The first stop of this trip to the Far East was Tokyo, and the first promotional figure promoted by the crew was Ken Watanabe, and Matthew could only be ranked second.

Any normal country will have a sense of national pride and national honor, let alone Japan and other Far Eastern regions, even those countries in Europe that are rich in literary films, will have special preferential treatment for a star who has succeeded in Hollywood.

Ken Watanabe's popularity in Japan was definitely beyond Matthew's expectations.

This is also the reason why the crew agreed that Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy would leave the crew to film "X-Men: First Class", and let Christopher Nolan stay in Los Angeles to prepare "The Dark Knight Rises", not Emma Roberts over, but also Ken Watanabe.

That's what the headlines in the Japanese media about Inception are all about.

"The Hollywood blockbuster "Inception", starring the famous movie star Ken Watanabe for the first time and Hollywood superstar Matthew Horner, is about to land in Japan!"

"Ken Watanabe returns to Japan with his new work "Inception" to promote ......"

Almost all Japanese media outlets that mentioned the film put Ken Watanabe's name ahead of Matthew.

Matthew naturally doesn't mind this, and in the future, when "Fast and Furious 5" is promoted on the other side of the Pacific, he will put Nini in front of everyone.

For the sake of the film's success and revenue, none of this matters.

In the first few days of the promotion in Japan, the promotional images of "Inception" appeared on 136 large street screens in 35 prefectures across Japan, as well as on the car TVs of 50 electronics stores and major subways and buses in Japan, which is rare in the history of Japanese cinema.

Especially in the square in front of Shimbashi Station in Tokyo, when the movie trailer appeared on the screen of the station building, the crowd walking on the street suddenly stopped and all looked intently at the big screen.

In some ways, in a creative industry, a good idea can often turn an ordinary movie into a magical, and there are some movies that have a high-quality setting that people are looking forward to, but they are not very competitive, and they can turn a good idea into a "bad" movie......

There are countless Hollywood movies that turn good ideas into bad movies, and "Inception" is a typical type of film that turns good ideas into good movies.

But a good movie still needs to be shouted hard.

After staying in Japan for a few days, Matthew came to Seoul, South Korea with the crew.

At a publicity meeting, a Korean media reporter once again asked about the analysis of the movie, especially about whether the actor at the end was in a dream.

Since Christopher Nolan didn't come, the question could only be answered by Matthew.

"By the end, you should be able to see that Cobb's real life is very similar to his dreams, that is, Cobb is also questionable. Matthew had discussed this with Christopher Nolan before, and said exactly as Nolan meant, "And whether the top falls or not, Cobb doesn't need to know the truth because he's already reunited with the kids." ”

This is another main line of the film - family!

Placed all over the world, working hard for the family is the right and inspiring values.

For the first two days, the crew's publicity in South Korea was normal, but two days later, a voice suddenly appeared in the Korean media.

"In terms of pedigree, Matthew Horner is actually Korean!"

Such a terrifying news actually appeared in some Korean media reports, which really scared Matthew.

In the analysis of Korean media reports, Matthew's part of Chinese ancestry does not exist at all, replaced by Korean ancestry, and it is conclusively said that it is precisely because Matthew has Korean ancestry that he has climbed to a high position in Hollywood.

They also said that the reason why Matthew was so good was because he practiced taekwondo.

Even, in a promotional announcement, such a question was thrown directly in front of Matthew.

"I don't have Korean ancestry, there's no doubt about that. Matthew wouldn't let the sticks continue to make this kind of smear news, but overall it was polite, "I haven't practiced taekwondo either. The reason why I am agile is because of my talent and on the other hand, I have trained in boxing, fencing and kickboxing for a long time. ”

Matthew couldn't understand the confidence of Koreans.

Anyway, God is Korean, Jesus is Korean, Buddha is Korean, but all world-class celebrities are Koreans, even the earth ...... No, the whole universe was created by Koreans.

They laughed at themselves.

With the only super being in the north who can be the commander-in-chief of the entire universe army, navy, air and space forces, pressing on his head, he still doesn't allow people to be complacent?

Out of sight is out of sight.

Therefore, Matthew and the crew couldn't wait to leave Seoul and go to Hong Kong after running the last promotional announcement in South Korea.

