"Titanic" failed miserably at the box office, reporting $29.18 million in the first weekend, and the total box office in North America may not exceed 100 million. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"Eric Williams' cinematic magic has failed, and the epic blockbuster is off to a dismal start. ”

"Firefly Pictures suffered the largest box office failure in Hollywood film history, with cumulative losses of nearly $200 million. ”

"The word-of-mouth turn is difficult to stop the box office from falling, and the box office of "Titanic" in the first weekend of North America lost to "Star Trek: First Contact" in the same period, and the production cost of the two sides is five times different. ”

James Cameron led the "Titanic" team to participate in the London promotional event, and the press conference looked haggard and suspected of having a nervous breakdown. ”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Firefly Group, issued a statement that Firefly Pictures will not fire "Titanic" producers Jon Landau, William Stewart and other main creators, and will continue to work with director James Cameron. ”

Eric Williams has not appeared publicly for many days, "Casino Royale" may have stopped work in the later stage, and the film may follow in the footsteps of "Titanic". ”

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On December 23, the day before Christmas, with the release of the box office data of the first three days of the first weekend of "Titanic", the North American entertainment media launched a new round of bombardment on film-related topics.

If it were any other film, it would be 29.18 million in the first three days of the weekend, which cannot be regarded as a failure in any case, but it is "Titanic", a film with a total investment of 265 million US dollars and a global box office of 800 million to break even.

But at this time, the box office of "Titanic" in the first weekend was only 29.18 million US dollars, which was not even as good as "Star Trek: First Contact" released the week before, and "Star Trek: First Contact" produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures, with a production cost of 45 million US dollars, a box office of 30.71 million US dollars in the first weekend, and a box office decline of only 42% in the second weekend, another 17.8 million US dollars, and a cumulative box office of 60 million US dollars in ten days of release.

Most media have issued predictions that although the reputation of "Titanic" has improved compared with before its release, because the long three-hour film length has made most audiences lose their motivation to watch the movie, the box office decline of "Titanic" in the next week is likely to exceed that of "Star Trek: First Contact", reaching more than 50%.

According to this box office trend, the total box office of "Titanic" in North America may only be 80 million to 90 million US dollars. As we all know, the overseas distribution of "Titanic" is also full of obstacles, and there are only 9 overseas countries where the film was released at the same time, less than half of the number of overseas simultaneous countries of "Mission Impossible 2" a month ago. The failure of the North American box office of "Titanic" will also affect the overseas box office trend of the film, and the global box office of "Titanic" may stop at less than $200 million as the enthusiasm of distributors and theaters in unreleased countries decreases.

The global box office is 200 million, and Firefly can only recover about 70 million US dollars, and the future income of videotapes/DVDs, TV broadcast rights, etc. is impossible to talk about, the media expects Firefly to lose 200 million US dollars on this film, which is not exaggerated, and even within the Firefly Group, most of the management has reluctantly accepted this 'reality'.

If it were other big Hollywood studios, after the box office of "Titanic" was released in the first week, in the face of a huge loss of up to 200 million US dollars, the relevant person in charge may have been swept away at this time, and even the entire studio may face bankruptcy and reorganization. However, of course, this cannot be the case within the Firefly Group, after all, "Titanic" is a project forcibly promoted by Eric himself, and it seems too difficult to fire his own boss.

Although there is no need to explain to Wall Street or the company's shareholders like other film companies, in the face of the imminent huge losses, the company's top management always has to make some adjustments and deal with the aftermath to avoid repeating the mistakes of "Titanic" in the future.

Fresh off Christmas, and even though the holidays weren't over, Katzenberg began to convene the group's film executives every day to discuss the company's future production and distribution strategy.

It can be said that after the box office came out on the first weekend, most people have labeled "Titanic" as doomed, and because it is Christmas, few people pay special attention to the single-day box office of this movie, even the distribution department responsible for box office statistics within the Firefly Group is quite puzzled by Eric's insistence that they report the single-day box office summary as soon as possible.

Although it was very puzzled, no one dared to perfunctory Eric's request, and early every morning, Eric's email box office statistics report of the previous day would appear.

Perhaps considering Eric's mood, the women don't mention any movie in front of him these days, except for the routine holiday greetings, the top management of the Firefly Group did not mention "Titanic" to Eric during the Christmas season, so this Christmas is also lively and warm.

In the blink of an eye, it was December 27th, the third day after Christmas.

Eric got up early in the morning, washed up, and went to the study.

Today is Friday, the first day of the week following the release of Titanic.

