After the mid-term elections, the second week of the North American theater’s Halloween schedule quietly ended.
In the box office week from November 4 to November 10, the second film in the Conjuring film universe series, "The Haunting of the Morgue", after grossing US$45.71 million in its first week, saw a box office drop of 49% in the second week, bringing in US$23.35 million. The performance was obviously not as good as the second week of "The Conjuring".
However, in two weeks, the cumulative box office of "The Haunting of the Morgue" has reached US$69.06 million.
Even including the additional investment of US$5 million in publicity and distribution by the New World Pictures team after the first week's box office success, the total production and publicity budget of "The Haunting of the Morgue" is only US$35 million. With a revenue of US$69.06 million in two weeks, Daenerys Entertainment has recovered all its investment and started to make profits according to the tiered sharing rules.
Not only that, through the operation of two consecutive movies, the Conjuring movie universe brand has been thoroughly rooted in the hearts of the people.
Friday, November 11th.
On the third day after the mid-term elections, the North American Thanksgiving period begins.
The first movie released by Daenerys Entertainment during the Thanksgiving holiday is "The Man in Disguise," Jim Carrey's second film after the hit "Phantom" during the Easter holiday, with an opening number of 2,360 screens. .
At the same time, there are two other heavyweight new films starting this week, namely MGM's "The Zone" and Warner Bros.'s "Interview with the Vampire."
"The Terror Zone" produced by MGM tells the story of a deadly virus crisis caused by poaching. This is a project Simon arranged for MGM based on memories. The original version starred Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo. The box office was pretty good.
Influenced by Simon the Big Butterfly, the new version of "Terror Zone" stars Sam Neill, who gained wide popularity in "Jurassic Park". Because Rene Russo became the heroine of the new version of "Jurassic Park", both parties Unsuitable to continue as a partner, Simon's favorite Sela Ward was also unable to participate due to the schedule of "Desperate Housewives", and Oscar-winning actress Jessica Lange was finally chosen.
The film ultimately cost US$30 million, exceeding Simon's original expectation of US$25 million. However, the film's effect was pretty good, and MGM arranged for 2,215 opening screens.
The final "Interview with the Vampire" is even more interesting.
The two male protagonists of the original film were Tom Cruise, who was in his prime at the time, and Brad Pitt, who was on the rise. The producer was David Geffen, who wanted to try his hand at film production after selling Geffen Records. Finn.
Now, due to his entanglement with Daenerys Entertainment, Tom Cruise has been completely photographed on the beach.
Brad Pitt's popularity is at its peak after starring in Superman in the DC Cinematic Universe.
As an important test project before the three of them established DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, who openly disclosed his sexual orientation, is known as the most powerful gay man in Hollywood. With an investment of US$60 million, For big projects, it’s impossible to cast according to your own preferences.
What's more, the director Neil Jordan and several intended actors who signed the project, and even the distributor Warner Bros., are inextricably linked to Daenerys Entertainment.
Without Simon having to say anything, these people would actively avoid working with Tom Cruise.
Therefore, the two leading actors in the new version of "Interview with the Vampire" finally fell on Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt.
As a core actor in the DC movie universe, Pitt naturally needs permission from both Warner and Daenerys to star. It stands to reason that in order to avoid draining the actor's popularity, Simon usually does not agree to allow core actors from the DC movie universe to star in other blockbusters. However, the theme of "Interview with the Vampire" has no conflict with "Superman" at all, and coupled with Warner's lobbying, Simon agreed easily.
In addition, a very outstanding lolita in the original version still chose Kirsten Dunst, who has a shelf life of only 13 years old.
On the opening day, Warner Bros. gave the film adaptation of the best-selling novel 2,604 screens.
Compared with the uneven quality of new films during the Halloween period, this time, the three films that were released have all received very good reputations. Simon deliberately delayed the release of "Toy Story 2" by a week to the week of Easter, in order to give the film a good reputation. He hopes that "Interview with the Vampire" can enter the 100 million yuan box office club as it once did and take some of the pressure off Daenerys' entertainment.
As for "The Man in Disguise", although under Jonathan's mediation, Simon let Jim Carrey go, he still hopes that the movie will have the same trend as "The Master", as long as it sells well and does not exceed 100 million. It doesn't matter, among the three new films, "The Man in Disguise" has the lowest cost, only 25 million U.S. dollars. Even including the 10 million U.S. dollars of promotion, it only needs 70 million U.S. dollars at the box office to recover all costs.
