Scarlett Johansson had just had a brief confrontation with Li Youhu. Vanessa Johansson, who was wearing a silver low-cut dress, tall and curvy, came over, gently hugged Simon, and took the opportunity to hold the man's other arm. Seeing that my sister was still looking angry, as if coaxing a child, she casually pointed to the side: "Sijia, don't make trouble here, go and play over there."
Scarlett saw her sister treating her like she was talking to a child, especially the smile on someone's lips, and she almost cried. She held it back and didn't drop the juice in her hand on her sister's hand. She was envious of the dress, but she didn't know what to do for a moment. She screamed, turned around and ran away.
Simon, who watched the whole process, only found it interesting.
I was excited at first, thinking about what would happen if the Johnson sister became famous this time.
Although her younger sister is more famous at the moment, Vanessa's "Collision" won't be released until the end of the year. However, Simon deliberately showed a little preference, which was quite fun. Moreover, Vanessa, who has a much better foundation than the petite Scarlett, has been raised by Simon for two years and is becoming more and more radiant now.
After a brief interlude, Simon and the two goblins continued to socialize in the crowd, and finally sat with several Daenerys entertainment executives such as Amy Pascal, Danny Morris, and Nancy Brill. Chat on a cliffside terrace couch overlooking Los Angeles.
Even though following Simon has created enough miracles over the years, Amy Pascal still feels a little unreal about Daenerys Entertainment's sweeping attitude this summer. She inevitably asked her boss half-jokingly, what is happening now? How is it done
As usual, Simon couldn't give an accurate answer.
However, if I have to give another reason, in Simon's view, the key is that Hollywood is actually a big workshop.
When outsiders look at Hollywood, they tend to look up to them, so there are all kinds of "Hollywood film industry" and "perfect film production system", blah blah blah, they are so high-end.
In fact, if you know enough about this circle, you will find that Hollywood is far from as high-end as outsiders imagine.
The most critical point is that Hollywood, whether it was, is, or will be in the future, is a system ruled by people.
Things happen because of people.
The result is that with the right people, a studio can prosper quickly, but with the wrong people, as Sony did in the early years when it took over Columbia, the results can be disastrous.
This is one aspect.
On the other hand, another key evidence for why we call it a 'big studio' rather than a 'movie industry' lies in the extremely low risk resistance of major studios.
If it were a so-called perfect film industry, the success or failure of one or two film projects would not affect the entire industrial system. In fact, major Hollywood studios have experienced failures more than once because of one or two film projects. Failure almost leads to bankruptcy.
Because these seemingly beautiful large studios are actually large workshops.
If you concentrate on betting on a big project, if it fails, the entire workshop will be on the verge of collapse. The next step is to find investors to inject capital, continue to save for the next project, and try again.
Originally, the major studios in Hollywood were actually on the same level.
It all depends on luck.
Film investment is a gamble.
Therefore, in the past timeline, it was not until DIBBO and Warner, which had stable superhero series, came together, causing other studios to gradually languish, that the pattern of Hollywood changed significantly.
This time, Simon, the anomaly, broke the balance of Hollywood twenty years in advance.
Because Simon doesn't rely on luck.
Precisely because he does not rely on luck and knows that he has a high probability of success, Simon can make more investments in certain areas in advance, such as 3D animation and CG special effects. These further expand the super giant Daenerys Entertainment. The difference between the studio and other studios.
Finally got to now.
Just like Daenerys Entertainment has produced special effects blockbusters such as the DC Cinematic Universe series or the "Jurassic Park" series, why don't other studios follow suit? Why do they still stick to old-fashioned Hollywood action movies
Because I can’t follow.
Many people have the impression that special effects are a common thing in Hollywood, but in fact they are not.
In the past timeline, after the rise of CG special effects in Hollywood, the real special effects giants were Industrial Light and Magic, Peter Jackson's Weta Digital was another one, and finally, James Cameron's Lightstorm Studio could only Count half.
