hollywood melon man

Chapter 365: Fighting Piracy
With the arrival of the second week, "The Return of the King" began its promotional journey in North America.

The North American promotion will only last for a week, after which the crew will split into two: one group will go to Europe for promotion, and the other group will go to Australia, island countries and other regions for promotion.

The most surprising thing is that "The Return of the King" arranged two promotional stops in Beijing and Shanghai, China.

Gilbert Jr. will not participate in the North American promotion, he will join the crew in the UK. The British royal family is preparing to receive the "Lord of the Rings" crew, and the Queen of England will award Gilbert Jr. with the title of knight.

Today, the British knighthood is more of an honor, aimed at rewarding people in the scientific, entertainment and other fields who have made outstanding contributions to the British nation.

Gilbert Jr. was able to receive the title of knight not only because of the great success of The Lord of the Rings series, which promoted British literary culture.

The increasingly influential IP "Harry Potter" was also created by Gilbert Jr.

Prince Charles is a fan of "The Lord of the Rings", and Queen Elizabeth, despite her age, prefers "Harry Potter". So the mother and son discussed and simply awarded Gilbert Jr. a knighthood.

After that, Gilbert Jr. will travel to China to participate in activities in Beijing.

When "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" were released, the crew did not come to China for promotion, but "The Return of the King" should have come at least once.

There are actually very few Hollywood blockbusters that come to China for promotion these days, or it can be said that there are almost none.

But as time goes by, the Chinese market will become more and more prosperous, and there will be no shortage of Hollywood movies coming to China for promotion.

It is even possible to hold a premiere here.

Pixar Animation Studios. With the development of Apple's business, Steve Jobs rarely stayed at Pixar and only visited occasionally.

Coincidentally, Steve Jobs was at Pixar Studios during those two days.

A meeting was being held at Pixar Animation Studios, a dynamic and creative company that would never be too serious even with Steve Jobs present.

Creative Director Ed introduced the situation in a relaxed tone: "At present, Disney is undoubtedly the most sincere party.

They will make certain concessions at the box office.”

Steve Jobs asked, “What about the periphery?”

The box office profits of animated films have never been strong, and the real strength lies in the profits of their peripheral products.

Ed shook his head and said, "Disney won't budge, but I don't think they'll last long before agreeing to our terms."

Pixar and Disney still have one animated feature film distribution contract left. At this time, Pixar Animation Studios undoubtedly has the ability to change the situation in Hollywood.

Ed asked Jobs: "Steve, I heard that Director Gilbert Jr. has a good personal relationship with you. Do you think he will be inclined towards you?"

Jobs thought about it, shook his head and said, "No, he is just like me. He will not bring personal emotions into business cooperation."

Although other companies were also actively approaching Pixar Animation Studios, Jobs himself was more accustomed to working with Disney.

However, when it comes to interests, if there is a company offering better conditions, Jobs would not mind Pixar changing its partner.

At the end of the meeting, in addition to Pixar's projects this year, everyone was still discussing things related to "The Return of the King."

Ed said, "There is no doubt that Gilbert Jr. is an excellent creative person, Steve, maybe you can ask Gilbert Jr. to come to Pixar Animation Studios when he is free.

I think he will like the creative atmosphere here.”

Steve Jobs thought it made sense: "Sure, he is a Disney shareholder and a board member. His words can influence the decisions of Disney's top management to a certain extent." "By the way, I heard that The Return of the King did well at the box office?"

"It's not just good, it's a blast, okay? Not only the box office, but the sales of peripheral products are also constantly breaking records."

All Pixar creators are full of admiration for Gilbert Jr. Creators understand creators best, and everyone has heard about the difficulty of the "Lord of the Rings" project.

But watching little Gilbert do his work seemed so easy and enjoyable, and he completed the project without any effort, which was really amazing.

With the arrival of the North American workday, the film's box office fell by 2289.5% on Monday, earning $ million. The decline in box office on weekdays is inevitable, and this decline is a relatively healthy range.

Afterwards, "The Return of the King" showed a steadily declining trend and did not suffer a sudden setback. It earned US$2015.2 million, US$1937.7 million, and US$1885.4 million in three working days respectively.

The film grossed a total of $8127.8 million in four working days. Combined with the first weekend box office, the North American box office for seven days has reached $2.36 million.

But this will not be the end. The odds in Las Vegas have long since stopped accepting the odds that "The Return of the King" will exceed $500 million in North America and $1.2 billion worldwide.

The media and malicious film company executives who had previously predicted that the box office of "The Return of the King" would plummet have now remained silent.

We are not fools, and everyone understands at this point that "The Return of the King" is invincible.

What makes other Hollywood film companies most envious is the generous weekly revenue of "The Return of the King".

Since the film was released, peripheral product stores across North America have even been unable to stock up on products, and the voices of fans requesting more stock have continued to gather into a torrent.

Although I had expected the peripheral products to be popular, I didn’t expect them to be so popular.

Disney and Warner Bros. have already communicated with factories in China, which are already working in three shifts to produce peripheral products to meet the huge gap in the peripheral market.

Because of the huge gap, huge demand, and huge profits, many people took risks and made pirated peripherals.

In response to these piracy incidents, Disney and Warner took strong measures and dealt a heavy blow to a group of pirates.

It doesn't mean that there is no piracy in areas where there is a strong awareness of genuine products.

The current situation is that genuine goods are in short supply, creating a huge market gap. If someone wants to buy, there will be someone who wants to sell, so it is not surprising that pirated goods appear in North America.

Moreover, most of these pirated products are from Mexico. They take advantage of Mexico's labor cost advantage and have many small workshops that specialize in pirating Hollywood peripheral products.

It’s just that because border control is still relatively strict today, pirated goods rarely flow into the North American market. On the contrary, piracy is rampant in Latin America.

However, small workshops have now spread to Texas, resulting in a period of time when Mexican pirated goods have become a more serious threat than Mexican drugs.

Faced with this situation, major Hollywood companies are working together to combat piracy.

Although they are not happy about the hot sales of "The Return of the King" peripheral products, all the smart executives of the film companies know that this is not the time to be jealous.

We should unite and jointly fight against piracy crimes.

It is worth mentioning that "The Return of the King" was promoted in Mexico City to show the enthusiasm of Latin America. About 100,000 fans blocked the crew in Plaza de Cara for promotion.

If the Mexican police hadn't rescued them in time, the crew would have been trapped there for a long time.

(End of this chapter)