From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

Escaped a disaster!

Indeed, Hollywood is a place where you must be constantly vigilant and cautious.

If Focus Features had been even slightly greedy and changed the film's positioning and strategy, they might already be caught in a storm, unable to retreat.

A flawed release positioning and marketing strategy can ruin not only box office prospects but also exposure, word-of-mouth, and buzz, potentially impacting the work's chances during the cutthroat awards season competition.

Pull one hair and the whole body moves—

This is Hollywood, where everything is interconnected.

Some might wonder why certain excellent works with outstanding reviews and overwhelming praise miss out on Oscar nominations, while some mediocre films emerge from nowhere to enter the Oscar race and even win. Why?

The above is the reason.

Leaving aside the intricate complexities of Academy campaigning, the release strategy and market positioning are the first hurdles, laying the foundation even before the Academy campaign begins. Strategic errors in the initial stages can lead to a complete loss of competitiveness in subsequent games, which is far more difficult than imagined.

It is precisely because of this that the success or failure of a work is not so simple.

Actors are just one part of the process. Even if they do their job excellently, it still depends on the work of other departments:

Directors, producers, editors, distribution, marketing, and so on.

Starting from project approval, it's like a long march, overcoming countless difficulties to complete filming, production, and post-production, yet there are still long thorns to conquer.

No wonder actors always say, 'Who hasn't been in a few bad movies?'

After the actors finish their work, a film still has countless possibilities for going wrong and a series of potential flops, all of which are beyond the actors' control.

An actor's ability to choose scripts is not enough to guarantee the success of every project; they also need the ability to choose projects, where 'project' includes different aspects such as the director, producer, and distribution company, which is far beyond the scope of acting skills.

It is also why Tom Cruise and Will Smith's consecutive five films breaking $100 million at the North American box office is such a feat, solidifying their status as top superstars.

Anson is the same. Whether "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" can continue Anson's undefeated aura will be a key battle for Hollywood's fame and fortune to snipe him.

No one expected that before "Spider-Man 2", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" would become a target first, bearing too much weight that it shouldn't have.

In such a predicament and situation, Focus Features' performance is all the more important and rare.

Focus Features, wavering between left and right, stuck to its original intention, controlled itself, and narrowly escaped a storm. In Hollywood's incitement, they were not only unmoved but also became more determined in their strategy.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" needs precise positioning.

Focus Features drew inspiration from the release of "Elephant" and formulated a distribution strategy—

They are not planning to start with limited screenings like "Elephant" and keep the screening range under control, because "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" does not have the experimental nature of "Elephant". Although it is obscure and difficult to understand, the core of Charlie Kaufman's work is love, a love story that resonates with art-house youth; therefore, the film's market coverage is slightly wider than "Elephant".

Compared to the number of theaters, Focus Features believes that the screening cities are more important.

For example, in midwestern cities like Houston, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Dallas, and Portland, cities mainly based on industry and agriculture, works like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" have no market—

Even if they do, it's only a small portion that needs to be slowly discovered through publicity and promotion.

Imagine a mine worker or a truck driver working hard all day, becoming curious because of the names of "Spider-Man" Peter Parker and "Titanic" Rose, buying a ticket and entering the cinema, only to see such a work. Would they be happy?

There is a 99% probability that the answer is no.

In stark contrast are cities like New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where the nature of work and lifestyle are different, and the expectations and acceptance are naturally different.

The number of theaters is not important; the targeted cities are what really matter.

Of course, that's not all. In addition to screening cities and the number of theaters, the importance of the release schedule cannot be ignored. At this point, the Oscars have to be mentioned.

However, now that the Oscars are moved forward by a full four weeks, the spring season has an extra month. Although the Oscar effect still exists, the possibilities of the spring season are immediately opened up. What does this mean?

The answer is obvious—

March and April: potential begins to emerge.

In fact, the summer season opens in May. This is a conventional division of seasons, but there is no real legal regulation. Film companies choose to release a week earlier or a week later, and the real decisive factor is the mutual restraint and game between them.

Now that the possibilities of the spring season have been slightly opened up, the competitive landscape has undergone subtle changes. Before the summer season truly arrives, seizing the gap and making a profit before the market fully activates and explodes greatly increases the probability of success of such a strategy—

The tradition of the "Fast and Furious" series is to release in April, secretly rushing ahead before the fierce competition of the summer season.

From a market perspective, the summer season still kicks off in May; but in the film companies' distribution strategies, the boundary between April and May is becoming blurred.

It is conceivable that film companies need to readjust their positioning and strategies.

This is also a direct impact of the Oscars moving from the end of March to the end of February or the beginning of March.

This year is year zero.

The Academy announced this decision as early as July 2002. When film companies planned the spring season of 2004, they inevitably began to look at each other.

The so-called year zero means that everything is unknown, requiring exploration, risk-taking, and experimentation. In theory, a window of opportunity has indeed appeared in April; but in reality, whether the general public accepts such an adjustment is a big question mark.

So, how did Focus Features judge it?

It's a risk, but also an opportunity. Focus Features chose this schedule because it aimed at the gap created by the earlier Oscars and prepared to try it out—

Ambition still exists objectively.