Why do these Hollywood studios run the Oscars? And to invest a lot of money in it? If in the past, the investment in film awards was roughly around hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, just like this year's "Chicago", a total of only one million dollars was invested, then since "The English Patient", Miramax has officially joined the game, and the Oscar rush will pile up to millions or even tens of millions of dollars at lightning speed.

By the turn of the century, tens of millions of dollars were even just an entry-level guarantee for awards.

Why do studios invest so much money? Because of honor and artistic achievement? This is indeed a high-sounding reason to improve the compulsion.

Actually?

Perhaps last year's big win "Saving Private Ryan" is the best example, the film won nine Oscars, and when it won the award, it basically went offline from the global market, and the little gold man who got it didn't help much at the box office.

But! Don't forget that a film doesn't just have box office revenue, as time goes on, the ratio of box office revenue to total revenue keeps decreasing!

After the last Oscars, "Saving Private Ryan" launched videotapes and VCDs in global markets, including North America, both for sales and for rentals, and as of the New Year, the total revenue in this area in the global market was $144.58 million!

There is also TV broadcast copyright, and the total global revenue has reached 41.8 million US dollars!

In addition, the film also cooperated with Hasbro to launch puppets of characters such as Rescue Squad and Private Ryan, although the sales can only be said to be very average, but there are also more than 4 million US dollars in revenue.

Best Picture arguably played a big part in this.

Before the Internet is not developed enough, the information has not completely exploded, and the Oscars have not been completely niche and politicalized, Oscar nominations and best pictures are still the vane of many candidates. Except for a few bizarre films such as "The Shawshank Redemption", films that have been nominated for multiple Oscars generally usher in a significant increase in commercial income.

After the Oscar nominations were announced, the scale of "Chicago" in North America expanded again, surging from 428 to 1,550 theaters in the first place, just like last year's "Saving Private Ryan". Stimulated by the Oscar nomination, many viewers who had no plans to watch the film walked into the theater, and those who had already seen it revisited it.

In the first weekend after the theatrical surge, "Chicago" rebounded strongly at the box office, showing a sharp reversal, closing $10.78 million in three days, and in the following three full weeks, the film earned $8.75 million, $5.89 million and $4.58 million respectively, and the North American box office totaled $169.81 million.

The film's North American box office potential is running out. The cinema chain has once again fallen sharply, and with a scale of less than 500 stores, it continues to harvest the last harvest that North America may get.

Also after the announcement of the list of nominees, the overseas release of "Chicago" officially began, and the film landed in Europe, Latin America, Australia, Asia and even Africa at the same time.

Ten Oscar nominations do give the film a dazzling halo, but the song and dance film leaving the Western world is destined to be unsuitable, just in Duke and Charles? Rowan spent four weeks discussing New Zealand affairs. Chicago earned $11 million from Australia and $6.37 million from France. $5.32 million was reported in Germany and $9.22 million was taken in Spain.

The two largest overseas box office warehouses of the film appeared in the United Kingdom, which has the same roots as American culture, and Japan, which is deeply influenced by American culture, and received the highest overseas $27.33 million and $25.93 million respectively, plus other million-level markets, the film's overseas box office soon reached $100 million!

By late February. "Chicago" has accumulated $287.55 million at the global box office!

Subsequently, Duke Studios partnered with Warner Records to release the "Chicago" soundtrack, which was released two weeks ago, and sales in North America alone easily exceeded one platinum. Up to 1.52 million.

The disc was released in overseas markets at the same time, and by the time the time the time came to mid-March, the soundtrack album had sold more than $30 million, and although Duke Studios had to split accounts with Warner Records and marketers, this alone recovered a quarter of the production cost!

The film's popularity also led to the development of other peripherals, and at the same time, Duke Studios reached an agreement with Mattel to license the rights to Velma and Lockhee's doll models for $1.5 million, although according to Hollywood convention, one-third of them will be used to pay Naomi? Watts and Catherine? Zeta? Jones's portrait copyright fee, the remaining $1 million, is also a lot of money.

Duke Studios and Warner Bros. were still negotiating with a number of television stations, and at this time they also reached a partial agreement, and NBC took the first round of television rights to the film in North America for $3 million.

Since the film is still released in North America with more than 300 theaters and can contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to the box office every day, TV broadcasts can only wait until after the Oscars.

…………

"Charles, at the end of the day, we're going to have to go there and find out for ourselves."

In the Duke's studio, Duke closed the thick Wen Jiàn folder, to Charles? "When I came back from London, we called Robin and went to New Zealand together. ”

Charles? Rowan looked at the time, stood up and said, "Then I'll wait for your call." ”

The two shook hands and said goodbye, Duke watched him leave the office and sit behind the desk again, in fact, it was not only New Zealand, he also wanted to go to Hong Kong to find a few movement guidance.

