"The box office of "Titanic" failed miserably, with a reported income of 29.18 million US dollars in the first weekend, and the total box office in North America may hardly exceed 100 million."
"Eric Williams' movie magic fails, epic starts poorly."
"Firefly Pictures suffered the largest box office loss in Hollywood film history, and the cumulative loss will be close to 200 million U.S. dollars."
"Word-of-mouth turned hard to stop the box office from falling. "Titanic" lost to "Star Trek: First Contact" at the North American box office in the first weekend. The difference in production costs between the two parties was five times."
"James Cameron led the "Titanic" team to participate in a publicity event in London. The press conference looked haggard and suspected of having a mental breakdown."
"Firefly Group CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg issued a statement that Firefly Pictures will not dismiss "Titanic" producers Jon Landau, William Stewart and other main creators, and will continue to work with director James Katzenberg. Mellon remains cooperative."
"Eric Williams has not appeared in public for many days. The later stage of "Casino Royale" may have been suspended. The film may follow in the footsteps of "Titanic"."
"..."
"..."
On December 23, the day before Christmas, with the release of the three-day box office data for the first weekend of "Titanic", the North American entertainment media launched a new round of bombardment on topics related to the film.
If it was any other film, it would have received 29.18 million yuan in the first three days, which would not be considered a failure anyway, but it happened to be "Titanic", a movie with a total investment of 265 million U.S. dollars and a global box office of 800 million yuan to break even. supreme movie.
But at this time, the box office of "Titanic" in the first weekend was only 29.18 million US dollars, which was not even comparable to "Star Trek: First Contact" released the previous week, and "Star Trek: First Contact" produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures. "One Contact", with a production cost of US$45 million, had a box office of US$30.71 million in the first weekend, and a drop of only 42% in the second weekend, and another US$17.8 million. The cumulative box office has reached US$60 million in ten days of release.
Most of the media have issued predictions. Although the word-of-mouth of "Titanic" has improved compared to before its release, most audiences lose motivation to watch the movie due to the long three-hour film length. The next week's box office of "Titanic" The decline is likely to exceed that of Star Trek: First Contact, reaching more than 50%.
According to this box office trend, the total North American box office of "Titanic" may only be 80 million to 90 million US dollars. As we all know, the overseas distribution of "Titanic" is also fraught with obstacles. The film was released in only 9 overseas countries at the same time, less than half of the number of countries where "Mission Impossible 2" was synchronized overseas a month ago. The failure of "Titanic" at the North American box office will also affect the film's overseas box office trend. As distributors and theater operators in countries that have not been released are less active, the global box office of "Titanic" may stop at less than 200 million US dollars.
The global box office is 200 million, and the share that Firefly can recover is only about 70 million US dollars. The future income from videotapes/DVDs, TV broadcasting rights, etc. is even more impossible to talk about. The media predicts that Firefly will lose 200 million US dollars on this movie, and it is not an exaggeration. Even within the Firefly Group, most of the management have reluctantly accepted this 'reality'.
If it is any other major Hollywood film company, after the box office of "Titanic" is released in the first week, facing a huge loss expected to be as high as 200 million U.S. dollars, the relevant person in charge may have been kicked out at this time, and even the entire studio may have to face bankruptcy reorganization. However, this is of course impossible within the Firefly Group. After all, "Titanic" is a project that Eric himself forcibly pushed, and it seems that it is too difficult to fire his own boss.
Although there is no need to explain to Wall Street or the company's shareholders like other film companies, in the face of the imminent huge losses, the company's top management still needs to make some adjustments and deal with the aftermath to avoid repeating the mistakes of "Titanic" in the future.
Just after Christmas, although the holiday has not yet passed, Katzenberg began to convene the group's film department executives every day to discuss the company's future production and distribution strategies.
It can be said that after the first weekend box office was released, most people have already labeled "Titanic" as a doomed failure. In addition, because of Christmas, few people pay special attention to the single-day box office of this movie. Even the distribution department responsible for box office statistics within the Firefly Group is quite puzzled by Eric's insistence on asking them to report a single day's box office summary at the first time every day. Is it possible that the boss is still looking forward to a miracle?
Although very puzzled, no one dared to perfunctory Eric's request. Every morning, Eric's e-mail box office statistics report of the previous day would appear.
Perhaps considering Eric's mood, the women no longer mentioned any movies in front of him these days. Except for the routine holiday greetings, the executives of the Firefly Group did not mention "Titan" to Eric without interest. The Nickelodeon, therefore, the festive Christmas is also lively and warm.
In a blink of an eye, the time has come to December 27th, the third day of Christmas.
Eric got up early in the morning as usual, washed up and came to the study.
It's Friday, the first day of the second week that Titanic will be in theaters.
