Birth of an actor

"Rachel, what are you doing? Even if it's just against your back, I can feel the anger rising up." The roommate asked.

"I'm explaining to people why Entertainment Weekly is a biased, unprofessional newspaper and why Andre Acheson is a sensationalist." "Pa" while typing on the keyboard and replied.

"Okay, after you finish explaining, can we go shopping?"

"Well, no. Me and my friends, I mean those like-minded friends on the Internet, have a lot to do."

"Like what?"

"We are making a web game, a very interesting little game that can be played by opening the link, similar to the secret room clearance. When you open the link found on the Internet or sent to you by others, you will automatically enter a game page. The role assigned to Susan in "Meet Joe Black" is trapped in a bedroom in an old castle. You have to collect hidden clues and find the key within the specified time to pass. If you pass within the specified time, Will's Joe Blake will read love poems to you, Anthony Hopkins' father will bless you from the sidelines, and then 'thump, thump, thump,' and you can get married."

"What if it doesn't pass within the stipulated time?"

"The whole room turns blood red, Anthony Hopkins turns into Professor Hannibal and cooks you into a plate of steak, and the real Grim Reaper watches you get eaten with a hood and a scythe."

"Sounds scary and fun, if you guys really make it, please let me play first please? Also, don't you think you're a bit too fangirl? If a man has done so much, he will probably be jealous."

Victor is Rachel's boyfriend.

"I'm afraid not. Because, uh, Victor also made this game with us, and he also recruited several college students majoring in related majors to help us for free. I really don't know how he did it. Anyway, if you want to Jealousy, the jealous person should be the one I guessed right, it’s normal for me to be fan of Will, Victor? Now I have to check his wardrobe from time to time to see if he has hidden a few purple shirts.”

"...Now I know why you and Victor are a match made in heaven. They look calm and rational, but they are actually crazy guys who are fans and fans."

"Well, thanks for the compliment?" Rachel shrugged and continued typing on the keyboard.

'I'm not complimenting you at all! 'The roommate murmured helplessly, but she was a little envious in her heart: a lover who has so many common hobbies and so many things to do together is also very good, isn't it?

……

"Hey Mike, check out this short comic. It's all over the internet right now, I'm dying of laughter hahahaha."

The man named Mike walked up to his colleague's computer screen and looked at it. After a short while, he also burst into laughter, and he couldn't help laughing until he bent over: "A film that combines "Titanic" and "Meeting Joe A short comic combining Black and White? About how Reaper impatiently waited for the Titanic to sink, waiting for Ruth to wear a life jacket and have the plank all to himself, and then Jack was soaked in water and froze to death with nothing, and then again The soul that hugs Jack and screams 'I've got the man!' and the comic is called The Revenge of Carl Hockley? Oh my god, who drew this amazing comic? "

"It seems to be a fan of William Bradley. The cartoon was first circulated from his personal website. There is also this computer-processed picture, which is also very funny."

"Hahahaha, my stomach is going to die, it's the first time I found out that the death stalker is so fun, is there any more?"

"And some short comics about Reaper and Scream, Reaper and Shakespeare, Reaper and Jane Austen, if I showed you right now you'd pass out laughing. And a little escape room game, very interesting, But if you fail to clear the level, the ending will probably be a bit tragic and scary. To be honest, when I failed to clear the level for the first time, the ending screen and music almost didn’t scare me out of my chair.”

"It's all Grim Reaper, and it's all about the movie 'Meet Joe Black'? I'm starting to get interested in that movie."

"What, you haven't seen the movie?"

"Not yet, you know, the newspaper reviews of the movie..."

"It's a good movie, and some of the criticism in the newspapers has some truth to it, and some of it is complete nonsense."

"Really? Well, I'll go to the cinema tonight."

"I'll watch it again when I get off work."

……

Universal Studios Los Angeles, CEO's Office.

"Shi, Ms. Schneider!" Assistant Jim rushed into the office holding a piece of paper almost all the way, and completely forgot to knock on the door.

