On May 31, the second week of the summer season, the number of new films opening in North American theaters was reduced to two, namely "Soap Platter" produced by Paramount and "City Hillbilly" released by Columbia Pictures.
"Soap Platter" tells the story of a series of intrigues among a group of soap opera actors surrounding a soap opera called "The Sun Sets Again."
As an ensemble drama, "Soap Platter" has a luxurious cast.
Oscar-winning actress Sally Field leads the cast, and is joined by Oscar-winning best supporting actor Kevin Kline and Oscar-winning best supporting actress Whoopi Goldberg, as well as Robert Downey Jr., Carrie Fisher, and Elizabeth Shue , Gary Marshall and a group of big names and small names participated.
The director is Michael Hoffman, who has gained a good reputation for his two literary films "The State of Dreams" and "Sisters".
Anyone who is slightly familiar with the inside story of Hollywood can probably tell at a glance that this is another CAA packaged movie.
Therefore, although there are no super A-list superstars with tens of millions of dollars to join the film, the production cost of the film is still as high as 35 million US dollars.
"City Hillbilly" stars Billy Crystal. It can be roughly regarded as following the "Crocodile Dundee" series that was a hit at the box office in the 1980s. The budget cost also reached US$27 million.
Three days after its opening, the box office of "Soap Platter" in its first weekend was only US$6.73 million. The box office is expected to be around US$9 million in the first week, which is far lower than Paramount's expectations.
Although it is following the trend of "Crocodile Dundee", "City Hillbilly" has a pretty good reputation and box office. It made 13.03 million US dollars in its first weekend, and the box office in its first week is expected to be between 18 million and 20 million.
Among the six new films that were launched intensively last week, except for "Snow World", which increased its screen count to 816, and achieved a reversal of about 10% in the next three days over the next weekend, the other five films all experienced a decline of more than 30%.
Among them, the new Bruce Willis film "Condor", also produced by TriStar, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, fell by 47%.
Columbia originally planned "Condor" as the main attraction of this summer, and "City Hillbilly" was just a comedy that had to be stuck before next week's "The Dark Knight."
Unexpectedly, the market performance of the two films was completely opposite to management's expectations.
The production cost of "Condor" was US$65 million, but the cumulative box office in the 10 days after its release was only US$11.59 million, which was not as good as the box office revenue of "City Hillbilly" in three days.
Entering June, the opening date of the second movie in the DC Cinematic Universe, "The Dark Knight," is getting closer.
In addition to a more intensive publicity campaign, "The Dark Knight" also started preview screenings for media and fans half a month in advance. Some media have already released test screening reviews of the film, and the North American media that participated in the test screening basically gave it a score of 8 or above.
In the new week, Warner Bros. Pictures, which is responsible for the global distribution of the film, also officially announced the global box office of "Batman Begins", the opening film of the DC Cinematic Universe.
Starting from the end of the previous year, after a year and a half of release, "Batman Begins" was released in a total of 51 countries and regions around the world.
In the end, the North American box office of "Batman Begins" was US$436 million, and the overseas box office accumulated US$531 million.
The total global box office figure reached 967 million US dollars.
Although it regrettably failed to break through the US$1 billion mark, it also left the global box office data of US$790 million in 1982's "ET" far behind, becoming the highest-grossing movie in Hollywood history until 1991.
This time, under the joint operation of Warner Bros. and Daenerys, "The Dark Knight" will be released simultaneously in 21 countries and regions around the world.
Large-scale simultaneous openings around the world have become very common more than a decade later. But in the early 1990s, it was still a rare initiative, so it can be seen that the two companies have strong confidence in "The Dark Knight."
You know, the announcement budget for this sequel to the DC movie universe has been set at an unprecedented US$80 million from the beginning, which is equivalent to the huge production cost of the film.
This also means that the North American box office of "The Dark Knight" needs to reach about US$300 million for the two companies to rely on local box office to recover their costs.
Of course, everyone knows that although the box office figures of the "Batman" series are amazing, the peripheral revenue is actually even greater.
According to public figures, in 1990 alone, the sales of peripheral derivatives of "Batman Begins" reached a huge US$2 billion.
Based on the profit margin of peripheral derivatives of approximately 15%, derivatives sales of US$2 billion are equivalent to pre-tax profits of approximately US$300 million.