Others can only be said to be CG studios, not special effects giants.
Just like there are many people who know kung fu, but it is definitely not possible to just pull one out and serve as a movement guide.
These are two different things.
Therefore, the top special effects movies in Hollywood are actually produced by only a few. The CG special effects results of other studios... Well, the simplest comparison is that the special effects of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe series are basically produced by Lucasfilm. The industrial light and magic studio behind the industry is responsible. Then, look at the level of special effects in the "Avengers" series, and look next door, what kind of special effects are in DC's "Justice League" and so on.
Why do DC superhero movies always have so many night scenes? Dark, gray, even like game CG
To save money
This is the most common statement.
However, would Batman Vs or Justice League be cheap to make
Not low.
Well, the result could be another.
It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s that I can’t do it.
So again, a special effects studio is a special effects studio, and a CG studio is a CG studio. It doesn’t mean that you can make top-notch special effects if you know CG, just like you don’t need to know kung fu to become an action director.
Let’s talk about today’s Hollywood.
The reality is that even though Daenerys Entertainment has opened up the Maya series of special effects software, until now, only Daenerys Entertainment can produce top-notch special effects such as the DC movie universe and the "Jurassic Park" series. Others If the studio wants to follow up, first of all, it must be determined to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for the team to practice. Secondly, even if it can afford such a sum of money, what are the chances of success
The result is now.
The root cause of all this goes back to Simon's previous conclusion. Hollywood is not a film industrialization at all. In the final analysis, it is still a big workshop. The reason why Hollywood has been able to conquer the world is not because of the industrialization of the film industry, but because it has taken advantage of the globalization trend after the end of the Cold War.
After all, going back further, it is very obvious that Hollywood movies have developed for more than half a century since the end of the 19th century. Why did they not conquer the world before, but only started in the 1990s
All in all, it is difficult to subvert a complete industrial system.
However, for people like Simon who can see the results of most investment gambling, it is much easier to destroy large workshops that are actually quite primitive.
After the weekend, the time comes to August 3rd.
on Monday.
Chen Qing returned from China that day and brought Cheng Taixi with her.
Last time, Simon invited Cheng Taixi to play in North America after completing the summer film release. It was only now that the woman came with Chen Qing.
At the same time, I also handed in a pretty good report card.
Needless to say, "Rose Flower" has basically been finalized. This movie adapted from a Korean folk tale has been released in June. As expected, the number of moviegoers in Seoul has exceeded one million, and the total number of moviegoers in South Korea is about 3 million. The number of moviegoers and the cumulative box office reached approximately 10 billion won.
Although the project suffered a slight loss in the theater stage due to the total cost of 3 billion won in production and 1 billion won in promotion, it can easily achieve profitability in subsequent channels.
Then there’s “The Strange Story of a High School Girl” which was released on July 10th.
The production cost of this original campus horror movie was only one-third of "Rose Flowers". After its release, the results were better than many people expected. In the first week of filming, it attracted 193,000 moviegoers in the Seoul area. By the end of July According to statistics, the number of moviegoers in Seoul, South Korea has exceeded 500,000. It is expected that the cut-off in Seoul will be around 700,000, and the number of moviegoers in South Korea may reach more than 2 million.
This means a box office of about 7 billion won.
Even if the current box office share in South Korea is relatively low, only about 37%, the Showbox team can recover about 2.6 billion won in share. In the theater stage alone, the net profit exceeds 1 billion won.
Anyway, it's a good start.
Therefore, Simon also considered whether to make a Hollywood version of "The Strange Tale of a High School Girl".
After all, South Korea is just a small plate. Although it has already entered August, Simon's focus is still on Hollywood.
After the film opened on July 29, relying on excellent word-of-mouth and sparing no effort in early promotion, "Heroes" finally achieved a box office of US$32.16 million in North America in its first week, which was within expectations.
