Made in Hollywood

With the release of "Batman: Hour of War", some of Duke's thoughts inevitably shifted to "Iron Man", which is about to begin preparations for the project, but now is an important time period for Batman movie promotion. He still cooperates with the crew and Warner The brothers ran announcements all over North America, but kept in close contact with producer Kevin Fitch over the phone, and had a final discussion on the direction of the entire script.

Although Kevin Fitch is the producer, there is no doubt about Duke's power in this project. As usual, the final editing rights must belong to him.

But Duke has never been the kind of person who can't listen to other people's opinions. As long as other people really help the film, he will not go his own way.

Perhaps it was that the filming of "Kings of Heaven" that was raised through pre-sales and other methods was really not paid enough attention, or perhaps the response of the film was too bad. Duke returned to Los Angeles and cooperated with Warner Bros. through TV, radio, Internet and print media. When "Batman: Hour of War" was gaining momentum, the publicity of "Kings of Heaven" was relatively flat, especially on the Internet, which has a huge impact on young people, and the number of negative reviews and voices are so large, even if the Hollywood public relations company can gather All the navy hired could not be suppressed.

The difference between the audience's reputation and professional reputation of the war epic film "Kings of Heaven", both..., created Ridley Scott's lowest point since "Alien", which is definitely a low point in his directorial career.

The final editing rights do play a role in this, but there are only a handful of directors who can get the final editing rights in Hollywood.

Starting from the working day, the difference in the performance of the two films "Batman: Hour of War" and "Kings of Heaven" in the market is far greater than last weekend. It is not too much to describe the gap between heaven and earth.

In terms of film arrangement, the film arrangement rate of "The Kingdom of Heaven" in the commercial chain theaters directly fell below 20%, and some theaters were even less than 15%. For a large production with an investment of more than hundreds of millions of dollars, this basically means that the theater has given up on the film and is only showing it in accordance with the lowest limit of the contract's floating clause.

Correspondingly, the filming rate of "Batman: Hour of War" exceeded 60% in one fell swoop. After the first week of nearly 70 million US dollars in box office figures, the theaters completely dispelled their doubts.

"Duke Rosenberg deserves to be Duke Rosenberg!"

Standing in front of the huge French windows of the office. The CEO of Emperor Entertainment Group Robert Carolli turned his back to the senior executives and said, "Even film series that are recognized as dead can be saved by him so easily."

A later executive said, "Our previous film arrangement and screening strategy is still somewhat conservative."

"There's nothing wrong with being conservative." Robert Caloli said softly.

Although it was not too long to take over the CEO position of Emperor Entertainment Group, he has always been engaged in work related to the film industry. He knows very well that no matter how successful directors fail, what's more, Duke Rosenberg also picked one. A comic series film whose reputation and popularity were almost defeated by Joe Schumacher.

Only when theater companies adopt relatively conservative strategies can risks be avoided to a minimum.

The most typical is "The Kingdom of Heaven." The director Ridley Scott is famous. If the company only looks at his fame and emits a huge number of screens, the loss last weekend might be an astronomical figure.

Although the small theater has six to ten viewers, it can capture the cost of the screening, but the nearly 3,300 theaters and the box office figure of only 10.29 million U.S. dollars in the first weekend of "The Kings of Heaven" may average to each screening. There will not be six people in the audience in a small theater.

For loss-making movies, theaters have always had only one strategy.

"Starting tomorrow. Continue to reduce the number of screens in "The Kingdom of Heaven"."

With little consideration, Robert Calori made a decision based on the opinions of several other executives, "By Thursday, the number of theaters and the film placement rate of "King Dynasty" will be reduced to the lowest floating clauses in the contract. "

There is no objection, this is the most normal treatment for a failed movie.

Robert Caloli turned around and said again. "The vacant theaters and screens..."

He just wanted to habitually switch to Duke Rosenberg’s film. Someone later reminded, “Starting Friday, "Air Combat Heroes" will be released in North America on a large scale. Walt Disney has invested a lot in publicity. Many resources. According to the feedback from the trial, the film still has a selling point. Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner have called several times to pay attention to the preparation of the film."

"Hmm..." Robert Caloli nodded, thought briefly, and said, "The empty screens of "The Kings of Heaven" were cast on "Air Combat Heroes" and "Batman: Hour of War" respectively. As for The filming rate of the two films..."

