Hollywood Road

In the new week, Murphy followed the crew to promote in major North American cities, and the film continued to be screened in major theaters. Moreover, due to the relatively good box office results in the first weekend, the number of North American theaters has also increased to nearly 2,500. For a b As far as films are concerned, this is almost reaching the limit of the number of screening theaters.

As the weekend rolls away and the weekday rolls around, the one-day box office of any film begins to shrink, and "Planet Terror" will be no exception.

On Monday, the single-day box office of the film fell from the US$5 million level last weekend to about US$1 million, and it scored US$1.35 million that day; Tuesday is a traditional discount day for theaters in North America, and the revenue rebounded slightly, with a daily income of US$1.46 million; It fell again on Wednesday, gaining US$1.14 million; on Thursday, the single-day box office fell below the US$1 million mark, earning US$950,000.

In the four working days of the second week of its release in North America, "Planet Terror" collected another US$4.6 million, plus the already received US$15.7 million, and the cumulative North American box office broke through the US$20 million mark in one fell swoop, reaching US$20.3 million.

This is close to three times the production cost line. Even if the income from overseas copyrights during the Cannes Film Festival is not included, the film with a production cost of 8 million US dollars can be said to be a success.

It's just that its success is not as amazing as "Chain Saw", but looking at the entire North American film history, how many "Chain Saw"-like films are there?

The revenue exceeding expectations has also increased Miramax's investment in publicity and marketing. The promotional materials of "Planet Terror" continue to appear on TV stations late at night, and this film can also be seen on websites where Internet fans often gather figure.

This kind of publicity investment can attract many audiences to the theater, especially non-B-grade movie lovers, but the increase of these passer-by audiences has also caused the film's audience reputation to continue to decline.

On imdb, the score has dropped below 8 points. Although there are still 7.9 points, the proportion of negative comments in the comment column is obviously increasing.

The polarization of the audience's word-of-mouth is an unavoidable problem for "Planet Terror". Although Murphy also expected this, and with the support of b-movie fans, the film also achieved good box office results, but like all audiences A noir film with a limited range, when the next weekend comes, the box office will inevitably take a dive.

And the range of diving often exceeds those mainstream commercial masterpieces with strong word of mouth.

During the three days of the next weekend, "Planet Terror" continued to be screened in nearly 2,500 theaters, but the film's screening rate dropped significantly. Coupled with the declining attendance rate, when this weekend passed, the latest North American box office statistics came out. At that time, the box office of "Planet Terror" fell by as much as 58% compared with the previous weekend, and it also fell out of the top five in the box office rankings, earning 6.6 million US dollars in three days.

It was released in North America for ten days, and the box office has accumulated 26.9 million US dollars, which is close to Miramax's expected 30 million US dollars.

However, this is an extremely competitive summer file. The box office of "Planet of Terror" plummeted the next weekend, which also means that it is impossible for the film to continue to be screened at 2000+ theaters. After the start of the new week, the number of theaters is like a big The box office that has fallen has also shrunk sharply, falling to more than 1,600.

Moreover, during the period from the end of June to the beginning of July, new films continued to be released, including well-known works such as "The Bourne Identity: Bourne's Identity".

In addition, Miramax has also begun to reduce its support for "Planet Terror" after increasing a certain amount of publicity and marketing investment. After all, this weekend, "Gangs of New York" co-produced and released by Miramax and Touchstone Films It's about to be released.

Murphy, James Franco, Jessica Chastain and Robert Downey Jr. are no match for Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis combination ratio.

Movies are an industry that relies heavily on publicity and marketing. After a film like "Planet Terror" with mixed reputation and reputation loses strong publicity support, it is impossible for the box office to continue to maintain a certain height.

In the four working days of the third week of "Planet Terror"'s release, the single-day box office fell below 500,000 US dollars, and it only won 1.7 million US dollars in four days, making it difficult to move towards the 30 million US dollar mark.

Fortunately, the weekend’s performance picked up. In the third weekend of its release, the weekend box office of "Planet Terror" fell by more than 60%. However, the box office harvest of 2.75 million US dollars finally pushed the total North American box office to over 30 million US dollars. close.

In the following fourth week, the number of theaters for the film dropped to more than 1,150, earning $1.95 million seven days a week.

The market potential of this film was basically exhausted during the four weekends it was released, but the film can still generate a certain box office figure, and it can continue to be shown in theaters, so it will not be swept out of theaters immediately.

Murphy and others also ended their North American promotional tour and returned to Los Angeles.

