American fame and fortune

boom! boom--

The gunfire echoed in the theater, the audience's hearts tightened, and the suppressed emotions gradually tightened.

As the clown fired again and again, the heads of the wealthy elites who laughed at him, bullied him, and pressured him exploded like rotten watermelons, and bright red juice spewed out from the back of their heads, staining the white walls and floors red. .

The body twitched on the ground, and the clown came out of the door and started running.

His face was painted with pale paint, with a bloody mouth, and he was wearing a purple performance suit and running wildly in the wind, as if running towards a free future.

The suppressed emotions of the audience were released, and the clowns on the screen who killed people and ran for freedom seemed to be themselves.

Many ordinary people live a difficult life and hope to see the future. What they worry about most is being able to see the future.

Their future can be seen at a glance.

A heavy burden is weighing on me, but I am unable to change it.

People who are content with the status quo can at least make do with life.

Those who want to change will be squeezed out of their bones by the stubborn upper class as large as the Andes.

Too many people will be overdrawn in the next few decades and fall into the same quagmire as the clown, unable to extricate themselves.

The clown seems to represent them, killing those bastards who extract oil, shattering the original order, and rushing into the unknown future.

It may really reveal some people's psychology and hidden thoughts.

The clown on the screen was running wildly, and applause suddenly broke out from where the general audience gathered in the back row of the theater.

Then applause filled the entire theater!

This is not the Cannes Film Festival where applause is a business, but an ordinary movie premiere.

Neither Martin, the crew nor the distributor were asking for excuses.

Almost all ordinary viewers applauded the film.

The thunderous applause attracted Zack Snyder to look behind him, and he couldn't help but say, "Is it that exaggerated?"

"It seemed like the content of the movie resonated with them tremendously," Deborah said.

Gal Gadot, who was standing next to him, was stunned for a moment and said: "I feel like the Joker is more popular than Batman, Superman and my characters combined."

Zack Snyder said: "Don't worry, there is no such scene in "Batman v Superman."

The applause subsided and the theater fell silent, except for the increasingly crazier clown.

All the energy is focused back on the movie.

The film gradually comes to an end.

On the screen, countless people surrounded the clown and regarded him as a hero.

The demonstrators in Gotham took up the Joker and regarded him as their spiritual leader.

The clown became a symbol of freedom, and the ultimate freedom is chaos.

He is the symbol of Gotham, the agent of chaos!

Gotham City, a city full of outstanding people, has welcomed a leader who can lead them to new life.

At the end of the premiere screening, applause once again sounded like a tide.

In the first row of seats, Daniel stood up and hugged Martin, saying: "Although I have watched several test screenings before, I can gain new insights every time I watch it. This is definitely a masterpiece that perfectly combines business and art. "

Martin smiled and said, "Thank you."

Elizabeth stood aside, just smiling and applauding without saying much.

The cast and crew hugged each other, and everyone was very excited.

The film's test screenings were well-received, and they saw the quality of the finished film with their own eyes, and they had a basic judgment that this film would definitely be good.

Martin called the crew to come on stage for the curtain call.

The audience applauded again and again.

This concludes the premiere screening.

As soon as the show ended, a professional investigation team hired by Warner Pictures was dispatched to collect comments and ratings from ordinary audiences.

"A+! Martin's film spoke to my heart!"

"I'd better give it an A, because this is the second film directed by Martin, and he still has room for improvement in the future! Of course, the film is very well shot and the acting is very good. This is DC, this is the Joker ah!"

"I have to say, A+! Not only does Martin play the clown well, he also shoots it well. I thought Martin's clown in "The Dark Knight" was the pinnacle, but actually this one is!"

"I used to have a lot of pressure bottled up in my heart, which made people feel uncomfortable. Today I finally let it out. This clown is not a god, but a human being. He is one of us, ordinary people like you, me and him! A+ is not enough to express me If the full score for my love for this character in this film was 100 points, I would give it 1,000 points!”

The words of this bespectacled movie fan resonated with the people around him, and many people shouted.

"I'll give you 2000 points!"

"No, it should be 10,000 points!"

The film is about to be fully released and land in the North American film market, and now it needs the approval of ordinary audiences.

There is no doubt that Martin has done a great job in this regard.

At least a few hundred viewers who watched the premiere left ratings.

Martin got the feedback right away.

Louise hurried into the lounge, nodded to Elizabeth, and handed a statistical report to Martin: "The latest statistics are out, a total of 366 viewers have scored, and the average score of the film is A+!"

Martin glanced quickly: "It's okay."

Louise said: "Is this okay? It's already as good as it gets."

