The reason why Simon was able to reply to Ren Jingxi's email quickly was mainly because he happened to be on the West Coast alone in the past few days, and he was cultivating himself again, so he had plenty of time.
In late July, the most important film in the ongoing summer season in North America is undoubtedly "The Matrix."
Simon also came here for this purpose.
Compared with the world-famous "Godzilla" and "Armageddon" directed by the great director Michael Bay, Wachowski's reputation is much lower. Therefore, before its release, this was the least noticed of Daenerys' three major movies this summer.
The result was naturally the most unexpected.
The film had its premiere at the Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on July 21. The next day, the film was released from the media and was well received.
"The Hollywood Reporter" praised the film as "a technically amazing film that also created a new science fiction genre."
"Variety" magazine directly affirmed: "A must-see for genre fans."
The Seattle Times had no reservations: "A grand and exciting science fiction masterpiece."
Although there will inevitably be some dissenting voices, most mainstream media cannot comment on the film without using words such as 'amazing', 'exciting', and 'groundbreaking'. This shows the overall reputation of "The Matrix" . The film's comprehensive media score has once again proved this point, with a preliminary estimate of 9.2 points, an absolute classic.
Compared with Warner's negative view of the first part of "The Matrix", Daenerys was fully prepared from the beginning.
The production cost of the film was US$80 million, exceeding the US$63 million of the first film, and the publicity budget also reached US$30 million, which is equivalent to "Godzilla" at the beginning of the summer season. As the film's reputation exploded, Daenerys's publicity team quickly followed up to maximize the film's influence in a timely manner.
Immediately afterwards, on July 23, the film officially opened on a large scale on 3,103 screens in North America.
A very impressive weekend box office performance.
On its first day on July 23, "The Matrix" earned $16.87 million in a single day, which was already a good start.
On July 24, as word of mouth spread rapidly, the single-day box office exceeded 20 million, reaching US$21.46 million in one fell swoop.
July 25 is the Sunday that best reflects the film's box office potential. Usually, there are three days on the weekend, and Sunday's box office is often the lowest. However, this time, "The Matrix" still grossed $17.4 million on its first Sunday.
As a result, in the first three days of production, "The Matrix" earned US$55.73 million.
Entering the working day, the popularity of "The Matrix" continues. When the full first week from July 23 to July 29 is over, the cumulative box office of this sci-fi action blockbuster, which has won a lot of praise, has reached 83.19 million US dollars.
Among Daenerys Entertainment’s three summer blockbuster films, “The Matrix” undoubtedly had the lowest opening weekend, not to mention “Godzilla” which had 111 million in its first week, and “The Last Day” in early July, which also had a box office of over 111 million in its first week. 87 million.
However, let’s talk about cost first. “The Matrix” is undoubtedly the lowest among the three blockbusters. The total production and promotion budget is only 110 million US dollars, while “Godzilla” is 140 million US dollars, and “The Last Day” is as high as 110 million US dollars. 180 million. Let's talk about word-of-mouth and follow-up. Obviously, with such a dazzling start, no one would doubt that "The Matrix" will have a very brilliant box office curve.
The fact was soon proven.
In its second week of release, from July 30 to August 5, "The Matrix" ultimately fell only 26% in the second week, collecting another US$61.57 million, and the cumulative box office quickly reached a high of US$144.76 million.
Nowadays, saturated full-scale releases have become basically popular. With more than 3,000 opening screens, the drop in the next week can be kept within 30%, which must be regarded as a small dark horse miracle.
In comparison, "The Last Day", which had a similar box office in its first week, dropped as much as 45% in the second week. Although it slightly surpassed "The Matrix" in its first week, the cumulative box office for the two weeks was only US$135.35 million.
Different trends naturally mean differences in total box office volume.
"The Last Days" has basically determined a local box office total of over 200 million, and "The Matrix" has such a brilliant trend that even if it is not as good as "The Last Days" in its first week, it still has great hope to hit the local box office of 300 million.
After all three blockbusters have appeared, Daenerys' performance in the summer of 1999 is basically clear.
Two movies are rated at 300 million, and one is rated at 200 million. The conservative sum is 800 million, which is only 200 million short of Simon's goal of 1 billion. Counting the other "The Ghost Story 2", all other projects are actually only Need to achieve a box office share of less than $100 million.
In fact, Daenerys has a total of 13 movie releases planned for the entire summer of 1999. The remaining 9 movies may not be short of duds that failed miserably at the box office, but together they are unlikely to only get 100 million box office.
