuster would be able to knock out other rental chains almost immediately.
This is another problem.
The repercussions were quickly apparent.
Naturally, each company will not just engage in a war of words in the media. There will be no shortage of operations in Washington. Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment's application to acquire Blockbuster was unsurprisingly temporarily suppressed, and the Department of Justice did not. vetoed, but required Daenerys Entertainment to negotiate with the various manufacturers who raised objections, and only after a proper resolution was given, the acquisition could be released.
Simon has experienced this too.
The most critical previous acquisitions were all accompanied by various 'negotiations', which were actually exchanges of interests.
However, this time is obviously different.
The key to Daenerys Entertainment's development to its current scale is the word "quick". In just over ten years, it started almost from scratch and quickly expanded to its current scale one big step at a time, so much so that when Hollywood The natives wanted to suppress this latecomer, but found that they could only look up to him.
Now, this is a complete reaction.
We really can no longer let Daenerys Entertainment continue to expand just because of some petty profits.
So you can imagine.
In the week leading up to the end of July, Daenerys Entertainment had two intensive meetings with representatives from various studios and video rental manufacturers, but both ended unhappily.
It's a long time coming.
Simon was eager to complete the last step of Daenerys' entertainment industry layout, but he got stuck here.
Fortunately, things are not irreversible.
At worst, the next step is to go to court, initiate a lawsuit and let the authorities intervene in mediation and reach some mandatory binding clauses. This is definitely better than various lions opening their mouths just to disrupt things, even if all parties probably understand in their hearts. In fact, doing this can only delay at best, and may even lead to an enmity with Daenerys, and may lead to being tricked behind her back, but there is really no way.
There is no way to survive.
Time has entered August unknowingly amid this excitement.
First of all, in the box office week that started on July 24, Daenerys Entertainment's "The Horse Whisperer" directed and starred by Robert Redford was released, becoming Daenerys Entertainment's most mediocre summer box office performance so far. This movie earned only US$21.43 million in the first seven days from July 24 to July 30.
More importantly, Daenerys Entertainment finally gave up the weekly box office championship.
The movie version of "The X-Files" produced by Fox opened on the same day as "The Horse Whisperer" and took in US$41.6 million in the first seven days, becoming the box office leader in the week at the end of July.
Subsequently, on July 31, Zhang Guoshi's "Hero" was released in North America.
This film, which competes with last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", has been undergoing quite intensive publicity recently. In addition to a large number of familiar Chinese-American filmmakers cheering each other on, the film's box office performance in China has also become another focus of the promotion.
In China, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was released on July 9. After 139 million in the first week, it took in 87 million with a 37% decrease in the second week. In the subsequent third week, it took in another 56 million. The cumulative box office in mainland China has now reached Reaching 282 million yuan, this is already more than double the Chinese box office of last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
The same Daenerys Entertainment investment and production, the same martial arts genre, and a large number of Eastern filmmakers such as Jet Lee who are relatively familiar to Western audiences have joined the cast. It can be said that the expectations of the audience before the film was released were far higher. More than last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
After the premiere was held on July 29 in advance, the film's reputation was lifted and it lived up to expectations.
With almost all media giving positive reviews, the comprehensive media score of "Heroes" easily reached a high classic level of 9.4 points.
However, Simon did not let such high media evaluation go to his head.
Compared to last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", which had a rather simple storyline, "Heroes" uses a 'Rashomon' routine. Frankly speaking, for Western audiences, the plot is somewhat complicated.
Most viewers actually like to watch a movie without thinking.
Of course, on the other hand, the visual spectacle and martial arts elements of "Heroes" are enough to make up for the excessive twists and turns in the plot to a large extent, allowing the audience to feast their eyes even if they do not fully understand the plot.
All in all, even if it does not reach last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"'s North American box office of over 100 million, Simon's expectations for "Heroes" are still higher than the North American box office of about 50 million.
Los Angeles.
Inside a mountainside mansion in the Palisade.
This is August 1st.
Saturday.
It's a summer celebration party.
Not to mention Steven Soderbergh's small film "Magic Mike" that was released on August 7 with a production cost of only US$7 million. As of "Heroes", in the eyes of many people, Daenerys Entertainment's summer film The single is already a perfect ending.
Including "Hero".
Opening on 2,563 screens yesterday, "Heroes" grossed US$7.18 million on its first day, which means it is expected to earn about US$30 million in the first seven days.
30 million in the first week. Even if the subsequent trend is not as stable as last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the total box office of 60 million to 80 million is still no problem. This is equivalent to the production cost of 30 million US dollars being fully recovered and making a profit.
Therefore, at tonight's party, Simon could clearly feel Zhang Guoshi's relief.
In fact, it is conceivable.
An investment of 30 million US dollars is nothing in Hollywood. In China, 250 million yuan is simply a mountain. Once it fails, it is enough to crush any filmmaker. Therefore, even if "Hero" was a hit in China before, Zhang Guoshi did not dare to completely relax. After all, it was obviously impossible to recoup the cost in China.
Without the pressure of "Hero", Zhang Guoshi couldn't help but talk about the "Chu Han" trilogy during the conversation with Simon: "Both China Film and Jinshu have finalized their plans and asked me to take full responsibility. This puts me under pressure. Great, Simon, can you give me some advice?”
"Zhang, first tell me what is the weakest part of "Hero" this time?"
"I discovered the plot very early. Frankly speaking, I'm really not very good at it. However, the script of "Chu Han" is excellent, which makes up for it for me."
Simon nodded: "Understand your own weaknesses, the key is to overcome them. Zhang, my suggestion is, from now on, completely forget everything that "Heroes" has brought to you, money, honor, these are actually useless. In In Hollywood, few directors can make a living out of just one movie. If they want to maintain their status, any director must constantly come up with new works that will either be well-received or well-received. For you, if you only It would be a pity to stay at the stage of "Hero" and regard it as a peak. You should firmly believe that the next movie will be your peak. Haha, this seems a bit cliche, but it is also a simple truth. .”
The two chatted for a while. Just as Simon turned around with Li Youhu, who had been holding his arm quietly, he was blocked by an oncoming Scarlett.
Although "The Horse Whisperer" was tepid, the little girl's performance in the film was unanimously praised by film critics. The only drawback is that she is too young, otherwise she would definitely receive a lot of film offers now.
Seeing the little goblin holding a glass of juice and looking at him expectantly, Simon reached out and rubbed the girl's head: "Where is your sister?"
Scarlett Johansson's face suddenly fell: "Simon, do you only have my sister in your eyes?"
Simon was still fine. Li Youhu next to him couldn't help but burst out laughing when he heard Xiao Nizi's jealous words. He noticed that the little goblin was glaring at him. Not only did Li Youhu not restrain his smile, but he even felt that interesting.