As the second work of Chaos Pictures, "The Day After Tomorrow" can be said to be a difficult challenge, whether it is working with a top company like Twentieth Century Fox or a high investment of 130 million US dollars, it is a thorny road to heaven and hell for Chaos Pictures without any foundation.

When Chaos Pictures signed the partnership agreement with Twentieth Century Fox, "City of God" had not yet been able to win an Oscar nomination - of course, even with the three golden statuettes in hand, Chaos Pictures still did not have much capital to negotiate terms with Twentieth Century Fox. In the face of such a giant crocodile, Chaos Pictures had almost no advantage, so in the end, Theo and Ian, as representatives, reached a cooperation agreement with Twentieth Century Fox with great difficulty, and secured the final editing rights of the film in the form of box office dividends.

However, Chaos Pictures only has the qualifications to carve up the North American box office. In other words, no matter how good the performance of "The Day After Tomorrow" in the overseas market is, it has nothing to do with Chaos Pictures. In fact, this is also very fair, because Chaos Pictures does not have any distribution and promotion capabilities in overseas markets, and at the same time, it has not yet proven its production ability in North America, and relies more on Lance's status as a producer-director-screenwriter to bargain.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and Hollywood has no such thing.

At the beginning, Chaos Pictures paid 10 percent of the box office dividends in exchange for the final editing rights - according to the "acquired" North American box office, this is 28 million dollars, which made Twentieth Century Fox make a lot of money. But it's a win-win situation for Chaos Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, and without the deal for the final editing rights, no one knows what the finished product of the "day after tomorrow" will look like and whether it will be able to achieve its current results.

Fortunately, both Twentieth Century Fox and Chaos Pictures have made wise trade-offs.

After the "day after tomorrow" North American box office and global box office were released one after another, Twentieth Century Fox made statistics, after deducting the cost of production, publicity costs, theater dividends, crew dividends, etc., Twentieth Century Fox relied on this film to obtain a profit of 120 million US dollars - pre-tax income.

What's more, it was just a box office profit, when the "day after tomorrow" videotapes hit the market and DVDs were released. Twentieth Century Fox will enter the net income stage, which is the real main income of the film production company - since Chaos Pictures is not eligible to share the profits, Twentieth Century Fox will enjoy this dividend alone, which is a big reason for their smiles.

Equally. Chaos Pictures also ushered in a bumper harvest.

It's a pity that the North American box office of "The Day After Tomorrow" must exceed 300 million before Chaos Pictures can get the full 25% dividend, but now the box office has finally stopped at 280 million US dollars, which also means that "The Day After Tomorrow" can only receive 23% of the dividends. In the process of working with a top large company like Twentieth Century Fox. The disadvantages of independent studios like Chaos Pictures are clear.

Even so, the excellent box office performance of "The Day After Tomorrow" still allowed Chaos Pictures to win a dividend of 64.8 million.

With $64.8 million, one step of heaven and one step of hell, Chaos Pictures managed to reach the realm of heaven overnight. After deducting the actors' remuneration, the income belonging to Chaos Pictures is 44 million US dollars, and even after paying taxes, this income is enough for Chaos Pictures to calmly devote itself to the system of "borrowing a knife to kill".

From the passive spending of the "City of God", to the hard debt of the "acquired day", to the balance of payments of "borrowing a knife to kill". Chaos Pictures completed the triple jump in just one and a half years. Once "borrowing a knife to kill" is successful, then Chaos Pictures can really enter the stage of profitability, and even free hands to produce two or even three works at the same time, or occupy more initiative in the works with an investment of more than 100 million US dollars, so as to avoid being suppressed by Twentieth Century Fox.

The speed of Chaos Pictures' rise is indeed extraordinary, and Diorama Pictures' concerns are not unfounded. is just a "day after tomorrow", such a shocking gamble will completely erase the disadvantages of Chaos Pictures, which is also the fundamental reason why major Hollywood film companies have always been obsessed with big investment and big production. The failure of three works can be reversed by the success of just one work.

After Chaos Pictures relied on the "day after tomorrow" to complete its rise, Diorama Pictures was overstretched because of the fiasco of "Troy".

