The Best Director

The box office of the first week of "Memento" finally received 11.753 million US dollars. This result made it ranked second in the weekly box office list. The weekly champion continued to be "Meet Your Father-in-Law" in the fourth week of screening, with a box office of 18.86 million. , but its number of screening theaters is 2,647, while "Memento" has only 521. (Read the novel) Another dark horse in the history of movie box office was born, from the launch of Flame Movie, this is its third best-selling movie this year, and it is also all three.

Huo Huo's vision naturally made the media and movie fans praise him; what attracted the attention and admiration of professionals and film companies was the promotional technique of "Memory Fragments". The market psychology, a series of progressive viral marketing, plus a "Sundance Best Screenplay" award, successfully aroused the interest and curiosity of movie fans. This is a classic case of movie promotion.

Now everyone believes that the entire publicity plan of "Ghost Story" is the idea of ​​Mi Yang. In the latest issue of "The Magic of Movie Viral Marketing" in the "Wall Street Journal", analysts believe that the Internet plays a role in publicity. Its role is getting bigger and bigger, and it will be a main battlefield in the future. Talking about the current situation, he said: "Now the best use of viral marketing is Magic Yang and his flame company, "High School Musical", "When Happiness Knock on the Door, and now "Memento", he played it very well. And Lionsgate, which lost the magical Yang, after "The Ghost Story", they have been doing nothing."

In the week of Memento's premiere, Lionsgate has four independent films showing on the big screen. The highest-ranked one is "Between the Neighbors", which has only 65 theaters for four weeks. No. 30, with a total box office of 296,000; No. 41 is "a" with a box office of 108,000 in 40 theaters; the two films screened in the first week are "Once Upon a Time" with 15 theaters and a box office of 37,000; 10 theaters , "Star" with a box office of 7,000 US dollars.

This is Lionsgate’s consistent fisherman’s net-like operating strategy. It buys a lot of cheap and low-cost independent films without any promotional expenses. It arranges a dozen or twenty theaters to test the water for a week. There will be no second week of screenings for "Stars"; if it makes money, like "Ghost Story", then continue to show it, and then increase the number of theaters according to the situation. It's just that they haven't found a baby for a long time.

On the phone, Wang Yang heard the voice of his old acquaintance Jon Filtimer. After congratulating the success of "Memory Fragments", the Lions Gate sighed again and again: "Yang, I have to say that I regret it again. , I should have robbed you in the first place, it’s a pity that we lost a copy of "Ghost Story"." He laughed again and said, "But fortunately, the Sundance Film Festival is held once a year, so I won't make this mistake again next year. , Which one do you buy, which one will I buy." Wang Yang responded to him with a smile: "Jon, be careful, I will buy bad movies first, and I will buy what I really want after I run out of your money. "

Although it is a dark horse at the box office, "Memento" cannot replicate the miracle of "Ghost Story". It's not a horror movie. There are limited fans of this part of "brain-loving and thinking".

So even if all the cakes in the market were eaten, it would still be that big.

Besides, ordinary viral marketing will never be as good as deceptive viral marketing, but people are not so easily deceived. "Ghost Story" is the first time, and it may be the last time.

But despite this, the box office potential of "Memory Fragments" is not only 10 million. In the second week of its release, its number of screening theaters will increase to 1,564. The box office can receive more than 50 million yuan, which is enough to recover the entire cost. And the places that make money are overseas screens, DVDs and other peripherals. Compared with the cost of purchasing films, the company will eventually get a net profit return of 3-5 times.

Among all the independent film companies, the current Flame Film is undoubtedly the most beautiful one. Its crazy investment method is even more surprising. It bought Blue Sky Studios for 100 million yuan and independently invested 60 million yuan to produce "Mr. Hughes"... …The Wall Street Journal called it a "crazy Yang"

But Mark Slant believes that this is not a healthy way. Large-scale production and large investment have their advantages, but also have the disadvantages of "high risk and slow return of funds". Although Lionsgate seems to be doing nothing, it is indeed making money. Money, and low risk, this is a correct long-term operating strategy. But he knew he wasn't capable of eliminating the "crazy" character of the young boss, maybe not even "ss" Jessica.

Therefore, he did not dissuade big investment too much, but urged the company to learn from Lionsgate, spend tens of millions every year to cast nets for fishermen, and buy more cheap independent movies, tens of thousands of yuan, hundreds of thousands of yuan, even if the box office is not good. , You can also tap potential in DVD, video tape rental, etc.

Wang Yang nodded in agreement. He understood that the reason why Lionsgate was able to transform from an unknown small company into a giant among independent film companies was precisely because of this trick. But his idea is to register and set up another subsidiary called "Flames-Man", just like the relationship between "20th Century Fox" and "Fox Searchlight", specializing in the business of buying and distributing films; "Flame Movie" was released, maintaining the company's image of only producing high-quality products.

In the second week of the release of "Memory Fragments", Flame Films allocated 50 million yuan to start the establishment of Flames-Man, and Wang Yang was busy with Walley Pfister doing the final grading work for "Juno". With a big event happening, the polling date for the quadrennial presidential election begins.

But Wang Yang did not go to the polling station to vote. He was very happy to see that Bill Clinton was about to leave office, but he didn't like Republican George Bush or Democrat Albert Gore very much.

