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Saturday, December 28.
Two days have passed since Christmas and the new year is coming.
Katzenberg originally planned to take his family to Europe for vacation during the festival. Although he is a workaholic, it does not mean that he does not need vacations. However, because of the "Titanic" incident, Katzenberg had to cancel all his trips at the end of this year, and he didn't even return to New York to spend Christmas with his parents.
The box office of "Titanic" was 54.25 million US dollars in the first week, exceeding the original forecast of the first week of the Firefly Group's internal and external box office statistics agencies, most of which were around 40 million US dollars. It has to be said that it is a kind of consolation. The production and publicity costs, this first week's results can only be said to be a failure.
Right now, this situation seems to be irreversible. As the CEO of Firefly Group, what Katzenberg has to do now is to avoid this kind of box office tragedy from happening again as much as possible.
Habitually waking up at five o'clock, after all, it was a holiday and a weekend. Katzenberg did not start his day's work as eagerly as before. After a simple morning exercise, he began to prepare breakfast for his wife and children himself. Think about your responsibilities as a husband and father.
At the same time, in the Burbank headquarters of the Firefly Group, in the office of the film distribution department, the on-duty staff in charge of box office statistics, George Lake and Phil Ropoulos, were full of doubts and checked the faxes of the major theaters again. Over the box office data.
In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, the ticketing systems of major theater chains in North America have gradually been connected to the Internet, which has greatly increased the efficiency of box office statistics. However, there is still no unified data among different theater chains. Therefore, film companies And specialized box office statistics agencies also need to summarize the separate data given by different theater operators.
George Lake and Phil Ropoulos recalculated the box office data on December 27th in their hands again, and even made a few phone calls to reconfirm some data that they were confused with the theater company, and finally After confirming that the box office numbers in their hands were complete and correct, George Lake and Phil Ropoulos stared at each other blankly for a few seconds. They have both worked in the film industry for five or six years, but looking at the box office in their hands The data, the two are 100% sure, this is definitely the strangest box office data they have ever seen in their lives.
Although he was almost sure that the box office data in his hand was accurate, George Lake still said to his colleagues when he came back to his senses: "Phil, do you want to confirm it again? If you make a mistake, let the bosses have a good time. We Maybe he will be kicked out?"
The tiredness accumulated on Phil Lopoulos's face due to this all-night drudgery has completely disappeared at this time. He lightly shook the paper in his hand, made a soft clatter, looked at his companion, and said: "Do you think it's necessary?"
"Why don't you call Mr. Thompson first?" George Lake suggested again: "I always feel a little uneasy about sending this data directly to the bosses."
The Robert Thompson that George Lake refers to is their immediate boss, the president of Firefly Publishing.
Phil Ropoulos looked at the single-day box office data of "Titanic" in his hand again.
$12.12 million!
In the first week of "Titanic"'s release, there was no single-day box office that broke through 10 million US dollars. This is one of the reasons why everyone thinks that "Titanic" failed at the box office.
According to the normal box office trend of most films, the single-day box office of "Titanic" in the three days following the weekend should be around 6 million US dollars, but at this time, the data in hand is twice as expected. What does this mean? In the second week of "Titanic", the box office not only did not fall, but instead experienced a completely unreasonable surge.
It’s not that Phil Ropoulos has never seen a box office drop. Many popular films will see a certain increase in the box office in the second week of release, but the increase in the drop is basically very small. More than 10%, but compared to the 8.65 million US dollars in the same period last Friday, the box office of "Titanic" on the following Friday was a full 40% higher.
"Then, let's make a phone call first." In the end, Phil Ropoulos, who was also somewhat guilty, nodded in agreement with George Lake's words.
So, before seven o'clock, the Firefly Group, including Katzenberg, Frank Wells, Caroline Elliott, Kenneth Horn and a group of high-level executives in Los Angeles, hurried to Berkshire. Bank headquarters, even Michael Lynn, who had left his job and only had a board seat in Firefly Group, rushed to Burbank from his mansion in Malibu curiously after hearing the news.
Robert Thompson, President of the Publishing Department of Firefly Group, opened the door and walked into the conference room. Everyone who had been whispering fell silent and looked at him unanimously.
"Mr. Katzenberg, and everyone, I have personally called to confirm. Although there may be some errors, the single-day box office of "Titanic" yesterday must be around 12 million US dollars." Pause , Robert Thompson added again: "That is to say, compared to last Friday, the box office of "Titanic" not only did not fall, but rose by 3.5 million US dollars, a 40% decline."
As Robert Thompson said, he signaled to the secretary following behind to distribute the copied box office data reports to all the group executives present one by one.
After receiving the detailed data report, Katzenberg couldn't wait to look down.
Preliminary statistics show that on December 27, the domestic box office in the United States totaled 29.5 million US dollars in a single day, and "Titanic" clearly occupied the top position with a single-day box office of 12.12 million US dollars. In second place is Warner Bros.' political satire comedy "Three Presidents Are a Mess," which debuted this week with $5.7 million. This was followed by films such as "Mars and Earth," "Mr. Sweetheart," and "Star Trek: First Contact."
Now that the detailed single-day box office rankings have been calculated, then this data is definitely not wrong.
Staring at the single-day box office data of 12.12 million US dollars, Katzenberg did not feel any excitement in his heart, but was a little dazed. He raised his head and looked around. All the executives present basically showed similar expressions. The obvious question is: what happened
After a while, Katzenberg looked at Robert Thompson and asked, "Have you sent the box office data to Eric?"
"Yes, Jeffrey, every morning before six o'clock, we will send the box office data of the previous day to Mr. Williams," Robert Thompson nodded in confirmation.
