In the first weekend, the global box office was 232 million US dollars in three days, and almost half of the production and publicity costs were recovered. Everyone on the crew of "Iron Man" was in a state of excitement. Firefly Group released its box office data in the new week Immediately afterward, it was announced that a celebration banquet would be held on the weekend.
In addition, although the follow-up publicity work of the film is still going on intensely, the company has quickly launched the well-planned follow-up development plan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The success of "Iron Man" not only opened the door to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also greatly increased the popularity of all the characters who participated in this movie.
Even Natasha Henstridge, who was born in the Victoria's Secret Angels with only a few shots, quickly gathered a group of fans, and "Underworld" starring the girl has become the expectation of many people.
Therefore, as Firefly launched the three major series of "Captain America", "Thor" and "Hulk" at the same time, even if the internal news revealed that Firefly will sign very demanding long-term contracts with superhero actors, the entire Hollywood brokerage company still Played twelve points of the spirit.
Everyone understands that once the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is rolled out, it is destined to attract a large number of brand new Hollywood stars.
According to the firefly system, they like to adopt the style of newcomers, which will be an opportunity for many people to reach the sky in one step.
After two days of intensive discussions at high-level meetings, all work on the follow-up development plan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has begun to be implemented in an orderly manner.
Entering the working day, the single-day box office of "Iron Man" fell to between 6 million and 7 million US dollars. It is expected that the box office will continue to recover around 25 million to 30 million US dollars in four working days, basically in line with the expectations of Firefly Group.
It was already Wednesday in a blink of an eye.
Burbank headquarters.
At nine o'clock, the group's core executives gathered in the large conference room at the headquarters to discuss the implementation progress of the company's other '4200' plan.
It's already May, and there are only six months left before the first big-budget film, Gravity, opens in 3D and IMAX in November.
Since last year, after the Firefly Group has perfected the technical details of 3D and IMAX, it has formally negotiated with theater operators in North America and overseas, and has independently built 200 high-end IMAX theaters that belong exclusively to the Firefly Group.
On the huge projector screen in the conference room, a world map with dense numbers is being projected at this time.
Katzenberg stood in front of the stage and personally introduced to everyone: "Currently, we have completed the negotiations with major North American theater operators on 2,000 3D screens. Overseas, we can also ensure that when "Gravity" is released, About 1,550 3D screens have been put into use in 26 ticket-country countries. Although this aspect has not met the plan's expectations, as long as "Gravity" succeeds at the box office, we can quickly expand overseas 3D screens to 2,000 or even more. In addition, the construction of 200 local and overseas IMAX theaters is going very smoothly. These 200 theaters are expected to complete equipment installation and personnel training in October, and then we have one month to conduct all aspects of debugging and test screenings, which is enough to ensure nothing goes wrong. "
After switching to show another map of the distribution of IMAX theaters in various countries around the world, Katzenberg sat back in his chair and began to introduce the detailed cooperation plan to everyone.
The IMAX theater is operated solely by the Firefly Group and does not require much consideration.
In terms of 3D screens, Firefly Group has finally decided to adopt a guarantee cooperation method with major theater chains in North America and even overseas.
In North America, the 3D movies released by Firefly Group adopt the same sharing model as the traditional 2D movies. But in addition to this, combined with the average annual box office revenue of 2,000 screens that have been renovated in recent years, Firefly Group provides each screen with an annual box office guarantee of US$300,000 for a period of three years.
Within three years, if the annual box office revenue of these 2,000 screens is less than 300,000 US dollars, Firefly Group will make up for it. This part of the compensation does not belong to the box office revenue, and the producers will not participate in the share, which will be shared by the major theater companies alone . If the income of a single screen exceeds 300,000 US dollars, the excess part belongs to the box office share of the theater operators, and Firefly Group will extract 80% of it as the equipment installation cost of the RealD system.
Overseas, although the details of cooperation have been adjusted, they are roughly similar to those in North America.
However, once the 3D projection mode is successful, in order to facilitate the subsequent promotion of the RealD system, Firefly Group also provides theater operators with the option of one-time buyout equipment in the contract.
