Hollywood Drawing

No one is stupid enough to think that the current "Batman: The Dark Knight" can be copied. The reason why this movie has such a terrifying box office and has swept the world has many and complicated reasons, not to mention Wei Wei. Well, after several years of paving the way for DC movies and dark styles and cultivating audiences' movie-watching habits, the luck-based marketing before and after the movie is released is destined to be impossible to imitate easily.

"The Dark Knight" is indeed extremely successful. Perhaps this project will establish the glory of Warner Bros.'s DC movie series in the next few years. However, who can deny that "Jurassic Park 2" was a failure?

In the past few weeks, Wayne and Steven Spielberg have used the fanatical atmosphere brought by their two movies to plunge countless media into a box office carnival, and the same is true for companies in Hollywood. But Sony Columbia is different from other giants. They have been at the bottom of the six giants in terms of revenue over the years, so some things seem particularly sobering.

Ohgao knows very well that regardless of the movies of Wayne Greenberg and Steven Spielberg, the North American box office is usually 300 to 400 million yuan, and the global box office is 600 to 700 million yuan. But in fact, in the entire history of Hollywood, , there are only a handful of movies with a box office of more than 300 million US dollars in North America, let alone 300 million US dollars. Who can guarantee that each of their films can reach a box office of 200 million US dollars?

Except for Wayne now, even Steven Spielberg still has Waterloo. These big directors can only guarantee a high success rate to a certain extent.

Therefore, every time a film achieves good results in the theater market, countless follow-up works will appear, and so-called Hollywood assembly line production will appear, because only in this way can the profitability of the film be guaranteed to the greatest extent. , ensuring that the production company’s investment will not lose money.

Imitation, analyzing the success factors of successful films and then copying them, has always been a mainstream concept in Hollywood.

"Paul, I studied it carefully."

Dahexiong relaxed his upper body, leaned on the sofa, and stared at the local North American executives opposite. He knew that among the entire Columbia Group, these were the few executives who really wanted to restore the company to glory. Such selfish managers still account for the majority in the company.

"From "Jaws" in 1975, which made Steven Spielberg completely famous, to "Gremlins" in 1984, to the subsequent "Alien" series." Speaking of this, Oga Xiong paused and extended He raised his finger and pointed at the inconspicuous box office bulletins in the newspaper. "Also, since the 1990s, with the first "Jurassic Park" in 1993 and the second "Jurassic Park" currently being released on a wide scale, monster movies have never lacked a wide audience. "

In fact, after hearing this, Paul basically understood what the other party meant. Obviously, "The Dark Knight" has indeed attracted all the media's attention. However, if the box office of "Jurassic Park 2" is taken separately, It is definitely considered the most successful genre in Hollywood.

More importantly, such a monster movie is far easier to replicate than a film like "The Dark Knight" that perfectly combines art and business.

"Godzilla, I don't know if you understand it."

Without waiting for the other party's response, Dahexiong began to introduce some of his special ideas. "This monster has always been the most popular monster in this book. It is also very famous in North America and even around the world. We can definitely produce this popular monster with better special effects. I believe that this monster The influence of the monster will definitely not be lower than that of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in "Jurassic Park"!"

These words made Paul frown and start to think about the possibility of making the book monster a North American movie. Perhaps the native CEO in front of him has a very deep understanding of Hollywood and the film industry, but there is one thing that he definitely doesn't understand, and that is that in North America, xenophobia has always been the highest in the world.

So far, no imported movie from outside North America has been able to get more than 100 million US dollars in box office in this land. This already explains a lot. Even European movies that have similar cultural attributes to North America can get this movie. There has still not been any better box office results in the land.

Ordinary people in this land, you may call them arrogant or country bumpkins, but the fact is that these ordinary people don't care about anything except North America.

The good thing is that there is no shortage of supporters of some of the culture of the book in this land. For example, Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" also introduced a lot of cultural elements of the book. .

It wasn't until five or six minutes passed that Paul took a sip of the cold coffee, looked at Benzi's CEO sitting opposite, and said: "Godzilla wants to succeed in North America just by imitating "Jura" Park" is not going to work. We need to transform it to make this monster more in line with the aesthetics of this market."

There were some words he didn't say clearly, but both of them knew what they meant, which was to carry out a major transformation of this monster, a major localization transformation. Otherwise, it would be difficult for audiences in North America to be interested in a monster from a book.

"I will propose this project at a subsequent high-level meeting and personally promote the development of the project and enter the preparation period as soon as possible."

Ohgao is different from the other party. He himself hopes to export some of the cultural attributes of his hometown to North America and even the world through the media platform of Sony Columbia. This is one of the reasons why Sony paid a large price to acquire Columbia Pictures in the past few years. one.

Now Sony Columbia has gradually emerged from the period of turmoil, so no matter how great the resistance is, he will try his best to promote the success of this project. In his eyes, this is a good start. "Do you want this monster to land in North America next year?"

As soon as he heard what the other party meant, Paul understood that this plan should have been planned by the other party for a long time, and it coincided with the "Jurassic Park" series, which proved the feasibility of monster movies, so to a certain extent, as soon as possible Now is indeed a very good time to make a movie. With the monster movie craze caused by "Jurassic Park 2", the audience's acceptance will be much higher.

"That's right, next year."

Dahexiong nodded, stood up from the sofa in the lounge area, walked slowly to the large floor-to-ceiling windows, and looked out at the busy traffic downstairs. "Sony Columbia needs its own signature movie series, like Warner Bros.'s DC superheroes."

Paul looked at the other person's low back and shook his head helplessly. In fact, in his mind, this monster called Godzilla is definitely not the company's best choice for the first movie next year, and this monster may not be able to get Columbia out of the bottom of the six major movies.

