Hollywood Hunter

After Saturday and another day on the West Coast, Simon flew back to Los Angeles on Monday morning.

At the same time, the three-day box office data for the weekend from November 21st to November 23rd was released, which was a very exciting result for Disney.

After three days of painting, "Terminator 3" adopted the same routine as the female Terminator, with a box office of 44.26 million US dollars in the first weekend, leaving the second place "A Bug's Life" at 35.91 million US dollars by nearly 10 million. , It is expected that the seven-day box office in the first week is expected to be between 60 million and 70 million US dollars.

Disney, which is controlled by the French Vivendi Group, is the core of the two super blockbusters this year. The summer file "The Fifth Element" ended in failure, with a domestic box office of only more than 60 million US dollars. Jean-Marie Mérieux, head of Die, was stumped.

This time, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, the final cost of "Terminator 3" is as high as 130 million U.S. dollars, which is 30 million more than the 100 million U.S. dollars of "The Fifth Element". million US dollars, the film is expected to reach between 150 million and 200 million in North America.

Coupled with Schwarzenegger's stronger overseas appeal, the global box office of this sequel is expected to be equal to that of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". Realize a small profit. The failure of "The Fifth Element" is the first, which is a result that makes Vivendi very satisfied.

After all, it can't be compared with Daenerys, can it?

It is rumored that Jean-Marie Mérieux held a special video conference on Monday to affirm the performance of the Disney management team, claiming that this is a good attempt, and that Vivendi will continue to try.

For Hollywood, the biggest achievement of "Terminator 3" is that it finally ended the continuous weekly championship momentum of Daenerys Entertainment related films.

This shows that everyone still has a way out.

All right.

Although after a closer look, if it weren't for Daenerys and Fox to voluntarily relinquish the rights, Disney would have no chance to get involved in the "Terminator" series.

What Simon saw was the cost control of "Terminator 3".

"Terminator 3" in 2003 burned 200 million US dollars. This time, Vivendi has been strongly interfering in Disney's operations, especially cost control, behind the scenes in order to avoid repeating Sony's responsibility. Therefore, even though Cameron was also invited as the producer, the cost was still relatively well compressed at 130 million U.S. dollars. This is the main reason why Vivendi was so relaxed after the three-day box office release on the weekend of the project.

Among them, Schwarzenegger's fixed base salary is 15 million US dollars, and the rest is settled by sharing. This is also a result of Simon's silent promotion over the years, successfully locking Hollywood's fixed salary ceiling at 15 million US dollars, not the original time and space. 20 million of them. In comparison, the former Schwarzenegger directly took away 30 million cash in the original "Terminator 3", which is really outrageous.

Entering a new week, time flies, and Thanksgiving on November 27 is almost gone in a blink of an eye.

On the day before Thanksgiving, on Wednesday, two other new films "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and "Flying Magic" were also released as scheduled. In the same box office week, it can be regarded as five important commercial films competing on the same stage. The total North American box office of the box office week on the 27th pushed up to more than 200 million U.S. dollars, reaching 220 million U.S. dollars.

The number one "Terminator 3" had a final box office of 67.06 million US dollars in the first seven days.

This result cannot be compared with the DC movie universe blockbuster or Daenerys Entertainment's "Jurassic Park" series, but compared with the $56.93 million in the first week of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", it is 10 million higher. Above, Vivendi can indeed be satisfied.

The second place is "A Bug's Secret Service", which earned US$54.39 million in the first week.

Because of the series of big sales of Pixar animation, especially the huge success in sales of peripheral products besides the box office, the cost of Daenerys 3D animation movies has been rising steadily. The highest $80 million for "Toy Story 2" has officially risen to $100 million this time, even in front of "Terminator 3".

Therefore, $54.39 million in the first week is not a failure, but it did not meet Daenerys Entertainment's expectations.

This is the fifth 3D animated film produced by Pixar. The previous four are "Toy Story", "The Lion King", "Toy Story 2" and "Beauty and the Beast".

