I’m in Hollywood

Saturday, December 28.

Two days have passed since Christmas and the New Year is approaching.

Katzenberg had planned to take his family on vacation to Europe during the holiday season, but just because he's a workaholic doesn't mean he doesn't need a vacation. However, because of the Titanic incident, Katzenberg had to cancel all trips at the end of this year, and he didn't even go back to New York to spend Christmas with his parents.

Titanic had a box office of $54.25 million in its first week, exceeding the original expectations of Firefly Group's internal and external box office statistics agencies, which were mostly around $40 million in its first week. It has to be said to be a kind of comfort. The cost of production and publicity, this first week's results can still only be said to be a failure.

Right now, this situation seems to be irreversible. As the CEO of Firefly Group, Katzenberg needs to do everything possible to prevent this kind of box office tragedy from happening again.

He habitually woke up at five o'clock. After all, it was a holiday and a weekend. Katzenberg didn't start the day's work as eagerly as he used to. After a simple morning exercise, he began to prepare breakfast for his wife and children. Consider your responsibilities as a husband and father.

At the same time, in the Burbank headquarters of the Firefly Group, in the office of the film distribution department, the on-duty employees in charge of box office statistics, George Lake and Phil Ropoulos, were double-checking the faxes of the major theaters with confusion. The box office data coming in.

In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, the ticketing systems of major theater chains in North America have gradually become connected to the Internet, which greatly increases the efficiency of box office statistics. However, there is still no unified data between different theater chains. Therefore, film companies have And special box office statistics agencies, it is also necessary to summarize the separate data given by different theater operators.

George Lake and Phil Ropoulos re-calculated the December 27 box office data in their hands again, and even made a few phone calls to confirm with the theater company for some data that they were puzzled by, and finally After confirming that the box office numbers in their hands were complete, George Lake and Phil Ropoulos stared at each other for a few seconds. They have both worked in the film industry for five or six years, but looking at the Data, the two are 100% sure that this is definitely the strangest second-week box office number they have ever seen in their lives.

Although it was almost certain that the box office data in his hand was accurate, when he came back to his senses, George Lake still said to his colleague: Phil, do you want to confirm it again, if you make a mistake, let the bosses have fun, we Maybe you're going to be kicked out?

The tired look on Phil Ropoulos' face that was originally accumulated from this all-night chore has completely disappeared at this time. He lightly flicked the paper in his hand, made a squeak sound, looked at his companion, and said: Do you think it's necessary?

Why don't you call Mr. Thompson first? George Lake suggested again: Send this data directly to the bosses, I always feel a little uneasy.

The Robert Thompson that George Lake spoke of was their immediate boss, the president of Firefly's publishing division.

Phil Ropoulos once again glanced at the single-day box office data of Titanic in his hand.

$12.12 million!

In its first week of release, Titanic never made a single-day box office break of $10 million, which is one of the reasons why everyone thinks Titanic was a fiasco at the box office.

According to the normal box office trend of most films,

The single-day box office of Titanic for the next three weekends should be around 6 million US dollars, but at this time, the data in hand turned out to be twice as expected. What does this mean? In the second week of Titanic, not only did the box office not drop, but there was a completely unreasonable surge.

It’s not that Phil Ropoulos hasn’t seen the box office drop. Many well-received films will have a certain degree of increase in the box office in the second week of their release, but that kind of reverse drop is basically very small, and there are very few. More than 10%, but compared to the $8.65 million box office figure for the same period last Friday, the box office of Titanic on the next Friday was a full 40% higher.

Then, let's make a phone call first, Phil Ropoulos, who was also a little guilty, nodded in agreement with George Lake's words.

So, before seven o'clock in the morning, the Firefly Group, including Katzenberg, Frank Wells, Caroline Elliott, Kenneth Horn, and a group of high-level executives in Los Angeles, arrived in a hurry. In Burbank headquarters, even Michael Lynn, who had left his job and only held a board seat in Firefly Group, rushed to Burbank from his mansion in Malibu curiously after hearing the news.

Robert Thompson, president of Firefly Group's distribution department, pushed the door and walked into the conference room. Everyone who was whispering was quiet and looked at him in unison.

Mr. Katzenberg, and everyone, I have made a phone call to confirm. Although there may be some errors, the single-day box office of Titanic yesterday should definitely be around 12 million US dollars. , Robert Thompson added again: In other words, compared to last Friday, the box office of Titanic not only did not fall, but rose by $3.5 million, a 40% decline.

Robert Thompson said, and then motioned to the secretary behind him to distribute the photocopied box office data reports to all the executives of the group present.

After receiving the detailed data report, Katzenberg couldn't wait to look down.

Preliminary statistics show that on December 27, the single-day box office in the United States totaled 29.5 million US dollars, and Titanic prominently occupied the top position with a single-day box office of 12.12 million US dollars. In second place was Warner Bros.’s Masaharu satirical comedy “Three Presidents Are a Mess,” which opened this week with $5.7 million on its opening day. This was followed by films such as The Martian Plays Earth, Mr. Sweetheart, and Star Trek: First Contact.

Since the detailed single-day box office rankings have been counted, then this data is definitely not wrong.

Staring at the single-day box office data of $12.12 million, Katzenberg didn't have any excitement in his heart, but was a little confused. He raised his head and looked around. All the executives present basically showed similar expressions on their faces. Obviously the same question hangs: what happened?

After a while, Katzenberg looked at Robert Thompson and asked, Did you send Eric the box office data?