That is, after "Gravity" and other films are released, if they are successful at the box office, the major theaters are optimistic about the prospects of the 3D projection mode, and they can request to buy out the equipment at one time, and cut off the connection with Firefly.
This can ensure that the initial 3D theaters maintain the same competitive conditions as other newly added 3D projection system theaters, and the number of 3D screens expands rapidly, and Firefly Group can also obtain more benefits from it.
On the surface, this cooperation plan is almost an unequal contract against the Firefly Group. However, this is also the price the company must pay if it wants to promote the 3D projection system in the short term.
Moreover, once the 3D projection system is promoted in advance, Firefly Group, as the main sponsor, will gain industry advantages and direct benefits that can completely offset the risks it bears.
In the preliminary plan, although adjustments will be made flexibly according to factors such as theater grades and broadcast time slots, the average ticket price of 3D theaters is basically determined at $7.5, which is 50% higher than the average ticket price of $5 in North America. Tickets cost $10, twice the North American average.
It’s just this part of the box office premium. As long as the 3D and IMAX models are promoted, the Firefly system, which basically monopolizes the sources of 3D and IMAX films, can get more box office revenue in the short term.
Moreover, while giving theater operators a guaranteed bottom line on box office revenue, Firefly Group has also gained another potential advantage, that is, it has firmly in its hands the power to promote and formulate standards for 3D projection systems.
In the future, all theaters using the RealD projection system will display the RealD logo during movie playback. At the same time, 3D movies produced with Firefly Group's RealD conversion technology will also display another RealD title.
Basically, for a long period of time in the future, since the RealD equipment and technology are in the hands of the Firefly system, all mainstream 3D theaters can only display the icon of "Double D certification".
As the most mature 3D projection system and 3D conversion technology so far, as long as a high-quality brand image is formed in the minds of the audience, then other 3D equipment or conversion manufacturers want to join in the competition for the market share of the RealD system, as long as they do not significantly exceed The technical level of RealD's system is destined to be difficult to succeed.
If some theaters adopt low-quality 3D projection systems, it is tantamount to helping the RealD system promote its brand image. Inferior 3D systems and conversion modes will also be resisted by viewers as 'pseudo-3D'.
Therefore, under the premise that everything goes well, as a monopoly of equipment and technology, the RealD system can not only bring direct and huge profits to the Firefly system, but also provide the films of the Firefly system with the 3D market competition that other studios absolutely cannot. comparative advantage. After all, RealD's conversion technology must give priority to serving the Firefly system.
Meetings on the '4200' program went on all morning.
At lunch time, Eric, Katzenberg and others came to the restaurant on the big ship to have lunch as usual.
Compared with the past, this small restaurant on the big ship does not seem to have changed at all.
But in fact, after the last eavesdropping incident, as the internal restaurant where the group's top executives often dine, the company's security department re-planned strict security measures for this internal restaurant.
Not only is the entire restaurant completely closed to anyone other than the upper management of the group, but a 24-hour monitoring system has been installed inside and outside the restaurant, including the kitchen, and the chef and waiters in charge of this restaurant have also signed a stricter confidentiality agreement. According to the contract, the company's security department will conduct various anti-eavesdropping checks on the inside of the restaurant from time to time.
All the high-level executives who participated in the morning meeting entered the restaurant together, and instead of gathering together, they sat down in twos and threes.
Eric sat with Katzenberg and Frank Wells.
Amy Adams saw Eric's figure and walked over without hesitation. Although the other three waitresses were obviously envious, they didn't dare to argue with Amy, so they could only go to other tables.
"Amy is beautiful again today," Eric praised with a casual smile, and said, "I can just stay the same."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Williams," Amy said with dimples on her face, looking at Katzenberg and Frank Wells: "Mr. Katzenberg, Mr. Wells, how about you?"
Katzenberg laughed: "I'm as good as Eric."
Frank Wells is getting old and just wants a light meal.
The three of them ordered food, and when Amy left, Eric went straight to the topic and said: "The situation with "Iron Man" has been confirmed, but I didn't intend to end the incident a while ago, you let the family entertainment department prepare Let’s start with Blockbuster.”
