"Interstellar Crossing" has officially been announced!
Needless to say, this is the biggest news ahead of the official unveiling of the 2014 summer season, because it's a strong collaboration between Renly and Christopher Nolan, because it's the last Warner Bros. collaboration with Legendary, from the shooting stage. It has attracted countless attention in post-production, and now entering the battle for the summer slot, this sci-fi movie will also become an uncertain pawn, and no one can accurately predict what impact it will have.
According to the original plan, "Interstellar" is scheduled for November 7th, and Warner Bros. is ready to hit the Thanksgiving box office market with all its strength, because the core meaning of the whole movie is family fetters.
As an aside, traditionally, Christmas is the biggest family holiday in North America, but it's not.
First of all, the biggest and most lively festival in North America is Halloween, because children and young people do not need to go home for the festival, which also allows them to party as much as they want. The Halloween parade headed by New York is the biggest carnival in North America every year. , everything makes Halloween very grand.
Secondly, the most important family holiday in North America is Thanksgiving, because Christmas is a gathering of "small families", and those who form families gather in their own families to celebrate the festival; while Thanksgiving is a gathering of "everyone", All the children and relatives will all come together to celebrate the holiday, and going home is the theme.
You can see some clues from the movie schedule. The box office market during the Thanksgiving schedule is often more potential than the Christmas schedule. Many family movies choose the Thanksgiving schedule, while the Christmas schedule is more commercial blockbusters are willing to enter; as for the Halloween schedule. It must be the home of horror movies.
According to the official U.S. law, the fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, and the entire Thanksgiving period extends from Halloween to the first week of December. The main groups in the movie box office market are targeting families. Of course, The fourth week of November is the core focus time for peak home audiences.
"Interstellar" chose the Thanksgiving schedule and was determined to be released on the second weekend of November. As a sci-fi movie, the bond between father and daughter is the core driving force of the whole film. Choosing the Thanksgiving screening will undoubtedly attract More family audiences, especially the concept of "going home" on Thanksgiving, have a natural fit with the movie, and can seize the innate advantage in terms of publicity.
But things took a turn for the worse.
There is no doubt about the popularity of the Thanksgiving schedule. The entire North American market, including movies such as "The Hunger Games 3: Part 1", "Dumb and Dumber 2", "Penguins of Madagascar", etc., are all trying to seize the schedule. Even Warner Bros. itself has another "Evil Boss 2" ready to debut, which means that bumping into the schedule is inevitable.
Among them, "The Hunger Games 3" is undoubtedly the largest alternate player in the middleweight category in the entire schedule, and it did his part to seize the weekend of the Thanksgiving holiday. But what about other works
Disney officially announced that the "Super Marines" will compete for the Thanksgiving schedule -
According to the practice of previous years, Disney now owns Pixar and its own animation headquarters. Among them, Pixar is in the summer season, and the headquarters is in the Thanksgiving season. This has gradually formed a distribution model, but this year, Pixar announced its withdrawal early because of dissatisfaction with the quality of the work. The competition for summer slots has also made Disney hesitant to revise the schedule.
At one time, Disney seriously considered the possibility of "Super Marines" going into the summer season. Using Renly as a gimmick, this cartoon has the possibility to open up the situation in summer. This is the most prosperous season in the children's market throughout the year , Pixar animation's dominance of the summer box office market has been verified.
But in the end Disney gave up on the idea because their entries for this summer's season were already full—
Led by "Captain America 2", there are also six additional works such as "Million Golden Arm", "Maleficent", "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Michelin Romance", etc., of which the absolute main force includes two. Marvel's works and an animated live-action work have filled the entire summer season; now if you add "Super Marines", it will really overflow, and you will fight with yourself. The situation is absolutely unwise.
Therefore, Disney still chose the original established strategy and arranged the "Super Marines" in the Thanksgiving schedule; and, also on November 7, it was fully premiered on the same day as "Interstellar".
Two massive titles aimed at the Thanksgiving home market collided head-on, and things got tricky.
First of all, is it normal for the two major dramas of the two major film companies to be so fixed
The answer is: it couldn't be more normal. Because "Interstellar" is a sci-fi movie, and "Super Marines" is an animated movie, there are subtle differences in the target audience; at the same time, "Interstellar" is PG-13, special tutoring level, and can be watched by people over 13 years old , and the "Super Marines" rating is PG, tutoring level, all children can watch, just need to remind parents that there may be some content that is not suitable for children to watch.
