Entering July, "Charlie's Angels 2" was highly anticipated and released on July 5. As the most popular female action movie in recent years, "Charlie's Angels 2" earned more than 71 million US dollars at the box office in the first week. At the same time, films such as "Pocahontas" and "The Mummy 2" continue to reap the box office in the North American film market, and the two sequels of "Men in Black" and "Jumanji" that will be released in the next few weeks will also All ready to go.
In addition to the "Mummy" series, in the eyes of many people, whether it is Paramount Animation's "Pocahontas" or MGM Pictures' "Charlie's Angels" series, or Sony Pictures' "Men in Black", "Game of the Brave" should have been in Firefly's bag. But at this time, these films are capturing territory for several other major film companies, while Firefly's "The Matrix" and "Into the Deadly Island" this year have already begun to enter the final stage.
As a result, these factors have almost become the place where the media ridiculed Firefly's business strategy mistakes, especially Paramount Animation Studios.
Although Firefly sold the hand-painted animation studio for a huge sum of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, judging from the current commercial prospects of "Pocahontas", as long as Paramount Animation maintains such production in the next few animated films level, Viacom will not only be able to recover all investment costs within the next ten years, but also rely on the collaboration between Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon, Blockbuster chain stores and other companies in the Viacom system, Viacom Mu can also create a 2D animation industry chain that can compete with Firefly's 3D animation film, which has the most fatal impact on Firefly.
Because before this, due to factors such as the difficulty of training animation film teams and the long investment cycle, the Hollywood animation film industry was almost monopolized by Firefly's Disney, and Firefly almost took the initiative to cut out a large part of the high-profit industry that was originally monopolized by itself. A piece of cake for Viacom.
So far, only a few people know the inside story of the sale of Disney's hand-drawn animation studio, and Firefly has no way to refute it at this time.
Moreover, if it is just these remarks criticizing Firefly, although it is annoying, it will not cause any substantial harm to Firefly. The public relations department estimates that the media will be noisy for a while. Things are interesting, and the topic naturally cools down.
But immediately after "The Matrix" North American box office exceeded 200 million, the Wachowski brothers appeared on the "David Late Show" section of ABC TV station. The brothers landed on this talk show, mainly for the later stage of "The Matrix" to promote , I hope that the box office of the film will last longer in the next few weeks. Although the two have become famous, they are the kind of people who like to keep a low profile. Frank Wells personally called the two and arranged this talk show.
It's just that the Wachowski brothers inadvertently talked about the news that the film's follow-up script was rejected by the company and they are rewriting the script in the interview. Firefly didn't show much sensitivity to the topic either.
But perhaps it is because the news about fireflies is always easy to hit the headlines in the recent period. A large number of media people only focus on the recent people and things related to fireflies. This news has naturally been noticed by interested people.
After attending the interview, the Wachowski brothers just returned to Chicago, where the two lived for a long time. A paparazzi who had stayed with the two for a long time entangled the two brothers. After several days of entanglement, and because Andy Wachowski came out of the bar that day , just drank some wine, drunk hazy, and finally the paparazzi flickered and took it back to the bar again for an 'exclusive interview'.
Although referring to the original novel idea released by Eric in advance, the brothers have always regarded the script of the trilogy as their own painstaking effort. Since the script was completely rejected by Eric, the brothers have been quite depressed recently, and Andy Wachowski poured out a lot of bitterness to the excited paparazzi in a daze.
So, the next day, Chicago's most influential "Chicago Sun" published a related article.
“…The Matrix is without a doubt the best sci-fi film of recent years. Although adapted from the original book by Eric Williams, the Wachowski brothers, director and screenwriter, have added a lot of philosophical grounds to the film. This also allows the film to be further sublimated on the basis of Eric Williams' original pure science fiction, greatly increasing the film's viewability and connotation."
"... However, according to our special reporter Bob Johns' interview with "The Matrix" director Andy Wachowski, we have a very regrettable news. In the process of Rick Williams's original work, a complete trilogy series was conceived from the beginning, but after the success of the first part, the scripts of the follow-up two were completely rejected by the top of Firefly. Andy Wazhuo Sky revealed that Firefly executives believed that the sequel script was too profound and did not meet the requirements of commercial films. Therefore, Firefly not only rejected the Wachowski brothers' request for joint production of the two sequels, but also asked the brothers to completely overthrow the script and re-exclude the deep script. Philosophical connotation, returning to the commercial film with popcorn temperament."
"...As we all know, although Firefly suffered its first film performance Waterloo since its establishment this year, we have to admit that in recent years, the Firefly Group has achieved commercial achievements in the film business that are enough for all other peers to look up to. But at the same time, we also I see that Firefly has done almost nothing in the field of art films other than commercial films in recent years. We have always believed that while a film is chasing commercial profits, it also shoulders the obligation to convey certain spiritual connotations. Therefore , Firefly's behavior of giving up connotation in pursuit of business is undoubtedly very undesirable."
"...Let's not talk about other things, let's take "The Matrix" as an example. In just over a month after its release, this film, because of the perfect fusion of sci-fi and philosophy, has been widely acclaimed and quickly gathered a lot of attention. A large number of diehard movie fans. It is conceivable that once the sequel of "The Matrix" completely abandons the distinctive personal characteristics of the Wachowski brothers and returns to the essence of the Firefly popcorn commercial film, then, but we waited with great anticipation for several years, we will welcome again It will, no doubt, be a huge disappointment."
