I’m in Hollywood

Following Brian O'Donnell's last words, the screen went dark, and before the lights in the projection hall could be turned on, buzzing discussions rang out.

Audiences who were able to attend the premiere were either special guests and media reporters, or loyal fans of the Secret Service Cinematic Universe. Everyone recognized at a glance that the petite girl in the easter egg was Angela Linde in Casino Royale 007 two years ago, the sister of the heroine Vesper Linde, a geek-like person. A talented girl and a backup angel of Charlie's Detective Agency.

At the end of 007 Casino Royale, Bond gave Angela Linde to the trio to take care of, but this role did not appear in Charlie's Angels 3 released in the summer.

Although Angela Linde's role in 007 Casino Royale is very small, it is also quite eye-catching. Many loyal fans of the agent movie universe hope that the girl can return, but they did not expect that she will appear in the easter eggs of The Fast and the Furious, so they can't help but guess the possible plot of the film in the future.

Of course, in addition to the roles, many people also think of Angela Linde's actor, Christina Aguilera, one of the teenage pop singers that Firefly Records has been promoting. The song has achieved a very good response, and it is said that the first album will be released soon.

Amid the chatter, the lights came on, the creators took the stage again, and there was warm applause in the screening hall.

After a simple curtain call and media interaction, the premiere ended, most of the audience began to leave, and another part of the invited guests began to move to the after-party hosted by MGM for the premiere.

Since all the audiences at the premiere were carefully selected, the next day, the comments about Fast and the Furious in the media were basically positive, and fans' expectations were also rising.

Two days passed quickly. After the last wave of publicity for the premiere, on New Year's Day in the new year, The Fast and the Furious was officially released on a large scale in 3,100 theaters across the United States. At the same time, the film's comments and word of mouth also spread out on a large scale.

...a perfect popcorn movie created by a traditional Hollywood three-stage script layout. The world view of the film is very perfect, and each protagonist has his own past, present and future. What is even more rare is that such a perfect world view The layout did not affect the narrative rhythm of the movie at all, and the hot and exciting car chase scenes made people immersed in it every second.

...Hollywood movies have never been short of drag racing scenes, and there are very few that focus on this subject while being commercially successful. Years ago, Tom Cruise's Thunderbolt was more of a literary work In the film, Jane de Bont's Speed ​​of Life and Death also has more criminal elements than drag racing. In comparison, The Fast and the Furious undoubtedly created a precedent for a theme. It is conceivable that several consecutive drag racing scenes in the film will definitely It will become the imitation of many similar films in the future.”

...The fast and furious racing scene is undoubtedly exciting, but at the same time, the film does an equally good job of detailing. Perhaps many people didn't notice that at the Dominic's house party, although the loud music and conversation covered up I heard the sound of the TV, but the news of a serious brawl in a nightclub playing on the TV screen is undoubtedly the scene of the trio raiding the outer Spectre base in the opening scene of Charlie's Angels 3. And, if my guess is correct ,

Brian O'Donnell's childhood friend Roman, mentioned more than once in the film, will definitely make an appearance in the film's sequel, of course, if there is a sequel, but there doesn't seem to be any suspense about it.

... After so many years, Rob Cohen finally came up with a work that broke through himself. The rookie actor that MGM launched amid the controversy also submitted a fairly satisfactory answer.

Although most traditional film critics have never been very fond of pure popcorn movies, Fast and the Furious still achieved a very strong media score of 8 points amidst the applause.

There has never been a single movie in the world that can be recognized by everyone, so while the Fast and the Furious has exploded, another group of critics has followed.

Or, critics don't count as accurate, as MGM's carefully crafted popcorn movie after years of operating in the Secret Service Cinematic Universe genre, there's very little to be found in every aspect of the film. Therefore, it may be more accurate for the media to criticize The Fast and the Furious as a controversy.

...There's no denying that The Fast and the Furious is a very good movie. However, it's hard to accept that MGM forced the film to be associated with the Agents in order to extract more profits from the Agent Cinematic Universe brand. The movie universe is connected. After watching the film, I can't think of how much a group of drag racing parties can relate to the agent movie universe. Do James Bond or Ethan Hunter need drivers? Although MGM has already The repeated statement that the Fast and the Furious franchise will not have too much intersection with the Agents Cinematic Universe is certainly more indicative of MGM's guilt.

...The Secret Service Cinematic Universe is definitely a very great innovation in the history of Hollywood movies, but MGM, which is mercenary, is destroying it all. Forcibly linking a street racing movie with three classic series, it makes the It's boring. There's no doubt that we'll see a variety of 'Agents movie universe spin-off series' next, and I'm sure there will always be one that will completely disappoint audiences with the brand.

Although it was expected from the beginning, the critics' doubts about the linkage of The Fast and the Furious and the Agent Cinematic Universe were far beyond MGM's expectations. This trend of controversy even quickly spread to the Internet, and although most netizens are accustomed to watching the excitement, the fans who made their voices have a very clear view on whether The Fast and the Furious can join the agent movie universe. Either strongly supported or resolutely opposed, the two factions quarreled on the Internet's major film community forums, and quickly became a hot topic on major news portals.

Why can't it be linked? Is it because Dominic and the others didn't save the world? If that's the case, the Agent Movie Universe should just be renamed to Save the World.

