"Fragments of Memory" finally received $11.753 million at the box office in its first week, which made it rank second in the weekly box office charts, and the weekly champion continued to be "Meet My Father-in-law" in the fourth week, with a box office of 18.86 million, but it screened 2,647 theaters, while "Fragments of Memory" only had 521. Another dark horse in the history of the movie box office was born, from the launch of Flame Films, which is its third best-selling film of the year, and all three.

The vision of the flame naturally made the media and fans sigh and praise, and what made professionals and film companies pay more attention and sigh is the publicity technique of "Memory Fragments", which accurately grasps the selling point of the film, knows the market psychology of ordinary audiences, and a series of progressive viral marketing, coupled with an award of "Sundance Best Screenplay", successfully aroused the interest and curiosity of fans, which is a classic case of film promotion.

In the latest issue of the Wall Street Journal's "The Magic of Viral Marketing in Movies" feature, analysts believe that the Internet is playing an increasingly important role in propaganda and is a major battlefield in the future. And Lionsgate, which lost the magic young, has been doing nothing since "Ghost Record". ”

In the premiere week of "Fragments of Memory", Lionsgate had four independent films screened on the big screen, the highest one was "Between the Neighborhoods", which was screened for four weeks and only had 65 theaters, which collected 204,000 box office this week, ranking 30th with a total box office of 296,000, 41st was "Urbania" with 40 theaters and 108,000 box office, and the two films screened in the first week were "Once a Life" with 15 theaters and 37,000 box office, and 10 theaters and 7,000 US dollars box office " Star.

This is Lionsgate's consistent fisherman's net-casting operation strategy, buying a lot of cheap small-budget independent films, without any publicity expenses, arranging for a dozen or twenty theaters to test the waters for a week, and if it doesn't work, they will be withdrawn, like "Once Upon a Time" and "Star" will not be screened in the second week; if there is a profit, like "Ghost Shadow", then continue to be screened, and then increase the number of theaters according to the situation. It's just that they haven't found a treasure for a long time.

On the phone, Wang Yang heard the voice of his old acquaintance Jon Philtimmel, and after congratulating the success of "Fragments of Memory", the Lionsgate CEO sighed again and again: "Yang, I have to say that I regret it again, I should have robbed you in the first place, it's a pity! He laughed again and said, "But fortunately, the Sundance Film Festival is once a year, and I won't make this mistake again next year. Wang Yang just responded to him with a smile: "Jon, be careful, I will buy bad movies first, and when I run out of money, I will buy what I really want to buy." ”

Although it is a dark horse at the box office, "Memory Fragments" can't replicate the miracle of "Ghost Shadow", it is a high-scoring masterpiece, but it has great limitations in itself, and it is affected by the publicity effect of suspense film fans, not even horror films, this part of the "love to use their brains and love to think" fans are limited, so even if you eat all the cake of the market, it is so big.

Besides, ordinary viral marketing can never be compared to scam-style viral marketing, but people are not so easily deceived, and "Ghost Record" is the first time, and it may be the last.

However, despite this, the box office potential of "Fragments of Memory" is not only 10 million, and in the second week of release, its theater number will increase to 1,564, and analysts at Flame Films estimate that the film will receive more than 50 million at the North American box office, which is enough to recoup the entire cost. And the places to make money are also overseas screens, DVDs and other peripherals. Relative to the cost of purchasing films, the company will eventually get 3-5 times the net profit return.

Among the many independent film companies, the current flame film is undoubtedly the most glamorous one, and its crazy investment methods are even more surprising, 100 million to acquire Blue Sky Studios, independent investment in the production of 60 million "Mr. Hughes", ...... "Wall Street Journal" called "Crazy Young!"

But Mark Slant believes that this is not a healthy way, and that big production and big investment have its advantages, as well as the disadvantages of "high risk and slow return of funds", and Lionsgate seems to be doing nothing, but it is indeed making money, and the risk is low, which is the right long-term operation strategy. However, he knew that he didn't have the ability to eliminate the "crazy" personality of the young boss, and maybe not even Jessica "mrs.boss".

So he didn't discourage big investment too much, but he strongly advocated that the company learn from Lionsgate, spend tens of millions of dollars every year to cast nets for fishermen, and buy more cheap independent films, tens of thousands of yuan, hundreds of thousands, even if the box office is not good, you can also tap the potential in DVD, video tape rental, etc.

Wang Yang nodded in agreement, he understood that the reason why Lionsgate was able to go from an obscure small company to a giant among independent film companies was precisely because of this trick. But his idea was to set up another subsidiary, called "Flames-Man", which was like the relationship between "20th Century Fox" and "Fox Searchlight", which specialized in the business of buying and distributing films, and the company's self-made films were distributed by "Flame Films", maintaining the company's image of only producing fine products.

In the second week of the release of "Fragments of Memory", Flame Films allocated 50 million yuan to set up Flames-Man, and Wang Yang was busy with Valley Pfister to do the final color grading work for "Juno", there was also a big event in the United States, that is, the voting date for the quadrennial presidential election began.

But Wang Yang did not go to the polling station to vote, and he was happy to see that Bill Clinton was about to step down, but he did not like it this time, whether it was George Bush of the Republican Party or Albert Gore of the Democratic Party.

