On the day Chen Qing left New York and flew to Hong Kong, another year-end box office week in North America ended.
The box office data for the box office week from November 27 to December 3 is crucial for heavyweight films such as "The Mummy" and "The Mummy 2" in the Thanksgiving season, because judging from the box office and decline trends of related films, It can basically determine the total local box office volume of a movie.
In terms of specific data, "The Mummy 2", which opened last week, undoubtedly won the single-week championship. With an excellent second-week decline of 29%, it continued to earn US$50.65 million, and the cumulative box office in two weeks reached US$121.99 million.
The next week's drop was only 29%, and the cumulative box office exceeded 120 million. It is basically certain that the total domestic box office of "The Mummy 2" will exceed the US$200 million threshold.
The domestic box office is more than 200 million. With "The Mummy 2" being the most popular overseas, even if the total cost of production and promotion of the film reaches 150 million US dollars, it is only in the global theatrical release stage, just like "The Mummy 2", the harvest will be quite generous. profit.
The second place is "The Great Collision".
In its third week of release, "Collision" dropped 37%, earning another $32.31 million.
A trend that is neither good nor bad.
The film's cumulative box office in three weeks was US$176.87 million.
Judging from the remaining box office volume and decline trend in a single week, the film's total local box office will definitely exceed "The Mummy 2", but it is unlikely to hit US$300 million, and can only guarantee about 250 million US dollars.
The total production and publicity cost of US$180 million is calculated as US$250 million locally, because Daenerys Entertainment is so strong that it can obtain about 60% of the share from theaters. Only locally, it can recover US$150 million, which is less than the revenue and expenditure. There is only a balance of 30 million left in the balance.
With the same overseas big head, "Heaven and Earth" will definitely be equally profitable.
Unfortunately, it is just that the local market cannot reach 300 million, which actually means that it cannot achieve the most optimistic expected income.
After the two major blockbusters, the third place is Paramount's "U.S. Marshals".
Baige Wu's another thriller action blockbuster after "Broken Arrow", "Face/Off" and "Mission: Impossible 2", already had a tepid start, and the drop in the next week plunged to 46%, a single week. Only US$21.16 million was left in the revenue. In two weeks, this 100-million-yuan blockbuster with a total investment volume equivalent to "The Mummy 2" had a cumulative box office of only US$60.33 million.
It wasn't a box office failure, but, obviously, it had nothing to do with success.
In addition, although the box office for the next week is only 21.16 million U.S. dollars, considering that the total box office has exceeded 60 million, it is still expected to break the 100 million yuan threshold as expected, becoming the first local breakthrough movie this year that has nothing to do with Daenerys Entertainment. billion works.
Now it depends on whether the overseas performance of "American Police" can meet expectations. For example, if the revenue is equivalent to twice the domestic revenue, the global box office will reach 300 million US dollars. In this way, Paramount can recoup most of its investment in the theater stage, and follow-up With a little income, you can break even.
Furthermore, after the success of three consecutive blockbusters, with the tepid success of "American Police", Wu's influence in Hollywood has also suffered a slight setback. Of course, there is still no shortage of film contracts.
Anyone with a discerning eye can probably find that the Asian director's previous success is obviously inseparable from the unstinting support of Daenerys Entertainment. After leaving Daenerys, it seems that she has begun to get used to the environment.
Simon, who obtained the relevant data in Australia, just looked on with cold eyes.
In fact, it is very simple to completely suppress Baige Wu. Then give him a war movie, such as "Wind Whisperer", and then send Lao Wu back to the other side of the ocean to shoot various epic movies. .
But Simon had no intention of doing so.
With Simon's current status, it's quite boring to deliberately bother with these things.
As for the rumor that old Wu Rong returned to his hometown and invited Wanwan and Hong Kong artists to ambitiously carve up the mainland market, it still doesn't matter.
Just watch the fun.
After all, Simon is neither a bad guy nor a savior.
The only one who can always save yourself is yourself. If you don't live up to your expectations, you deserve to be tortured no matter what.
Back to the list.
The fourth place is the comedy "Tea Boy" starring Adam Sandler produced by Daenerys' New World Pictures.
After an unexpected first week, "Tea Boy" dropped 31% the next week, collecting another $16.41 million. Because of its low starting point, this trend is quite satisfactory. In two weeks, the cumulative box office of this "Saturday Night Live" style comedy has reached 40.19 million US dollars.
