Chapter 546: Where there are people, there will be disputes
With the release of Batman: Hour of War, some of Duke's thoughts inevitably turned to Iron Man, which is about to start preparing for the project, but now is an important time for the promotion of the Batman movie, and he still cooperates with the crew and Warner. The brothers ran announcements all over North America, and just kept in close contact with producer Kevin Feige by phone to make final discussions about the direction of the entire script.
Kevin Feige is the producer, but Duke's power over the project is unquestionable, and as always, the final editing rights must belong to him.
But Duke has never been one of those people who doesn't listen to other people's opinions, and as long as other people really help the film, he won't go his own way.
Perhaps it was because he did not pay enough attention to Kingdom of Heaven, which was filmed through various means such as pre-sale, or because the response to the film was too poor. Duke returned to Los Angeles, and cooperated with Warner Bros., through TV, radio, Internet and print media. When Batman: Hour of War was gaining momentum, the publicity of Kingdom of Kingdom was relatively flat, especially on the Internet, which has a huge impact on teenagers. All the navy troops hired could not be suppressed.
The gap between audience and professional word-of-mouth for the war epic Kingdom of Heaven has created Ridley Scott's lowest point since Alien, which is definitely a low point in his directorial career.
Final editing rights do play a role, but there are only a handful of directors in Hollywood who can get final editing rights.
From the beginning of the working day, the difference in the market performance of the two films Batman: War Hour and Kingdom of Heaven is far greater than that of last weekend. It is not too much to describe the gap between heaven and earth.
In terms of film arrangement, the film arrangement rate of Kingdom of Kingdom in commercial chain theaters fell directly below 20%, and even less than 15% in individual theaters. For a large-scale production with an investment of more than 100 million US dollars, this basically means that the theater chain has given up the film and is only showing it at the lowest limit of the floating terms of the contract.
Correspondingly, the filming rate of Batman: Hour of War exceeded 60% in one fell swoop. After the baptism of the box office figures of nearly 70 million US dollars in the first week, the theaters completely dispelled their doubts.
Duke Rosenberg is indeed Duke Rosenberg!
Standing in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the office. The CEO of Emperor Entertainment Group, Robert Carrolli, turned his back to several senior executives behind him and said, Even a movie series that is recognized as dead can be brought back to life by him so easily.
One of the executives at the back said, Our early stage and screening strategy is still a bit conservative.
There's nothing wrong with being conservative, Robert Carrolli said softly.
Although he has not taken over the CEO position of Emperor Entertainment Group for a long time, he has always been engaged in work related to the film industry, and he is very aware that even successful directors will fail. Not to mention Duke Rosenberg picked a comic book series that Joe Schumacher was about to lose in fame and popularity.
Cinema companies adopt a relatively conservative strategy to minimize risks.
The most typical is Kingdom of Heaven, director Ridley Scott is famous, if the company just looks at his fame, it will discharge a huge number of screens. That last weekend's loss, I'm afraid, will be astronomical.
Although it is said that the small theater has six to ten audiences, the cost of the screening can be recovered, but the first weekend of Kingdom of Kingdom has nearly 3,300 theaters and only 10.29 million US dollars. I am afraid that on average for each screening, there will be less than six audiences in a small theater.
For a money-losing movie. There is always only one strategy in cinema.
Starting tomorrow, continue to reduce the number of screens in Kingdom of Heaven.
With little thought, Robert Carrolli made a decision based on the opinions of several other executives, By Thursday. Reduce the number of theaters and the schedule of Kingdom of Kingdom to the lowest contract floating terms.
No one objected, this is the most normal treatment for a failed movie.
Robert Carroll turned around and said again, The vacated theaters and screens...
He was just about to habitually turn to Duke Rosenberg's film, when someone reminded him, Starting on Friday, Air Combat Heroes will be released on a large scale in North America, and Walt Disney has invested a lot in publicity. There are a lot of resources, and according to the feedback from the preview, the film is still very selling, and Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner have called several times to pay attention to the preparation of the film.
Well... Robert Calori nodded, briefly thought about it, and said, The screen vacated by The Kingdom of Heaven was cast on Air Combat Heroes and Batman: Time for War, as for The rate of the two films...
