Hollywood Hunter

On May 31, the second week of the summer season, the number of new films opened by the North American theater was reduced to two, namely Paramount's "Soap Platter" and Columbia Pictures' "Urban Rick".

"Soap Platter" tells a series of intriguing stories of a group of soap opera actors around a soap opera student named "The Sun and the West".

As a group play, the lineup of "Soap Platter" is luxurious.

Oscar film led by Sally Field, Oscar best supporting actor Kevin Klein and Oscar best supporting actor Uby Goldberg joined, as well as Robert Downey Jr., Kelly Fisher, Elizabeth Sue , Gary Marshall and a group of big and small cafes participated. The director is Michael Hoffman who has won a good reputation with his two literary films "State of Dreams" and "Sisters."

People who are slightly familiar with Hollywood's inner affair can probably see at a glance that this is another caa package movie.

Therefore, although the first-line superstars with a pay of tens of millions join in, the production cost of the film is still as high as 35 million US dollars.

"City Ricks" starring Billy Christo, is roughly the trend of the "crocodile Dundee" series that sold at the box office in the 1980s, with a budgeted cost of $270,000.

Three days after the painting, "Soap Platter" was released at the weekend box office with only 6.73 million US dollars, and the weekly box office is expected to be around 90 million US dollars, far below Paramount's expectations.

Although it is following the trend of "Crocodile Dundee", the reputation and box office of "City Crook" are still pretty good. The weekend receipts are $130,300, and it is expected that the weekly box office is expected to be between 180 and 200,000.

The six new films that were intensively painted last week, except for "The World of Ice and Snow", which has increased to 816 screens, achieved a decline of about 1o% in the three days of the next weekend, and the other five films all fell more than 3o%.Among them is the new Bruce Willis film "Ultimate Condor" produced by Samsung, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, which has fallen by 47%.

Columbia originally used "Ultimate Condor" as the main theme of this summer season. "City Rick" is a last resort to get stuck in the 6 before "Batman: The Dark Knight" next week.

Unexpectedly, the market performance of the two films is completely contrary to management's expectations.

The production cost of 650 million US dollars for "Ultimate Condor", the cumulative box office for 1o days of release is only 11.59 million US dollars, which is not as good as the three-day box office of "City Rumble".

In June, the opening date of the second movie "Batman: The Dark Knight" in the DC movie universe is getting closer.

In addition to a more intensive publicity offensive, "Batman: The Dark Knight" also started a media and movie fan audition half a month in advance. Some media have already released the film's word-of-mouth commentary. The North American media participating in the audition basically gave Scored more than 8 points.

In the new week, Warner Bros., which is in charge of the film’s global travel, also officially announced the global box office of the dc film universe opening movie "Batman: The Wartime".

From the end of the previous year, after a year and a half of time, "Batman: Moments of War" has been released in 51 countries and regions around the world.

In the end, the North American box office of "Batman: Moments of War" was US$436 million, and the cumulative overseas box office was US$531 million.

The global box office figure eventually reached 967 million US dollars.

Although regrettably unable to break through the $100 million mark, it also left behind the global $790 million box office data for "Alien et" in 1982, making it the highest box office movie ever in Hollywood before 1991.

This time, under the joint operation of Warner Brothers and Daenerys, "Batman: The Dark Knight" will be released simultaneously in 21 countries and regions around the world.

Simultaneously opening paintings on a large scale worldwide has been very common for more than ten years. In the early 1990s, it was still a rare initiative. Therefore, it can also be seen that the two companies have strong confidence in Batman: The Dark Knight.

You know, this dc film universe sequel, from the beginning of the announced budget was set at an unprecedented $80 million,

This also means that the North American box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" needs to reach about 300 million US dollars before the two companies can rely on the local box office to recover costs.

Of course, anyone knows that although the box office numbers in the "Batman" series are amazing, the surrounding revenue is actually even larger.

