Hollywood Director 1992

In the morning, Link worked part-time at a fast-food restaurant. At noon, he took the subway to the Burbank-Union Theatre to check the previous day's box office results.

"Link, the first-day box office is out. Yesterday, there were 12 screenings, selling 213 tickets, with an occupancy rate of less than 5%. The total revenue was $1810.5, far from the minimum guarantee.

Based on this situation, it will be the same even if you screen it for a few more days. I advise you to recognize reality, stop the screenings, and you can still recover some losses."

In the theater office, William Mason handed over a form with the screening situation of several theaters yesterday, and the box office data registration, including how many tickets were sold at what time, the age of the audience, etc.

Most of the audience watching 'Buried' were young and middle-aged people between 20 and 50 years old, with an equal ratio of men and women.

The other data was relatively poor.

"Mr. Mason, I understand what you're saying, but the movie is already released, so let's screen it for a few more days. It doesn't matter if the box office is a bit poor, let's just indulge myself this once."

"Okay, Jerome said you are a very stubborn young man, and you are indeed very stubborn. I hope you won't regret it after the final box office comes out."

"Of course, this is my own choice."

After Link finished reading the first-day box office sales form, he called Jerome Preston to inquire about the screening situation at the Grove shopping center cinema. There were only two theaters screening 'Buried' there, but the traffic was high, so he hoped the data would be better.

Jerome Preston told him that yesterday 'Buried' was screened eight times, selling a total of 442 tickets, with a total revenue of approximately $3907.7, ranking last among the movies released in the same period.

Jerome asked him how the box office data was at the Union Theatre.

Link said it was not bad. Without much publicity, more than two hundred tickets were sold, which exceeded expectations.

Jerome Preston sighed at his good attitude.

Link said it's already like this, what's the point of not having a good attitude?

After hanging up the phone, Link left the Union Theatre and swam a few laps at the swimming center next door. When he returned to the theater at around 4 PM, he suddenly found a lot of people at the entrance of the theater, and a long queue formed at the ticket hall, which only had one ticket window open.

Although there were only a dozen people in line, it was a very unusual thing for 'Buried', which had little buzz.

Link stood across from the theater for a while. In less than half an hour, more than fifty people came, which was more than the number of people who came in two hours yesterday afternoon.

This made Link a little curious. 'Buried' had no publicity and no buzz. Where did these people get the news?

Or was it that they had nothing to do on Saturday afternoon, and happened to see a new movie being released, so they came to take a look?

Link observed for a while, pretended to be an ordinary audience member, came to the back of the line, and patted the shoulder of the curly-haired little fat guy in front of him.

"Hi, buddy, what movie is playing today?"

"'Buried', it's on the poster, didn't you see it?"

The curly-haired little fat guy glanced back, shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to have no desire to chat.

"Buried? I've never heard of this movie. Did you come here specifically to see Buried, or did you just happen to see it and decided to watch it?"

"Of course I came here specifically to see it. Are you a reporter?"

"No, I also want to see a movie, but I don't know much about this movie, and I don't know if I should watch it."

"I don't know much either, but I heard from a friend that there's a cool movie playing in this theater. I happen to have time today, so I came here specifically to take a look. Wait, buddy, why do I think you look familiar? I seem to have seen you somewhere before?"

The curly-haired little fat guy scratched the hair on his forehead and blinked as he sized him up.

"Really? Asians all look similar, you probably mistook me for someone else."

"Maybe!"

The curly-haired little fat guy didn't recognize that he was the guy on the poster. After waiting in line for a few minutes, he walked to the ticket booth, took out twenty dollars, bought a movie ticket, a bucket of popcorn, and a large cup of iced cola, and walked into screening room 9.

After waiting for three or four minutes, the 150 seats were about half full, and the movie began to play on the big screen.

The little fat guy took a sip of cola, put the cola on the cup holder, grabbed a handful of popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth, while also raising his head to look at the big screen.

"Pfft ~ Cough cough, it's him, it's him, I've seen this person before, just now!"

The curly-haired little fat guy pointed at Link on the screen and shouted excitedly.

