"Sudden Exorcism Fight"

First, Sony surprisingly advanced the release of "Emily Rose's Exorcism" (Teoer) by three months to June 3, and almost before the words fell, Warner Bros., which had been ignored for a long time, announced that "The Exorcist Gaiden" (DPTTE), which was originally scheduled to be released on May 20, was postponed to June 3.

On top of the uproar, add to the noise!

On June 3, it suddenly became an exorcism battlefield.

Roy Brewer, head of distribution at Sony Pictures, told the media: "Our shifts are just based on market considerations, and fierce competition is definitely not the situation we want, but now that things have happened, we have to deal with them." ”

"It's easy to forget that the 'The Exorcist' series is the first and most authentic exorcism film. Warner's head of distribution, Dan Fellman, told the press, "That's why we're shifting gears." Yes, if you ask us if we want to compete, yes we want to compete. ”

What happened?

Where did "The Exorcist Gaiden" come from?

What's going on!?

Shocked movie fans and viewers will get a general idea if they look at Boxofficemojo's latest in-depth analysis article "The Sudden Exorcism Controversy", and they will know how cheap Roy Brewer and Dan Fellman's words are.

To put it simply.

"The Exorcist" was indeed the first to be filmed, filmed between November 2002 and March 2003, but there are still some stories about why it appeared suddenly.

Since 1997, producer Morgan Creek and distributor Warner Bros. want to restart the "The Exorcist" brand, so they began to prepare for the prequel, and after twists and turns in the middle, filming will finally start in June 02. However, this project is still subject to the strange "exorcist curse" - the crew must have an accident, or die or be injured in the making of an exorcism movie.

"The Exorcist" (1973) was filmed for more than a year, and nine project personnel died unnaturally, and the scene was once destroyed by an inexplicable mysterious fire during the filming. When filming began, the original director John Frankheimer had to withdraw due to a serious illness and died a month later at the age of 72.

Of course, Morgan Creek can only find a director again, Paul Schrader, who was 56 years old at the time, one of the big "movie kids" (screenwriter of "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver", director of "Erotic Movie" and "The Biography of Yukio Mishima"). This time it was filmed, but after the shooting, Morgan Creek was almost mad, and Schrader took a budget of tens of millions to shoot a bunch of images that were not bloody and terrifying, but played suspense and psychological horror, which was completely different from the production positioning......

Schrader was fired, his version was put into underground storage, Morgan Creek decided to spend another money on the remake, and hired a younger director Renny Haring (then 44 years old, director of "Ghost Street 4", "Die Hard 2"), screenwriter Alex Hawley also made some adjustments to the script, and then spent tens of millions of dollars to shoot a remake (filmed in November 2003-February 2004), that is, "The Exorcist Prequel". It only used 10% of the footage from Schrader's version, and this time it was so bloody that the film was originally classified as NC-17 and then cut to R.

Not every remake can be brought back to life, and this prequel failed after its release last year (production fee 80 million, North American box office 41.82 million, global 78 million, the largest 2813 theaters, freshness 11%, popularity 27%). Morgan Creek and Warner were simply tortured by demons, spending so much money and time, but ......

At this time, they remembered that there was another version in the basement storage room...... Since they were unwilling, it was good to try their luck, Morgan Creek smashed several million more into it to do post-production, and the production fee was claimed to be 30 million, which was also R-rated, and continued to be distributed by Warner, and on May 20 this year, 110 theaters opened, called "The Exorcist Gaiden".

Everyone knows that this is really just a matter of luck, because the main framework of the script is still that, and last year's prequel was not good, how many viewers will spend money to watch this prequel? So Warner's release is very sloppy, basically no publicity, no critics' screenings, and the schedule is set casually, 20-26 is the first week of "Star Wars Prequel 3"! There are no other new films released that week, except for it.

Recently, the situation has suddenly changed, and the exorcism shadow market is different!

Anyway, it's fishing in mixed waters, why don't you mix it up in the week when the hot spot exploded? Pull a few confused people to watch the TET, and the audience who watched the DPTTE is good.

As a result, the theater was postponed, and the opening scale was expanded to 550 theaters, and the cinemas that were also showing TET were also looking for, "Yes, we want to compete".

