Across America, Starting with the Boxing Champion

Chapter 490 Link and Harvey’s win-win strategy

 The 84th Academy Awards ended successfully, but the aftermath of this Oscar could not subside for a long time after the awards ceremony.

The most controversial incident was undoubtedly the 22-year-old Jennifer Lawrence's upset victory over the 63-year-old veteran Meryl Streep in the Best Actress award.

Before the awards ceremony, 90% of the media predicted that Meryl would win the Best Actress Award again. First, her performance in "The Iron Lady" was wonderful. Counting more than ten Oscar nominations in the past, she should also win this award. Take it again.

On the other hand, the person who helped her publicize the award was Harvey Weinstein, the Oscar winner and best actress.

The two of them join forces and there is almost no chance of failure.

Many entertainment reporters had even written a press release about Meryl winning the Oscar for Best Actress for the first time in 29 years before the Oscars ceremony even started. They just waited for the announcement on stage and immediately published the press release to win more amount of reading.

But the result was beyond everyone's expectations. Meryl missed. Jennifer Lawrence, who was less than 22 years old, became the Oscar-winning actress and the youngest actress in the history of the Oscars.

After the news came out, the entire entertainment industry was in a state of excitement, and they were all confused about Jennifer Lawrence winning the award.

Although Jennifer Lawrence is a talented actor, her acting skills are very good, and she has the ability to win the Oscar for Best Actress, but she is too young, and her competitor Meryl is too strong.

She has almost no chance of winning.

But she happened to get that award.

Stars in the entertainment industry are afraid to make any unfriendly remarks publicly because they are wary of Link behind Jennifer Lawrence.

But the media doesn't care who Link is.

Before the awards ceremony was over, almost all the media made doubtful comments about Jennifer Lawrence defeating Meryl to win the award. The voices of doubt were even louder and more popular than when Gwyneth Parrott won the award in 1999. high.

There are four key issues questioned by the media:

One is, does Jennifer qualify for this award?

The official website of the Los Angeles Times launched a voting event. As many as 78% of netizens supported Meryl winning the award, while only 19% supported Jennifer Lawrence. The remaining netizens were neutral.

Before the awards ceremony, 35% of people supported Jennifer winning the award, only 8 percentage points lower than Meryl.

Second, why did the Oscar Academy award this award to Jennifer Lawrence?

After the awards ceremony, Nielsen officially released ratings data. The average viewership of this Oscars ceremony reached 13.5 million, 2.8 million more than last year.

When Jennifer Lawrence won the award, the ratings were as high as 22 million people, which was also the peak ratings of the night.

"Hollywood Reporter" questioned the reason why the Academy broke the rules and awarded the Best Actress Award to Jennifer Lawrence in an unexpected way. It also wanted to create a hot spot and save the sluggish ratings, and awarded it to Meryl, who everyone expected. The selected candidates will not increase the ratings.

But if the Academy awards the award to Jennifer Lawrence because of ratings, it would be very unfair to Meryl, and it would also affect the century-old reputation of the Academy.

Third, how much influence does Oscar public relations have on the awards process?

It is understood that every year during the Academy Awards selection process, each shortlisted film will spend at least more than 100,000 US dollars on public relations for the corresponding awards, and some even spend millions.

The purpose is to put the Oscar label on the movie. With the Oscar gold label, whether in the domestic and overseas box office market, the DVD market, or the cable TV broadcast rights, you will get generous returns.

According to the CNBC website, the average box office revenue of Oscar Best Picture winners from 2000 to 2010 increased by 22.2% to approximately US$20.3 million after being nominated for Best Picture.

After winning the award, average box office revenue continued to increase by 15.3% to approximately $14 million.

Take the 2011 Oscar winner "The King's Speech" as an example. After being nominated for Best Picture, its box office revenue increased by 42%. After winning the award, it continued to increase by 16%, with total profits reaching more than 80 million US dollars.

The high return on investment is also the reason why film companies are willing to spend money on public relations.

During the Oscar selection process this year, it is said that Lionsgate Pictures invested millions of dollars in public relations for various awards, and there are even rumors that as much as tens of millions of dollars, most of which was used to publicize the Best Actress Award.

Mainstream media, represented by the New York Times, believed that Jennifer Lawrence's unexpected win was entirely the result of Lionsgate or Link's spending on public relations.