In the past, if Jim dared to be so reckless, Stacy Schneider would have scolded him out of the office long ago, or simply let him go to the crew to follow the film for a few weeks, but now, Stacy Schneider has long lost Interested in maintaining status and punishing others, she just sighed softly and asked in a tired voice that could not conceal: "What are you holding, Jim, a fax from Long Meyer's office? I will never accept it." To be fired in this way, he had to at least call me himself."

Stacy Schneider's several films this year have not been successful, and Universal even believes that the current failure of "Meet Joe Black" is due to her failure to produce in place at the beginning, and if it is not for the re-editing of the film, perhaps the current results It will be even worse. Reminiscent of Stacy Schneider blindly believing in Martin Brest before, investing 9000 million US dollars in the film, but now facing a situation where he can’t even recover the cost, there are now discussions all over the world, Everyone thinks that the position of the top person in charge of the Los Angeles area will probably be changed. Even Stacy Schneider himself sometimes flashes this idea, and has been waiting for the established destiny to come.

However, what Jim said next made her a little unable to believe her ears.

"Not bad news!" Jim said incoherently: "The box office, the box office is back up!"

"What?!" Stacy Schneider immediately realized what Jim was holding in his hand: "Give me the data!" In her career, she had never jumped up from behind the desk so gracefully, and snatched it. The things in the assistant's hands are too old, but she can't care about anything now.

And the North American box office data of the past week written on the copy paper made Stacy Schneider's eyes widen in disbelief.

In the case that none of the screening theaters were expanded, the box office of the movie in the second week was 800 million US dollars more than the premiere week?

"What happened?" Stacey Schneider asked, her voice too high-pitched.

"I don't know why, it just happened!" Jim couldn't control his volume a little bit: "But it's probably related to the Internet, because movies have been the hottest topic on the Internet in the past three days! Almost every website Every forum can see it!"

'the Internet?Could it be the handwriting of the marketing department?Why hasn't anyone reported this to me, have they already excluded me from the rights center?No, I haven't gotten a dismissal call yet, and they can't bypass me for any important decisions related to this movie, so whatever happens on the Internet, it's not our doing, and no one else is kind enough to help, it's It must be an accident, a group spontaneous behavior... I have to figure out what is going on first, what is the reason for the box office to go up against the trend, and the marketing department?Where are those idiots in marketing and why did Jim report this first! '

Stacy Schneider turned her head quickly and muttered to herself, but she must have unconsciously spoken some of the words, because Jim had already grabbed the office landline and called the marketing office.

Stacy Schneider stared at the piece of paper in his hand, studying the figures on it. In addition to the box office, there were other data related to the movie on this piece of paper. For example, in the past week, "Meet Joe" The attendance rate of "Black" has risen from less than half to about 80.00%, and the word-of-mouth in the media is also improving, and the most important thing is that the IMDB score has appeared low and high. When the film was first released, the IMDB score was insufficient. [-] points, and now, the score has broken through [-]!This must be caused by a large number of netizens flooding IMDB in the past few days, and all of them gave the movie a very high score.

She must seize this opportunity and fight a beautiful turnaround!

……

San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle newsroom.

"An urgent topic for a temporary supplement." The editor-in-chief called all the reporters of the film column together for a meeting and said: "Meet Joe Black was a double-failed film at the box office ten days ago. The disaster of injury, but now it has become the box office champion of this week! What a shocking counterattack, I know that now it has become one of the hottest topics in public opinion, everyone is discussing it, discussing the Internet Funny pics, comics and games, but I've called you here not to add another fire to a pot that's already boiling, but to find out who started it, How did it burn so well—the reason and process of the Jedi's counterattack in "Meet Joe Black"! I need reports related to this issue. Whoever finishes this feature first will have his name appear on the front page Headlines! Now, lads and ladies, get to work, time waits for no one!"