"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" is based on a true story, the "Annielis-Michel Exorcism" in Germany in the 70s, a devout Catholic girl died due to an exorcism, and the German government charged her parents and the priest who exorcised the demon for "manslaughter", and later sentenced her to a suspended sentence. Because of all kinds of supernatural horrors, and it happened a few years before and after the release of "The Exorcist" (1970-1976), it caused a sensation all over the world at that time, and it is still one of the most famous supernatural events, involving justice, religious fanaticism, etc.

Teoer is the first film to be brought to the big screen, with a production fee of 19.3 million, shot in early November 2004 - January 2005, director Scott Derrickson is a young director (age not announced to the media, probably 30-40), this is his feature film debut, he is also one of the screenwriters.

Both the three producers, including Sturdy Films, and Sony, the North American distributor, have high hopes for Teoer, especially after the disastrous failure of The Exorcist. The market's disappointment with the old brand just gave the new brand a chance to take the lead. In terms of setting, firstly, it is expected that DPTTE will not cause trouble, and secondly, the weakness of the Exorcism Film Market is not suitable for the intense summer vacation, so Sony will schedule it to September, a relatively quiet schedule.

Teoer is not a B-level film or a low-cost film, it is a serious budget project of 20 million, so it has been doing pre-publicity. Because the story is not lacking in attractiveness, many fans of horror movies and exorcism movies are looking forward to it, waiting for September to be crowned as a new model of exorcism films.

However, this wishful thinking was completely disrupted by a pseudo-documentary!

"Exorcism Video", with a production cost of 450,000 yuan, was filmed in December 2004, no one took it seriously before, and didn't even pay attention to it, and some only thought it was a boring test of Lionsgate, but now it's different, it has occupied almost all the exorcism eyeballs.

It's a girl, it's an exorcism, it's death...... Although there is no part of the courtroom defense, Tet and Teoer are real genre collisions, and it was released three months earlier, which means that it has the opportunity to take away the new image of the exorcist film and the film market that has been empty for many years.

Sony can't sit still, even if there are occasional counterexamples, but movie distribution is usually "who enters first, who profits", will the audience who watched TET want to watch another exorcism movie after three months? Will people who bought a DVD of TET buy TEOER again? This is really impossible to judge, most likely not, because the exorcism market is not that big, because the content is too similar.

The early release is generally to avoid the crash of the same period, or to avoid the fierce battle with a high probability in the same period, and the other is to seize the opportunity under the same kind of competition.

For example, in 1997, Universal's "Landslide and Ground Crack" (production fee 1. 1.6 billion) and 20th Century Fox's "Molten City" (production fee 0. 900 million), all of which are pg-13 action disaster movies with volcanic eruptions, staged a good show that you are in advance, I am in advance, you are in advance, and I am in advance.

In the end, "Landslide and Ground Crack" was released on February 7, with a North American/global box office of 0 each. 6.7 billion / 1. 7.8 billion; "Live Fire Molten City" couldn't be lifted because of the slow shooting of the two eruptions, and it was released on April 25, with a North American/global box office of 0 each. 4.9 billion / 1. 2.2 billion.

"Living Fire Molten City" lost, "Landslide and Ground Crack" is not much better, both lose.

The competition between the two films is nothing more than one result: 1. Both lose, 2. One defeats the other, and 3. Win-win.

Because competition will lead to hot spots and topics in the market, if you are lucky, you will inspire more audiences to watch movies in theaters, and you have to watch both films and then divide them into high and low, a win-win situation; if you are unlucky, the market will be divided and disrupted, and you will lose; if the audience is only interested in one of them, and it is enough to watch one, then one will beat the other.

It depends on a lot of things, the quality of the film, word of mouth, audience popularity, and often crucially, publicity!

If TET had been distributed by giants like Paramount and Universal, Sony might not have done it, and Warner Bros. wouldn't have taken advantage of it, but it was Lionsgate, an independent company that had been in the business for a few years! They had no qualms about bullying it.

It's not the first time that Lionsgate has been so clean, last year's "The Punisher" ...... was completely exploded by Miramax's "Kill Bill 2" with Disney as a backer......

After a year, Lionsgate encountered this situation again, and it was much worse, it was obviously a hot spot in the film market that it had done itself, and it was about to be harvested, but someone wanted to snatch the fruits of victory, two.

