Birth of an actor

At the end of November, when James Cameron was a guest on NBC's "Today Show" (also known as "Today"), he took the lead in announcing the trailer for "Titanic", a magnificent shot of the Titanic sailing in the Pacific Ocean , the exquisite costumes and props, the characters reappearing like oil paintings, and the beautiful theme song with Scottish bagpipes as the main theme have indeed attracted widespread attention from the media and the public, but the popularity is far less than expected.

The mainstream media in the United States, such as "New York Times", "Washington Post" and other Hollywood newspapers and magazines such as "Hollywood Report" and "Variety Show" have reported and analyzed the trailer of "Titanic" But even the friendliest "Variety Show" is only given half of the page-you know, James Cameron is on "The Today Show", the oldest and most watched morning news show in the United States. "ah! NBC's "The Tonight Show" not only occupies the top spot in the ratings of American news programs all the year round, but also earns hundreds of millions of dollars for NBC every year from a single advertising fee. The host Katie Couric also has a golden touch. Ability, many of the news he broadcasts will become the headlines of the day in the United States, and the guests he invites and the program topics he makes will often become popular all over the country in the shortest time.

The "Today Show" has such a great influence, plus James Cameron, who is one of the most familiar and favorite Hollywood directors to the audience, no matter how you look at it, the response should not be so indifferent-in fact, the ratings are quite low. Well, the ratings of this episode of "Today Show" are quite high, especially when the trailer was broadcast, the peak viewership almost reached 4000 million. To say that the response was lukewarm actually means that the media's response was not as enthusiastic as expected.

In this era when the Internet has not yet ushered in explosive development and paper media dominates the world, the media has too much guidance for the public. It is not an exaggeration to say that journalists in this era are truly "uncrowned kings".When the most important publicity mouthpieces have little interest in "Titanic", it would be hell if the public reacted strongly.

So, what caused the release of the "Titanic" trailer to be collectively coldly received by the media?

Without him, the main reason is that the few internal previews held by 200th Century Fox did not work well-"an unprecedented love epic, with the potential to attack the Oscars, but the box office...is not easy to say. The nearly [-]-minute movie is twice as long as the average movie, do the audience really have the patience to sit in the movie theater for so long?" Most of the film critics who participated in the preview meeting said so-Hollywood industry commented on "Titanic" No. "The release does not report any optimism.

It’s true that the movie trailers released on the “Today Show” are great, but everyone in Hollywood understands that “a trailer is not equal to a feature film”—a feature film should be at least 10 to 1 minutes long, while a trailer should be 3 to [-] minutes long. Wait, no matter how bad the movie is, as long as the editor is not bad, he can cut a wonderful trailer.In Hollywood, there are two biggest functions of trailers, one is to coax the audience into the cinema, and the other is to use the trailer to sell the movie before the post-production is completed.

In fact, not only the media, but also the producer and distributor of [-]th Century Fox lacked confidence in the market reaction after the film was released, and even had pessimistic thoughts-if optimistic, "Titanic" would have been released in the United States already. Instead of delaying from the beginning of [-] to the end of [-].

Why are people so pessimistic?

If you actually understand the thoughts of people in the Hollywood industry, you will find that their pessimism is also very reasonable——

One reason is that the investment in "Titanic" is too large, [-] million U.S. dollars, the highest movie investment in history. Calculated according to the box office share after the release of Hollywood movies, the film's global box office must reach at least [-] million U.S. dollars to achieve it. When the balance of payments is more than [-] million US dollars, it is considered to have truly entered the profitable stage.

As of 1997, on the global movie box office list, the movie that ranks first in the history of film history is "The Lion King" in 1994, with a global box office of about 5000 million US dollars, and the second in film history is "The Lion King" released in 1993. Jurassic Park, with a global box office of about 2000 million U.S. dollars. The third film history is "Independence Day" released in the summer of 1996, with a global box office of about 1000 million U.S. dollars. The fourth film history is "Star Wars" released in 1977. ", with a global box office of about 9000 million U.S. dollars. The fifth in film history is "ET" released in 1982, then the sixth "Forrest Gump", the seventh "Jurassic Park 2", and the eighth "ET". Men in Black, the ninth "Star Wars 3", and the tenth "Home Alone". "Home Alone" grossed $300 million worldwide.

Among the top ten box office in film history, except for one cartoon ("The Lion King"), one politically correct theme movie ("Forrest Gump"), and one family carnival children's movie ("Home Alone"), basically all of them are Science fiction movies, themes are either space wars, aliens attacking the earth, or disaster movies. As for romance movies, there is not a single one.

In "Titanic", there are neither aliens nor dinosaurs, and there is no drama that fans like to save the earth and save all mankind. Some of them are catastrophes that caused thousands of deaths and full of love, love also prevailed.

Is such a love story packed with the sinking of the Titanic, one of the most tragic shipwrecks in history, really easy to sell?If the box office fails to reach more than [-] million US dollars, [-]th Century Fox and Paramount estimate that it will be difficult to recover their investment.