Elizabeth took the statistical table from Martin's hand and read it carefully.

Daniel came in from outside at this time and said: "The reputation is still strong!"

Martin said directly: "For the final pre-screening publicity, we will still focus on word-of-mouth marketing."

"No problem." Daniel responded: "Warner Bros. is ready."

He had a feeling that this would most likely become the first movie to reach a global box office of $1 billion after he took over Warner Bros.

Martin looked at the time and said: "Let's stop here today."

The group left the Chief Rock Theater one after another.

The film's fermentation on the Internet continues. With major social media as the center, the good reviews of "Joker" appeared in front of a large number of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and INS users.

On Thursday night, "Joker" landed in 3,500 theaters in North America in advance.

Cinemas across the United States have all become gathering places for crazy clowns. This R-rated film won a midnight box office of $18.6 million.

On Friday daytime, the film was expanded to 4,250 theaters.

The demons and monsters in the United States have only one image on this day-the clown!

The millions of clown-style dark purple suits prepared by Warner Bros. in advance were almost sold out on Friday.

The latest clown figures and dolls were directly sold out.

The crew signed a contract with Lily for a handmade commemorative edition, and it is currently hard to find one.

Street painters in North America are basically doing the same work on this day, providing clown makeup services for fans.

On the Internet, the clown has long been a god.

Now, it has achieved the transformation from god to man.

"It is very dark and very depressing, just like our society, where there is no light."

"Martin's clown did what we want to do but can't do."

"After watching Martin's "Joker", you will understand that our society is really sick."

Perhaps a fan said the true feelings of many people.

"The real world is not as hopeless as in the movie, and violence, killing, and anarchism are not the solution to the problem, but after watching Martin's "Joker", you will feel particularly refreshed, as if the depression that has been accumulated for several years has all been vented with the movie. You will not only sympathize with the clown, but also identify with the clown, and even begin to understand the real world from the perspective of the clown."

The excellent reputation brings a super high attendance rate.

Also released in October, last year's "Split" starring Martin was not even a younger brother in front of "Joker".

On the first day of its opening in North America, including the midnight box office, "Joker" received 64.52 million US dollars!

This set a new North American single-day box office record in October.

The latest "Hollywood Reporter" focused on analyzing Martin's new film.

"What is the charm of "Joker"? It represents a kind of freedom, describes the living conditions of a person at the bottom of society, and expresses a wail of pain and disgust from the bottom of the heart against the current morbid and indifferent power and ruling system."

The film caters to the psychology of the general public, and the good word-of-mouth reputation has driven people to enter the theater to buy tickets.

On Saturday, the film earned another 57.66 million US dollars in North American theaters!

At this point, whether it is Hollywood or others, it is clear that the film that competes with "Captain America 3" for the North American and global annual box office champions is here!

The latter's North American box office of 408 million US dollars and global box office of 1.155 billion US dollars does not seem to be far away.

The opening weekend box office of "Joker" also proved that it has such strength.

Three days into the weekend, the film earned $168 million in 4,250 theaters in North America!

This also broke the North American opening record for R-rated films previously held by "John Wick 3".

Similarly, this is also the highest opening record in the North American film market in October.

…………

"I didn't expect that the one who could really threaten Marvel superhero movies was Martin."

In a reception room at Disney headquarters, Kevin Feige raised his baseball cap: "DC's movies are vulnerable, except for Martin."

Robert Iger, who was sitting in the main seat, said: "Fortunately it was Martin, not "Justice League."

Alan Horn looked at Kevin Feige: "I advised you to sign Martin with a basic salary of 20 million US dollars plus a later share, but you didn't listen. If you had Martin, the Avengers would have a greater influence."

Kevin Feige did not deny the mistakes he made that year: "It was my fault. At that time, I could only save the budget and spend more money on the movie itself..."

Robert Iger waved his hand: "Let's not talk about what happened that year , DC's "Justice League" is about to be released. Joss Whedon has worked with us. You know his abilities. What is the probability that DC will threaten Marvel? "

Kevin Feige said: "Very small. The real essence of DC movies is precisely the darkness, seriousness and depth. Both "The Dark Knight" and "The Joker" have proved this point! Joss Whedon is not good at these. "Justice League" is not a remake, but a patchwork based on Zack Snyder's work. It is difficult for Joss to handle it well. "

Alan Horn agreed: "Yes, if it is remade, the success may be greater, but Warner and DC are not so determined. "

"Not many people are so determined. "Robert Iger smiled: "Just throw away more than 200 million US dollars, and the board of directors of Warner Bros. and Time Warner will go crazy. "

Alan Horn said: "DC can't threaten Marvel. I discussed this with Martin, and he said that the more successful Joker is, the more embarrassed Justice League will be next month."