Inception, meanwhile, began its second weekend of screenings in North America with a new cinema partner, Despicable Me, an animated feature film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures.

No one expected that such an animated feature film, which cost only $70 million to produce, would bring unexpected box office.

On the first day of its release on Friday, "Despicable Me" squeezed out "Inception", which earned $19.2 million on the same day, with a single-day box office of $21.3 million.

At a time when Blue Sky Studios can't produce any powerful works other than "Ice Age", Lighting Entertainment seems to be announcing to the world with "Despicable Me" that they are the top three animation film companies that can be ranked alongside Pixar Studios and DreamWorks Animation Studios.

There is another point, no one can deny, Lighting Entertainment hugged a big thick leg - Universal Pictures.

It was the promotion of Universal Pictures that led to the success of "Despicable Me".

The publicity and momentum of any movie are necessary, after all, Hollywood is a market competition system, "Despicable Me" is not only overwhelming, but the feature film is more straight to the point, how to attract children and how to play, such as the long nose and unlucky image of the actor Gru, not only refer to the evil villain of the "007 series", but also the same as Gargamel of "The Smurfs".

The group of minions who shouted "kawaii" for girls were like the souls of "Big Eyed Boys" and "SpongeBob SquarePants" in "Monster Inc.", and they appeared cute in groups, which made people exclaim.

But such a newly released film was subsequently defeated in front of "Inception".

"Inception" rebounded strongly on Saturday, earning $24.6 million, dragging "Despicable Me," which received $20.83 million, back to the top of the single-day box office top.

The following Sunday, "Inception" still came first, and "Despicable Me" followed.

This weekend passed, "Despicable Me" landed in second place at the box office with $56.3 million, and "Inception" achieved two consecutive North American box office titles, with a box office figure of $58.3 million.

In the face of "Despicable Me", an all-age film with a wide family audience, "Inception" has hardly been impacted.

Combined with the box office in the first four days of this week, "Inception" has grossed $195.6 million in North America two weeks after its release.

$200 million in North America is just a small threshold for "Inception", and $300 million is completely touchable.

Compared with the lucky ones like "Inception" and "Despicable Me", "Alien Battlefield" can be said to be unlucky, and in just four weeks after its release, the weekend box office slipped to just over $1 million, and the total North American box office has not reached $40 million.

Many film market research agencies have lowered the film's North American box office to $45 million, believing that it will be very difficult for the global box office to exceed $100 million.

Walt Disney is extremely dissatisfied with the cooperation with Brad Pitt, and such a box office can't even earn back their publicity investment.

According to Helen Herman, several Hollywood production companies have put Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman on a blacklist of mid-to-high-end film projects.

After reading the latest North American box office statistics, Matthew deduced that "Alien Battlefield" will be screened in North America until mid-August at most, and will be kicked out by major commercial theaters.

As the new week begins, Matthew is once again on the other side of the Pacific.

Compared with the last overwhelming momentum, he is relatively low-key, and the intensity of promoting other companies' films and his own investment films will definitely be different.

On the other hand, there is still a full month before the release of "Inception", and the publicity effect will not be particularly good.

This can't be helped, no one said that Hollywood's big production can't be released in July, but the big scissors side has been delayed in review, and by the time it was reviewed, the film had already been released in North America.

In the face of this situation, no one can say anything, after all, how to audit the big scissors has never been made public, and there is no clearly defined standard.

Nowadays, more and more Hollywood stars are starting to come here for premieres and promotional announcements, and for fans here, Hollywood stars are not rare animals.

What can attract Hollywood stars is naturally the increasingly prosperous film market.

With the imminent conclusion of a new WTO agreement and a memorandum of understanding on the introduction of films, the number of Hollywood films has risen to 30, and the box office share has jumped to 25 percent.

Correspondingly, Hollywood blockbusters can make more and more money here.

Under this stimulus, Hollywood is working harder and harder in this market, and there are more and more marketing needs, and those old routines in the past - looking for media releases, sinicizing some trailers and posters, buying some bus stop signs, and holding premieres can no longer meet the needs of the market.

Combined with the market and social situation here, Warner Bros. has made "Inception", a promotional slogan that is not very loud in North America, into the main promotional slogan here - a movie that only smart people can understand!

This kind of propaganda is not good for the mature film market, but it is very effective in the fledgling film market.