After Simon's birthday, the second week of the 2000 Valentine's Day schedule also ended quickly. Through the trend in the next week, the local box office volume of Daenerys's three films in the same period was basically determined.
First, "Embrace the Dawn" starring Meg Ryan counterattacked and became the top spot. It fell only 19% the next week and collected another US$29.46 million, with the cumulative box office reaching US$65.91 million. According to the film's next week's data, this romance film will not only easily break through the 100 million dollar mark, becoming the first 100 million dollar box office club movie in 2000, but it will also have room to sprint towards a higher level of around 150 million dollars, and will eventually be in the top ten of the year. Not impossible.
With such an excellent box office trend, Daenerys has also stepped up the follow-up promotion of the film. She plans to not only get more box office locally, but also strive for good results overseas.
Followed by "I'm Mad About Mary".
With strong promotion from Daenerys Entertainment, "About Mary" earned $39.12 million in its first week. However, compared with "Embrace the Dawn", this low-brow comedy obviously lacks stamina. After the week of Valentine's Day, the movie dropped 37% the next week, with revenue of US$24.65 million, and the cumulative box office was US$63.37 million.
There is no problem with breaking 100 million, but it will definitely not be as good as "Embrace the Dawn".
This actually shows once again that the film industry is as uncertain as gambling. What Simon has done in recent years is to maximize the winning rate of Daenerys' films in this 'gamble', but it cannot be 100% after all. .
"Paris Bride", which is also a romance film, counterattacked to third place this week, with a drop of 36% and a revenue of US$10.57 million.
However, because the box office in the first week was only US$16.53 million, in two weeks, the cumulative box office of Julia Roberts's new film, which is also the heroine of the romance film, was only US$27.1 million, which was not as good as the first week of "Embrace the Dawn" Income.
The total local box office is expected to be around US$40 million. Compared with the production cost of US$35 million, considering the overseas and follow-up, it is not too much of a failure, but it has nothing to do with success.
Then there's Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Last Strike," which slipped from third to fourth place on the list.
In its third week of release from February 18th to February 24th, "The Last Strike" dropped 51%. After all, it is a popcorn action movie on the assembly line. It has obviously lost its stamina. It earned US$9.27 million in a single week, falling into the range of 10 million US dollars. , the cumulative box office is 55.03 million U.S. dollars, and the total local box office is expected to be about 70 million U.S. dollars.
Considering the film's production cost of 25 million US dollars, the box office in North America alone reached 70 million, which is also a considerable achievement.
After Valentine's Day, in addition to some off-season new films, the next film market will mainly focus on Valentine's Day follow-ups, as well as the awards season films that are still going on.
The Golden Globe Awards have passed, and this year's 72nd Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 26. Coincidentally, it is the same day as the presidential election scheduled to be held in Russia on the other side of the Atlantic after Yeltsin resigned.
"Chicago", starring Daenerys, opened on December 24 of the previous year. As of the past week of February 18 to February 24, it once again earned 6.31 million U.S. dollars, and the cumulative box office has successfully exceeded 2 The US$100 million mark reached US$221.46 million.
From the Golden Globe Awards to the results of a series of recent association awards, "Chicago" has basically locked in the big winner position in this year's awards season. Therefore, until the Oscars, it will be stimulated by the continuous large and small awards. The Oscar is expected to bring a rebound , and its long-term follow-up, it is expected to earn about 50 million more, pushing the total local box office to 270 million US dollars.
Although it is still beyond the initial best estimate of 300 million domestically, the cost of 45 million US dollars has brought in 270 million in North America alone. As a musical, it is already a box office miracle.
Now that we are talking about "Chicago", it is also worth mentioning that a series of films scheduled for the end of 1999, such as "Cyborg 2", "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", etc., have all entered the final stage.
Among them, "Cyborg 2" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" have basically the same box office volume.
The former was originally expected by many to have a box office of 400 million US dollars. Unfortunately, the competition for the schedule is too fierce. According to the recent box office trend, which has dropped to less than 100,000 US dollars, the local box office is basically determined to be 346 million US dollars.
Unlike "Cyborg 2", which was released during the Thanksgiving season the previous year and thus began to wrap up, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" was released during the Christmas season. In the most recent week from February 18th to February 24th, the single-week revenue was still 516 million, with a cumulative box office of $329.73 million.
Due to the popular nature of the film, the recent decline has been around 20%. It will not be a problem to continue to slowly earn 15 million to 20 million at the box office. Therefore, the total box office will be between 345 million and 350 million US dollars, which is different from "Cyborg 2" At most two to three million, who is higher and who is lower is not yet certain.
As for "Cars", "Jumanji 2", "Casino Royale", "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and others, the final box office placement is basically the same as the prediction after the end of the year in 1999.
Apart from the movie, there are two other things that concern Simon as February is about to pass.
