Chapter 440 Fight Club Released
In order to accommodate Izumi Sakai and others, Link sent someone to buy a holiday villa in the wealthy area of Miami, Florida, for them to live in first. He would go to visit them after finishing filming.
"Boss, these are last week's box office data, would you like to take a look?"
On the Los Angeles set, while the crew was having lunch, Lewinsky came over with a folder.
"No more reading. Just pick out the main points and tell me."
Link has too much work to do. Starting this year, he is sometimes too lazy to ask in detail which movies the company has released and how the movies perform at the box office. He only reads the company's financial statements at the end of the month to understand the company's revenue situation.
"Boss, this week's box office champion is still our Liar."
Lewinsky opened the folder and briefly explained the box office revenue of the North American film market last week.
This week's box office champion is the comedy film "Liar Liar" starring Jim Carrey. The film was released in mid-March and took in $44.57 million in 2,845 theaters in its first week.
In its second week, it earned $37.49 million, retaining the title of the box office champion.
In the third week, it took in $22.46 million, continuing its reign.
This week marks the fifth consecutive week that the film has topped the North American box office, with a cumulative box office of $136 million. It is also the first film in North America to break $100 million in box office in 1997.
It has been the box office champion for five consecutive weeks, a very strong performance.
Jim Carrey's fame in the film industry continued to grow, and he became a movie star on par with Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, with his film salary reaching more than 25 million US dollars.
The second place is the thriller "Anaconda 1" produced by Columbia Pictures, starring Jennifer Lopez, Carey Wuhrer, Ice Cube and others. It earned 16.61 million US dollars this week and has a cumulative box office of 32.74 million US dollars.
The film cost $42 million to produce.
Taking into account overseas box office and video sales, it was also a hit movie.
The third place was the thriller "1600 Murders" produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, starring Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane and others, which earned 7.96 million US dollars in its first week.
Fourth place is the art film "Girl, Interrupted" co-starring Sofia, Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. The film was released in early March and has a current cumulative box office of 32.51 million US dollars.
The film cost $22 million to produce and was a hit considering its overseas box office and video sales.
In addition, this film has a very good reputation. It won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and has a chance to be nominated for an Academy Award next year.
This week, "Zheng Chenggong" earned $1.41 million in North America, and the current North American box office cumulatively reached $32.18 million. The distribution department decided to extend the release date and continue to hit the 40 million mark.
"not bad!"
Link nodded after listening.
The North American box office of "Liar Liar" exceeded 100 million yuan, allowing Guess Pictures to continue to maintain its leading edge in the North American film market, creating pressure on the seven major film studios and forcing them to continue their internal strife.
The box office of "Girl, Interrupted", "Zheng Chenggong" and "Boogie Nights" continued to rise, and no movie suffered a loss while maintaining a good reputation. This shows that the box office performance of Guess Pictures' movies this year was very stable.
"Boss, there is a negative public opinion that you need to understand."
Lewinsky continued.
Since several movies released by Guess What Pictures in the past two weeks have performed well at the box office, and the second place "Anaconda" stars Jennifer Lopez as the heroine, and the third place "1600 Murders" stars Diane Lane as the heroine.
The fourth one is even more ruthless. The director, the leading actress, and the supporting actress are all Link’s girlfriends.
In its latest article, Entertainment Weekly joked that the current North American film market has been dominated by Link and his girlfriends. They have become the absolute protagonists of Hollywood, and everyone else has become supporting roles.
Although this was a joke, the evidence is solid. This article caused a lot of controversy after it was published, most of which was negative.
Need to pay more attention.
Link nodded. "This situation was completely unexpected, but what you said makes sense. Next time their movies are released, try to separate them and not put them together."
"Boss, this is difficult to do. You have dozens of girlfriends, most of whom are popular and talented actors with plenty of resources. On average, each of them stars in two movies a year, which adds up to more than 100 movies. That means one-third of the movies released in North America feature them. It's difficult to prevent their movies from being released at the same time."
Lewinsky shrugged her shoulders and made a helpless expression.
Link smiled and said, "It's okay. Michelle and Sandra are pregnant and don't have time to film. They will all be pregnant in the next few years, so their movies can be released at different times. Anything else?"
"Yes! Fight Club will be released next week. Miramax and our company will jointly promote and distribute it. Harvey contacted our company, hoping to invest more money in promotion and strive to get better box office results. And Mr. Jon Gordon meant to follow the procedure. This movie is an art film, so it will be screened in a few theaters first, and the promotion investment will be determined based on the box office results of the preview."
"Then do as Jon Gordon says."
Link waved his hand, finished his lunch, and continued filming on the set.
"Fight Club" was released in six theaters in the United States on Friday, earning $47,200 in box office revenue over the three days of the weekend, which was a mediocre performance. Guess what, the studio's publicity department plans to use C-level publicity resources to promote this movie.
The two companies each invested $3 million in publicity.
It was released in 471 theaters in its second weekend and earned $2.87 million.
In its third weekend, the film grossed $6.58 million in 865 theaters.
The box office totaled 9.49 million US dollars in three weeks.
