Hollywood Hunter

Simon returned to Los Angeles, and this summer's summer season was officially opened with the release of Steven Spielberg's "Strike 3".

"Avatar 3" has adopted an unconventional Wednesday start date, the release time is May 24.The film has been opened on a scale of 2,327 screens. On Wednesday and Thursday, it won a box office of US$9.9 million, easily surpassing the action movie "Veyron Killing" that Lianmei also painted in the first week.

"Veyron Kills" will be released on May 19, the normal Friday box, the box office at seven days in the first week is 8.24 million US dollars.Although it is far from comparable to "Raiders of the Lost Soldier 3", the box office of "Veyron Kills" is not a failure relative to the production cost of 17 million US dollars.

It is worth mentioning that the actor in "Veyron Kills the Formation" happens to be Patrick Swayze, the actor in the original "Human Ghost Love Is Coming".

In order to ensure the success of "Human Ghost", Simon did not intend to change the protagonist.When he left Los Angeles, Daenerys Entertainment had negotiated a contract with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze for this classic love movie.

Patrick Swayze was promoted to a first-line actor two years ago with a big-ticket blockbuster "Spicy Dance" with a total box office of more than US$200 million, and the final payment was US$5 million.

In addition to the identity of Bruce Willis's wife, Demi Moore has nothing to offer.If Simon didn’t insist, Amy didn’t want to use the other party at all, so she paid a lot of money in the negotiation process, and only gave a $300,000 fee that slightly exceeded the newcomer’s price, and a preference for an additional movie. Rights contract.A group of Hollywood actresses are keeping an eye on this project. Demi Moore knows that he has no chips to rely on, but he agrees quickly after a little care about the details.

In addition, the black actress Ubi Goldberg also agreed to appear in the role of psychic Odyssey Brown in "The End of the Human Ghost".

Daenerys Entertainment officially announced the main creative information of "The Ghost Story is Not Over" on May 29. The film will officially start shooting in August and will initially be scheduled for next summer.

However, because Daenerys Entertainment has launched a large number of movies in recent months, this incident has not caused much turmoil in the media. Hollywood is more concerned about it, or the Daenerys Entertainment summer file that will be released soon. A movie "Bodyguard".

Over the past few months, a series of movies released by Daenerys Entertainment have not achieved too impressive results.If Bodyguard continues to maintain this lukewarm state, the huge aura accumulated by this rapidly rising company in 1988 will undoubtedly dim.

Moreover, according to some vague rumors in the circle, the internal screening of "Bodyguard" is not very good.

Daenerys Entertainment kept close to the film's reputation until the week before it was released. It has never held any public media or movie fan screenings, which undoubtedly proves this rumor.

Los Angeles.

Century City Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The time is already May 31. This morning, the soundtrack release of "Bodyguard" was held at the Century City Hotel. The album will be officially released next Monday, three days later than the film release date.Prior to this, "Bodyguard" heroine Whitney Houston did his homework for his screen debut and this third album.

At the end of the press conference, Daenerys Entertainment hosted a luncheon reception at the Century City Hotel, the main creator of the film and the media reporters invited to attend today.

In the banquet hall.

Clive Davis, president of Whitney Houston’s contracted record label Allista Records, chatted with Simon with a glass of champagne for a moment,

Alista Records was originally a recording subsidiary established with the support of Columbia Pictures in the 1970s. It has been tossing and turning for more than a decade and is now a subsidiary of the German Bertelsmann Music Group.Clive Davis has been president since the company was founded. After all the ups and downs, Alista Records finally ushered in a turnaround due to the popularity of Whitney Houston four years ago.

Whitney Houston and Daenerys Entertainment's "Bodyguard" is also the result of Clive Davis's efforts.

Now, he regrets.

It seems that since the end of last year, Daenerys Entertainment has ceased to be popular, and none of the films released in the first half of the year was a hit.It's just that it doesn't matter. However, now that "Bodyguard" has not been released, some doubts about the quality of the film have spread.

As for the original album of "Bodyguard", in order to facilitate this cooperation, Alistar Records made a great concession in the contract. The album was jointly produced by Alistar Records and the recording department of Daenerys Entertainment, which had no form at all. , Simon Westero personally served as a consultant.

As a condition of cooperation, Daenerys Entertainment will take away 50% of the gross profit of this record.

Clive Davis originally thought that Simon Westeros could provide such excellent songs as the "Celebration" written for Madonna. However, Allista Records received only a cover and The mix-and-match album composed of Whitney's old songs turned out to be the old song "I-Will-Always-Love-You" originally sung by Dolly Parton in the 1970s.

Since Whitney Houston’s debut, both albums have achieved global sales of more than 10 million dazzling results. Seeing this good situation is likely to be ruined, Clive Davis finds his own pillar of the entertainment company and puts She pulled it aside and began to teach the skill of dumping the pot in a low voice.

Once "Bodyguard" fails, the prospect of this soundtrack album is even more worrying.

Clive Davis now only expects to blame Daenerys Entertainment as much as possible to avoid the impact of Whitney Houston's career.

The other side of the banquet hall.

Clive Davis walked away, and Amy Pascal came to Simon.

Compared to Clive Davis who only cares about "Bodyguard", Amy is worried about the commercial performance of the next two films, "Bodyguard" and "Sixth Sense of Sixths".However, she walked up to Simon and talked about another thing: "Bob went to New York on Monday. This thing was not special, but someone in New York happened to see him and An executive from Sony’s US branch has dinner together."

Simon understands that Amy's Bob is Robert Rem.

During the lunch at the Cannes trip, Simon naturally heard Rem's suggestion that he could raise his salary, but he did not respond. Instead, he raised a note with Amy in private to make her pay attention.

Unexpectedly, Rem would contact Sony so quickly.