It's a strange class, with George Bush's hard-edged, progressive image as a Democrat, and Albert Gore's stodgy image as a Republican. This is a change made by the Republican Party. In order to return to the White House, George Bush’s platform advocates have moved closer to the middle ground. The social security system, health care plan and other promises are the focus of the speech. In addition to "rebuilding military power", he Almost identical to Albert Gore's speech.

People from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party contacted Wang Yang very early, hoping to get his vote and public support, which would mean more Chinese votes, but he refused. If he had to make a choice, Wang Yang would vote for Albert Gore. Fortunately, it is his freedom to vote or not. Since neither of those two people can really impress him, he simply does not ask about political affairs, nor does he have any comments on his blog. Talk about the election.

When the second week's "Memento" took second place; the post-production work of "Juno" was also completed, and the 120-minute release version was officially released. Those who could see "Juno" earlier than the fans, in addition to the jury of the Golden Globe Awards, are also the MPAA responsible for the rating review. Due to a lot of foul language and sensitive content, "Juno" got PG- Level 13, special counseling level for parents.

Resting in the empty home for a few days, lying under the sycamore tree in the back garden to read, sleep, and play basketball every day, but soon, Wang Yang became busy with the promotion of "Juno".

As early as a few days after Halloween, Jessica headed to Salt Lake City to start filming "High School Musical 3", which invested in the original cast of the second film. The reason why the project was approved in August and filming started in November is because Wang Yang had written the script very early. As soon as the company was finalized and the contract was signed, Sarah Sugarman got the script and could start creating scenes ; The protagonists can also start to think and practice.

The publicity cost of "Juno" is 30 million, which is 5 million more than that of "When Happiness Knocks on the Door". Ruanguang's projects include TV talk shows, and the magic weapon of low cost, viral marketing.

How to create a viral campaign for "Juno"? She is not a real person and has no autobiography; this kind of movie can't play mystery. Wang Yang and the staff of the company's publishing department discussed for a long time at the beginning, but they didn't have a good idea, but he thought that this was somewhat similar to "When Happiness Knocks on the Door", so that everyone would be interested in the story, and more importantly, let everyone be interested in the story. "Juno" was interested. How can we make everyone like Juno? Willingly spread her and spread it?

One day, Wang Yang saw a comment about "Juno" tidbits on his blog, "Juno's words are really interesting", and Wang Yang suddenly had an idea. This comment reminded him that Juno's words are meant to lead the trend, but not necessarily You have to wait until after the release to do it. If Juno’s words and image had already been circulated on the Internet before it was released, loved and spontaneously spread by young people, it would be viral marketing.

Let Juno's charm be "released" in advance, and make her a sought-after object in the hearts of young people, a virtual popular figure. This is the goal of publicity.

So starting in September, the official website of "Juno" added a "Juno Said" column, which has two different options, one is Juno's specific situational jokes, such as letting her step on shit on the road , what she will say, or her original and funny opinion on something; the other option is an irrelevant joke. The first one, "Juno Said", was written by Wang Yang based on Juno's personality characteristics, combined with some future sitcoms in his mind, and the materials inspired by him and Natalie.

As for the second "Juno Joke Collection", his inventory is obviously not enough to support the daily update until it is released, and he has to be busy with post-production, so he doesn't have so much time to create; therefore, Flame Film hired several joke experts to help At the same time, dozens of employees in charge of dissemination pretended to be ordinary netizens on Internet forums, message boards, chat rooms, etc., and forwarded these jokes in large numbers. The anticipation of the movie creates the atmosphere needed by the herd effect.

Funny jokes are naturally loved by everyone. Watching these novel and interesting "Juno Said", most people feel overjoyed and become interested in this unique girl.

As these jokes were forwarded spontaneously by netizens, the traffic on the official website of "Juno" also kept increasing, and more and more young people became eager to see this movie about teenage pregnancy. After a person like Nuo becomes pregnant, what kind of story will happen? What funny things would she say? Don't forget that "Juno" is the work of Fantastic Young, has he ever disappointed? Think of "High School Musical" + "Happiness Comes Knocking", maybe it's "Juno".

Before the movie was released, there was an intuitive image of Juno in the hearts of movie fans. It was not like Novali in "Sweetheart" that they had guessed before. Instead, their doubts became that Natalie Portman played Good Juno this role? You must know that her previous screen image was very cold and glamorous; in reality, she is a good girl, and she would blush when talking about her boyfriend. She plays a "bad girl" like Juno? In the movie, does she blush?

But thinking about Will Smith and "When Happiness Comes Knocking", movie fans feel that they can rest easy, and Fantastic Young shouldn't make such a mistake, right? He interviewed thousands of girls for Juno, unless he was really infatuated with Natalie, making this movie to meet his goddess. There is also a possibility that Natalie can play Juno.

When Flame Films released the first trailer of "Juno", fans' doubts were dispelled by half. In this 2-minute trailer, Natalie's expressions, movements, and tone of voice are full of gangsters. Seeing her smoking a pipe, she swaggered and said to Paulie, "I'm pregnant." Where is her usual glamorousness? But movie fans still have half of their opinions. After all, a wonderful trailer does not mean a wonderful movie. How well Natalie is doing and how "Juno" is, we will not know until it is released.

"Hell, why hasn't December 22 come?"

This is the cry of many young movie fans, but it is also a kind of happy waiting, because they know that there will be no shortage of good movies to watch this Christmas. There are Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks' "Cast Away", 100% good movies; and Wang Yang, Natalie Portman's "Juno", 50%.