In this era, film critics mainly earn money from two sources, the public relations fee of the film company and the manuscript fee for the publication of film reviews in newspapers and magazines, and of course, the top film critics will also have other types of income, such as publishing books or appearing on TV shows.

And George Northam is obviously not the top one, otherwise the magazine would not have fired George Northen lightly after being pressured by Columbia.

Because of the blacklist, when the film company has a new movie about to be released, George Northen not only does not receive a penny in public relations fees, but also cannot even receive invitations to film test screenings or premieres. If you can't participate in the test screening or premiere, you can't get the first-hand viewing information that is ahead of the ordinary audience, and the newspapers and magazines are not too eager for the film reviews of the movies that have been released, so even the income from film criticism fees will be greatly reduced, and the two aspects add up, and the lost income will exceed 80% of the original income.

Therefore, being blacklisted by the big six studios meant that George Northen could no longer stay in the circle of film critics, and the fame that he had spent years building in the circle was also lost.

In fact, as an old fritter who has been in the circle for many years, George Northam also clearly knows the rules of the game in this circle, many lines can not be touched, so he has never done anything out of the ordinary before, after years of hard work, he also has a lot of fame in the industry, and the annual income even reaches an enviable six-figure figure.

Perhaps it is precisely because of so many years of spring breeze that George Northen is a little self-righteous and forgets his duty, so he has published several critical articles in a row, he originally just felt that he was teased by Nicole, and wanted to vent his anger and take revenge on the other party a little, but he didn't expect that he far underestimated the 'influence' of that professional article, and it was too late to react, and he directly ruined his career.

After the end of the first week, perhaps because of the turmoil, or because of the publicity role played by Eric, the box office won more than 16 million in the first four working days, and the total box office in the first week reached more than 43 million, which is at least 3 million more than the forecast made by Colombia after the box office was released in the first weekend, which makes Colombia full of confidence.

At the same time, as the gunman's doubts were clarified, the pre-negotiated 'topic marketing' plan was also launched, and the incident began with several entertainment newspapers lashing out at the product placement in the middle.

"The advertising blockbuster of Shuangtang teamed up, what we are watching is not a 'dark war', but an 'advertising war'"

A series of eye-catching headlines pushed the topic directly to the forefront, and the media was in an uproar after a storm of questioning, and Colombia also took advantage of the situation before other competitors could react, and began to vigorously manipulate the direction of public opinion, turning the tone of most media comments on the matter to a ridiculous posture.

Soon after, an audience survey was published, which had been prepared in advance by Colombia and was aimed at those who had just come out of the theater and about their perception of the advertisement.

In the random sampling of 1,000 people, 76% of the audience did not feel the storage of advertisements in the movie, 15% felt the storage of advertisements, but did not care much, 7% of the audience said that they cared a little about advertising, and only a few 2% chose to hate advertising very much.

In order to ensure its credibility, a whole stack of photos of the spot check report was also posted on the layout.

The story pretty much set the tone for the product placement incident.

Whenever this is mentioned, many people will feel that most people don't even feel the existence of advertising, but in fact, it is nothing, coupled with the publication of some other ridiculous gunman articles in Colombia, the direction of public thinking has begun to be reversed.

Immediately, Columbia also began to come forward to clarify, saying that there were indeed some product placement ads in the movie, but it was not as exaggerated as those "irresponsible" media said. Colombia also took out the gunman questioning storm that had just happened, saying that it was a malicious slander by a competitor.

As the guidance of public opinion continues, more and more people have begun to wonder about what kind of advertising is in China, because as the survey shows, a large proportion of people do not even realize the existence of advertising when they watch movies for the first time.

When Colombia's competitors reacted and began to manipulate their own media to reverse the trend of public opinion and lead the public to dislike the placement of advertising, Colombia directly dropped a bombshell again.

On the second weekend of the film's release, early Saturday morning, a statement from Columbia was published in the newspaper.