According to public figures, in just one year in 199o, the sales of peripheral derivatives of "Batman: Moments of War" reached a huge $200 million.

According to the peripheral profit margin of about 15%, the US$200 million in derivative sales is equivalent to a pre-tax profit of about US$300 million.

Because of the original contract, most of them flowed into the hands of Daenerys Entertainment.

Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine why Daenerys Entertainment can still achieve a staggering $1.13 billion in annual net profit after a series of big moves in 199o.

Earlier in May, one month before the opening of Batman: The Dark Knight, the videotape of Batman: Moments of War was officially launched worldwide. It was released last week, and the sales in North America reached 560,000 boxes.

As the release date of "Batman: The Dark Knight" is approaching, according to the latest statistics, less than one month, the worldwide sales of "Batman: Moment of War" has exceeded 130 million boxes, and the sales are close to 400 million US dollars.

According to this sales trend, next, the total sales of Batman: Moment of Warfare global videotapes is very promising to create a sales record of more than 3ooo million boxes. The sales are expected to exceed 900 million US dollars, even if it hits 100 million. The dollar mark is not impossible.

In the agreement signed between the Hollywood studios and the major guilds, only 2o% of the sales of video tapes are divided as profits.

In fact, the gross profit rate of video cassettes as high as $3o in this era is not much lower than the box office share.

"Batman: Moment of War" has predicted the sales of 3ooo million boxes of video tapes. Except for the share of Warner Bros., most of the proceeds will still be owned by Daenerys Entertainment, and the profit scale is conservatively estimated to be $300 million.

The screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight" is scheduled for Wednesday, June 5.

Tomorrow is the screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight".

Simon stayed at Warner Studios in Burbank all day today.

Or, it was forcibly dragged by Terry Semel at Warner Studios. In these days, Semel will call Simon every day, letting him take time to take care of the line of "Batman: The Dark Knight", "The Flash" In the later stage and other cooperation between the two parties.

Just looking at the profits created by "Batman: Moments of War", the importance of the DC movie universe to Time Warner need not be repeated.

There are actually other reasons why Terry Semel is so stalked.

After completing the merger of Time Company and Warner Brothers early last year, neither Time Warner's performance nor stocks met the industry's expectations.

However, in order to prevent Paramount's sniping acquisition of Time Company, the two parties changed the initial stock exchange merger to a cash plus stock purchase, which caused the total amount of debt of the two companies that had only more than 200 million US dollars in debt to suddenly increase. To the tens of billions of dollars.

After a year of trying to pay off, as of now, Time Warner's total debt still reaches $106 million.

Steve Rose is the kind of person who does not like to sell company assets, so in order to pay off debts, Rose has been preparing for an equity increase since last year, intending to issue an additional $300 million in stock to repay Time Warner. Debt.

Time Warner shareholders are naturally unwilling to dilute their shareholdings at will, and do not like spending extra money to subscribe for shares. The outside world is not very optimistic about Time Warner's prospects.

Therefore, this increase in stocks can be described as a lot of resistance both inside and outside of Time Warner.

Coupled with the continued decline in the North American stock market in the second half of last year, things almost disappeared.

Fortunately, the United States simply won the Gulf War in the Middle East, causing the North American stock market to rise sharply in recent months. Time Warner's stock also benefited. The market value has finally returned to more than 100 million U.S. dollars.In addition, investors are optimistic about Warner Bros.'s upcoming "Batman: The Dark Knight" and "The Flash", and the stock increase has ushered in a turning point.

The time is roughly set in August.

So, even with full confidence in Batman: The Dark Knight, and the release of "The Flash" must have increased in stock, Terry Semel pulled Simon to Burbank as much as possible, just to give The outside world creates an impression of close cooperation between the two parties.

In order to achieve this goal, the two sides have recently negotiated another cooperation project outside the dc movie universe, which is one of the other two cooperation projects that Daenerys Entertainment owes Warner Bros.

