The length of "Dances with Wolves" is 236 minutes, which is nearly four hours. It is definitely not enough to finish watching in one morning. Eric watched the first two hours together with Fox's distribution director and several well-known film critics in the industry. After lunch, I read the next two hours.
Eric hadn't seen this movie in his previous life, but he briefly read the published original work during the investigation. Watching this four-hour movie at this time, Eric is not like Fox's release Like the filmmakers, when watching a movie, they will subconsciously think about what kind of distribution strategy the movie should use, where to promote it, and so on.
Because he devoted himself to the plot wholeheartedly, Eric watched it with relish like those invited film critics.
Traditional westerns often promote the heroism of white supremacy, and the plot is usually the resistance and conquest of white people under the oppression of local evil forces during the pioneering process.
But "Dances with Wolves" is completely the opposite.
The protagonist of the film, Lieutenant Dunbar, chose to commit suicide because of his disability and confusion about the war during the war. After being rescued, he was mistakenly regarded as a hero. , It is also doomed to the unusual reasoning of the tone of the film, which laid the groundwork for Lieutenant Dunbar's "big ⊕, rebellious" behavior of taking refuge in the Indians at the end of the film.
After recovering from his injuries, Lieutenant Dunbar was sent to a remote outpost on the border with Indian settlements, expecting to lead a quiet and peaceful life.
But a horse-stealing act by several children of the nearby Sioux tribe connected Lieutenant Dunbar with the Indian tribe. Then, Lieutenant Dunbar accidentally rescued Standing Punch Dancer. Send it back to the Sioux tribe. Contact between the two parties began. After repeated trials, repeated interactions, and jerky exchanges, the two sides finally established a sincere friendship as time went by. Lieutenant Dunbar also fell in love with and combined with a white woman who was living in the Sioux tribe.
The director used a lot of detailed descriptions in this process, but these seemingly plain shots did not make people feel lengthy at all. Instead, they often smiled knowingly because of the jerky interaction between the two parties when they did not understand each other.
After marrying Standing Punch. Lieutenant Dunbar was about to completely move to the Sioux tribe. When he returned to the post to collect his luggage, he found that a group of soldiers had been stationed there again.
After noticing the appearance of Lieutenant Dunbar dressed as an Indian, the group of white soldiers shot him indiscriminately. The proud white soldiers in their bones ignored Lieutenant Dunbar's defense of the Sioux and instead shot him. He was beaten as a traitor and escorted to a nearby fortress for trial.
During the escort, the Sioux killed the group of soldiers and rescued Lieutenant Dunbar.
Frustrated with white brutality and arrogance, Lieutenant Dunbar completely changed his name to 'Dances with Wolves'. Announced a break with the white world, but in order not to hurt the Sioux. Lieutenant Dunbar also reluctantly left the tribe with the standing fist dance.
All good movies have one characteristic, that is, people will finish watching them unconsciously, even if they are four hours long. And bad movies, even if they are only 90 minutes long, often give people an urge to leave early.
The style of "Dances with Wolves" is simple and fresh, the camera is unpretentious, the details are rich and infectious, and people sink into it unconsciously.
Whether it is the current or future Internet era, Oscars are greatly influenced by film critics. If a film that is highly praised by film critics does not even get an Oscar nomination, then the credibility of Oscars will definitely be questioned. Therefore, before voting, the Oscar jury often uses the word-of-mouth of the nominated film among film critics as an important basis.
Therefore, if any movie wants to hit the Oscars, the first thing to do is public relations with film critics.
After the screening, almost all the film critics who were invited spoke highly of the film, and they were sent away. Several executives from Fox’s distribution department had another brief meeting. Carl Tacai started negotiating with Eric about the release details of "Dances with Wolves".
"Eric, although the film critics gave this film a high evaluation just now, the length of time is the biggest flaw after all. Many theaters are reluctant to show such a long film. So we roughly discussed two plans. One is to be released during Easter next year, so that Fox can arrange 1,500 screens, and if the box office trend is good, it can be increased. box office potential of the movie."
Although this movie won the best picture and best director in memory, Eric really does not know how the box office of this movie is, but Oscar has not become a niche market. Looking back at the best Oscars in recent years Films such as "Driving Miss Daisy", "Rain Man" and "Platoon" have all achieved very high box office in North America.
Therefore, "Dances with Wolves" is definitely right to follow the typical distribution strategy of the Olympic film. At worst, after winning the best film, it can also earn more profits through the video tape revenue. And if it is released on Easter next year, although it can get more canvasses, by the end of the year when the Oscars public relations, "Dances with Wolves" will still have a strong reputation, and its influence and publicity will definitely not be as good as those movies released at the end of the year. , Even if you can still win the Oscar, you will definitely not be able to enjoy the box office rebound bonus after the Oscar.
Therefore, Eric shook his head directly and said, "Karta, let's talk about the second option."
"The second is to release the film at the end of next year according to the strategy of the Olympic film, but if this is the case, your investment will be held down for another year. I heard that Liz spent 3,000 yuan to win this film. Ten thousand… "
As Karta talked, thinking of Eric's current net worth, he smiled and shook his head: "Well, you definitely don't care about the money, so let's talk about the second option, and release the movie at the end of next year." , but they can’t adopt Orion’s original hairstyle strategy. They put the release time on November 9th, which feels like nonsense. Oh, Orion’s releases have always been messy. But it’s okay to think about Orion’s current situation I understand that they have been losing money in the past few years, so they are unwilling to miss any profit opportunities, but they want to hit the Oscars, but they don’t want to give up the two-month holiday ticket warehouse, which seems too greedy, and they don’t think about holidays. The competition for the film is so fierce, if the film’s release time can’t even survive the two-month holiday, how can it enjoy the box office bonus after the Oscars.” (To be continued..)