Chapter 409 Walking on the Road to Hell
After dealing with the company's affairs, Link flew to Texas to check on the crew's training. He also gathered the actors on site to study the script and rehearse the war scenes.
Under his arrangement, the company's work proceeded in an orderly manner.
In September, Guess What Pictures has two movies released, "A Man Walking" and "Final Destination 2".
Dead Man Walking is released in late August.
Earlier this year, the film won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. It had good quality and reputation, and received high praise after its release in the United States.
Since this is an art film, according to the process, it will be screened first, and then the scale of publicity and distribution will be decided based on the performance.
The film was screened in four theaters in its first week, earning $138,000, with an average single-theater box office of over $30,000, an excellent result.
In its second week, "A Man Called Dead" expanded to 443 theaters, earning $4.01 million. In its third week, it expanded to 617 theaters, earning $6.62 million.
The North American box office totaled 10.77 million US dollars.
The film cost $11 million to produce. Judging from the current box office data, the North American box office will be no less than 30 million. The company and director Tim Robbins will make a huge return.
At the end of September, "Final Destination 2" was released in 1,077 theaters in North America, earning $16.62 million in its first week, ranking second in the weekly box office, with an average box office of $15,400 per theater.
Although the total box office performance was inferior to the champion "Upfront Club", the average box office was 4,751 US dollars more than the champion.
This result surprised many people. Before its release, "Final Destination 2" was attacked by many media, and some media even encouraged audiences not to go to the cinema to watch it.
Originally, everyone thought that this movie would most likely lose money, and the "Final Destination" series would be ruined because of it. Guess the film studio will suffer a huge loss.
But no one expected that "Final Destination 2" would still be loved and sought after by movie fans after its release despite unfavorable public opinion.
In the second week, the publicity department of Guess the Movie stepped up its publicity efforts, spending more than 8 million US dollars, and claiming 12 million to the public, and advertising through various channels, including newspapers, television, radio, sports games, car body advertisements, etc. For a time, major media and major cities in North America were full of promotions for the movie "Final Destination 2".
Several of the film's main actors, including Drew Barrymore, Liv Tyler, Naomi Watts, Casey Affleck and others, also promoted the film to expand its influence.
In its second week, "Final Destination 2" earned $38.53 million from 2,337 theaters in North America, strongly suppressing "The Upfronts," which performed well at the box office, and won the box office championship this week.
The box office totaled 55.16 million U.S. dollars in two weeks.
Since September and October are the off-seasons for movies, it is a very good result for this movie to achieve this number this week.
Total Film magazine predicts that the film is expected to gross over $100 million in North America.
"Damn it! How can Final Destination 2 have a box office of 100 million?"
At Fox, Barry Diller swore angrily.
After the huge success of "Rush Hour" in August, they began to find ways to deal with Guess Pictures to prevent Guess Pictures' films from continuing to sell well, among which the main target was "Final Destination 2".
Because the first film in the series grossed $430 million worldwide, the box office revenue ratio was more than 20 times.
In addition, after the film was released, it became a global hit, with extremely high popularity and topic volume.
Movie fans are eagerly waiting for the second part.
"Final Destination 2" was already popular when it was released, so its box office performance will not be bad.
In order to prevent "Final Destination 2" from continuing to reap box office revenue in the North American film market, everyone has come up with various ideas to suppress the film, but the results have not been good.
At this time, TWA Flight 800 crashed into the sea off New York, which was surprisingly consistent with the plot of "Final Destination".
He, Harvey and Longmeyer all thought it was a godsend opportunity and did not hesitate to put up a sum of money to hype up the negative information about the film.
Thanks to their efforts, these negative reports also achieved good results.
This forced Guess Pictures to postpone the release of "Final Destination 2".
In the film market, the postponement of a film’s release will not only lead to a waste of pre-promotional investment, but will also cause dissatisfaction among movie fans.
The box office for the re-release will definitely not be very good.
They thought they had accomplished their mission and dealt a heavy blow to Guess What Pictures.
However, the popularity of the "Final Destination" series exceeded their expectations, and fans supported it even though its release was postponed.
In addition, they were also shocked by the fact that Guess What Pictures spent tens of millions of dollars to promote "Final Destination 2". It seemed that Link didn't care about the money at all in promoting the movie. He only wanted to make the movie a big hit and grab market share from the seven major studios.
Now, "Final Destination 2" has grossed 55.16 million U.S. dollars in two weeks. It is predicted that the North American box office will not be less than 100 million, and the overseas box office is also expected to be no less than 100 million U.S. dollars.
The film cost about $26 million to make, and guess what, the studio is going to make a killing.
Correspondingly, the films released by the seven major studios during the same period will earn much less.