Among all the five 3D animations, the first week of "A Bug's Life" is only slightly better than Pixar's pioneering work "Toy Story" at 46.73 million in the same period. , "The Lion King" is 70.31 million US dollars, even "Beauty and the Beast", it also received 68.73 million US dollars in the first week.

In the past, "A Bug's Life" was a relatively sluggish Pixar work. Simon also tried to make some adjustments to eliminate the love elements in the film as much as possible and change them to more family-friendly friendship elements. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. achieve reversal.

Of course, such an opening is not a failure.

Let's just say it wasn't too successful.

According to feedback from surrounding channels, the sales of peripheral products of "A Bug's Life" are not as good as the previous works. It seems that everyone doesn't like bugs after all.

And then.

The third place was taken by the old film "Contact", which started painting the previous week. In the second week of its release, MGM released this film which cost 900 yuan.

The $100,000 blockbuster earned another $24.17 million, and the cumulative box office for the two weeks was $63.8 million.

Judging from the current box office trend, breaking 100 million is not a big problem.

However, with a production cost of 90 million and an announcement of 30 million, the local production is only over 100 million, which certainly cannot meet the expectations of the producer, and can only rely on overseas performance.

The fourth place goes back to the new film "The Rainmaker", which cost US$40 million and earned US$16.27 million in its first week.

Apparently, even with Francis Coppola, Danny DeVito, and Matt Damon, "The Rainmaker" has adapted "Gannet Assassination," "Sugar Trap," and "A Time to Kill." Waiting for the latest hit from John Grimson, but it has not been able to continue the success of the past.

The first week was 16.27 million U.S. dollars, and it is estimated that the local market is only about 40 million U.S. dollars.

Through overseas and follow-up channels, Paramount will not lose money, and may even achieve a small amount of profit, but it is basically a waste of time.

The fifth place went back to the old film Adam Sandler's comedy dark horse "The Wedding Singer". In the same week, it earned 15.9 million US dollars, and the cumulative two-week total was 45.36 million US dollars.

A dark horse in the eyes of the outside world, Simon doesn't see it that way.

Once "The Wedding Singer" was released on Valentine's Day in early 1998, and the domestic box office reached 80 million US dollars. This time, judging from the current trend, it is still about 80 million US dollars. Simon initially hoped that "The Wedding Singer" with a more popular schedule could achieve a domestic breakthrough of 100 million, but unfortunately it failed.

Even so, Adam Sandler, who was born on "Saturday Night Live", will also use "The Wedding Singer" to confirm his status as a Hollywood comedy star. Coupled with the bad boy gang that can be successfully fostered next year, the lineup of Hollywood's new generation of comedy stars will be very rich.

For studios, more choices naturally mean more affordable remuneration quotes.

Comedy has always been a key genre in the film industry. What Simon wants to achieve is to prevent this genre from being monopolized by a few top comedians.

Because it is a popular Thanksgiving file, the films after the top five are still worth mentioning, such as "Alien 4" and "The Conjuring 3", which ranked sixth and seventh at a similar box office.

"Alien 4", which ranked sixth, earned $11.59 million at the box office in the second week of its release, and the cumulative box office in the two weeks was $36.24 million.

With a production budget of US$75 million, it is estimated that the domestic box office will only be around US$50 million. Unless overseas can reap three to four times the domestic box office, otherwise, Fox's loss is almost a foregone conclusion.

Especially when the box office of "Terminator 3" was released, Murdoch personally called Simon, complaining that he would have continued to make "Terminator 3" if he had known Fox earlier, at least it would not be as bleak as "Alien 4" now. The outside story is that Fox listened to Simon's suggestion before letting go of the copyright, and it needs to be compensated.

There is definitely no compensation.

Hollywood is a big casino, you buy it and leave it at your own risk.

Simon is a man of rules.

