The day after the Golden Globe nominations were announced, it happened to be Friday. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

With the large-scale release of Sony's "Mr. Sweetheart" and Paramount's "Star Trek: First Contact", it is announced that the hottest Christmas schedule at the end of the year is coming.

MGM's "Mission Impossible 2", which performed strongly at the end of the year, has reached $165 million in three weeks after the first-week box office of more than $82 million, and the total box office of 19 countries that has been released overseas has also exceeded the $100 million mark, which has been in the limelight for a while.

Kevin Costner, who planted a big heel in "Future Water World", returned to the ranks of Hollywood's superstars with his strong performance in "Mission Impossible 2". Although MGM negotiated two sequels at once during the downturn after the failure of Kevin Costner's "Future Waterworld", the launch of "Mission Impossible 3" will not have much more waves. However, because "Mission: Impossible" has the most eye-catching box office performance among the three series in the Agent Cinematic Universe, it is conceivable that in the future, "Mission: Impossible 4" will even go further and the secret service alliance movie with a deeper plot crossing, MGM will inevitably have a salary tug-of-war negotiation with Kevin Costner again. Of course, strictly speaking, this should be a happy trouble, and any Hollywood studio is eagerly looking forward to similar troubles.

Firefly's New Line Pictures' "Rush Hour" box office in the fourth week of Thanksgiving was $14.38 million, with a cumulative total of $100.166 million, becoming the second film under New Line to box office over 100 million this year, and according to the current box office trend, the total box office of "Rush Hour" in North America can reach at least $140 million.

In the eyes of the outside world, compared with the relatively sluggish box office performance of Firefly Himself this year, the new line, which focuses on low-cost films under $30 million, has performed extremely well.

The scale of production and distribution of films by the new line this year is a total of 16, if you do not count the "Jedi Men 2" that was transferred to next year's summer file by Eric, the average production cost of the remaining 15 films released is only 16 million US dollars, according to the released films, the new line has invested only 240 million in film production throughout the year, which is not much different from the production cost of "Titanic".

But in terms of returns, the four best box office films of the new line this year, "Rush Hour", "Seven Deadly Sins", "Death is Coming" and "Red Fan Zone", the total box office in North America is expected to reach 350 million US dollars, and the other 11 films, although there are many failures with a box office of only two or three million, but the cumulative total box office of the ten films has also exceeded 120 million.

Typically, low- and medium-budget films tend to have strong local cultural characteristics, making it difficult for them to make a difference in overseas markets. However, with the help of the overseas box office of "Seven Deadly Sins", which is more than twice as much as the domestic box office of $220 million, the overseas box office figure of the new line's full-year release film also reached $560 million.

According to comprehensive statistics, in 1996, with a production budget of 240 million US dollars, New Line Pictures achieved a total box office of 1.03 billion US dollars worldwide, not counting peripheral income such as videotapes and TV broadcast rights in the later stage, just in terms of box office, it directly brought more than 200 million US dollars in profits to Firefly Group.

"Titanic" only received an inconsequential Best Screenplay nomination at the Golden Globe Award nomination conference, although there were also many doubts, but in the general trend of the media, because of the failure of the Golden Globe Award nomination, the voice of "Titanic" is even more uproarious.

The news that the North American box office of "Rush Hour" exceeded 100 million yuan happened to appear in the media on the same day as the Golden Globe nomination, and as the producer and distributor of "Rush Hour", the contrasting annual production budget of New Line Pictures and "Titanic" also appeared in the media's field of vision.

With the same production budget of about $200 million, New Line's 15 low- and medium-budget films in 1996 generated more than $1 billion at the global box office, while the desperate "Titanic" had an uncertain future at this time, and in the eyes of most people, it was almost inevitable that the film would face huge losses.

This strong contrast has undoubtedly poured cold water on the trend of large investment and big productions that have emerged in Hollywood in recent years, and there were many reflexes in the media, and the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter featured a large amount of coverage on the front page.

