Chapter 173 Countermeasures
If "Final Destination" wants to win, it needs to work on promoting the movie.
The previous film, "The Blair Witch Project," received 1.2 times the box office subsidy. Afterwards, the publicity was quite effective, and the "Blair Witch Incident" spread almost all over North America. Everyone knew that there was a murderous witch in the small town of Wilton.
The degree of compatibility between the film and the market is gradually improving during the publicity.
Later, the box office subsidies slowly increased to 1.5 times, which also allowed "The Witch" to exceed 300 million in global box office.
Link thought for a while, called the company's management, and summoned them to a meeting in the conference room to discuss the promotion and distribution of "Final Destination" to increase the film's popularity.
In its fourth week of release, "Trap" grossed $16.57 million in North America and a cumulative box office of $123 million, once again winning the weekly box office championship.
But the film's box office fell sharply this week.
It became the worst weekly box office champion movie during this summer vacation.
In addition, due to the delay in the release of several blockbusters, the total box office of all movies released this week was only 54.75 million US dollars, which is far lower than the box office of movies in the previous few weeks and the same period in the previous two years.
This also caused CAA and "The Trap" to be criticized by some filmmakers.
The New York Daily News published an article saying that the practices of "Trap" and Paramount Pictures are suspected of monopoly and will hinder the development of the film market. The judicial authorities should actively intervene and investigate the illegal issues that occurred during the release of "Trap".
The Hollywood Reporter commented that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)'s silence in this process is condoning the violations of related companies, which is extremely detrimental to the entire film industry and also harms the interests of all filmmakers.
The British newspaper The Guardian commented that the recent Hollywood film market easily reminds people of Hollywood before the "Paramount Act" was issued in 1948. At that time, the Hollywood film industry was monopolized by the "Big Eight" film companies such as Paramount Pictures, and it is still the case today.
Will Roger, a well-known film critic, published a comment in the "Newspaper" saying that the air of the free film market is fresh, while the monopoly film market exudes a foul stench. "The Trap" is a film that exposes darkness and criticizes evil, but now it has become the source of evil. The reality is more ironic than the movie.
There are also entertainment tabloid reports that Tom Cruise is a member of the shoe cult. After the release of "Trap", other film distributors were threatened by the shoe cult and had to delay the release.
There are also tabloids claiming that "The Trap" is a terrible movie. The movie originally had a box office of tens of millions, but it was a joint hype by CAA and Paramount, which cost tens of millions to promote the box office. The box office data is extremely inflated.
Due to pressure from public opinion, several films that were supposed to be delayed were released as scheduled.
In the fifth week after the release of "The Trap", the blockbuster "In the Line of Fire" starring Harry Fortson was released.
The film grossed $27.35 million in 2,340 theaters in its first week, becoming the weekly box office champion.
This week, "Trap" only earned 6.58 million US dollars, ranking fourth in the weekly box office, with weak performance in the later period.
In second place was "Justins Who Write Poetry," a fan-favorite film starring popular singer Janet Jackson and rapper 2Pac, which grossed $11.19 million in its first week.
In third place is the Chinese-language film "The Wedding Banquet" produced by Guess What Pictures, which took in $6.93 million this week.
Ranked fifth is "Jurassic Park", which has been released for 12 weeks, with a box office of 4.15 million this week and a cumulative box office of 315 million US dollars.
After the box office data came out this week, many people were surprised that "The Trap" was only ranked fourth, and the box office of "The Wedding Banquet" also surprised many people.
No one expected that at this time, Guess Pictures would launch such a movie, which would surpass "The Trap" in weekly box office and enter the top three in weekly box office.
Some media dug deep into the movie "The Wedding Banquet", and the information they uncovered was even more surprising.
The Wedding Banquet is a gay film produced by Good Machine Films. After Good Machine was acquired by Guess Films, Guess Films was responsible for the promotion and distribution of the film.
The production cost was US$750,000 and it was directed by the relatively unknown director Ang Lee. Several of the film's leading actors are also Chinese, and there are almost no star actors.
"The Wedding Banquet" was screened in seven theaters in North America two weeks ago. The box office in the first week was 134,000 US dollars, with an average daily box office of 19,000 US dollars, which was an excellent preview result.
In the second week, it expanded to 426 studios, with a weekly box office of 6.93 million and a cumulative box office of 7.06 million US dollars, which is almost 10 times the production cost, making it a blockbuster movie.
After the news was reported, people in the circle envied Link's good luck. The movies he made have been selling well one after another, with a very high box office revenue ratio. Now the movies produced by the film company he acquired have also become hits. He is so lucky.
What is even more interesting to people in the industry is that the low-cost "The Wedding Banquet" actually surpassed Tom Cruise's "Trap" in box office this week.
Originally, when everyone saw that "The Trap" had a box office of over 100 million yuan, they thought Link was going to lose.
The success of The Wedding Banquet gave many people who thought Link was going to lose more confidence in him.
Even in Las Vegas, several casinos have lowered the odds on Link winning.
The initial odds of betting on Link to win were 11 to 1, but it was reduced to 8 to 1.
"Damn it! Guess how the film studio can release a movie at this time and get so much box office."
Tom Cruise said unhappily.
He is a person who doesn't like to lose, and he doesn't want to lose to a Chinese.
Seeing in the newspaper that the movies under Guess What Pictures were selling well, Link also had a hope of winning the bet.
This made him very uncomfortable.
"It doesn't matter."
Paramount Pictures Group Chairman Shirley Lansing consoled, "The current box office of Sugar Coat Trap has reached 130 million, and the estimated box office is no less than 180 million, and the global box office is no less than 300 million US dollars. The annual box office is expected to be in the top five. This is a very good result. It will be difficult for Link's new movie to get this number."
Shirley Lansing, 50 years old, joined Paramount Pictures in 1992 and became the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures. She is also the first female head of the seven major Hollywood film companies.
After taking office, Shirley Lansing proposed many film production plans to revitalize Paramount.
One of the plans is to create a series of Tom Cruise-style blockbusters centered on Tom Cruise, including last year's "Indecent Proposal", this "Trap", and the "Mission Impossible" series that is currently in preparation.
Tom Cruise's status in the circle has been improved in the past two years, and he has become a world-class movie star, which has a lot to do with Paramount's support.
"Shirley, I know it's hard for Link's new movie to get 300 million at the box office, but some things can be unexpected, and I hate surprises. I hope that Sugar Coated Trap will have a higher box office performance, so that Link's new movie will never catch up, okay?"
Tom Cruise looked up and looked at Shirley Lansing eagerly.
Shirley Lansing touched his cheek and said gently, "Don't worry, the company is still promoting "Sugar Coat Trap". I will ask them to increase the publicity efforts to get more box office for the movie."
"Thank you, Shirley!"
Tom Cruise held her waist and put his face on her belly.
After leaving Paramount Pictures, Tom Cruise called CAA President Michael Ovitz to ask how to deal with Link.
Ovitz told him not to worry, "The Wedding Banquet" was just a low-cost art film with a box office of at most tens of millions, and it would not affect the box office of "The Trap".
In addition, CAA will continue to contact the media and increase publicity and promotion efforts, and the box office of "The Trap" will definitely increase next week.
Tom Cruise felt relieved after hearing Ovitz say this.
(End of this chapter)
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