However, no one dares to make such a guarantee that the box office of "Titanic" will exceed US$[-] million.

The second reason is that the current Hollywood is a bit "talking about water".

In July 1995, Hollywood had already released a water-related giant commercial production, and it was "Titanic" that had the highest investment cost before filming.The pre-production cost of the science fiction film "Future Water World" has reached 7 million US dollars. "Future Water World" is produced by Universal. It tells a story that after 500 years, due to global warming and the melting of two-level glaciers, human beings can only live on water, and land has become a rare thing.

As the film with the highest investment in film history at that time, "Future Water World", which had a profound theme and special effects and was very conscientious, suffered a disastrous box office failure. In the end, the North American box office only received 8823 million US dollars, which made Universal lose blood. It is also a "water" theme. The future of "Titanic" is clouded - who said Hollywood isn't superstitious?In fact, this circle is the most convinced of all kinds of good luck or bad luck, and it is very powerful to adapt to the wind.

Of course, in addition to these two biggest factors, there are other reasons why the industry is not optimistic about "Titanic": the movie is too long, 194 minutes, whether it will make the audience drowsy or not is the second, the key That is, when the film is released, the film schedule density and the number of shows in theaters will be directly affected. For example, if an auditorium can show ten 90-minute films a day, then it will be the turn of "Titanic" , only five shows will be screened, which will directly affect the box office revenue of the theaters.

Also, when the Tokyo Film Festival opened in Japan in October this year, "Titanic" was actually screened at the film festival as a screening film, but it hardly caused much waves. Except for reports from the Japanese media, European Neither the American media nor the American media bothered to pay much attention to it. It is absolutely not too much to describe it as "the scene is deserted".

With so many unfavorable factors piled up together, it’s no wonder that from the distributor’s professional box office predictors to the media, from the [-]th Century Fox and other producers to the film critics, they collectively bad-mouthed the future of the film——”Titanic” "Will it be a $[-] million hit?

Accompanied by growing doubts, "Titanic" finally finalized its North American and global release time: December 1997, 12.

……

Released on Christmas Eve, "Titanic" is facing unimaginable competitive pressure. There was the sequel "Scream 2" of "Scream" which made a small-budget and high-grossing miracle last year. And the classic horror film series "Alien 4", followed by the Olympic work "As Good as It Gets" starring Jack Nicholson and Italian director Roberto Bernini's masterpiece "Life is Beautiful" about World War II, even in 12 On the 19th, there were two heavyweight movies that stole the limelight from "Titanic". They were the latest 007 film "Tomorrow's Heaven" and Disney's annual big production "Mouse Catch".

"Tomorrow Never Dies" is the No.18 007 series film, with a production cost of 1000 million U.S. dollars. The "Fifth James Bond" Pierce Brosnan starred in "007: Golden Eye" two years ago, and it was on the board as soon as it was released. No. 5000 on the North American box office list, the final global box office was as high as [-] million US dollars. Pierce Brosnan's successful experience in playing the role of James Bond, people basically don't have to worry about the box office results of "Tomorrow Never Dies".

And "Mousecatcher" is another family movie produced by Disney. The concept is similar to "Home Alone". From the beginning of production, it is aimed at the Christmas schedule and audiences of all ages. Disney may not make other types of movies well enough. But I have a lot of experience in how to please the whole family and let parents bring their children to the cinema together at Christmas. "Mouse Catcher" is aimed at the market of all ages. As long as the quality of the film is decent, the box office is basically not too much for Disney. Worry too much.

"Tomorrow Never Dies" and "Mousecatcher" have a bright future, so who should worry about the box office?The Titanic, of course.

No matter how reluctant [-]th Century Fox and Paramount are, they cannot avoid the fact that the premiere will collide with "Tomorrow Never Dies" and "Mousetrap". Fortunately, when fighting against the last two movies, try not to lose the wind as much as possible.

On the evening of December 1997, 12, the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles was star-studded like never before.

First, Disney brought together many well-known child stars and even animated characters at the Los Angeles Music Center to cheer for the premiere of "Mouse Catch". Fiennes, Hugh Grant, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor and more in attendance at Tomorrow Never Die at the El Capitan Theater, followed by Fox and Paramount Invitation letter, invite hundreds of media to participate in the world premiere of "Titanic" held in the Chinese theater, and directly request all the cast and crew to attend in costumes.

The Chinese Theater and the Los Angeles Music Center are both the venues for the former Oscars. The El Capitan Theater is the place where former US President Nixon once delivered a speech. Not only are the three theaters equally prestigious, they are also on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Capitan Theater and the Chinese Theater are very close, almost opposite.