If he was asked to make a decision, he would immediately come up with "Spider-Man" and then use all the connections and power at his disposal, like 20th Century Fox, to hire Wayne Greenberg to supervise the production at a sky-high price. plan.

Compared with the big monster from the book, "Spider-Man" is the real popular monster. Even if the film and television results cannot be compared with "Batman: The Dark Knight", due to its own popularity, The box office results won't be that bad either.

Especially if Wayne Greenberg is invited to supervise and plan, this will give "Spider-Man" a good start. Even if the majority of the profits from this movie are taken away, so what? As long as there is a good beginning, the sequel work can be carried out step by step.

But within Sony Columbia's senior management, there have always been doubts about the little spider's plan. The fact has been proven by Universal Pictures. In this circle, the only one who can guarantee the success rate of superhero movies for the time being is Wayne Greenberg. He has a unique personality, and his shooting style is the most difficult to imitate in Hollywood.

It's a pity that Paul's several proposals to make Spider-Man were rejected by doubtful executives and shareholders. Everyone is waiting for a second production company to succeed in superhero movies other than the DC series. , otherwise, it would be impossible for them to easily make a Spider-Man movie.

Without him, Warner Bros.’s spending on superhero movies has never been a secret in the industry. Among the entire crew, except for Wayne who received a high salary, even Christian Bale and others also received high salary due to their previous work. The film contract he signed was paid at a salary that was not in line with his worth and reputation.

This has resulted in relative transparency in the amount of investment. It can be said that more than 80% of the funds of up to 200 million US dollars were used in film production. With such a huge production cost, once the punch rate cannot be guaranteed, even the six giants Large-scale production companies will also feel the pain.

No one is willing to bring in external funds to produce this kind of project that is the core of the company. Even the six most commonly used empty-handed methods, they are never willing to use them on such a project, in order to avoid causing problems. After the success of the movie, the huge benefits it brought were noticed by others, causing headaches.

Conversations similar to those at Sony Columbia Pictures are happening in various production companies because of the global box office performance of "The Dark Knight". No company is not jealous of Warner Bros., with such unprecedented box office standards. Under this situation, any large company in the industry can basically calculate the income that can be generated.

With the end of the working day, almost everyone in the industry knows that with the arrival of a new weekend, "The Dark Knight" is about to usher in the last schedule that can dominate the theater market.

During this working week, although the box office of "The Dark Knight" dropped below 10 million US dollars per day, compared with the box office trend of the previous two weeks, it can still be said to be stable and terrifying. As of Before Friday arrives, the total North American box office has climbed to 433.94 million US dollars. No one dares to say whether the film will reach the unprecedented North American box office of 500 million US dollars within next week.

Compared with "The Dark Knight", "Jurassic Park 2" still maintains a relatively weak momentum in the media, but in the theater market, the traffic flow has always been remarkable. After a full week of screenings, it quietly earned $135 million at the box office.

It's not that Universal Pictures doesn't want to change this situation, but in the face of the popularity of "The Dark Knight" in the media, Ron Meyer is really helpless. The only thing that gives him the slightest comfort is "Jurassic" "Park 2" has always had strong traffic and box office trends.

With the arrival of this weekend, the film will also be launched in overseas theater markets simultaneously. He is now extremely looking forward to the film's full-scale explosion in overseas markets to save the growing distrust of him among the board of directors. ticket.

At the end of May, a new weekend arrives, and with it comes another carnival for movie fans. According to the rules of previous years, every weekend after the start of the summer season is a place where major film companies must compete for every inch of land. Every weekend in this period is valuable, and no company is willing to miss it.

But this year is obviously different. It's already the end of May, and the themes in the theater market are still "The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic Park 2." Arrange the release of the film while the film is still warm, and become the victim of these two films. As a result, this weekend, only two new low-budget movies entered the theater market. Compared with the scheduling rates of "The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic Park 2", "L.A. Both "Confidential" and "Things Fall Apart" had a pitiful opening, with only a few hundred screens in a few hundred theaters.

The reason why these two films are willing to be released in this schedule is because they know that even if the schedule is moved to the next two months, the situation they will face will not be much better than now.

The distribution company of the former "L.A. Confidential" is also Warner Bros. This film is directed by Curtis Hanson and stars Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe. Due to the fame of the leading actors themselves, and Warner Bros. Intentionally or unintentionally bundled marketing, this film faces an easier situation in the theater market.

As for the subsequent film "Skyfall", it was distributed by Universal Pictures. It can be said that the idea is the same as that of Warner Bros. This is also a regular marketing method of the distribution company. They all hope to ride on the strong performance of their own films to gain success in this industry. In a schedule with no competitors, try to empty the pockets of every movie fan.

The resulting situation is that the choices given to movie fans this weekend are actually only movies released by these two companies. From the perspective of the distribution companies, this is their normal operation, that is, no matter which movie the fans choose to watch, in the end There is a 1/2 probability that the winner will be his own family.

In theory, this is correct, but the actual situation is another matter. Friday is strictly a working day, and the number of people in the theater is not much compared to Thursday. There was a particularly large increase, but as the sky gradually darkened, the flow of people in the theater began to increase significantly.

After a day passed, theater companies and production companies simultaneously received data reports on theater viewing conditions. It showed that the first choice for movie fans to watch movies is still "The Dark Knight", followed closely by "The Dark Knight". It's still "Jurassic Park 2". In fact, the two new movies released this weekend have very poor ticket purchase ratios among movie fans.

This is also a true portrayal of the three days of this weekend, with basically no changes. When the three days of the weekend passed by again, the latest box office data was pushed to all of North America through the media. The results also explained the problem through the box office, firmly occupying the weekend box office. The first and second spots on the list are still "Batman: The Dark Knight" and "Jurassic Park 2."