This whole day today, Simon happened to be busy with these three things in Burbank.

In the morning, he was personally accompanied by Terry Semel in the late center of Warner Studios. After a busy morning of "The Flash", the afternoon was two consecutive meetings.

Because of work, Simon hasn't been able to take the time to meet Anthony Johnston who will be here today.

These days, the Johnston family officially took over 3o% of MGM shares from other MGM Australian shareholders who exchanged bonds for equity, becoming MGM's largest shareholder.

Although absolute control is not achieved, as the largest shareholder and the support of other Australian shareholders, MGM's control is basically in the hands of the Johnston family, or in the hands of Simon.

Anthony came over this time just to discuss MGM's next exhibition.

Warner Studios.

From 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock, it is the meeting of Batman: The Dark Knight.

From 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock, it is the production meeting of the cooperative film determined by both parties.

The newly determined film is called "The Last Mohigan".

This is an adaptation of an American novel completed in 1826. The author of the novel is named James Cooper.

The content is about the last three warriors of an Indian indigenous tribe named Mohigan during the colonial war between Britain and France in the late 1850s to fight for control of the Americas. Back to the story of the British military base.

Like the Prince's Revenge, because the "Last Mohigan" story mode is very similar to the knight rescue princess, it is very popular in Hollywood.

Since 192o, "The Last Mohigan" has been continuously changed into movies, TV series and even cartoons, and the last time was in 1987.

This time, the reason why I chose to restart shooting "The Last Mohigan" was actually influenced by the double harvest of "Dancing with Wolves" at the box office and awards.

In the final analysis, this is a trend.

In Simon's memory, the "Last Mohigan" released in 1992 was directed by Michael Mann and starred by Oscar-winning Daniel Day Lewis.

Although he didn't remember the box office clearly, Simon could be sure that this is a very popular work.

Michael Mann was the director of the famous "Theft of Fire", and had previously cooperated with New World Entertainment in the gangster TV series "Ultimate Police Network". After confirming this project, Daenerys Entertainment contacted Michael Mann , The other party quickly gave a positive response, and also hope to complete the script in person.

As for the leading actor, Warner Bros. thought it was Mel Gibson.

No way, starting from the original "Mad Max", Mel Gibson has almost become the actor of Warner Bros., just like Clint Eastwood.

Even though Mel Gibson relies on high pay-as-you-go terms to take most of his profits in "Lethal Weapons 3", which will be released next year, Warner is still used to using the other party because of box office guarantees.

Simon actually agreed with Warner's proposal.

The memory of Mel Gibson's box office awards, which was also a bumper harvest, "Brave Heart", is enough to prove that the other party is fully capable of supporting such a costume action film.

Moreover, because it is not a sequel to a blockbuster movie like "Lethal Weapon 3", as an original film, Mel Gibson's film will not be too high.

However, in addition to the "Fatal Weapon 3" being filmed, Mel Gibson has also received two other film appointments, and the schedule has been scheduled for 1993.

Simon does not lack the patience to wait until two years later, but Warner Brothers can't.

In the end, the original Daniel Day Lewis was contacted based on Simon's memory, and the two parties are still in negotiation.

After a busy day, Simon returned to Dumei Point Estate in the evening, and the shell villa was very lively.

Anthony Johnston also brought a family here this time.

Because Anthony's eldest son, Brandon Johnston, who is the same age as Simon, is actually a loyal fan of the "Batman" series. Last time, he also asked Simon for a bat motorcycle through the mouth of his cousin.Since tomorrow is the screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight", Brandon naturally hopes to see it first.

In addition, Anthony's wife Betty Johnston, two daughters, 19-year-old Sylvia Johnston and 11-year-old Chloe Johnston.

Brandon had just entered the family business and Sylvia and Chloe both went to school in the United Kingdom, and it happened to be summer vacation, so they were able to make time.