Another person suddenly reminded, Duke Rosenberg's films have always been strong, and this Batman: War Hour is also the same. After the first weekend, the CinemaScore audience rating remained at 8%. Above 16, the IMDB website also has a score of 8.8, and the applause on the Internet completely overwhelms the negative impact.
I know.
Robert Carrolli understood the meaning of his subordinate's words and said directly, Squeeze the filming rate of Kingdom of Heaven as much as possible.
There is no doubt that Kingdom of Heaven fell victim to it.
Not only the Emperor Entertainment Group, but other film companies have made similar decisions.
Under the circumstance that the theater companies have made adjustments one after another, Kingdom of Heaven, which has not much competitiveness at all, is not worth mentioning in Batman: Hour of War during the working day.
Starting Monday, Duke leads major cast members including Liam Neeson, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman and Christian Bale on a promotional tour of North America, with daily box office bulletins also hosted by Warner Bros. The aspect was timely passed to Tina Fei's hands.
On Monday, Kingdom of the Kingdom dropped below seven figures at the single-day box office, earning just $882,566, while Batman: War Hour did ten times as much in North America on the same day. More, swept away $8.92 million.
On Tuesday, Kingdom of Heaven rebounded slightly, returning to the seven-figure box office in a single day, earning $1.03 million, but it fell again on Wednesday, with only $810,000 being recorded.
Meanwhile, Batman: Hour of War earned $9.15 million and $8.56 million over the two days, respectively.
So far, Batman: War Hour has been released for six days, and the North American box office has reached 95.48 million US dollars, while the Kingdom of Heaven released in the same period only has a pitiful US$13.02 million.
Compared with the production cost of more than 100 million US dollars, it is impossible to recover the cost of Kingdom of Heaven even if the income from TV rights and disc and network rights is added.
Films with average box-office responses cannot be sold at high prices for copyright in these areas. This is the simplest market rule, and TV stations and video sites are not fools.
In this day and age, it is very difficult for a film to make a profit through the box office, but why do film companies still attach so much importance to box office performance? Because the box office is often the most basic factor to measure the commercial value of a movie.
Films with professional word-of-mouth and award-winning films will not have the follow-up copyright revenue compared to films with big box office hits.
Perhaps there will be earth-shaking changes in the way movies are shown and distributed in the future, but now, the importance of box office for any movie is self-evident.
Before the second weekend, Duke led the crew to New York, one of the largest cities in the world, the Big Apple is the city that every Hollywood production crew takes care of.
Although the situation and content of the announcement were basically the same, Duke still felt tired after a day's work and was surrounded by far more fans than other places, especially in the Batman Plaza tour jointly organized by Times Square and Time Warner. It attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators and directly caused the entire Manhattan Island to almost become a parking lot.
Just returned to the Waldorf Astoria hotel suite, Tina Fey notified Duke that someone was coming to visit.
Because Mrs. Leah lives in New York, Duke has a lot of acquaintances here, but it is a somewhat unexpected person who comes to the door.
Long time no see, Bob.
The person Duke was shaking hands with was a Jewish man in his fifties who was also his old acquaintance. It's really nice to meet you. I didn't expect to see you in New York.
After shaking hands with Duke, Robert Iger sat on the sofa opposite him and said, I think you forgot, I'm a New Yorker.
During Duke's honeymoon period with Walt Disney, Robert Iger was the one who was directly responsible for liaising with him, and the two also established a little friendship.
The former Robert Iger once rose to the position of the top management of Walt Disney, but as his talents became more and more revealed and Michael Eisner's power increased, his situation gradually became difficult, and he was even caught by Ace. Na was transferred from his position as CEO of Touchstone Pictures to a relatively idle department.
Michael's power is gradually increasing...
Speaking of Disney, Robert Iger naturally has no emotions. He will not accommodate anyone who threatens his power. After your brief cooperation with Disney ended, I became persona non grata.
Why not leave Disney? Duke asked.
I also have this idea. Robert Iger thought for a while, but said directly, But I don't want to leave as a loser. Even if I want to leave Disney, I have to wait for Michael Eisner to step down first.
No company will be monolithic, there will be disputes where there are people, and Robert Iger obviously doesn't hire Michael Eisner very much.
Duke is also not sure if Eisner was kicked out of Disney in a dreadful manner, and whether the later Disney helmsman did anything in the future. (To be continued ^)
PS: Ask for monthly and recommended tickets!