Initially, after the release of the three-day box office data of "Titanic" which was less than US$30 million in the first weekend, amidst the schadenfreude and ridicule, almost all forecasting agencies believed that this super giant with a total investment of US$265 million, the It likely won't make more than $90 million at the box office.
But in fact, in just ten days, the box office of "Titanic" has reached 89.69 million U.S. dollars, which is only one step away from 90 million U.S. dollars. joke. "Titanic" bucked the trend and rose to a box office of 35.44 million U.S. dollars in the next three days, which made all the media that had been cynic about "Titanic" shut up.
On the next working day of the second week, because it coincides with the New Year, coupled with the further spread of word-of-mouth of "Titanic" and the publicity effect brought about by the box office reversal in the next week, the second working day of "Titanic" "The single-day box office dropped by less than 30% compared to the weekend, and the box office in the two days before and after New Year's Day returned to the level of tens of millions of dollars in a single day.
After the second week passed, Firefly Group announced the box office of "Titanic" for the first time in the second week, which was 73.52 million US dollars.
Relying on the excellent box office performance on weekdays, the box office of "Titanic" in the second week compared with the first week, the reversal rate reached an astonishing 35%.
What kind of concept is this? In the North American film market, when a film opens on a large scale, the next week's box office "drop" can be maintained at about 35%, and the film studio is already very satisfied, because it means that the film's The word-of-mouth and box office are excellent, and it has been a commercial success. As for those whose box office in the next week can be the same as the first week, or even achieve a slight decline, all of them are box office blockbusters that can be famous in film and television. A film company may not be able to encounter such a situation for ten or twenty years or even until it goes bankrupt. God-level blockbuster.
But now, the box office trend of "Titanic" has completely broken everyone's traditional perception of the movie's box office curve. Whether inside or outside Hollywood, most people see the box office data of "Titanic" for the next week, and they will be born in their hearts. A strong confusion: Shouldn't it be a 35% drop
No matter how powerful the question marks are in the minds of millions of people, it cannot change the fact that in the second week of "Titanic", it did achieve a 35% drop in the box office, with a single-week box office reaching 73.52 million. The box office has accumulated a total of 127 million US dollars.
However, everything has only just begun.
New Years, Friday, January 3rd.
According to the time division rules of the North American film market, this is the first week of 1997.
The two-week statutory holiday ended, and the weekly box office of "Titanic" also fell back immediately, dropping to 45.01 million US dollars, a box office drop of 38%.
When everyone thought that the film's box office curve began to return to 'normal', in the fourth week, the box office decline of "Titanic" once again narrowed sharply to 16%, and it received another 37.56 million US dollars.
At this time, the cumulative box office of "Titanic" has reached 210.34 million U.S. dollars in the four weeks. In contrast, a month ago, "Mission: Impossible 2," which had a strong start with a box office of 82.7 million U.S. dollars in the first week, only had a four-week box office. 181.3 million US dollars, and, after four weeks of screenings, the box office of "Mission: Impossible 2" has fallen by about 20 million US dollars, but "Titanic" still maintains a box office range of 40 million US dollars with great potential.
After half a month of ignorance, doubts, and silence, as the total box office of "Titanic" exceeded 200 million US dollars, the North American media finally began to speak out, changing the bad-mouthing before the film was released and the mockery at the beginning of the release , Turning to the analysis of the causes and consequences of the box office success of "Titanic", four weeks 200 million, the box office potential is endless, although there is still a lot of cost pressure, but now, no one dares to rashly say "Titanic" No. "Can't recover the production cost of words.
On the other hand, although many critics of "Titanic" are still stubborn in the face of the film's godlike box office trend, as more and more film reviews appear in newspapers and magazines across the United States, "Titanic" The overall reputation of film critics of "The Nick" has also begun to reverse one-sidedly.
As the first "New York Times" to express its praise for "Titanic", after the film's box office exceeded 200 million, it once again published a special film review.
"The expensive and luxurious sets, the shocking and magnificent shipwreck special effects, the beautiful and atmospheric soundtrack, the touching love story... All of these have to make people recall the sensational "Gone with the Wind" back then."
