Made in Hollywood

"Is Duke Rosenberg a sadist?"

This is the eye-catching headline that Sean Connery saw in Roger Albert's film review column after he opened the "Chicago Sun", and it also made him feel inexplicably comfortable.

"Last night, at midnight, I watched Independence Day in the theater. I couldn't stand the abuse of noise and explosions, so I had to leave the theater early. This is a film that completely exceeds the limit of human tolerance. The plot is ordinary, the climax is cheap, and there are loopholes. Countless, logically confusing, and I hate it so, so, so much..."

In the long film review, Roger Albert not only downgraded "Independence Day" to the extreme, but also gave a thumbs down representing a bad film, and only gave the film an ultra-low score of 2!

After reading Roger Albert's film review, although he knew that his half a million dollars played a role in it, Sean Connery's mood improved a lot, and then he opened more newspapers.

"Duke Rosenberg is a standard fiend who destroys the best impressions of cinema, his work never cares about your soul, only your wallet, the man in 'Independence Day' saved Earth, but can't save this rotten movie!"

The New Yorker's David Demby gave "Independence Day" a wry 1 point, while The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy was slightly better and brightened up the film. 3.5 points!

"Independence Day spends most of its time testing the audience's patience with sloppy dialogue and glib clichés, and as punishment, everyone involved in the film, including director Duke Rosenberg, should go Do some community service!"

Similarly, film critics in other media did not want to let the film go.

"You have to take anti-sickness pills before watching a Duke Rosenberg movie. Independence Day is full of boring explosions and noises, and of course for director Duke Rosenberg, it's not the first time in the film. Blow up a large city center in one scene, maybe even very restrained!"

Relatively speaking, Kenneth Turan of "Los Angeles Times" is relatively polite. Although the 5-point rating is not even the passing line, he is the highest rated one among the top film critics.

"Independence Day is one small step for sci-fi action, but one giant leap into the abyss of stupidity!"

-- "Chicago Tribune"

"Who was the worst movie of the summer? The answer is obvious - 'Independence Day'!"

- "Village Voice"

"In 'Independence Day,' director Duke Rosenberg turned all the actors into mindless robots, and one thing you have to give Duke Rosenberg - he's got the ability to bring good actors down to the same height as him!"

- "Rolling Stone"

"There are pee spots in this movie, and the piss you pee out is guaranteed to be smoother than any dialogue in this two-plus-hour movie!"

-- "USA Today"

"Hollywood is not without directors who like to play with explosion scenes, but no one is a complete explosion freak like Duke Rosenberg. Other directors are 80% plot and 20% action explosion. The scene, "Independence Day" is 20% of the plot and 80% of the action explosion scenes, even if you miss such a movie, you will not have any regrets!"

--"New York Times"

"Noisy", "stupid", "evil", "unbearable", "hopeless garbage disposal machine"... North American film critics have used all kinds of vicious words for "Independence Day".

Seeing these film reviews, Sean Connery showed the most hearty smile in the past year, and another person in Beverly Hills smiled equally brightly.

"Excellent film review."

In the garden, Tom Cruise put down the newspaper and looked at his PR, "Lelis, keep in touch with that vampire, I want him to target Duke Rosenberg every once in a while!"

"These are part of the agreement." The female publicist nodded. "Roger Albert's credibility for taking money is still guaranteed."

After thinking for a while, Riley said deliberately, "Tom, you are a big star standing in front of the screen, there is no need to smear each other with a director hiding behind the scenes, this is a very uneconomical thing, and this time you have no direct competition. relationship, and expressing opinions casually will only have a negative impact.”

"I see."

Although he wants to do something himself, Tom Cruise is not a fool. As long as someone is around to give advice, he can also figure out what to do and what not to do.

He just wanted to see Duke Rosenberg get unlucky, but he didn't want to get unlucky with him.

With such a large-scale negative review from film critics, it is impossible for Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox not to pay attention. Duke only had a leisurely morning and rushed to the Independence Day Studio in Burbank. The studio and the producer and distributor were There was a special meeting for this.

"You wait here."

Bringing Scarlett Johansson into his office and stuffing her with two DC comics, Duke urged, "Don't run around, or I'll send you home at night."

"Are you guys going to discuss how to deal with those bad guys?" Scarlett took the comic and looked at Duke.