Just like the new movie "Fight Club" scheduled to be released on August 6.
Many directors have some films that may not have a high box office when they were first released, or even ended in failure, but their subsequent reputation has become better and better, and even ultimately established the director's film and television status to a certain extent. "Fight Club" in the original time and space is such a movie for director David Fincher.
This film, which was once ranked in the top ten of IMDB, failed at the box office in its first release, and its reputation was not great.
Then he counterattacked all the way.
In the end, the improvement of David Fincher's personality far exceeded that of his famous work "Seven Deadly Sins".
Let’s talk about the present.
Simon, the big butterfly, has struggled all the way up to now. If he does nothing, the probability of "Fight Club" appearing again is very low. However, because he happens to remember some of the creative background of this film, plus Simon's status in Hollywood at this time , slightly plucked the strings of time, and history once again returned to its previous track.
Having said that, after the successful collaboration with Daenerys in "The Seven Deadly Sins", Fincher's follow-up film, "The Game" in 1995, which cost $50 million, ended in failure. Then there was another original film that had never been produced before, still silent. This is the third film after "Seven Deadly Sins".
Hollywood also has a rule of thumb.
If it fails again, Finch may go into silence.
However, due to the failure of the first two films, the cost of "Fight Club" was much lower than the budget of more than 60 million US dollars. Although the main creators basically used the original version, the initial budget given by New World Pictures was only 40 million, even if Finn Qi inevitably overspent again, this time only spending 46 million.
Of course, 46 million is actually not low, not to mention the US$15 million announced after Simon's personal intervention. The total investment reached US$61 million, which is also a blockbuster level.
David Fincher obviously also understands that he cannot afford another failure, so he has been working very hard in participating in various marketing activities since the film was established.
Besides, the reason why Simon interfered was because everyone at New World Pictures was very unfavorable about the final film, and even couldn't understand it. This was exactly the same as 20th Century Fox, the original producer.
Therefore, after many consecutive internal test screenings, media test screenings, fan test screenings and general audience test screenings, and after figuring out the general attitudes of different movie-watching groups, "Fight Club" finally decided on a small-scale opening, online marketing , controversial marketing, and a distribution strategy that pursues long-term screening.
The film's opening schedule is August 6, but "Fight Club" held its premiere a week in advance on July 31, followed by a series of premieres in some major cities in North America on Sunday, August 1. Fan screenings.
Then came one word, stir-fry!
The battlefield is mainly in the emerging online media.
The first was the comprehensive premiere on July 31. The word-of-mouth ban started to lift the next day. The traditional media actually gave a pretty good evaluation. The comprehensive media score reached 7.9 points, which is obviously a relatively approved attitude. However, "Fight Club" is not a popcorn movie, which means that if the score does not exceed 8 points, it is actually difficult to win by word of mouth.
So, of course, stir up controversy.
As a result, the reputation of "Fight Club" quickly polarized on the Internet platform. Some people liked it very much and directly regarded the film as a masterpiece. They also complained that traditional media only gave the film an overall score of only 7.9 points. What is annoying is very annoying.
It focused on targeting some media comments that did not like the film. For example, a film critic from the San Francisco Chronicle strongly criticized "Fight Club" for catering to cynical teenage audiences through pretentious sensationalism. Social satire lacks seriousness and is pure farce.
This made Fincher fans everywhere who had watched the film and liked it very much unbearable. They posted a large number of posts complaining about "Fight Club" on major movie websites, message forums and other platforms, and unknowingly gathered into a large wave of Western style Tap water.
Of course, there is no shortage of outright curses and abuses, but these extreme remarks were quickly deleted by various platforms, and relevant accounts were also banned to a certain extent.
This involves the issue of scale.
You can argue, you can argue, but you can't curse, otherwise it will still affect the film itself.
In such a lively atmosphere, "Fight Club" was officially released on August 6, with only 1,263 screens.
Of course, the movie fans don’t know the specific distribution strategy of the New World Pictures team. Therefore, the obviously pitiful 1,263 screens quickly became a hot topic of controversy under the guidance of well-intentioned people. Many fans felt that Daenerys was also planning to give up "Fight Club". ", not only launched a petition on the Internet to ask Daenerys to increase the scale of screenings, but also called on like-minded netizens and even relatives and friends in real life to support the film.
"The Matrix", which has just been released for two weeks, is still lingering, and suddenly there is another "Fight Club" that seems to be a social topic. It is an eye-opener for people who don't know the truth.