100,000 yuan in a single museum is amazing? The expectations are very broad? That's no competition! Its natural enemies are coming, and the exorcism movies in the theater will change from one to three.

Sony just fell hard because of "Extreme Agent 2", holding back a bad breath, and suddenly three months ahead of schedule is also behind the disrupted release rhythm, and it must be accelerated, so at the same time as announcing the file adjustment, Teoer's publicity has begun vigorously.

TV commercials, is there a TET?TV talk shows,Is there a TET?Is there a bombing ad on an online entertainment site?Is there a TET?Is there a big billboard in Luwai?

On the other hand, Warner Bros. uses the media power of Time Warner Group to suppress TET in exposure and increase DPTTE, what can Lionsgate do?

Lionsgate is doing crazy publicity for TET, but it is mainly viral marketing on the Internet and word-of-mouth marketing for various review media...... At the end of the day, it's still a poor man's distribution, and the investment is less than a fraction of Teoer's production fee......

"I heard that there was an exorcism movie that was very good recently. ”

"What's it called?"

"Emily Rose's Exorcism?"

Even though the tet is exploding, it's hard to say whether it can win against a strong and cunning robber and a thief.

Lionsgate's response is nothing more than three kinds, 1: release it in advance, but this is to disrupt its own rhythm, and if the publicity is not in place, it will be large-scale, and it will have to deal with blockbusters like "Star Wars Prequel 3" and "Madagascar"? and Adam Sandler's new film "The Longest Code", which has a lot of box office appeal? A week or two later, you will have to fight against similar strong opponents? The original box office of hundreds of millions has changed from hundreds of millions to tens of millions, and tens of millions to millions.

2: Postponement of the release, this is a worse choice, it is equivalent to giving the victory to Sony for nothing, and the impatient audience all ran to see teoer, tet?

Well, 3: Remain the same and continue on June 3......

※※

"Roy, no matter what you think, it's too bad to do this!"

After learning the news, Jon Fillheimer, Tom Oldenberg and every other Lionsgate were furious, and they didn't even inform them privately first!

He just said it was too bad, but in fact, you bitches were too cheap!

"We are also helpless, believe me, there is really no way. Brewer sighed with grievances on the phone, "Teoer is our important project, what can you do for us? ”

The implication is that it was Liongate's Sony who provoked it first, and it was your fault that you sabotaged our plans.

Holding back his anger, Oldenberg continued to negotiate in a good voice: "No one talked about exorcism movies a few weeks ago, and we all know that it is a hot topic for Tet Tron Zào. Be sensible, you can't steal it, it will only confuse the audience, and maybe there will be a situation that everyone doesn't want to see. Three months is enough time for the market to rest, wouldn't it be better for TET to make the market hot first, and then release TEOER in the hot market?"

"I don't know, it's the CEO's decision. Brewer didn't mean to discuss, but still said in the same tone: "Linton thinks this is the best thing for Sony." Tom, it's not that we have any grudges, it's just that business is business. ”

Michael Linton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, of course, will only change the file if he agrees, and Odenberg knows that Brewer's move out of Linton is equivalent to nothing to talk about, and Sony will not budge.

"I have a Jianyì, you can consider releasing it a week earlier, and that's no problem. "Brewer was kind.

Odenberg was very angry, first of all, the cliff had already made it clear that "it would not collide with the opening week of "Madagascar", even if there was no such request, the competition that week was even more fierce than the week of the 3rd, and it was just falling into Sony's trap in advance......

"Without further ado, I'm very busy here, and you know there's a lot of work to do three months in advance. Brewer chuckled, "Good luck to you, and good luck to us." ”

※※

This sudden exorcism controversy has attracted the attention of the global entertainment media, and fans are looking forward to what Lionsgate will do?

It didn't take long for Lionsgate's head of publishing, Tom Odenberg, to make a statement: "The Teoer and DPTTE shifts are unreasonable, it's like you've worked so hard for a long time to get paid and someone is taking it off." We are not afraid of competition, and the release of TET will not be rescheduled. ”

No rescheduling!

The media reported Lionsgate's hardline attitude, but Sony was quick to respond: "When it comes to hard work, a film that took only 18 days to make and a film that took more than two months to shoot, who will tell me which one is longer? ”

While saying that it is not aimed at anyone, it is sarcastic that tet is cheap and inferior!

