The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 1155: Surprise
"Good morning, Russell."

"Is it still early? It's almost noon. The sun is shining brightly in New York today."

"Indeed, it's rare. Did you just come back from swimming?"

"Yes, I swam for thirty minutes. I have a magazine cover shoot this afternoon. Oh, and by the way, do you have today's newspaper? The Times or the Wall Street Journal?"

"Sorry, they have all been distributed. There is currently no stock here in the restaurant."

"It's okay, I'll ask my assistant to buy one later."

Morning, Four Seasons Hotel New York, restaurant.

Russell Crowe seemed relaxed and happy, his mood was as bright as the rare sunshine in New York in late autumn. It was not easy to maintain such a state in the busy and intensive publicity schedule, but it was obvious that he was in good shape.

The spring breeze is proud of the horse's hoof disease.

After a busy and intensive week of promotion, "Master and Commander" has been greeted with enthusiastic praise from the media, even surpassing "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind". All aspects are proving that this film will achieve great success, ushering in a new peak in Russell's career and breaking the ceiling.

Next step?
Twenty million club!

Russell has his sights on the target.

Two years ago, after winning the Oscar for Best Actor for the first time in his career, the whole of Hollywood was discussing the so-called "Oscar Curse", which means that after winning the Oscar, it was impossible to accurately position the subsequent development of his career, and it was difficult to find an accurate footing between business and art, so that his career fell into a dilemma of being neither up nor down.

But now?
Russell easily broke the "Oscar curse". Not only did he break it successfully, but "Master and Commander" is likely to create a new career high.

Just like Tom Hanks did back then.

"Forrest Gump" and "Philadelphia Story" made Tom Hanks win the Oscar for Best Actor for two consecutive years, but he fell into some difficulties afterwards until his perfect return in "Saving Private Ryan" broke the bottleneck. After that, no one could stop Tom's journey to the top.

Russell believed that he could follow Tom's path to the top of Hollywood, and "Master and Commander" was the final attempt to break the shackles.

He is ready.

The media reviewed it with overwhelming praise.

Publicity and promotion are being carried out in an all-round manner.

Talk shows, premieres, magazine interviews, post-screening meet-and-greets in different cities, etc., everything went smoothly.

Next, it’s the box office numbers.

Perhaps, the box office performance of "Master and Commander" should be compared with "Gladiator" -

US$187 million in North America and US$460 million worldwide.

Russell knew that "Gladiator" had done very well at the box office, and had the added bonus of winning the Oscar for Best Picture, but "Master and Commander" might not be without a chance.

After all, "Master and Commander" is a true genre blockbuster, with a production cost of 150 million US dollars, which is 50 million US dollars more than "Gladiator".

So, it's worth looking forward to.

How much did "Gladiator" gross at its premiere?

Russell's memory was a little fuzzy, that was exactly three years ago -

In 2000, the opening weekend box office was around or million yuan; but he remembered exactly that after the movie was released, word of mouth spread and before the end of the third week, the cumulative box office figures had exceeded million yuan.

Now, three years later, the market is different.

Moreover, the media's overall rating for "Master and Commander" is much higher than that for "Gladiator".

So, the opening weekend of "Master and Commander" should be at least 40 million, right?

A turbulent thought surged in his mind, and then Russell saw his assistant and shouted.

"Harry, get me a copy of The Times, or any other paper."

The assistant was trying to hide himself, but was caught and hurriedly tried to hide the embarrassment in his expression.

"Russell, there are no newspapers here in the hotel."

Russell nodded, "Yes, I know. Go out and buy one. I don't know what happened today. All the newspapers have been delivered."

Assistant: ...He can't say that it was his agent who asked him to hide all the newspapers in the hotel, right?

So, what now? Should I really go downstairs to the newsstand? If the newsstand is also sold out, that would be suspicious.

In a panic, the assistant came up with a quick idea, "We have to go to the studio now. There is a serious traffic jam in Manhattan this time. We can't be late."

"I'll buy the newspaper after we get to the studio."

The studio has also been completely cleaned up so there won't be any mistakes.

At that time, he told Russell that there were no newsstands around the studio, wouldn't the problem be solved?
Anyway, they couldn't let Russell see the North American box office rankings of last weekend. The longer this matter could be postponed, the better. At the very least, they needed to wait until the magazine shoot was over today before letting Russell know. If it could be postponed until the evening, so that Russell could forget about it after a glass of whiskey, that would be even better.

Sure enough, Russell didn't suspect anything.

"Are we leaving now? Sure, hurry up and pack your luggage."

The assistant chief let out a long breath, having escaped the danger. He turned around and jogged away quickly, fearing that he would be caught again.

at last!

Entering the accompanying vehicle arranged by the hotel, the assistant escorted Russell into the car.

Russell glanced casually and saw the driver flipping through the newspaper in his hand.

“Is this today?”

The air suddenly became quiet.

The assistant was terrified, and rushed forward with the luggage in his hands, but his voice was choked in his throat and he almost couldn't catch his breath.

"Yes," the driver said, "Do you want to see it?"

Russell, "Is this 'The Times'?"

He answered while taking the newspaper.

The assistant had already rushed to the car door, slammed the brakes, grimaced in pain, and closed his eyes tightly, unable to bear to witness a disaster unfolding before his eyes.

However, it happened after all, and it was just one step away from success.

There was complete silence in the carriage, without any sound.

The assistant opened his eyes cautiously and saw Russell sitting there in a daze, with a gloomy face, staring at the newspaper.

No rage, no outburst.

But such silence is even more frightening. Today may be very long.

North American weekend box office rankings in the third week of November 2003.

First, the “butterfly effect”, $45 million.

and second, “Elf,” $27 million.

Third, "Master and Commander", $22 million.

A moment of astonishment.

No one expected that "Butterfly Effect" would make a comeback and take the top spot on the weekend championship.

No one expected that "Master and Commander" would lose not only to "The Butterfly Effect" but also to "Elf" which was in its second week of release, leaving it with no more fig leaves.

No one expected that the opening weekend box office of "Master and Commander" would be less than half of "The Butterfly Effect". Even the boldest and craziest predictions could foresee that Anson would perform another miracle, but they did not dare to predict the scene in front of them. It was a madman who destroyed everyone's predictions.

Surprises came one after another, and each one was more exaggerated than the last. They came one after another and bombarded the industry. Even Hollywood experts were all surprised and were at a loss when looking at this North American weekend box office ranking list.

How should we view and evaluate it?
Completely subverting everyone's expectations.

The whole world seems to be different and no longer what people know.

How did this happen?

It is precisely because of this that Russell's agent and assistant tried their best to prevent him from seeing today's newspaper, but they did not expect that they would fail in the end.

(End of this chapter)