At noon, Firefly Studios.
Eric and Robert Byron, the special effects supervisor of "Gravity", came out of the studio in the digital field together. They planned to have lunch together. Byron left and came to his office in the studio.
Pushing open the office door, I saw Elizabeth in a professional suit sitting on the leather chair behind her desk, holding a document and blatantly flipping through it.
Eric walked over, reached out with a smile and took the information in Elizabeth's hand, leaned against the edge of the table and joked: "Even if you are angry with your father, you don't have to move the office to me, do you? Your movie theater is as big as yours. "
Hearing which pot was not opened by Eric and which pot was lifted, Elizabeth immediately sullenly. She ran to New York for a week, but she still couldn't stop a certain strange woman from working on the Fox TV network.
"They said they were going to hand over Fox's business to me, huh, pretend I don't know, control freak," complained angrily, Elizabeth raised her eyes and glared at Eric again: "You are also a control freak , you men are all control freaks."
"You finally understand this cruel fact." Eric pulled the leather chair in front of him, leaned over and kissed the girl's face, and said with a smile, "Are you disappointed with the world now and want to take revenge on society? "
Elizabeth tilted her head, opened her mouth to bite one of Eric's fingers, and bared her little white teeth threateningly.
Eric didn't retreat but advanced without any fear, and stretched out another finger.
The girl who realized Eric's plan quickly let go of his fingers, and said twice before she said aggrievedly: "You hateful guy, you also bullied me."
"Okay, don't be angry anymore," Eric took out a tissue from the grid under the desk and wiped his hands, then said with a smile, "Are you hungry, let's go eat first?"
Elizabeth shook her head and said angrily, "I'm not hungry. I'm going to go on a diet for a day. You can accompany me."
Eric was very moved and encouraged: "Why don't you go on a diet for a week, write your will first, and remember to leave the hilltop villa to me, and the one in Trousdale Manor will be given to Julia. "
Elizabeth rolled her big eyes: "You have a good idea."
Seeing that her little flame was almost extinguished, Eric said, "Why don't you go out to eat?"
"I'm really not hungry now, wait a minute," Elizabeth shrank back into the leather chair, raised her chin and gestured to the computer screen on the desktop: "So, you and Julia are going to bet me on this?"
Eric turned his head and glanced, only to find that the lit computer screen displayed the theme website of "The Blair Witch".
The small operation team of "The Blair Witch" is still very capable, coupled with the resource support of Firefly, it took only three days to create the theme website of the film.
A few days ago, I gave a brief explanation of the operation of viral marketing to the small team, and Eric didn't put too much thought on it.
For this pseudo-documentary that once created a miracle at the box office, Eric is more concerned with the mentality of cutting off the bullshit and playing tricks. If it succeeds, everyone will be happy, and it doesn't matter if it fails. After all, the Firefly system has grown to its current scale and can only go further if it is operated in an upright manner. Too much pursuit of these tricks will not be worth the candle.
Moreover, if according to the past historical development, this film is bought and successfully operated by Artisan Company, it will earn 140 million US dollars at the box office in North America alone.
In fact, the number of movie viewers in North America each year has always been very fixed. In recent years, the North American box office has just exceeded the 7 billion US dollar mark due to rising ticket prices. The box office of 140 million US dollars is equivalent to one-fiftieth of the total box office in North America. If this money is taken away by artisans, other Hollywood film companies will naturally lose 140 million US dollars in revenue. According to the market share of the Firefly system, this is tantamount to stealing money from Firefly, and Eric is naturally unwilling.
Of course, Eric wants to replicate the previous marketing model of "The Blair Witch", and he also has other intentions: "This is a marketing experiment, and I want to show the industry the powerful communication capabilities of the Internet channel. You know, many traditional Advertisers are still full of doubts about the effect of Internet advertising, if this thing can be successful, I think more people will recognize the Internet advertising platform.”
