Chicago.

At nine o'clock in the evening Central Time, after watching the latest "Rain Man", the famous North American film critic Roger Albert came out of the theater with his friend Gene Siskol. Since 1975, Roger Albert and Gene Siscol have hosted the film review talk show "Siskol and Albert" on local Chicago television.

Thinking of the recent undercurrent in the circle, Roger Albert asked his friend with a wry smile on his face, "Jean, what are we going to do?"

Gene Siskol's expression was also a little hesitant.

A few days ago, some people secretly tried to snipe at "Dead Poets Society", but the attitude of this force is not too resolute, and the quality of "Dead Poets Society" itself is unquestionable, coupled with Daenerys Entertainment's strong public relations, a week after the screening, "Dead Poets Society" has still accumulated a very strong reputation.

But this time, Michael Ovitz, the president of CAA, called in person and asked if they would be interested in doing an interview with Robert Redford on his television show about the Sundance Film Festival in January.

If a big star like Robert Redford can be a guest on "Siscoll and Albert", the two will naturally ask for it.

Then, Ovitz brought up "Rain Man."

Everybody is smart.

Michael Ovitz didn't make sure something on the phone, and he wasn't likely to say clearly what I wish you could do to give people a bad review of Rain Man, but Roger Albert and Gene Siskol didn't understand.

However, through the viewing of the movie just now, both of them realized that "Rain Man" is definitely a rare and excellent film, far from being as bad as some media have rendered during this time.

Both Roger Albert and Jean Siskol are in a bit of a dilemma right now.

Michael Ovitz only promised benefits on the phone, but they didn't think that if they ignored each other's wishes, the two would just lose an opportunity to interview Redford.

With CAA accumulating more and more A-list superstars in recent years, the talent agency has more influence in Hollywood than any of the Big Seven.

If the two give a positive evaluation of "Rain Man", then the two of them are likely to lose a lot of opportunities to participate in the first test screening of CAA's stars in the next period of time.

However, if "Rain Man" is given a bad review regardless of the facts, once the overall review of the film tends to be positive, the credibility of the two will be hit. Film critics rely on word of mouth to eat, and there is no shortage of competitors, so such an obvious reversal of right and wrong will definitely usher in the attack of competitors.

The two discussed as they walked, and finally found a café and after careful consideration, Roger Albert finally made a decision to postpone the publication of the "Rain Man" film review. If the word-of-mouth of the next film is one-sided, it is impossible for him to buck the trend. If the response is mediocre, although he thinks this is unlikely, he can also be a 'favor' at that time.

Many times, there is always a striking similarity in people's behavior patterns.

When Roger Albert made the decision to postpone the publication of the "Rain Man" film review, many media outlets across North America who were targeted by CAA were very smart to play the same idea, and they did not want to oppose CAA or offend Daenerys Entertainment.

As a result, early Saturday morning, many mainstream newspapers in North America were silent about "Rain Man".

Malibu.

Simon woke up early and saw the first-day box office data for "Rain Man".

$2.1 million.

Although this is a preliminary estimate, the detailed figures should not be far apart.

It's just that this number is less than half of the original first day of "Scream". The schedule of "Scream" was still relatively cold, but it still received $4.5 million at the first-day box office, while "Rainman" only had $2.1 million on its first day.

Although the film suffered a lot of criticism in the early stage, Daenerys Entertainment also invested enough marketing resources.

Simon previously estimated that the first-day box office of "Rain Man" should be at least about $2.5 million, so as to ensure that the film does not miss $10 million in the first week. In this era, if a film grosses less than $10 million in the first week, the starting point is too low, and the subsequent box office is unlikely to make much difference.

Now, with a first-day box office of $2.1 million, Rainman is likely to be around $8 million in its first week.

With a start of $8 million, even if Simon is confident in "Rain Man", he doesn't think the film will be able to achieve more than $170 million at the North American box office in the original time and space.

Did it still fail?