"You know a lot." Duke smiled.

"You're my brother..." She wrinkled her nose and threw her small fist hard, "Of course I want to care about you! Duke, kill those bastards!"

Nodding, Duke rubbed the little girl's blond hair affectionately, turned and walked out of the office, into the adjacent conference room, where a lot of people were already sitting, waiting for Jeff Robinoff, who represented Warner Bros., and the representative. A brief meeting quickly convened after Fox's Tim Fisher arrived.

"The film's audience reputation, attendance so far, and approximate box office numbers have all exceeded our expectations."

There were no long-winded long-winded discussions, the meeting went straight to the topic, and the first production manager Charles Rowan spoke first, "But the professional reputation of "Independence Day" has encountered a lot of trouble, and professional film critics are almost all criticizing us. According to the current statistics, the overall rating of the film is only 3.8 points!"

After Luo Wen's words, the conference room fell into a brief silence. The word of mouth of film critics is indeed not the key factor in the success or failure of a summer commercial blockbuster. The professional word of mouth in the past has only played a role in propaganda and encouragement, but no one can deny it, including Roger Ai Top film critics, including Burt, can influence a group of audiences, which is likely to have a certain impact on the box office trend after "Independence Day".

A few top film critics criticizing a movie may not be of much use. After all, there are other film critics who are waving their flags. Now all the top film critics have joined together to speak out, even Duke, who is the least welcome to see them, has to pay attention.

"According to the information we got."

The person sitting here or the company represented is now a community of interests, and Tim Fisher shares information directly, "Someone is behind the PR, targeting "Independence Day"..."

Having said that, he turned his head and looked over here, "Or Duke."

Duke smiled at him, but he was not worried. The interests of the two sides were closely tied together. To move him and "Independence Day" was to move the cake of Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox.

Tim Fischer and Jeff Robinoff also understand this and have no intention of entanglement in this regard. The key question now is how to deal with it so as to minimize the negative voices brought by film critics.

"Our PR department should act..."

"Warning those film critics to block their ticket-free privileges if necessary..."

Hearing the suggestions put forward by people one after another, Duke never opened his mouth. Perhaps when it comes to professionalism, he is far inferior to many people here, but when it comes to the knowledge of low-reputation and high-box-office films, I am afraid that all the people here are added together. , not as many as him alone.

The former "Independence Day" is a typical representative of ultra-low professional reputation and ultra-high box office, and then in the new century, such films are emerging one after another. The collective voice, the network water army alone can drown them...

In an age where the Internet is not yet developed and information is relatively unsmooth, the influence of film critics must be much greater than in the future, but when Duke mentioned to Warner Bros. about excluding film critics from participating in the test screening, he actually expected that there might be With the current situation, there are actually certain preparations. The method is put into the future, and there is nothing strange. However, when the voice of the film critics is loud enough, it is definitely not something other directors dare to do casually.

"Critic bashing isn't necessarily a bad thing."

When the conference room became silent again, Duke suddenly said, "It's a place we can hype and exploit!"

Without waiting for everyone to say anything, he looked beside him, "Charles, do you have the statistics of the audience's age group?"

"There is a statistic for the midnight and morning shows." Charles Rowan flipped through the documents in front of him, and then said, "According to the statistics, the audience of "Independence Day" is mainly 15 to 35 years old, of which 17 years old By the age of 25, 67% of moviegoers are!"

"In other words, the audience of 17 to 25 years old is the mainstream audience of "Independence Day"!" Duke looked around and continued, "Don't you know what people in this age group think? I am 24 years old. It's still at this stage, and I think I know a little bit about the youth of today."

Everyone looked over, and Duke didn't have the idea of ​​selling off, and said directly, "This is the most rebellious stage, I don't believe in any authority, and always question the authority's point of view; this is also a very curious stage, full of new things. Interest, the adventurous spirit to try everything, and often the determination to implement..."

"Actually, this is also a group that is difficult for film critics to influence!"

The voice gradually slowed down, but Duke's words were very clear and loud, "The film critics attacked us with professional eyes! We can directly fight back in another way, movie fans lack channels to express their own voices, why don't we let people like "Independence Day" "The voice of the fans of the film appeared in the mainstream media?"