"Then he..." Katzenberg shook his head again in the middle of speaking. If Eric had any feedback, he would definitely call himself or Frank and others, thinking in his heart that Katzenberg was no longer in a hurry to get I understood Eric's reaction, but looked at everyone: "So, tell me, what's the situation now?"
Everyone looked at me, I looked at you, and didn't know what to say for a while.
Seeing that the bigwigs didn't speak, Robert Thompson, who was sitting at the end of the desk, tentatively said: "I think the current box office trend of "Titanic" has already shown signs a few days ago."
Seeing Robert Thompson speak, Frank Wells looked over and said, "Robert, can you explain in detail?"
"Of course," Robert Thompson nodded, thought for a while, and pointed to the writing board behind Katzenberg. After getting permission, he got up and walked over, picked up a pen and wrote the "Titanic" that he had just seen from the box office statistics report. "The single-day box office data of the previous week are listed one by one.
"Look," Robert Thompson finished listing the data for the first seven days of the first week, added yesterday's $12.12 million, and then said to everyone: "The first weekend of "Titanic" really started very mediocre, and it also appeared on Monday in the first week. A normal decline, but since Christmas, Wednesday, 7.03 million US dollars, Thursday, 9.05 million US dollars, Friday, yesterday, 12.12 million US dollars, judging from the box office figures of these three days, "Titanic" "After experiencing the mediocre trend in the early stage, due to... some reasons, the box office began to show a significant upward trend."
Executives who had been working in the film industry for many years, such as Katzenberg, Frank Wells, and Michael Lynn who had just come to join in the fun, all had a general understanding of what Robert Thompson called "some reasons" at this time.
However, as the group chief financial officer who just joined Firefly a few years ago, Caroline Elliott was a little confused and asked curiously: "Robert, what do you mean by 'certain reasons'?"
Robert Thompson glanced at the crowd, hesitated, and said, "I think it's most likely the word-of-mouth of the film. This is not the relatively polarized word-of-mouth in the media, but the word-of-mouth among the audience. However, " The box office trend of Titanic is also very different from the previous word-of-mouth movies. Those movies may reverse the next week, but they are definitely not as high as "Titanic". Therefore, I also I can't guarantee that there are other reasons that we don't know."
Everyone chatted again and again, seeing that this kind of closed-door discussion could not produce any useful results, Katzenberg waved his hand to stop everyone's speech, and said to Robert Thompson: "Robert, what do you want to do about this matter?" Take charge personally, I will give you three days to figure out what happened, and in addition, help me connect with Eric, immediately."
The news that the box office of "Titanic" will drop sharply in the next week can't be hidden for too long. In just one morning, most people have already got the relevant information, and Eric is of course the first group of people to receive the news .
However, because of his previous life experience, before the release of "Titanic", Eric was never worried about the film's box office prospects like Katzenberg, Cameron and others. Correspondingly, "Titanic" The box office started to take off the next week, and it was difficult for Eric to feel the sense of relief from the group's top management.
After receiving a call from Katzenberg, Eric was still sitting in a coffee shop in Southampton, accompanied by a girl in a vase, quietly reading George Soros's "Financial Alchemy".
After all, this is only the first day of the next week, and the follow-up box office data has not yet been determined. Eric did not eagerly ask Katzenberg to implement some plans he had been brewing in his mind recently. The two just chatted briefly. More than ten minutes later, after hanging up the phone, Eric called Cameron who was in Australia promoting "Titanic". Although it was early morning in Australia, Cameron did not rest. The news that Titanic's box office fell in the next week told this guy who has been anxious to get angry recently. Presumably, Cameron, who is in Sydney, should be able to sleep well afterwards.
If the box office data of "Titanic" was released on the next Friday, it was only the internal executives of the Firefly Group who were a little confused. When the next weekend's box office statistics of the film were released in the next three days, the entire North American media was almost in a state of being in a short-term circle. Almost all media are probably asking the same question: What happened
After Friday's box office of 12.12 million US dollars, the next Saturday's box office still did not show any downward trend, but rose slightly to 12.46 million US dollars, and then Sunday's box office data was 10.86 million US dollars.
In the end, the total box office of "Titanic" in the three days of the second weekend was US$35.44 million, which was an increase of more than US$600 compared with the box office of US$29.18 million in the three days of the first weekend. The rate of reversal is still more than 20%.
Immediately, under Katzenberg's personal instruction, Robert Thompson also produced a preliminary survey report on box office trends.
…
After all, this is only the first day of the next week, and the follow-up box office data has not yet been determined. Eric did not eagerly ask Katzenberg to implement some plans he had been brewing in his mind recently. The two just chatted briefly. More than ten minutes later, after hanging up the phone, Eric called Cameron who was in Australia promoting "Titanic". Although it was early morning in Australia, Cameron did not rest. The news that Titanic's box office fell in the next week told this guy who has been anxious to get angry recently. Presumably, Cameron, who is in Sydney, should be able to sleep well afterwards.
If the box office data of "Titanic" was released on the next Friday, it was only the internal executives of the Firefly Group who were a little confused. When the next weekend's box office statistics of the film were released in the next three days, the entire North American media was almost in a state of being in a short-term circle. Almost all media are probably asking the same question: What happened
After Friday's box office of 12.12 million US dollars, the next Saturday's box office still did not show any downward trend, but rose slightly to 12.46 million US dollars, and then Sunday's box office data was 10.86 million US dollars.
In the end, the total box office of "Titanic" in the three days of the second weekend was US$35.44 million, which was an increase of more than US$600 compared with the box office of US$29.18 million in the three days of the first weekend. The rate of reversal is still more than 20%.
Immediately, under Katzenberg's personal instruction, Robert Thompson also produced a preliminary survey report on box office trends. (To be continued.)