Rush to the office after breakfast as usual, and since most of the workday is spent on "Batman", Simon has to take advantage of the weekend to take care of some company affairs as much as possible.

Sitting in the office, Burbank also quickly passed on the media feedback report of "Rain Man" and the news that many mainstream media were collectively dumb today. Simon dismissed Susan Landis, the female secretary who had been hanging around in front of him diligently these days, and only then did he open the media feedback report.

When Jennifer pushed the door in, Simon had just finished reading the report.

Although newspapers such as "Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter" did not publish film reviews in the first place, in North America, where there are more than 2,000 newspapers, it is naturally impossible for the news of "Rain Man" to be completely blocked.

Overall, "Rain Man" received a stronger media rating than the previous "Dead Poets Society", and the Los Angeles Times, which has a good relationship with Daenerys Entertainment, praised the film as "a deeply touching and heartwarming masterpiece."

Putting down the papers, Simon noticed that Jennifer carefully placed a stack of scripts in front of him, relaxed his expression and teased, "Why are you so careful?

Jennifer pushed the stack of scripts towards Simon, looked at Simon seriously across the desk and said, "I went to the cinema last night to watch "Rain Man", and the audience around me loved it. ”

Simon didn't answer Jennifer's topic, noticed the female assistant's little white hand still on the script, reached over and wanted to press it, but Jennifer hurriedly ran away, looked at the big hand that fell into the air with a slightly red face, and said, "This is not good." ”

Simon flipped his palm over and palmed it up, and said with a smile: "I'm about to lose a lot of money, comfort me." ”

"Probably not so much. Jennifer said this, hesitated for a moment, but still reached over and patted Simon's big hand with her little hand. Originally, she thought that she would be caught and kneaded by Simon, but the man didn't do it, so she withdrew her hand casually, looked at the stack of scripts she had just sent and said: "The project of "Rocket Expert", you seem to have rejected it a long time ago, and there are several other scripts that have been eliminated by you. What do you want to do with this now?"

Simon withdrew his hand and said, "Give it away." ”

Jennifer wondered: "Giving it away, who?"

"Give it to whoever you want," Simon didn't hide it too much, "Maybe I'm a little suspicious, but just try it." ”

Jennifer understood, "You mean, commercial espionage?"

Simon nodded and said, "Okay, you can ignore these things and concentrate on doing your job." ”

Jennifer heard Simon say this, knowing that he just didn't want to touch the dark side of business himself, and didn't mean to distrust her, and said, "I can help you." ”

"Of course," Simon said firmly, "but there are some things that you don't need to do, now, go back to your office." ”

This tone of coaxing a little girl made Jennifer feel a little sweet and a little dissatisfied, and she couldn't help but say when she turned around obediently and walked out: "I'm not a little girl." ”

Simon waited for Jennifer to leave, took the stack of scripts, picked and selected, and selected two.

One is "Rocket Expert", which Simon planned to take down as a "sand" last year, and the other is the military-themed film "Firebird Attack", which imitates "Top Gun".

In my memory, both films were high-budget failures.

The original "Rocket Expert" was produced by Disney, and a total of more than $60 million of production and publicity budget was burned, but the North American box office was only more than $40 million.

Another "Firebird Attack" tells the story of the Apache helicopter team, and Simon only remembered it because the film wanted to continue the glory of "Top Gun", although he does not remember the detailed budget and box office figures of the film, but he remembers the result of the box office failure of this project clearly.

If someone is really playing tricks on their side, these two projects will be sent out, and once they all fail, at least a big film company can remove a few high-level executives.

Simon carefully added misleading annotations to the two scripts, and half an hour later, Amy knocked on the door and entered, Simon casually put the two scripts away in the filing cabinet at his feet, and then left the company headquarters with Amy.

After this period of operation, Daenerys Entertainment has successfully obtained the mountainside plot in Malibu, and Simon and Amy have made an appointment to go and check it out for themselves today.

