Just like the replacement of the old and the new in all time periods in Hollywood, new films will always crowd out the living space of films that have already been released, and most of the time, as long as the quality and publicity of new films are good enough, they can easily defeat the films that have already been released.

This is the case with the newly released film "Mission Impossible".

Despite the smear in the media, and some competitors who launched a protest against the movie version from fans of the original TV series, the quality of the film was assured, the publicity was quite well done, and Tom Cruise's superstar appeal was strong, and when the weekend passed, "Mission Impossible" was the new winner.

The film, which opened in North America with 3,055 theaters, earned $46.65 million over the three days of the weekend, snatching the top spot at the weekly box office from the three-time winner "The Matrix".

The box office of "The Matrix", which lost the top spot at the box office, still maintained an extremely stable and healthy decline, winning $18.55 million in the same period, and the North American box office accumulated $252.14 million, still topping the annual charts.

Hit by "Mission Impossible", "The Peerless" and "Godzilla" reported $16.25 million and $9.65 million respectively this weekend, and the North American box office of the two films also reached $72.11 million and $82.33 million, respectively.

In addition to the box office, there is also a huge difference in the audience's reputation.

In the past month since its release, the audience reputation of "The Matrix" has declined, but the audience's praise rate has remained at 87%, and 3025 users on the IMDB website participated in the rating, with a score of 9.35 points.

Of course, with the active participation of a huge army of trolls, this IMDB rating does not make any sense.

"Mission Impossible" has just been released, and the audience's reputation is not bad, and the praise rate is 85%.

For the two films "Peerless Tribulation" and "Godzilla", the audience's praise rate fell by 70% and 60% respectively.

Tom Cruise, like Duke, is destined to be beautiful this summer.

However, unlike Tom Cruise, who embarked on a North American promotional tour, Duke missed the North American promotional tour of "The Matrix" due to illness, and he remained in Los Angeles while Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron and other crew members went overseas, and began to prepare for the next phase of work.

There is an old man who has found the Duke's studio.

"Duke, we're old friends."

In the office, the tall Christopher Lee sat next to Duke and said in a loud voice, "I desperately asked to play Gandalf, it was a dream of mine, I fantasized twenty years ago that I could play this role for zero pay." ”

Looking at Christopher Lee, who had gray hair and a face covered with age spots, Duke frowned, as a crazy "Lord of the Rings" fan, he had watched the content and tidbits of the film more than ten times, and naturally remembered that Christopher Lee's favorite was Gandalf, not Saruman.

However, Duke also did not intend for him to play Gandalf.

It's not that it's inappropriate, it's just that he's too old.

Duke thought for a moment and said, "Lee, Gandalf has a lot of fight scenes......"

Christopher Li Gang on the opposite side wanted to speak, but was interrupted by him raising his hand, "Listen to me first, action scenes can indeed use stand-ins, but many scenes of wild hiking and struggling scenes under the blue screen require actors to be on the stage in person." ”

"Lee, don't forget, you'll be eighty years old soon." Duke said directly, "As a director and investor, I have to think about the safety of the actors, but also for the whole crew. ”

What Duke said was an objective fact that could not be changed, and thinking of his deteriorating body, Christopher Lee's face inevitably showed a bit of loss.

"Working with you one more time," he said with great sincerity, "has always been my dream, and I am willing to play any role in your film for zero pay." ”

After "Brave Death Island", Christopher Lee became famous, but there have been no outstanding works and roles in recent years, at this age, it is not too much to describe him as old, as long as he starred in Duke's films, it means a lot of attention, and the follow-up income will inevitably far exceed this salary......

Duke just smiled, zero pay or something, he wouldn't think about it, and Hollywood didn't have anything to do without wanting something in return.

"Lee, let your agent get in touch with Charles Rowan." He said slowly, "You prepare for Saruman. ”

It didn't take long for Christopher Lee to leave, and Duke looked at Tina Fey on the other side of the office, "Remember to inform Charles, old rules." ”

Tina Fee understood what Duke meant and wrote it down in her work diary.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy requires a large cast, others such as extras and some unimportant characters can be called in before filming begins, but the main cast and their stunt doubles need to be identified as early as possible, and they must undergo long physical and sword and archery training.

