Hollywood Hunter

The last few days of 1998 passed in a blink of an eye, and time entered 1999.

While people are celebrating the New Year in Australia, Simon still inevitably pays attention to the year-end box office situation in North America, because the last day of 1998 happens to be the end of a full box office week from December 25th to December 31st.

First of all, "Suicide Squad 2" won the weekly box office champion without any suspense.

This super blockbuster movie of the DC movie universe fell by 39% in the second week, which is quite a good trend. It earned 77.06 million US dollars in the second week, and the cumulative box office exceeded 200 million US dollars, reaching 203.4 million US dollars. The box office of the first week plus the trend of the next week has basically reaffirmed the total box office potential of "Suicide Squad 2" in North America at about 350 million US dollars. ".

In addition, even if many large-scale ticket warehouses have not yet opened, the cumulative overseas box office of "Suicide Squad 2" has quickly exceeded 200 million in the same two weeks, and the preliminary estimate is about 250 million US dollars. Because the overseas market is much more complicated than that in North America, the total overseas box office needs to be further observed, but there is no doubt that it exceeds that in North America. between.

As for 1 billion, the local market has not exceeded 400 million, and the global 1 billion is not too extravagant.

In the past 1998, only "Jurassic Park 3", whose global distribution has basically ended, exceeded 1 billion at the global box office. To be precise, it was 406 million US dollars in North America, 737 million US dollars overseas, and 1.143 billion US dollars worldwide.

Such a result, if Simon hadn't finalized it himself, even if the trilogy had been announced in advance, Daenerys would very much hope that there would be another Jurassic Park Four Five Six.

Simon has no plans to change his mind.

Mainly, it's still about securing Hollywood's creativity. At least, even Hollywood cannot escape the cycle of boom and bust. In the current most prosperous years, more non-sequel originals will be made, and there will be more money to eat in the future.

Second place fell rather unexpectedly to "My Best Friend's Wedding."

The romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts made $23.62 million in its opening week.

Compared with the box office queen-level appeal of the original time and space in the 1990s, the current results are obviously not satisfactory.

However, considering the film's medium production cost of US$35 million, even with the US$15 million publicity and distribution, the total investment will reach US$50 million. With such an opening, after the global release, the pressure to pay back the cost will not be too great. You can still make a small profit in the theater stage.

After all, with the continuous development of peripheral channels of Hollywood movies, the income of the next movie on the three major channels of cinema, video and TV is roughly the same. Purely on the books, as long as a movie can recover one-third of the cost in the theater channel, after the subsequent operation of the two major channels, it can basically achieve a balance of payments.

Of course, the problem happens to be the time cost.

For example, if the same $100 million is invested in other channels, you can get a return of 15% per year. In three years, the compound interest will be rolled down, and you can double it by 1.5 times, reaching $150 million. And if you invest in movies, in the same three years, it is probably a cycle in which the three major channels of theaters, video and TV can operate completely. If you lose money, it is even better to deposit the money directly in the bank to earn interest.

This is why Hollywood studios care most about the theatrical distribution in the first phase.

After all, most studios do not spend their own money to make movies, but often raise financing from various financial investment institutions, a large part of which is still debt financing that needs to pay interest. Therefore, if the cost can be recovered at the stage of theater chain, and the loan from the financial institution can be repaid directly, the income brought by the follow-up channel will be net profit.

As for Carlock Company, which was very active in Hollywood in the past few years and has been silent due to the influence of Simon, the big butterfly, it is the production company that invested in blockbuster films such as "Terminator 2" and "Basic Instinct" in the original time and space. Even more advanced, during the preparatory stage of the film, most of the distribution rights were sold through capital operations in order to withdraw funds as soon as possible.

All because studios simply can't afford the time cost.

However, if we can break through this limitation, form an omni-channel self-circulation, and keep the benefits in our own system to the greatest extent, we will undoubtedly be able to maximize the benefits of a project.