Judging from the single-week volume and decline trend, the film's total domestic box office is expected to reach around 80 million.
For Simon, it is far less than the 160 million in history, and it is obviously a failure. But for Daenerys and the media, under the pressure of a number of super blockbusters, it is an unexpected surprise that such a spoof comedy with a bad reputation can reach 80 million. After all, the production cost of the film is only 2,500. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
Anyway, after completing the movie, the packaging contract signed by Adam Sandler and Daenerys has also been fully fulfilled. Based on the performance of Adam's previous three films, if he wants to continue to cooperate next time, the salary is lower than the first-line 8 million, and the production cost is less than the mid-level 30 million or more, it is definitely out of the question.
With the box office release of "Tea Boy" next week, other Hollywood studios have begun to contact Adam.
On Daenerys' side, Simon's message from Australia was to try to retain her, but if Sandler's offer was too high, it would be a pity.
In fact, it is basically certain that there is no hope for the two parties to cooperate on at least the next movie.
Because the budget of Simon's next collaborative film expected to be around 35 million, he could give some more sharing conditions, but after two consecutive local 80 million-level works, with various companies vying to catch up, Adam Sand The production cost of Le's next film will definitely exceed US$40 million.
With the popularity that Adam has accumulated from several consecutive films, the cost is more than 40 million. Maybe there will still be no problem making profits, but it will also fall into Simon's least favorite situation where filmmakers take the majority of the studio's hard-earned money.
Daenerys has no shortage of projects, and she also has no shortage of comedy projects. For example, this year's hit "The Hangover" is already preparing a sequel. Therefore, for Adam, Daenerys voluntarily gave up cooperation.
The last film in the top five on the list is still an old film from the past two weeks, Martin Sr.'s "Gangs of New York". In its third week of release, the decline was controlled at a healthy 31%, with a revenue of 16.41 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office reached $57.6 million.
An expected trend.
With local expectations of around 80 million, we can only look forward to overseas sales.
After the top five, other films are no longer among the competition at the end of this year. They are either starting to finish or fail at the beginning.
For example, among the three new films that premiered on November 27, the best-performing one is a comedy film produced by Warner Bros. called "Small Town Doctor," starring Leslie Nielsen and costing US$25 million to produce. With 1,925 opening screens, the film earned only a dismal $4.59 million in the first seven days, which is not even as good as "Annabelle 2", which has continued its Halloween release.
"Annabelle 2", which was in its fifth week of release, continued to earn US$7.33 million with an outstanding decline of 25%, and the cumulative box office reached US$94.39 million, which is about to exceed 100 million US dollars.
Next.
December 4th, the last month of 1998, is a new box office week. The main film is "Elizabeth", which is produced by Daenerys' high-profile movie studio for next year's awards season.
This film about the life of the famous "Bloody Mary" and Queen Mary I of England basically uses the main creator of the original version. The heroine Cate Blanchett was excavated from Australia by Simon himself. Therefore, the quality of the film is quite guaranteed, and internal test screenings It gained a good reputation at this stage.
The former "Elizabeth" directly collided with Miramax's "Shakespeare in Love" at the 71st Oscars, but unfortunately it was defeated by the Weinstein brothers' powerful public relations offensive.
Among them, the key reason why Gwyneth Paltrow was attacked as the most popular movie is that compared with Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth", Paltrow's performance can only be described as mediocre.
History has changed.
The previous "Shakespeare in Love" was advanced by Simon by a year. Although it was crushed by a big ship and was sacrificed, and it won nothing in awards, compared with the cost of 25 million, it was finally released, with a local sales of more than 57 million and a global sales of 120 million US dollars. The box office is not bad.
This time, the word-of-mouth ban was lifted after the premiere, with a comprehensive media score of 8.6. The media evaluation of "Elizabeth" is very good. With Daenerys' strong resources, both box office and awards are expected to receive better results than before. .
…
China.
After Chen Qing returned from New York, she first came to Hong Kong and held a cocktail party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Saturday night. She mainly entertained a group of Chinese businessmen from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia to promote her boss's stock exchange plan.
Simon's plan is to replace or cash out stocks or cash worth no less than US$100 billion through non-public transactions next year, so he must face investors from all over the world.