Opening the computer on his desk and waiting for it to turn on, Eric looked at the white clipboard on the wall of the study.

At this time, seven sets of data including the midnight session have appeared above.

Needless to say, this weekend started this week.

December 23, $5.57 million.

Because it was Monday, it was down 40% from the previous day's $9.3 million, in line with the box office trend of most films.

December 24, $3.5 million.

On Christmas Eve, basically no one goes out to watch the film, and it is not surprising that the single-day box office has dropped sharply again.

Subsequently, on December 25, Christmas Day, the single-day box office was $7.03 million.

On Christmas Eve, December 24, there was little reference at the box office.

Compared with the single-day box office on December 23, there was a significant rise on December 25, early yesterday morning, when I saw this number, Eric has been a little irritable recently, and his mood has suddenly relaxed a lot, however, he is not too excited, just as people don't go out to watch movies on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, it is usually a good time for people to go out to eat, drink and have fun, and the single-day box office of movies has increased on this day, it is difficult to say that the factors of the film itself are still stimulated by the festive atmosphere.

Therefore, on December 26, that is, yesterday, the box office data of the last day of the first week of "Titanic" is particularly important, and the box office of this day will also prove whether "Titanic" can regain its former glory after a week of word-of-mouth fermentation.

If the day's single-day box office falls again, matching Monday's $5.57 million single-day box office, then all expectations will be in vain. If the single-day box office rises, even if it is the same as Christmas Day, then it will also indicate that the big ship that has created an unprecedented box office miracle in the original time and space will be again.

Eric looked at the clipboard on the wall for a moment, the computer on the desktop had been turned on, and in the process of entering the password to open Yahoo Mail, although Eric felt that he had roughly adjusted his mentality these days, but at this time, he realized that he couldn't deal with it calmly after all, and he even felt his fingers tremble slightly with excitement because of the coming of some kind of 'judgment moment'.

The page opens, and a striking unread email from Firefly's distribution department lies silently in the mailbox.

Eric moves the mouse and taps lightly, and the content of the email expands.

The first thing that appeared in front of me was the total box office of the first week released by the distribution department, and Eric directly skipped the summary figure of $54.33 million and looked down.

Staring quietly at the page and being silent for a few seconds, Eric breathed a deep sigh of relief, got up and walked to the clipboard, picked up a pen and quickly wrote the last number of the first week of "Titanic" on it.

$9.05 million.

This Thursday's box office figures, relative to the first day of "Titanic", rose by 4%, relative to Christmas Day, up 11%, and relative to the most comparable Monday, skyrocketed by 38%!

Eric couldn't help but scan the box office numbers for the first week and seven days again.

$8.65 million, $9.67 million, $9.3 million, $5.57 million, $3.5 million, $7.03 million, $9.05 million.

The $3.5 million single-day box office seems to be a freezing point, but in Eric's view, it is more like a spring that has been compressed to the extreme, accumulating all its strength to throw a movie destined to represent a miracle into the sky.

"Titanic", official!

Throwing the pen into the pen holder, Eric walked out of the study, thinking to himself that there might not be any need to record the daily box office in the future.

How tiring that would be.

A new day, for Hollywood, although it is Friday, is also a new week.

Many people wake up from their sleep and inadvertently look at today's newspapers, and may notice the box office figures of "Titanic" in the first week that appear above, but for this film, which has been characterized as a failure by most of the media, in addition to more and more fans who are moved by the film, most people don't think that the figure of $54.33 million is not a big deal, after all, last month's "Mission Impossible 2", the first week box office was more than $80 million.

Los Angeles, although three hours behind New York, Cartzenberg saw "Titanic" almost at about the same time as Eric Of course, he also noticed the box office of $9.05 million on the last day of the first week, which was surprising and even a little confusing, and Katzenberg even thought that the distribution department had counted the numbers wrong, after all, how could a movie have a weekday box office higher than the first day of release, although it was the Christmas holiday, most people's movie-watching habits were still maintained on the weekend for three days.

After calling the staff on duty in charge of box office statistics to confirm it, and listening to the firm voice of the head of the distribution department on the phone, Katzenberg was sure that the figure was not wrong.

However, instead of thinking on a more optimistic side, Katzenberg once again regarded this figure as the result of the Christmas holiday effect, after all, December 26 is also the second day of Christmas.

A little later, the executives of other Hollywood film companies, who also kept a close eye on "Titanic", also noticed the box office anomaly of the film on December 26, and most of them also did not mean to delve into it, and even some sensitive media maintained similar ideas to Katzenberg.

