Made in Hollywood

Why do these Hollywood studios run the Oscars? Are you going to put a lot of money into it? If it is said that the investment in the film awards in the past is roughly hundreds of thousands of dollars at most, like this year's "Chicago", the total investment is only one million dollars, then since "The British Patient", Mira Max officially joins the game, and the Oscar-rush expenses will pile up into the millions or even tens of millions of dollars at lightning speed.

By the turn of the century, tens of millions of dollars were even just winning entry-level guarantees.

Why do studios invest so much money? For honor and artistic achievement? This is indeed a high-sounding reason to improve the force.

Actually?

Perhaps the best example is "Saving Private Ryan", which won a big win last year. The film won nine Oscar statuettes. When it won the award, it was basically offline from the global market. The statuette won't help the box office much.

but! Don't forget that a movie doesn't just have box office revenue, as time goes by, the ratio of the movie's box office revenue to total revenue continues to decline!

After the last Oscars, "Saving Private Ryan" was launched on videotapes and VCDs in global markets including North America, both for sale and rental, with a total revenue of 100 million in the global market by the new year $44.58 million!

There are also TV broadcast rights, with a total global revenue of 41.8 million US dollars!

In addition, the film also cooperated with Hasbro to launch dolls of characters such as Rescue Squad and Private Ryan. Although the sales can only be said to be very mediocre, they also made more than 4 million US dollars in revenue.

Best picture arguably played a big role in it.

Before the Internet is not developed enough, information has not fully exploded, and the Oscars have not been completely niche and politicized, Oscar nominations and best pictures are still quite a number of people's choice of the wind vane. Except for a few bizarre films such as "The Shawshank Redemption", films that have received multiple Oscar nominations generally usher in a substantial increase in commercial revenue.

After the Oscar nominations were announced, the North American screening of "Chicago" expanded again, from 428 theaters to 1,550 theaters, just like "Saving Private Ryan" last year. Stimulated by the Oscar nomination, many viewers who had no plans to watch the film entered the theater, and those who had already watched it revisited it.

In the first weekend after the theater line skyrocketed, the box office of "Chicago" rebounded strongly, showing a substantial reverse increase, closing at $10.78 million in three days, and in the following three full weeks. The film earned $8.75 million, $5.89 million, and $4.58 million respectively, and the North American box office totaled $169.81 million.

The North American box office potential of the film is gradually exhausted, and the theater chain has fallen sharply again. Only with less than 500 theaters, it continues to harvest the last possible harvest in North America.

Also after the nomination list was announced. The overseas release of "Chicago" has officially started, and the film has also landed in some markets in Europe, Latin America, Australia, Asia and even Africa.

Ten Oscar nominations do give the film a dazzling halo, but musicals are destined to be unacceptable when they leave the Western world. In the four weeks that Duke and Charles Rowan negotiated New Zealand, "Chicago" took home $11 million from Australia. It received $6.37 million from France, reported $5.32 million in Germany, and took $9.22 million in Spain.

The film's two largest overseas ticket warehouses appeared in the United Kingdom, which has the same roots as American culture, and Japan, which was deeply influenced by American culture. The overseas box office of the film soon reached 100 million US dollars with the highest overseas box office of 27.33 million US dollars and 25.93 million US dollars respectively, plus other million-level markets!

By late February, "Chicago" had grossed $287.55 million at the global box office!

Subsequently, Duke Studio cooperated with Warner Records to launch the "Chicago" original soundtrack album. The disc was released for two weeks, and the North American sales alone easily exceeded one platinum, reaching 1.52 million copies.

The disc was also listed in overseas markets. When the time came to mid-March, the original soundtrack album sold for more than 30 million US dollars. Although Duke Studio has to share the account with Warner Records and distributors, it is only for this one. 1/4 of the production cost!

The popularity of the film has also led to the development of other peripherals. At the same time, Duke Studio reached an agreement with Mattel to license the copyright of Velma and Roxy's doll models at a price of $1.5 million, although according to Hollywood practice, three of them. One part will be used to pay the royalties for portraits of Naomi Watts and Catherine Zeta Jones, and the remaining $1 million is also a lot of money.

Duke Studios and Warner Bros. were still negotiating with a number of TV stations, and a partial agreement was reached at this time. NBC took the first round of North American TV rights for the film for $3 million.

Since the film is still released in more than 300 theaters in North America, and can contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars at the box office every day, TV broadcasts can only wait until after the Oscars.

…………

"Charles, in the end, we'll have to go and investigate in person."

In the Duke's studio, Duke closed the thick folder and said to Charles Rowan, "When I get back from London, let's call Robin and go to New Zealand together."