MGM, Fox, and Disney are fighting each other with great joy, but they suffer from the media reporters carrying heavy cameras. Should they go to the Los Angeles Music Center, the El Capitan Theater, or China? What about the theater?It is unlikely that a newspaper will have three different interview teams focus on the three premieres, and this is not the night of the Oscars. Therefore, on this night, the most interesting scene on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is——

Justin Timberlake, JCChasez, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera reunited on the red carpet in front of the Los Angeles Music Center. Invited by Disney, they are joining hands to cheer for the release of "Mouse Catcher". The media reporters are carrying "long guns and short guns" to shoot non-stop, especially the entertainment news reporter's relationship between Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. The love story is very interesting.

"Hugh Grant and fiancee on the 'Tomorrow Never Die' red carpet! And Pierce Brosnan!"

Some well-informed source shouted from the outermost circle of the media circle, and the number of reporters gathered in front of the Disney child stars suddenly decreased by half, and those who disappeared all ran towards the direction of the El Capitan Theater .

It seems that compared to the sweet and sour teen romance between Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, the two former Disney child stars, the media prefers the married life of the new "James Bond" Pierce Brosnan Is it happy, and when Hugh Grant's career was hit hard by the prostitution incident, his girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley never left him, and the two were even engaged, and other news that ordinary readers prefer to watch.

The bright smiles of the Disney child stars couldn't hold back when they saw the reporters running almost halfway. "Britney Spears" didn't lose much attention because the microphone in front of her was relatively tall, so she could still He answered the reporter's question "I heard you and Justin broke up again?" with a smile on his face. However, the smile quickly became so shallow that it almost disappeared—an extremely loud voice came from half a street away. Screaming, almost all the media were affected by this wave of noise, and turned their heads to observe the movement.

"Is it "Tomorrow Empire" or "Titanic"?

"Any A-lister invited to walk down the red carpet? Could it be Julia Roberts?"

The reporters whispered to each other, exchanged information with their peers, and secretly planned that in case a celebrity with a high topic reappears, they must rush over to seize the most favorable interview position.

But they didn't have to, because the next scream was loud enough to be heard across the street:

"Will—!!!"

"Leo --!!!"

The main creators of "Mousecatcher" and "Tomorrow Empire" rolled their eyes at the same time: What happened couldn't be more obvious-the blonde, blue-eyed and black-haired blue-eyed pair of "Titanic" came to mess things up.

A lot of media that had gone away before the red carpet at the Los Angeles Music Center once again "lost". Except for several newspapers and magazines with teenagers as the main readership group, such as "17 Years Old" and other publications, the reporters of other important media are almost It's almost time to go.

And next to the red carpet at the El Capitan Theater, the situation is a little better. After all, Pierce Brosnan, the new James Bond, has just appeared not long ago. As long as there is a new series of the 007 series, it will always create a big hit around the world. With a low degree of attention, the media has accumulated a lot of questions to ask the new "MI6 secret agent", but in the process of waiting to call Pierce Brosnan, the reporters are obviously half-hearted. Yi Yi glanced back from time to time, whispering and buzzing.

"Will and Leo are here?"

"Even Cameron is here, and I heard that Kate Winslet is also here."

"It's full of people, and it's hard to see clearly from such a distance. Shall we hurry over there?"

"But there are four more people in front of Brosnan, and it's my turn to ask questions. In the past, the Chinese Theater could only take pictures and not squeeze in the front... But, who are the female companions of Will and Leo?"

"There is no female companion. They came here by car together. It's a good personal relationship, isn't it?"

"And what about Kate Winslet?"

"I heard that Will and Leo appeared in an extended Lincoln. The three leading actors didn't invite their companions. It's a bit too cautious."

"If Kate Winslet is in a relationship with Will or Leo and finds another person to cover it up...Damn it! It's probably true! It's not scientific at all that the three leading actors will not bring their companions to the premiere. There must be something weird in it!"

The reporters couldn't stay any longer, and they started playing "Disappear" one after another. Within a few minutes, the scene outside the Los Angeles Music Center was replayed at the entrance of the El Capitan Theater. Although there were still many movie fans and fans, There was also a lot of screaming and uproar, but the reporters were literally more than half gone.

Watching many journalists with cameras on the periphery of the crowd scrambling towards the Chinese Theater, as if there was a huge attraction there, Pierce Brosnan complained depressingly: "It's just two very beautiful It’s just a kid, what are you kidding about!”—Fortunately, because most of the microphone in front of him has disappeared, and Pierce Brosnan’s voice is not particularly loud, the only person who heard this sentence was his female partner, otherwise , Tomorrow's newspaper will definitely be lively.

And on the red carpet in front of the Chinese Theatre, William was smiling and chatting softly with Kate Winslet, who was traveling with him, while waving to the media and fans on both sides in exchange for a burst of screams. His smile is charming and personable. , it looks like they are discussing Shelley or Shakespeare with Kate Winslet from an artistic family, but in fact, two people who seem to have a good temperament and are right are talking about more topics than Shelley or Shakespeare" Interesting" much more.

Kate Winslet covered her mouth and resisted the urge to laugh and asked Leonardo DiCaprio: "So it's true, Leo? You were kicked out of the house and hunted down by your ex-girlfriend. Why don't you hide at Will's house?"