"There are undoubtedly too many similarities between these two films. "Gone with the Wind" perfectly reproduced the rise and fall of the plantations in the southern Union more than a hundred years ago for us, and "Titanic" also showed flawlessly "Gone with the Wind" was not the first color movie, but it brought Hollywood color movies into its heyday. "Titanic" also It is not the first blockbuster with CG special effects. Before that, we already had blockbusters with special effects such as "Tornado", "Terminator", "Jurassic Park", "Men in Black", but there is no doubt that "Titanic" ", will also open a new era for Hollywood, an era of special effects movies."
As word of mouth for Titanic falters, the end of January, as the Golden Globes loom, there is talk of Titanic getting only one inconsequential Best Screenplay nomination at the Golden Globes , suddenly became popular again, and caused a wave of intense controversy.
Everyone can see that even if "Titanic" is a commercial film, even if the judges of the Golden Globe Awards have a disdainful view of commercial films, even if the Golden Globe Awards do not have purely technical awards, but, except for the best screenwriter In addition to the nominations, "Titanic" undoubtedly has 100% qualifications for nominations for the best film soundtrack and best original song awards. "The sounds of nature, even those who are the least sensitive to music, will shake their hearts after hearing these.
However, the Golden Globe jury nominated these two items to "Shakespeare in Love", "Mrs. Peron", and "Shining Style", which have no outstanding soundtracks and songs, but ignored "Titan". The Nick". Moreover, in terms of acting awards, even Madonna, who has won the worst actress in Golden Raspberry three times, can be nominated for Best Actress, but Rachel Weisz, who performed amazingly in the film, did not win the Golden Globe Award at all. Favor, these have become the focus of important topics in the media's criticism of this Golden Globe Awards.
"There is no doubt that Hollywood once again gave us a large number of excellent films last year. Commercially, we have box office masterpieces such as "The Matrix", "The Mummy 2", "Pocahontas", "Charlie's Angels 2", etc. In terms of art, we have You can also see excellent films such as "Shakespeare in Love", "Red Alert", "Fargo" and "Fargo". However, although "Shakespeare in Love", "Red Alert" and "Fargo" , "Shining Style" and other films have made great achievements in film art, but this cannot be the reason why "Titanic" has been ignored. Perhaps, the Golden Globe jury should reflect on its own selection strategy."
This review in The Hollywood Reporter was definitely the mildest, making no mention of possible manipulation of the Golden Globes, but many other outlets were less polite.
A reporter from the "San Francisco Chronicle" bluntly exposed the scars of the Golden Globe Awards: "Do you all remember Pia Zadora in 1982? I'm just very curious, which gold master paid for it this time Money, let the gentlemen of the Golden Globe jury completely ignore the excellent film "Titanic"?"
The 1982 "Butterfly" heroine Pia Zadora's prize-buying incident was definitely the biggest scandal in the history of the Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globe Award for Best Newcomer of the Year.
After the scandal was exposed, not only did the credibility of the Golden Globe Awards drop sharply, but CBS also stopped its TV broadcast cooperation with the organizer of the Golden Globe Awards. Afterwards, the Golden Globe Awards were canceled directly in order to make people forget about it as much as possible. won the Best Newcomer award.
The all-round reversal of "Titanic" in terms of word-of-mouth and box office, the most exciting thing is undoubtedly the large number of fans of the film. The audience's sense of a movie is the most direct. They clearly remember the cold reception and ridicule received before and at the beginning of the movie's release. Fans who love "Nick" and almost empathize with the whole process, have recently been in a sense of excitement and pride in Rebirth of the Jedi, and pay more attention to all information about "Titanic".
When the controversy about the nomination of "Titanic" broke out at the Golden Globe Awards, fans quickly gave the most direct and rude feedback on the Internet media that has rapidly emerged in recent years.
"It's hard to imagine that the more than 90 judges of the Golden Globe Awards could completely ignore all the advantages of "Titanic". I can only guess that these old men must have fallen asleep before the movie started. Since You guys are too old to watch movies, so is there any reason for the Golden Globes to exist?"