In today's Hollywood, Daenerys Entertainment is the company that has most vividly achieved this.

Because Daenerys is large enough and strong enough, Daenerys Entertainment does not need to rely on external capital from the production stage of the film, which directly avoids a large interest expense. Secondly, in the issuance stage, because there is no need to urgently sell out the distribution rights of various channels for cash flow considerations, it is like cultivating a field, and can be cultivated as intensively as possible to achieve the maximum output.

Eventually a virtuous circle is formed.

In the 1990s in Hollywood, traditional major Hollywood studios merged and integrated one after another to expand their size and achieve diversification. To a large extent, it was also to achieve the goal of a virtuous cycle that could ultimately maximize profits.

Back to the box office.

The third place is still produced by Daenerys Entertainment. "Scary Scream", which entered the third week of release, once again earned 20.34 million US dollars with a 38% single-week decline, and the cumulative box office reached 108.73 million US dollars, successfully surpassing the US$20.34 million. Into the 100 million box office club.

For this spoof "Shock"

"Scream" is a spoof comedy that sells feelings unexpectedly and is very successful, and the industry can only envy and sigh.

Can't learn.

Just like the second place "My Best Friend's Wedding", and this movie, in addition to the movie itself, and some gimmicks that sell feelings, on the other hand, a very important reason for the relative success of the two movies , or the strength of Daenerys Entertainment itself is too strong.

With the advantages accumulated by Daenerys Entertainment in various aspects such as media and theaters, coupled with the many resources of the entire Westeros system, it will be able to add another part to the films produced by Daenerys without knowing it. An aura that is hard for a studio to match.

Just like promoting this one.

In the final analysis, the publicity of a movie is to strive for exposure, so that more people can know about the movie before it is released, and accumulate as many potential audiences as possible. In this regard, in addition to owning the national abc television network, the rapidly emerging Internet platform is also completely open to Daenerys. As for the paper media, although its own paper media is not strong, Daenerys has a strong relationship with News Corp., Times Companies with strong paper media capabilities like Warner have very good relationships.

The result is that with the same $10 million publicity expenditure, other studios may only be able to achieve a 10 million publicity result, but Daenerys Entertainment can expand it to 20 million or even 30 million dollars.

Speaking of this, we can actually refer to Hollywood in the original time and space.

In the end, the big studios that can live well, whether it is Disney, Warner or Universal, basically have their own TV network assets that can provide a wide marketing platform for the film business.

As for Viacom, which owns CBS but then turned a good hand to a pulp, Redstone, who will never delegate power except for his own poor performance, has become the biggest obstacle to Viacom's development. Another point is that due to the infighting of the Redstone family, Viacom was actually re-split, and various businesses such as film and television theaters went their own way. Mission: Impossible, DreamWorks Animation, and even Paramount, which was quite powerful and could easily eat Marvel Pictures, not only fell to the bottom of the top six after more than ten years, but almost had to sell itself to survive.

By the way, it was almost sold to a Chinese company.

By the way, it didn't sell in the end, because something happened to the Chinese company, so I had to hang around half-dead, eating some old money from "Mission: Impossible" and "Transformers". Honestly, I worked part-time for Brother Cruise who was bullied and fired and then asked him to go back with a shy face.

Compare it to the really bullish Dibao.

You say that I have a strong desire to control and do not give the director creative space, then you go.

So the tail lights go.

So the scandal of Whedon's derailment on the set many years ago broke out.

So Taillight killed himself through "Justice League".

Compare that to Paramount.

Mr. Pei, you are mighty, Mr. Pei, you are domineering, Mr. Pei, you can play whatever you want, Mr. Pei, you can make whatever you want, so Mr. Pei made the most profitable "Transformers" series to death, patted your ass, went to the big dog on the assembly line, and continued to take With a large sum of money, he played casually and casually, leaving a hapless owner who could only seek to sell himself to continue his life.

And then.

Back to above, by the way.

Back to the box office.

