The entertainment industry shouldn't be like this

Chapter 160 Our North American Folkways Are Simple ([-] in [-])

"Is it luck, or is it really magical? "

Frank, the head of Universal Pictures' China region, put down the newspaper that reported the international explosion of "The Silence of the Lambs" and director Wang Wei's "official" response to the "surrender incident".

He took off from the Shanghai stock market, changed planes once, and spent half a day and one night before returning to Los Angeles.

Without taking a break, Frank first asked about the announcement of the movie in North America.

"Only one national newspaper with headlines?"

"Yes." It was Benjamin, Frank's old friend in the distribution department of the headquarters, who answered him.

"You guys are too careless." Frank couldn't help complaining.

"It's good to have one. This is a national newspaper. If the topic of this movie is not really discussed, would you want to rely on PR to get the headlines? Don't even think about it."

Benjamin gestured at the difficulty, and then said: "What's more, there are dozens of regional newspapers. Although not all of them made headlines, they also carried out relevant reports. Adding up, the publicity is not small."

Frank snorted, "If the miraculous story surrounding "The Silence of the Lambs" happened in China, it would definitely be on the headlines of all the newspapers!"

His old friend couldn't deny it, shrugged and said: "You also said, this is not a story that happened in North America."

Frank was speechless.

Doesn't he know that he often wanders around the branches of the world, the American people are notoriously indifferent to the world outside the United States.

Probably because of North America's isolated overseas location, or because of the tradition of isolationism, the American people instinctively look down on other countries in the world, and all their thinking is absolutely centered on themselves.

Of course, people in almost all countries don't care much about international affairs and only care about their own lives, but isn't it useless for them to care?

As for the United States, as one of the leading countries in the world, many times, the degree of ignorance of its citizens about the overseas world makes people feel desperate!

Frank, who doesn't have much family and country feelings, doesn't feel desperate. He just has a toothache because the headquarters of Universal Pictures can't make full use of the overseas momentum of "The Silence of the Lambs".

"In the final analysis, the publicity and distribution costs are still too little." Frank continued to complain.

The distribution rights of "The Silence of the Lambs" in North America were handed over to Universal Pictures, and the investment in publicity and distribution would naturally have to be undertaken by Universal Pictures first.

After watching the film, the distribution department of the headquarters readily agreed to introduce the film. However, in terms of publicity and distribution, it was not at all cheerful!

"We only spent 1000 million US dollars, which is obviously not enough!"

According to Frank's plan, why not start with 4000 to [-] million?Now at least two-thirds have been cut, no wonder the publicity is far lower than he expected.

Benjamin, however, took it for granted: "To be honest, the 1000 million publicity investment is already a lot. You must know that this is a film made by Chinese people after all."

Frank breathed a sigh of relief, and said, "It's not that you haven't seen it, it can be regarded as a Hollywood work made by Chinese people!"

"But the characters are basically oriental faces, aren't they? Generally, imported Huaguo movies are announced on this scale."

"Well, what you said is correct. But I think the company will regret it, and it will definitely regret it." Frank chattered to express his dissatisfaction.

Benjamin still shrugged.

Of course he knew where his old friend's dissatisfaction came from.

Frank's main job in China is to develop the eastern market.

It is certainly more valuable to open up a new market, but it also requires a lot of resources and takes a long time. If Frank does not want to stay in a foreign country for the rest of his life, he must make some achievements as soon as possible—such as introducing a few blockbusters.

In the final analysis, opening up new markets is also for profit. If you can introduce many popular works, the money you earn locally is also money; the land of the East.

In a sense, if a movie wants to sell well, publicity is even more important than the movie itself.

It's just that his thoughts are his own, and shrewd businessmen don't see rabbits and don't scatter eagles.

For imported movies, just like original movies, without the support of local box office data, even the top five in Hollywood would not dare to make a big bet on publicity.

They usually prepare two sets of plans -

If the box office data of the first day and the next day of the movie are average, or even poor, the investment in publicity and distribution will be gradually reduced or even cut off directly, so as to quickly stop losses;
On the contrary, if the data is good, they will quickly invest in the funds and manpower they have prepared long ago, and stir up the popularity of the movie as soon as possible to obtain more profits.