The first one is in Eastern Europe, where the Second Chechen War ended.
About a month ahead of the Russian presidential election, on February 23, the day after Simon’s birthday, Russian officials officially announced their withdrawal from Chechnya and handed over the management of the Chechen region to local pro-Russian armed forces.
From a political perspective, this is a very good time.
Compared with the disgrace of the first Chechen war, starting from September last year and lasting for half a year, the second Chechen war, which was fought steadily and steadily with the support of Yeltsin's delegation of power, was smooth sailing.
Withdrawing troops at this time not only avoids the pressure that the war will continue to bring to Russia's finances, but also resolves the public's concerns that the war may be protracted and cause a large number of casualties. It can be said that it is a perfect harvest of a ripe political fruit. The gain would be enough for someone to easily win the March election.
However, the fact is that for Russia, the Chechen issue has not been fundamentally resolved.
The most direct impact was the series of terrorist activities carried out by Chechen rebels in Russia for many years, such as the 'Beslan Hostage Incident'.
Of course, even if it is not perfect, this decision is undoubtedly the best choice for someone.
This is what Simon admires most about someone. For the sake of the overall situation, he is willing to make trade-offs, knows how to balance, and tolerates coexistence. These are actually the qualities that a good politician must have.
Politics really cannot go to extremes, especially between big countries.
Ordinary people are happy to express their gratitude and enmity, and the most they can do is lay down the corpses of several people, with blood splattering five steps away. If the great powers go to extremes, the result will be bloodshed and the world will be in ruins.
Another thing is that on March 25, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the east coast of the United States, the new SpaceX company formed by Simon test-fired its first heavy-lift rocket. It still followed the previous naming rules, Falcon 9.
It has been less than two years since SpaceX's Falcon 1 successfully launched on April 16, 1998. The progress far exceeds that of SpaceX in the original time and space.
As for the reason, the main reason is that this time the SpaceX team is still in the stage of integrating existing technologies. Therefore, whether it is the previous Falcon 1 or this time's Falcon 9, they are actually two different things from the SpaceX Falcon series in history.
Simon flew to Florida to watch the launch in person.
Because this time is very special. Prior to this, SpaceX's Falcon 1 has been launched 17 times in the past two years, of which only 2 failed. At the same time, the SpaceX team has been quietly conducting rocket recovery tests and repetitions. Use launch.
Among the 17 launches of Falcon 1, 7 were successfully recovered and 6 were successfully relaunched, including one rocket that was reused twice.
This time, the brand-new Falcon 9 will also conduct a recovery test at the same time as its first launch.
In addition, an imaging satellite from Igret will be sent into space.
However, this is just incidental.
After all, this is the first time, and only Yigrit is willing to take the risk to cooperate. Moreover, the new Falcon 9 is designed to carry 30 tons. Yigrit’s satellite weighs less than two tons. Regardless of success or failure, Both parties can bear the risk, not to mention that there are insurance companies to cover it.
Although the insurance premium has doubled as a result, there is nothing wrong with it.
Once again, a first-time success.
The satellite was successfully put into orbit, and the first-stage engine and two first-stage boosters planned to be recovered successfully landed at the predetermined location, and the launch site was filled with joy.
The outside world has been full of curiosity about SpaceX's recycling test in the past two years. Simon has always suppressed too much exposure. This time, he no longer concealed it. After the launch was successful, videos, pictures and related press releases were immediately logged into various websites. Big media platforms have quickly become the focus of public opinion.
Simon did this to give the SpaceX team enough honor and encouragement.
However, as far as Simon is concerned, this is far from satisfactory. After all, the brand-new Falcon 9 has a load capacity of 30 tons, compared with the legendary Saturn 5, which has a load capacity of more than 120 tons. Even though it has a huge advantage in cost, the gap in technical parameters is still very obvious.
What's more, what Simon hopes to see most is the development of a new generation of space shuttle that has quietly started. And, in the first stage, complete another moon landing.
In comparison, SpaceX's recovery rockets can only be regarded as auxiliary.
Simon's requirement is to integrate existing technologies to the extreme while compressing costs to the extreme in order to maximize the auxiliary functions that rocket products should have.
In addition, the most critical thing is the space shuttle program.
Direct take-off and landing on the ground ensures that it can reach the moon while meeting the safety level of existing manned aircraft.
Achieving this goal, Simon feels, is another small step in human exploration of outer space. Moreover, only by taking this step can we break through the biggest limitation of the aerospace industry, which is only investment and little output. After all, at this stage, most space projects are still forward-looking scientific research and exploration activities through financial subsidies from various countries.
Why humans lost the motivation to explore space after the end of the Cold War is mainly due to this reason.
Without relatively direct output, it is impossible to form a sustainable benefit cycle. Even though many people understand that the indirect benefits brought by space exploration are immeasurable, things are unsustainable because of this. This is a reality that even Simon has to face. .