"Since the early 90s, Hollywood seems to be more and more obsessed with 'blockbuster' films, and it is undeniable that films such as "Jurassic Park", "The Mummy" and "Men in Black" have brought unusually large profits to related production companies, but we can never ignore the disastrous consequences for investors and production companies caused by the failure of big-budget films such as "Cut Throat Island", "Future Water World", "Mighty Mountains" and "Phantom Heroes". The tragic failure of "Cut Throat Island" directly led to the merger of Firefly Pictures, which was still very weak, to the Disney Group. ”

And this year, the Firefly Group, which is invincible in big-budget films, seems to be accompanied by an unprecedented investment of $215 million in "Titanic", and suffers an "epic catastrophic accident" like 1912. On the other hand, film companies such as New Line Pictures, Miramax, which focus on low-to-medium and low-cost production, have quietly developed and grown with a cautious and steady production strategy, eroding the market share of films. ”

In particular, New Line, a subsidiary of the Firefly Group, leveraged more than $1 billion at the global box office with a full-year production budget comparable to that of "Titanic." As of the first week of December, New Line had a 7.8 percent share of the $5.9 billion total box office in North America in 1996, which is almost on par with Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures. ”

"As a creative industry, Hollywood must of course achieve innovation and exploration in film production techniques and special effects technology through some high-budget investment projects, so as to achieve the purpose of providing better film and television content to the audience. But at the same time, we also have to reflect on the fact that perhaps Hollywood needs to return to the 'tent pole theory' strategy proposed by Mr. Barry Diller, using a small number of blockbuster films as tent poles to prop up a large number of low- and medium-budget films that serve as the 'curtain', which is the most orthodox way for Hollywood studios to survive. On the other hand, if a film company wants to survive by relying only on a few 'tent poles' and ignores the existence of the 'curtain', you can imagine how miserable the scene will be when the 'wind and rain' hit. ”

After the Hollywood Reporter article was published, a large number of media outlets began to echo it.

Eric, who is in New York, saw this article for the first time.

Although he has recently thought about the trajectory of Firefly in recent years, Eric still scoffs at the views expressed in this article.

The popularity of big-budget movies is almost an inevitable trend in the development of Hollywood, because this type of film not only has a natural strong influence, but also can bring huge profits from box office, videotape and TV broadcast rights, and even form a whole lucrative peripheral industry chain involving peripheral toys, computer games, franchise licensing, etc., this potential commercial return is incomparable to low-cost films in any case.

While most low- and medium-budget films are successful at the box office, their commercial benefits often stop at videotape and television rights, while medium-budget productions like Jedi Men and Rush Hour, which have the potential to develop sequels, will undoubtedly double their production budgets after the success of the first installment, and it is inevitable that they will enter the ranks of big-budget films.

No matter what the outside media says, no matter how anxious and anxious the Firefly management is, and no matter how gloating other Hollywood studios are, the release date of "Titanic" is still approaching day by day.

In the last week, "Titanic" started a more intensive trailer bombardment on the TV network under the Firefly Group, and the eye-catching landmarks in major cities in North America also began to erect huge posters of "Titanic", Cameron, Little Plum and Rachel Weisz and other movie creators have landed on mainstream talk shows in North America, although Eric did not directly participate in the final stage of "Titanic" promotion, he spent almost two or three hours a day in Southampton, and the Firefly management, The distribution department and the main creative team communicate in all aspects.

On December 19th, the box office data of the first week of Christmas was roughly counted, and the two new films released this week, "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Mr. Sweetheart", achieved a first-week box office of $43 million and $24 million respectively, according to the box office trend of the two films, it will not have much impact on the next release of "Titanic". The comedy "Martians Playing the Earth", which will be released at the same time as "Titanic", is also not a big threat, after all, although it is starring Hollywood veteran acting superstar Jack Nicholson, it cannot be compared with "Titanic" in terms of production budget, pre-release word-of-mouth and publicity scale.

Other Hollywood film companies, although they have the intention of sniping "Titanic", are afraid of it after all, and will not directly collide with "Titanic" with heavyweight films. The biggest enemy of "Titanic" is actually only whether the film itself can be as strongly welcomed by the market as it was in the original time and space, and create the original box office miracle.

The final opening scale of "Titanic" is 2,770 theaters, although Firefly hopes to exceed 3,000, but because of the duration of "Titanic" of more than three hours, and the industry's one-sided perception of this film, many theaters that do not cooperate too closely with Firefly have refused to schedule films for "Titanic".