New Zealand is preparing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and of course he will not be stupid enough to add kung fu-style action elements to it, otherwise the film will be nondescript and the street may be infinite.

Duke was looking for an action director, naturally, for the sci-fi film that was filed a few years ago, to show the procedural conflict with kung fu, and in terms of the name he was once familiar with, the project could be named "The Matrix".

This is also a film that is quite troublesome to prepare, not to mention that the special effects in it consume a lot of time and manpower, and it takes several months to train Hollywood actors to become kung fu actors, and it is difficult to save time and effort, and the pre-training is not enough. It is inevitable that problems will arise one after another during filming, and even the actors will be injured.

What's more, Duke has also discussed with the action director team, who have worked together on several films in a row, and they will inevitably participate in the whole process of the film in the future, using high-powered cameras to film all the training and performance processes, and then using high-tech means to analyze them frame by frame.

The purpose of this is clear. It's just to steal the teacher.

Of course, Duke is not a kung fu enthusiast and has no interest in flying around and fancy fights, but has his action team combine kung fu, Muay Thai, wrestling, karate and free fighting to design more direct and simple and crude action routines, after all, he knows that kung fu movies are extremely popular in North America and even the entire Western world, and they are quickly beaten back to their original form after the novelty of the audience wears off.

Speaking of which, Hollywood's way of acting has been the same for decades. It's hard to look at......

This can be said to be one of the reasons why kung fu movies were able to flourish in North America at the turn of the century, but Hollywood has always been a melting pot, and if you know how to integrate, you can become an important member of this circle, and if you stick to the old ways, you will soon be eliminated from this circle.

And Hollywood doesn't need to figure out what kung fu is, for highly specialized and technological teams, learn a little kung fu. It is enough to combine other fighting styles to design a more suitable action routine that is more suitable for popular around the world.

As for taking kung fu movies to the world? Duke believes that in the East where talent is abundant. There are countless people who are more suitable than him.

After thinking for a while, Duke pressed the intercom and moved Tina? Fei called in, his female assistant, who had just experienced a terrible event that was so terrifying that many people could break down, that she had only recently returned to work.

Duke gestured to the chair across from his desk. Waiting for Tina? After Faye sat down, he asked, "Moving out of North Hollywood?" ”

"yes, I don't want to be there anymore."

Long work run-in, Tina? Faye also finds a way to get along with Duke. Knowing that his boss is still very good to the people around him, he said frankly, "I usually live in the Duke's Manor, but I only go back on weekends to live occasionally, but this kind of thing happened, and my impression of North Hollywood is extremely bad." ”

"Have you found the right house?" Duke to Tina? Fei shook his head and said, "Put your luggage with me for the time being, and you can find the house slowly." Also, I'm going to London for the weekend, and you can stay in Los Angeles and rest. ”

"I'm already recovering." Tina? Filipino insisted.

Seeing the other party's determined eyes, Duke didn't want to say anything, and waved his hand at her, "Remember to book a ticket to London." ”

Tina? Fei nodded and stood up, turned and walked out of the office.

Duke sighed, this woman is also considered strong.

On the last day of February, one of the worst bank robberies ever in Los Angeles took place in North Hollywood, where two heavily armed bandits armed with bullet-mounted AK rifles robbed the Los Angeles branch of Bank of America on Rowell Valley Boulevard. Fei happened to go to the bank to deal with her own accounting problems, but unfortunately she was involved in it and witnessed the whole process of the incident.

In fact, Duke also saw it, because at the time of the incident, ABC TV had a helicopter doing a live show nearby, and rushed to the scene as soon as possible, showing the audience across the United States how two bandits wearing double-decker Kevlar and armed with automatic fire suppressed more than 50 Los Angeles police officers until SWAT arrived to support......

Such an event is likely to leave a shadow for a lifetime.

Recalling the picture he saw on the TV, Duke suddenly had a thought, this should be good material for the adaptation, right?

In the last two parts of the "Lord of the Rings" series, the narrative will become extremely complicated, and the double-line and three-line narrative will become the norm, and the investment in the film is so huge that he cannot afford to miss it, and it will definitely help to practice with a low-cost third-line narrative film.

Duke made a note on his memo that it was just a very rudimentary idea, whether to implement it, or to make plans after attending Victoria's Secret's annual catwalk from London. (To be continued......)

ps: The weather is gloomy and not raining, and it is very stuffy~~~~ Ask for a recommendation ticket to comfort the mood ~~~