The fourth place finally has nothing to do with Daenerys Entertainment, and it falls on Disney's "Joyan the Gorilla".

This is a blockbuster that combines the characteristics of "Out of Africa", "King Kong" and "Jurassic Park". In the first week of seven days, the final box office was only 20.02 million US dollars.

If it is some other medium and low-cost films, the first week of 20.02 million US dollars is not too much of a failure, but if it falls on "Joyan the Gorilla", it will undoubtedly be a job that can disappoint Disney and its parent company Vivendi executives. A score of kicking the table.

After all, the first week was 20.02 million U.S. dollars, and the North American mainland of the film can only be fixed at about 50 million U.S. dollars.

Counting the whole world, even if the total box office of the entire theater stage can earn more than 100 million yuan, compared with the huge production cost of 90 million US dollars and the equally expensive publicity investment, it can only face a huge loss, even in the next few years. All other channels are fully operational and may not be able to recover the full budget.

At the beginning, it was ambitious to win Disney, which can be called the representative of American culture. France Vivendi was once full of ambitions. However, after two or three years of tossing, there has not been a big hit movie that even supports Vivendi.

Some of you probably already understand that Hollywood isn't all that fun.

Fifth place is MGM's "The Perfect Murder."

Michael Douglas continued his style of crime thriller, which brought MGM a box office of 16.34 million US dollars in the first seven days. Whether it was word-of-mouth or box office, it was not as good as the film that made Douglas fall into a similar genre 10 years ago. Fatal Attraction".

Fortunately, the production cost of the film is only US$35 million, and it is estimated that the domestic box office will earn US$40 million to US$50 million. In addition to overseas, there is still hope to achieve a balance of payments in the theater stage.

Apart from the top five, other movies related to Daenerys Entertainment:

"The Mummy 2" earned US$10.01 million in its sixth week, with a cumulative box office of US$198.78 million.

"Heaven and Earth" earned $8.86 million in the seventh week, and the cumulative box office reached 243.37

It is expected to land between $260 million and $270 million at the domestic box office.

"Gangs of New York" earned $2.01 million in its seventh week, with a cumulative box office of $73.82 million. The domestic box office has little chance of breaking $80 million.

Then there is "Elizabeth", which was released before Christmas as an award-winning film.

After three consecutive weeks of small-scale screenings, avoiding the direct impact of "Suicide Squad 2" and relying on Golden Globe nominations to increase the number of screens to 506 in the new week of December 25. After a larger-scale response, the latest week of "Elizabeth" box office The final income was 6.93 million U.S. dollars, and the average museum reached 13,700 U.S. dollars.

The cumulative box office in the four weeks was 10.71 million US dollars, successfully breaking through 10 million.

Obviously, this is actually just the beginning.

As the focus of Daenerys Entertainment's awards season this year, even though last year's "Titanic" won the Oscars, this year's Oscars may discriminate against Daenerys Entertainment's films, but before the Oscars, " It is not a problem for Elizabeth to walk out of a box office curve similar to that of "Shakespeare in Love".

Again, in this year's awards season, Simon does not intend to restrain his edge, which can be seen from the nominations for this year's Golden Globe Awards.

Therefore, this time the Oscar, even if it is not a certainty, there are seventy to eighty percent certainty.

The ultimate goal is to promote "Elizabeth" to exceed 100 million locally, and after winning the highest Oscar award, the world will gain another wave of awards with the halo of awards.

In any case, for a $25 million historical film, "Elizabeth" is bound to be a pretty decent success so far.

After the North American schedule officially ended at the end of 1998, Simon did not stay in Melbourne for too long in Australia.

On January 3rd, before the end of the weekend immediately after New Year's Day, Simon left Australia ahead of the women and children. After all, he left for a month, and there was too much work accumulated in North America for Simon to deal with.

The two Jenny and a group of little guys will continue to live in Melbourne for a while.

Moreover, the return date will be staggered as much as possible. In fact, Simon left first, as well. Still the same sentence, be careful, you can't go wrong.