The seventh place "The Conjuring 3", in the fourth week of its release, earned $11.43 million at the box office, slightly behind "Alien 4". Of course, "Alien 4" will definitely not be complacent because of that lead, because the cumulative box office of "The Conjuring 3" has reached 129.72 million US dollars in just one month of release.

Even if there is no hope of reaching 200 million in China like "Ghost Story", with the current trend of the film, it is not a problem to collect another 30 million in the future, and the local market is expected to be 160 million. The cost is the highest in the Conjuring movie universe, and Daenerys Entertainment can still make a fortune.

And then.

The eighth place is another Paramount film "Flying Magic", which chose to release Thanksgiving on Wednesday. After two days of painting, it earned 9.16 million US dollars.

John Hughes, who once created the "Home Alone" series, has been silent for many years. He originally hoped that this blockbuster, which cost 80 million US dollars, would create another miracle. In the three days of the weekend, the box office may only be around 20 million to 30 million US dollars.

Similar family comedies, if they can take the long-term as they did in the early years, such opening results are actually not too bad, and the follow-up is very promising to hit the 100 million mark.

Now, the outlook is uncertain.

The ninth place, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", directed and acted by Clint Eastwood, was on the same schedule on Wednesday, and it started painting for two days, earning 4.03 million US dollars.

Considering the film's cost of 35 million US dollars, 4.03 million in two days means that it will be difficult to earn more than 10 million in the next three days, and the total box office may only be around 20 million.

Same failure.

After Steve Ross passed away, not only did the old cowboy no longer shoot movies for Warner alone, but he also seemed to break the long-standing record of not losing money. It can only be said that things are unpredictable.

After the week of Thanksgiving, the new box office week opened on November 28 is still a continuation of the Thanksgiving file.

There are already a series of films getting together, and there are not even some small-scale new films this Friday. The previous old films have also ushered in the last chance to play. The trend of this box office week will basically determine the film's success. follow-up potential.

However, if we say that the biggest entertainment news in the past week is not a series of videos in the Thanksgiving file, but a video game.

"Counter-Strike OL".

After the official release on November 21, the game achieved sales of more than 140,000 sets on the first day.

Daenerys Entertainment followed up in time and invested an additional 20 million US dollars for follow-up publicity. In addition, the media resources mastered by the Westeros system were fully exerted, and the word-of-mouth of the game itself was very attractive to players. Similar to the word-of-mouth effect of a phenomenon-level movie, in the end, from 9:00 a.m. last Friday to 9:00 a.m. on November 28, in a complete week, "Counter-Strike ol" finally sold 1.13 million sets .

According to the price of 69 US dollars, in just one week, the sales of this game reached 78 million US dollars, which is higher than the first week box office of "Terminator 3", the weekly champion of the film market in the same period.

Not only that, because "Counter-Strike OL" adopted a full-scale online sales model this time, 73% of the sales were directly from Daenerys Entertainment's own game mall, that is, those who did not need to pay the platform commission. Therefore, the income of 78 million U.S. dollars, excluding the part of the commission that needs to be paid to platforms such as Igret’s Steam City, fell into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment, which still reached 61 million U.S. dollars.

It is equivalent to seven days, excluding the subsequent additional 20 million publicity fees, the initial investment of 50 million US dollars will be fully recovered directly.

Moreover, everyone can see that this is just the beginning.

Industry media generally predict that "Counter-Strike OL" will become a super-best-selling game similar to Nintendo's "Super Mario", and will even usher in an era.

The era of online games.

Prior to this, the equally popular "Happy Farm" and the follow-up "Happy Ranch" can only be regarded as a foreshadowing.

Because of the obvious irreproducibility of "Happy Farm", the development cost of this game is extremely low, only 1.5 million US dollars. Due to its success, related online flash games have been flooded in recent years, but there are no more A popular game like "Happy Farm" appeared.

Therefore, "Happy Farm" can only be regarded as an accident.

In comparison, "Counter-Strike OL", which has distinct characteristics of an independent client type, has obvious reproducibility.

