Chapter 356 The best extramarital affair movie

By early October, the set of "The English Patient" in Tunisia, North Africa was completed. Link and his director team flew to Paris, and then transferred to Tunisia to start filming "The English Patient".

"The English Patient" tells the story of a special patient in an Allied field hospital during World War II. This patient was rescued from a burning, crashed plane by Bedouin herdsmen who had no concept of national boundaries. He was covered in burns and was unrecognizable, and he could not remember who he was.

Because he spoke fluent English, he was named "the English patient" by the medical staff on the battlefield.

While taking care of the 'English patient', the field nurse Hannah discovered a burnt diary beside him. Through the diary, she gradually learned about the 'English patient's' past.

His name was Ammas, a Hungarian archaeologist. While conducting an investigation in the Sahara Desert, he met Geoff Clifton, a cartographer from the Royal Geographical Society, and his beautiful wife Catherine.

Amos was attracted by Catherine's charm and talent, and developed an irresistible love for her.

Since Catherine was a married woman, the two spent many days together, went through a series of tests and challenges, and finally confirmed that they were true love for each other.

Out of jealousy, her husband Jeff wanted to kill Almas with a plane. As a result, the plane crashed, Jeff died on the spot, and Catherine was seriously injured.

Because they were in the desert, their transportation was destroyed and they could not contact the hospital in time. In order to save Catherine, Almas placed her in a cave and then ran out of the desert on foot for three days.

But when he returned to the cave with the ambulance, Catherine was already dead.

In grief, Almash flew the plane carrying Catherine's body into the sky. Because the plane was from the German army, it was bombarded by British and French troops in the air.

The plane turned into a ball of fire and fell, and Amos was burned into the "English Patient".

After remembering these things, Almas chose euthanasia with the help of Hannah and followed Catherine to leave this world.

The Sahara Desert plot in The English Patient takes place in Egypt.

Given that Egypt in reality is not very friendly to the United States, most Hollywood movies that have plots taking place in Egypt will choose to be set in several countries surrounding Egypt, including Tunisia, Morocco, etc.

For example, in 1977, George Lucas's "Star Wars" was filmed in Tunisia, and in 1981, Steven Spielberg filmed "Indiana Jones" in Tunisia.

This time, Link also brought the crew to Tunisia for filming, and the set was less than 3 miles away from the original set of "Indiana Jones".

The main scenes shot here are about the protagonist Almas meeting Jeff and Catherine, as well as the process of Almas and Catherine getting to know each other and falling in love, which occupies half of all the scenes.

The filming took more than a month in Tunisia. After finishing all the scenes in early November, Link led the team to Florence in central Italy to shoot part of the scene in the field hospital.

During the filming, Monica returned to the villa in Florence, Italy to stay temporarily. Sophie Marceau, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diane Lane and others also often came to visit. Although Link's days of filming here were busy, he also enjoyed it.

While the movie was being filmed, the release of "Sense and Sensibility" was also relatively smooth. After seven weeks of release, the North American box office reached a cumulative $48.68 million, and the overseas box office reached a cumulative $33.57 million, with a total box office of more than 80 million.

In late October, Paranormal Activity 2, the tenth film of the year produced by Guess Pictures, was released.

The film was produced, written and edited by Link, and earned $40.67 million in 3,214 theaters in North America in its first week, setting a record for the highest box office performance in the third week of October.

It also strongly suppressed several films released at the same time, including Disney's fantasy horror film "The Lightning", Warner Bros.' thriller "The Hunt", and Woody Allen's art film "The Untamed".

The huge sales of "Paranormal Activity 2" also made many peers jealous, and they cursed Guess What Films as a money monster.

The film cost $3 million to produce and $12 million to promote and market. It earned $40.67 million in its first week and is expected to take in no less than $100 million at the North American box office. Guess what, the studio will make a ton of money from this small project again.

"Damn, how did this crappy movie get so much at the box office?"

Bob Weinstein looked at the box office data in the newspaper, with anger and resentment on his fat cheeks.