The box office performance is rather average, with no potential to be a big hit. Increasing publicity efforts may help recover production costs, but it will be very difficult to make a profit.
"Why? Why is this happening?"
"Link personally selected this movie and was originally going to direct it himself, but he didn't have the time so he gave it to David Fincher. How could such a movie lose money?"
"Why would the film project that Link personally finalized lose money? Who can tell me?!"
Harvey Weinstein was shouting angrily in his office, and box office information was thrown all over the floor.
"Maybe it was an accident."
Bob Weinstein didn't know how to respond.
The film was invested with 42 million U.S. dollars, with Guess Pictures and Miramax each contributing half.
To recoup its costs, the film must gross more than $60 million in North America.
But "Fight Club" only earned more than 9 million after three weeks of release.
Even if the film continues to be released for a few dozen more weeks, it will be difficult for the North American box office to break 50 million.
This means their investment will go down the drain.
"This is impossible! This movie was chosen by Link. Any movie that he likes will be a hit. Why would this movie lose money?"
Harvey roared with a gloomy face.
The "Fight Club" project looks good, the script has great potential, the director is the emerging director David Fincher, the main actors include popular actors Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, and the heroine is Angelina Jolie.
These people are the young actors who have performed most outstandingly in the entertainment industry in recent years.
They also performed well in the movie.
Plus there's nothing wrong with their publicity. Logically, the box office of this movie shouldn't be just this much.
But the numbers on the document are real.
According to feedback from the marketing department, audiences did not like the movie after it was released. They thought the story was too depressing and not entertaining enough, and that the narrative structure was too complicated, resulting in confusing story expression and making it difficult for ordinary audiences to understand.
Simply put, the theme of the film is too profound and dark, and is not suitable for mainstream audiences.
However, the film has a good reputation. Many professional film critics have published comments in newspapers praising the film, saying that "Fight Club" is one of the best art films this year and the most exciting male-oriented suspense thriller film to date.
Finally, the marketing department came to the conclusion that the film was critically acclaimed but not commercially successful, and that they should reduce their advertising investment and rely on word of mouth to slowly recoup their costs. Investing too much capital in advertising could result in greater losses.
"Is this Link's conspiracy?"
Harvey slowly calmed down, smoking and muttering to himself, "In the past two years, we have done a lot of things against him. He must know that we are involved. For the purpose of revenge, he deliberately used this kind of movie to lure us into being deceived. We were too naive and had no guard when cooperating with him. We fell into the trap he dug without any defense.
Yes, that must be the case. Link knew that our company was short of money, and deliberately used this method to waste our funds and make us invest a large amount of money in two film projects in cooperation with Guess Pictures.
When these two movies lose money and our company's debt increases, Disney will definitely be dissatisfied with us and kick us out. Damn it, it must be like this! Link is such a sinister, cunning, despicable and shameless bastard!"
Bob Weinstein frowned. "Is that so? Fight Club and Evita were the two projects you personally selected from multiple film projects. Link didn't specify which one he wanted us to invest in.
In addition, Fight Club is very good, it is an art film of above-standard standards, although the box office performance is not ideal for the time being, but considering the overseas box office and video tapes, we also have a chance to recover the cost, it should not be a trap. "
"No! You don't understand. This is a trap! Last year, Guess What Pictures released 13 movies, and 6 of them made over 100 million yuan at the North American box office. This shows that they have a good eye for selecting movies and a high percentage of their films are hits. But Fight Club, which we collaborated with, didn't sell well. This must be a conspiracy."
Harvey retorted fiercely, gesticulating.
"Then what can we do? We chose the movie ourselves, and the joint promotion was also your decision. Now that the box office is losing money, we can't ask Guess Pictures for compensation. If Fight Club loses money at the box office, they will also lose some funds."
Harvey's face darkened when he heard Bob's words.
Bob is right. There are risks in investing in movies. Investors need to be responsible for their own profits and losses. After the movie is released, they cannot cause trouble to Guess What Pictures even if it fails at the box office.
"This is the most insidious thing about Link. He made us suffer a great loss but we can't even say anything about it."
Harvey said angrily.
Bob did not respond. After Miramax Films' debt increased, Harvey became very anxious and often got angry, especially after receiving information related to Guess What Films and Link. The situation became worse.
"Ovitz must be informed of this. Miramax is a subsidiary of Disney. They cannot just sit there and watch Miramax get cheated."
Harvey picked up the phone and called Michael Ovitz. After just a few words, Harvey's face became worse and he ended the call in less than a minute.
"What does Ovitz say?"
Bob asked.
Harvey gnashed his teeth, his greasy face becoming hideous and ferocious. "That bastard didn't care and told us to handle it ourselves. He also told us not to be hostile to Link and to treat him with friendship and respect. Damn it! Michael Ovitz is a traitor. He wants to actually surrender to Link!"
"Maybe what Ovitz said is right. Link is now worth more than 10 billion US dollars and is the fifth richest man in the world. We are not his opponent at all, nor are we worthy of being his opponent. It will not benefit us to continue to maintain hostile behavior."
Bob said politely.
The muscles on Harvey's face twitched, and there was unconcealable hatred and anger in his eyes.
(End of this chapter)
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