"I just read the information on this website, and if I didn't know in advance that everything is fake, I would have believed it," Elizabeth said, "However, do you really think this movie can sell 100 million dollars at the box office, Judas?" Leah told me it sucked."
"Maybe, Hollywood is never short of miracles."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, and said slyly, "In this case, I will follow up with the bet. If you lose, you will help Fox make a movie."
"What if I win?"
"Then I'll help Firefly make a movie."
"Are you sure you can make a movie?"
"Of course," Elizabeth raised her chin proudly, "I'm a serious media graduate, unlike some people who never went to college."
Eric shrugged indifferently, and said with a smile: "Okay, but you have to know that in Hollywood, everyone is uneducated, and only those who have gone to college are despised."
"Ah bah, you guys are jealous," Elizabeth slapped Eric lightly, and continued to turn to the topic of "The Blair Witch", saying: "Also, this movie, what happened in the real world Come to publicize, once it is exposed, it should be very troublesome, right?"
"Yeah," Eric said: "So, before the release, the company will definitely declare in advance that this is just a movie marketing."
Eric also thought about this issue.
In the past, Artisan Film Company was just a small company, playing tricks on everyone by pretending to be fake. Later, the media also focused on the box office miracle created by "The Blair Witch", and no one pursued Artisan Company. It is a deceptive marketing tactic.
Artisan can do this, but Firefly cannot.
This is actually one of the reasons why Eric didn't expect too much from "The Blair Witch" to replicate its previous box office success.
Firefly's goal is too big. Once "The Blair Witch" succeeds again at the box office and the company doesn't clarify in advance, it will definitely be caught by countless people. In a social environment like North America where being stared at a few times can lead to a lawsuit, Firefly will definitely face a series of lawsuits.
Elizabeth asked again: "Then when do you plan to release it?"
"It depends on the situation," Eric thought for a while, and said, "It's enough to brew such a topic for about a month. If it takes too long, the audience's curiosity will cool down. Maybe it will be in March."
Since it's just for fun, Eric will definitely not put "The Blair Witch" in a popular schedule such as summer.
After chatting for a few words, Eric stretched out his hand and pulled Elizabeth up from the chair, saying, "Let's go to Venice Beach."
Elizabeth no longer refused, walked out of the office holding Eric's arm, and said, "By the way, are you going to the Golden Globe ceremony tomorrow night?"
Eric shook his head directly: "No."
In the past year, Hollywood's box office achievements in commercial films have been brilliant, not only "Charlie's Angels 3", "Mission: Impossible 3", "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" and other global 1 billion level The super blockbuster, and there are box office dark horses such as "Midnight Ring".
In comparison, Hollywood's art film market last year seemed bleak, which also created the most mediocre awards year in recent years.
This awards season, the two seemingly popular films, whether it is "The Horse Whisperer" or "Elizabeth", are far from the previous years "Forrest Gump", "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Rui" En" and other films seem to be popular.
Eric didn't even have any interest in this year's Oscars, so he didn't even bother to join in the excitement of the Golden Globes.
Unsurprisingly, under the strong public relations of Miramax, "The Horse Whisperer" easily won most of the nominations for the Golden Globe Awards on the second day, and only Cate Blanchett from the "Elizabeth" crew successfully won A Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series, this is because "The Horse Whisperer" did not compete with Blanchett for this award.
In the list of Oscar nominations announced later, "The Horse Whisperer" also led this year's Oscars with 10 nominations.
This year's Golden Globe Awards will be held on January 29, followed by January 31, the 33rd Super Bowl Finals will be held in Miami, Florida, which is also the first time after the FOX TV network has won the Super Bowl tickets. Second broadcast.
The biggest highlight of this Super Bowl commercial is undoubtedly the series of advertisements for new technology companies. Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, Intel and other mainstream new technology companies have appeared one after another. The density seems to be that people are already in the Internet age.
However, among them, the trailer of "Iron Man" still attracted a lot of attention.