"In any case, the excellence of "Titanic" cannot be concealed. The North American box office of this film has exceeded 200 million US dollars. It is said that the overseas box office is also very good. So, why should we bother with such an insignificant award? , Everyone chooses to ignore it, perhaps it is the best 'respect' for the Golden Globe Awards, I hope that on January 19th, everyone will not jump to NBC TV."
"Golden Globe Awards, ha, who cares, is there any partner here in Queens, New York, maybe everyone can buy tickets together to watch it again tonight, I only care about the box office of "Titanic" now."
"From the beginning, it was a conspiracy. Some people hope that "Titanic" will be a total failure, so they will snipe this movie at the Golden Globes, but "Titanic" once again tells us It proves the famous saying that gold always shines, obviously, "Titanic" is not only gold, but also diamonds, and the most dazzling "heart of the sea".
"The boycott of the Golden Globe Awards has started, and friends who want to support "Titanic" actively support it. Our website for the event is... ”
Amid overwhelming doubts and denunciations in the media and on the Internet, the organizer of the Golden Globe Awards had to take the initiative to issue an announcement before the awards ceremony, resolutely denying all accusations made by the "unscrupulous" media on the actions of the Golden Globe Awards judges, and expressing that the Golden Globe Awards The judging process of the Globe Awards is absolutely fair. The reason why "Titanic" was not nominated is because there are too many excellent films in this session, and "Titanic" is not outstanding in terms of artistry.
In preparation for the "Casino Royale" Super Bowl trailer, Eric returned to Los Angeles after the New Year.
For the obviously nonsense statement of the Golden Globe jury, Eric just laughed it off. The Firefly Group did not contribute to the recent media turmoil. The Yahoo forum even deleted some of the radical remarks against the Golden Globe.
After all, although "Titanic" was not shortlisted, "Red Alert" directed by Catherine and "Shakespeare in Love" run by Miramax at Fox are the two most popular awards season this year, because both belong to slow The popular art film genre, the distribution strategies adopted by the two films are similar, and they are currently in the stage of small-scale release in 300 to 400 theaters. There is no conflict between drama and musical comedy in the main nominations. If they can win the award, it will eventually play a good role in promoting the box office of the two films.
Now that "Titanic" has become a fact, Eric will not affect the release rhythm of these two films just to win the moment.
Of course, it is impossible for Firefly to be indifferent to the obvious unfair treatment of "Titanic". The judges of the Ball Awards even personally called Eric to invite him, but Eric still refused on the grounds that he was busy with work. As for the main creators of "Titanic", none of them would be present on the day Even though he was nominated for Best Screenplay, Cameron's resentment towards the Golden Globes is definitely greater than that of any other member of the crew, so he will not be present as a matter of course.
During the period of returning to Los Angeles, in addition to restarting the post-production work of "Casino Royale", Eric also invested a lot of energy in the follow-up announcement of "Titanic".
Because of the general bad-mouthing in the industry before the film was released, when "Titanic" was released in North America, there were only nine overseas countries that basically synchronized. Not yet released.
Originally, if Firefly released it forcefully, relying on the group's strong distribution strength, "Titanic" should also be able to get the release schedule in January or February in overseas markets, but this is not what Eric wants.
For the current major overseas film markets in Europe, East Asia, and Latin America, the January and February schedules after the New Year are all unpopular schedules that have just passed the holidays. Although the doomed rise of "Titanic" cannot be prevented, these schedules are also certain. Couldn't get Titanic to live up to its box office potential.
According to the current box office trend of "Titanic", Eric predicts that the film will break the North American box office record and the total box office will exceed 500 million US dollars, probably at the end of March. For the most important event, that is the Oscars.
It is conceivable that as long as it works properly, March will definitely be the most prosperous moment for "Titanic".
Therefore, Eric focused the next stage of overseas distribution of "Titanic" on the Easter period in March. At that time, with the powerful influence brought by "Titanic" because it broke the box office record and won the Oscar, the global box office of "Titanic" in this time and space will definitely exceed the scale of 1.8 billion US dollars in the previous life.
The North American box office trend of "Titanic" has been determined, and what Firefly will do next is of course to ensure that "Titanic" gets enough Oscar statuettes. (To be continued.)