Charles Rowan looked at the time, stood up and said, "Then I'll wait for your call."

The two shook hands and said goodbye. Duke watched him leave the office and sat behind the desk. In fact, it wasn't just New Zealand. He also wanted to go to Hong Kong to find some action guides.

New Zealand is preparing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Of course, he will not be stupid enough to add kung fu-like action elements to it, otherwise the film will be nondescript, and the street may be infinitely large.

Duke is looking for an action guide, naturally, for the science fiction film that was filed a few years ago, using kung fu to show the procedural conflict. Using the name he was familiar with, this project can be named "The Matrix".

This is also a very troublesome film to prepare. Not to mention that the special effects in it take a lot of time and manpower, and it will take several months to train Hollywood actors to become outstanding kung fu actors. And it is difficult to save time and effort, and the pre-training is not enough. It will inevitably lead to endless problems during shooting, and even injuries to the actors.

What's more, Duke has also discussed with the action guidance team who have collaborated on several films in a row, and they will definitely participate in the whole film in the future, using high-powered cameras to film all the training and performance process, and then use high-tech means to frame by frame. analyze.

The purpose of this is clear. Just to steal the teacher.

Of course, Duke is not a kung fu fan, nor is he interested in flying around and fancy and complicated fights. Instead, his action team combines kung fu, muay thai, wrestling, karate and free fighting to design a more direct, sharp and Simple and rude action routines, after all, he knows that kung fu movies are popular in North America and even the entire Western world for a very short period of time, after the audience's freshness disappears. Was quickly beaten back to its original shape.

Speaking of which, Hollywood's action methods have been the same for decades, and it is simply impossible to look directly...

This can be said to be one of the reasons why kung fu movies were able to flourish in North America at the turn of the century, but Hollywood has always been a melting pot, if you know how to integrate. You can become an important member of this circle. If you follow the old ways, you will soon be eliminated by this circle.

And Hollywood doesn't need to figure out what kung fu is, for a highly specialized and tech-savvy team. Learning a little bit of kung fu is enough to combine other fighting styles to design action routines that are more suitable for popularity in the world.

As for bringing kung fu movies to the world? Duke believes. In the East, where talents are born in large numbers, there are countless people who are more suitable than him.

After thinking for a while, Duke pressed the intercom and called Tina Fey in. His female assistant, who had just experienced a horrific incident that could make many people collapse, has only recently recovered and returned to work.

Duke pointed to the chair across from the desk, waited for Tina Fey to sit down, and asked, "Moving out of North Hollywood?"

"Yes, I don't want to be there anymore."

After a long period of work, Tina Fei also found a way to get along with Duke. Knowing that her boss is very good to the people around her, she said frankly, "I usually live in the Duke's Manor, but I only go back to live occasionally on weekends. I live here, but this kind of thing happened to me, and I have an extremely bad impression of North Hollywood."

"Have you found a suitable house?" Duke saw Tina Fey shaking his head and said, "Put your luggage with me for now, and the house can be found slowly. Also, I'm going to London on the weekend, and you stay in Los Angeles to rest. All right."

"I've recovered." Tina Fey insisted.

Seeing the firm look in the other's eyes, Duke couldn't say anything else and waved to her, "Remember to book a flight to London."

Tina Fey nodded and stood up, turned and walked out of the office.

Duke sighed, this woman can be considered strong.

On the last day of February, the worst bank robbery in Los Angeles' history took place in North Hollywood, when two heavily armed robbers armed with drum-loaded AK rifles robbed the Los Angeles branch of the Bank of America on Laurier Valley Avenue. Department, and the hapless Tina Fey happened to go to the bank to deal with her own accounting problems, and was unfortunately involved in it and witnessed the whole process of the incident.

In fact, Duke also saw it, because when the incident happened, a helicopter on ABC TV was doing a live broadcast nearby, and he rushed to the scene immediately. Through the camera lens and TV screen, he showed the audience across the United States two double-clad clothes. Kevlar, the gangster with automatic firepower, how to suppress more than 50 Los Angeles police officers, until SWAT came to support...

Such an event is likely to leave a shadow for a lifetime.

Recalling what he saw on the TV, Duke suddenly had a thought, this should be a good material for adaptation, right?

After the last two films of the "Lord of the Rings" series, the narrative style will become extremely complex, and two-line three-line narrative will become the norm. helpful.

Duke made a note in his memo, which is just a very rudimentary idea, whether to implement it or not, or make plans after participating in the annual Victoria's Secret show in London. (To be continued ~^~)

PS:  The weather is gloomy and does not rain, it is very boring~~~~ I want some recommended tickets to comfort my mood~~~