Entering July, "Breaking Bads 2" was released on July 5 amid great anticipation, and as the most popular female action movie in recent years, "Breaking Bads 2" earned more than $71 million at the box office in its first week. At the same time, films such as "Pocahonta" and "The Mummy 2" also continue to harvest box office in the North American film market, and the two sequels "Men in Black" and "Jumanji" that will be released in the coming weeks are also poised to be released.

In the eyes of many people, in addition to the "Mummy" series, whether it is Paramount Animation's "Pocahonta" or MGM Pictures' "Breaking Baby", or "Men in Black" and "Brave's Game" released by Sony Pictures, they should have been in the bag of fireflies. But at this time, these films are conquering the city for several other major film companies, and Firefly's "The Matrix" and "Death Island" this year have begun to enter the final stage.

As a result, almost all of these factors have become the place where the media ridiculed Firefly's business strategy mistakes, especially Paramount Animation Studios.

Although Firefly sold the hand-drawn animation studio for a huge amount of $2.5 billion, judging from the current commercial potential of "Pocahonta", as long as Paramount Animation maintains this level of production in the next few animated films, Viacom will not only be able to recoup all the investment costs in the next ten years, but also rely on Paramount Animation's cooperation with Nickelodeon. With the cooperation of other companies in the Viacom system such as the Blockbuster chain, Viacom can also build a 2D animation industry chain that can compete with Firefly 3D animation films, which has the most lethal impact on Firefly.

Because before this, due to factors such as the difficulty of cultivating an animated film team and the long investment cycle, the Hollywood animated film industry was almost monopolized by Disney, a subsidiary of Firefly, which can be said to have taken the initiative to cut a large piece of cake out of the high-profit industry that was originally monopolized by itself to Viacom.

The inside story of the sale of Disney's hand-drawn animation studio is still known to a very small number of people, and Firefly has no way to refute it at this time.

Moreover, if it is just these criticisms of the fireflies, although they are annoying, they will not be able to cause any substantial harm to the fireflies, the public relations department estimates that the media will be noisy for a while, and when the summer season passes, the public will no longer be interested in these things, and the topic will naturally cool.

But then, after the North American box office of "The Matrix" exceeded 200 million, the Wachowski brothers appeared on ABC's "The Late Show with David".

The brothers landed on this talk show, mainly for the later promotion of "The Matrix", hoping that the box office of the film can go longer in the next few weeks, although the two have become famous, but they are both the kind of people who like to keep a low profile, or Frank Wells personally called the two and arranged this talk show.

However, in the interview, the Wachowski brothers inadvertently talked about the news that the follow-up script of the film was rejected by the company and that the script was being rewritten. Fireflies also did not show much sensitivity to the topic.

But perhaps it is the news about fireflies that has always made headlines in recent times, and a large number of media people have been focusing on the people and things related to fireflies recently, and this news has naturally been noticed by those who are interested.

After a few days of entanglement, and because Andy Wachowski came out of the bar that day, he had just drunk some alcohol and was drunk, and finally the paparazzi flickered back to the bar again for an 'exclusive interview'.

Although it was conceived after Eric's original novel, the brothers have always regarded the script of the trilogy as their own work. The brothers have also been depressed lately since the script was completely rejected by Eric, and Andy Wachowski poured a lot of bitterness on the excited paparazzi in a daze.

So, the next day, the Chicago Sun, the most influential newspaper in Chicago, published an article about it.

"...... "The Matrix" is undoubtedly the best science fiction film in recent years. Although it was changed from Eric Williams's original book, the Wachowski brothers, the director and screenwriter, added a lot of more philosophical elements to the film, which also made the film a further theme sublimation on the basis of Eric Williams's original pure science fiction, which greatly increased the watchability and cultural connotation of the film. ”

“…… However, according to the interview of "The Matrix" director Andy Wachowski, we have received extremely sad news. The Wachowski brothers conceived a complete trilogy series from the outset during the original book by Eric Williams, but after the success of the first installment, the scripts for the next two installments were rejected by the Firefly executives. Andy Wachowski revealed that Firefly executives thought the sequel script was too deep and didn't meet the requirements of a commercial film. Therefore, Firefly not only vetoed the Wachowski brothers' request for a co-production of the two sequels, but also asked the brothers to completely tear down the script and restart it, remove the profound philosophical connotation, and return to the essence of popcorn-like commercial films. ”

“…… As we all know, although Firefly suffered its first film performance waterloo since its inception this year, we have to admit that Firefly Group's film business has achieved commercial results in recent years that are enough to make all other peers look up to. But at the same time, we have also seen that Firefly has done almost nothing in the field of art films other than commercial films in recent years. We have always believed that while a film is chasing commercial profits, it also has the obligation to convey certain spiritual connotations. Therefore, it is undoubtedly very undesirable for fireflies to pursue business too much and give up connotation. ”

“…… Not to mention anything else, take "The Matrix" as an example, in just over a month after its release, this film quickly gathered a large number of die-hard fans because of the perfect integration of science fiction and philosophy in the film. It is conceivable that once the sequel to "The Matrix" completely abandons the distinct personal characteristics of the Wachowski brothers and returns to the essence of the firefly popcorn commercial film, then, after years of waiting with great anticipation, it will undoubtedly be extremely disappointing again. ”

Clearly, this report must have misinterpreted Andy Wachowski's words to a great extent. Eric's original request was for the brothers to rewrite a complete and fluid story, and it didn't make them abandon their personal style.