Or, it is more likely that Sony took the initiative to contact Rem.

During this time, Sony's acquisition negotiations for Columbia Pictures have been fully disclosed.

Coca-Cola, the largest shareholder of Columbia Pictures, intends to cash out its non-core business. Sony also urgently needs a Hollywood studio. The willingness of both parties to trade is very clear. Therefore, this business has basically been finalized.

In my memory, Sony completed the acquisition of Columbia Pictures. The heads for this company are Peter Cooper and John Peters, both of whom are Hollywood’s long-established gold producers. In "London" and other films, the original script of "Rainman" was also obtained by the Cooper-Peters Production Company, which the two collaborated with, and it took a while to fall into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment. The title of "Executive Producer" was hung on the "Rainman" project.

However, the two men took charge of Colombia, but they pitted Sony to vomit blood.The excessive profligacy and successive failures made Sony had to write down a total of 2.1 billion US dollars in asset write-downs for Columbia Pictures after the two were fired, making it the biggest loss Sony has ever made.

Although Simon believes that Sony hires anyone to be the head of Colombia is much better than Peter Cooper, but in terms of Hollywood qualifications, he does not think Rem is qualified to compete with the two.

Peter Cooper has produced many successful films, but Rem’s strong point has always been release. Before he took charge of New World Entertainment, he was the vice president of marketing and marketing department of Universal Pictures. No company has ever produced any movie that is a big hit.

Now, Rem is still only the president of the company responsible for the distribution business of Daenerys Entertainment.

Hollywood studio leaders are usually gradually promoted from the production department, just like Disney’s Michael Eisner and Fox Films President Joe Ross, etc., it is relatively rare that the distribution department is the studio leader.

Considering for a moment, Simon said: "Since this, you will pay more attention to the distribution department for a period of time."

Amy nodded and said, "Aren't you going to talk to Bob?"

Simon asked: "Do you remember when he joined the job?"

"Probably, last August."

Simon shrugged and said, "It's less than a year, Amy. In all fairness, I'm very satisfied with Bob's work. However, in the process of signing the contract, I had already made enough conditions for $3 million. The amount of awards is already comparable to the executives of the big studios’ announcement department. Although the company does make a lot of money, I don’t think he owes him anything. If he feels that he doesn’t get enough, then leave. ."

Amy paused and said, "Since this is the case, I will next look at the alternative candidates for Bob's position."

Simon nodded slightly and said something else: "The marketing plan for the last month of "Sixth Sense of Soul" will have to be adjusted. Let De Niro do not be too deliberate on programs such as talk show interviews. To imply that the plot of the film is reversed, just follow the normal horror film announcement process, and the same applies to the company’s marketing copy."

Amy smiled bitterly: "Simon, this film is even less attractive to most viewers."

"Deniro starring, and my screenwriter, which is attractive in itself. Amy, "Sixth Sense of Soul" can't be a commercial blockbuster with a high box office in the first week, I hope it can come out of a long-term Word of mouth curve."

After the release of the soundtrack album of "Bodyguard", the film's release date will soon arrive.

On June 2, "Bodyguard" was officially launched in North America with a 2021 screen opening scale.Since the saturation of several consecutive films was successfully released last year, it has become common for studios to produce commercial films with more than 2,000 blocks.

At the same time that "Bodyguard" was released, the box office of the first complete first week of "Raiders 3" was also officially released. From May 26 to June 1, seven days, this Spielberg commercial masterpiece is in the North American theater A total of US$46.01 million was received, surpassing the 42.16 million single-week box office data of the previous "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi", creating a new box office record.

Under the strength of "Strike 3", the media reputation after the release of "Bodyguard" is bleak.

"Entertainment Weekly", "Variety", "New York Times" and other mainstream media have given "Bodyguard" a negative evaluation, "Variety" magazine's "a mess of mess" evaluation is very harsh, Amy saw the criticism Almost got ripped off all the company's advertisements on "Variety".

Based on comprehensive statistics, the media score of "Bodyguard" finally only looked at the breakthrough of 3 points, and the distance to the passing line is very far away.

However, among such one-sided negative reviews, some magazines such as "Rolling Stone" also expressed appreciation for the film's soundtrack, but these certainly did not affect the overall reputation of "Bodyguard".

Affected by the bad reviews, "Bouncer"'s box office last three days last weekend was only 16.61 million US dollars.

Compared with the previous "Veyron Kills" by Lianmei Films, such box office performance is certainly not a failure. The first weekend of 16.61 million US dollars, it is expected that the first week of the box office will remain steadily above 20 million US dollars.

However, the media also generally predicts that "Bouncer" has more box office results in the first week than Daenerys Entertainment has spared no effort to announce. The first week box office is good, but because of word of mouth, this movie will come out a very ugly The box office curve, there are many possibilities that the total box office in North America can exceed 50 million US dollars.

Compared to the $20 million production cost of "Bodyguard", the $50 million North American box office is not a failure in any case. However, compared to the series of stunning box office results of Daenerys Entertainment last year, "Bouncer" is now $50 million. The box office results are undoubtedly a failure, which means that Daenerys Entertainment retreated from the miracle of the box office last year.

Corresponding to "Bodyguard", the release enters the third week, and the number of box office figures on the second weekend of "Raiders 3" is still as high as 21.23 million US dollars, corresponding to a box office drop of only 27%.

Moreover, the following week, a sequel to Ghostbusters, a classic horror comedy from Columbia Pictures, will also be released.In order to be able to get more chips in the deal with Sony, Columbia Pictures has spared no effort to announce the sequel of this aspirational film.

In this extremely unfavorable environment for "Bodyguard", the soundtrack of "Bodyguard" was officially released in North America on Monday, June 5.