At the end of May, the filming of "Ghost Love" officially closed in Manhattan, New York, and Eric returned to Los Angeles with the main creator of the crew to start the post-production.
At the same time, as North American colleges, middle schools and primary schools began their holidays one after another, the summer vacation of 1990 officially arrived.
On May 25, Universal Pictures' "Back to the Future 3" and Disney's "Back to the Future" released by Buvi International were released in more than 2,000 theaters.
The production of "Back to the Future 3" is quite hasty. After all, "Back to the Future 2" was released at the end of last year. As for the reason, it is almost the same as last year when Columbia restarted the "Ghostbusters" series after five years. Universal's parent company MCA has entered into the final stage of acquisition negotiations with Japan's Matsushita consortium. In order to sell MCA at a good price, Universal Pictures needs better performance support.
Due to time constraints, although this "Back to the Future 3" was produced by Spielberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis, after the film was released, it was criticized by a large number of film critics, even if a large part of the series was hardcore. Supported by movie fans, it still only grossed $19 million in the box office in the first three days of the weekend.
However, if compared with another movie released in the same period, the performance of "Back to the Future 3" can only be described as brilliant.
∵, That is Disney's "Firebird Attack", which is a story about the pilots of the US Apache helicopter unit. Compared with the controversy caused by the quality of the film "Back to the Future 3", after a hot After the publicity, "Firebird Attack" immediately became a dud after its release, without much splash.
The film is so similar to Tom Cruise's $350 million worldwide success that it was occasionally mentioned by critics in newspapers. It also only ends up with the evaluation of "a poor imitation of "Top Gun".
There are also 2,000 movie theaters. "Firebird Attack" only got a pitiful $6 million at the box office. This box office performance has caused complaints from theater managers who signed a two-to-three-week release contract with Disney. After three weeks, this film with an investment of 30 million US dollars will face the fate of the next stage. Disney brought a loss of at least $30 million.
The first shot of Disney's summer vacation turned into a dud. Eric should have been very gloating, but because of the actor of this movie, Eric couldn't be happy at all.
Because of the leading man in this $3,000 movie. It was Nicolas Cage, the male protagonist of Eric's version of "Ghost Love".
On the morning of May 29th, when Eric and the main creators of "Ghost Love" just walked out of the Los Angeles airport, they were blocked by a large group of paparazzi, asking Eric about his views on "Firebird Attack" . Eric got up early in the morning to catch a plane back to Los Angeles. He still didn't know anything about "Firebird Attack", so how could he have any opinions? In addition, the paparazzi issue was full of verbal traps. Eric It was even more impossible to react rashly, so he could only leave silently and hurriedly under the protection of the bodyguards.
But his silence is obviously not a good idea. The next day, the tabloids reported that 'Williams was asked about 'Firebird' with a cold face'. The article started from Eric and talked about Nicolas Cage, and soon turned to "The Love of Ghosts" which is in the late stage.
It just so happened that "Back to the Future 3" had an example of hasty production that led to unsatisfactory box office, and many media began to question the film quality of "Ghost Love".
By the time things were raging, Eric had already left Los Angeles for San Francisco.
After all, this kind of matter can only be handled by Firefly and Disney's publicity department. Eric only needs to let the agent make some statements. I believe that Disney has just experienced a box office failure, and it will certainly not take it lightly in "The Ghost".
Although it is not too far from Los Angeles to San Francisco, it only takes more than an hour by plane, but because he has been busy, Eric has not been here for more than a year, and the last time he came here was for the acquisition of Pixar.
For more than a year, Eric has handed over all the affairs of Pixar to John Lasseter. The two spend most of their time talking on the phone. Even if they need to discuss things in person, it is John Lasseter. special to Los Angeles.
Because of Eric's unhesitating capital injection, Pixar is no longer the shabby animation studio shrunk in a small building in Richmond, San Francisco Bay more than a year ago.
At this time, Pixar's headquarters had moved to a small town called Emeryville near Berkeley, and the number of employees had increased to more than 300, and the team of engineers dedicated to providing technical support for 3D animation production exceeded 100 people. At the scale of Pixar at that time, it is not an exaggeration to describe the current team as extravagant.
"John, compared to Jobs, my boss is like an angel, isn't he?" After hugging John Lasseter who came out of the Pixar office building to greet him, Eric said so in the first sentence.
"Of course, Eric, let's go in." John Lasseter knew that Eric was joking with himself, and after shaking hands with Alan and Joanna who were behind Eric, John Lasseter said : "Of course, Eric, let's go in."
Eric followed John Lasseter into the office building, pretending to be unhappy and said: "But, I only promised to invest 30 million in "Toy Story", but now, the money you spent is close to 30 million But I didn’t even see the shadow of the cartoon.”
Even though John Lasseter knew that Eric was not blaming him, he was still a little embarrassed. The first part of "Toy Story" in his previous life was completed under extremely difficult circumstances, so the cost was only 30 million US dollars, and many details It's all pretty rough.
And with Eric's ample financial backing, John Lasseter's perfectionist tendencies as an artist played a role, and budget overruns were almost a certainty.
Therefore, the animation is only two-thirds completed, but the cost is close to 30 million US dollars. Fortunately, John Lasseter is not like Cameron, who is not as reckless as Cameron. After all, he does not have 100% knowledge of 3D animation. Confidence, in order to minimize the impact and loss that may be caused by failure in the future, John Lasseter spends funds very sparingly.
In the previous life, because of the success of the first part of "Toy Story", the cost of the second part directly soared to 100 million US dollars, and the cost of the third part was even as high as 200 million. It can be seen that in the pursuit of perfection, as the director, John Lasseter is in the same category as James Cameron, he's just not as crazy as Cameron. (To be continued..)