Especially for swordsmanship and archery, it is necessary to hire a dedicated coach, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a purely Western book, and Duke does not consider any action routines from the East.

In this quintessentially Western-style magical book, it would be completely hilarious to make Eastern kung fu and other types of fighting.

Sitting behind his desk, Duke reminisced about the former Lord of the Rings cast before saying to Tina Fey, "To Elijah Wood, Vigo Mortenson, Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Sean Davis, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Vine, Billy Boyd, Sean Austin...... Send out an invitation to audition. ”

It's been too long, and there are some names that inevitably get forgotten.

After saying this, Duke suddenly thought of another important person, who was once the first person in Hollywood's motion capture.

"And, Tina." He continued, "Gather a copy of Andy Serkis for me. ”

"Andy Serkis?"

Judging from her expression, Tina Fey should know this person, she said, "The last time I had tea with Naomi Watts, I heard her mention that he should be starring in King Kong. ”

"Starring in King Kong?"

Duke frowned, then laughed, this is a good thing, if I guessed correctly, Peter Jackson must have used motion capture technology, which is completely to increase Andy Serkis's experience in this area.

"Remember to send Andy Serkis an invitation to audition as well."

After thinking about it, Duke added, "In terms of new projects, in addition to Gerard Butler, an invitation to Liam Neeson was sent to audition. ”

Tina Fey wrote them all down in her work diary, but when she heard Duke mention the new project, she asked, "Doug Walter called me, Warner Bros. asked about the progress of the script, and they tried to push it into the review stage. ”

"Sue them, I will definitely give them a copy of the script before the end of June."

After completing the first third of the script and setting the outline of the plot characters, Duke handed over the new script to the Editorial Review Department, the oldest department established by the Duke Studio, and several screenwriters were filling in the template.

Warner Bros. has decided to push this film into the review stage, and after going through the routine procedures, it intends to pay for Duke.

Of course, a commercial company like Warner Bros. will not do charity activities, and the super popularity of "The Matrix" has made them full of confidence in Duke, and after hearing that Duke had a small project before the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, CEO Jeff Robinoff visited the Duke's estate three times in a row, and strongly requested that the project be completely operated by Warner Bros.

This is the inevitable result of continuous success, Duke's aura is not weaker than Spielberg and James Cameron, although the film is a small production based on real events, but "Chicago" and other musical films are full of commercial selling points such as "Chicago", Warner Bros. clearly believes that his work will still have high returns.

For works with uncertain futures, Duke will not refuse if someone pays for them.

However, the two sides only reached an agreement, and they could not discuss it in detail until the script was completed and reviewed by the Warner Bros. Review Committee.

On the one hand, Duke is preparing for new films, and on the other hand, the summer market continues to maintain an almost white-hot competition.

On the second weekend of June, Walt Disney's four-year-old animated blockbuster "Mulan" hit the North American market, joining the already chaotic enough strangulation that Disney Animation Studios had high hopes for the hand-drawn animation to shake off the decline of recent years.

However, "Mulan" obviously can't bear this burden.

Although this animated film won $22.74 million in 2,888 theaters, successfully topping the North American box office this weekend, the table with a single box office of $7,876 is really hardly excellent.

The decline of hand-drawn 2D animated films is inevitable.

"Mission Impossible" earned $21.62 million the following weekend, ranking second at the box office by just a narrow margin.

The number of theaters in North America shrank to 2,655 this weekend, earning $11.2 million in three days, plus the box office of the previous four working days, a total of $270.2 million in North America, which has touched the threshold of $300 million.

But by Monday, the scale of the film's screening was reduced again, and the number of theaters in North America fell back to below 2,500, which is a situation that every commercial film will inevitably face after the heat has cooled, and "The Matrix" will not escape.

Overseas, "The Matrix" is also gradually cooling down, but the overseas box office officially exceeded 200 million US dollars, and the global box office has reached a total of 470.55 million US dollars, and from this new week, the film will be released on a large scale in another box office market - Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines in the Far East and many other countries and regions.

Overseas box office is expected to continue to climb, pushing the global box office of "The Matrix" to the $500 million mark. R1152