LATEST UPDATES

Hollywood Hunter - Chapter 414

Published at 26th of October 2021 09:05:39 AM


Chapter 414: 414

If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again




On May 31, in the second week of the summer season, the number of new films produced by North American Theaters dropped to two, namely "soap platter" by Paramount and "city bumpkin" by Columbia Pictures.

"Soap platter" tells a series of intriguing stories of a group of soap opera actors around a soap opera called "the sun goes down again in the west".

As a group play, the lineup of soap platter is luxurious.

Led by Oscar actress Sally Field, Oscar best supporting actor Kevin Klein and Oscar Best Supporting Actress UBI Goldberg joined, as well as a group of celebrities such as Robert Downey, Kelly Fisher, Elizabeth sue and Gary Marshall.

The director is Michael Hoffman, who has won a good reputation by virtue of the two art films of dream land and sisters.

Those who are a little familiar with Hollywood can probably see at a glance that this is another CAA packed movie.

As a result, although there are no superstars who pay tens of millions to join, the production cost of the film is still as high as $35 million.

The city bumpkin, starring Billy Crystal, is roughly the same as the Crocodile Dundee series, which was a box office hit in the 1980s, with a budget cost of $27 million.

Three days after the opening, the box office of "soap platter" was only 6.73 million US dollars at the opening weekend, and it is expected to be about 9 million US dollars in the first week, far lower than Paramount's expectation.

Although it is following suit "Crocodile Dundee", the word-of-mouth and box office of "city bumpkin" are still good, with a revenue of $13.03 million in the first weekend, and the box office of the first week is expected to be between 18 million and 20 million.

Among the six new films that were intensively opened last week, except "ice and snow world", whose screen count increased to 816, saw a reverse decline of about 10% in the next three days over the weekend, the other five films saw a decline of more than 30%.

Among them, the new Bruce Willis film "the ultimate Eagle", also produced by Samsung, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, dropped 47%.

Columbia originally made "the ultimate Falcon" the main theme of this summer program, but "city bumpkin" is just a comedy that has to be stuck before "Batman: The Dark Knight" next week.

Unexpectedly, the market performance of the two films is completely opposite to the expectation of the management.

The $65 million production cost of "the ultimate Falcon" grossed only $11.59 million in 10 days, not as much as "city bumpkin" grossed in three days.

In June, the opening date of the second DC movie "Batman: The Dark Knight" is getting closer.

In addition to the more intensive publicity campaign, "Batman: The Dark Knight" also started a media and fan audition half a month in advance. Some media have released word-of-mouth of the film, and the North American media participating in the trial basically gave a score of more than 8 points.

In the new week, Warner Bros., which is responsible for the global distribution of films, also officially announced the global box office of the opening film of DC movie universe, Batman: the moment of war.

From the end of the year before last, after a year and a half of release, "Batman: the moment of war" has been shown in 51 countries and regions around the world.

In the end, Batman: war time grossed $436 million in North America and $531 million overseas.

The total global box office reached $967 million.

Although it was a pity that it failed to break through the $1 billion mark, it also left behind the $790 million box office data of "alien et" in 1982, making it the highest box office film in Hollywood's history before 1991.

This time, under the joint operation of Warner Brothers and danielis, "Batman: The Dark Knight" will be released in 21 countries and regions around the world.

It's very common to start painting on a large scale in the world more than ten years later. However, in the early 1990s, it was still a rare initiative, so it can be seen that the two companies have strong confidence in Batman: the dark knight.

You know, the budget for this DC movie universe sequel was set at an unprecedented $80 million from the beginning, which is equivalent to the huge production cost of the movie.

This also means that Batman: The Dark Knight's North American box office needs to reach about $300 million, so the two companies can rely on the local box office to recover costs.

Of course, everyone knows that although the box office figures of Batman Series are amazing, the surrounding revenue is actually bigger.

According to public figures, in 1990 alone, Batman's peripheral derivatives sales reached $2 billion.

