Hollywood Road

There are two big releases this weekend, but neither Paramount Pictures' "Blood Brothers" nor Warner Bros.' "********" can do anything to "Gone" The Lover packs a real punch.

As for "Superman Returns", which has been released for several weeks, the box office has dropped to more than 5 million US dollars in the fourth weekend. This ambitious Warner Bros. masterpiece, 50 million US dollars in the beginning is not particularly bad, but the subsequent cliff-like decline, It directly kills all illusions of the producer and distributor.

Compared with these films, "Gone Girl" surprised everyone.

As everyone expected, "Gone Girl" won the North American box office rankings consecutively, and also won the second box office championship after its release, but unexpectedly, the box office of the second weekend compared with the box office of the first weekend. With only a 29% drop, not only did it get $35.4 million, but it also created a new record for the smallest drop in the second week of a film with more than 3,000 large-scale openings in the past five years.

The excellent second-weekend box office also helped the North American box office of "Gone Girl" break through the 100 million US dollar mark, reaching as high as 112.7 million US dollars!

Murphy is leading the crew to continue the North American publicity tour, and Twentieth Century Fox is also continuing to create topics.

"For the rest of August, apart from Dimension's Brothers Grimm, there are no other films of the same magnitude."

In a suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, Murphy hugged Gal Gadot, who was only wrapped in a blanket, sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the night scene of Manhattan outside, talking about the topic of movies, "This schedule is right Gone Girl is very favorable."

Gal Gadot returned to North America last week, because Murphy was running around for publicity and came directly to New York.

She curled up in Murphy's arms, her fine white teeth naughtily brushed across her majestic chest from time to time, and only occasionally responded to Murphy's words with a nasal voice.

Hearing Murphy's words, Gal Gadot raised his head slightly, pouted his mouth, waited for Murphy to kiss it, and then said, "How much will the North American box office be in the end? What do you think?"

Murphy hugged a little tighter, wishing to melt Gal Gadot into his body, "I hope it's 500 million dollars!"

"Dreaming!" Gal Gadot bit his chest a little harder, leaving two rows of fine tooth marks, struggling a bit, "Honey, do you want to strangle me?"

"How can I be willing." Murphy relaxed his arms and looked down at Gal Gadot's delicate face, "Don't leave me for so long in the future, okay?"

"I..." Gal Gadot just wanted to nod in agreement,

What happened in Israel before came to my mind. After hesitating for a while, I said, "Well, I don't want to leave you for so long."

After finishing speaking, she straightened her body, hooked Murphy's neck with her hands, and kissed him actively. The two kissed passionately again. Murphy's hands also habitually grabbed those two charming long legs. Love it from top to bottom.

The war between the two broke out again.

Under normal circumstances, the last two or three weeks of the North American summer season's new films are not strong, and this year is no exception. In the rest of August, among the new films released, there is no name that Murphy left an impression on.

With the release of "Gone Girl," 20th Century Fox is almost certain to dominate the entire August schedule.

The focus of all movie media and magazines is naturally on "The Gone Girl".

CAA and Stanton Studios also borrowed from the current enthusiasm and set the goal of publicity at the awards season at the end of the year.

"In addition to the considerable income, "Gone Girl" is also one of the most popular contestants of this Oscar season. Rotten Tomatoes has a freshness of 88%, mainstream media scores of 84, and IMDB user ratings of 8.7. It can be seen that no matter the film critics Ordinary audiences are still vomiting blood and recommending it. The film was also ridiculed by the audience as "the most likely to cause breakup of the year" movie because of its sharp discussion of gender issues. Nevertheless, "Gone Girl" continues to attract audiences because of its good reputation and hot themes Go find out."

If you want to make a difference in the awards season, you must act in advance. Strictly speaking, because "The Gone Girl" has to cooperate with the early publicity and marketing strategy, it has not had a large-scale promotion before, and it has fallen behind other films that set their goals in the awards season.

Hollywood films often determine their goals before they are prepared. Films that are positioned as large-scale commercial productions will be heavily invested in large-scale productions, and they will be squeezed into the summer file as much as possible; films that target the awards season will be intensively implemented after the last Oscars ceremony. plan.

Oscar-winning films tend to debut at the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, and then go through multiple film festivals or movie viewing sessions and promotional sessions to build momentum.

Strictly speaking, "Gone Girl" has been slow to hit awards season.

