Made in Hollywood

Just like the transition between old and new in all time periods in Hollywood, newly released films will always crowd out the living space of already released films. Most of the time, as long as the quality and publicity of newly released films are good enough, it can be relatively easy. The victory of the film has been released.

That's the case with the newly released "Mission: Impossible."

Although there are also many smeared voices in the media, and some competitors have launched fans of the original TV series to protest against the film version, the quality of the film is guaranteed, and the publicity and distribution are also in place. Tom Cruise's superstar appeal is strong , and as the weekend passed, Mission: Impossible emerged as the new winner.

The film opened in North America with 3,055 theaters and earned $46.65 million over three days over the weekend, grabbing the weekly box-office top spot from the three-peat "The Matrix".

The box office of The Matrix, which lost the box office champion, still maintained an extremely stable and healthy decline. During the same period, it won 18.55 million US dollars, and the North American box office totaled 252.14 million US dollars, still topping the annual rankings.

Affected by "Mission Impossible", "Peerless Calamity" and "Godzilla" each reported $16.25 million and $9.65 million this weekend. The North American box office of the two films also reached $72.11 million and $82.33 million respectively. .

In addition to the box office, there are also huge differences in audience word-of-mouth among these high-investment productions.

Nearly a month after its release, the audience's reputation for "The Matrix" has declined, but the audience's favorable rating has remained at 87%. 3025 users participated in the score on the IMDB website, and the score was as high as 9.35 points.

Of course, with the active participation of the huge navy, this IMDB score means nothing.

"Mission Impossible" has just been released, and the audience's reputation is not bad. The favorable rate is also 85%.

The two films, "Peerless Cataclysm" and "Godzilla", have dropped 70% and 60% of the audience's favorable ratings respectively.

Tom Cruise this summer, like Duke, is destined to have a bright future.

However, unlike Tom Cruise, who was on a North American promotional tour, Duke missed the North American promotional tour of "The Matrix" because of illness. Crew members such as Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron rushed to While overseas, he remained in Los Angeles. And start preparing for the next phase of work.

There is an old friend who specifically found the Duke studio.

"Duke, we're old friends."

In the office, the tall Christopher Lee sat next to Duke, and said in a loud voice, "I desperately ask to be Gandalf, it is a dream of mine. Pay for the role."

Duke frowned at the gray-haired, age-spotted Christopher Lee, a mad Lord of the Rings fan. He had watched the film's content and tidbits more than ten times, and naturally remembered that Christopher Lee's favorite was Gandalf, not Saruman.

Duke, however, also had no plans to cast him as Gandalf.

Not inappropriate. Just because he is too old.

Duke thought for a moment and said, "Lee. Gandalf has a lot of fight scenes..."

The opposite Christopher Li Gang wanted to speak, but he raised his hand to interrupt, "Listen to me first, action scenes can indeed use stand-ins. But many scenes of hiking in the wild and scenes of struggling under the blue screen require actors to appear in person."

"Lee, don't forget, you will be 80 years old soon." Duke said directly, "As a director and investor, I must consider the safety of the actors and the entire crew."

What Duke said were objective facts that could not be changed. Thinking of his worsening body, Christopher Lee's face inevitably showed a bit of loss.

"Working with you again," he said with great sincerity, "has always been my dream, and I would be willing to play any role in your film for zero pay."

After "Breaking the Dead Island", Christopher Lee became famous, but he has not had any outstanding works and roles in recent years. At this age, it is not too much to describe him as a mature man. As long as he appears in Duke's films, It means a lot of attention, and the follow-up income must far exceed this salary...

Duke just smiled, he wouldn't think about zero pay or something, and there is no such thing in Hollywood that you don't want to pay in return.

"Lee, let your agent contact Charles Rowan." He said slowly, "You make some preparations for Saruman."

Christopher Lee left shortly after, Duke looked at Tina Fey on the other side of the office, "Remember to tell Charles, old rules."

Tina Fey understood what Duke meant and wrote it down in the work log.

The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy requires a huge cast. Others such as extras and some less important characters can be called before shooting, but the main actors and their stunt doubles need to be determined as soon as possible, and they must perform a long period of physical and Sword and archery training.