Because of the original contract, most of the revenue went to Daenerys Entertainment.
Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine why Daenerys Entertainment was able to achieve an astonishing annual net profit of US$1.13 billion after a series of big moves in 1990.
Earlier in early May, exactly one month before the filming of "The Dark Knight" began, the video tape of "Batman Begins" was officially released worldwide.
In its first week on the shelves, sales in North America alone reached 5.6 million boxes.
As the release date of "The Dark Knight" approaches, according to the latest statistics, in less than a month, the global video sales of "Batman Begins" have exceeded 13 million boxes, with sales approaching $400 million.
According to this sales trend, the total global video tape sales of "Batman Begins" are expected to set a sales record of more than 30 million boxes, and sales are expected to exceed US$900 million. Even hitting the $1 billion mark is not impossible.
In the agreements signed between Hollywood studios and major guilds, only 20% of video tape sales will be shared as profits.
In fact, in this era, the gross profit margin of video tapes, which cost as much as US$30 per box, was not much lower than the box office share ratio.
"Batman Begins" is expected to sell more than 30 million video tapes. In addition to the distribution share due to Warner Bros., most of the profits will still go to Daenerys Entertainment, and the profit scale is conservatively estimated to be 300 million US dollars.
According to statistics, only counting global box office, video sales and derivative income, the profit of a "Batman Begins" will reach 1 billion US dollars within three years of the film's release, and this does not include subsequent TV broadcasts Revenue and subsequent long-tail revenue from each channel.
The DC Cinematic Universe has achieved such amazing commercial results at the beginning. This is the reason why the two companies dared to invest a total production and publicity budget of US$160 million for "The Dark Knight."
The premiere of "The Dark Knight" is set for Wednesday, June 5.
Tomorrow is the premiere of The Dark Knight.
Simon spent all day today at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
In other words, he was forcibly dragged to Warner Bros. Studios by Terry Semel. These days, Semel calls Simon every day and asks him to take time to take care of the release of "The Dark Knight" and "The Flash". The later stages of "The Hero" and other collaborative films between the two parties.
Just looking at the profits created by "Batman Begins", the importance of the DC Movie Universe to Time Warner does not need to be elaborated.
There is actually another reason why Terry Semel is so persistent.
After completing the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. early last year, Time Warner failed to meet industry expectations in terms of performance and stock.
However, in order to prevent Paramount Communications' sniper acquisition of Time Inc., the two parties changed the initial stock-for-stock merger into a cash and stock transaction, which suddenly increased the total debt of the two companies that originally only had more than 2 billion US dollars in debt. To the tens of billions of dollars level.
After a year of trying every means to pay off, as of now, Time Warner's total liabilities still reach US$10.6 billion.
Steve Ross is the kind of person who doesn't like selling company assets very much. Therefore, since last year, Ross has been preparing for an equity issuance, intending to issue an additional US$3 billion in shares to repay the debt in the next one or two years. Warner's debt maturities.
Time Warner shareholders are naturally unwilling to have their shareholding proportion diluted at will, and they do not want to spend money to subscribe for additional shares. The outside world is not very optimistic about Time Warner's prospects.
Therefore, this additional stock issuance is full of obstacles both inside and outside Time Warner.
Coupled with the continued decline of the North American stock market in the second half of last year, things almost came to nothing.
Fortunately, the United States won the Gulf War in the Middle East cleanly, causing North American stock markets to rise sharply across the board in recent months. Time Warner's stock price has also benefited, and its market value has finally returned to more than 10 billion US dollars. Coupled with investors' optimism about Warner Bros.'s upcoming release of "The Dark Knight" and "The Flash" at the end of the year, the issue of additional stock issuance has turned around again.
The time is roughly determined in August.
Therefore, even though he was full of confidence in "The Dark Knight" and "The Flash" would definitely be released after the additional stock issuance, Terry Semel still tried his best to pull Simon to Burbank, just to give him The outside world creates an impression of close cooperation between the two parties.
In order to achieve this goal, the two parties have recently negotiated another cooperation project outside the DC movie universe, which is one of the two other cooperation films that Daenerys Entertainment owes Warner Bros.
Simon happened to be busy with these three things in Burbank all day today.