Fourth, is the entire selection process fair and just, and is it subject to outside interference?

After the award ceremony, many media published articles questioning whether Link had spent money to buy votes, and that there might be illegal and illegal issues such as vote bribery and fraud, and requested the police to intervene in the investigation.

In response to this, Lionsgate President Steven Biggs said in an interview with the media that this was absolutely not the case. He also stated that all public relations processes were conducted in accordance with normal procedures and there were absolutely no violations. He was willing to face all doubts and questions. investigation.

The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, a third-party organization responsible for counting Oscar votes, stated that all statistical work is carried out in accordance with the rules. The votes from the judges are received and then counted, and the results are finally handed over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for disclosure. That is, the organizer of the Academy Awards ensures that the entire process is fair and impartial, and there is no external interference.

Oscar Academy Chairman John Bailey also said that this was the result of thousands of judges voting. Although the results are controversial, the judges' voting rights will be respected.

Since PwC has maintained a good reputation in the past decades of cooperation, and the Academy awards awards based on voting results, there is no evidence of fraud.

So the problem is the group of judges who vote.

The media began to discuss why the Oscar judges voted for Jennifer Lawrence instead of the popular Meryl Streep?

The New York Post believes that this result is related to Lionsgate’s hype before the awards ceremony.

During the second round of voting, there were many comments in the media that the Academy Awards praised British films and looked down on American films.

At this year's Oscars, the French film "The Artist" won the Best Picture/Best Director/Best Actor awards, the Best Screenplay winner was "Midnight in Paris" set in Paris, and the winner of five technical awards was "Hugo" set in France.

If the British film "The Iron Lady" wins the Best Actress Award again.

All important Oscar awards this year were won by foreign films or films set in foreign cities, and American domestic films were completely wiped out.

At that time, it will definitely arouse doubts from many American netizens.

Perhaps with this in mind, many stateside judges were swayed into voting for Jennifer Lawrence.

Although the New York Post's statement has some truth to it, it has too many loopholes. If the American judges are really concerned about this, they can make different choices in the three awards of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.

For example, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Descendants" and "The Help" are both nominated for Best Picture. They are all good quality films. George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who are nominated for Best Actor, are also strong contenders for this award. By.

There is no need for a big upset in the Best Actress award.

Regarding this point, the media has been debating endlessly, and there is no unified conclusion. Some netizens even ranked Jennifer's victory over Meryl for the Oscar for Best Actress as one of the top ten unsolved mysteries in Hollywood.

Until a report by the "Hollywood Reporter" revealed a corner of this mystery.

According to newspaper reports, after the Oscars, they secretly interviewed hundreds of judges and asked them about their votes. 58 people said they voted for Jennifer, 32 people voted for Meryl, and the rest. Vote for other finalists.

Among the 58 judges who voted for Jennifer, many claimed that they were influenced by Lionsgate and Weinstein Pictures during the selection process. The public relations departments of both companies wanted them to vote for Jennifer Lawrence.

I believe that doing so will not only allow Jennifer to win the award, but also allow Meryl to gain widespread sympathy from the public, paving the way for the next successful award.

This is a win-win choice.

"Hollywood Reporter" believes that this is probably the main reason why Jennifer will win the award.

After this article was published in the newspaper, colleagues in the entertainment industry and ordinary people were stunned by this answer, speechless and admired.

Since December last year, Lionsgate and Weinstein Pictures have been fighting openly and secretly to compete for Oscar awards, throwing dirty water at each other.

One moment, the media exposed Harvey's past sexual harassment cases, and the next, the media claimed that Link was prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars to promote his young girlfriend, Jennifer Lawrence, and to use the Oscars as a means of hunting for beauty.

When the public saw the two sides fighting, they thought that the relationship between Lions Gate Pictures and Weinstein Pictures was so bad that they would never stop fighting.

But the result is that the two companies are playing a double act.

The scenes of fighting are staged for outsiders to see, and their purpose is to win this year’s Oscars.

As a result, the two companies did it. This year, Lionsgate and Weinstein Pictures jointly won the best picture/best director/best actor/actress/best supporting actress/best costume design/best score/most Best makeup accounts for almost half of all awards.

