Hollywood Road

Early on Saturday morning, the sun had just climbed the horizon, making Las Vegas, a city built in the desert, feel hot. In a manor on the outskirts of the city, Ed Mintz left the golf course and walked slowly towards himself. villa. [? ([eight {one small ([??]?}

As he grew older, he gradually delegated authority in the company, except for listening to routine reports every weekend, he seldom intervened directly; Walking into the villa, Ed Mintz took the towel handed over by the servant and wiped it hand, entered the living room.

A young man was sitting on the sofa in the living room. When he saw Ed Mintz, he quickly stood up. Ed Mintz waved his hand, "Arthur, come here."

"Yes," Arthur said respectfully, "Mr. Mintz, I brought yesterday's latest statistics."

"You go to the restaurant first, feel free," Ed Mintz walked upstairs, "I'll go change and listen to your data later."

Ten minutes later, Ed Mintz, who had changed his clothes, sat in the dining room of the villa, with a simple breakfast in front of him, and a young man named Arthur stood opposite him.

Ed Mintz cut a piece of sausage, stuffed it into his mouth, swallowed it, and said, "Tell me, what surprises did you have at the North American Film Market yesterday?"

Although the traditional summer vacation in North America will kick off next weekend, and there will be the release of super giants such as "X-Men 2", but this week's North American film market should not be underestimated. "The City", because of the high reputation obtained in the previous preview, has been widely concerned in the industry.

There is also Joe Schumacher's new film "Sniper Phone Booth", which is also released this weekend. After the director brought the "Batman" series into a dead end, his own career is almost over. He has no choice but to switch to independent small productions. , is also a major attraction in the North American film market this weekend.

"Yesterday, there were only two films that opened on a large scale, namely "Sin City" directed by Murphy Stanton in 2850 theaters, and the new film "Sniper Phone Booth" directed by Joe Schumacher in 2418 theaters... ..."

Having said that, the young Arthur looked down at the information in his hand, "The audience and professional reputation of the two films are both good."

Arthur knows the habits of Ed Mintz, "Other important statistics that are currently available, "Sniper Phone Booth" has a 73% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.6 on ImdB; "Sin City" "It's a bit better, with 84% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 8.8 on ImdB."

"Hmm..." Ed Mintz nodded lightly, not surprised by such statistics, "What about our statistics?"

Unlike the test screenings organized by some major studios,

The survey is conducted immediately after the audience has watched the screening of the film, and the final box office prediction based on the audience's word-of-mouth can always show amazing accuracy.

"After the screening and advance screening the day before yesterday, the audience's overall evaluation of "Sin City" was A+, and "Sniper Booth" was A." Arthur coughed lightly, cleared his itchy throat, and continued, " With yesterday's expanded screening, live reviews for both films have dropped, with Sin City approaching an A overall and Sniper Booth an A-."

As he spoke, Arthur also put a document in front of Ed Mintz.

While flipping through the information, Ed Mintz asked, "How about the box office performance?"

"Counting the advance shows," Arthur quickly replied, ""Sin City" has a daily box office of 14.55 million US dollars. The audiences of the two films overlap to a certain extent. "Sniper Phone Booth" with a relatively poor reputation has received Shock, only 4.27 million US dollars a day into the account."

Hearing these box office figures, and looking through the company's detailed survey and statistics, Ed Mintz, as a film market forecaster with many years of work experience, immediately came to his own judgment, "Sin City" audience score The decline is a little bit faster, the audience of the film is narrow, and if the North American box office wants to get 100 million US dollars, Miramax and Harvey Weinstein must think of ways to promote and market. "

Arthur, standing opposite, took out a pen and a small notebook from his pocket as if by magic, and recorded Ed Mintz's words accurately.

"Joe Schumacher..." Ed Mintz shook his head, "It can only be said that it was his misfortune that two R-rated films met on the same weekend. about."

He sighed softly. Joe Schumacher was once a very talented director, but unfortunately meeting "Batman" is not only Bruce Wayne's misfortune, but also his own misfortune. He ruined this series, this The series also dragged him down.

Compared with the old Joe Schumacher, Murphy Stanton is definitely a rising star in the director world. His very personal shooting and production style make him stand out in today's severely homogenized Hollywood; On the basis of his personal style, he also properly integrates Hollywood's blockbuster elements to ensure the market value of his films, and he will not be marginalized by the market because of his unique style.