Robert Iger himself is not involved in the first-line production of the film, so he doesn't understand it very well.

Kevin Feige easily thought of it: "The theme and plot of Joker are dark, heavy and serious to the extreme. A bunch of funny DC heroes suddenly pop up in the next one, haha..."

Robert Iger also laughed, and said while laughing: "Martin's new film has the best reputation and box office."

The popularity of Joker is also seen by Warner Bros. and DC Films executives.

For the sake of Justice League, which will be released next month, Warner used the company's normal procedures to pressure Joker to post the Justice League advertisement.

Some media reporters also interviewed Martin, who was promoting Joker, about this matter.

Facing the camera lens, Martin said directly: "Sorry, I don't want to talk about topics that are not related to the Joker."

The reporter did not give up and asked: "But the Joker is from DC, right?"

Martin spread his hands and was very helpless: "DC executives have said more than once that "Joker" does not belong to DC movies, and my film was fired by DC."

Leaving the announcement site, Martin got in the car, and Thomas followed behind and sat in the co-pilot.

He said: ""Justice League" is riding on our popularity."

"Our popularity is not so easy to ride." Martin had a plan in advance and said to Thomas: "Let someone start it and create a certain momentum in the media and on the Internet."

Thomas replied: "It's ready."

Martin looked at Bruce: "Is there any latest news over there?"

Bruce knew he was asking Ivan: "Intimate photos of the two have been taken."

Martin nodded: "Very good, under normal circumstances, these will not affect Kevin Tsujihara, but if "Justice League" fails, it will give Daniel a knife."

During this period, the topic of "Joker" and "Justice League" has been constant.

A film that Warner Bros. and DC executives were not optimistic about, and even did not admit that it was a DC movie, but it created a high box office and explosively high reputation.

The Hollywood industry, the media, and movie fans are all praising the amazing move of the Warner group.

"Vanity Fair" also published a special analysis article on this: "Since the new management of Warner Bros. took office in 2010, in just over six years, they have messed up more than a dozen large projects with investments of hundreds of millions of dollars. Warner's film business has been in a slump. During this period, the works that really made amazing commercial profits were either left over from the predecessors, or projects like "Joker" that were marginalized by Warner management in the early stage."

"Therefore, there is also a saying of Warner group in the Hollywood industry. The most powerful ability of this management team is to avoid every successful factor of the film project with genius creativity and thinking, bringing huge losses to Warner Bros...."

The higher the box office of "Joker", the more it seems that Warner group has a unique vision.

Although the number of fans who have watched the film has increased and the reputation has inevitably declined, the box office trend of the film is stable and there has been no major decline.

In the second weekend in North America, Joker earned another 86.57 million US dollars, still dominating the North American box office rankings.

Combined with the revenue from the previous four working days, the film's North American box office totaled 327 million US dollars.

This figure far exceeded "Captain America 3" when it was released ten days ago.

In the same week, "Joker" was released in 78 overseas markets at the same time, sweeping 180.5 million US dollars in the first week of release, and the global box office easily exceeded the 500 million US dollar mark.

The competition for the annual box office crown in North America and the world in 2016 gradually lost suspense.

In sharp contrast, it is "Justice League".

This superhero masterpiece that brings together countless expectations of Warner and DC released the official trailer cut by Joss Whedon in late October. The six giants of the Justice League gathered in a live-action movie for the first time.

The idea of ​​the Warner team is to use the attention of DC characters caused by "Joker" to attract as many eyeballs as possible and attract the attention of fans.

But the reality did not match expectations. As soon as the trailer was released, it attracted a lot of criticism.

Even though the outside world had expected the change of director from Zack Snyder to Joss Whedon, it still broke the psychological bottom line of DC fans.

Wherever you can see the trailer, there are a lot of negative reviews from DC fans.

"Oh my God, is this a DC superhero movie? It's full of jokes and vulgar jokes. Just looking at the trailer is a piece of shit produced by an assembly line. I hope the feature film will be better."

"Sure enough, the most worried thing happened. Zack Snyder was kicked out of the crew, and the director of the film became Joss Whedon. The style has completely changed. The trailer has already predicted the result. This is a Justice League without soul!"

"Just watching the trailer, I am so embarrassed. I can't imagine that such a bad thing is actually the trailer of "Justice League."

The fans next door are mocking.

"If you change the costumes of the heroes and say this is an Avengers movie, people will believe it."

"DC has not found the right path at all. They can only follow the path taken by the Avengers. I dare to predict that they will not even get the leftovers of the Avengers on this path."

