I’m in Hollywood

Although Eric is not in Los Angeles, after a long period of publicity, Toy Story began a small-scale screening during the internal test film of Cutthroat Island. Novel 3D animation forms, warm and interesting plots, and fable-like storylines quickly created a huge sensation in the media.

...unlike Disney's fairy tales of princes and princesses, this film tells a story about friendship, about trust, and about finding, from the perspective of a toy.

...This is a fable for grown-ups, with hero and anti-hero elements being the main content pillars. The collective big family feels lively and will always sublimate a lot of warm scenes. Bass and Woody's The heroic feelings and simplicity and sincerity can find our shadow. A little dark humor will not detract from the beauty that is worth believing.

...a brand new form of animated film, Pixar's 3D animation technology will undoubtedly bring a revolution relative to hand-drawn animation.

...

The screening in just one week has almost reached the sum of the influence of all the previous publicity. Affected by the one-sided praise from the media, the confidence of the Firefly publicity department has greatly increased. Michael Lynn discussed with Eric on the phone. After that, another $10 million was added to Toy Story's budget, bringing the total production and distribution cost of the film to the blockbuster level of $70 million.

However, Eric knows that the total cost of $70 million is definitely worth it as long as he can establish 3D animation in Hollywood with Toy Story. What's more, according to the data in memory, Firefly has enough confidence to recover the full cost of Toy Story based on the local distribution in North America, and subsequent distribution through various channels will bring a lot of pure profits to Firefly. the most important is. Before that, Firefly had registered the trademark of all the toys in this animated film, and Eric knew very well that the profits brought by the licensing of the animated characters in Toy Story were absolutely no less than the box office of this animated film. income.

Compared to the fanfare of Toy Story. Cutthroat Island seems to be a lot more low-key. After the internal audition, although Disney did not have much confidence in the film, it did not think about the box office dud. Although Disney did not hold a large-scale test screening on the grounds that the movie still needs to be revised in detail, it has not relaxed at all in terms of publicity such as TV previews and billboard posters.

Michael Eisner seems to be making up for the lack of quality publicity. Not only did he not reduce the publicity budget of Cutthroat Island, but also proposed to increase the budget. As an important investor in Cutthroat Island, Robert Shea has determined that Cutthroat Island will bring losses, and in Hollywood Been messing around for so many years. He can also imagine that the movie sells well. Once the box office fails, Disney will do everything possible to pass the loss on to an outsider like him. So he killed a penny and refused to pay again, and even got into a dispute with Michael Eisner.

The proposal to increase the publicity budget was made by Michael Eisner,

But at this moment, he will definitely not let Disney bear the cost alone, so he took out the contract as a weapon, forcing Robert Shea to pay out a budget in proportion to the capital increase. Robert Shay could only swallow this dumb loss. He knew that if he wasn't willing to pay at this point, Disney would have all the more reason to pass the box-office failure onto him.

According to Disney's expectations, Cut Throat Island is after all a Hollywood blockbuster with an investment of over 100 million yuan. Even if the plot is... well, it's a bit messy, it's not without precedent in Hollywood history that it's been a big hit. So Disney is optimistic that Cutthroat Island will earn at least $80 million at the box office, and the overseas box office is also expected to reach that number. After the release of two important box office channels, although there will still be losses, but after the subsequent sale of video tapes and TV broadcast rights. There is certainly no problem in recovering the cost within two years.

Even after the subsequent Toy Story movie gained a very good reputation, although Disney felt that its monopoly in the Hollywood animation industry would be threatened. But because Toy Story and Cutthroat Island are two films with completely different audiences, Disney didn't feel too much pressure either.

Entering late June. The 1991 summer season has been going on for a month, and this summer season started with the sequel to Fox's Condor 2 released in late May.

At the end of last year, the first film of Fighting Condor received a global box office of nearly 200 million US dollars with an investment of more than 20 million, and the profit was higher than that of Fox's main Die Hard 2 last year, so Fox can't wait. Started the second part. However, the last time I paid 30% of the investment amount because I asked Eric to choose the script, Eric got a profit of about 50 million with an investment of more than 8 million, which made Fox hurt. Bundle. Therefore, Fox, the production of the sequel, directly pretended to be deaf and dumb about this matter, and did not mention it. Eric was so busy that there was no specific contract for this matter, and Eric was too lazy to pay attention to it.

After the last one spoofed Top Gun, the sequel still continued the original style and chose to spoof Sylvester Stallone's First Blood. But unfortunately, Fox has played this sequel. Although the sequel is even crazier than the first one, and the cost has increased to 40 million US dollars, but for some reason, the audience just doesn't buy it. From the end of May to In late June, three weeks after its release, Condor 2 only received $28 million at the box office in more than 2,100 theaters, and the failure is a foregone conclusion. Of course, everyone is happy with the success of the movie, but unexpectedly, this sequel failed, and because the failure was so complete, a large number of shareholders wrote to the Fox board of directors, condemning the Fox management for not abandoning Eric and developing God of Fighters independently. Eagle sequel, leading to a devastating blow to the promising franchise.

Not only Fighting Eagle, but one month into the summer season, the films released by major film companies have not performed very well. Usually at this time, the total weekly box office in North America should have exceeded 100 million US dollars. The week before Toy Story came out. Weekly box office is only more than 80 million. Of course, the reason is very clear to everyone.

On June 21, Toy Story, which has experienced overwhelming publicity and accumulated good reputation, opened in 2,400 theaters in North America. Before that, Toy Story had already passed small-scale screenings. It has amassed more than $1.5 million at the box office. Although this number seems insignificant, it averaged a staggering $50,000 per game in less than 30 theaters.

