Ask for commuter passes and recommended tickets!

Universal Pictures is ambitious, wanting to take advantage of the success of the "Mummy" series and use a top-level production with a huge investment to bring the once brilliant and dazzling Universal movie monsters back into the audience's sight, and create huge profits and returns for Universal Pictures again, just like the mummy.

Even, Matthew got the news from Sean Daniel, and there was a discussion within Universal Pictures that if both "The Mummy" and "Van Helsing" were successful, more monsters could reappear on the screen, and at the same time, more monsters could be stuffed into a film to make them link.

However, Universal Pictures is very cautious about this suggestion, after all, the fiasco of "Falling from the Sky" is still vivid.

But those discussions then stalled in Universal's written plans.

Unlike "Dawn of the Living Dead", "Van Helsing" lifted the ban on Rotten Tomatoes on the day of its official release, and only on the second day, the film's Rotten Tomatoes index was completely rotten, with a 24% freshness and an average score of 4.3, which can make people spew blood directly.

In the past, it was not without films with extremely poor scores on Rotten Tomatoes but box office hits, because there was a clear difference between the tastes of summer audiences and professional film critics, and the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes was completely obtained by collecting the latter's film reviews.

But behind the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes, there is also an audience viewing index, and most of the best-selling movies have an index of 85% or even 95%.

"Van Helsing" is only fifty-seven percent.

At the same time, IMDB's audience score has also come out, and the average score of 6.1 can only be said to be barely okay.

"Van Helsing's biggest failure is that it resurrects the classic monsters without making them terrifying. Although the visual effects created by the film are very shocking, the story is weak, and the background of the gathering of the three demons is not clear. ”

Public opinion and film reviews are in decline.

Of course, for such a film with a large investment, a large production and high publicity, the audience and professional reviews will affect the box office trend in the later stage of the film more than the box office of the first weekend.

The quality of the film itself definitely has a certain impact on the box office in the first week, but in contrast, the publicity, investment, topicality and star appeal of big-budget films have a greater impact on the box office in the first week.

Especially now that North America has opened the advance ticket sales business online and offline, if fans are interested in a film, they can pay in advance to book movie tickets through channels such as the Internet and telephone half a month or even more in advance.

What can affect the reservation is often factors such as publicity, investment, topicality and celebrity appeal.

If you talk about the first-weekend box office alone, although "Van Helsing" did not meet Universal's expectations of more than 60 million, the first-weekend box office of $51.7 million is definitely above average.

However, the data released by various forecasting agencies later generally believed that "Van Helsing" would open high and go low.

The data from the Cinema Score survey, an authoritative forecasting agency for the North American film market, is especially unfavorable for "Van Helsing", with the on-site score of the theater audience only "B-", and the audience's reputation is not good.

In addition, Cinema Score's market prediction is that "Van Helsing" will drop between $120 million and $130 million at the North American box office.

Cinema Score is the most accurate box office forecasting agency in North America, with medium-sized and above films exceeding 85 percent.

Although major studios also hire external research agencies to conduct market research on the film, and use it to make market forecasts and adjust related publicity strategies, Cinema Score, as a relatively neutral research agency, is more objective and accurate in its forecasts.

Cinema Score's profit model is mainly based on selling forecast data to the outside world, and if the forecast data goes wrong frequently, it will soon be over.

If the North American box office of "Van Helsing" really falls at more than $120 million as predicted by Cinema Score, Universal Pictures may really cry.

On weekdays, the box office of "Van Helsing" showed a plummeting momentum, and the box office on Monday fell by 70% compared to last Sunday!

Even a zombie film with a relatively small audience like "Dawn of the Living Dead" did not decline so much at that time, and "Dawn of the Living Dead" is an R-rated film, while "Van Helsing" has a rating of PG-13.

In the following working days, the daily output of "Van Helsing" fell at a rate of 15 percent.

Very star, which is very much in line with Cinema Score's predictions.

Standing in front of the office window, Helen Herman looked through the glass at the street scene of Burbank outside, took off her black-rimmed glasses and put them on the windowsill, her bright face full of thought.

She was even a little glad in her heart, fortunately she and Matthew didn't get the actor in the end, otherwise......

From the analysis of the current situation, even if the North American box office and overseas box office of "Van Helsing" are combined, they cannot offset the high production cost of "Van Helsing", as well as the more than $70 million in publicity and distribution investment in addition to the production cost.

