Hollywood Hunter

Friday, June 17.

Another box office week is coming, "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" enters its third week of release, and the box office momentum has further slowed.

The two new films released this week in North American theaters can be said to have been planned for a long time. They are the horror film "Call of Souls" produced by Daenerys Entertainment's New World Pictures and the sequel to Columbia Pictures' 1991 hit comedy "Urban Hillbilly" Urban Hillbilly 2".

As the first chapter of the planned "Call of Souls Movie Universe", Simon has been following up on this project himself.

The production cost of "The Soul" was only 15 million U.S. dollars. After the film was completed, after several internal trial screenings to confirm media and audience feedback, the film's publicity budget was approved by West Monte to reach 30 million U.S. dollars, which is equivalent to twice the production cost.

Hollywood movie advertising budgets are usually only half of the production budget.

As a non-sequel movie, a one-time publicity investment equivalent to twice the production budget is issued. Only Daenerys Entertainment in Hollywood has such confidence and courage.

In fact, it is mainly because Simon hopes to open up the market situation of the "calling the movie universe" as soon as possible.

As long as a brand-new movie universe series can be successfully opened up, the investment of up to 45 million US dollars in a horror film is worth the money.

Relying on a sufficient publicity budget, "Call of Souls" with the strong edge of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" still won full audience attention in the previous months.

It’s just that on the Internet platform, the play volume of the movie trailers of Igreat Portal’s "Call of Souls" is second only to "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" in a series of heavyweight new movie trailers this summer, and it is rated as 1994 by many entertainment media. The most thrilling horror movie trailer of the year.

Although the New World Pictures team abides by Simon's request and did not announce the ambition of the "calling the movie universe" in advance, the gimmick of "Calling the Soul" based on the real experience of the supernatural investigator Warren and his wife is still widely circulated on the Internet platform, and Amazon online mall specially recommend Several books related to the Warren couple’s life experience once entered the bestseller list.

With the help of "Batman: The Rise of the Dark Knight" after the release of the audience, the audience expects to begin to shift. After intensive publicity in the last two weeks, on June 15th, "Call of Souls" also held a grand premiere at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

On June 16, the film word-of-mouth ban was lifted.

The North American mainstream media almost gave overwhelmingly positive reviews.

"Hollywood Reporter" praised "The Call of Souls" perfectly tapped the deepest fears in the audience's hearts. Compared with the psychological horror of "Midnight Ring", it is even more creepy.

"Variety Show" also gave a very high evaluation: "One of Hollywood's most perfect horror films, no gimmicks, no deliberate presentation, the audience is as if the heart is held by an invisible big hand, scared to the end."

Not only that, but at the end of the film review article, many media specifically mentioned a gimmicky but actually very serious propaganda slogan on the "Call of Souls" poster: Heart patients, please watch carefully! Most people have a rebellious mentality. Even if they understand that this reminder is Daenerys Entertainment's propaganda method, there are still many viewers who subconsciously want to verify whether "Calling the Soul" can really scare themselves out of heart disease.

After preliminary statistics, the comprehensive media score after the premiere of "Calling the Soul" reached a very good 8.6 points, which also gave more people the idea of ​​entering the venue to find out.

Movie marketing, in the final analysis, is trying to stimulate the audience's desire to watch movies.

The series of publicity techniques adopted by the New World Pictures team can be said to have accomplished this perfectly. The audience's tendency to watch the film has been mobilized to the highest level before the film is released on a large scale.

As the most direct competitor this week, Columbia Pictures is holding on to the reputation of "Urban Hillbilly 2" until the day of the opening of the painting on Friday.

June 17.

"Call of Souls" officially opened in North American theaters with 2,362 screens.

The opening screen of "Urban Hillbilly 2" also reached 2,243 yuan.

Then, compared to the overwhelming media praise for "Calling the Souls", Billy Christo starred in the sequel to the comedy film that created a local box office of $123 million three years ago. However, the media's reputation was directly destroyed. Friday's synthesis The media score is only a pitiful 1.8 points, and there are few media outlets that say good things about this film.

Among them, the film critics of "Newsweek" even sneered at "Urban Hillbilly 2" as "a meaningless and tattered sequel. I am curious how the film creators concentrated on completing such a terrible job."

The reputation of Hollywood movies and the box office are never absolutely positive.

Because the movie market has always had a fixed demand for viewing movies at any time, if there are no other strong movies in the same period, such as "Urban Hillbilly 2", a sequel with the popularity of the previous work, even if the reputation is poor, it can attract many audiences to buy tickets. field.