Turn on the computer on the desk, waiting for the moment to turn on, Eric looked at the white writing board on the wall of the study.
At this time, seven sets of data including the midnight field have appeared above.
Needless to say last weekend, this week begins.
On December 23, $5.57 million.
Because it was Monday, compared to the previous day's $9.3 million, there was a 40% drop, echoing the box office trend of most films.
On December 24, $3.5 million.
On Christmas Eve, almost no one will go out to watch movies, and the single-day box office once again experienced a sharp drop, which is not surprising.
Subsequently, on December 25, Christmas Day, the single-day box office was 7.03 million US dollars.
Compared with the box office of the day on December 23, there has been a significant increase. Yesterday morning, when I saw this figure, Eric's mood, which has been a little irritated recently, suddenly eased a lot, but he was not too excited , Just as people don’t go out to watch movies on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day is usually a good time for people to go out to eat, drink and have fun. On this day, the single-day box office of movies has increased. It’s hard to say that the factors of the film itself are still stimulated by the festive atmosphere.
Therefore, on December 26, that is, yesterday, the box office data of the last day of the first week of "Titanic" is particularly important. The box office of this day will also prove that after a week of word-of-mouth fermentation, "Titanic" Whether it can regain its former glory.
If this day's single-day box office drops again, matching Monday's single-day box office of $5.57 million, then all expectations will be wiped out. If the single-day box office rises, even if it is the same as Christmas Day, then it will also indicate that the big ship that created an unprecedented box office miracle in the original time and space will set sail again.
Eric stared at the writing board on the wall for a moment, the computer on the desktop was turned on, and in the process of entering the password to open the Yahoo mailbox, although Eric felt that he had roughly adjusted his mentality these days, but at this time, he Only then did he realize that he couldn't take it lightly after all, he even felt his fingers trembling slightly excitedly because of the coming of some kind of 'judgment moment'.
The page opened, and the outstanding unread emails from the Firefly distribution department lay quietly in the mailbox.
Eric moved the mouse, tapped lightly, and the content of the email unfolded.
The first thing that appeared in front of his eyes was the first week's total box office statistics released by the distribution department. Eric skipped the summary figure of 54.33 million US dollars and looked down.
Quietly staring at the page, silent for a few seconds, Eric took a deep breath, got up and walked to the writing board, picked up a pen and quickly wrote the last number of the first week of "Titanic" on it.
$9.05 million.
Compared with the first day of "Titanic", the box office figures on this Thursday have increased by 4%, compared with Christmas Day, it has increased by 11%, and compared with the most comparable Monday, it has skyrocketed by 38%!
Eric couldn't help but scan the box office figures for the seven days of the first week again.
$8.65 million, $9.67 million, $9.3 million, $5.57 million, $3.5 million, $7.03 million, $9.05 million.
The one-day box office of 3.5 million US dollars seems to be a freezing point, but in Eric's view, it is more like a spring compressed to the extreme, gathering all its strength, and turning a movie that is destined to represent a miracle , struggling to throw into the sky.
"Titanic", officially set sail!
Throwing the fountain pen into the pen holder casually, Eric walked out of the study, thinking to himself, next, maybe there is no need to record the daily box office.
How tiring that would be.
A new day, for Hollywood, even though it's Friday, it's also a new week.
Many people wake up from their sleep and look at today's newspaper inadvertently. They may notice the box office figures of the first week of "Titanic" appearing on it. However, for this film that has been classified as a failure by most media, Except for more and more fans who are moved by the film, most people don't think that the figure of 54.33 million US dollars is a big deal. After all, last month's "Mission Impossible 2" had a box office of more than 80 million in its first week. U.S. dollars.
Although Los Angeles is three hours later than New York, Katzenberg saw the box office statistics for the first week of "Titanic" almost at the same time as Eric. Of course, he also noticed the last day of the first week. The box office of 9.05 million US dollars is surprising and even somewhat confusing. At first, Katzenberg even thought that the distribution department had miscalculated the figures. After all, there is no movie with a weekday box office higher than the first day of release. holidays, but most people's movie-watching habits are still maintained for three days on weekends.
After calling the staff on duty in charge of box office statistics to confirm, and listening to the determined voice of the person in charge of the distribution department on the phone, Katzenberg confirmed that the number was not wrong.
However, Katzenberg did not think in a more optimistic way, but took this number again as the result of the Christmas holiday effect. After all, December 26 is also the second day of Christmas.
A little later, the executives of other Hollywood film companies who also kept a close eye on "Titanic" also noticed the abnormal box office performance of the film on December 26, and most of them also didn't mean to go into it. Even some of the attention-grabbing media have also thought of going with Katzenberg on the one hand.
