Chapter 426: The shot
Although Eric is not in Los Angeles, after a long period of publicity, "Toy Story" began a small-scale filming in the "Cut Throat Island" test. The novel 3D animation form, the warm and interesting plot, and the fable-like storyline quickly created a huge sensation in the media.
"...different from the fairy tale of Prince Disney and the Princess, this film tells a story about friendship, trust, and search for a toy."
"...This is a fable that is said to the adults. The elements of heroes and anti-heroes are the main content pillars. The collective family feels hot and will always sublimate a lot of warmth. Bass and Woody's The heroic feelings and honesty and sincerity can find our shadow. A little black humor does not harm those who believe in beauty."
"...a new animated film format, Pixar's 3D animation technology will undoubtedly bring about a reform relative to hand-drawn animation."
"..."
In just one week, the dot-shadow almost reached the sum of the influence of all the previous propaganda. Thanks to the media’s favorable comments, the fireflies’ awareness department increased greatly. Michael Lynn discussed with Eric on the phone. After the Fan, he once again added a budget of $10 million to Toy Story, and the total cost of production and distribution of the film reached a blockbuster level of $70 million.
However, Eric knows that as long as he can use the "Toy Story" to lay the status of 3d animation in Hollywood, the total cost of this $70 million is definitely worth it. What's more, according to the data in the memory, Firefly has enough confidence to recover the full cost of Toy Story only by the local distribution in North America. The subsequent distribution of various channels will bring a lot of net profit to the fireflies. the most important is. Prior to this, the fireflies had registered the trademarks of all the toys in this animated film. Eric knew that the profit of the animated image franchise license in Toy Story was no less than the box office of this animated film. income.
Compared with the promotion of "Toy Story". "Cutting the throat" seems to be a lot of low-key. After the internal test, Disney did not have much confidence in the film, but did not think about the box office dumb. Although Disney did not need to make a large-scale screening for reasons such as the need to make detailed changes to the film, it did not relax at the TV announcements, billboard posters and other publicity.
Michael Eisner seems to be trying to make up for the lack of quality. Not only has it not reduced the promotional budget of Cut-Throat Island, but also proposed to increase the budget. As an important investor in Cut-Throat Island, Robert Shea has determined that Cut-Throat Island will bring losses, and in Hollywood. It has been mixed for so many years. He can also imagine that the movie is selling well. Once the box office loses, Disney will definitely try to pass the loss to his outsider. So I killed a penny and refused to swear again. I even had a dispute with Michael Eisner.
The suggestion to increase the publicity budget was proposed by Michael Eisner, but at this moment he will certainly not let Disney bear the cost alone, so he took out the weapon of this contract and forced Robert Shea to take out the capital increase ratio. A budget. Robert Shay can only swallow this dumb loss. He knew that if he didn't want to save money at this time, then Disney had more reason to pass the box office defeat on him.
According to Disney's prediction, "cutting the throat" is, after all, with a billion-dollar Hollywood blockbuster. Even if the plot... well, it’s really a bit of a mess, but Hollywood’s history is not a precedent for no drama but big sales. Therefore, Disney is very optimistic that "cut throat" will at least get 80 million US dollars at the box office, overseas box office is expected to reach this figure. After the issuance of two important box office channels, although there will be some losses, it will be sold through follow-up videotapes and TV rights. There is no problem in recovering costs within two years.
Even after the "Toy Story" movie got a very good reputation, Disney felt that its monopoly in the Hollywood animation industry would be threatened. But because "Toy Story" and "Clear Throat Island" are two completely different audiences, Disney doesn't feel too much pressure.
Enter the end of June. The summer program in 1991 has been going on for a month, starting with the sequel to the "Fighting Condor 2" released by Fox in late May.
At the end of last year, the first part of the "Anti-Fighting Condor" received more than 20 million investment, and got a global box office of nearly 200 million US dollars. The profit is even higher than Fox's "Die Hard 2", so Fox can't wait. Started the second part. However, the last time I asked Eric to pick up the script and paid 30% of the capital, the result was that Eric got about 50 million profit with more than 8 million investment, which made Fox feel a painful one. Put it. Therefore, the sequel's production Fox directly made a fuss about this matter, and did not mention it. Eric was so busy that there was no specific contract, and Eric was too lazy to pay attention.
After the last spoof of "Top Gun", the sequel continued the original style, and chose the "first blood" of Sylvester Stallone. But unfortunately, Fox has played this sequel, although the sequel is more spoof than the first, the cost has increased to 40 million US dollars, but I don't know why, the audience is not buying, from the end of May to In late June, three weeks after the release, "Anti-Fighting Condor 2" received only $28 million in box office in more than 2,100 theaters. The failure was a foregone conclusion. The success of the film is of course great, but the accident is that this sequel has failed, and because the failure is so thorough, a large number of shareholders wrote to the Fox board, condemning Fox management should not leave Eric and develop the "Fighting God" alone. The sequel to the Eagles led to a devastating blow to this promising series of films.
Not only "The Fighting Condor", but also a month after entering the summer file, the films released by major movie companies are not very good. At this time, the total weekly box office in North America should have exceeded 100 million US dollars, but until Toys Story was released the week before. The weekly box office is only over 80 million. Of course, the reason is very clear to everyone.
On June 21st, "Toy Story", which has undergone overwhelming publicity and good word-of-mouth accumulation, opened in 2,400 theaters in North America. Before that, "Toy Story" has already passed through small-scale screening. It has accumulated more than $1.5 million in box office. Although this number is a bit insignificant, it averages less than 30 theaters, averaging an astonishing $50,000.