However, this time "City Hillbilly 2" directly hit the very well-known "Call of the Soul", not to mention the "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" that was still strong in the third week of filming. For the audience, whether they choose the new film "Call of Souls" or "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", which is absolutely worth the price, it is obviously more cost-effective than watching a bad movie with a media rating of only 1.8. .

As a result, the production budget of "Urban Hillbilly 2", with a production budget of up to 40 million U.S. dollars, is expected to recover at least 30 to 50 million box office without fierce competition. It was directly crushed by "The Soul" and "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises".

June 17 to June 23.

"Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" easily achieved three consecutive championships. After the box office cut last week, the film's decline this week has shrunk to 27%, and it received another $47.51 million. The cumulative box office reached $204.23 million, becoming the first in 1994. A film with a local box office of over 200 million U.S. dollars.

"Call of Souls" ranked second on the list.

Even with some expectations, the film's box office results clearly exceeded many people's expectations.

In the first week and seven days, the box office of "Calling the Soul" reached 42.39 million U.S. dollars, making it the second film to exceed 40 million U.S. dollars in the first week of its opening in 1994. Prior to this, in addition to the phenomenon-level "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", the highest grossing box office this year was only "Stargate" with $36.61 million.

After the film box office data was released, many media exclaimed that "The Soul" would become another "Sixth Sense of Supernatural" or "The Exorcist". Simon did not have this luxury. To be precise, "Calling the Soul" tends to be a perfect commercial film plus a model of classic marketing operations, and it has not reached the phenomenon-level viewing trend of "The Sixth Sense of Supernatural" and earlier "The Exorcist" a few years ago.

Even so, only the opening of the box office of US$42.39 million in the first week has allowed Daenerys Entertainment to recover a large part of the total investment of US$45 million. There is no suspense about the film’s local box office exceeding 100 million, and it can even reach 150 million to 2 100 million US dollars range.

Simon personally intervened to approve a publicity budget that was equivalent to twice the production cost. The most fundamental expectation was that the "Call of Souls Cinema Universe" could have a good start. As for the box office, it is best to break 100 million. If it cannot break 100 million, as long as it can reach the hot sales level of 60 million to 80 million US dollars, the project is considered to be up to the standard, and this series can proceed smoothly.

Now, North America alone has a box office potential of 150 million to 200 million US dollars, and the global sales of films are just around the corner. Daenerys Entertainment has directly won a big start in the "calling movie universe".

After the box office was released in the first week, Simon instructed Danny Morris, the president of New World Pictures, to start the promotion of the concept of the "Conspiracy Cinematic Universe" and pre-heat the first derivative film "The Haunted Morgue" in the Halloween at the end of the year. .

"Urban Hillbilly 2" ranked third on the list.

However, compared to the box office sales of "Calling the Soul", the opening box office of "Urban Hillbilly 2" can only be described as dismal. In the first seven days of the week, the sequel to this comedy film, which had a production cost of US$40 million and an investment of 20 million US dollars, has only recovered US$9.25 million at the box office, and the museum barely exceeded US$4,000.

The most striking comparison is that the total box office of the first week of "Urban Hillbilly 2" is not even as good as the first day of the opening day of "The Call of Souls". The opening of the film universe was only won on June 17th. At the box office of 9.73 million US dollars.

Sony personally accepted the operation of Columbia Pictures and began to change the profligate style of Peter Cooper's period. This "Urban Hillbilly 2" was cautious in the establishment and announcement of the project, but after all it failed to escape the fate of another failure.

"Life and Death" relatively firmly ranked fourth on the list.

In the fifth week of its release, the film’s box office dropped by 24%, and it received another $8.31 million, with a cumulative box office of $88.49 million.

"The Mobilization of the Heavenly Soldiers" ranked fifth.

Disney's comedy, which tried to replicate the success of "Good Morning Vietnam", had a 26% drop in the box office the following week, but because it started too low, the box office was only $6.11 million. Two weeks after its release, the film’s cumulative box office was 14.31 million U.S. dollars, and the museum also fell to a low of 3412 U.S. dollars. The number of screens will be significantly reduced in the next week.

In addition to the top five on the list, it is worth mentioning that Daenerys Entertainment's "Stargate" released on May 13th, the film successfully crossed the threshold of the 100 million yuan box office club this week, with a weekly income of 4.13 million US dollars. , The cumulative box office reached 106.9 million US dollars.

