Chapter 472: The crew's shipwreck

After accepting his advice, Depp's performance gradually became smoother, he was less awkward than before, and he became more and more integrated with the role of Captain Jack Sparrow.

As Depp got more involved in the role, the filming progressed more and more smoothly.

Only when filming water scenes, because many actors suffered from seasickness, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, even taking anti-seasickness medicine was useless.

In order to take care of their health, the crew had to adjust the sea scenes and shoot them in waters with calmer waters.

When the crew moved to a small Caribbean island for filming, the North American summer season entered its most intense phase.

In the sixth week after the release of "Tomorrow Never Dies", the sci-fi disaster blockbuster "Godzilla" jointly produced by Columbia Pictures and Guess What Pictures was released.

"Godzilla" is adapted from a science fiction novel published by Japanese writer Koyama Shigeru in 1948. It tells the story of a Jurassic dinosaur on a small island in the southern waters of Japan after the end of World War II. Under the influence of hydrogen bomb radiation, it turned into a terrifying monster Godzilla with great destructive power. Godzilla invaded Tokyo and carried out a devastating destruction. The fate of mankind hung by a thread.

The science fiction novel was adapted into films by Japanese film companies in 1954 and 1984.

The plot of the American version of "Godzilla" is not much different from the previous two films. It tells the story of a French nuclear test on a Pacific island, which gave birth to a Godzilla. Godzilla broke into the United States from the coastline and headed straight for the prosperous Manhattan area of ​​New York. New York was threatened with destruction. Scientists, journalists, TV cameramen, soldiers and insurance company inspectors in New York united to fight Godzilla.

The film cost $130 million to produce and grossed $67.26 million in 3,310 theaters in its first week.

Weekly box office champion.

This result is pretty good, and Columbia Pictures and Guess What Pictures have the potential to make a small profit.

This week, "Tomorrow Never Dies" earned $8.37 million, bringing its North American box office to $205 million.

Ranked fourth at the weekly box office.

The second place was the love movie "The Horse Whisperer" directed by Robert Redford, starring Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson and others, which earned 18.51 million US dollars in its first week of release.

The third place is "Collision Impact", which earned 13.37 million US dollars this week and has a cumulative North American box office of 124 million US dollars.

Fifth place: "The Wedding Singer", with 6.48 million US dollars, and a total North American box office of 71.37 million US dollars.

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" has been released for 13 weeks and earned $870,000 this week. The cumulative box office in North America is $75.53 million, with a box office-to-revenue ratio of 6:1, making it a big-selling movie.

"Dirty Things," produced by MGM Pictures last year, was also released this week, earning $4.51 million in 328 theaters, with average box office performance.

In the seventh week after the release of "007", "Batman & Robin" produced by Warner Bros. Pictures was released. The film tells the story of Batman and his assistant Robin teaming up to fight villains such as Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy.

The film was directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Chris O'Donnell, Alicia Silverstone and others.

The creative team is no worse than the previous one.

The film grossed $42.91 million in 2,934 theaters in its first week, ranking first at the weekly box office.

But the film cost as much as $125 million, and the global box office would need to exceed $300 million to break even.

Judging from the first week’s box office data, the film is likely to lose money.

In addition, the film's reputation is far worse than "Batman Forever". Many fans expressed disappointment with the sequel, and the media called it the worst in the Batman series.

After the first week box office results came out, Mig Goss and Richard Fox also felt very regretful.

Originally, they thought that the "Batman" IP was more popular, and that finding other directors to shoot the film would also be successful, and they could also save a lot of money from Link's salary.

Unfortunately, they underestimated Link's role in the movie, which led to the box office losses of the Batman sequels. What's worse is that "Batman and Robin" ruined the reputation of the series.

This loss is more serious than losing two or three hundred million US dollars.

In the eighth week after the release of "007", "Rush Hour 2" produced by Guess Pictures was released.

This film tells the story of Hong Kong police Inspector Li and Los Angeles detective James Carter who were on vacation in Hong Kong Island when they encountered a bombing at the U.S. consulate, killing two U.S. customs officials. The two were ordered to investigate the matter, and after some investigation and several exciting fights, the two teamed up to capture the murderer.

The film is directed by Brett Ratner and stars Chen Long, Chris Tucker, Li Bingbing, Zun Long, Alan King, Milla Jovovich and others.