The most important thing is his age. He is only 23 years old this year, and he is far from entering the vigorous creative period of a director. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is still in the initial and groping stage of a director. It is quite steady, one step at a time, laying a solid foundation for the future.

If he was older, with a more mature production concept and style, and transferred to the mainstream film industry, what kind of achievements would he create?

Ed Mintz can't wait to see, this young director has a bright future!

Although "Sin City" and "Sniper Booth" did not form a serious competition this weekend, Ed Mintz was completely in favor of the former, Joe Schumacher was on the decline, and Murphy Stanton was on the rise. are not comparable at all.

However, if Murphy Stanton wants to truly become a first-line director, there are still many problems that he wants to solve. For example, the audience range of his films and style has always been a problem. Like Tim Tarantino, the film's audience can never be ignored.

Just like Ed Mintz thought, neither the previous "Planet Terror" nor the current "Sin City" is definitely not a popular film. Murphy himself knows this, but the film he has studied the most It is this type of film. At this stage, the most suitable film can be found, which is also "Sin City". With his previous qualifications, it is extremely difficult to get people to invest more than 5 million US dollars in production costs.

Instead of taking too many steps and causing a series of negative effects, it is better to move forward step by step.

The summer vacation is about to begin, and most movie fans are also ready to save money and energy for the release of super blockbusters like "X-Men 2". The upcoming summer file is related to the style of "Sin City" itself.

The media and film critics have given the film high ratings, and Roger Ebert even gave the film two thumbs up. To a certain extent, these can attract a considerable number of passers-by audiences to enter the theater, but this cannot change Most mainstream audiences have a hard time accepting the truth of this film.

The box office results of "Sin City" on Friday were quite dazzling, but the data collected by Miramax quickly spread to Murphy. According to the statistics obtained by several survey agencies hired, the early Thursday On the field and on Friday, the audience who walked into the theater to watch this film, as comic book fans, Murphy fans and Robert Downey Jr., James Franco, Jessica Simpson and Jessica- Alba's supporters are the main ones, accounting for nearly 70% of the random audience.

Murphy is very clear that in a broad sense, "Sin City" is not only a typical genre film, but can even be classified as a fan movie.

North American fan movies of this era are not the future, and the R rating of "Sin City" also determines that it cannot become the typical teen fan movie of "Twilight" and "Hunger Games" in the future.

In the North American summer season, under normal circumstances, a newly released, non-fan-oriented and sequel mainstream commercial masterpiece, because Friday is still a working day, will often become the highest-grossing box-office figure on Saturday, the second day after it is released. A single day, but "Sin City" is not among the ranks.

Since Saturday morning, the attendance rate of 2850 theaters showing "Sin City" has dropped to varying degrees. Fortunately, the proportion of the decline has decreased, at least better than "Sniper Phone Booth", which was released on the same weekend.

Murphy has also seen this film by Joe Schumacher, and it is indeed quite good, but the film had a bad fate. The original release date was set in November 2002, but at that time, there were sniper tragedies in Washington DC and Maryland, and the public reacted extremely Strong, the risk of film release has multiplied, and 20th Century Fox had to move it to this year.

This is definitely a typical case where the film is affected by the social environment in which it is located, and the schedule collided with "Sin City", which also made the road to the release of this ill-fated film even more bumpy.

But the North American film market is like this. There are so many films that enter theaters every year, and if you meet this one, you will meet another one. This is an extremely competitive market.

Under the impact of "Sin City" which is also an R-rated film, and "Sniper Booth" did not have a particularly outstanding audience reputation, Saturday's box office inevitably declined, and it only received more than 3.6 million US dollars that day.

Because it consumes more fans and audiences on a daily basis, the output of "Sin City" on Saturday is also declining. However, the media, film critics and audiences have a relatively strong reputation, and the decline is not large, with a reported income of 12.15 million US dollars.

On Sunday, because the next day is a working day, the evening box office will be affected by tomorrow, and the single-day box office of the two films dropped again. With the arrival of the new week, the morale of CAA, which provides packaging services for "Sin City", soared . (To be continued.)