Although he thought it was just an accident, Katzenberg immediately called Eric in New York and reported the good news. After all, the North American box office predicted by the box office agency for this film is 80 million to 90 million US dollars, but it unexpectedly earned 54.33 million US dollars in the first week. Katzenberg feels that it is always good to lose less.
Eric didn't tell Katzenberg his judgment, thinking it was a surprise for everyone. If God hadn't joked with him, then maybe it would be only tomorrow when the surprise came.
After speaking with Eric on the phone, Katzenberg bid farewell to his wife and twin sons, and drove to the Firefly headquarters in Burbank. He made an appointment with Kenneth Horn, president of New Line Films this morning, and planned to discuss the production of New Line next year. and release plans.
This year, New Line has almost achieved the same box office performance as the two major studios of its headquarters, Firefly Pictures and Disney Pictures. In addition to the box office failure of "Titanic", the group will definitely need to increase its support for New Line Pictures starting next year. support. During the discussions over the past few days, Katzenberg, Frank Wells and other high-level officials have confirmed a plan to increase New Line's film production budget to an average of 500 million U.S. dollars per year in the next three years. Eric said on the phone They also initially agreed to this plan, and today they will discuss the details in more detail.
As for the two major production companies in this part, Katzenberg and Frank Wells mean to reduce the budget of large-scale production films, in fact, they are reducing the production scale of Firefly Pictures, and at the same time re-emphasizing the production of Disney Family Carnival live-action films After all, Disney's entire industrial chain from peripheral stores to Disneyland requires a large number of family carnival movies to provide sufficient peripheral products and copyright images. It's not just cartoons, live-action movies are equally important.
Eric was not as busy as Katzenberg. After breakfast, he leisurely left the manor with a book and walked towards a coffee shop on the edge of the community.
There were no customers in the coffee shop in the morning. Eric greeted the old man behind the counter who was also bored reading newspapers, and then sat in his usual seat.
A waitress served Eric coffee and quietly backed out.
Eric took a sip of warm coffee, and leisurely opened the book "Financial Alchemy" in his hand.
The usually taciturn old man behind the counter took the initiative to speak this time, and said, "Eric, it seems that the box office of "Titanic" is not bad in the first week."
The man who looks to be in his sixties is named Matthew Braga and is the owner of the cafe. However, Eric knew that the other party was not far from his home, and also had a manor of considerable size. This old man was originally from Brazil, and he was a very famous local entrepreneur. His family ran a large natural rubber business in the northeast of Brazil. , At this time, he has already handed over the family business to his children, and he retired with his wife to live in the United States. Opening such a coffee shop is more of a pastime.
After all, the two are not familiar with each other, and it is impossible for Eric to reveal anything to him. He replied with a smile: "Of course it's not bad if it's another movie, but this is "Titanic". I might lose a lot this time." Pen, otherwise I wouldn’t be hiding here and not daring to see people now.”
Matthew Braga laughed, but with some shrewdness in his eyes, he said, "I've never seen you miss before."
"I hope so."
After saying this, the two sides became quiet again. Eric continued to read the boring book of finance in his hand, and Matthew Braga still flipped through his newspaper.
About an hour later, a blond Caucasian girl in a white down jacket hurriedly opened the door and walked in. Seeing that Eric was already sitting here, she hurried over and apologized before it was too late: "I'm so sorry, Mr. Williams , My car broke down and I had to ask my classmates to drive me over."
"It's okay, Sabrina, please sit down, I happen to have some doubts, and I need you to help me explain."
"Oh, of course," Sabrina Land sat down across from Eric, took out the same copy of "Financial Alchemy" from her carry-on bag as well as a notebook, and patiently asked Eric Rick answered many seemingly simple financial questions.
Of course, these questions are only simple for her, a graduate student of Columbia Finance Department.
Because of his upset mood recently, Eric has no intention of sorting out the plots of Marvel's comic universe. Instead, he chose a boring financial book to kill his spare time. The cold financial theory makes it easier for people to calm down. .
However, it’s okay if it’s written in Chinese, just according to the literal meaning, some things can be understood through repeated reading. But for professional English financial works, if you want to understand them, you must know all kinds of professional and even rare financial English words in them.
At most, Eric only had some basic financial knowledge in his mind. In order to understand this book, he specially hired a top financial student from Columbia University, that is, Sabrina Land in front of him, a tall and beautiful woman Good blonde girl. The most important thing around Eric is beautiful women. Of course he will not have any plans for the girl in front of him. The reason why he chose Sabrina from the candidates recommended by Colombia is purely in the name of "adding beauty to the red sleeves". The idea of reading with a seductive and beautiful girl is definitely more comfortable than a same-sex one.
As for the "Financial Alchemy" that Eric is interested in recently, it has a famous author named George Soros. (To be continued.) 29