Another person suddenly reminded, "Duke Rosenberg’s films have always been in a strong trend, and this is also the case with this "Batman: Hour of War". After the first weekend, the cinemascore audience rating remained at 8%. Above 16, the imdb website also scored 8.8 points, and the positive voices on the Internet completely overwhelmed the negative impact."

"I know."

Robert Caloli understood the meaning of his subordinates' words and said directly, "As much as possible to compress the filming rate of "The Kingdom of Heaven"."

There is no doubt that "The Kingdom of Heaven" has become a victim.

Not only the Emperor Entertainment Group, but other film companies have made similar decisions.

With theater companies making adjustments, the performance of "Kings of Heaven", which is not much competitive at all, is not worth mentioning in "Batman: Hour of War" during the working day.

Starting from Monday, Duke led Liam Neeson, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman and Christian Bell and other major actors on a promotional tour of North America. The daily box office newsletter is also published by Warner The aspect was passed to Tina Fei's hands in time.

On Monday, the single-day box office of "Kings of Heaven" fell below seven figures, earning only $882,566. On the same day, the box office of "Batman: Hour of War" in North America was ten times that of "Kings of Heaven". Many, it took away 8.92 million US dollars.

On Tuesday, "Kings of Heaven" rebounded slightly, and the single-day box office returned to the seven-figure ranks, earning 1.03 million US dollars, but it fell again on Wednesday and only 810,000 US dollars were accounted for.

At the same time, "Batman: Hour of War" received 9.15 million US dollars and 8.56 million US dollars in these two days.

So far, "Batman: Hour of War" has been released for six days, and the North American box office has reached 95.48 million U.S. dollars, while "Heavenly Kings" released in the same period only had a pitiful 13.02 million U.S. dollars.

Compared with the production cost of more than 100 million U.S. dollars, even if the income from TV copyright and disc and network copyright is added to "The Kingdom of Heaven", it is impossible to recover the cost.

For movies with a general box office response, copyrights in these aspects cannot be sold at high prices. This is the simplest market law, and TV stations and video websites are not fools.

Nowadays, it is very difficult for films to make a profit through the box office, but why do film companies still attach so much importance to box office performance? Because the box office is often the most basic factor to measure the commercial value of a movie.

Films with professional reputations and awards are soft, and the subsequent copyright income is not as good as that of movies with a big box office.

Perhaps the future movie screening and distribution model will undergo radical changes, but now, the importance of the box office to any movie is self-evident.

Before the second weekend came, Duke led the crew to New York. As one of the largest cities in the world, the Big Apple is a city that every crew in Hollywood will take care of during publicity.

Although the situation and content of the announcement were basically the same, Duke felt exhausted after a day’s work, surrounded by fans far more than anywhere else, especially during the Batman Square tour jointly organized by Times Square and Time Warner. It attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators, which directly caused the entire Manhattan Island to almost become a parking lot.

After returning to the suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Tina Fei informed Duke that someone had come to visit.

Due to Mrs. Leah's living in New York, Duke has many acquaintances here, but it was a somewhat unexpected person who came to the door.

"Long time no see, Bob."

The person Duke is shaking hands is a Jewish man who is about fifty years old and an old acquaintance. "It's really nice to meet you. I didn't expect to see you in New York."

Shaking his hands vigorously with Duke, Robert Iger sat on the sofa opposite him and said, "I think you forgot, I am a New Yorker."

During the honeymoon period between Duke and Walt Disney, Robert Iger was the person who was directly in charge of contacting him, and the two also established a little friendship.

The former Robert Iger was once among the top management positions of Walt Disney, but as his talents became more and more revealed and Michael Eisner’s power increased, his situation gradually became more difficult, and he was even caught by Ace. Na was promoted from the position of executive president of Touchstone Pictures and left to a relatively idle department.

"Michael's power is gradually increasing..."

Speaking of Disney, Robert Iger naturally sighed, "He will not accommodate anyone who endangers power. After your short cooperation with Disney ends, I will become an unwelcome person."

"Why not leave Disney?" Duke couldn't help asking.

"I have the same idea." Robert Iger thought for a while, or said directly, "but I don't want to leave as a loser. Even if I want to leave Disney, I have to wait for Michael Eisner to step down."

There will be no monoliths in any company. There will be disputes where there are people. Robert Iger obviously doesn't hire Michael Eisner to see him.

Duke is also not sure. Once Eisner was kicked out of Disney in disgrace, whether the later Disney helm did anything afterwards. (To be continued...)

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