Hollywood Hunter

After Simon's birthday, the second week of the 2000 Valentine's Day schedule also ended quickly. Through the trend of the next week, the local box office volume of Daenerys' three films in the same period was basically determined.

First, Embracing the Dawn, starring Meg Ryan, topped the list, with a drop of only 19% in the next week, and another $29.46 million, bringing the cumulative box office to $65.91 million. According to the data of the next week of the film, this romantic film will not only easily break through the 100 million US dollar mark in the follow-up, becoming the first 100 million yuan box office club movie in 2000, but also have the power to sprint to a higher 150 million or so, and finally the top ten of the year. Neither is impossible.

With such an excellent box office trend, Daenerys also took advantage of the trend to increase the follow-up promotion of this movie, planning to get more box office locally and strive for good results overseas.

The second is that I am crazy about Mary.

With Daenerys Entertainment's strong announcement, I'm Mary Crazy earned $39.12 million in the first week, but compared with Embracing the Dawn, the stamina of this vulgar comedy is obviously insufficient. The week of Valentine's Day passed, and the following week directly fell by 37%, earning 24.65 million US dollars, and the cumulative box office was 63.37 million US dollars.

Breaking through 100 million is no problem, but it is definitely not as good as embracing the dawn.

This actually once again shows the uncertainty of the film industry like gambling. What Simon has done these years is to maximize the winning rate of Daenerys' films in this 'gamble', but it is impossible to be 100% after all. .

Parisian Bride, also a romantic film, counterattacked to third place this week, with a 36% drop and another $10.57 million.

However, because the opening box office of the first week was only 16.53 million US dollars, in two weeks, the cumulative box office of Julia Roberts, who is also a romantic film actress, is only 27.1 million US dollars in two weeks, which is not as good as the first week of Hugging Dawn.

The domestic total box office is expected to be around US$40 million. Compared with the production cost of US$35 million, considering the overseas and follow-up, it is not too much of a failure, but it has nothing to do with success.

Then there is Jean-Claude Van Damme's late strike, the list slipped from the third place to the fourth place.

In the third week of release from February 18th to February 24th, the post-production decline reached 51%. After all, it is an assembly line popcorn action movie. Obviously, its stamina has passed. It earned 9.27 million US dollars in a single week, falling within the range of 10 million. It made $55.03 million at the box office and is expected to take home a total of around $70 million.

Considering the film's production cost of 25 million US dollars, the box office in North America alone has reached 70 million, which is also a considerable achievement.

After Valentine's Day, the next film market, apart from some off-season new films, is mainly the follow-up to Valentine's Day, and the awards season films that are still going on.

The Golden Globe Awards have passed, and this year's 72nd Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 26. Coincidentally, it is the same day as the Russian presidential election on the other side of the Atlantic after Yeltsin's resignation.

Daenerys' main project, Chicago, opened on December 24 of the previous year. As of the past week from February 18 to February 24, it earned another 6.31 million US dollars, and the cumulative box office has successfully exceeded 200 million US dollars. Mark, reached 221.46 million US dollars.

From the Golden Globe Awards to the results of a series of recent association awards, Chicago has basically locked in the position of the big winner of this year's awards season. Therefore, the follow-up until the Oscars will be stimulated by continuous awards, Oscars are expected to bring a rebound, and Together with the long-term follow-up, it is expected to earn about 50 million more, pushing the total domestic box office to 270 million US dollars.

Although it still has no hope of the original best estimate of 300 million domestically, but with a cost of 45 million US dollars, the North American revenue alone has reached 270 million. As a musical, it can already be called a box office miracle.

Now that we are talking about Chicago, it is also worth mentioning that a series of films scheduled for the end of 1999, Cyborg 2, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, etc., have all entered the final stage.

Among them, Cyborg 2 and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring have basically the same box office volume.

The former was originally the 400 million box office seed that many people expected, but unfortunately the competition for the schedule is too fierce. According to the recent box office trend that has dropped to less than 100,000 US dollars, it is basically confirmed that the domestic box office will be 346 million US dollars.

Unlike Cyborg 2, which was released on the thanksgiving file the previous year and thus began to end, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released on the Christmas file. In the most recent week from February 18th to February 24th, the single-week income was still 5.16 million US dollars, accumulatively The box office was $329.73 million.

Because of the popularity of the film, the recent decline has been maintained at about 20%, and it will not be a problem to continue to slowly earn 15 million to 20 million box office. Therefore, the total box office will be between 345 million and 350 million US dollars, which is at most two dollars away from Cyborg 2. Three million, who is higher and who is lower, is still uncertain for the time being.

As for Cars, Jumanji 2, Casino Royale 007, The Genius Ripley, etc., the final box office is basically the same as the prediction after the closing of the end of 1999 at the beginning of the year.