After this result was released, Zhang Guoshi returned to China with satisfaction and began preparations for the "Chu and Han" trilogy that had been turbulent for a long time.
When everyone thought "Heroes" was the perfect ending to Daenerys Entertainment's summer season, on August 7, Steven Soderbergh, who had attracted much attention with "Sex, Lies and Videotape" but had been silent for many years, The "Magic Mike" quietly released by Ge Qiao once again gave many people a big surprise quite unexpectedly.
Even within Daenerys Entertainment, many people don't pay much attention to this low-cost movie, which cost only US$7 million to produce.
If the summer deadline is set to the end of August, this is actually not the last movie of Daenerys Entertainment's summer season. After all, with Daenerys Entertainment's release frequency, there are 52 weeks in the year, which is definitely more than average. A new movie every week.
And, at first glance, the plot of "Magic Mike" doesn't look great at all.
Mike, a down-and-out construction worker, entered the gigolo circle by chance, and then he became obsessed, degenerated, and finally woke up.
It's such a clichéd plot.
Even with the schedule decided by Simon himself, the New World Pictures team only provided 1,635 opening screens in the first week, and all aspects of publicity were quite satisfactory.
There wasn’t even a premiere.
After the film was released, the only bright spot was probably the comprehensive media score of 7.9, but this is definitely not the reason why the film became a dark horse at the box office. After all, a film with a score of 7.9 is barely considered excellent, but this summer release, it is also a catch. A lot.
However, it just exploded.
In the first three days of its first weekend, "Magic Mike" unexpectedly earned many people US$15.46 million. Compared with 1,635 opening screens, this is already close to the average of more than 10,000 US dollars.
Standing out.
Then, in its first week, this small film with a production cost of only 7 million US dollars, the seven-day box office finally reached 27.32 million US dollars, directly becoming another box office dark horse in the summer of 1998.
Different from another PG-rated "High School Musical", this R-rated musical's first-week data is worth mentioning. That is, the three-day box office of the first weekend only accounted for 56% of the full first week, which is much lower than that of the first week. The 60% to 70% level of most movies on weekends indirectly shows that the popularity of the movie has been rising in the first week of its opening, so many people went to watch the movie on weekdays.
It really doesn't make sense.
Frankly speaking, Simon himself is not sure why the audience likes this movie
Gigolo
forget it.
scale
Paul Verhoeven's "Showgirls" two years ago was the standard.
music
It's actually not great.
Steve Soderbergh
Many people have almost forgotten "Sex, Lies and Videotape". After all, this film did not win the Palme d'Or at this time, so Soderbergh did not win the title of Hollywood's golden boy again.
In short, it doesn’t make sense.
And this unreasonable little film with a production cost of 7 million, unreasonably grossed 27.32 million U.S. dollars at the box office. At the end of the summer season, which was gradually getting colder in early August, it unexpectedly won a weekly box office championship. This movie attracted more people's attention.
In any case, one thing that can be confirmed is that a large number of similar films will definitely follow suit.
On the other hand, while "Magic Mike" was an upset, "Hero" maintained a fairly stable trend, with a drop of 34% in the next week. For a Chinese-language film, it was quite satisfactory. It collected another US$21.23 million, and the cumulative box office reached 53.39 million. US dollars, the North American total box office is expected to move closer to the latter range of the previous forecast of 60 million to 80 million.
Besides movies, another thing that attracted Simon's attention during this period came from China.
On August 11, 1998, the Chinese authorities issued the "Notice on Further Deepening the Reform of the Urban Housing System and Accelerating Housing Construction", announcing that China has begun a comprehensive and thorough reform of housing commercialization.
The layout had been started several years in advance, but when this day finally arrived, Simon was still a little emotional.
Because such a document will not only affect the development trend of China's economy in the next 20 years, it can be said that it will actually affect an entire generation of Chinese people. As for whether the result is good or bad, perhaps no generation can judge it. We can only wait for a longer historical scale to look back and review.