After returning, Murphy first went to Fox Searchlight, met with the main members of the newly established "Chain Saw 2" crew, and had a special talk with James Wen. Facing his victim, he The mentality is fairly stable, some things are done, and regret and guilt are of no help.

If it were someone else, Murphy wouldn't bother to pay attention, but the other party is Chinese after all, which is one of the reasons why he strongly recommends it to Fox Searchlight.

Just like himself, it is the most difficult for any director to start. Although I don’t know how James Wen once impressed Lionsgate, but I think it’s not because he threw out a script, and the management of Lionsgate He pounced on him like an idiot, crying and begging him to take a picture.

There must be some unknown hardships in it.

As long as there is a successful first step, the road behind will be much smoother. The chances of success for "Chain Saw 2" directed by James Wen are still very high, so that he will not worry about not having investment in the future, and Murphy will not worry about it. Ready to continue to dabble in horror films, if all goes well, James Wen will still be the master of horror films in Hollywood.

After exchanging some ideas with James Wing, Murphy felt much more at ease with the project and returned to work on the Stanton studio and his own legacy.

He and Paul Wilson cleaned up the basement storage room of the Stanton studio, sold the cameras and car police receivers that were left behind, and sold some old unusable desks, chairs and equipment in the studio Sold it to a recycling station and replaced it with a new one.

The current Stanton studio is not a small company that was on the verge of bankruptcy before, and Murphy also needs some new equipment to improve work efficiency.

Then there is an appropriate increase in the treatment of Paul Wilson, Rosa Rodriguez and the financial staff.

In addition, Murphy also renewed an agency contract with lawyer Robert. Whether it was the initial initial capital accumulation stage or Rose's bail later, Robert has shown sufficient ability, and Murphy does not want to rashly change to an unfamiliar one. lawyer.

Also renewing his contract is accountant David, who will fully assist Murphy and Stanton Studios with tax matters.

The tax system in North America is complicated, and it is definitely a country with thousands of taxes. There are still many differences in tax laws between states, and there are also messy policies such as investment tax credits. It is necessary to have an excellent accountant.

However, there are many monitoring measures that Murphy should have. There are many examples of being cheated by accountants or managers in Hollywood.

In addition, Murphy temporarily moved out of the rented house, let people tidy it up briefly, and signed another one-year lease contract with the real estate agent, ready to start a new job and life.

It was already a few weeks after these were completed. In mid-August, ten weeks after its release in North America, "Planet of Terror" finally withdrew from the theater market and officially went offline from all theaters.

After ten weeks of screenings, although "Planet Terror" was not as big as "Chain Saw", and the box office was not as good as it was, it still achieved box office results that exceeded Miramax's expectations, and received a total of 38.75 million US dollars in North America. box office.

This is nearly five times the production cost and the North American box office output ratio. Both the investors and the theater screening parties are all satisfied.

Especially for Miramax, Harvey Weinstein called Murphy directly and said that as long as he is willing, the cooperation between Miramax and Stanton Studios will continue.

Such a stance is not difficult to understand. Miramax not only recovered its costs but also generated profits in terms of the North American box office. Even if it had to pay Murphy a large share according to the agreement, the profit figures were still considerable.

According to the director contract signed at the beginning, if the North American box office of "Planet Terror" exceeds 10 million US dollars, Murphy can automatically receive a basic incentive of 100,000 US dollars, which is 1% of the North American box office.

This is a stepped reward agreement. For every $10 million increase in the North American box office of the film, Murphy's dividend reward will also increase by one percent. That is to say, if the North American box office reaches $20 million, he can get two percent. ’s rake as a reward.

Now that "Planet Terror" has earned a box office of 38.75 million US dollars, Murphy can get a total of 3% of the North American box office share, which is about 1.16 million US dollars.

Even if Murphy is now rich, this is still a lot of money.

Of course, just like the previous "Chain Saw", Miramax will not pay the money immediately. After paying the last remaining 300,000 US dollars of Murphy's basic director's remuneration, Miramax paid 400,000 US dollars first. 10,000 US dollars, and the remaining amount will be paid within the next six months.

After the film was released, Miramax, taking advantage of the warm-up, and Blockbuster jointly launched the director's cut DVD of "Planet Terror", which included more large-scale shots. After the release, the sales were quite good. In the two leasing markets, both broke into the top five at one time.

However, none of this has much to do with Murphy.

His eyes will always look forward, this Hollywood road has just begun! (To be continued.)