Especially in swordsmanship and archery, it is necessary to hire a special coach. The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is a purely Western-style work, and Duke will not consider any action routines from the East.

Coming up with oriental kung fu and other types of fighting in this typical western-style fantasy book is utterly hilarious.

Sitting behind his desk, Duke reminisced about the former "Lord of the Rings" actors, and then said to Tina Fey, "To Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Ian McClain, Sean Davies, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Billy Boyd, Sean Austin...send auditions."

It's been so long that some names have inevitably been forgotten.

After saying this, Duke suddenly thought of another important person, who was once the first person in motion capture in Hollywood.

"And, Tina," he continued, "gather a profile on Andy Serkis for me."

"Andy Serkis?"

Judging from her expression, Tina Fey should know this person, she said, "The last time I had tea with Naomi Watts, I heard her mention that he should be in "King Kong."

"Playing in "King Kong"?"

Duke frowned, then laughed, which is a good thing, if you guessed correctly, Peter Jackson must be using motion capture technology, which is completely to increase Andy Serkis's experience in this area.

"Remember to send Andy Serkis an audition invitation too."

After thinking about it, Duke added, "For new projects, in addition to Gerard Butler, send Liam Neeson an audition invitation."

Tina Fey wrote them down in the logbook, but when Duke mentioned the new project, she asked, "Doug Walter called me, and Warner Bros. asked about the progress of the script. They want to push it into the review stage as soon as possible."

"Tell them I'll be sure to give them a copy of the script by the end of June."

After completing the first third of the script and setting the outline of the plot characters, Duke handed the new script to the earliest established department of Duke Studio - the editorial department, and several screenwriters are filling in according to the template.

This experimental film, Warner Bros. has decided to push the review stage, and after going through the routine process, intends to pay for Duke.

Commercial companies like Warner Bros. certainly don’t do charitable activities. The popularity of “The Matrix” gave them confidence in Duke. After hearing that Duke had a small project before the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, CEO Jeff Robinoff came to visit Duke Manor three times in a row and strongly requested that the project be fully operated by Warner Bros.

This is the inevitable result of continuous success. Duke's aura is not weaker than that of Spielberg and James Cameron. Although the film is a small production based on real events, songs and dances like "Chicago" The films were all sold commercially by his productions, and Warner Bros. clearly believed that his work would still be highly rewarding.

Duke will not refuse if someone pays for his work with an uncertain future.

However, the two sides have only reached an intention, and everything will not be discussed in detail until the script is completed and reviewed by the Warner Bros. review committee.

Here Duke is preparing for a new movie, and the summer market on the other hand continues to maintain a near white-hot competition.

On the second weekend of June, Walt Disney's four-year-old animation masterpiece "Mulan" landed in the North American market and joined the already chaotic strangulation. Disney Animation Studio has high hopes for this hand-painted animation. Hope to take this to get rid of the slump in recent years.

However, "Mulan" obviously cannot afford this burden.

Although this animated film won $22.74 million in 2,888 theaters and successfully won the North American box office chart this weekend, the performance of the single-house box office of $7,876 is really hard to say.

The decline of hand-drawn 2D animated films is inevitable.

"Mission Impossible" earned $21.62 million the following weekend, ranking second at the box office by a narrow margin.

"The Matrix", which has been maintaining large-scale screenings, has ushered in the first significant reduction in the number of theaters. This weekend, the number of theaters in North America has shrunk to 2,655, and the three-day harvest has reached 11.2 million US dollars, plus the previous four working days. At the box office, North America has accumulated a total of 270.2 million US dollars, which has already reached the threshold of 300 million US dollars.

However, on Monday, the scale of the film was reduced again, and the number of theaters in North America dropped below 2,500. This is an inevitable situation for every commercial film after cooling down, and "The Matrix" is also difficult to escape.

Overseas, "The Matrix" is also gradually cooling down, but the overseas box office has officially exceeded 200 million US dollars, and the global box office has reached 470.55 million US dollars, and from this new week, the film will be widely available in another ticket market - It was released in many countries and regions such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines in the Far East.

The overseas box office is expected to continue to climb, thus pushing the global box office of "The Matrix" into the $500 million mark. (To be continued ~^~)

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