Although he thought it was just an accident, Katzenberg immediately called Eric in New York and reported the good news. After all, the box office agency predicted that the North American box office for this film was $80 million to $90 million, but it unexpectedly received $54.33 million in the first week, and the original forecast number will definitely rise, and it is almost certain that North America will break 100 million. Katzenberg thinks it's always good to lose less.

Eric didn't tell Katzenberg about his judgment, thinking that he should be a surprise for everyone. If God hadn't joked with him, then the surprise might just be tomorrow.

By phone with Eric, Katzenberg said goodbye to his wife and twin sons and drove to the Burbank Firefly headquarters, where he met with Kenneth Horn, president of New Line Pictures, this morning to discuss New Line's production and distribution plans for next year.

The new line has almost achieved box office performance comparable to the two major studios of Firefly Pictures and Disney Pictures this year, coupled with the box office failure of "Titanic", the group will definitely need to increase its support for New Line Pictures starting next year. In the past few days of discussions, Katzenberg, Frank Wells and other senior executives have decided on a plan to increase the average annual film production budget of the new line to $500 million over the next three years, and Eric has tentatively agreed to this plan on the phone, and today they will discuss the details in more detail.

As for the two major production companies in the department, Katzenberg and Frank Wells mean to reduce the budget of big-budget films, in fact, it is to reduce the production scale of Firefly Pictures, and at the same time re-emphasize the development of Disney's family live-action films, after all, Disney's entire industry chain from peripheral stores to Disneyland needs a large number of family movies to provide enough peripheral goods and copyright images, which is not only cartoons, live-action movies are equally important.

Eric wasn't as busy as Katzenberg, and after breakfast, he left the manor with a book and headed for a café on the edge of the neighborhood.

There were no customers in the café in the morning, and Eric said hello to the old man behind the counter, who was also a little bored and reading the newspaper, and sat down in his usual seat.

A waitress served Eric coffee and quietly withdrew.

Eric took a sip of warm coffee and leisurely flipped through the book "Financial Alchemy" in his hand.

The old man behind the counter, who had always been silent, took the initiative to speak this time for the first time and said, "Eric, it seems that the box office of "Titanic" in the first week is not bad. ”

The man, who looked to be in his sixties, was Matthew Braga, the owner of the café. However, Eric knew that the other party was not far from his home, and there was also a manor of considerable size, this old man was originally from Brazil, and he was also a very famous local entrepreneur, and his family ran a large natural rubber business in northeastern Brazil.

The two didn't know each other after all, and Eric couldn't reveal anything to him, so he replied with a smile: "If it's another movie, of course it's good, but this is "Titanic". I'm probably going to lose a lot this time, otherwise I wouldn't be hiding here and not daring to see anyone now. ”

Matthew Braga smiled, but with a bit of shrewdness in his eyes, he said, "I've never seen you miss." ”

"I hope so. ”

With that, the two sides fell silent again, Eric continued to read the boring book on finance in his hand, and Matthew Braga still flipped through his newspaper.

About an hour later, a blonde white girl in a white down jacket hurriedly pushed the door and walked in, saw that Eric was already sitting here, hurriedly walked over, and did not forget to apologize: "I'm really sorry, Mr. Williams, my car broke down and I had to ask my classmates to send me over." ”

"It's okay, Sabrina, please take a seat, I happen to be a little confused, and I need you to explain it to me. ”

"Oh, of course," Sabrina Rand sat down across from Eric, pulling out a copy of Financial Alchemy from her satchel, along with a notebook, and patiently answering many seemingly simple financial questions to Eric.

Of course, these questions are just simple for her, a graduate student in Colombia's Department of Finance.

Because of his upset mood recently, Eric has no intention of combing through the plot of Marvel's comic universe, but chooses a boring financial book to spend his leisure time, and the cold financial theory is also easier to calm people's minds.

However, if it is a Chinese work, it is fine, but according to the literal meaning, you can understand some things by reading it repeatedly. However, if you want to understand professional English financial books, you must know all kinds of professional and even obscure financial English words in them.

Eric only had some basic knowledge of finance in his mind at most, so in order to understand the book, he hired a top finance student from Columbia University, that is, Sabrina Rand in front of him, a tall blonde girl with a good face. The most important thing around Eric is beautiful women, of course he will not have any intentions for the girl in front of him, the reason why he chose Sebrina from the candidates recommended by the Colombian side is purely for the idea of 'red sleeves and fragrance', a beautiful girl with eyes to accompany him must be more comfortable than a person of the same sex.

As for the book "Financial Alchemy" that Eric has been interested in recently, it has a well-known author named George Soros. (To be continued.) )