The film "Non-Powerful Aphrodisiac" was produced by Miramax Films and cost $15 million to produce.

This movie has sexy beauties, film masters, and attractive "pornographic" movie posters, and I thought it would get good box office data.

As a result, the film only earned $758,000 in 148 theaters in its first week, with weekly box office per theater less than $5,000, far below the break-even line.

If we continue to promote and release the film, we must be prepared to lose money. If we do not continue to release the film, we will have to bear a loss of more than 10 million US dollars.

In the past two years, although Miramax Films successfully released "Pulp Fiction" and participated in the production of "The Butterfly Effect", earning nearly 100 million US dollars from these two projects, other films except these two projects are basically losses.

This also caused their company's profits to plummet, with box office revenue falling by 42% compared to 1992.

If the situation continues to deteriorate, according to the original acquisition agreement, the parent company Disney is likely to dismiss them and drive them out of Miramax.

"Harvey, what should we do? Are we just going to watch the movie lose money while Guess What? movies sell like hotcakes?"

"What good ideas do you have?"

Behind his desk, Harvey Weinstein was holding a cigar, the smoke almost obscuring his gloomy face.

"We should increase publicity to let more people know about this movie. I don't believe that Woody Allen's movie is inferior to the crappy sequel produced by Guess What."

Bob Weinstein yelled.

"It's useless. 'Non-Powerful Aphrodisiac' is an art film. Although it is of high quality, its audience is much smaller than 'Paranormal Activity 2' and its popularity is even worse. Besides, when Guess What Pictures was promoting 'Paranormal Activity 2', it spent tens of millions of dollars on the promotion of the film. How can we compare?"

Harvey said slowly.

"Damn it! Damn Link! Damn Guess What! Damn the movie studio! Damn those audiences too. They chose to watch fake movies like Paranormal Activity 2 instead of watching good movies like 'Under the Graveyard'. These audiences are simply hopeless."

Bob kept cursing.

Harvey was smoking a cigarette and feeling very uncomfortable.

After the release of "Paranormal Activity 1" in 1992, many media criticized the poor quality of the film. If Link hadn't used events such as the "Murrieta Murder Case" to hype up the film, the film would never have made so much box office.

Many movie fans also said that they would never be fooled again and would definitely not watch "Paranormal Activity 2".

Therefore, when the second film was released, he and the presidents of the seven major film studios did not take it seriously. They also deliberately arranged several high-quality films at the same time to drag down "Paranormal Activity 2" and make this film get very bad box office data, and then used the media to ridicule Link.

But no one expected that "Paranormal Activity 2", which was known as the sequel to a bad movie, earned more than 40 million US dollars in its first week, which was higher than the first week box office performance of several commercial blockbusters in the summer vacation.

Several high-quality movies released during the same period not only failed to suppress this "bad movie" at the box office, but also had a lot of box office revenue sucked away by the "bad movie".

More importantly, so far this year, Guess Films has had three films that have grossed over $100 million at the North American box office, including "Ace Ventura 2" released in March, which grossed $128 million at the North American box office; "The Butterfly Effect" released in May, which grossed $142 million at the North American box office;

"The Shawshank Redemption", which was released in August, currently has a North American box office of 96.64 million US dollars. It is expected to usher in a wave of box office growth during the awards season at the end of this year and the beginning of next year. The North American box office is estimated to be no less than 110 million US dollars.

If "Paranormal Activity 2" breaks 100 million in North American box office again, Guess Film will have at least 4 movies breaking 100 million in North American box office this year, which is more than the total number of movies breaking 100 million at the current box office of the seven major film studios. Guess Film will also have a great chance of retaining the championship in the film production industry.

Harvey felt a lot of pressure.

If this situation continues, Miramax may face bankruptcy even with Disney's support, and the influence of the Big Seven in Hollywood and the control of Jewish consortiums in the entertainment industry will be greatly affected.

Considering this, Harvey felt that he could no longer remain silent and had to sound the alarm to his Jewish compatriots in the circle, asking them to take this matter seriously and treat this battle as a life-and-death battle for their race in Hollywood.

(End of this chapter)