Peter Rich thought for a while, and said: "Other Hollywood film companies don't publicly express their views on this, but Universal has publicly stated this morning that it will hold a celebration banquet for "Professor Fatty" this weekend. Things have been very active, after all it is the first time in three years that we have lost control of the June schedule."
Starting with "Jurassic Park" in 1993, Firefly has almost firmly held the most popular monthly schedule in June in North America with its fixed summer vacation trilogy strategy. During this period, there are almost no films produced by other film companies. Has won any weekly box office champion.
Because of the continuous strong box office performance of Firefly's summer films, Hollywood has even regarded the June schedule as Firefly's "private land", and several other major film companies will almost subconsciously transfer their main films from the June schedule.
But this year, because "Titanic" and the 3D animation films that Firefly is good at are both absent from the summer schedule, Firefly only has two major releases. golden period.
Although one of Firefly's films was absent, the strength of Firefly in the past few years has left a deep shadow on other film companies. Therefore, it is conceivable that when Universal's black comedy "Professor Fat" accidentally overwhelmed Firefly's "Into the Deadly Island" to win the summer box office in June, the executives of several major Hollywood film companies would be happy. Although they will not rashly express their views publicly, but with the close connection between Hollywood and the media, these people will definitely express the remaining depression accumulated in recent years through media channels.
With the media's character of adapting to the wind, Eric can almost imagine how lively the entertainment news in local American newspapers will be in recent days.
Eric didn't particularly care about this, just like the conversation between Katzenberg and Frank Wells in Los Angeles a few days ago. On the one hand, Firefly is not a listed company, and Eric owns the company's Absolute controlling stake, no need to worry about challenges from the capital market and shareholders. On the other hand, with its strong financial strength, the capital chain of Firefly's film production and distribution system is completely self-sufficient and does not need to rely on external financing. Therefore, this situation where the movie box office does not meet expectations will not have any substantial impact on Firefly. At most, the annual movie business revenue will shrink compared with the past. Ups and downs are almost unavoidable for any big film company. What happened to Firefly at this time is actually not a bad thing at all. At least, it can let Hollywood colleagues who have been suppressed for several years breathe a sigh of relief and reduce some of their expectations. The hostility and wariness of fireflies.
After talking with Peter Rich for a while, Eric signed the necessary documents and sent his assistant to leave.
Leaving the study room and going downstairs to the living room, Miranda saw Eric coming down the stairs, and immediately stood up to greet him. A white woman who was originally sitting on the single sofa next to her also stood up. The woman was wearing a white blouse and black Knee-length skirt, about 1.7 meters tall, brown hair, average appearance, but a touch of shrewdness in his eyes.
"Eric, this is Claire Weitzman," Miranda introduced, holding Eric's arm affectionately.
Eric nodded to signal the other party to sit down again, and asked, "Are you an intern at ICM?"
"Yes, Mr. Williams, I dropped out of USC last year and just entered ICM for a year."
Nearly 50% of American college students drop out of school. Claire said frankly that Eric was not surprised. He just guessed from the school Claire attended that she might be a child of ICM executives. USC is a well-known son of rich people in North America. School, Claire was sent to serve as Miranda's assistant, and it was definitely not a pure accident. After all, the ICM executives must know that through Miranda, they can get the opportunity to contact themselves. This is probably the network that any agent dreams of. resource.
Eric didn't bother to pay attention to the twists and turns, and said: "Miranda has nothing to do here, you can accompany her to Florida, and then return to Los Angeles."
Claire smiled and nodded, "Of course, Mr. Williams, this is my job."
Miranda, who was next to Eric, showed a happy expression on her face, and then turned pitiful again, shaking Eric's arm lightly, and said: "Eric, I, I can't even meet you now. Airfare to Los Angeles can’t afford it.”
Eric smiled and stretched out his hand to pinch the girl's pitiful face, took out his wallet, and wanted to write a check to the girl, but Miranda had already crawled over curiously like a kitten, looking into Eric's wallet.
"Wow, this, black, black, I've heard of it, Eric, can I use this black credit card?"
Although the famous American Express Black Gold Card was not issued until 1999, in fact, the top credit cards of many banks are black.
Eric is not a collector, and there are only three or four credit cards of major American banks in his wallet. Seeing the girl poking her head with a heartbeat, Eric smiled, inserted the pen back, and took out the Citigroup black card and handed it to the girl. To the girl, said: "Hey, don't mess around, play for a while and go back to Los Angeles obediently."
"I know," Miranda accepted the credit card with a face full of joy, pursed her pink lips and kissed it, realizing that something was wrong, she quickly put her arms around Eric's neck and kissed him on the face, Said: "Eric, you are really a good person."
Eric's forehead was full of black lines. He didn't expect that his infinite black card would be replaced by a good person card. What a loss.
Reaching out to hug Miranda who was almost riding on his legs, Eric said, "Go to Peter and ask him to call my accountant for authorization. Also, don't praise people like this in the future."
After dismissing the haunting goblins, Eric continued to work on "Casino Royale".
However, in Hollywood, the media discussion caused by the box office failure of "Into the Deadly Island" did not pass away slowly due to the passage of time, but became the beginning of a storm.
After the news that "Into the Deadly Island" lost to "Professor Fatty" at the box office in the first weekend, most of the media in North America can be described as ebullient. After occupying the June schedule for three years, the news of the first "failure" at the box office is a big news after all. In order to gain attention, or the forces behind really want to celebrate, in short, most of the media showed a gloating attitude towards the news of the box office failure of "Brave to the Deadly Island".