Although I was equally excited about the drag racing drama of the male and female protagonists in the movie theater, but after calming down, I had to think, what does this have to do with the spy movie universe, and the appearance of Angela Linde in the film's easter egg is even more exciting. It felt abrupt, I was really looking forward to the return of this character, and now it seems that MGM is forcibly destroying it all.

Hollywood has always had a very general norm.

A movie, if the word of mouth is bad and the topic level is low, then it is doomed to fail. If the word of mouth is good and the topic is low, then its box office will only be satisfactory. If word-of-mouth is booming and the topic is also booming, then the box office of this movie will undoubtedly explode.

Although it has caused strong controversy, the Fast and Furious series is undoubtedly in the last state.

In a heated media discussion, the film received a box office of $57.33 million in three days, and the box office easily exceeded $80 million in the first seven days, reaching $81.21 million.

Although it did not reach the box office result of more than 87 million US dollars in the first week of the Easter schedule Teddy Bear, the box office exceeded 80 million US dollars in the first week, which was also far beyond MGM's expectations. After all, Teddy Bear has a very wide range of popularity and popularity, and the film's subversion of the image of the teddy bear is even more impressive, so the super high box office in the first week is also reasonable.

In comparison, although under the name of a derivative series outside the agent movie universe, Fast and Furious has inherent shortcomings. That is, in the western world where vehicles are very common, people's interest in drag racing movies has never been very high, just like you are used to eating bread every day, and seeing other people eat the same food, even if the other party's bread is more fragrant, it will not There will be too much envy. Many ordinary people even hate drag racing parties.

Moreover, although Hollywood does not lack movies such as drag racing, this type has always been a niche, and there has never been a fixed basis for movie viewing popularity.

Therefore, MGM's first week of Fast and the Furious was expected to be only $60 million, the total North American box office is also expected to be between $120 million and $150 million, and the global box office is expected to be around $300 million. The company only hopes to lay a foundation of popularity through the first film, and, although the budgeted cost is 60 million US dollars, because of car company sponsorship and advertising placement, MGM actually invested only 40 million US dollars in production funds, including another 30 million. The US dollar issuance fee, the total investment is only 70 million US dollars. As long as the North American box office of the film exceeds 120 million US dollars, the film basically equals to recover the cost, and overseas distribution and future peripherals will directly bring huge profits to MGM.

The current situation is far beyond Firefly's expectations, but it is not over yet.

Due to the increase in word-of-mouth and topicality of the film, many passers-by viewers who were originally not interested in drag racing movies have gradually joined the movie-watching crowd.

Moreover, after the new year, there will be no empty market for heavyweight films to be released, which undoubtedly gives Fast and the Furious more room to play.

Therefore, after the first week of 81.21 million US dollars, according to the normal box office curve of commercial films, the second week box office drop of Fast and the Furious should have been around 50%, but in fact, the film's second week box office drop was only 38%, and then 5035 In just two weeks, the total North American box office of Fast and the Furious has reached 131.56 million US dollars, which has exceeded MGM's all North American box office expectations for this film, only two weeks of box office, MGM May has already recovered all costs and made a profit.

80 million US dollars in the first week and 50 million US dollars in the second week, with a drop of less than 40%. It is conceivable that according to this box office trend, The Fast and the Furious will undoubtedly become the first North American box office to exceed 200 million US dollars in 1999. .

The outstanding performance of the North American box office will undoubtedly greatly stimulate the attention of the overseas market to The Fast and the Furious. Even though the controversy over whether Fast and the Furious can join the MGM movie universe has always existed, there is no doubt that this series has been a hit. In the future, even if MGM really cancels the linkage between this series and the agent movie universe, It will not affect the film's future box office prospects in the slightest.

With the success of the Fast and the Furious series, several rookie actors in the film also instantly became Hollywood's quasi-first-line celebrities.

In the original time and space, after the success of the first film of the Fast and Furious series, Vin Diesel broke up with Universal Pictures directly because of the problem of remuneration, and did not return until the third film. But after a series of lessons learned during the development of the Agents Cinematic Universe, MGM won't make the same mistake this time around.

Before the film started, MGM had signed a strict series contract with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, and even broke through the Hollywood tradition of only signing three film contracts in advance. Eric only hoped to sign three film contracts with the two at first, but under the operation of the girl, Amy and others, this contract directly became six, and the Spider-Man signed with Stuart Runker and Firefly. The film contract is similar, however, Stewart's contract is only three series plus three crossovers, and Firefly also generously gave Stewart some bargaining power. But as Hollywood rookies, Paul Walker and Vin Diesel naturally don't get these privileges.

It can be said that this time, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are directly tied to the series.

With the success of the Fast and Furious series, although all parties have signed a non-disclosure contract, such a contract that is equivalent to a sales contract was quickly discovered by the media with supernatural powers. In connection with the current strong power of the Firefly system in Hollywood, some media even began to exclaim that the era of Hollywood studios is back again, and Hollywood stars will once again become contracted actors of big studios.

This very marketable argument quickly spread.

In recent years, the strength of the Firefly system in Hollywood is well known.

Especially after the acquisition of Columbia Pictures last year, the firefly system has already occupied four of the seven major Hollywood film companies, which is equivalent to controlling most of the two. Therefore, no one will doubt that the Firefly system already has has the potential to change the rules of Hollywood once again.

Therefore, with the return of the media's big studio era, under the promotion of some people, some media began to discuss whether to limit the expansion of the Firefly system again.