On the other hand, the plan to continuously create news hot spots to divert public attention from the mid-term elections continues.
Voting in the midterm elections on Tuesday, news of Victoria's Secret rehearsals and Stephen King's signing with Broadcast were released on Wednesday, the 'Information Age' marketing plan was trumpeted on Thursday to kick off ten days of record performance, and Friday was naturally the start of the Thanksgiving season, and here we are in the blink of an eye. On Saturday, the third annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show will kick off the evening.
In addition, the National Rifle Association's sniper plan to retaliate against a series of congressmen who voted for gun control bills was also exposed by a left-wing media in New York. Through some covert operations, relevant public opinion quickly spread across the country, constantly instilling in the public a sense of this midterm The impression that the election was rigged by the NRA.
In order to further promote public opinion, many media suddenly began to focus on reporting on some recent shooting incidents that occurred across the Commonwealth.
A school shooting in Mississippi that killed six students;
In Minnesota, a desperate middle-aged man who had been unemployed for three years shot and killed his former boss and his family of four;
A six-year-old boy in Oregon accidentally killed his sister while playing with a gun;
All kinds of things.
The number of deaths caused by various types of shootings in the United States every year exceeds 10,000, and there are countless similar cases.
In the past, due to the lack of a national open information platform like the Internet, many shooting news were limited to local areas. Large newspapers often did not follow up on such trivial reports, so it was difficult to have a strong social impact.
This time, a series of incidents were suddenly reported together, and large-scale media platforms such as the New York Times and the Eaglet Portal were used to build momentum. The shooting case, which originally seemed inconspicuous, immediately became shocking.
Although the National Rifle Association is powerful, the United States has never lacked organizations that support gun control.
Under the quiet promotion of the Westeros system, many groups and individuals who hold gun control positions began to speak out. At the same time, they did not forget to point the finger at the just-past mid-term elections, accusing the National Rifle Association of causing the A large number of impartial legislators with a social conscience were defeated, calling on the federal government to launch an investigation into the National Rifle Association's possible illegal interference in the midterm elections.
There is no airtight wall in the world.
Simon can't shut everyone's mouths.
Among the turmoil of public opinion, there is naturally no shortage of news exposing the Westeros system's secret interference in this mid-term election.
In any case, the operation of the Westeros system in this mid-term election process is actually bigger than the National Rifle Association. Moreover, after all, because of the background, the methods are far less smooth than the National Rifle Association. Many operations They all have a rough energy of being wealthy and wealthy.
However, similar revelations are basically covered up by a series of more eye-catching news hot spots. Even if someone notices it, they instinctively think that the National Rifle Association is more hateful.
The attention of the general public can be diverted and directed, but the Washington authorities, who are in the center of the situation and have a clear inner mirror, are not fascinated by Simon's dazzling public opinion operation.
Both the White House and Congress know exactly what the Westeros system did during the past mid-term elections.
Except for a few real far-left politicians, many members of the House and Senate, and even the President, there are actually various financial backers standing behind the scenes. However, this does not mean that Washington will be willing to become the puppet of various plutocratic giants. , otherwise, in two hundred years, the United States would have turned into South Korea.
Therefore, the Westeros system once interfered in the election of nearly one-tenth of the politicians in the House and Senate, causing strong fear and vigilance in the entire Washington. With the financial resources of Simon Westeros, if he continues to act like this, the whole of Washington may be shrouded in the shadow of a certain young man in the future.
This is absolutely intolerable.
Therefore, although Simon successfully diverted public attention through a series of public opinion operations, after the mid-term elections, both parties in the United States were licking their wounds or examining the fruits of victory, while contacting each other to discuss how to deal with a certain young tycoon. Interference in the midterm elections.
Initiate an investigation.
This is the first thought that comes to many politicians' minds.
However, it is easy to investigate and it is not difficult to find the clue.
But, what then
Any investigation will inevitably involve the operation of an already elected congressman, Chasmon Westeros. Although the Democratic Party accounts for the majority, there are also some beneficiaries on the Republican side.
Moreover, even if serious election fraud is finally discovered, Simon Westeros can easily find a scapegoat, and an uninformed person who is deceived can easily get away with it. Even if the evidence is conclusive, who would dare to put a federal unprecedented 300 billion Will the dollar-level super-rich be sent to jail
Looking at what Simon Westeros has been doing in Rwanda and Italy over the past year, he's not a pushover at all.