The film grossed $97.71 million in 3,118 theaters in North America in its first week, setting a record for the highest weekly box office of this summer's movie and the highest weekly box office record for a movie starring a Chinese.

Chen Long and Chinese Kung Fu have also become more popular than ever in North America.

"Rush Hour 2" was a box office hit, and its North American box office is expected to exceed 200 million US dollars, becoming the second film released by Guess Pictures-MGM this year with a North American box office of over 200 million.

This data also makes the executives of Hollywood film companies jealous.

After Guess What Pictures acquired MGM at the beginning of the year, they thought that this big burden of MGM would slow down the development of Guess What Pictures and give other film companies a chance to catch up.

Unfortunately they were disappointed.

Guess what - Although several films released by MGM in the first half of the year suffered losses, most of the films were box office hits, with relatively high-profit films such as "Rush Hour 2", "The Wedding Singer", "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Kill Bill" appearing one after another.

Judging from the current box office data, guess what - there is a high probability that MGM Pictures will retain the top spot in the industry's total box office.

"Mike, are we still going to continue looking for cooperation with Guess What Pictures?"

In the office of the president of Disney, Michael Ovitz looked at the weekly box office data and asked Michael Eisner across from him, "After the merger with MGM, Guess, the production and distribution capabilities have increased by 200%. This year's North American box office will probably exceed 2 billion US dollars. If we continue to cooperate with them, they will earn more box office and occupy more market share. In a few years, when Guess Pictures digests MGM's industries and liabilities, I am afraid we will never have a chance to catch up with it."

Eisner took a puff of his cigarette and slowly exhaled. "Who else can we look for if not Guess What? Our investment is expected to be profitable if we cooperate with Guess What, but it may not be the case with other film purchasing companies."

Ovitz sighed, feeling helpless. "If we had known this would happen, we should have joined forces in 1993 or 1994 to completely destroy Guess What? and we wouldn't be in such a passive position now."

"It's over now. There's no point talking about it." Eisner waved his hand. "Link is filming Pirates of the Caribbean in the south. If you have time, go over and ask Link what he wants. And talk to him about other projects."

"All right!"

Ovitz reluctantly agreed.

This is also the dilemma faced by Disney and five other film studios.

They want to destroy Guess Pictures and Link, but they also want to cooperate with Guess Pictures to make money to prevent themselves from being left behind by other film companies.

This approach has resulted in them not only being unable to eliminate Guess and Link, but also gradually becoming dependent on them.

Ovitz sighed pessimistically and returned to his office. He called Link and said he would come to visit him. His assistant Aishwarya said she would inform Link.

The next day he flew to Miami, took a boat to Havana, Cuba, and then took another boat from Havana to the small island in the Caribbean Sea where the crew was located.

But the night before he arrived, an accident occurred during the filming of the crew.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, who played Elizabeth Vance, was rowing to the island at night when the boat suddenly took on water and sank into the sea in less than 20 seconds. Catherine and the lighting technician on the boat also fell into the water.

Fortunately, the rescue team and Link reacted in time. When Link saw the boat taking in water, he took off his coat, jumped into the sea, and quickly grabbed the sinking Catherine and the lighting technician, and took them onto the speedboat.

Catherine and the lighting technician also escaped danger.

“It’s dangerous to shoot in the sea at night.”

Ovitz said, looking out at the turbulent waters.

"But this way of shooting saves money and the picture quality is better. Link is very strict with his movies."

Executive producer Mike Statham shrugged.

"Okay, that's understandable."

Ovitz continued walking forward and suddenly saw several Cuban policemen in the crew, "What's going on?"

"There have been more than one accident on the crew in the past two days. Last week, when we were shooting in the Dominican Republic, the built studio suddenly caught fire. Although no one was injured, a lot of equipment and props were burned, and the crew lost about $300,000.

This morning, director Link's bodyguards caught two unknown people outside the crew who claimed to be entertainment reporters. Considering the strangeness of the fire in the studio and the sudden leak in the boat, we decided to call the police and charge the two people with murder. The police came here to investigate the matter. "

Producer Mike Statham said.

"Is that so? Link has had really bad luck lately."

Ovitz grinned, feeling somewhat happy. Link, that bastard, had extremely good luck in the past, so good that it made people jealous. Now he is finally unlucky, hahaha~

But when Link looked over, his face immediately fell and he showed an indignant expression.

(End of this chapter)