At eight o'clock in the evening, Eric discussed the publicity strategy of "Titanic" with Katzenberg on the phone, hung up his mobile phone, and stopped thinking too much about the film.

Personnel are exhausted, and next, we have to obey the destiny of heaven.

Throwing his mobile phone on the coffee table in the living room, Eric reached out and hugged his daughter who was watching TV next to Joanna with beautiful blue eyes and unblinking, and said, "Xia Xia, it's not good to watch too much TV, is it okay for Dad to read you a bedtime story?" ”

Hawaii struggled a little in Eric's arms, his eyes still fixed on the TV screen, and said in a dissatisfied tone, "But, Dad, I'm not sleepy." ”

"Kevin has gone to bed, you need to rest early, I'll be sleepy after listening to bedtime stories for a while," Eric said, and Emma, who was sitting next to Drew, also got up and ran over, saying that she wanted to listen to bedtime stories together, and blinked her eyes and reached out for Eric to hug.

Emma will be five years old soon, but the little one seems to have a tendency to repeat the little man in his previous life, and although he is two years older than Hawaii and Kevin, he is only slightly taller than Hawaii at this time.

Eric easily picked Emma up, walked towards the little ones' bedrooms one by one, and asked, "So, what do you want to hear?" ”

The TV disappeared from sight, and seeing that things were irreversible, Hawaii's little face reluctantly turned to Eric, and said, "Dad, bedtime stories are so boring, is it okay to read the Encyclopedia?" ”

Eric said helplessly: "Baby, in that case, Dad will probably fall asleep first." ”

Hearing this conversation between the father and daughter, Joanna on the sofa couldn't help but chuckle.

Eric has been under a lot of pressure recently, and they are not unaware, except for the bleak box office prospects of "Titanic", because Firefly's Clover Holdings Company suddenly invested $1.5 billion in popular technology stocks in the Nasdaq market in three months at the end of the year, and recently with the company's financial statistics at the end of the year, the news was announced, Eric had a dispute with David West, one of the board members and shareholders of the Firefly Group, in Manhattan a few days ago, and Buffett also expressed his doubts and dissatisfaction over the phone.

At this time, listening to Eric's relaxed conversation with her daughter, Joanna and the others knew that Eric's mentality was not too affected by the recent series of events, and they were all a little relieved.

I woke up early the next day and looked at my watch on the bedside table, it was just past seven o'clock, and it was still dark outside the window.

No longer sleepy, Eric carefully left the little Nizi who was snuggled in his arms, put on his clothes lightly, and walked out of the bedroom.

The snow that fell last week hasn't completely cleared, and today the sky is gray again.

The maids in the manor had already begun to prepare breakfast, and today's newspaper was already on the coffee table in the living room, and Eric sat down on the sofa, flipping through them one by one.

These days, the topic of "Titanic" has experienced too much saliva, and the media seems to be a little tired of it, although last night it was a large-scale opening, but because it was the middle of winter, coupled with the long three-hour duration of "Titanic", many people will inevitably give up watching the midnight show. There are not many film reviews about "Titanic" in the newspaper today, and the overall evaluation is not much different from the screening stage, and the detailed media trend analysis must wait for the report of the Firefly marketing department.

It was close to eight o'clock, Joanna and Natasha twins also got up, and Eric had just put down the newspaper and walked into the gym when the mobile phone he carried with him rang.

The call was from Katzenberg in Los Angeles himself, it was only five o'clock in the morning in Los Angeles, but this was not a problem for Katzenberg, there were two major workaholics in the top of the Firefly Group, one of them was Katzenberg, and the other, of course, was not Eric, but Robert Iger, compared to Katzenberg's five hours of sleep every day, Robert Iger seemed to be more ruthless, he got up at half past four every day.

The two talked on the phone for more than ten minutes, and Eric temporarily put down his morning exercise and came to the study.

A large white writing board is habitually hung on the entire wall of the study.

At this point, the top of the clipboard says 'titanic' and below is a listed table.

Picking up the black pen next to him, Eric calmly wrote the box office figure for the midnight show of "Titanic" in the first grid: $1.56 million.

Unfazed, tepid. (To be continued.) )