From Flower Vase to Film Emperor in Hollywood

Harry – Percy was correct.

While those old scholars and stubborn conservatives in Hollywood were still living in their own worlds, self-praising and self-righteous, Anson once again broke new ground, rewriting the new history of film distribution, promotion, and marketing—

While promoting the film, he also delved into establishing a friendly image among the audience and even the general public, and incidentally established a personal fashion image.

Killing several birds with one stone.

Moreover, it was silky smooth, with no trace of careful strategy.

In 2002, when the internet was not fully popularized and the global village had just opened up, this strategy was simply crushing.

Realizing this, Harry was not complacent or carried away. Instead, he became even more certain that Anson was a devil who absolutely needed to be kept at a distance, otherwise he would sell himself without even knowing it.

Describing it takes only a few words and a few strokes, as if it were just a blink of an eye; but in fact, Anson's flash mob activities, spreading across every corner of the North American continent for comprehensive publicity, lasted a full fifteen days—

Starting from Christmas 2002, he stepped into 2003 amidst busyness and奔波, and continued eastward without stopping.

The topic was there.

The hot spot was there.

Curiosity and liking were also there.

So, what about the box office?

The seemingly grand publicity campaign was all just empty talk on paper. Only when it was truly converted into box office revenue, only when it truly made the audience willing to enter the cinema, would it be a success—

Only then would the film company buy it. Otherwise, those glamorous things would only look beautiful. The frustration and struggle after the spotlight went out would be even more empty.

Naturally, the more lively the publicity, the more attention would be focused on the box office.

December 24th, Christmas Eve, premiere of "Catch Me If You Can."

December 25th, Christmas Day, "Catch Me If You Can" was released nationwide.

Obviously, this was a highly anticipated schedule, and also a challenging one.

From a positive perspective, it's the holidays, and family audiences have time again. Watching a movie to pass the time is undoubtedly a choice, so every holiday, movie ticket sales will increase significantly. Christmas may have great potential to embrace the box office—

No one will forget the frenzy caused by "Home Alone" on Christmas that year; moreover, the box office miracle of "Titanic" also happened on Christmas.

From a negative perspective, as a day for family reunion once a year, who would run to the cinema? Everyone is reuniting at home, and there are many entertainment activities to choose from compared to movies.

Compared with the summer season, the holiday season has this inherent contradictory attribute, so Hollywood has not fully grasped the rules until now.

The most direct point is whether to arrange for a movie to be released on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Currently, Hollywood generally tends not to arrange it.

The holiday season mainly sells the time around the holidays, focusing on an atmosphere; but on the holiday itself, few people go to the cinema with their families.

Numbers don't lie.

In North American box office history, the highest single-day box office record on Christmas Day—including all works, premieres and non-premieres—is currently held by the biographical film "Ali", which premiered on Christmas Day 2001.

This film, starring Will Smith and telling the story of a legendary figure known to every household in the United States, earned 10.2 million US dollars on its premiere day, which is also the only film in North American film history to break 10 million US dollars in a single day on Christmas Day.

The answer is obvious.

Therefore, movies that choose the holiday season often avoid the holiday itself and are released earlier.

Another point is that, according to the regulations of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the release date of each year's Oscar-nominated works must fall between December 25th of the previous year and December 24th of the current year, and after the release, it must be screened in Los Angeles theaters for at least one week, otherwise it will not be eligible to participate.

This time range is slightly adjusted every year, possibly earlier or later, but overall, using Christmas as a coordinate will not go wrong.

Thanks to this, in order to compete for the Oscars, movies are often released in the week before Christmas to avoid controversies that may be caused by last-minute releases.

It is conceivable that the schedule before Christmas is often crowded beyond belief.

This year is the same.

Only "Catch Me If You Can" was released this week on Christmas.

However, the previous week was a chaotic scene of everyone coming out in droves.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" goes without saying, it is undoubtedly the highlight of this week, but there is also a series of works that are released simultaneously without fear.

"Two Weeks Notice", co-operated by Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, also held its national premiere. This is a step for Sandra to return to romantic comedy after "Murder by Numbers" regrettably failed to meet expectations, partnering with the king of romantic comedy, hoping to spark sparks.

"Gangs of New York" is even more of an absolute highlight that is highly anticipated during this year's awards season. Martin Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, picking any name is an absolute big name. This major production is also released this week.

And these are just a part of it. In addition, there are two more movies released in more than a thousand theaters, plus three awards season works released on a small scale. A total of eight new works meet the audience, which is definitely the time of year with the most premiere works in a week.

So lively, the hustle and bustle of the film market is completely comparable to the summer season.

It was against this background that "Catch Me If You Can" debuted.

Even if DreamWorks knew that the cinema might not be lively on Christmas Day, even if DreamWorks could completely wait until Friday, the 27th, to release it nationwide, DreamWorks still followed the plan and released it nationwide as scheduled for various reasons.

Then.

Wednesday, Christmas Day.

On the one hand, the media's comprehensive review ushered in good news. "Catch Me If You Can" won applause. Whether it was Steven Spielberg's strong recovery or Anson's continuation of "Spider-Man"'s good reputation, everything was worth celebrating.

On the other hand, the "Christmas Gift" flash mob event debuted in Los Angeles. Although the media has not reported it yet, and TMZ did not discover it in the first time; but the news is still spreading rapidly among fans.

Three, two, one, the answer is revealed—

Thirteen million dollars.

Hollywood: … …

Silence.

Because it was so shocking, unexpected, and stunned, that they completely lost their ability to react. One or two people looked at each other and had to reconfirm the numbers, otherwise they were worried that they had seen an extra zero, but they still couldn't believe it.

History was born.

Records were written.

Following the overwhelming rewriting of history in the summer season, the record for the holiday season was rewritten again. The miracle that Warner Bros. had been waiting for and longing for did not happen to "Harry Potter" nor to "The Lord of the Rings", but it finally happened.

Moreover, this time it still came from the same person:

Anson Wood.