As if Warner Bros. was not willing to be ignored, Dan Fellman laughed to the media: "It's ridiculous for an exploitation film to say that someone else is taking a salary because that's what it does." As for the question that the extension of the DPTTE is exploiting TET, he said: "Someone is crazy. The heating up of the exorcism market is indeed the reason for our growth, but the "Exorcist" series will always be the one that is exploited. ”

The battle for exorcism continues to ferment, and the media has begun to reach out to the creators of the three films to get their opinions.

DPTTE director Paul Schrader did not comment, and no one else spoke up on the project, and the prequel turned into a prequel, which had already broken their hearts.

And maybe it has something to do with Sony's publicity, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Teoer director Scott Derrickson, who commented: "Actually, we're more like a pseudo-documentary, we're based on real things, TET isn't." I have no prejudice against pseudo-documentaries and have no particular liking for them. ”

When it comes to Yunik Küller, Derrickson half-jokingly says: "His 18-day film is amazing, but I don't choose to do it, I like to spend more time thinking about it." When we can sit down and talk, but he has to show up first. ”

The words can't hide a sense of arrogance and confidence in "Emily Rose's Exorcism".

The media and fans are very excited, and they really fulfill the old saying: Hollywood is more exciting outside the theater than in the theater!

And at this time, an unexpected situation completely detonated the dispute, and the mysterious Yunik Kuhler personally responded! He started a blog, in fact, there have been blogs impersonating him before, but this time it is true, because this blog is Lionsgate certified and has backlinks on the official website of TET.

, a genius director who is now in the spotlight, updated two articles in a row as soon as he opened his blog, both of which are short sentences and classic lines from two thriller movies!

The first sentence is from the Oscar for Best Picture "The Silence of the Lambs", and the second sentence is from the New Wave classic "The Butcher", which responds a lot and responds to a qiē.

Let his fans of the movie, let the young people who are waiting for TET to be released in their own city, the lovers of thriller horror films, the do-gooders...... I feel my blood boiling!

This is not a depressed and autistic genius, this is an evil and cold genius!

However...... "Exorcism Video", "The Exorcist Gaiden", "Emily Rose's Exorcism".

In the end, who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies, will not be known until the week of June 3.

※※

Yunik Kuller:

"Someone once wanted to investigate me. I ate his liver with broad beans and red wine. ”

"I saw one or two corpses with their heads floating in the wind, cut in half and mouths open. Playing Scott Derrickson, he commented: "Actually, we're more like a pseudo-documentary, we're based on real things, and TET isn't. I have no prejudice against pseudo-documentaries and have no particular liking for them. ”

When it comes to Yunik Küller, Derrickson half-jokingly says: "His 18-day film is amazing, but I don't choose to do it, I like to spend more time thinking about it." When we can sit down and talk, but he has to show up first. ”

The words can't hide a sense of arrogance and confidence in "Emily Rose's Exorcism".

The media and fans are very excited, and they really fulfill the old saying: Hollywood is more exciting outside the theater than in the theater!

And at this time, an unexpected situation completely detonated the dispute, and the mysterious Yunik Kuhler personally responded! He started a blog, in fact, there have been blogs impersonating him before, but this time it is true, because this blog is Lionsgate certified and has backlinks on the official website of TET.

, a genius director who is now in the spotlight, updated two articles in a row as soon as he opened his blog, both of which are short sentences and classic lines from two thriller movies!

The first sentence is from the Oscar for Best Picture "The Silence of the Lambs", and the second sentence is from the New Wave classic "The Butcher", which responds a lot and responds to a qiē.

Let his fans of the movie, let the young people who are waiting for TET to be released in their own city, the lovers of thriller horror films, the do-gooders...... I feel my blood boiling!

This is not a depressed and autistic genius, this is an evil and cold genius!

However...... "Exorcism Video", "The Exorcist Gaiden", "Emily Rose's Exorcism".

In the end, who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies, will not be known until the week of June 3.

※※

Yunik Kuller:

"Someone once wanted to investigate me. I ate his liver with broad beans and red wine. ”

"I saw one or two corpses with their heads floating in the wind, cut in half and mouths open. ”