This also means that the target audiences of the two films overlap, but the core audiences are fundamentally different. "Interstellar" still focuses on science fiction, and by the way attracts family audiences; while "Super Marines" focuses on children , by the way, attracts a parent audience with children.
"The Age of Rebirth"
Secondly, is it normal for two heavyweight works to be so fixed
The answer is: not common but not uncommon. In fact, there is no direct relationship between the decision of film works and the level of investment, but more related to market positioning, box office expectations, publicity plans, and market direction. Considering the cost of publicity, I hope that I can attract as much as possible in the theater without facing additional competition, but it is not impossible for the occasional collision of Mars to hit the earth.
If it is the initial stage of scheduling, it is more frequent and common, because the schedule can be changed at any time, mainly depending on the distribution strategy of the film company.
According to official data, the production costs of "Interstellar" and "Super Marines" are both 165 million, which is definitely a heavyweight investment. Now it depends on the strategy of Warner Bros. and Disney. , In fact, it is also the Thanksgiving schedule. As long as you avoid "The Hunger Games 3", you can still choose other schedules. Two works of this magnitude can be completely staggered.
In the end, is it normal for two works starring the same actor to collide head-on
The answer is: very normal and very common. As for how to arrange the schedule of the publicity period, it depends on the negotiation between the distribution company and the actors.
For example, "Interstellar" stipulates in the contract that Renly must cooperate with the promotion of certain talk shows, but "Super Marines" has no relevant provisions.
For another example, "Super Marines" and "Interstellar" both require Renly to attend the premiere, so if there is a real collision, how to arrange the premiere requires further consultation.
In any case, the schedules of "Interstellar" and "Super Marines" collided head-on. In fact, both Warner Bros. and Disney are considering whether to delay the release by one week or three weeks - after two weeks of avoidance "The Hunger Games 3", but the problem is that the other two schedules are also average.
Delay it by a week, and then you must face the sequel to the classic movie "Dumb and Dumber 2", although this is a medium-budget comedy film, but as a sequel to Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels after 20 years , the power of the fan market is undoubtedly the focus that must be taken into account.
Delayed for three weeks, it would have to face the attack of "Penguins of Madagascar" and "Evil Boss 2". For Disney, they do not want the two cartoons "Super Marines" and "Penguins of Madagascar" to grab the market; and For Warner Bros., "Evil Boss 2" and "Interstellar" are both self-published works, so they are even more reluctant to fight head-on. What's more, "The Hunger Games 3", which was released the following week, continued to be crushed, which cannot be ignored.
In just four weeks of Thanksgiving, I went back and forth, and it seemed that I couldn't find any other options.
After thinking about it, Warner Bros. took the initiative to seek change, and officially decided to move "Interstellar" to the summer file.
In fact, for Warner Bros., this is a difficult decision but not an impossible choice. After the end of the "Harry Potter" and "Batman" series, they lost control of the summer season, and now Only relying on the "Hobbit" series to seize the year-end holiday season, but the lack of the highlight of the summer season's siege means that the competitiveness of the year-end box office is far from enough.
This summer, Warner Bros. has sent six films to debut in turn, "Godzilla", "Tanmi", "Jersey Boys", "Single Parent Resort", "Fear the Storm" and "If I Stay", Quantitatively, it's second only to Disney and the second-largest of the six major Hollywood studios, but qualitatively...it's hard to say.
Among the above six works, only "Godzilla" has an investment level of more than 100 million US dollars and a cost of 160 million; while all other works are petty, two lightweight comedy films, A low-budget music movie, a low-budget teen movie, and a medium-budget disaster sci-fi movie, that's all.
Although it is said that "Tammy" is hosted by Melissa McCarthy, "Single Parent Resort" is Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and "Jersey Boy" is Clint Eastwood... It seems that every work has a certain publicity stunt, and it will not be completely submerged in the summer file; but the difference in magnitude is still irreparable.
From the very beginning, Warner Bros. hoped that "Interstellar" could be included in this year's summer season, but because the filming schedule was unexpectedly interrupted and delayed at the beginning of the year, it was forced to arrange it to the Thanksgiving season. Now, the completion of post-production is much faster than expected, and it seems that it is not difficult to raise the summer file.
The only question is: what about publicity