Hollywood legendary director

For high-risk projects, studios generally pull people into the car, which is the same as diversifying investment.

In recent years, the film and television market has expanded rapidly.

The Motion Picture Association of America issued a report on January 6, stating that the domestic box office revenue of US movies in 2007 reached 10.15 billion US dollars, an increase of 6.3% over 2006.

The latest statistics report on the movie screening market pointed out that in 2007, cinemas across the United States sold 1.54 billion tickets, an increase of about 3.7% over the previous year. The average price of each ticket was US$6.55, an increase of 2.3%. This increase was only one percentage point lower than the average consumer price increase.

The report also pointed out that last year, US films made 27.9 billion US dollars in gross box office revenue worldwide, an increase of 14% over the previous year (2006), reaching the highest level ever.

In response, American Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman said that 2007 was a gratifying year for the film industry. The strong ticket sales showed that audiences all over the world still regarded movie theaters as a piece of entertainment. Leshi, this also shows that despite the rapid emergence of many new technology challenges in the film and television industry, the film projection industry still has a strong vitality.

Of course, there are also many people in the film industry who blame the worsening competition in the box office market in recent years (the performance of bad films is worse) on the popularity of new forms of entertainment such as the Internet, home theaters, and electronic games.

However, from the analysis of market big data, the main reason why audiences are gradually moving away from theaters is the lack of good works that are both refined and popular in the market, because the overall market performance of those explosive works is still mainly to improve.

The other is that the cost of film production and marketing by American film companies last year reached an average of about 103 million U.S. dollars per film, slightly higher than the average level in 2006-of which production costs accounted for two-thirds (indicating high-budget movies More quantity output), marketing expenses account for one third.

In other words, the blockbuster era has really become the mainstream of the market.

And what promotes all this development is the abundant capital of Wall Street and overseas.

As long as it pays a little attention to the development of the film and television industry, it is difficult to refuse such a temptation to make money.

This is manifested in the emergence of a large number of investment banking companies wrapped in capital, such as Legendary Pictures and Relativity Entertainment.

These people have money, but lack good project investment, and because they don't have the production methods and basic business capabilities, they are dependent on major studios and invest more.

But the studios are not stupid. They develop good projects themselves and will not send profits out. Only high-risk projects will win over the funders, borrow chickens to lay eggs, and if the eggs die, they will not lose money. Too much, which creates a more distinctive Hollywood production environment.

Because investment banks are experts in venture capital, they are very cunning to use high risk with several low-weight projects to invest together. In other words, they seldom talk about it individually, but only a few quarters. How many parts of the project.

If calculated with big data, this form of investment is easy to make a profit, because the movie market is prosperous. As long as you are lucky, you can reduce the loss by half, and the probability is positive.

Warner Pictures Building.

As a studio that has occupied the market share for the first three consecutive years, it is naturally the target of capital pursuit, but everyone has their own careful thinking, and it does not have a big impact on Warner.

Because Warner’s production and distribution system is very complete, and it doesn’t need to rely on external forces, but occasionally, the risk-sharing work is still done—Time Warner’s support for the studio is not that high, on the contrary, it needs Warner Pictures. Industry blood transfusion.

Reception room.

The investment banking elites who came to visit were polite to each other, talking haha, while inquiring about other people, hoping to get more information and intelligence from other people.

Of course, compared with these similar competitors, they can hope to get Warner's affirmation of their investment behavior, and then come up with specific project discussions, such as "Watchmen"...

In the office of the president across the corridor.

Compared with last year, the performance growth increased by 7%, which made Joson Campbell very easy.

But in the new year, we still have to work hard.

He half leaned back on the boss chair and approved some documents. He didn't care much about the empty shell entertainment companies that lined up to send money. He is now more concerned about the project output this year.

With Warner’s size, it’s normal to shoot 14 or 5 copies a year. If there are fewer, it will be a waste of its own distribution resources. In addition to its own production, it will take over works that other studios cannot publish. Very positive.

As for the recently prepared "Watchmen" project, he himself is not optimistic about the successful adaptation, but the voice is louder.

......

There is a paragraph in later generations that shows that Warner wants to start the "Watchmen" project.

"The world is too peaceful now, people are singing hand in hand, popcorn super-English movies are flooding, I don’t know what type to shoot. Suddenly one day, the Dark Knight succeeded, a huge success, which made everyone start thinking: Does the audience start to like it? Dark, profound and curious work? Well, let's shoot the watchman!"

As a result, the project that was shelved in the corner returned to the attention of Warner senior management.

Because one of the reasons for vigorously vetoed it before is that although the original comics of "Watchmen" are famous but small, and the theme of the story is too dark and does not conform to the mainstream values ​​of American society.

In addition, even though Moore created the Watchmen series of comics, the unscrupulous and unscrupulous merchant DC bullied Moore a bit innocent. He used his hands on the contract and stole the copyright of Moore's works, which led to a break with Moore and the adaptation of the project. There are some nasty things that are easy to explode.

Therefore, Warner's internal attitude towards this project is very subtle and complex, and contains a power game-some people want to be in position, but even if there is support behind them, they have to prove their ability to be in position.

When Joseph listened to Lyman's instructions, he came to Warner to discuss something, and that was the situation.

Capital is optimistic, but Warner is divided internally, because the former does not understand the production, but sees "The Dark Knight" as good. After analysis, "Watchmen" seems to be more realistic, deeper and darker than the Nolan version of Batman. It's ok, but don't think about whether you can shoot it. Will the audience like it when it comes out?

Jonson was a little surprised at Joseph's arrival. He thought it was urging the accounts or the last Batman had an idea to cooperate, but he didn't want to talk about it as "Watchmen".

So that he became vigilant for a moment.

why?

The Batman trilogy, it's a shame, coupled with Lyman's sturdy record, even if he thought "Watchmen" was very unreliable, but what if?

The film and television industry is the easiest place to appear in case.

Otherwise, there will be no small cost black horse every year.

If the project is controllable, no matter how amazing the results are, it is expected to happen.

"I heard that you want to invite Zha Dao to join?"

"With this meaning, don't the fireflies want to let people go?"

"Ha, we are just a partnership relationship. It's just that I heard that the "Watchmen" project is a bit difficult, and I have learned about some things." Joseph smiled politely, "If it is financial, Firefly has some free funds... ."

Don’t say too much, just stop here, because Firefly didn’t even want to invest in "Watchmen".

Although the sales volume of this DVD is good, it is 107 million in North America and 185 million in the global box office. Compared with the cost...

At that time, only the cinema version was released. When the DVD had not yet entered the market, the word-of-mouth box office of the film hit the street. Investors lost money and wanted to jump off the building. IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes scores were both at the middle and lower levels (qualified commercial popcorn is all Midstream), except for a small part of the original novel, which is basically a complete hit from any aspect, some media even directly criticized it unceremoniously: this is a big bad film.

When it was reversed, Warner executives had already released the three-hour-long content of the final edited version on DVD. The price was very expensive. Several hundred thousand copies were sold in January. Audiences who have criticized the film understand that it is not that the guide is too bad or even the basic logic is not clear, but that Warner is too brainy.

Of course, that was part of the audience’s thoughts. From a market perspective, Warner did not do anything wrong, because the three-hour edited version was released to the market, which is definitely not suitable for the theater’s screening mode. The result may not be better. It could be worse.