When the two arrived at the parking lot, Amy didn't drive her own car, but got into Simon's Land Rover.

When the car started, they inevitably chatted a few words about "Rain Man", perhaps because they felt that the project was doomed, Amy didn't talk too much, so she quickly changed the subject: "Yesterday was the final deadline of the contract, and Orion didn't call us the share of "Vulgar". ”

For tax avoidance and other considerations, Simon's collaboration with Orion on "Vulgar" completely follows Daenerys Entertainment's corporate channels, not with him personally.

According to the original contract, Orion needed to settle Daenerys Entertainment's share within a month of the next month of "Vulgar". "Vulgar" was released on November 17th, and yesterday was December 16th, the last day of the working day, and under normal circumstances, Orion would definitely have to pay 10% of the box office share to Daenerys Entertainment before this day.

Starting with "Lola Run", followed by "Death is Coming", "When Harry Met Sally" and several other projects, apparently for the sake of a good relationship in the future, several film companies have not defaulted on the royalties that should be paid to Daenerys Entertainment.

Simon is well aware of the current situation of Hollywood studios habitually defaulting on the share of independent producers, and large studios sometimes even deliberately use this method to squeeze the neck of independent producers, but he didn't expect his own company to suddenly face this situation.

However, he was not surprised.

Counting the "Stealing Hearts", which was released at the same time as "Rain Man" yesterday, Orion has released a total of 17 movies this year.

According to the data seen in the morning, the box office of "Stealing Hearts" was only $1.2 million on the first day, which is obviously another failure. Prior to this, in addition to "Vulgar", the best grossing film among other films was only the baseball star biopic "Million Arm" starring Kevin Costner, which grossed $50.88 million in North America.

Moreover, there are only five films in Orion that have grossed more than $20 million in North America in all of Orion's projects this year.

According to the skyrocketing average film production expenses in recent years, the North American box office exceeded $20 million, and Orion was able to ensure that all costs were recovered through subsequent omni-channel operations, and less than $20 million, even if it could recover its cost, it would take a considerable amount of time to operate.

According to a comprehensive calculation, only 5 of Orion's 17 films this year can ensure a return on investment, and the other 12 movies are basically losing money in the short term.

After fulfilling the contract of "Vulgar", the chances of Daenerys Entertainment cooperating with Orion in the future are slim, and most of the projects throughout the year are losing money, at this time, Orion can only choose to default on Daenerys Entertainment's royalties to avoid the company's cash flow shortage.

Thinking so, Simon asked Amy, "Did Mike Meadowa call you?"

Amy nodded and said, "He said that Orion can't come up with the money right now, and he hopes we can delay it for a month." ”

Simon smiled, since he began to be in arrears, after a month, Daenerys Entertainment should still not be able to get it: "It's okay to share the other projects, right?"

"No, Fox has settled the box office share of "Instinct", a total of $32.29 million, and the major TV networks will basically settle the accounts payable by the end of the month. ”

Simon thought for a moment and said, "You keep staring, it's okay for Orion to delay for a few months, everyone knows their situation, but if they continue to maliciously default, we will file a lawsuit." ”

In the midst of the busyness, the weekend and two days flew by.

"Rain Man" is expected to grossed only $8 million in its first week at $2.1 million on its first day, and even at a 20% weekly decline, the film could only gross just over $30 million in North America. Compared to the total investment of 40 million US dollars, Daenerys Entertainment's loss seems to be a foregone conclusion.

However, in the following two days, the single-day box office of "Rain Man" has been showing a state of upward trend against the market.

After $2.5 million on Saturday, to everyone's surprise, on Sunday, which should have been a decline in the box office on Saturday, the single-day box office of "Rain Man" even reversed, collecting another $2.6 million.

When the accurate statistics of the first weekend were released, many people were surprised to find that in just three days of the first weekend, the box office of "Rain Man" had reached $7.28 million, which was close to the media's general box office estimate of $8 million in the first seven days of the first week.