"You have Nolan and Martin, but you have to quarrel with them and expel them from DC. Warner Bros. is indeed a group of super geniuses!"

Even if the pre-release response was not good, at this point, Warner Bros. and DC could only bite the bullet and continue to promote the publicity and marketing of "Justice League" and release it before Thanksgiving as planned.

As long as it is released, no matter whether it succeeds or fails, part of the investment can always be recovered.

Warner Bros. and DC certainly did a lot of work and invested a lot in publicity and promotion. With the power of one of the six major companies, they suppressed all the voices of dissatisfaction with Joss Whedon in the crew to avoid negative news and bring more impact to the film.

The reshoot crew, which was originally like a powder keg, was able to maintain temporary calm. If the film is successful, everyone can benefit from it, and everything will disappear.

However, the pre-sale of "Justice League" opened in early November, which made Warner Bros. and DC worried.

North American movie fans seem to have lost interest in this film, or are in a wait-and-see attitude. The pre-sale box office in North America in the first week did not even reach 1.5 million US dollars.

This formed a chain effect, and pre-sales continued to decline.

Some professional entertainment media pointed out that after several previews, Justice League has not been able to lift the ban on word-of-mouth.

In contrast, major websites and media opened the rating system of Joker early during the preview.

The North American film market has long reached a consensus.

Films that announce ratings in advance are not necessarily good films, but films that do not announce ratings until the last day before the release are definitely not very good.

Until the premiere of Justice League, the ratings of Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB were still not open.

Warner Bros. held a grand premiere for the film, and even invited all other stars who have appeared in DC superhero movies, including Martin, to participate, and tried to be reliable to Joker.

In order to make a last-ditch effort, Hamada automatically forgot what he had said before. When he was interviewed by the media, he said: "Joker is a great movie and an integral part of the DC superhero force. It is also with the contrast of other DC superheroes such as Batman that the Joker has extraordinary charm."

The media interviewing him was originally from Warner, and the reporter was very polite. He asked according to the draft prepared in advance: "Will this Joker and Justice League interact in the future?"

Hamada smiled and said: "DC is considering letting Joker and Justice League work together. We plan to invite Martin to work out a plan together..."

Martin, who walked quickly on the red carpet, did not enter the media area at all. He entered the Dolby Theater with Bruce and went up to the second floor together.

Louise and Daniel stood in front of the French window on the second floor, looking at Hamada and Joss Whedon in the media area.

Daniel smiled and said: "Congratulations on our film's global box office exceeding $1 billion."

Five weeks after its release in North America, Joker earned $462 million and a cumulative global box office of $1.015 billion.

It is only a matter of time before it exceeds Captain America 3.

Facing his allies, Martin said something nice: "Warner's strong support is crucial."

He then asked: "What is Warner's actual expectation for Justice League?"

"The pre-sales are not ideal, so they simply won't announce it later." Daniel lowered his voice: "Hamada and Kevin Tsujihara are still hoping that the film will be around $100 million in the first week in North America. In my opinion, $70 million is difficult."

He said the truth: "Without the fame accumulated by Superman and Batman over the years, it would be good for this film to have $40 million in the opening weekend."

Martin understood and said: "Are you ready?"

"Of course, the Warner Bros. and Time Warner boards will find it hard to bear it." Daniel said, "It only takes a suitable reason and excuse."

Martin said, "When the first week's box office is released, someone will give you a share."

Daniel nodded slightly, "It's in the interests of both sides, so I won't say thank you."

Martin just said, "If you hit the snake, either don't do it, or you have to kill it, don't give them a chance to turn over and bite people."

Daniel said, "The internal struggle is life and death."

The three chatted for a while, and went downstairs to the theater lobby before the premiere.

This "Justice League" has no surprises, and it gives people a particularly severe sense of separation. There are many Avengers-style jokes, and a large number of reshoots are interspersed, which leads to obvious problems with the rhythm of the film.

And the problem of unbalanced combat power has never been solved. Superman appeared and punched the show.

After the film was released, it received a lot of bad reviews. The fans who had been cultivated did not buy it, and passers-by said it was boring and boring and could not understand it. A small number of viewers who had seen it regretted it and complained about the dollars they spent in vain on various online platforms.

The North American premiere weekend, which took nearly seven years from planning to final release, basically came to an end for the DC Justice League movie universe.

Because the opening weekend box office was only 66.38 million US dollars.

Many market institutions predicted that the North American box office of "Justice League" would be less than 200 million US dollars, and the global box office would be at most 500 million US dollars.

The production cost of the film alone was as high as 350 million US dollars.