Huayu: From an ordinary person to a happy director

Chapter 24 North American Box Office Explodes
The next afternoon, Shi Lei received audience ratings and professional film reviews for "The Matrix: Guardians of the Galaxy" (formerly known as "The Matrix").

In North America, this is how Warner Bros. promotes it.

First, the audience reviews.

[As expected of the prophet guardian of The Matrix, the protagonist's fighting scenes are very exciting, very much in the style of The Matrix, I give it a B+. ]

This is normal. Zhou Zhaolong is the action director of The Matrix.

[B+, I am a fan of action movies, this movie is really to my taste, I will bring my friends to watch it again tomorrow. ]

[A+, the Kung Fu movie is as good as ever.] This is the evaluation of a Chinese.

[A+, I can see the feeling of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in this. In "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the battle was in the green bamboo forest, while in this movie, the battle was in the snow and iron rain. The fighting scene of ice and fire falling from the sky is still unforgettable to me. ] A fan of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" commented.

[B, this is a qualified popcorn movie. The heroine's experience reminded me of my friend's experience. ]

[B, it's worthy of being a spin-off of The Matrix. The fighting scenes are very exciting, especially the fighting scenes in the snow and fire. I still remember them. Aren't they afraid of getting burned? ] A fan of The Matrix commented.

Most of the comments were similar. I went to the cinema because of the reputation of "The Matrix" and remembered the battle in the movie.

[B-, the action movie is good and exciting, but it is a Chinese movie and I don’t know what they are talking about. ]

[B-, I seldom watch Chinese films. I watched it because I heard it was a spin-off of The Matrix. The fighting scenes were great, but I don’t know what to say.]

[C, I am so disappointed. This movie is just a remake of The Matrix. The plot has nothing to do with The Matrix. If it weren't for the exciting fighting scenes, I would have given it a D.]

Shi Lei took a rough look and found that 7% of the people went to the cinema because of the reputation of "The Matrix", 2% went because of the reputation of martial arts films, and the remaining 1% went to the cinema for a variety of reasons.

Because of the wonderful fighting scenes in "The Matrix: A New Hope", the reviews were generally around B, with only a few ratings of C and D.

He had also read the reviews from several Ds, who were dissatisfied with the plot and said that the film had nothing to do with "The Matrix"; these people probably only saw the words "The Matrix" and thought that "The Matrix 2" was released ahead of schedule. After watching the film, they felt they had been cheated.

Shi Lei estimated that many people were deceived into going to the cinema by the words "The Matrix", but most of them were conquered by the fighting scenes, and the appearance of the prophet at the end also saved the situation, so he did not give it too low a rating.

Below are reviews from professional film critics. Probably because Warner Bros. paid them, there is no disparaging review in the reviews. Most of them are praises, praising the fighting scenes, the justice of punishing evil, the kindness of the prophet, and the smooth flow of the plot, calling it a typical popcorn thriller.

Of course, there are still some negative reviews, saying that this is a Chinese-language film and that Chinese-language films are not worthy of being a spin-off of "The Matrix"; their words are all derogatory of Chinese-language films; it doesn't feel like a film review, but rather a national hatred and family feud.

Not many people care about such film reviews. Every time a foreign language film is released in North America, there are always a few similar reviews.

There are also some negative reviews saying that the plot of the film is too straightforward and that it is just another popcorn movie, and they call on the audience to watch more films with more content.

With an overall audience rating of B and good professional film reviews, "The Matrix: Keeper of Darkness" ("No One's Regard") had a higher box office.

The box office on the first day Friday was 265 million US dollars.

Saturday box office: $550 million.

Box office on Sunday was $620 million.

The total box office for the first weekend was 1435 million US dollars. Shi Lei did not underestimate the box office of 1435 million US dollars, because Warner Bros. worked hard on Monday to increase the number of openings to 1200. However, Warner Bros. also gave a bad news that 2000 venues were impossible because the screenings in May were too popular.

Shi Lei could only express regret about this, but he was still very happy, as 1200 venues were not a small number.

The number of venues increased from 500 to 1200. Although it was a weekday, the box office did not disappoint Shi Lei, with $460 million on Monday, $450 million on Tuesday, $420 million on Wednesday, and $490 million on Thursday.

The first week's revenue was reported at $3250 million.

The box office for the following Friday was $580 million.

The box office on the following Saturday was an unexpected yet reasonable explosion.

The box office on the second Saturday was 1060 million US dollars, which was not even expected by Warner Bros. Even if "The Matrix: The Keeper" ("No One Knows") was of good quality, they thought the box office would increase, but they did not expect it to double that of the previous Saturday.

Warner Bros. immediately launched an investigation and the results came out soon. Some fans were still not satisfied after watching "The Matrix 2" and turned around to buy tickets for "The Matrix: Keepers".

This discovery made Warner Bros. ecstatic. The fact that the audience was still not satisfied with the movie showed that they really liked "The Matrix 2". The fact that they turned to watch "The Matrix: Keepers" showed that their "The Matrix" universe was really possible.

Although the bad review rate of "The Matrix: Keeper of Darkness" has continued to increase with the increase in the number of moviegoers, many people dislike it as a foreign language film. If the fighting scenes had not been exciting enough, its reputation might have plummeted.

Warner Bros. was not upset by such feedback, nor did they dislike it because it was a foreign language film. So they just made all future spin-off films into English films.

The box office for the following Sunday was $1250 million.

"The Matrix: Keeper of Darkness" (formerly known as No Man's Land) grossed $2890 million in its second weekend.

"The Matrix 2" grossed $9640 million in its first weekend.

Such results shocked the Big Six in North America.

Whatever Warner Bros. can investigate, the Big Six can also investigate.

In "The Matrix 2", a prophet-guardian appeared who could fight with the protagonist, and this prophet-guardian aroused the curiosity of the audience.

"The Matrix: The Prophet's Keeper" introduces this prophet's guardian to satisfy the audience's curiosity.

The result was that "The Matrix 2" and "The Matrix: Guardians" were both huge successes.

After some investigation, they found that the cost of "The Matrix: Keeper of Darkness" was only 1000 million US dollars, and Warner purchased the copyright for only 1750 million US dollars.

Now the total box office of "The Matrix: Keeper of Darkness" has reached 6145 million US dollars.

This is revealing a message, that is, spin-off movies can be made. Spin-off movies have another advantage, it is an independent story, and there is no need to invite leading actors whose salaries become expensive, which is very good!
Such results were achieved with a small-scale film with a budget of 1000 million US dollars. If they increased the investment several times and made the event bigger, wouldn't the box office be even higher?
The six major forces began to stir.

At the same time, director Shi Lei was also taken seriously by them.

The domestic entertainment industry also attaches great importance to Shi Lei.

(End of this chapter)