Clearly, this report must have misinterpreted Andy Wachowski's words to a large extent. Eric's original request was only to let the two brothers rewrite a complete process story, and did not let them give up their personal style.
On the day the Chicago Sun-Times published the article, the Wachowski brothers' agent publicly clarified to the media that Firefly had no intention of asking the brothers to make The Matrix a pure popcorn movie. , this interview is just the result of the paparazzi named Bob Johns' verbal inducement to a drunk Andy Wachowski.
It's just that the media and movie fans obviously don't believe the clarification made by the Wachowski brothers' agent. Some people who think they know the inside of the industry are even more judgmental. This is a statement issued by the Wachowski brothers under the strong pressure of Firefly.
As a result, this article was quickly reposted in just a few days, and its influence not only expanded.
In less than a week, almost all Americans who pay a little attention to entertainment information knew about it.
The real fans of "The Matrix" were even more outraged. The incident fermented into the second week, and a large number of fans began to gather outside Firefly headquarters in Burbank and Firefly Studios in Playa Vista, holding signs like 'We don't want Popcorn movie, we want "The Matrix"' slogan, asking Firefly executives to abandon the decision to let the Wachowski brothers revise the script and follow the original script to shoot.
If it's just all kinds of attacks and ridicules from the media, Firefly can certainly ignore them, but the company has to be cautious about the actions of movie fans.
After all, the well-established film culture in the United States also means that the power of movie fans far exceeds that of other countries where the film business has just developed. A slight mishandling may damage the brand of Firefly Group.
While deliberately arranging manpower every day to maintain the order of the original fan group to prevent more serious emergencies, Firefly's top management also began to discuss countermeasures.
Filming according to the original script of the Wachowski Brothers is definitely not possible, because now Firefly has been completely squeezed into a two-year situation. Once the original version of the script is filmed, the quality of the film will definitely not meet the expectations of fans. At that time, because of today's things, disappointed fans will definitely blame Firefly for their mistakes for no reason. Moreover, it is impossible for Firefly to release the original script of the Wachowski Brothers to the public, which is not only against the industry rules, but also, fans who are in the fan mentality and think that idols are good in everything, often do not make professional judgments on the script .
But on the other hand, if the Wachowski brothers are allowed to rewrite the script according to the original plan, not to mention how the film will be in the future, in the case of offending a large number of fans, these people will definitely be more demanding on the sequel. With the strength of 8 points, it will also be pulled to the line of 6 points by discerning movie fans.
All in all, because of this unexpected media storm, for the "Matrix" project, no matter what Firefly does, as long as the sequel does not reach the level of amazing quality, the results obtained in the future will almost always be wrong.
Perhaps other competitors have also realized the dilemma of Firefly, and they have made small moves one after another with the intention of messing up "The Matrix" even if they can't mess it up.
With the passage of time, the news topics related to the sequel of "The Matrix" not only did not mean to cool down, but became more and more clamorous.
There was even an original website on the Internet with the same title as 'We don't want popcorn movies, we want "The Matrix"'. In just one week, it attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
Firefly Group's executives went through multiple public relations, and Katzenberg personally boarded the ABC TV station "Morning News" to explain Firefly's intentions to fans, but the results were all to no avail.
Although there are other ways to deal with it, in the end, Katzenberg, Frank Wells and other high-level officials can only send the matter to Eric who is in the Bahamas and let him decide by himself.
After the two-week night filming ended, the filming of related literary dramas also went smoothly.
The time came to July 16th. Two days ago, all the scenes of "Casino Royale" in the Bahamas were over, but because of the busy one and a half months in a row, and the two weeks of painful filming, the entire crew was already exhausted. Unbearable.
Eric was not in a hurry to let the crew go to the next shooting location, but gave the whole crew a three-day vacation so that everyone could enjoy the sunny beach in the Bahamas.
While the film was being filmed, Eric of course also kept paying attention to a series of events in Los Angeles. He thought that Katzenberg and others would handle it properly, but when his first assistant Kelly Haines came to the Bahamas with a stack of documents in person, and Eric realized that things had developed to the brink of getting out of control.
On the sofa in the living room where Eric lived, Kelly handed the documents to Eric, explaining: "The current situation is that we can hardly give fans a satisfactory explanation. According to the original script, once the future film The quality is not up to expectations, the mistakes will definitely be blamed on us, and let the Wachowski brothers rewrite the script, the movie may not be made yet, the movie may be boycotted by fans, and the mistakes will still be ours."
After reading a lot of newspaper clippings, risk assessments and other materials, Eric couldn't help but rubbed his forehead, and said, "It really doesn't make people stop at all. Now I can't even shoot."
Kelly smiled wryly, and said, "Yes, if the project is not filmed, it will still offend movie fans, and it may be the worst kind of offence, because they will feel that they are being slighted and belittled."
"Okay, let me think about it," Eric rubbed his forehead, looked at Peter Rich who was sitting on the other side, and said, "Go find a place where video conferences can be held, there should be one in the Ocean Club Center Let Katzenberg and the others go online on time at night, and we can discuss it later."
Peter Rich nodded, hesitated again, and said, "Eric, video conferencing may be a bit difficult. There should be no video conferencing equipment here, and a conference call room will be easier to arrange."
Eric also forgot that the development of the Internet has not yet reached the level of easy video conferences, not to mention that this is the Bahamas, he waved his hand and said, "Then let's make a conference call."
When Peter Rich left, Kelly moved her body, saw that Eric was still rubbing her forehead, got up gently and walked over, stood behind Eric, stretched out a pair of bare hands to rub Eric . (To be continued.)