According to the profit margin of about 15% of peripheral derivatives, the sales of derivatives of US $2 billion is equivalent to the pre tax profit of about US $300 million.

Because of the original contract, most of the income went to Denise entertainment.

Therefore, it's not hard to imagine why Denise entertainment could still achieve an amazing annual net profit of $1.13 billion after a series of big moves in 1990.

Earlier in early May, a month before "Batman: The Dark Knight" started, the video of "Batman: the moment of war" was officially released around the world.In the first week, sales in North America alone reached 5.6 million boxes.

With the release date of "Batman: The Dark Knight" approaching, according to the latest statistics, less than one month, "Batman: the moment of war" worldwide video sales have exceeded 13 million boxes, sales close to $400 million.

According to this sales trend, Batman: the moment of war's global video sales are expected to set a sales record of more than 30 million boxes, and the sales are expected to exceed $900 million. Even a $1 billion shock is not out of the question.

In the agreements signed between Hollywood studios and major guilds, only 20% of the sales of video tapes will be shared as profits.

As a matter of fact, the gross profit margin of video tapes, which are as high as $30 a box in this era, is not much lower than the proportion of box office share.

Batman: the moment of war is expected to sell more than 30 million boxes of videos. In addition to Warner Brothers' distribution share, most of the revenue will still go to Denise entertainment, and the profit scale is conservatively estimated to be $300 million.

According to statistics, if only the global box office, video sales and derivatives income are calculated, the profit of Batman: the moment of war will reach 1 billion US dollars within three years after its release. This does not include the following TV broadcast income and the follow-up long tail income of various channels.

DC movie universe has achieved such amazing business results at the beginning, which is the reason why the two companies dare to invest a total of $160 million in the production and publicity of Batman: the dark knight.

The premiere of Batman: the dark knight is set for Wednesday, June 5.

Tomorrow is the premiere of Batman: the dark knight.

Simon spent the whole day at Warner Bros in Burbank.

In other words, Terry Semel was forced to stay in Warner Bros. these days, Semel's films call Simon every day to let him take time to take care of the release of Batman: The Dark Knight, the later stage of flash and other cooperative films between the two sides.

Just look at the profits created by Batman: the moment of war, the importance of DC movie universe to Time Warner does not need to be repeated.

There are other reasons why Terry Semel is so obsessed.

After the merger of time and Warner Bros. was completed at the beginning of last year, Time Warner failed to meet the industry's expectations in terms of performance and stock.

However, in order to prevent Paramount's sniping acquisition of time company, the two sides changed the initial stock exchange merger into a cash and stock transaction, which suddenly increased the total debt of the two companies with only more than $2 billion in debt to $10 billion.

After a year of trying to pay off, so far, Time Warner's total debt is still up to 10.6 billion US dollars.

Steve Roth is one of those people who don't like to sell the company's assets very much. Therefore, since last year, Roth has been preparing for an equity issue. He plans to issue an additional stock of about $3 billion to repay the due debts of Time Warner in the next year or two.

Time Warner shareholders naturally are not willing to be arbitrarily diluted, and do not want to spend money to subscribe for additional shares. The outside world is not optimistic about the future of Time Warner.

Therefore, the stock issue in Time Warner and outside can be described as resistance.

Coupled with the continued decline of the North American stock market in the second half of last year, things almost disappeared.

Fortunately, the United States won the Gulf War in the Middle East. As a result, the North American stock market rose sharply in recent months, and Time Warner's share price also benefited. At present, its market value has finally returned to more than $10 billion. In addition, investors are optimistic about Warner Brothers' upcoming Batman: the dark knight and lightning man at the end of the year, and the issue of additional shares has ushered in a turning point,

the time is roughly determined in August.

As a result, even though he has full confidence in Batman: The Dark Knight, the release of flash will certainly be after the stock issue, Terry Semel still tries to pull Simon to Burbank's side as much as possible, just to create an impression of close cooperation between the two sides.

