Hollywood legendary director

On March 6, 2009, "Watchmen" was released in 3,611 theaters. Under severe pressure from word-of-mouth differentiation, it won 55.7 million US dollars in the first week and dropped to the top of the weekly list.

If you ignore the first day of the film, it won 25 million box office (this figure includes 4.6 million at midnight on Thursday), 18 million was credited on Saturday, which fell 16%, and Sunday plunged again 41%, only to take To 12.7 million, that's pretty good.

What do you mean?

The crash trend is too obvious.

This is because there are very few first-week box office curves that match the investment share and fall so fast. If the starting point is low, the passing line of 20 million will be passed on the first day, but it will drop so much on Saturday and Sunday.

Of course, this week's movie market, driven by "Watchmen", has increased by 18% compared with the same period in the box office, but the unkindness towards passersby has been thoroughly spread.

The major portals have also become noisy, all movie fans are attacking each other, and the gods and the rotten fans are fighting, and they have to distinguish the reason for "Watchmen", but this is actually extremely weak in promoting the box office. .

Because fans who want to watch this movie will enter and support without blowing it, but the energy of fans is so big. It needs to be admitted that comics have always been a very small circle. When the energy consumption of these people is almost the same, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it make sense for the spectators to look at the sidelines to waste money after they understand the boring, unclear and common evaluations?

Coupled with the results of the first week, it is still very demoralizing.

Seeing that none of the forecasting agencies are optimistic about the cost recovery of "Watchmen", such as the avalanche situation, it is impossible for the box office to change out of thin air without the support of the audience. Warner can only take measures again to minimize expenditures and lie flat. Admit defeat.

Investment + propaganda, more than 180 million have been thrown in, can wise people not admit it, but this has caused Zach Schneider and the crew to suffer.

why?

This group of people was in the roadshow everywhere, but the "materials" supported by the rear were cut off. Then there was a fart. In addition to the failure of the project, there was no good mood.

That night.

Warner internally also negotiated quickly and made some choices.

"According to real-time sampling surveys, the situation of the "Watchmen" screening is not ideal, and the follow-up trend is more difficult. It is also very difficult to rely on overseas regions to exert efforts, because overseas audiences lack channels to understand background information and agree with them. The foundation is worse, I definitely can't count on it. So..."

An executive from Warner’s distribution department waved his hand and said: “Rather than increase the cost of publicity, the burden will be heavier. I think that we can abandon the box office market, try to preserve the copyright value, put more effort into guiding the basic film of the film, and grasp the market of core fans.

Now this part of the audience also talks about the perfection of the plot. Many classic scenes in the comics have not been shot...

I suggest that you can release the 186-minute director’s edit version and the original 215-minute edit version, admitting that it is because of the impact of the incorrect estimation of the length of the theater lineup. At any rate, it can expand the offline market and cover the loss. After all, we do not It may be more than a disaster to let the theater show more than 3 hours of movies...

Since "Watchmen" has been defeated, but the word-of-mouth still has the excellent side, we try to grasp it, and the support effect is always more effective than other directions."

The distribution executives pointed to the research and analysis report, emphasizing the fact that most comic fans still support the "Watchmen."

Because the film is really not bad, it's just that it has a lot of information, and the degree of restoration is guaranteed. No matter how you say it, the road is narrowed, not the road is gone.

"Will it be detrimental to Warner's label to actively guide the failure reason?" someone asked politely.

"But this is no longer the point. Even if we don't say that, they all watched a joke. I don't think this theme is suitable for theatrical distribution. It lacks an audience foundation and it is not easy to arrange movies. Theatrical chain is not good at all. Cooperate."

Warner CEO Kevin Tsujihara listened carefully to the analysis of his subordinates, and after pondering for a long time, he still made a decision: "It's so decided. The home entertainment market will release three versions for the audience to evaluate for themselves. Even if the effect is not good, we will No worse results can be obtained, but if this kind of guidance is good, it will always be able to return blood."-Yuan Shikong, it is really this thing that has advanced the matter.

To be honest, I admit that Warner’s Big Scissors and Zha Dao are at odds with each other. In fact, it’s quite smashing and will definitely attract a negative image. However, the final edited version is not released and the details are not filled. Who knows that this movie has actually lowered the threshold ?

It is also because of this that the sales of the movie DVDs of "Watchmen" are not as high as the final edited version. The latter has once become the sales champion in the home entertainment market. You should know that the price of this disc containing three versions and shooting highlights For 43.87 US dollars, and then sold more than 2.1 million sets, net profit 61.72 million...

Of course, the box office gap of "Watchmen" is too big, and it is still a loss, but the loss is not as high as expected. This is why Warner's subsequent DC plan projects continue to hire a guide, because Warner internally did not Too much responsibility for the failure of "Watchmen" falls on him, and I feel that the directing style of this guy is still very suitable for DC...

The following week, following the rollover of "Watchmen", Disney's new film "Daddy Earth" also failed to stage the expected box office results.

This film is repackaged based on the 1975 classic movie "The Adventures of Devil's Mountain" and invited Dashi-Johnson and Huang Shengyi to star. Before the release, the Disney production executives claimed to create a trilogy. The work is also quite a stretch , The opening scale of 3187 theaters only got 25 million box office.

But in the bad schedule, "Daddy Earth" still brought down last week's champion "Watchman".

In fact, there is no special reason. The obscure plot and difficult-to-organize role relationship of "Watchmen" caused the weekly box office to plummet again by 66%. The following weekend only received 18.07 million US dollars for three days, and it was screened for 10 days. North America accumulated 86.01 million. Warner is miserable.

I don’t know if I don’t count. In these three months, Warner has already lost two masterpieces with a production cost of over 100 million-"Ink Heart" and "Watchmen".

Even the major media reporters were surprised that Warner started this year so badly, because Warner still occupied the top three market share in the past few years. How come it suddenly failed to find the rhythm of film production since the second half of 2008.

And I have never heard of management confusion or problems with the capital chain-the stock market crash has an impact, but it is still acceptable to Warner. From this point of view, it simply seems that the market vision is not working, and it is impossible to bet on anything. metaphysics.

Sometimes, when the studio is in a trough, it is really unclear...