After the promotional event in New York ended, Murphy did not go overseas with James Franco and Charlize Theron, and accompanied Gal Gadot back to Los Angeles, both to discuss with Bill Rossis about impacting the awards season. It is also for the next stage of preparation for "A Song of Ice and Fire: Game of Thrones".

"We really don't have any advantage."

In Murphy's office at Stanton Studios in Santa Monica, Bill Rossis kept walking back and forth, "We are all at a disadvantage in subject matter, age, seniority, and release time."

He turned his head and looked at Murphy, "But we also have two major advantages! CAA will fully support you. For the past ten Oscars, CAA clients have taken 65% of the nominations and 40% of the awards. Xiao Jinren, we have more media resources, richer experience and wider network of contacts than other brokerage companies.”

Murphy nodded slightly. He fully recognized this point. There is no doubt about CAA's ability in the awards season. What he saw before is undoubtedly the best evidence for what Bill Rosses said.

"Secondly, your style does not lack supporters inside the academy!" Bill Rossis obviously did enough work as an agent should do, "Noir-style films have always had a group of firm supporters in Hollywood and inside the academy." Supporters, although these people can't guarantee you get a statuette, but as long as you do enough work, the nomination is still very promising."

In the end, he added, "Twentieth Century Fox will also devote appropriate resources to the awards season."

Murphy didn't pay much attention to this point. Twentieth Century Fox only occupied one-third of the film's investment and copyright, and there was no high distribution share as a temptation. The resources they could invest in "Gone Girl" during the awards season Hard to say.

If 20th Century Fox has invested, it won't be much.

"Twentieth Century Fox is a factor beyond our control." Murphy thought for a while, "I will let the studio fully cooperate with you and Grace."

If you want to make a difference in the awards season, there is only one foundation for everything - money!

Media publicity requires money, holding a rally requires money, hiring a public relations company requires money, organizing a canvassing party requires money, and giving some small gifts to the judges also requires money...

If you don't invest the corresponding funds, it's better not to play this prize game.

"The timing of our film's release is a disadvantage." Bill Rossi continued, "I have communicated with 20th Century Fox that the film will be shown in theaters as long as possible, especially in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. "

Murphy nodded, "It's best to hold on until the end of the year. We can give up the box office share of North American theaters ten weeks later."

Bill Rosses also understands that it is difficult to impress the businessmen of 20th Century Fox and theaters without actual benefits, "I will communicate with 20th Century Fox and related theaters."

"Pop-up sessions and canvassing parties during the awards season..." Murphy reminded, "Try to prepare as early as possible."

"Don't worry." Bill Rossis was full of confidence, "I've already contacted the relevant companies, and there will be professionals to organize it, and there will also be a special Oscar publicist who will be responsible for canvassing for you."

Murphy knew that the prize could be very small, and it was all about Oscar nominations.

"I'm going back to the company." Bill Rossis was about to leave. Before he left, he turned around and joked, "I hope the box office of "Gone Girl" won't be too high, otherwise our public relations work will be even more difficult."

Murphy didn't say anything, but just waved at him.

Of course, he knew that Bill Rossis' seemingly joking words had some truth to it.

How about the Oscars a long time ago, he has not studied carefully, but in recent years, high box office has often become an obstacle for films to win awards and nominations. There are quite a few films that hit the Oscars with good box office results. It is often obtained after being nominated or awarded.

High box office is often naturally associated with business and the public. These are not the Oscar labels that old men in the academy like.

But the fact is exactly the opposite of Bill Rossis' joke. The stability of "Gone Girl" in North America can only be described as terrible. The box office decline in the third weekend increased slightly, but it was only 30%. Three, with an amount of 23.7 million US dollars, it has achieved three consecutive North American box office championships.

The decline in the fourth weekend expanded to 35%, but the $15.4 million was enough to ensure that the film won the fourth championship of the North American box office rankings in this relatively cold season.

By September, "Gone Girl" had spent five weekends in North America, and the decline in each weekend was controlled within 35%. Even in the fifth weekend, it scored 10.1 million US dollars .

Including all weekdays, after five weeks of release, "Gone Girl" has a cumulative North American box office of $191.9 million.

It is inevitable that the North American market will exceed US$200 million.

Overseas, "Gone Girl" has been launched in many international markets such as the UK, Germany, France, and Australia since mid-August. However, due to the subject matter, the response is not as good as that in North America, but it has also received close to 1 Overseas box office of 30 million US dollars, the global box office successfully broke through the 300 million US dollar mark.

Two consecutive films were super-best sellers, which also attracted Murphy's attention. (To be continued.)