In order to achieve this goal, the two sides have recently negotiated another cooperation project outside the universe of DC films, which is one of the other two cooperative films that danielis entertainment owes Warner Bros.

Simon happened to be busy with these three things in Burbank all day.

In the morning, Terry Semel personally accompanied him in the late center of Warner studios for a busy morning of the late stage of "flash", and in the afternoon, there were two consecutive meetings.

Because of his work, Simon hasn't made time to meet Anthony Johnston, who will be here today.

These days, the Johnston family officially took over 30% of MGM's shares from other Australian shareholders who converted bonds into equity, becoming MGM's largest shareholder.

Although it has not achieved absolute control, as the largest shareholder, and with the support of other Australian shareholders, MGM's control is basically in the hands of the Johnston family, or Simon.Anthony is here to discuss the next development of MGM.

Two meetings in the afternoon at Warner studios.

From 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock, it's the release meeting of Batman: the dark knight.

From 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock, it is the production meeting of the cooperative film determined by both sides.

The new film is called the last Mohican.

This is an American novel adapted in 1826 by James Cooper.

The content tells the story of the last three warriors of an Indian aboriginal tribe named Mohican, who rescued a pair of daughters of a British colonel and escorted them back to the British base during the colonial war between Britain and France in the late 1850s for the control of America.

Like vengeance of the prince, the story mode of the last Mohican is very similar to the knight saving the princess, so it is popular in Hollywood.

Since 1920, the last Mohican has been adapted into movies, TV series and even cartoons, and the last time was in 1987.

This time, the reason why we chose to restart shooting "the last Mohicans" was actually influenced by the box office and awards of "dancing with Wolves".

The themes of the two films are related to the colonial war in North America, as well as the entanglement between native Indians and white colonists.

To put it bluntly, this is a follow-up.

Simon remembers that the last Mohican, released in 1992, was directed by Hollywood director Michael Mann and starred Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis.

Although I don't remember the box office very well, Simon can be sure that it is a very popular work.

Michael Mann is the later famous director of "stealing the wire". Before that, he also cooperated with new world entertainment in a police and bandit TV series "the ultimate police net". After confirming this project, danilisi entertainment contacted Michael Mann, and the other party gave a positive response soon, and also hoped to complete the script in person.

As for the leading actor, the first thing Warner Bros. thinks of is still Mel Gibson.

No way, from the original "Mad Max" to the ongoing "lethal weapons" series, Mel Gibson has almost become the same as Clint Eastwood as Warner Brothers' Royal actor.

Even in "lethal weapon 3", which will be released next year, Mel Gibson will take most of the profits by relying on the high fee sharing terms. Warner is used to using the other party because of the box office guarantee.

Simon actually agrees with Warner's proposal.

In my memory, Mel Gibson's box office Award "brave heart", which is also a double harvest, is enough to prove that the other party is fully capable of supporting such a costume action film.

Moreover, because it's not such a blockbuster sequel as lethal weapon 3, as the first original film, Mel Gibson's pay will not be too high.

However, in addition to "lethal weapons 3", Mel Gibson has received two other films, scheduled for 1993.

Simon doesn't lack the patience to wait until two years later, but Warner brothers can't.

Finally, according to Simon's memory, the original Daniel Day Lewis was contacted, and the two sides are still negotiating.

After a busy day, Simon returned to domay point manor in the evening. The shell villa was very busy.

Anthony Johnston also came here with his family.

Because Anthony's eldest son, Brandon Johnston, who is the same age as Simon, is actually a loyal fan of Batman Series. Last time, he asked Simon for a bat motorcycle through his cousin's mouth. Since tomorrow is the premiere of Batman: The Dark Knight, Brandon naturally wants to see it first.

In addition, Anthony's wife, Betty Johnston, has two daughters, Sylvia Johnston, 19, and Chloe Johnston, 11.

Brandon has just entered the family business. This time he's on the run.

Sylvia and Chloe are both studying in the UK, and it's summer vacation in the northern hemisphere, so they have time to come to Los Angeles.




Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!


COMMENTS