It's strange that George Bush has a sharp-eyed image like a Democrat, while Albert Gore's dull image looks like a Republican. This is a change made by the Republican Party, and in order to return to the White House, George Bush's platform proposition has moved closer to the middle ground, and promises such as the social security system and health care programs are the focus of the speech, except for the point of "rebuilding the military", he and Albert Gore's speech are almost identical.

Republicans and Democrats reached out to Mr. Wang early on for a vote and public support from him, which would have meant more Chinese-American votes, but he refused. If he had to make a choice, Wang Yang would vote for Albert Gore, but fortunately it was his freedom to vote or not, and since neither of those two people could really impress him, he simply didn't ask about politics and didn't talk about the election on his blog.

When the screening week of November 3-9 ended, the second week of "Fragments of Memory" received 17.621 million box office, continuing to rank second, and the post-production work of "Juno" was also completed, and the 120-minute release version was officially released. can see "Juno" earlier than fans, in addition to the Golden Globe Award jury, there is also the MPAA responsible for grading review, due to a lot of foul language, and more sensitive content, "Juno" got the PG-13 level, and the parents are specially tutored.

After resting in his empty home for a few days, he lay down under the plane tree in the back garden every day to read, sleep, and play basketball, but soon, Wang Yang began to be busy again with the promotion of "Juno".

As early as a few days after Halloween, Jessica went to Salt Lake City to start filming "Youth Musical" 3, the film invested 35 million, and the cast and crew were all the original cast of the second part. The reason why the project was established at the end of August and the filming started in November was because Wang Yang had written the script very early, and as soon as the company was finalized and the contract was signed, Sarah Schugman got the script and could start the creation of the storyboards, and the leading actors could also start thinking and practicing.

The publicity cost of "Juno" is 30 million, which is 5 million more than "When Happiness Knocks on the Door", but the way of publicity is similar, hard and wide have trailers on TV, outdoor posters in the city, LED advertisements, etc., while soft wide projects have TV talk shows, and a magic weapon that costs a lot of money, viral marketing.

How do you make a viral marketing for "Juno"? She's not a real person, she doesn't have an autobiography, and this kind of movie can't play mystery. Wang Yang and the staff of the company's distribution department discussed for a long time, but they didn't have a good idea, but he thought that this was similar to "When Happiness Knocks on the Door", so that everyone would be interested in the story, and even more so that everyone would be interested in "Juno". How do you get people to like Juno? Voluntarily spread her and spread it again?

One day, I saw on the blog that the post "The Shaolin Abbot of Zhu 80 is circulating, which is loved and spontaneously spread by young people, that is viral marketing.

Let the Shaolin abbot after Zhu 80 have an additional "Juno Said" column, in which there are two different choices, one is Juno's specific situational jokes, such as letting her step on dog shit on the road, what she will say, or her unique and funny opinions on certain things, and the other choice is irrelevant jokes. The first "Juno Said", Wang Yang wrote it according to Juno's personality characteristics, combined with some future sitcoms in his mind, as well as the materials inspired by him and Natalie.

And the second "Zhu 80's Shaolin Abbot's forum, message board, chat room and other places, pretending to be ordinary netizens, retweeted these jokes in large numbers, of course, inevitably talked about "Juno" incidentally, expressing their expectations for this movie and creating an atmosphere that the herd effect needs.

Funny jokes are naturally loved by everyone, looking at these novel and interesting "post-Zhu 80 Shaolin abbots spontaneously forwarded, "Zhu 80's Shaolin abbot's traffic is also constantly surging, more and more young people become eager to see this teenage pregnancy movie, after a person like Juno is pregnant, what kind of story will happen? What interesting things will she say? Don't forget that "Juno" is a magical Yang's work, has he ever disappointed? Think about "Song and Dance Youth" + "When Happiness Knocks on the Door" , maybe it's "Juno".

Before the movie was released, fans and fans had an intuitive image of Juno in their hearts, not Novali like "Sweetheart" as they had guessed before, but their doubts became yes, Natalie Portman played Juno's role well? You must know that her previous screen image was very cold, and in reality she is a good girl, and she will blush when she talks about her boyfriend. Does she play a "bad girl" like Juno? In the movie, will she blush?

But think about Will Smith and "When Happiness Knocks on the Door", and fans think they can be a little more restless, Wonder Young shouldn't make such a mistake, right? There is also a possibility, that is, Natalie can play Juno.

When Flame Movies launched the teaser of "Juno", fans' doubts were immediately dispelled, and in this 2-minute trailer, Natalie's expressions and movements, and the tone of her speech were full of arguity, seeing her holding a pipe, swaggering to Pauly and saying "I'm pregnant." But fans still retain half of their opinions, after all, a great trailer doesn't mean a great movie, how Natalie acted, and what "Juno" was like, we won't know until it's released.

"Hell, why hasn't it been here on December 22nd!"

This is the cry of many young movie fans, but it is also a happy wait, because they know that this Christmas, there will be no shortage of good movies to watch. There's Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks' "Desert Island Aftermath", which is 100% good, and Wang Yang, Natalie Portman's "Juno", which is 50%.

(To be continued)