In addition, after Jennifer wins the award, the box office of "Silver Linings" will continue to grow, and Lionsgate and Weinstein Pictures are also beneficiaries.

And after Meryl lost the Best Actress award, she did gain everyone's sympathy, and her reputation continued to rise.

It can be said that next time, she will definitely win the Oscar for Best Actress.

This is not only a win-win situation, but also a win-win situation.

At first, many people did not believe it, claiming that the relationship between Link and Harvey was indeed not good. On the night of the Oscars, Harvey looked very bad. However, some people countered that if the relationship was not good, would they jointly invest in "Silver Linings" and "The Master"?

The reason why no one noticed it was because Link and Harvey's acting skills were so good and their tactics were so clever that they fooled everyone.

Even if the media makes the answer public, there are still people who don't believe that they have been deceived, which only shows that the tactics of the two are too deceptive.

Some people even mentioned that Link’s struggle with the East Coast rap gang often resulted in a win-win situation. Not only did Link gain a lot of benefits from the struggle, but as the loser, East Coast rap also benefited a lot. Only singers who released records at the same time as them suffer losses.

The current 'conflict' between Link and Harvey is just a repeat of the past.

And my colleagues in the entertainment industry were all dumbfounded, with many questions popping up in their minds? ?

So the rumors of Harvey and Link’s feud were false? Was Harvey also acting when he clamored to ban Link? Are the two companies joining forces to fight against the Big Six and compete with other independent production companies?

Judging from the performance of the two companies last year, one was seventh and the other eighth, and their combined total box office was more than that of 20th Century Fox, which ranked sixth.

From this point of view, the two companies' tricks did succeed.

When the top executives of the six major Hollywood studios and other independent production companies saw this news, they had to admire the level of the business war between Link and Harvey. It was as high as hundreds of floors. It is no wonder that the two companies The company's movies can sell well because, first of all, in terms of competitive strategy, everyone is much worse than Lionsgate Pictures and Weinstein Pictures.

Even Ryan Kavanaugh of Relativity Pictures held a company high-level meeting specifically for this purpose to explore the possibility of learning from the business war model of Lionsgate Pictures and Weinstein Pictures.

And those who responded to Harvey's call last year and prepared to join forces to deal with Link were all secretly cursing. Link and Harvey's move was too insidious. They thought they could use this to please Harvey, but it turned out to be a mess. Not a human being, he offended two big bosses at once.

"Harvey, is this all true?"

Matt Damon walked into Harvey's office with a black face and questioned him.

Harvey was holding the newspaper in his hand, and his face was even worse than him. The corners of his eyes kept twitching, and there was monstrous anger hidden in his eyes.

Hearing Matt Damon's question, Harvey gritted his teeth and suppressed his anger and said: "It's fake. It's the Hollywood Reporter who is making it up. How can I be the same as Link on this matter?" It's impossible, never possible, to cooperate with bastards."

Matt Damon saw Harvey's expression and secretly sighed, this guy is so good at acting, it would be a pity not to become an actor.

"Harvey, if it was fake, why did you co-produce "Silver Linings Playbook" with Link and then hand over the distribution rights to Lionsgate?

If it was fake, why would it continue to co-produce "The Master" with Palm Beach? As for this Oscar, I asked several familiar judges, and indeed someone from your company’s public relations department sent them an email, hoping that they would support Jennifer Lawrence’s win and pave the way for the next Meryl win. How do you explain this? "

Matt Damon asked.

Harvey scowled and wanted to explain, but didn't know how.

The reason why I collaborated with Link on "Silver Linings" was because I was threatened by Link last year. This kind of thing cannot be explained clearly. Later, I cooperated with Palm Beach Pictures to invest in "The Master" because the movies invested by Palm Beach Pictures make money. This is Bob's idea.

At the end of last year, when "Silver Linings Playbook" was handed over to Lionsgate for distribution, it was also intended to trick Link in the Oscars, but instead of tricking him, he actually tricked himself.

These things are too embarrassing to tell Matt Damon.

Harvey took a deep breath, suppressed his anger and said: "Matt, we were fooled by Link before when we cooperated with Link, but this time for the Oscars, we definitely did not cooperate with Link. There must be some misunderstanding here, Just wait, I'm investigating this matter, and I will tell you the results. In short, I will never cooperate with that **** **** Link."

(End of chapter)