Since the fourth week of May, "Troy" has lost the capital to call the "day after tomorrow", and the irreversible decline of the film was announced within three weeks of its release. Subsequently, in the face of the successive impacts of works such as "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", the box office of the movie plummeted, with a weekly box office decline of more than 45 percent, and even three ultra-high declines of more than 55 percent, which made the follow-up of the film weak, only fifteen weeks after its release. It was announced offline.

The North American box office of "Troy" unfortunately stopped forever at $116 million.

The investment of 175 million has only earned 116 million at the box office in North America, without exceeding the book cost, not exceeding 150 million, or even exceeding 120 million, just 116 million. A mere 116 million completely destroyed the ambitions of Diorama Pictures.

Even if the overseas box office is included, the final global box office of "Troy" is only 376 million, not exceeding the target of 400 million, which also means that Warner Bros., Plan B Pictures and Diorama Pictures have all ushered in a rout.

Even if Warner Bros. can still expect to further reduce the losses after the release of the videotape, there is no doubt that the high losses have made Warner Bros. angry within Warner Bros. -- in the preparatory stage, "Troy" was considered an impossible project to fail, and all aspects were absolutely guaranteed, but in the end it did not even get a "one plus one equals two" As a result, it ushered in a total collapse.

Diora Pictures lost $25 million, not counting public relations expenses, favor investment, etc., which is the largest loss since the company's establishment, for an independent film company, a loss of $25 million means that their efforts for a year or even two years have been wasted, which is not enough to make Diorama Pictures break their bones, but the next development is indeed stretched.

As Ryan had always feared, a high-investment project like "Troy" would push the company into an embarrassing situation if it failed.

It's like a gamble where you lose the cost and have to invest more, hoping for a desperate win that will not only turn the tide around, but also make a lot of money. The failure of "Troy" left Diora Pictures without much choice, and the huge losses were impossible to erase by relying on works like "Lost in Tokyo" or "Elephant", if they continued to stick to the previous line and clinged to low-budget independent films, not to mention that turning losses into profits would be an impossible task, the pace of development of Diora Pictures alone would be strictly restricted, and the final pace of progress would only become more and more restrained, slower and heavier.

If Diorama Pictures didn't have to compete with Chaos Pictures, then even if "Troy" failed, they could have slowed down and hoped to dig up more works like "Lost in Translation", "Two Smoking Guns", "Dance of the Death Row Inmates", and when they came to their senses, they would once again seek a breakthrough and find a suitable project. After all, we still have to challenge again, but at least there will be a breathing time.

But there is no "if" in the world, they must face the strong rise of Chaos Pictures, especially if one side fails and the other side succeeds; One side loses, the other side makes a profit, and between this advance and retreat, the gap between Diorama Pictures and Chaos Pictures was immediately shortened. A situation similar to the head-to-head confrontation between "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Troy" is bound to recur in the future, and they have become competitors for both commercial and independent films.

What's more, this is Hollywood, a society where the law of the jungle eats the strong, and even without Chaos Pictures, they have to face the suppression and competition of other second-tier production companies. The knock-on effects of a failure are far more severe than imagined.

Not only can they not be conservative, but on the contrary, they must be bolder, more cautious, more sensible, and more sensitive, and seek more opportunities for breakthroughs. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before Chaos Pictures catches up, or even overtakes.

One wrong step, one wrong step, this is like a chain set, after the first step is wrong, you have lost the initiative, and there is no possibility of turning back, you can only continue to walk hard, and then look forward to the next step to reverse the situation. Who would have thought that just one "Troy" would create such an excellent situation. Perhaps, Lance thought of it.

Now, the defeat of "Troy" has left Ryan and others with no choice but to pin their hopes on the "Saharan Cavalry".

This is a paradoxical situation.

Because taking risks leads to the current situation, but being conservative does not solve the problem, they have to continue to choose to take risks, and then each time they take risks, they must take more, bigger, and stronger risks, as if they are pushing themselves step by step up the cliff with their own hands.

But at least, "Saharan Cavalry" is good news, the investment of 160 million has given the work enough weight, and more importantly, in recent years, treasure hunt movies such as "Return of the Mummy" and "National Treasure" have begun to resurge, and there is even news that the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" series is ready to restart, which also means that the entire film market feels the value of adventure movies.

Go with the flow, it's always the safest thing to do during an adventure, isn't it? (To be continued.) )

PS: Today's second update, I beg for guaranteed monthly pass support, thank you!