On the same day that the Chicago Sun published the article, the Wachowski brothers' agent publicly clarified to the media, saying that the Fireflies had no intention of asking the brothers to adapt "The Matrix" into a pure popcorn movie, and that the interview was just the result of the paparazzi's verbal inducement of a drunk Andy Wachowski.

It's just that the media and fans obviously don't believe the Wachowski brothers' clarification, and some people who think they know the internal rules of the industry even judge that this is a statement that the Wachowski brothers had to make under strong pressure from the fireflies.

As a result, this article was quickly reprinted in just a few days, and its influence not only expanded.

In less than a week, almost all Americans who pay even a little attention to entertainment information know about it.

The real fan base of "The Matrix" was even more angry, and in the second week of the incident, a large number of fans began to gather outside the Burbank Firefly headquarters and Preavista Firefly Studios, holding signs like "We don't want popcorn movies, we want "The Matrix", demanding that the Firefly executives abandon the decision to let the Wachowski brothers revise the script and follow the original script for filming.

If it's just all kinds of attacks and ridicule from the media, Fireflies can certainly ignore it, but the company has to be cautious about the actions of fans.

After all, America's well-established film culture also means that the power of the fan base is far greater than that of other countries where the film industry has just developed, and the slightest mishandling could damage the brand of the Firefly Group.

While deliberately arranging manpower to maintain the order of the original fan group every day to prevent more serious emergencies, the firefly executives also began to explore countermeasures.

According to the original script of the Wachowski brothers, it must not work, because now the fireflies have been completely squeezed into a situation of two years in and out. Once the original version of the misty script is filmed, the quality of the film will definitely not meet the expectations of fans, and at that time, because of these things today, disappointed fans will definitely blame Fireflies for no reason. Moreover, it is now impossible for Firefly to make the original script of the Wachowski brothers public, which is not only against the rules of the industry, but also because fans who think that their idols are good at everything often do not make professional judgments on the script.

But on the other hand, if the Wachowski brothers rewrite and write the script according to the original plan, not to mention what the film will be in the future, in the case of offending a large number of fans, this group of people will definitely be more demanding on the sequel, and even if the sequel has the strength of 8 points, it will be pulled to the 6 points bad movie line by discerning fans.

All in all, because of this unexpected media stir, no matter what Firefly does for the "Matrix" project, as long as the sequel does not reach the level of amazing quality, the results obtained in the future are almost all wrong.

Perhaps other competitors also realized the Firefly's dilemma, and made small moves with the intention of messing up "The Matrix" even if it couldn't be messed up.

As time went on, the news topic related to the sequel to The Matrix became more and more noisy rather than cool.

There was even a website on the Internet that asked for the original, with the same headline of 'We don't want popcorn movies, we want 'The Matrix', which attracted more than 100,000 signatures in just one week.

After many public relations sessions at the top of the Firefly Group, Katzenberg also personally appeared on ABC TV's "Morning News" to explain Firefly's intentions to fans, but to no avail.

Although there were other ways to deal with it, in the end, Katzenberg, Frank Wells and other high-level officials could only send the matter to Eric, who was in the Bahamas, and let him decide for himself.

After the two-week night scene shooting, the related literary drama filming also went quite smoothly.

The time came to July 16th, two days ago, the scenes of "Casino Royale" in the Bahamas had all ended, but because of the busy month and a half in a row, coupled with the painful shooting of day and night in the middle two weeks, the entire crew was exhausted.

Eric didn't rush the crew to the next filming location, but gave the entire crew three days off so that everyone could enjoy the sun and beaches of the Bahamas.

At the same time as the film was filmed, Eric of course kept an eye on the events that took place in Los Angeles, and he thought that Katzenberg and the others would take care of the matter, but when his first assistant, Kelly Haynes, arrived in the Bahamas with a stack of papers, Eric realized that things were on the verge of spiraling out of control.

On the living room couch in Eric's apartment, Kelly handed Eric the documents one by one, explaining, "The situation is that we are almost completely unable to give the fans a satisfactory explanation. According to the original script, once the quality of the film does not meet expectations in the future, the mistake will definitely be blamed on us, and let the Wachowski brothers rewrite the script, the movie may not be made yet, the film may have to be boycotted by fans, and the mistake still has to be borne by us. ”

After reading a lot of newspaper clippings, risk assessments and other materials, Eric couldn't help but rub the corners of his forehead, and said, "It's really not a stop at all, and now I can't even shoot it." ”

Kelly smiled wryly and said, "Yes, if the project is shelved and not filmed, it will still offend fans, and it may be the most ruthless, because they will feel that they are being neglected and despised." ”

"Okay, let me think about it," Eric rubbed his forehead, looked at Peter Ritchie sitting on the other side, and said, "You go find a place where you can have a video conference, there should be one in the Ocean Club Center, let Katzenberg and them come online on time in the evening, and we can discuss it again." ”

Peter Ritchie nodded, hesitated again, and said, "Eric, the difficulty of video conferencing may be a bit too big, there should be no video conferencing equipment here, and the teleconference room is easier to arrange." ”

Eric also forgot that the development of the Internet has not yet reached the point where it is easy to hold video conferences, not to mention that this is still the Bahamas, and waved his hand: "Then let's make a conference call." ”

Waiting for Peter Ritchie to leave, Kelly moved her delicate body, saw that Eric was still rubbing the corners of his forehead, got up lightly and walked over, stood behind Eric, and stretched out a pair of plain hands to rub Eric up. (To be continued.) )