Chapter 56 Box Office and Awards
Even in later generations, except for those science fiction horror blockbusters with special effects, horror themes are generally used to make a small profit with a big investment - therefore, in the early 1970s, a horror movie like "The Exorcist" that cost over 10 million dollars to make stood out so much.
And like "Artificial Intelligence", the distributor is still Warner.
However, both are famous directors. William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist, was nominated for both the Oscar and Golden Globe Awards in 1972 and won the Best Director Award, while Kubrick's previous work A Clockwork Orange was a box office failure. Therefore, according to Warner's usual practice, there is a difference in investment.
What's more, the film "Artificial Intelligence" was produced by Su Yun to "pay off her teacher's debts", so the original filming funds left were already very small.
Thanks to Kubrick's efforts, it is barely enough.
Of course, most of the most expensive post-production special effects were produced by Su Yun herself. Otherwise, when the post-production costs were added, the budget of this movie would be simply astronomical, and no one would dare to take the risk to invest.
Therefore, Friedkin, who had a large amount of filming funds, was not as stingy as they were during the filming. In order to get this "spider walking" shot well, he offered Su Yun a high price of 50,000 US dollars.
With this salary, if she saved a little, she could make a low-budget movie in Hong Kong - so Su Yun quickly packed her bags and was taken to a small dark room by Kubrick and Jane Fonda to do post-production.
The producers of "The Exorcist" had previously approached Jane Fonda to play the role of the heroine Chrissie. Although she did not agree at that time, she had heard a little about Friedkin's personality: he had a bad temper and was a tyrant at work. It was said that when an actor couldn't cry, he would go up and slap the actor until he cried.
Compared to Kubrick, who is usually gentle at work and loves Su Yun very much, Jane Fonda is very worried that Friedkin will "abuse" Su Yun, the child laborer, when the work progress is not satisfactory.
After all, this is not a place for Su Yun to make decisions freely. She has to cooperate with the people in their crew.
After saying goodbye to the two people who cared about her, Su Yun immediately plunged into her new job.
It was also due to the limitations of the times. A few years later, when computers began to enter the public eye, she no longer had to stay in a small dark room and pretend to do post-production. This amount of work could be done in half a day at most for Su Yun, who had a super computer called the system. However, due to the current technological progress and the fact that it was difficult to fool someone she was not familiar with, Su Yun had to drag her feet and drag her work for a week before finishing the work.
Friedkin was very satisfied with her work speed. There was no "abuse" incident as others worried about. When he came to receive the delivery, he chatted with Su Yun for a while because of her excellent work: "In fact, this script was also contacted with several big-name directors such as Kubrick, but they all refused. The scriptwriter chose me, so I became the director of this movie."
"I've always wondered how you persuaded Stanley Kubrick and Jane Fonda to make that co-production with you, which sounded like a complete mess. Just like when The Exorcist invited Stanley Kubrick to make his own film, and Jane Fonda gave me a note saying, 'Why should I agree to be in a rubbish movie full of the coppery stench of capitalism?'" Friedkin continued without waiting for Su Yun to reply, "Until I saw Artificial Intelligence and learned that you were the main force in the post-production special effects, I finally understood."
"I have to say, you are really a little genius - I rarely praise people like this." Friedkin looked quite proud, and Su Yun happily accepted his praise and thanked him.
As for the regret in Friedkin's eyes, she just pretended not to see it - it was obvious that he was another person who regretted her racial issues.
It's either disgusting discrimination or a feeling of pity for her after seeing her achievements - there are always some people who think this way.
In areas where white people are supreme, people of color seem to be born to suffer more hardships and find it more difficult to achieve the same results as white people even with the same effort.
Places that claim to be "free" are actually never free.
No wonder Kubrick never wanted to return.
The pursuit of freedom that breaks boundaries is exactly what Master Lu Shaolong and she dream of, as well as their future goal.
After thinking about all these complicated thoughts, Su Yun calmly leaned towards the car window, his eyes sweeping across the huge poster of the cinema on the roadside.
"Artificial Intelligence" is now in theaters.
After being passed around among college students and spread by word of mouth, this movie, which they considered to be extremely cool, quickly spread to colleges and universities within a few days of its preview.
"New people" are the ones who are most likely to accept and pursue new things. Once someone in the school discovers something "cool", this thing will immediately become a trend in the entire school and even the entire region.