Barry Diller called Harvey and Langmeyer to discuss countermeasures, but after discussing for a long time, they still couldn't come up with any good solution.
"Are we just going to watch Guess the Movies make money?"
Barry Diller asked angrily.
"Otherwise, how can you stop the audience from buying tickets to watch the movie?"
Harvey was on the other end of the line, puffing on his cigar.
"Barry, don't worry too much. We are just managers of the company, not the bosses. We can't make decisions on many things. We just need to do our job conscientiously and don't worry about other things. Even if the company's performance declines significantly, it is not our responsibility. No one else will do better than us."
Longmeyer consoled.
"Haha, Lang, do you really think so?"
Harvey sneered, "Although Universal Pictures is not your company, it is where your career is. For us, career is life. Once we lose our positions and power, where can we go and what can we do? Will we become a nobody in another industry? Would you be willing to do that?"
Harvey's words made the two men fall silent. In fact, not only them, but also the senior executives of the seven major film studios would not easily give up the power and positions in their hands after becoming the decision makers of the company.
Working in the seven major film studios, they are the CEO or chairman of XX Films. Their every move will be watched by the entire industry. Their names and photos often appear in the media, attracting everyone's attention. They will also be the objects of pursuit by a group of male and female stars at parties.
Gain both fame and fortune!
Once they lose this position, they will become ordinary people, no one will pay attention to them, no one will respect them, and they will gradually be marginalized or even forgotten by the entertainment industry.
For a man, this situation is not much different from death.
Barry Diller and Ron Meyer were very unhappy to see this happen.
"Harvey, do you have a plan to deal with Guess What? If so, please tell me."
Barry Diller said.
“No, dealing with Link should be a long-term process. We should not pursue short-term results. For example, in the sniper battle of Final Destination 2, because of our plan, Guess the Movie had to delay the release and spend more money on publicity. This is also a kind of victory. We should continue and persist in dealing with Guess the Movie until we completely defeat this company.
In addition, there is Ovitz. He is only thinking about cooperating with Guess Pictures and has long forgotten our agreement. This is very bad. You should remind him and let him know that our main enemies are Link and Guess Pictures. As long as Guess Pictures is there, none of us will have an easy life. "
"You have a point."
"Well, I agree with you."
Barry Diller and Langmeyer echoed the voice. After several contacts with Harvey, they found that although Harvey did not have much power, he was very decisive and ruthless in doing things. It was safer to place their hopes on him.
For someone like Harvey, perhaps we can give him more support so that he can be bolder in doing things. However, considering that Harvey does not follow the rules, it is best to support him through a third party to avoid being implicated after the incident.
Barry Diller put down the phone, thought for a moment, picked up the remote control and turned on the TV to watch the news, when a loud and passionate singing voice came from the speakers.
My friends are gonna be there too
My friends will be there too.
I'm on the highway to hell
I'm on the road to hell
On the highway to hell
On this road to hell
Highway to hell
This is the new song "Road to Hell" by the group 'Death 2.0'.
After the release of "Final Destination 2", due to the high popularity of several leading actors, at the suggestion of UTA agency, Drew Barrymore, Liv Tyler, Naomi Watts, and Casey Affleck formed 'Final Destination 2.0', released a new album "Final Destination 2.0", and started touring in various cities from the second week to promote the movie.
As the members are young, beautiful and have outstanding looks, and the songs chosen for them by the company are also of good quality, 'Death Band 2.0' has also received support from many young groups after its release.
The popularity of "Final Destination 2" continues to rise in North America.
The box office will probably be even higher in the third week.
Barry Diller couldn't help but curse again and changed the channel to watch the news.
Barry Diller guessed correctly. In its third week of release, "Final Destination 2" grossed $22.74 million in North America, with a cumulative box office of $77.91 million.
Breaking the 100 million mark is just around the corner.
The second place at the box office this week is "The Upfront Club", a movie produced by Paramount Pictures. It is a comedy starring Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and others. It tells the story of three abandoned women joining together to take revenge on the unfaithful man.
Box office this week was $14.12 million.
The film cost $24 million to produce and grossed $68.21 million in North America after four weeks of release.
It performed very well at the box office, and was therefore used against Final Destination 2, but after Guess Pictures stepped up its promotion efforts, the box office growth of Upfront Club slowed down.
The third place was also Paramount Pictures' "Nightmare," which grossed $11.03 million in its first week.
"A Man Walking" ranked fifth at the box office this week, earning $5.11 million and a total North American box office of $26.71 million.
"Rush Hour" earned $2.07 million this week and $132 million in North America. The film has also been released overseas since August, with a cumulative revenue of $112 million.
——
In October, after three weeks of rehearsals in Texas, Link and the Saving Private Ryan crew moved to Normandy, France to begin filming.
(End of this chapter)
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