At 11 p.m. West Coast time on Friday, most studios' chairmen or vice chairmen wait anxiously in front of fax machines for the latest CinemaScore film scores.

The top management of the new line and Columbia Samsung are anxiously waiting for the results at this time.

With the sound of clattering high heels on the ground, Shay subconsciously raised his head and met Lisa's gaze as she pushed open the office door.

"The score is out?" His eyes fell on the fax paper in Lisa's hand, and Shay immediately stood up from his seat.

"Yes, we got an A- score!" Lisa hurriedly handed over the fax.

At the same time, Shay asked again: "What is the score of "Extraordinary Suspects"?" ”

"A like us." Lisa replied.

Shay was stunned for a moment, and the fax in his hand felt meaningless.

After a long time, it was only a tie in the end, and this result somewhat disappointed Shay.

Of course, even worse is Columbia's three-star company, "The Usual Suspects" was blown out by "The Seven Deadly Sins" in terms of cast, and they have been hoping to find a little psychological comfort in the CinemaScore score, but the result is extremely disappointing.

The ratings of the two movies are the same, and their final advantage is also equalized by their opponents.

At this time, "The Extraordinary Suspects" is like a group of farmers with wooden sticks, and opposite is the army of heavily armored knights armed to the teeth of "The Seven Deadly Sins", this is not a battle, but a one-sided slaughter!

The next morning, the box office results of the first day of release of the two films were announced.

"The Seven Deadly Sins" was released simultaneously in 1,036 theaters in North America. The box office on the first day was $11.04 million, and the attendance rate during the peak hours was as high as 82%. The box office of a single museum set an annual record of $10,600.

"The Usual Suspect" relied on the channel of Columbia to win the scale of simultaneous release in 1,200 theaters in North America. However, the box office on the first day only received $4.78 million, and both the attendance rate and the single-theater box office were only half of "The Seven Deadly Sins".

This disparity widened further after Saturday's box office statistics.

"Seven Deadly Sins" continued to lead the way with a $12.23 million daily box office, while "The Usual Suspects" was able to break the $5 million mark at the same day box office.

The last day of the first weekend was truly a "Good Friday" for Samsung Colombia.

With the appeal of the three major movie stars and the rapid word-of-mouth influence, "Seven Deadly Sins" finally ushered in a blowout at the box office, with a $15.72 million box office on the same day just one step away from breaking the annual record of $15.89 million set by Warner's "The Undefeated New Batman".

The movies released at the same time were more or less affected, of course, the most unlucky was "The Extraordinary Suspect", which began to decline at the box office on the third day of its release, earning $4.98 million on the same day. It's only one-third of the Seven Deadly Sins.

According to the box office statistics of the first weekend, "Seven Deadly Sins" successfully topped the North American weekend box office list with a box office of $38.99 million, while "Extraordinary Suspects" only ranked third with a score of 15.23 million.

At this point, Columbia's Samsung has completely abandoned its plan to recoup the cost of the film through the North American box office, and the theater chain also plans to reduce the scale of the film to 900, and the number of theaters in the new week of "The Seven Deadly Sins" will reach 1,400, half of which is obtained from "The Usual Suspect".

That's the rules of the game in Hollywood, winner takes all!

On Monday morning, Jude and Leeter gathered in Shay's office. Negotiate the follow-up of the film's account sharing.

"Just a little bit away from breaking the record for The Undefeated Mystery of the New Batman!" As Shay poured wine into the glass, his eyes looked at Jude from time to time, and the last time the two of them sat and drank like this was to discuss the filming plan of "Two Smoking Guns". More than a year has passed in the blink of an eye, and this young man has grown to the point where he needs to deliberately befriend.

Jude and Leet exchanged a quick glance.

Now Warner is still a behemoth for the new line, and it is not necessarily a good thing to make the other side feel threatened too soon. But this is Shay's business, and Jude and Leete, who are collaborators, don't need to think about it.

After tightening the wine bottle. Shay walked over with two glasses of wine, one handed to Jude. A cup was handed to Leete.

"Cheers to our success!"

Shay was the first to raise his glass.

Jude and Leet both took a sip and set their glasses aside, neither of them had come to celebrate with Shay today.

"This is CinemaScore's box office prediction report, so you can take a look at it first." Shay put down his glass and pulled out a file from his desk drawer.

Jude took it and took a casual look at it, and found that the box office forecast given by CinemaScore was exactly the same as the figure given by Ed Mintz at the premiere, which was $100 million, and he immediately lost the interest in continuing to look down.