The others looked at him strangely, and some put their fingers up to tell him not to make noise.

The curly-haired little fat guy retracted his hand and scratched his head, and no longer shouted. Holding the popcorn, he looked at the actor on the screen, and suddenly felt very magical thinking about having talked to the other party just now.

— —

"Buddy, are you saying that you first saw a movie review about this movie in the newspaper before coming to see it? Is it today's newspaper?"

"Yes, the Hollywood Reporter movie section."

"Okay, thank you!"

In the movie theater ticket hall, Link pretended to be an audience member and inquired for a while, and roughly understood the reason for the sudden increase in the audience.

One was interpersonal communication. After watching 'Buried' yesterday, the audience recommended the movie to the people around them.

The second was media communication. After a film critic watched 'Buried' yesterday, he wrote a film review and published it in 'The Hollywood Reporter' newspaper. Many people saw the film review in the newspaper and came to see the movie specifically.

Link went downstairs to the newsstand and bought a copy of today's 'The Hollywood Reporter'.

In the movie section, there was a film review of about five hundred words, placed together with the film reviews of several other movies, which seemed unremarkable.

The person who wrote the film review was called Will Rogers.

The title of the film review was — The World's Loneliest Movie 'Buried'.

Will Rogers said in the film review that he was invited to the Union Theatre yesterday to watch a very special independent film. The special thing about the film is that there is only one actor in the entire film.

One actor and a few props support a ninety-five-minute movie in a box that cannot be moved.

Just hearing the introduction, a sense of loneliness hits.

Will Rogers continued to say that after arriving at the movie theater in the afternoon, he found that there were no audience members in the theater.

He watched the movie alone in a screening room with more than two hundred seats.

Will Rogers claimed that during the viewing period, he also felt the loneliness of the protagonist of the movie.

Therefore, he called this movie 'The World's Loneliest Movie', not only the actor and the plot revealed a kind of depressing loneliness, but also the viewing experience was very lonely.

Will Rogers finally said in the article that he originally heard that this movie only had one actor, performing for ninety-five minutes in a small wooden box, and that this movie must be very boring and shoddy.

However, after watching the movie, he found that the movie was unexpectedly good. The actor's performance, the main plot, as well as the lens language and atmosphere, belonged to the upper-middle level in the thriller genre. It is a new genre movie worth trying.

This film review is generally objective, saying the advantages and disadvantages of the film, and also aroused the curiosity of readers.

Probably many viewers, after reading the film review, came to try it out of novelty.

After reading the newspaper, Link didn't know how many viewers this film review could bring to the movie, but the slowly fermenting word-of-mouth was also worth looking forward to.

The whole afternoon, Link didn't go anywhere, and sat opposite the movie theater, calculating the audience who entered the movie theater to buy tickets to watch the movie.

At the beginning, he could clearly calculate dozens of people, but at six or seven o'clock, more than a hundred people came, and Link forgot whether he started to get confused after counting to 455, or whether he started to make mistakes after 465.

But it doesn't matter, this is the first time he has been happy for not being good at math.

Beep beep!

At seven o'clock, the pager in his pocket beeped. Link took it out and glanced at it, then walked to the phone booth and called Jerome Preston.

"Link, how did Will Rogers help you write a film review? How much money did you spend?"

"I thought you invited him."

"Haha, Will Rogers is a famous film critic, I can't afford to invite him. It was probably old Mason who did it. He has many acquaintances in the film industry."

"Is that so? Mr. Mason is really a good person, and you are also a good person."

"Don't praise me, I'm just doing things according to the contract. How is the occupancy rate at the Union Theatre?"

"There is no data yet, but I counted for a while, and as of 7 o'clock, about 500 people have come to see 'Buried'. How is it on your side?"

"Not bad. As of 6:30 PM, the two theaters screened 8 times, and a total of 646 people bought tickets to see 'Buried', with an occupancy rate of 31%, which is a little better than yesterday's data."

"I hope it will be better tomorrow."

"Haha, good luck to you."

It was getting dark, and his stomach was rumbling. He accidentally forgot to eat again. Link looked back at the movie theater and went back to West Hollywood to eat.