During this period of time, Eric has shown more than once the meaning of pursuing the last Internet gossip to the end, and neither Katzenberg nor Frank Wells persuaded him anymore.
Among Viacom's Paramount Pictures, CBS Television, MTV Television, Paramount Animation, Blockbuster video rental and sales chain stores and other businesses, Blockbuster is undoubtedly the most vulnerable to the Firefly system.
Over the years, with a deeper understanding of Hollywood, Eric also discovered that the decline of the Blockbuster chain was not affected by the rise of online video rental companies. In fact, although the current Netflix has appeared, it is just that this company is still in the seedling stage, and it cannot have any impact on the traditional video rental and sales giants like Blockbuster.
Moreover, the home entertainment market has actually been growing in size in recent years, even as videotapes have begun to be rapidly replaced by DVDs.
In addition to Blockbuster, other traditional video tape and DVD rental and sales chain stores, such as Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video, which ranks second only to Blockbuster in the same industry, have been expanding rapidly. Large chain retailers like Wal-Mart, which are also involved in the sales of video tapes and DVDs, are also increasing their business layout in this area.
In the final analysis, the root cause of Blockbuster's rapid decline before the rise of online renters is that Viacom itself made a major mistake in its management of Blockbuster.
Therefore, when the entire home entertainment market is booming, Blockbuster, which was originally very powerful, is rapidly declining, and its market share has fallen from the peak of 45% when it was acquired by Viacom to less than 25% now. It also fell rapidly to only 3 billion US dollars left, which is less than half of the original acquisition.
Firefly Group had no intention of getting involved in the traditional video tape and DVD sales business, so Eric didn't bother to study where Blockbuster made a mistake.
However, it is very easy for the Firefly system to push Blockbuster further into the abyss. It only needs to stop providing Blockbuster with the latest movie video tapes and DVD sources.
In this regard, the Firefly system can almost completely block Blockbuster's throat.
After all, just last year, the three companies of the Firefly system accounted for seven of the top ten films on the North American box office list.
At this time, the films released last year have already passed the half-year release window, and are about to hit the home entertainment market one after another.
In fact, more than 70% of the profits of terminal VCR retailers come from medium and low-cost movies with a larger base. Since distributors will ask for higher sales shares for popular movies, these movies provide retailers The profit is less than 30%.
However, the reason why terminal retailers are willing to provide higher sales share for popular films of film companies actually reflects the importance of these films.
To put it simply, a popular movie is like a restaurant's signature dish. Although a few dishes do not bring much profit to the restaurant, they can play a very obvious advertising role for the restaurant.
If the Firefly system cuts off this part of the film source supplied to the Blockbuster chain stores, it will be tantamount to smashing the Blockbuster brand.
In addition, not only popular films, but also the production scale of the entire Firefly system is also very large, and the quality of medium and low-cost films is obviously better than those produced by independent filmmakers. This part of the film source is still crucial to Blockbuster.
In the restaurant, Eric announced his plan. Although there was no objection, Frank Wells said: "Eric, directly cut off the supply of film sources to Blockbuster, not to mention the company's losses, Viacom Tom will never let it go and will definitely file a lawsuit against us."
"Then find a legitimate reason." Eric looked at Katzenberg and said, "This should be easy to find, right?"
What did you say
If you want to add a crime, there is nothing to worry about.
Katzenberg nodded, and said with a serious expression: "Recently Bowei Home Entertainment submitted a report that Blockbuster may have concealed the DVD sales of several movies. Perhaps, we should pay attention to Blockbuster. Before that, the company had better temporarily suspend its cooperation with Blockbuster. I think MGM, Columbia and Fox should also follow up. After all, Blockbuster hides sales The behavior of the data is likely not only aimed at the Firefly Group."
Frank Wells was a little puzzled: "How come I don't know about such a big thing?"
Katzenberg said solemnly: "The document has not been produced yet, and I will show it to you when it is completed."
Frank Wells froze for a moment, then laughed, and said helplessly, "Okay, it's about you young people."