From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

Haha, hahaha!

Nicholas couldn't control himself and burst out laughing. This was just too much fun.

Who could have imagined that these arcade machines would have such interactive features?

Then, just at that moment, the arcade machine made a buzzing sound. Nicholas completely lost control, as if he had returned to his teenage years, looking left and right, full of curiosity.

Only then did he discover that a palm-sized card was being ejected from the bottom of the arcade machine.

It was the size of a bookmark, with a green base. The exquisite border design and color scheme were irresistible. The words that had just appeared on the screen were listed in vertical columns —

It was merchandise!

Nicholas's eyes lit up. This kind of merchandise could be collected as a souvenir, but the "Butterfly Effect" crew was giving it away for free.

Nicholas was completely in love with it.

Jubilation, excitement, curiosity, and suppressed excitement, a pure joy.

Nicholas couldn't bear to leave and immediately used his journalistic instincts to inquire further, finally gaining insight into the full picture of the event.

These arcade machines would give different answers to each person after they entered a year—

They weren't exactly the same.

For 1994 alone, Nicholas saw at least five versions. Some just recorded the major events of that year, while others reviewed the popular things of that year, easily awakening past memories.

Among them, the most interesting was the prank.

“Oh, sorry, there's nothing here.”

There was even a hand-drawn emoticon, a ghost face.

Really! Too, too, too! Interesting!

So every bookmark was worth collecting.

Here, there was a hidden Easter egg. Nicholas noticed that the arcade machine could only trace back to 1982. What did this mean?

The year Anson was born.

But Nicholas preferred to believe that this should be the age of the protagonist in "The Butterfly Effect", forming a perfect intertextuality from the movie to reality.

Unbelievable, how did Anson come up with such an interactive method?

Moreover, this was not all.

The parking lot was filled with these arcade machines; what about the phone booths?

It didn't take long for Nicholas to understand the truth—

Merchandise.

All of them were movie merchandise! A movie premiere that was comparable to an anime convention!

Absolutely surprising, Nicholas couldn't believe that he could see such subculture of comics invading the movie world in Los Angeles in 2003!

Moreover, the movie merchandise was not just merchandise!

The entire event was divided into two parts.

In one part, each audience member could receive a free card. There were ten stamps on the card. For every phone booth they went to watch a "Butterfly Effect" movie Easter egg, they could earn a stamp.

In the phone booths, it was also set according to time. In different years, small story clips from the movie were shown, allowing people to see joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, showing the relationship between the movie and time in this way.

After collecting ten stamps, they could get a "Perfect Stamp" at the entrance of the Wilshire Theater—

This card itself was a piece of merchandise, not only carefully designed, but also each stamp had a special meaning, not to mention the final butterfly stamp exclusive to the "Butterfly Effect" movie.

The other part was hidden in each phone booth. There was a gashapon machine inside. One dollar could be used to play once, and each time a gashapon came out, there was a surprise merchandise inside.

Including but not limited to, keychains, erasers, brooches, refrigerator magnets, bookmarks, etc., etc., etc.

Of course, they weren't ordinary objects, all of them were carefully designed matching merchandise based on the movie.

The most special hidden rewards were two, one was a mini baseball signed by the lead actor, and the other was an Anson figurine.

A small finger-sized doll, there were three models in total, respectively from Anson's look in the movie, Anson's black suit look at the Cannes Film Festival, and Anson's look while playing baseball.

In other words, every audience member who arrived at the premiere could freely choose how to open the party according to their preferences.

They could participate for free, and in the end, they could still take two movie merchandise home as souvenirs for attending the movie premiere, and they were also specially designed special merchandise with collectible value.

They could also buy merchandise and collect a series of merchandise specially designed for "The Butterfly Effect", whether it was a signed baseball or an Anson doll figurine, these were undoubtedly rare treasures, not to mention the other merchandise in the gashapon were just as interesting.

Unbelievable!

Nicholas: … …

Speechless, full of surprises.

So, when "Spider-Man" was released, Sony Columbia never thought of making movie merchandise. Even with the huge success of the movie at the box office, they still didn't pay attention to this market—

It's not that they didn't know, after all, Sony's parent company came from Neon; but they believed that the North American market wouldn't buy it, so there was no need to spend effort.

But now, "The Butterfly Effect" was breaking new ground.

Surprise, one hundred percent surprise.

And when Nicholas learned that there were still hidden Easter eggs later, the shock in his mind couldn't stop at all.

In the gashapon, there were actually hidden surprises, a total of five, a piece of paper with a "Prank Ghost Face". If you brought the paper, plus the card with ten stamps, to the entrance of the Wilshire Theater to receive the reward, then you could exchange it for a limited edition movie poster—

At the same time, it was autographed by the actors and director, naturally including Anson.

The meaning of the so-called hidden surprise was that the official didn't explain it. If someone saw the "Prank Ghost Face" paper, but didn't notice that there was a "Surprise Reward" on the back of the paper, and missed the chance to redeem the prize, then this poster couldn't be redeemed.

In the end, only three people redeemed the reward, and there were still two posters that hadn't been redeemed.

After the zealous fans learned about this, they emptied all ten gashapon machines, but they still couldn't find the last two pieces of paper with the prank ghost face.

Surprises, one after another.

Easter eggs, one after another.

Nicholas finally realized that this wasn't a premiere, it was completely a carnival fair, where everyone celebrated together and enjoyed the beautiful night—

Who could refuse?