Although, like China Entertainment, according to the sharing habit between the distributor and the theater, as the screening time prolongs, more and more box office revenue will be distributed to the latter.

——In other words, waiting until the movie is released for large-scale publicity will be detrimental to the production and distribution companies in terms of income.

However, investors' first consideration is always the safety of capital, so regardless of whether it is China Entertainment or Hollywood's distributors, they will still choose to do this.

——Unless it’s a sequel to a hit.

It's not that Frank doesn't understand this. The problem is that he thinks "The Silence of the Lambs" is the kind of blockbuster that is extremely topical and deserves the same treatment as the hit sequel.

But including his old friends, the publishing department of the headquarters is more disapproving.

"I also think the three 'Murderer Surrender Incidents' are amazing, but as its director said, this is just a moment of luck. After the initial enthusiasm, it will be a normal thriller."

"Actually, it's all over." Frank looked at his old friend, paused, and told the latest news he just got off the plane.
"You can probably see this news in the media tomorrow - this movie continues its miraculous record in Annan: Another serial killer, after watching the movie, ran to the police station and surrendered himself!"

"Watt?" Benjamin straightened up, which was a bit of a surprise.

"You mean, it might actually have some kind of magic power?"

This time, it was Frank who shrugged.

"Who knows? Anyway, I have a hunch that the company will definitely regret the cautious investment in the announcement."

He was saving face for his old friend, and replaced "cowardly and afraid of death" with "cautious".

After all, the distribution department was almost stuck with the lower limit of the distribution agreement he had negotiated with Dunhuang, and only managed to get more than 2000 opening screens.

It is true that it is not impossible to fight for more films after the box office hits, but as mentioned above, if you fight after the big hit, you will not be able to get the maximum benefit.

"The premise is that this movie is really magical and can replicate the miraculous records in North America." Benjamin's attitude became a little more serious.

"Just wait and see." Frank shook his head.

At this point, all he could do was pray.

What to pray for?
Of course, pray that criminals line up to see this movie-so that, even if its "magic" is discounted, it can "hit" one or two criminals.

……

Whether criminals in North America will line up to watch "The Silence of the Lambs" is hard to say; but North American fans who like to watch horror movies, after the movie is officially released, they really line up to see it.

After all, because of the attribute of "self-contained serial killer", this film has been labeled "the scariest oriental film" by Universal Pictures.

With this kind of publicity, not to mention other audiences, horror movie lovers flocked to the cinema.

Thanks to the large number of horror film audiences in North America, "The Silence of the Lambs" scored more than 1200 million US dollars in one fell swoop on the Saturday of its premiere.

The next day, Sunday, they made persistent efforts and won a single-day box office of more than ten million US dollars.

Moreover, its word-of-mouth has maintained quite well.

Especially North American film critics have given quite high evaluation, saying that this is an oriental thriller with "amazing", "profound theme" and "full of western elements".

However, Universal Pictures, as the distributor, was not too happy.

because--

"Audiences who like horror themes don't care about the evaluation of film critics." Benjamin said.

Frank was silent.

He also knew it was true.

For those complex literary films or dazzling action films, audiences may need the help of film critics to distinguish which movies are bad and which movies are worth watching.

But for horror films, which have a very fixed audience, the influence of film critics is actually limited.

Not to mention, most film critics don't appreciate horror films very much-don't look at them all giving praise to an oriental thriller, to a large extent, it is just based on the psychology of hunting for novelty.

What disappointed Universal even more was——

"It's been two days. The movie's magic power of attracting criminals to surrender has not grown in North America after all." Benjamin looked at his old friend Frank with some sympathy.

It is said that the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.

The film's outburst..."It's pretty much over there."

In fact, this is also the unanimous view of many box office forecasting agencies in North America.

They combined the scale of the film's release and the North American audience's interest in the film as shown by random surveys conducted on the street, and they gave a relatively conservative box office expectation.

——The North American box office of this movie can probably reach the expectation of 5000 million to 6000 million US dollars.