If nothing else, the actor Orlando Bloom and the heroine Kate Beckinsale will suffer a career downturn, Orlando Bloom is okay, he has signed a contract with Ridley Scott's "Heavenly Dynasty" crew, plus the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy as the foundation, it is not without a chance to turn over.

The heroine Kate Beckinsale will not have a first-line production to use her as the heroine in the future, the starring "Pearl Harbor" did not meet expectations, and the bad reviews continued, and now "Van Helsing" is in a bad situation, let alone hit the first-line star again, thank God for being able to keep the second-tier star.

Director Stephen Sommers will also be quiet for many years, and he is not sure when he will return to mainstream commercial production.

What if Matthew also participated in this film? Helen Herman didn't have to think about it, she knew it would be a huge blow, when she wanted to compete for the role, "Pirates of the Caribbean" had not yet set up a project to recruit actors, and there was a certain conflict in the filming of the last two films, Matthew got "Van Helsing" at that time, and it was likely to lose "Pirates of the Caribbean......

Without the success of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the blow of "Van Helsing", Matthew would basically be finished, and the resources and energy she had invested in him over the years would have been in vain.

Fortunately, I was lucky that I didn't fall into the big pit of "Van Helsing", otherwise I really wouldn't have been able to climb out.

Helen Herman clasped her hands to her chest and thought about it carefully, and it seemed that her luck with Matthew was really good, and luck was essential for Hollywood stars.

Every year, Hollywood has a first-line big production that turns from a chance to a giant hole, even if she is very confident in herself, she also knows that many times, it is too difficult to judge the success of a big production, in addition to vision, ability, market analysis and keen touch, you need to be lucky enough.

Take the project "Van Helsing" as an example, the production cost is as high as 160 million US dollars, the publicity investment is more than 70 million US dollars, the director and producer is Stephen Sommers, who has previously directed two successful "The Mummy", and the success of the "Mummy" series and "Lord of the Rings" series in recent years, and even "The Scorpion King", also proves that this genre with magical colors is very well accepted by the market.

By any measure, it was a solid project, so she fought for it at the time.

In the end, the reliable project did not meet expectations, and there is a possibility of more than 95% that it will become the Waterloo of many creators' careers......

Helen Herman shook her head slightly, quickly getting rid of this happy emotion, whether it was her, or Matthew, if they wanted to have greater development, they would need luck in this area in the future.

However, she will do her best to minimize the impact of luck.

In some ways, Summit Entertainment's project has been named "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", which is somewhat similar to "Van Helsing", and is a very reliable project from the perspective of investment and main creative personnel.

Probably because "Van Helsing" was not doing well at the box office, Helen Herman was thinking a little too much.

But she quickly recovered, and Hollywood's past history clearly taught her that films that seemed reliable had a much better chance of success than projects that seemed unreliable.

There was a knock on the office door, and then there was a sound of the door being pushed open.

Helen Herman didn't have to look back to know that it was Matthew who was coming, and she picked up her old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses and put them on her face.

"Hey, Helen!" Matthew said, seeing Helen Herman standing in front of the window all the time, "What do you think?"

"Nothing. Helen Herman turned around and glanced at Matthew, "I just think you're in luck." ”

Matthew neither could explain nor wanted to explain this kind of thing, so he just said, "I've always had good luck, you know that." ”

He fetched himself a glass of water and sat down on the single sofa in his office.

Helen Herman came over and sat down on the other couch next to her and said, "It's not simple luck, is it? I remember you weren't very active in competing for Van Helsing." ”

Expecting this to happen, Matthew was ready to say, "You haven't had in-depth contact with Stephen Sommers, I've worked on two projects with him, I know him well, this director is very capable, very thoughtful, and has a lot of ideas, I always feel that if there is no great producer to suppress him, but let him play at will, it may not be a good thing." ”

This kind of talk doesn't need to be very convincing, he just needs to say a suitable and valid reason, and Helen Herman can't say anything.

Besides, wouldn't it be good to avoid jumping into a big hole?

Helen Herman just asked casually, and when she heard Matthew's words, she didn't delve into it, and then changed the subject and said, "Universal Pictures just emailed me this morning, and "Dawn of the Living Dead" was dropped from all the films in the United States at midnight last year. ”