In addition to the movie, in February, there are two other things that attracted Simon's attention.

The first one is in Eastern Europe, where the second Chechen war ended.

About one month ahead of the Russian presidential election, on February 23, the day after Simon’s birthday, the Russian government officially announced the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya and handed over the management of the Chechnya region to local pro-Russian armed forces.

From a political point of view, this is a very good time node.

Compared with the disgrace of the first Chechen war, starting from September last year and lasting for half a year, the second Chechen war, which was fought steadily and steadily with the support of Yeltsin's decentralization, can be described as smooth sailing.

The withdrawal of troops at this time not only avoided the pressure that the war would continue to bring to Russia's finances, but also resolved the public's concerns that the war might be protracted and cause a large number of casualties. It can be said that it perfectly picked a mature political fruit. That's enough buff for someone to easily win the March election.

However, the fact is that for Russia, the Chechnya issue has not been fundamentally resolved.

The most direct impact was a series of terrorist activities such as the "Beslan hostage incident" carried out by Chechen rebels in Russia for many years.

Of course, even if it is not perfect, this decision is undoubtedly the best choice for someone.

This is also what Simon admires most about someone. For the sake of the overall situation, he is willing to make trade-offs, understands balance, and tolerates coexistence. These are actually the essential qualities of an excellent politician.

Politics really cannot go to extremes, especially among major powers.

Ordinary people are willing to show kindness and hatred, but at most there are only a few people lying dead, blood splattered five steps. When great powers become extreme, the result will be bloodshed and the world will be ruined.

Another thing is that on March 25th, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the east coast of the United States, the new SpaceX company formed by Simon tested the first heavy-duty rocket, still following the previous naming rules, Falcon 9.

It has been less than two years since SpaceX's Falcon 1 was successfully launched at one time on April 16, 1998, and the progress has far exceeded that of SpaceX in the original time and space.

As for the reason, the main reason is that the spacex team this time is still in the stage of integrating existing technologies. Therefore, whether it is the previous Falcon 1 or this time Falcon 9, they are actually different from the Falcon series of SpaceX in history.

Simon flew to Florida to watch the launch himself.

Because the significance of this time is very special. Prior to this, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 has been launched 17 times in the past two years, and only 2 of them failed. At the same time, the SpaceX team has been quietly conducting rocket recovery tests and repetitions. Use launch.

Of the 17 launches of the Falcon 1, 7 were successfully recovered and 6 were successfully re-launched, and one of the rockets was reused 2 times.

This time, while the brand new Falcon 9 is being launched for the first time, it will also undergo a recovery test.

In addition, an imaging satellite of Eaglet will be sent into space.

However, this is only incidental.

After all, it is the first time, and only Ygritte is willing to take risks to cooperate. Moreover, the brand-new Falcon 9 is designed to carry a load of 30 tons, and Ygritte's satellite weighs less than two tons. Regardless of success or failure, Both parties can bear the risk, not to mention the insurance company underwriting.

Although the insurance premium has doubled because of this, it is understandable.

Again, a one-time success.

The satellite went into orbit smoothly, and the first-stage engine and two first-stage boosters that were planned to be recovered successfully landed at the predetermined location, and the launch site was full of joy.

The outside world has been full of curiosity about SpaceX's recycling test for the past two years. Simon has always kept his eye on it and did not expose it too much. This time, he no longer concealed it. The big media platform quickly became the focus of public opinion.

Simon did this to give the spacex team enough glory and encouragement.

However, as far as Simon is concerned, this is far from satisfactory. After all, the brand-new Falcon 9 has a load capacity of 30 tons, and the legendary Saturn 5 has a load capacity of more than 120 tons. Even though there is a huge advantage in cost, the gap in technical parameters is still very obvious.

What's more, what Simon most hopes to see is the development of a new generation of space shuttle that has quietly started. And, the first stage, to complete another moon landing.

In comparison, SpaceX's recovery rocket can only be regarded as auxiliary.

Simon's requirement is to integrate the existing technology to the extreme, and at the same time reduce the cost to the extreme, so as to complete the auxiliary functions that the rocket product should have to the greatest extent.

In addition, the most critical thing is the space shuttle program.

Take off and land directly on the ground to ensure that the safety level of various existing manned aircraft is reached, and reach the moon directly.

Realizing this goal, Simon feels, is another small step in human exploration of outer space. Moreover, only by taking this step can we break through the biggest limitation of the aerospace industry, which is only input and little output. After all, at this stage, most space projects are still forward-looking scientific research and exploration behaviors that are subsidized by various countries.

This is the main reason why humans lost the motivation to explore space after the end of the Cold War.

There is no relatively direct output, and it is impossible to form a continuous profit cycle. Even though many people understand that the indirect benefits brought by space exploration are immeasurable, things cannot continue because of this. This is a reality that even Simon has to face .