Judging from its performance on the first weekend, it is equivalent to their belief that the box office performance of this film will drop sharply when it enters the working day, even far greater than the decline of ordinary Hollywood movies on working days, and the rate of decline is still faster than that of ordinary Hollywood movies. be quick!
Of course, they also said that if all the characters were replaced by white actors, the North American box office might reach 9000 million to 1 million US dollars.

To be honest, this is already a very high evaluation for a thriller-even in the current North American film market, if the box office exceeds [-] million US dollars, it is definitely a success and a big-selling level.

And if the North American box office can reach 6000 million US dollars, it can also rank in the top four among the imported Huaguo movies-if the investment scale of the top three is taken into account, this oriental movie can no longer be successful in North America.

However, in front of Hollywood's first-line productions, its size is not enough.

At this time, in an interview, a vice president of Disney Films, when asked "Is "The Silence of the Lambs" the biggest competitor in the same period", he laughed and said,
"I haven't seen that movie yet, and we're one of the competitors now, so it's not easy to comment on it, but I really don't think it's our biggest competitor."

When the reporter reminded him that "this movie is said to have some kind of magical power and has a fatal attraction to murderers", the vice president was even more disdainful——

"You mean magic power? I think it's the evil power from the east. Only in the land of the east can the evil power be attracted by the evil power!"

"In North America, the people are simple and honest, and the level of law and order ranks among the highest in the world. The violence between people has dropped to the lowest level in history, and there is no soil for evil forces to breed!"

——It is so high-profile because it was released at the same time, but with a weekend box office score of more than 4000 million US dollars, there is no suspense over the head of "The Silence of the Lambs". The film that topped the box office list was produced and distributed by Disney.

Moreover, it is one of the few successful live-action films of this animated film company.

Therefore, suppressing and belittling an opponent is nothing more than a trivial matter for Disney, who is now enjoying the spring breeze.

In this regard, Frank, who strongly advocated the introduction of the film, remained silent.

He is waiting, waiting for a turning point.

……

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, at the headquarters in Dunhuang, Wang Chuanqi and Wang Wei were also waiting for news from the other side.

In their view, they are fighting an uphill battle. The movie "The Silence of the Lambs" is their army, and the film markets of various countries are the battlefields they want to conquer one by one.

Now, the Eastern battlefield can already be sure of a "complete victory", but to capture the Western battlefield, the North American battlefield must first be captured.

So, at the end of May [-]st, "The Silence of the Lambs" finally launched an "offensive" on the North American battlefield.

Oh, no, there is no May [-]st gear in North America.

Because as we all know, although May Day, the world's first holiday for workers and working people, originated in North America, it is unique to the people of North America.

Of course, this is not "simple and simple folk customs", and there is also a well-known reason behind it-the capitalist base camp has always been afraid of concepts such as "proletariat" and "working people".

Whoops, far away.

Anyway, Wang Wei almost laughed out his abs when he heard the saying "Our North American folk customs are simple and simple"!
"Either our North American counterparts have thick skins that make me feel ashamed; or our definition of 'folk customs' is completely different!"

Old Wang almost laughed out loud, "I guess it's the latter. Texas, where everyone holds a gun and has a lot of martial arts, is said to be the most honest place in North America."

"Hahaha……"

There is a joyous atmosphere in the office.

After a while, Wang Wei stopped laughing with difficulty, and asked, "What does Universal say? Such an outrageous stepping on people, if they don't do it, I will do it myself!"

In his mind, he has already thought of the well-known phrase - Gotham City is simple and honest, Arkham is full of talents!

And when Old Wang saw the eager expression on this guy's face, he just felt a headache.

He just wanted to stop this guy's "unreasonable thoughts" - after all, Hollywood giants like Universal must know the preferences of the North American market the best, so don't just be a disservice to them.

Then the secretary came in.

He sent the latest news from North America.

Lao Wang looked at it, his mouth opened wider and wider, and finally he was able to stuff a duck egg.

For a moment, he met Wang Wei's curious gaze, and swallowed hard: "I was wrong, the folk customs in North America are simple, it's really not a cover!"

……

　I... oh...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)