Because this summer file has no competitors, "Toy Story" got a $30 million box office in the first three days of the week. A week later, the box office accumulated to 47 million, easily surpassing the production cost of the film.
As the first 3D animated film, "Toy Story" made such a stunning achievement, which caused a huge sensation in Hollywood and even the whole world. Pixar, which has been obscured, has quickly become the focus of attention throughout Hollywood. Many professional magazines have assessed the potential of "Toy Story". If you choose to go public, the market value of this animation studio will not be less than one billion US dollars.
The media quickly unearthed Eric’s old purchase of Pixar from Jobs for $20 million. At this time, Jobs still struggled to run his next computer company, facing reporters who suddenly appeared in front of them to ask for their feelings. Steve Jobs did not say a word to the cause and effect.
But privately, Jobs quickly personally called the phone to Eric in Punk City. After expressing his congratulations to Eric, Joe did not hesitate to seize the opportunity and offered Eric to offer an order for next.
After "Toy Story". Pixar must be expanding again. Jobs’ computer company produced a professional-grade computer. When he heard this request from Jobs, Eric decided to agree with it without thinking, just to make Apple’s layout in advance. A human investment, although the hope of Steve Jobs's character is not great. As the world's number one Apple company in the future. Eric didn't plan to let go at first, but now it's not the best time to intervene in Apple. Eric has not had enough money and energy for the time being.
"Toy Story" is released one week later, June 28. After a massive premiere, Cut-Throat Island was also released on a massive scale in 2,500 theaters in North America.
Compared with "Toy Story", it has accumulated a lot of praise and praise. Although "cutting the throat" has invested more than 35 million US dollars in propaganda funds in various propaganda channels, it has only conducted a number of public screenings, and invited They are all media and film critics with good relationships with Disney. After getting the benefits of Disney, it is certainly impossible for these people to say bad things about "cutting the throat", but it is impossible to brag about the film in a big way, so that in the future it will be hit. Therefore, there was a film review on "cutting the throat" in the newspaper. The focus of the pen was basically focused on the grand scene and the beautiful scenery of the film. As for the plot, basically no one is willing to talk about it.
Although the news of "Terminator 2" investment broke through 100 million, "cutting the throat" is the first Hollywood blockbuster that has invested over 100 million yuan. Therefore, on the day of the film release, a large number of movies are expected. The fans walked into the cinema, so on the first day of the film's release, Cut the Island took a $9 million box office.
But then the situation turned sharply. After the film was released, Disney could no longer control the word-of-mouth paradox of Cut-throat Island. On the second day, there was a crusade against the "cut-throat island" in the media. Even many famous film critics bluntly criticized the "cut-throat island" as the "expensive visual trash" piled up by 100 million US dollars. '.
Some ordinary fans who have been interviewed after watching the movie have expressed extreme disappointment with "cutting the throat", claiming that this is a scattered comic strip without plot.
The film industry in North America has been in development for nearly a hundred years. Because of the low fare, watching movies in the United States is a very popular entertainment, and with a lot of choices, it means that this mature market is a bad film. There is not much room for survival.
Therefore, on the second day of the screening, the next day at the box office of "cutting the throat" turned sharply, slipped to more than 5 million US dollars, and fell to only 3 million on the third day.
Three days in the first week, "cutting the throat" got a $17 million box office. If you don't look at the box office, this score is not too bad.
However, three days later, the attendance rate of Cut-throat Island has slipped to the edge of being almost forced to draw. After the first week, the total box office of Cut-Throat Island has accumulated 20 million, which means four days of workday. The film only got a poor 3 million box office. In the second week, there were 1,000 theaters that directly painted the movie that had no attendance, and the remaining 1,500 theaters had to sign a two-week contract with Disney. adhere to.
I don't know if the quality of Cut-throat Island is too bad, and the previous propaganda of "Toy Story" and "Terminator 2" has aroused the rebellious attitude of the audience. At the same time that the word "cut throat" fell into the abyss, " In the second week of the release of Toy Story, the box office not only did not slip down, but increased. After the second week, "Toy Story" once again received more than 49 million US dollars at the box office, although it did not have any big movie release in this summer file. However, this two-weekly achievement of almost 100 million yuan has once again made many people breathe a sigh of relief.
"Terminator 2" has also been used for propaganda with a cost of more than 100 million gimmicks. This time, fans have become cautious. Therefore, on July 3, the first day of "Terminator 2" was released, the box office was not very good. Only 8 million, but Cameron's carefully crafted thrilling plot and the emergence of liquid metal robots, "Terminator 2" quickly won a lot of praise, after the first day of 8 million, the next two days respectively got 14 million The US dollar and $11 million, and the total score of $33 million over the three days of the weekend even exceeded the previous Toy Story.
As for "cutting the throat", in the second week, I got more than 5 million US dollars at the box office, and then collectively painted, completely swept into the ranks of Hollywood's big bad film, two weeks of release, a total of "cut throat" With a revenue of 25 million U.S. dollars, the total investment in the production and distribution of this film reached 140 million U.S. dollars. Because of the one-sided comment on the word-of-mouth, the overseas release of Cut-Lake Island is not thought about, videotapes and TV broadcasts. The right income is better than nothing, so Disney and Robert Shay will jointly bear a huge loss of up to 120 million. (To be continued)