"Although according to the survey, the product placement did not affect the viewing experience of the majority of fans, in order to thank the fans for their support, after the communication between the film producer and the distributors, we still decided to give back the $2 million product placement fee received to the fans. As of the date of this statement, viewers can send all 12 guessed product placements in the form of a letter to the address below, and we will draw 200 correct lucky viewers live on the spot to reward $10,000 in cash each. ”

Subsequently, the statement left a mailing address, a deadline, and back-brushing restrictions such as one letter per citizen ID and invalid repeated deliveries.

In an instant, the entire American media was in an uproar again, and even many viewers couldn't help but react, this is blatant hype.

But even if this is discovered, it can't stop the enthusiasm of many viewers, after all, it is the late eighties, and for many American families, $10,000 is a huge amount of money. Anyway, during the holidays, everyone has the habit of watching movies, what to watch is not to watch, if you watch the movie, spend dozens of cents to get an envelope and mail out the guess in your heart, you may get a $10,000 grand prize, why not. Moreover, the number of 200 people winning the lottery seems to be quite large.

On the day after this statement was issued, many movie theaters were directly full, and on the day of the statement, it got $13 million at the box office on the same day, and the box office on Sunday also reached 11 million, plus more than $8 million at the box office on Friday, the total box office in the three days of the second weekend reached 32 million, miraculously achieving a box office reversal of nearly 20% in the highly competitive summer file, and it is also the only film in this summer file that has a box office reversal.

And after seven days in the second week, it once again got a second-week box office of more than 49 million, and the total box office has reached 92 million.

In comparison, after five weeks of release, the box office has begun to weaken and now only gets a box office of more than $90 million, and the impact of the trend, the box office fell by 44% again in the fourth week, and only got a box office of $16 million, although the cumulative box office reached 168 million, but in the next release week, if the box office appears again 40% The box office can only remain within 10 million, and with the box office trend, the box office number of tens of millions per week may remain for three to four weeks, and it is really difficult to say who will be the box office champion in the final summer file.

This result,Many film companies are a little dumbfounded,Even many executives of Columbia Pictures have a sense of emptiness that happiness comes too quickly and is difficult to adapt,Columbia's stock rose rapidly again,The total market value exceeded $4.5 billion in a few weeks,Sony, which has reached a preliminary acquisition agreement,The acquisition was originally planned to be completed at the end of September,But the person in charge of Sony has made several requests,Hope to sign a final agreement in August,The other party also realized,If you win the summer box office championship,The rise in the stock price will definitely not stop。

When the box office fell by 26% again in the third week, winning more than 38 million box office, the bewildered media could only attribute this trend to the desire of the masses for a windfall.

Although many film companies also want to learn from the lottery model of Colombia for promotion, it is a pity that the release trend of summer movies has ended, and it can be said that it is the last wave of large-scale zuò movies released, and it is no longer meaningful for the previously released movies to carry out similar promotion.

And the movies released after that are basically not very promising works that take advantage of the end of the summer season to make money, so other film companies don't dare to spend 2 million at all, even if it's 1 million, few people are willing to spend it, after all, this kind of risk is too great, even if a movie gets 100 million box office, after the theater chain is divided, the remaining half needs to be divided among investors, producers, and distributors, and finally pay taxes, and the profit is usually only one million. A film like Eric that has received hundreds of millions of shares is unique in the circle, even if it is currently recognized as the most profitable series, Lucas can't get such a high profit at the box office alone.

And Colombia's use of hype and product placement to achieve a box office reversal this time is also destined to become a classic marketing case to be studied by major film companies.

Eric isn't worried about being learned this way, because this time the operation is completely off-the-shelf, to put it bluntly, once or twice is fine, and the audience will still think that guessing product placement is quite fresh. Once you use it a few more times, the audience will definitely have a rebellious mentality of 'I'm here to watch movies for entertainment, not to count advertisements', and doing it again will only backfire.