US$100 billion seems like a lot, but it is nothing compared to Simon's personal net worth. According to this year's Forbes list, it is only equivalent to one-eighteenth of it.
Moreover, the replacement plan is actually quite flexible.
Simon prefers to obtain short-term cashable stocks or direct cash, but if there are other high-quality assets, whether it is real estate, mines, oil fields, etc., they can also be exchanged.
Frankly speaking, the replacement models such as mines and oil fields are simply prepared for certain countries in Africa or Eastern Europe.
At the cocktail party at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, various details were confirmed from Chen Qing. Many guests expressed their intention to exchange on the spot, and some people directly proposed to exchange some properties in Hong Kong for a batch of stocks in the core enterprises of the Westeros system, a total of three This building, even after the Hong Kong Island property market plummeted after the financial crisis, was valued at more than US$1.5 billion.
Chen Qing wrote them down one by one and said she would contact her boss as soon as possible.
After finishing her schedule in Hong Kong, Chen Qing rushed to Shenzhen the next day.
Excellence Technology initially started in Dongguan. Later, it followed the advice of its boss and settled its headquarters in Shenzhen. After rapid development, it also established R&D centers, assembly plants and other branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and other places.
It was established in early 1996 and launched its first personal computer product in June of that year. Until now, Joyo Technology has actually only been established for three years. However, in these three years, taking advantage of the explosive growth of the domestic information industry, Joyo Technology has also made great strides. It has continuously achieved triple-leap rapid growth.
In 1998, which is about to pass, the total PC shipments in mainland China are expected to be 13 million units. Among them, Joyo PC shipments, including estimates for the last month, will reach 1.9 million units, accounting for more than 14% of the mainland PC market share. .
This is actually lower than the 20% internal estimate of Excellent during the initial rapid growth momentum.
However, the problem is not Joyo, but that the PC market in mainland China is growing too fast. In 1996, when Joyo was founded, domestic PC shipments had just exceeded 5 million units. Then, last year, they reached 8 million units. This year it has grown by leaps and bounds again, reaching 13 million units, with an increase of around 60% for two consecutive years.
Faced with such a huge and attractive market, more manufacturers have entered, resulting in increasingly fierce competition in the domestic PC field.
It is a business miracle that Joyo can steadily capture 14% of the market in such an environment. You know, Lenovo, which ranks first this year, is expected to have a market share of only 21%, with annual shipments of around 2.8 million units.
Of course, it must be said that any success is not accidental.
Excellent success is ultimately due to the abundant resources backed by the Westeros system. Among them, only the CPU as the core of the PC has been obtained by establishing a potential alliance with AMD through the Westeros system relationship. The price is even more advantageous than that of parallel import bulk manufacturers who can avoid tariff costs.
Then there’s the team.
This is something Chen Qing is quite proud of.
In the past three years, Joyo has established a very efficient and capable management team from R&D to sales. This is why Chen Qing came here in person after having a conference call with us last week.
It is determined that the plan to sell Excellence will not change. However, Chen Qing certainly does not intend to hand over the entire company. At least, a group of talents that Chen Qing has highlighted will be taken away this time.
Although it is impossible to be unscrupulous enough to directly open a new Excellent and continue to sell computers, Lenovo will not make such a mistake and will definitely sign a corresponding non-compete agreement, but such a team will not be able to compete with the current rapid development of the domestic economy. Under the wave of reform, it will be easy to do other businesses.
Chen Qing stayed in Shenzhen for a day, basically decided who would leave and who would stay, and then flew to Beijing.
Accompanying the company will be a senior team that will officially begin sales negotiations.
Arriving in the capital on the morning of December 7th, Chen Qing made arrangements for the contacts between Excellence and Lenovo. After lunch, Chen Qing rushed to a large government office near the imperial city without stopping.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, a large government office led several high-level departments to review the Ningbo refining and chemical project. It will basically determine whether this large-scale integrated refining and chemical project with a planned production capacity of 5 million tons can be approved.
In addition to Chen Qing, the local government and state-owned assets representative team of Zhejiang Province led by Lin Lan, the investment team of Westeros Company, and the operations team of South Korea's SK Group have all arrived in advance. The three parties will accept inquiries from the authorities on various details of the project. .
Therefore, compared to others, Chen Qing seemed to have come to listen.
Of course, no one who knows a little bit about the inside story would regard Chen Qing as an insignificant bystander.