Reporter Wesley Morris almost returned to his cubicle with a kind of joyful excitement. While other colleagues were busy searching for information or looking up data on the Internet, he opened the document he was editing an hour ago , couldn't help twisting the chair and turning in a circle, a little cheer in my heart.

He has actually been working on the topic that the editor-in-chief just requested, and has been preparing for it for almost a week, and it is almost finished.

Wesley Morris went to the cinema to see "Meet Joe Black" when it premiered, and thought it was a good movie, although it was flat, but it was the soothing rhythm that touched people's hearts. A film review was written for the film, but unfortunately most of the content was deleted by the editor-in-chief. The reason given by the other party at the time Wesley still clearly remembers: "Audiences don't want to see a movie that they are not interested in. The film review occupies more than half of it. Newspaper space, I think 150 words is enough, leave the space for Disney's "A Bug's Life."

The decision of the editor-in-chief seemed correct at the time, because "Meet Joe Black" had polarized word-of-mouth and poor box office results at that time.

Wesley Morris has also studied why movies fail, and one of the important reasons for his conclusion is that Universal's publicity strategy is fundamentally wrong.In the marketing stage, Universal focused on the $9000 million investment in the movie and the beautiful and moving love between the Grim Reaper and the human woman. Joe Black is not "Titanic" at all, not only does it not have amazing special effects and the theme is not only love, the wrong publicity strategy dooms the audience who will like this type of film to not enter the cinema, but the audience who enter the cinema Many people will be disappointed.

Wesley Morris didn't expect "Meet Joe Black" to have a good comeback, or rather, no one expected it.

However, when he browsed the Internet a week ago and found that the Internet was full of news, pictures or discussions related to "Meeting Joe Black", he realized that something unusual was happening. Trusted by his natural keen sense of news, Wesley Morris immediately began to search for sources of public opinion and collect data.

Then Wesley Morris discovered William Bradley's personal website, discovered that the other party had a group of extremely loyal movie fans, and found that this group of talented and highly motivated movie fans spontaneously completed a Great movie marketing feat, the classic level can be written directly into the textbook——

William Bradley's fans have long occupied various movie rating websites with crazy enthusiasm, and spare no effort to reshape the movie's reputation. This is the most important foundation and the first link for the movie to be able to reverse the Jedi.

The pictures and comics that spoof "Meet Joe Black" and the characters of many classic movies together make everyone laugh after seeing it, and it is easy to spread and become popular on the Internet, no matter who started it He created them, and he came up with a genius idea. Every netizen who sees these interesting things thinks it is very funny, and they will share them with their friends with relish, and spread them to hundreds of people, covering the entire Internet. A chain of transmission is formed.This is the second link.

When William Bradley's handsome face is popular on the Internet, people will naturally wonder what kind of movie "Meet Joe Black" is?Who made these funny pictures?

When netizens are curious about movies and begin to consciously receive various information about movies, various reviews on movie rating websites such as newspapers, magazines and IMDB will appear in front of them. The word-of-mouth on the Internet has changed a long time ago. Most netizens who believe in it will buy a movie ticket and recommend it to friends. Even if they are still skeptical about word-of-mouth, there will still be many people holding "I want to see this movie for myself." It's good or bad" mentality walks into the cinema.

This is a publicity counterattack launched from the Internet, which has never happened in Hollywood before.

If there is one person standing behind this incident, then he is undoubtedly a top media talent, and every film company or advertising company will be eager to get him. If there is a group of people standing behind, then this must be the world The most talented, loyal and incredible fan base in the world, they saved the whole movie.

"How do you rate Meet Joe Black's dramatic changes in that time? Is it Hollywood's first true fan movie, or is it 'gold always shines' where fans just play the media role? role? In addition to traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, a new media force is emerging from the Internet..."

Wesley Morris re-edited the beginning of the news he wrote and sent it to the editor-in-chief after checking it three times. He had a hunch that he had won the headline position.And 10 minutes later, he received an email from the editor-in-chief, which contained only a short sentence, "Good job."