Sure enough, as soon as it was released, the box office of "Artificial Intelligence" began to soar at a speed similar to that of the box office dark horse "American Graffiti" released in August. In the first week, the box office directly exceeded 10 million in the eyes of everyone in disbelief!
Moreover, the film's reputation and topic are still heating up, and the upward trend is so good that people from all walks of life with related interests have different thoughts.
This first-week box office number is definitely better than that of "Bullet Fighter". However, considering that this movie is strictly a co-production, even though it has two Chinese characters with important roles, some people also believe that this achievement is mainly due to the influence of Stanley Kubrick and Jane Fonda.
Anyway, the tone is very sour...
Compared with the various positive and negative reviews that are highly personal, the more fair analysis is still "Kubrick demonstrated his commercial film capabilities with this "Artificial Intelligence"" and "Jane Fonda demonstrated box office appeal with "Artificial Intelligence"."
Although one is a famous director and the other is a famous actress, they both believe that these two people have "turned over" with this film - you know, capitalists are the ones who are best at pursuing profits. No matter how many awards they have won, how famous they are, or how good the reviews are, if they can't make money, they are box office poison.
If you fail to watch a few movies in a row, it will be very difficult to do it again in the future.
As the box office and word of mouth of the science fiction film "Artificial Intelligence" increase, people have begun to analyze how it will change the future film landscape.
Compared to the convenience of later generations where one can just go online to check something, today, even the United States, which seems to be quite modern, seems very backward.
Telephone, telegraph, newspapers and magazines, as well as human mouth and ears, are the means of information dissemination that most people have access to today.
Sitting on the sofa in the wooden house, Su Yun and Vivian were surrounded by a pile of recent issues of newspapers and magazines.
As of the second week, the box office of "Artificial Intelligence" has exceeded 25 million, and many people are watching whether it can dethrone "American Graffiti", which has the highest box office record so far this year.
In the storm of overt and covert attention, it is Su Yun, the person involved, who is the calmest: American Graffiti was released during the summer season, which is not valued at present, and it has the inherent advantage of grabbing the box office; even if Artificial Intelligence can rely on its time-defying black technology special effects and timely hype to deceive ticket buyers, and accumulate a box office that exceeds it, its return rate is still a long way behind.
Because the investment in "Artificial Intelligence" was as high as 5 million US dollars, and due to various factors, people were just waiting to see whether its expected box office could exceed 100 million US dollars; while "American Graffiti" only had an investment of 750,000 US dollars, but it raked in a box office of 115 million US dollars!
Not only that, in December, the Christmas season, the most profitable films of 1974, "The Hustler" and "The Exorcist", will be released one after another to compete with each other. Even if "Artificial Intelligence" can temporarily lead, it will definitely be overtaken by "The Hustler" and "The Exorcist" when Christmas comes...
These are all tacitly understood rules: if it were an all-white cast, "Artificial Intelligence" might still have a chance; now with the addition of two Chinese, her and Zhuang Long, Su Yun will be satisfied as long as the box office can maintain the top four or strive for the top three.
You can't expect to achieve everything in one go. After all, there were many masterpieces in the golden age, and black technologies that transcend the times are just beginning to emerge. Of course, it is better to just play a supporting role and seek stability.
We can still see some numbers from the box office, but as for the awards, Su Yun, who is unfamiliar with the rules of that era, is really at a loss.
But no matter how blind you are, you know that at her age and with her status, it is impossible for her to win any of the major acting awards that are familiar to the public. Even if she is cast as a supporting actress, it will probably not be easy to get a nomination.
Even so, when her age and talent were too prominent, someone had already thought of the answer to this question for her: the visual effects award - "Best Visual Effects".
Kubrick also won this award.
The film "2001: A Space Odyssey", which won Kubrick this award, is not only known as "a milestone in modern science fiction film technology", but also directly pioneered the front-projection visual effects technology and promoted its widespread application.
Now, in a new era, new movies, and new technology, is Kubrick planning to start another round of innovation in movie visual effects technology?
The special effects technology in "Artificial Intelligence" obviously surpasses all previous special effects technology. If Kubrick and Mary Sue from Hong Kong were to compete for the Best Visual Effects Award with this...
Referring to the record of the Chinese photographer in Oscar history who was nominated many times and won the Best Cinematography Award twice; is it true that next year's 46th Academy Awards will produce the oldest person nominated or even winner in a technical award?