Naturally, the 30-second Super Bowl commercial cannot hold too much information. Apart from the glimpse of the Iron Man armor, the audience is undoubtedly talking about Eric, the Tony Stark actor.
Although after makeup, Tony Stark with dark chestnut hair and a beard in the film and Eric in reality look completely different, and their temperaments are also very different, but many people still can't help but frantically discussing the inside and outside of the scene. All sorts of things these two characters have in common. Of course, as the richest super-rich man in North America and even the entire world, Eric himself played the leading role in a movie, which has also become the focus of controversy among many people.
In just a few days, various related topics on the Internet occupied the hot topic list of the portal website.
In the next few days, Firefly Group also officially launched the first TV trailer of "Iron Man" on major TV networks, heralding the arrival of large-scale publicity in the final stage before the film's release. Some of the main creators and supporting roles of the film also began to appear sporadically in some TV talk shows, warming up for the release in three months.
At the same time that "Iron Man" began its regular film promotion, rumors about several college students in Maryland who mysteriously disappeared after visiting the Blair Witch also spread unknowingly on the Internet.
The biggest premise of viral marketing is a topic that attracts enough attention and an interactive network that is enough to spread this topic.
The step-by-step ordinary life of the middle class in North America and their natural desire for adventures made them involuntarily have a strong curiosity about the "missing" college students, which satisfies the premise of the eyeball effect of viral marketing.
On the other hand, as the country with the highest Internet penetration rate in the world, when people in many other regions do not know what a personal computer is, the Internet penetration rate in North America has already caught up with TV sets and VCRs. In 1998, the global PC sales reached More than 93 million units, of which seven CDs are concentrated in North America.
At the end of last year, the number of Internet users in North America had exceeded the 100 million mark, equivalent to one-third of the total population of North America. The user base of more than 100 million also gave the Blair Witch incident a sufficient foundation of popularity.
The two key elements are in place, and all insiders have re-signed a complete non-disclosure agreement, and no one jumped out to expose the truth during the process, so the rumors of the Blair Witch gradually evolved into an internet viral storm .
While publishing detailed background information on the story, the "Blair Witch" theme website also continues to release a variety of information about the search and rescue information of the local garrison in Maryland, records of insiders, follow-up progress, etc., all of which are false and true. curiosity.
In just one week, curious explorers have already gathered in the small town of Bookersville, Maryland, where the story of "The Blair Witch" was filmed, to inquire about news related to the Blair Witch from the bewildered town residents.
As this incident intensified, the local government in Maryland even had to come forward to refute the rumors. However, the North American people who have been surrounded by various conspiracy theories since childhood will naturally not believe the government's official explanation, and the incident is still rapidly fermenting.
Seeing that this matter was developing faster than he had imagined, Eric quickly decided to set the release date of "The Blair Witch" on March 5th.
However, in order to be cautious, Eric only arranged 200 opening screens for this film. In any case, according to the current development, even if the facts are clarified to the public before the release, most people are not interested in this topic. With a big discount, if you want to come to Firefly, you can make a small profit.
Then again, although it is only 200 yuan for the opening screen, in fact, compared with the original space-time artisan company that was only able to raise more than 20 theaters for "The Blair Witch" in the first week, 200 screens are undoubtedly It is already a big deal, which actually shows the deep-rooted background of big Hollywood companies.
Since it is a young year for the Oscars, February in Hollywood, which should have been very lively, seems much deserted this year.
Eric continued the post-production work on "Gravity" step by step. At the same time, in late February, in order to complete the transfer of the 3.1% shares of AOL and Clover Fund, Eric took the time to fly to New York again.
On February 16, after less than half a year of negotiations, AOL and Time Warner finally reached a preliminary merger draft. As long as they take back the AOL shares directly held by Firefly Group, the two parties will officially announce the merger news and will merge The case is submitted to the Federal Trade Commission for review.