On the other hand, Daenerys Entertainment's vulgar comedy "The Detective Airplane Head" launched during the Easter schedule was officially released this week. The film has been shown in North American theaters for 11 weeks. The total domestic box office is 97.63 million US dollars, and the distance is only 237 million. Ten thousand dollars gap.

However, whether it is Simon, who personally intervened in the lower end of the film, or Daenerys Entertainment's other management, it is not a pity that "Detective Plane" failed to achieve the 100 million mark.

Even deliberately.

And not just to suppress Kim Carey's momentum.

Mainly because so far, in the first half of 1994, even if you don’t count "Batman: The Rise of the Dark Knight", which has the title of Warner Bros., three movies with a box office of over 100 million in the North American market, and the " "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Stargate" and the DC super blockbuster "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", both of which belong to Daenerys Entertainment.

As for the most dazzling "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", no one will ignore the phoenix rebirth logo immediately after the opening of Warner during the theater screening.

If "Detective Airplane Head" also achieved a box office of over 100 million, it would be almost equivalent to Daenerys Entertainment having produced four local box office blockbusters this year.

It's nothing if it's just that.

The key is that other Hollywood studios have not had a blockbuster with a box office of over 100 million so far.

From the beginning of the summer file to the present, several films including Warner Bros’s "The Gambler Horseman", Disney’s "Sky Soldier" and Columbia Pictures’ "Urban Hillbilly 2" have all had the ambition of hitting the billion-dollar box office club. , Either untimely, or too disappointed.

Simon can never buy someone else's box office just to make his own look less glaring?

Therefore, I can only "start" from myself.

Directly withdrawing "Detective Aircraft Head", the local box office of the film will be stopped within the 100 million yuan threshold, and the two half-billion-breaking movies will always look a little less dazzling compared to the three half-breaking movies.

However, this kind of ‘small action’ can only make Daenerys Entertainment keep a low profile for a while.

With the box office momentum of "Calling the Soul", the local box office quickly broke through 100 million without any suspense. Not only that, but next, there will be a potential super blockbuster coming out on July 1, "Forrest Gump". After "Forrest Gump", there is also a "half" "True Lie", which is a film jointly co-produced by Daenerys Entertainment and Fox.

With a pinch, this is another two and a half.

As for other film companies, Simon deliberately sorted out the summer film list after the box office of "The Soul".

In addition to several movies related to Daenerys Entertainment, the next more important ones include "Detective Beverly 3" produced by Paramount on June 24, and starring Jack Nicholson, produced by Columbia on July 1. "Wolf Life and Death", July 8th Warner produced the romance film "I Love Trouble" filmed by Julia Roberts, and July 22nd "Browsing Eyebrow Chase" starring Harrison Ford produced by Paramount and many more.

Among them, in Simon's memory, only "Falling Eye Pursuit" achieved a box office exceeding 100 million.

However, this time, the one who will directly collide with "Browse Pursuit" on July 22nd is "The Wire" starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, which is another one. Daenerys Entertainment produced a film.

The former "Wire of Fire" was placed on the Christmas year-end festival with an untimely atmosphere. Although it did not achieve a box office exceeding 100 million, it was considered a big hit.

This time, as one of the most classic police films in Hollywood history, "Wire of Fire" was selected for release in the summer file. Although the opening date is relatively late, the end of the summer file when the competition is no longer fierce is also suitable for the close of the film length. The 3-hour movie relied on word-of-mouth to slowly harvest the box office and experienced a series of blockbuster baptisms. Many audiences are happy to enter the theater and savor the peak duel of the two veteran movie stars.

Therefore, "Burning Eyebrow Pursuit" VS "Stealing Line", the two powers collided. Even if "Burning Eyebrow Pursuit" cannot threaten "Browning Eyebrow Pursuit" with its long-term disadvantage, it is inevitable to squeeze the box office space of the opponent.

In all fairness, Simon really hopes that "Burning Eyebrows" can achieve a local box office of more than 100 million yuan. For this reason, he doesn't even mind slightly suppressing the momentum of "The Line of Fire".

In this way, there are four surpassing 100 million films released by other film companies in the summer file, "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises", "Speed ​​of Life and Death", "True Lies" and "Browning Eyebrows". Daenerys Entertainment’s four billion-dollar club movies "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Stargate", "Call of Souls" and "Forrest Gump" are flat, and everyone will look better in the scenes.

However, if "Burning Eyebrows Chase" is not as competitive as "Gambler Mahuali", Simon is helpless.