In the morning, I was personally accompanied by Terry Semel and spent a busy morning in the post-production center of Warner Studios on "The Flash". In the afternoon, there were two consecutive meetings.
Because of work, Simon hasn't been able to take time to meet Anthony Johnston who will be here today.
These days, the Johnston family officially took over 30% of MGM shares from other MGM Australian shareholders who exchanged bonds for equity, becoming the largest shareholder of MGM.
Although absolute control has not been achieved, as the largest shareholder, coupled with the support of other Australian shareholders, the control of MGM basically falls in the hands of the Johnston family, or in the hands of Simon.
Anthony came here this time just to discuss the next development of MGM.
Here at Warner Bros. Studios, there are two meetings in the afternoon.
From 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock, it is the release meeting of "Batman: The Dark Knight".
From 4 to 5 o'clock, it is the production meeting of the joint film determined by both parties.
The newly confirmed film is called "The Last of the Mohicans."
This is an adaptation of an American novel completed in 1826. The author of the novel is named James Cooper.
The content tells the story of the last three warriors of an indigenous Indian tribe called the Mohicans who rescued a pair of kidnapped daughters of a British colonel and escorted them during the colonial war between Britain and France in the late 1850s for control of the Americas. Return to the story of the British military base.
Like The Revenge of the Prince, The Last of the Mohicans is favored by Hollywood because its story mode is very similar to a knight rescuing a princess.
Since 1920, "The Last of the Mohicans" has been continuously adapted into movies, TV series and even cartoons for the big and small screens. The last time was in 1987.
This time, the reason why we chose to restart filming "The Last of the Mohicans" was actually influenced by the success of "Dances with Wolves" in terms of box office and awards.
The themes of both films are related to the colonial wars in North America, and they also involve the entanglement between native Indians and white colonists.
To put it bluntly, this is a bandwagon.
In Simon's memory, "The Last of the Mohicans" was released in 1992, directed by Hollywood director Michael Mann and starring Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.
Although he doesn't remember the box office clearly, Simon can confirm that this is a very popular work.
Michael Mann was the director of the later famous "The Wire". He had previously collaborated with New World Entertainment on a police TV series "The Wire". After confirming this project, Daenerys Entertainment contacted Michael Mann. , the other party quickly gave a positive response, and also hoped to complete the script in person.
In terms of male protagonists, the first thing Warner Bros. thought of was still Mel Gibson.
No way, from the beginning of the original "Mad Max" to the ongoing "Lethal Weapon" series, Mel Gibson has almost become Warner Bros.'s go-to actor like Clint Eastwood.
Even in "Lethal Weapon 3," which will be released next year, Mel Gibson relies on a high remuneration share clause to take away most of the profits. Because of the guarantee of box office, Warner is still accustomed to using the other party.
Simon actually agreed with Warner's suggestion.
I remember Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" which also won both box office and awards, which is enough to prove that Mel Gibson is fully capable of supporting such a costume action movie.
Moreover, because it is not a sequel to a blockbuster movie like "Lethal Weapon 3", as the first original film, Mel Gibson's salary will not be too high.
However, in addition to "Lethal Weapon 3" which is currently being filmed, Mel Gibson has already accepted two other film appointments, with the schedule scheduled for 1993.
Simon does not lack the patience to wait until two years later, but Warner Bros. cannot do the same.
Finally, we contacted the original Daniel Day-Lewis based on Simon’s memory, and the two parties are still negotiating.
After a busy day, Simon returned to Dume Point Manor in the evening, and the Shell Villa seemed very lively.
Anthony Johnston also brought his family here this time.
Because Anthony's eldest son, Brandon Johnston, who is the same age as Simon, is actually a loyal fan of the "Batman" series. Last time, he asked Simon for a Batmobile through his cousin's mouth. Since tomorrow is the premiere of "The Dark Knight," Brandon naturally wants to take a sneak peek.
In addition, there are Anthony's wife Betty Johnston and two daughters, 19-year-old Sylvia Johnston and 11-year-old Chloe Johnston.
Brandon had just joined the family business, and this time it was considered a desertion.
Sylvia and Chloe are both studying in the UK, and it happens to be summer vacation in the northern hemisphere, so they were able to take time to come to Los Angeles.