"The Story of Xiao Ba" is very popular. The box office reached 225 million yuan in the first three days of its release, which was higher than "The Gift of Room No. 7".
The reason is not that "The Story of Xiaoba" is better than "The Gift of Room No. 7".
There are two main reasons.
First of all, "The Gift of Room No. 7" was only released on 3,500 screens, while "The Story of Xiao Ba" was released on 6,000 screens.
The difference in the number of screens was almost double, and as a result, "Xiao Ba's Story" only led the box office by 20 million.
This shows that the number of die-hard fans is that "The Story of Xiaoba" is not as good as "The Gift of Room No. 7".
Then "The Gift of Room No. 7" was released in October 2015, and now "The Story of Xiaoba" was released in March 2017, a year and a half later.
In the past year and a half, people's consumption habits have improved enough. Their consumption on entertainment has become higher and higher, and more and more people are watching movies.
Therefore, it is reasonable for more people to watch "The Story of Xiaoba".
But Shen Huan can see from this that, at least in China, "Xiao Ba's Affair" has less staying power than "The Gift of Room No. 7".
The extended DVD version of the director's cut of "The Gift from Room No. 7" has sold more than 3 million copies in China. What an honor is this
According to the situation in China where Baidu Cloud Disk and Thunder BT are available for download everywhere, it is an unprecedented first time that genuine DVDs can be sold in such large quantities.
This shows the importance of die-hard fans.
Among the fans who came to watch "The Story of Xiaoba" this time, there must be many fans of "The Gift of Room No. 7"!
Let’s talk about foreign box office.
"The Story of Hachi" had a very strong box office trend in Japan and South Korea, directly occupying the first place in the box office that week, and its advantage is unshakable.
In the same Confucian cultural circle, it talks about "loyalty", a topic that everyone likes. Of course, Japanese and Korean audiences also like it.
Moreover, there are a lot of people keeping pets in these two countries, so it is natural that "The Story of Xiaoba" is popular.
This time, the people who talked to Guo Hang and Yang Shu about advertising endorsements were Japan's largest pet food company and pet supplies company. They had already signed contracts quickly and were eager to start shooting ads.
In Europe and the United States, "The Story of Xiao Ba" is also doing well, with box office sales exceeding 10 million US dollars.
For a film that does not feature any European or American actors and is a literary film, it is already rare to achieve such results in its first weekend.
But it is not "The Story of Xiaoba" that steals the show, but "Joker".
Yes.
This movie, fully invested by Shen Huan, also started to be released in the aftermath of the Berlin Film Festival.
Warner Bros. gave them 2,000 screens. As a result, it grossed 53 million at the box office in the first weekend. It directly topped the box office and became the single-week box office champion in March in North American film history!
The average daily income of a single theater is close to 10,000 US dollars. With only 2,000 screens, it has received a box office of 53 million US dollars. This is amazing!
Not only the box office performance, but also the evaluation of "Joker" is particularly high, with a Rotten Tomatoes freshness score of 98% and a score of 9.5.
This is already the highest-rated movie in the past two years!
"It's so real and so painful! The director and the protagonist are so great! I watched it three times!"
"I used to hate this neurotic idiot, but now I know that the clown has such a bad past!"
"Is it the clown's fault? In the beginning, he loved performing, loved this society, took care of his mother, was willing to help others, and made the children in the orphanage happy! What's wrong with this? It's all because of this cruel society. He was forced into this situation step by step!"
"When I saw the clown, I seemed to see myself, but I could still hold on, so I wasn't as desperate as the clown!"
"Joaquin Phoenix's acting skills are definitely Oscar-winning actor-level. I very much look forward to him winning the next Oscar-winning actor!"
"It's a pleasure to see a movie like this! Big support!!"
“…”
After seeing these reviews, Warner Bros. was overjoyed and immediately arranged an expanded screening for the second week, preparing to maintain around 3,000 screens even on working days.
However, as they were happy, they began to get angry.
the reason is simple.
Because they were deceived when they first negotiated with Todd Phillips!
Todd Phillips, on behalf of Shen Huan's Fengxiang Film and Television, bought the remake rights of the Joker character for US$20 million, plus giving up a share of the box office share of "Joker".
There is nothing wrong with buying the remake rights for 10 million US dollars, it is a normal price.
But the subsequent operation made the people at Warner Bros. heartbroken!
Because they were not optimistic about the prospects of "Joker", their vice president in charge of negotiations, coaxed by Todd Phillips, took a price of 10 million US dollars and gave up the box office profit share of "Joker".
This is the specific use of 20 million US dollars.
Under normal circumstances, "Joker" has to get a box office of 200 million US dollars, and Warner Bros. can get a share of about 10 million US dollars.
There is actually no problem with this.
Even if the box office of "Joker" is now definitely over 200 million, and may reach 400 to 500 million US dollars, it is not a big mistake.
After all, Warner Bros. still has a 12% distribution share, which guarantees that the higher the box office, the greater their profits.
What makes Warner Brothers even more distressed is that Fengxiang Film and Television spent 30 million US dollars to take away 30% of the peripheral copyright rights that should belong to Warner!
This peripheral copyright includes TV broadcast copyright, online broadcast copyright, and more importantly DVD copyright, and copyright for the development of various peripheral products!
If Joker continues to develop like this and gets a box office of 3.5 billion US dollars, according to normal estimates, its income from peripheral rights should also be this amount.
Then Warner Bros.'s arrival will be at least 100 million US dollars!
Selling this interest for a mere US$30 million is simply a shame for the company!
But no matter how big a brand you are at Warner Bros., the contract you sign is a contract, and you won't be allowed to cheat on it.
Warner Bros. can also play tricks on distribution, such as reducing the scale of screenings.
But this also undermines the influence and value of the "Joker" brand owned by Warner Bros.
Thinking of making a lot of money from "Joker" in the future, Warner Brothers simply couldn't bear it.
With no choice, they could only hold their noses and continue with their previous decision - 3,000 screens on weekdays, and then increase to 5,000 screens on weekends, in an effort to get "Joker" more box office!
No matter what, the honor of "Joker" still belongs to Warner Bros.!
This is the only place where they can comfort themselves!