He handed the report to Lee, looked at Shay and said, "Judging from the box office data of the first weekend, the numbers given by CinemaScore are obviously a bit conservative, and I think the $100 million box office is just the starting point." ”

Shay gripped his glass and nodded with a smile.

"I think so too!"

"According to the agreement, I hope that the new line company can pay off all the box office shares within half a year."

Jude agreed with New Line to split the account with New Line before filming "The Seven Deadly Sins," which included North American box office and video distribution revenues. The latter's share is generally settled only once a year, but the box office share can be cashed out immediately.

According to CinemaScore's prediction, if the North American box office of "The Seven Deadly Sins" can finally exceed $100 million, Jude will be able to earn $7 million, plus the 4 million salary as an actor, there will probably be less than $10 million left after deducting various taxes.

Compared with the account-sharing income of "Two Big Smoking Guns", Jude's direct income from the filming of "Seven Deadly Sins" did not increase much, but whether it was for New Line Company or Jude himself. None of the benefits can be counted in this way.

With the success of this film, the company has proved that it has the ability to attract first-class directors and first-class stars. Shoot the strength of A-grade productions, and Jude used the success of this film to tell everyone. His success was no matter of luck.

Jude proposed to get the North American box office within half a year, and the new line company also hopes to use Jude as an example to attract more excellent directors and actors to cooperate, which will of course give enough benefits at this time.

Shay happily agreed to Jude's request, and by the way, mentioned the next promotional arrangements for the movie.

"There are still two events in the United States that you need to be present, and the rest is the premiere of several European countries, and I will ask Lisa to send you the specific itinerary."

Litt glanced at Jude and saw that he didn't mean to speak, so he said: "We will choose one to participate in the propaganda activities in the United States, and the premieres in Europe will only go to the United Kingdom, France and Germany." ”

Shay frowned. Li Teh directly cut half of the activity itinerary, which made him a little embarrassed.

"I can participate in both campaigns in the U.S., but Kate has to be on the list, and the premiere in Europe is the same."

Jude spoke, and the expression on Shay's face finally looked a little better.

"Don't mess with me, you're already planning your next movie." He joked as he poured his wine.

Jude raised his glass and replied nonchalantly, "I'm going to set up a film studio, and I'm afraid the next film won't be considered until next year." ”

"Really?" Shay put down the bottle and looked at Jude and Leeter in some surprise.

First, Leeter set up his own brokerage company. Immediately after Jude is about to set up his own film studio, if you want to say that these two things have nothing to do with each other, the ghost will believe it!

"I hope that your next film can give priority to cooperating with the new line company." Although I can't guess the specific partnership between Jude and Leett. But this does not prevent Shay from being optimistic about Jude's future development.

"Of course!"

Jude raised his glass to Shay, and although he probably won't be considering working with the new line anytime soon, the apparent relationship will continue.

The meeting ended in a good atmosphere. Shay personally dropped Jude to the elevator door.

The elevator doors closed slowly, and I looked at the floor numbers that began to jump down. Li Te couldn't help but turn his head sideways and asked, "You really haven't thought about what to make in the next movie?" ”

Jude stared straight ahead, "Didn't I already answer that just now?" ”

"I thought you were just dealing with Shay White."

Others may not know. But Leeter knows that Jude has registered several scripts with the Screenwriters Guild, and many directors often encounter situations where they don't know what their next film will make, but this by no means includes Jude.

"I'm serious, I'm going to take a break." Jude turned his head to look at Leeter, "In the past year and a half, I have made three films in a row, and for any director, such a frequency of filming is considered very high. ”

""This Man is from Earth" can only be counted as half a part at most, so to be exact, two and a half."

Leeter's algorithm is different from Jude's, and in his opinion, Jude's first work has not been released publicly because the shooting period is too short, so it should not be counted.

"That's a lot, normally a director only makes a movie in a year or two."

"But you're not like them." Leeter emphasized.

"I know you want me to start planning for the next film as soon as possible, but don't forget, I'm still the producer of 'National Treasure', and although I don't go to the set very often, that doesn't mean I don't have anything to do in the next few days."

As soon as Jude mentioned this, Leeter complained all over his stomach.

"You don't often go to the crew, but you never go to the crew at all, even if you don't want to get involved in the filming side, but you also don't seriously care about things outside of filming, for example, Mr. Ovitz has wanted to ask you to meet several times, and you always find reasons to refuse, is this a performance that a producer should have?"

It's Ovitz again, and Jude only feels like the name is haunting his ears!

"Okay, you can arrange it, and I'll meet him when I have time." (To be continued......)

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