Just like the obvious evolution trajectory of this series from the failure of 1.0 to the emergence of 2.0 and then to the outbreak of 3.0, if other game manufacturers in the industry want to be lazy, they only need to refer to their popular stand-alone games for online research and development , may be able to create the next miracle.

Not only that, but in various recent analyzes in the industry, the advantages of this game are also very obvious.

That is a strong anti-piracy capabilities.

Copyright protection in the West is indeed strict, but just like the recording industry that has declined rapidly due to online music piracy in recent years, game piracy is also ubiquitous.

It is very difficult to prevent piracy for a stand-alone game, but an online game like "Counter-Strike OL" that needs to be activated through the Internet can almost completely eliminate piracy. It is conceivable that the super high sales volume of 1.13 million in the first week of this game is inseparable from its piracy-insulated property.

Therefore, some media even assert that the future of video games will be online games. Stand-alone games for consoles or PCs are likely to be completely eliminated in the future.

This argument was directly reflected in related sectors of the global stock market in the last week.

Mainly Japanese console and game manufacturers, Sony, Nintendo, Capcom and other companies have seen their stock prices plummet. Nintendo's stock price even fell by more than 20% in just a few days.

In stark contrast is Daenerys Entertainment.

The related public opinion that the game business will become the next strong growth point of Daenerys Entertainment is closely followed by the hot sale of "Counter-Strike OL". It is also only a week, and the market value of Daenerys Entertainment has once again rushed up. The range of more than 400 billion US dollars, together with Eaglet, which is also close to the one-week increase of Nasdaq next door, is also close to 10 and almost breaks through 500 billion US dollars, and continues to lead the North American stock market.

Even on Wednesday, November 26th, the media suddenly revealed Tinkber's game console development plan, which was still in the stage of strict secrecy, but it failed to stop this trend.

Even related revelations were refuted by many media as fake news.

After all, Daenerys Entertainment has a very obvious tendency to turn to online games in recent years, not only "Happy Farm", but also "World of Warcraft 2" online battle platform and many other attempts. These are actually very obvious proofs.

Therefore, obviously, some people with a heart spread the news that Tinkber developed a game console, just to divert attention.

Everyone is discerning.

Facing the one-sided public opinion in the industry, no matter what the purpose, a large number of enterprises have begun to take advantage of the trend.

Not only the major game giants have announced that they will invest in the development of their own online games, but even Microsoft has suddenly jumped out and announced the establishment of an online game department.

And many Internet companies that are deeply trapped in the bursting of the new technology bubble and cannot extricate themselves have also seen opportunities.

The biggest problem faced by a large number of teetering Internet companies is the lack of a sustainable business model. Even if they have tens of millions of users, they cannot be realized, and eventually they all die in the midst of exhaustion of funds and industrial winter.

Now, online games, this is the direction!

As a result, the success of "Counter-Strike OL" even led to a rebound in the entire Nasdaq sector. Many venture capital companies that suffered heavy losses after the burst of the new technology bubble are also trying to turn their attention to the Internet again. Uncover opportunities.

As the man behind all of this, Simon is delighted to hear that everyone is flocking to online games.

most

It's better to completely abandon the stand-alone.

As a latecomer, Simon is very clear that in the era of online games, the key to a game company's rise is to have traffic, a platform, and a huge user base.

The game itself is not that important.

A game with sufficient resources and a potential of 1 million players can even reach the level of 10 million users through drainage. And if there is a lack of resources, a game with the same potential of 1 million may only harvest 100,000 players.

The end result is that the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.

And when it comes to traffic, platforms, and user groups, the current Internet and the Westeros system are basically in a state of near-monopoly advantage. Game companies that lack this advantage may occasionally have some blockbusters, but it is impossible to grow big after all.

To put it bluntly, it's still the same as a stand-alone game.

Companies with console platforms are often the largest stand-alone game companies. Others can only follow behind and drink soup. Occasionally, they are lucky to find a few bones with meat.