Because there are no competitors this summer, Toy Story earned $30 million at the box office on its first three days. A week later, the box office had accumulated 47 million, easily surpassing the production cost of the film.

As the first 3D animated film, Toy Story achieved such amazing results as soon as it debuted, causing a huge sensation in Hollywood and even the whole world. And Pixar, which has always been unknown, has quickly become the focus of the entire Hollywood. Many professional magazines have assessed that with the potential shown by Toy Story, if it chooses to go public, the market value of this animation studio will not be less than one billion US dollars.

The media quickly uncovered the old story that Eric bought Pixar from Jobs for $20 million. At this time, Jobs was still struggling to run his own computer company, next. When faced with a reporter who suddenly appeared in front of him and asked him how he felt, he listened. Jobs, who had come to the cause and effect, said nothing.

But in private, Jobs quickly made a phone call to Eric who was far away in Punk City. After congratulating Eric, Gang Master Joe seized this opportunity without hesitation and asked Eric to provide an order for next.

After Toy Story. Pixar is definitely going to expand again. Jobs' computer company also produces professional-level computers. Hearing Jobs' request, Eric readily agreed without thinking, as if it was for the future layout of Apple. A human investment, although there is little hope of being appreciated by Jobs' character. Apple will be the world's largest company by market value. Eric didn't plan to let it go at first, but now is not the best time to get involved in Apple. Eric also does not have enough funds and energy for the time being.

One week after Toy Story hits theaters, June 28. After a huge premiere, Cutthroat Island was also released on a massive scale in 2,500 North American theaters.

Compared with Toy Story's high-profile screenings to accumulate word-of-mouth, Cutthroat Island has invested 35 million US dollars in publicity funds in various publicity channels, but only conducted a few public test screenings, and invited people. All are media and film critics with a good relationship with Disney. With the benefits of Disney, it's certainly impossible for these people to speak ill of Cutthroat Island, but it's also impossible to brag about the movie with such fanfare that they'll be slapped in the face in the future. Therefore, the movie reviews about Cut Throat Island appeared in the newspapers, and the focus of the writing basically focused on the grand scenes and beautiful scenery of this movie. As for the plot, basically not many people are willing to talk about this.

Although the news that the investment of Terminator 2 exceeded 100 million yuan first came out, Cut Throat Island was the first Hollywood blockbuster to be released with an investment of over 100 million yuan. Therefore, on the day of the film's release, there were a lot of great expectations for the film. of moviegoers walked into the movie theater, so Cutthroat Island grossed $9 million on its first day of release.

But then the situation took a turn for the worse. After the movie was released, it was impossible for Disney to control the word-of-mouth public opinion of Cutthroat Island. The next day, there was a one-sided crusade against Cutthroat Island in the media, and many famous film critics even made sharp criticisms unceremoniously, saying that Cutthroat Island was an 'expensive visual garbage piled up by 100 million US dollars' '.

Some ordinary movie fans who were interviewed after watching the movie even expressed their extreme disappointment with Cutthroat Island, claiming that it was a scattered comic book without a plot.

The film industry in North America has been developing for nearly a hundred years. Because of the low ticket prices, watching movies in the United States is a very popular entertainment activity. In addition, there are many choices, which means that in this mature market, bad films are the most common form of entertainment. Not much living space.

Therefore, on the second day of its release, the box office of Cutthroat Island plummeted to more than 5 million US dollars the next day, and fell again to only more than 3 million US dollars on the third day.

On its first three days, Cutthroat Island earned $17 million at the box office. If you don't look at the box office trend, this result is not too miserable.

But three days later, the attendance rate of Cutthroat Island has slipped to the brink of being forced to be painted. After the first week, the total box office of Cutthroat Island has accumulated to 20 million, which means that in four working days, The film only earned a measly 3 million at the box office. In the second week, 1,000 theaters directly downloaded the film that had no attendance, while the remaining 1,500 theaters could only cry without tears because they signed a two-week reflection contract with Disney. persist in.

I don't know if the quality of Cut Throat Island is too poor, and the early publicity of Toy Story and Terminator 2 has aroused the audience's rebellious psychology. In the second week of the release of Toy Story, the box office not only did not fall, but instead increased. After the end of the second week, Toy Story once again received more than 49 million US dollars at the box office, although it accounted for this summer. , but the achievement of almost breaking 100 million in two weeks has once again made many people take a breath.

Terminator 2 has also been promoted with gimmicks costing more than 100 million yuan before. This time, fans have also become cautious. Therefore, on July 3, the first day of Terminator 2, the box office was not very good. There are only more than 8 million, but Cameron's carefully crafted thrilling plot and the appearance of liquid metal robots have quickly won a lot of praise for Terminator 2. After 8 million on the first day, it received 14 million in the next two days. $11 million and $33 million over the three-day weekend even surpassed the previous Toy Story.

As for Cut Throat Island, it got more than 5 million US dollars at the box office again in the second week, and then collectively painted, it was completely swept into the ranks of Hollywood's bad movies, two weeks of release, a total of Cut Throat Island led The income of 25 million US dollars came, and the total investment in the production and distribution of this film reached 140 million US dollars. Because of the negative comments on one side of word of mouth, the overseas distribution of Cutthroat Island should not be considered. Video tapes and TV broadcasts The right income is better than nothing. Therefore, Disney and Robert Shea will share a huge loss of up to 120 million. (To be continued)