What's more, this young super-rich man is not that stupid. Although many operations are obviously borderline, Washington does not have much substantive evidence of fraud.
The other party's operation is just to spend money crazily based on its own wealth.
Spend money to conduct large-scale social surveys to develop precise campaign strategies for the politicians that support them, down to each county and each type of voter group, spend money to organize a large team of 'free' volunteers to serve in support of politicians' campaigns, and spend money to organize A large number of people dig deep into the ground to find possible dirt on every detail of their competitors, from small to large, and even spend money on charity to accumulate social fame for their supporters.
Many people can think of these methods.
Moreover, as long as you don't take it seriously, it's not too illegal.
The key is that it is too expensive. Only Simon Westeros in the entire Federation can afford it.
Just like this time, some people in Washington have made rough statistics. Simon Westeros spent at least US$200 million in this mid-term election. Except for Simon Westeros, who has a net worth of US$300 billion, even Bill Gates, who ranks second on this year's list and has a net worth of US$28 billion due to the continued surge in Microsoft's stock price, cannot easily come up with such a sum of cash.
More than 90% of Bill Gates's net worth of US$28 billion is Microsoft's stock assets. Even though he has cashed out some funds in recent years, this new super-rich man simply does not have the foundation and strength to mix with such big money. Political campaigns on a massive scale.
After all, Microsoft is just a company.
The Westeros system has become entangled in every aspect of the American economy like a giant octopus.
Simon's operation in this midterm election may not be as sophisticated as that of the long-established National Rifle Association, but the gap is one of experience, not strength.
After Bill Gates, this is even more true for other wealthy people.
If more than US$200 million in cash is rashly used to interfere in the election, those wealthy people, who generally have only a few billion US dollars in net worth, are likely to be severely damaged.
All in all, this is a game that Simon Westeros can afford to play alone.
Now, if the investigation continues vigorously, Simon Westeros may not be able to do anything about it in the end. In contrast, once the matter gets serious, many of the MPs involved may have no choice but to resign.
The Democratic Party, which has already been severely weakened by this midterm election, will never allow this kind of turmoil to happen again.
The same is true for the Republican Party.
At the end of the day, all of Washington is one.
Just like why the Kennedy assassination has been covered up, there are actually not so many mysterious conspiracy theories. One of the important reasons is that neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party wants the truth to be revealed to seriously damage Washington's reputation in the hearts of the American people. image.
The same goes for 911 in Simon's memory.
As long as politicians in Washington have some sense, it is impossible for 911 to be controlled by the Bush administration as in conspiracy theories. However, many signs also indicate that before 9/11, the U.S. intelligence system had captured a large amount of information, but it did not successfully intercept the attack. However, no one, not even the White House and Congress, can shoulder the responsibility for such a major dereliction of duty that caused a national disaster.
So, at the end of the incident, all the blame was placed on Ben·** alone.
The same is true for this midterm election.
The Republican Party, which had already won a huge victory, could not launch a large-scale investigation into Simon, turning the original victory into a huge political farce.
So, what now
Unable to investigate the operation of the Westeros system, many people also thought that they could teach this young rich man who had clearly crossed the line some lessons.
This is also a common practice.
Because of his involvement in the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot has been frequently troubled by the Republican-controlled authorities in the past two years. On the surface, the Perot family still seems to be prosperous. However, this super-rich man, who was once ranked in the top three of the Forbes list, is experiencing rapid decline at a speed visible to the naked eye due to the suppression of the authorities.
However, Ross Perot can only be considered the loser of a political game.
Simon Westeros is a standard winner.
In order to promote some bills, the two houses of Congress often need to go to war for one or two key votes. Now, Simon Westeros can influence almost one-tenth of the more than 500 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. This kind of strength is really terrifying.
Because he annoyed the other party by suppressing the Westeros system, who knows what this young man will do in the future and what he will do in the next election
No one wants to follow in the footsteps of Craig Eames and David Meloth.
But do something anyway.
After days of hesitation, Washington finally took action on Saturday morning.
Simon, who was preparing to attend the evening Victoria's Secret show in New York, suddenly received an invitation from the White House. For a very high-sounding reason, the president wanted to talk to him about some matters related to the development of the new technology industry.