Yes, Jeffrey, every day before six o'clock in the morning, we send Mr. Williams the previous day's box office data, Robert Thompson confirmed with a nod.

Then he... Katzenberg shook his head again halfway through his words. If Eric had any feedback, he would definitely call himself or Frank and others, thinking to himself that Katzenberg was no longer in a hurry. After understanding Eric's reaction, he looked at everyone: So, tell me, what's the situation now?

Everyone, look at me, I look at you, I don't know what to say for a while.

Seeing that the bigwigs didn't speak, Robert Thompson, who was sitting at the end of the desk, tentatively said: I think the current box office trend of Titanic has already given signs a few days ago.

Seeing Robert Thompson speak, Frank Wells looked over and said, Robert, can you elaborate?

Of course, Robert Thompson nodded, thought for a moment, pointed to the writing board behind Katzenberg, got up and walked over after getting permission, picked up the pen and put the Titanic he just saw from the box office statistics report. The box office data of the previous week are listed one by one.

Everyone, Robert Thompson listed the data for the first seven days of the first week, added yesterday's $12.12 million, and then told everyone: The first weekend of 'Titanic' was really mediocre, and it also appeared on Monday of the first week. A normal decline, but since Christmas, Wednesday, $7.03 million, Thursday, $9.05 million, Friday, which is yesterday, $12.12 million, from the box office figures for these three days, Titanic After an initial mediocre trend, for...some reasons, the box office began to show a clear upward trend.

Executives who have worked in the film industry for years, including Katzenberg, Frank Wells, and the newcomer Michael Lynn, now have a rough idea of ​​what Robert Thompson's 'some reason' might be.

However, as the group chief financial officer who just joined Firefly a few years ago, Caroline Elliott was a little confused and asked curiously, Robert, what do you mean by 'some reasons'?

Robert Thompson glanced at everyone, hesitated, and said, I think it is most likely the word of mouth of the movie. This is not the relatively polarized word of mouth in the media, but the word of mouth spread among audiences. However, The box office trend of Titanic is also very different from the word-of-mouth films in the past. Those films may reverse the decline in the next week, but they are definitely not as exaggerated as Titanic. Therefore, I also I can't guarantee that there are other reasons we don't know.

Everyone discussed it again and again. Seeing that this closed-door discussion could not lead to any useful results, Katzenberg waved to terminate everyone's speech and said to Robert Thompson: Robert, this matter, you Take charge personally, give you three days to figure out what happened, and connect me to Eric's phone right away.

The news that the box office of Titanic saw a sharp drop in the next week can't be kept secret for too long. It's just one morning. Most people have already got the relevant information. Of course, Eric was the first to receive the news. .

However, because of his previous life experience, Eric was never as worried about the box office prospects of the film as Katzenberg, Cameron and others before the release of Titanic. Correspondingly, Titanic The box office began to take off the next week, and it was difficult for Eric to feel the relief of the group executives.

After receiving a call from Katzenberg, Eric was still sitting in a coffee shop in Southampton, accompanied by the vase girl, quietly reading George Soros's The Alchemy of Finance.

After all, this is only the first day of the next week, and the follow-up box office data has not yet been determined, and Eric has not eagerly asked Katzenberg to implement some of the plans he has been brewing in his heart recently.

The two simply chatted for more than ten minutes, hung up the phone, and Eric called Cameron, who was far away in Australia to promote Titanic. Although it was early morning in Australia, Cameron did not. Rest, Eric told the guy who had been anxious to get angry recently about the news that the box office of Titanic reversed the next week. Presumably, Cameron in Sydney should be able to sleep well afterwards. ⑧±Miao(.*)pen⑧±Ge⑧±, o

If the box office data of Titanic is released on the next Friday, and it is just some doubts among the executives of the Firefly Group, when the box office data of the film on the next weekend of the film is released in the next three days, the entire North American media is almost in a short-lived state of confusion. All the media are asking the same question: what happened?

After Friday's $12.12 million box office, the next Saturday's box office still did not show any downward trend, but rose slightly to $12.46 million, followed by Sunday's box office data of $10.86 million.

In the end, the total box office of Titanic in the next three weekends was 35.44 million US dollars. Compared with the box office of 29.18 million US dollars in the first weekend, it increased by more than 600 US dollars. Although the overall increase was not as terrifying as Friday's, but The ratio of reverse decline is still more than 20%.

Immediately, under Katzenberg's personal instructions, Robert Thompson also produced a preliminary investigation report on the box office trend.

At this time, the Titanic film review feedback from mainstream media in North America no longer has any reference value. Robert Thompson directly hired a special survey and evaluation agency. In three days, he directly collected 20,000 audience surveys in major cities in the United States questionnaire.

The survey results showed that more than 20% of the audience of Titanic in the second week were watching the movie for the second time, and 30% of the audience went into the cinema to watch the film under the strong recommendation of their relatives and friends. of. Although most audiences felt that the three-hour length of Titanic was the biggest obstacle for them to enter the movie theater before watching the movie, after watching the movie, more than 80% of the audience found themselves in the process of watching the movie. In the film, the issue of time is completely ignored, that is to say, the excellent special effects, plot and rhythm of the film make them completely forget the passage of time.

At the same time, based on the 10-point rating, the most direct rating from the audience has reached an astonishing 8.8 points based on the statistics of 20,000 questionnaires, far exceeding the previous average rating of only 7 points from the media, Titanic The reputation among the audience has also achieved a counterattack.