After such a noisy week, on June 21, the heavyweight film "The Mummy 2" produced by Universal for two years was officially launched on more than 3,300 screens in the United States. At the same time, the first Hollywood movie star with a salary of 20 million US dollars produced by Sony was released. "Kingsman" starring Jim Carrey.
Relying on the accumulated popularity and overwhelming publicity of the previous work, "The Mummy 2" has gained a box office of 84.29 million US dollars in North America in just one week with a strong momentum. The best opening score of all screened films.
At the same time, "Into the Deadly Island" was just as expected by Firefly. Although there are not many young audiences, but because of the excellent film quality, the box office fell by only 23% the next week, and it once again earned 32.17 million US dollars at the box office, ranking first in the weekly box office. No. 2 on the box office charts.
The box office of "Kingsman", which Sony placed high hopes on, was far lower than the industry's expectations. In the first week, it was released on more than 2,600 screens and only received US$29.96 million at the box office, ranking third because of Jim Carrey's US$20 million salary. The production budget of the film has been greatly increased, and the total cost of the film has reached 60 million US dollars. However, judging from the sluggish reputation of the film, Jim Carrey's first film after getting rid of the original contract may also be his role. After the leading actor in the film, it is the first film whose box office in North America is hard to break through 100 million.
The subsequent "Fatty Professor" also suffered a 39% box office drop as expected, with a weekly box office of 27.45 million US dollars, ranking fourth.
The box office of "The Matrix" fell by 46% in the fourth week of its release, and it squeezed into the fifth place in the weekly box office with a weekly box office of 20.18 million US dollars. At the same time, after four weeks of release, the North American box office of "The Matrix" easily exceeded 200 million US dollars , reaching the position of 200.54 million US dollars.
Because of the inherent deficiencies of "Brave to the Deadly Island", although it showed its due strength in the next week, the total box office of this film will only be fixed in the range of about 130 million US dollars in the end.
Therefore, although the box office of "The Matrix" exceeded 200 million US dollars in four weeks, the media still did not miss the opportunity to tease Firefly, but compared Firefly's box office performance this year with last year.
Firefly's three films last summer, "Jurassic Park 2," "Independence Day," and "Toy Story 2," earned a total of more than $811 million at the North American box office alone. In the past few years, the box office of Firefly's summer holidays has also remained at this level.
But this year, everything seems to have taken a nosedive.
Although the box office of "The Matrix" exceeded 200 million U.S. dollars, the expected box office of "Into the Deadly Island" is also destined to bring good profits to Firefly in the later stage.
However, judging from the expected box office of "The Matrix" at 240 million and "Into the Deadly Island" with an expected box office of 130 million, the total box office of these two films this summer is only 370 million, compared to last year's summer of 811 million. , Firefly's box office performance this year has fallen sharply by 54%.
Heavyweight films have always had a locomotive effect in big film companies, because "The Matrix" and "Into the Deadly Island" are not motivated enough. It is conceivable that in the next year, Firefly's various profit data will also increase compared to last year. It has shrunk by more than 50%, and coupled with the expected loss caused by "Titanic", which is almost going to follow in the footsteps of "Future Water World", Firefly will be able to achieve an annual operating profit of more than 2 billion US dollars this year, as it did last year. is an unknown.
Even some media who are more pessimistic about Firefly regard the box office failure of Firefly this summer as a signal that Firefly is bound to decline.
In this case, in the last week of June, "Pocahontas" released by Paramount once again gave Firefly a perfect supplement.
On June 28, Paramount Pictures acquired Disney's hand-drawn animation studio from Firefly for US$2.5 billion, which is now Paramount Animation. edge".
Although the production cost of this 2D animation film has almost doubled compared to the time of Firefly, because Paramount Animation is determined to give the old club a "perfect revenge", several heads of the studio have expressed their gratitude for this. A lot of energy has been put into this cartoon, and the film quality of "Pocahontas" is much better than that of the original time and space. The box office of the film in the early stage of the film has reached a total of 5.9 million US dollars.
Although "Pocahontas" failed to replicate the $66 million box office miracle of "The Lion King" in the first week, its first week of $51 million and a cumulative box office of $56.9 million still exceeded the expectations of most box office agencies. It even overturned the extremely strong "Mummy 2" in the first week of its release. The box office of "The Mummy 2" fell by 49% in the second week, and the cumulative box office was only 41.72 million US dollars.
As we all know, the box office curve of animated movies has always been good at going long-term. The box office of "Pocahontas" reached 51 million U.S. dollars in the first week. As long as the box office decline is kept within 30% in the next few weeks, the total box office can even reach 200 million U.S. dollars. close. Subsequently, "Pocahontas"'s 26% box office drop in the following week confirmed this beyond any doubt.
Under such circumstances, everyone completely ignored "Death is Coming" released by Firefly's New Line Film Company on the same week as "Pocahontas". It got more than 13 million US dollars in the box office in the first week, and the drop in the second week was only 24%. The cumulative box office may even be close to 60 million US dollars. Based on its cost of 20 million US dollars, plus overseas box office, "Death is Coming" There is no doubt that it is another blockbuster movie under New Line this year after "Seven Deadly Sins".
Of course, most of these media are selectively ignoring, because of the success of "Pocahontas" at the box office, the media began to shift the blame, pointing directly at Firefly's abandonment of hand-painted animation.
Firefly sold the hand-painted animation studio in the first place and only a few people know about it. Of course, Firefly cannot explain it at this time.
Seeing that the outside world is getting more and more lively, the group has to start a public opinion counterattack.
It just so happened that the box office of "The Matrix" exceeded 200 million US dollars, which is worth celebrating. In order to make this film a higher box office in North America, Firefly arranged for the Wachowski brothers to appear on the talk show of ABC TV.
But this talk show really brought trouble to Firefly. (To be continued.)