Chapter 344: A Good Start
Relativity Entertainment, a female assistant entered the CEO's office and placed the document on Robert Iger's desk.
"Mr. Iger," she said, "this document needs your signature."
Robert Iger took it over and looked at it, and said, "Come and get it in half an hour."
Just as the female assistant was about to leave, he said, "Emma, bring me some copies of today's newspaper."
"Okay." The female assistant left the office.
Robert Iger looked at the document carefully, made sure there was no problem, signed it, and then notified the female assistant to come over.
The female assistant took the documents and brought the newspaper along the way.
After finishing the work at hand, Robert Iger took the newspaper, turned to the entertainment page, and looked for news related to "Resident Evil".
This is the first movie released by the company after he joined Relativity Entertainment, so he is naturally very concerned about it.
Relativity Entertainment is expanding its industry. This is a channel for generating profits, but content production is also crucial. With excellent content, broad channels can maximize benefits.
Robert Iger saw the premiere of "Resident Evil" and was somewhat worried.
The management work experience of ABC TV station and Walt Disney brought Robert Iger excellent work ability and experience, but at the same time, his thinking was somewhat influenced by Disney style.
After staying at Disney for many years, the business I come into contact with every day is a typical Disney-style work, and Robert Iger will definitely be affected.
Not long after leaving Disney, a small part of his thinking has not changed.
What Robert Iger is worried about is that the scale of "Resident Evil" is somewhat large, and the audience may be affected.
As soon as this idea flashed through his head, Robert Iger shook his head slightly, and instantly thought of the difference between Relativity Entertainment and Disney.
In Ronan's words, Disney can be called Di Baobao, while Relativity Entertainment, as long as the film can make a profit, it doesn't matter if it is R-rated, PG-14 or PG.
Robert Iger is well aware that each of the slightly larger studios in Hollywood is different,
It is impossible for every film company to take the route of family fun.
Thinking of this, Robert Iger went to the newspaper to see the response of "Resident Evil".
Like other films produced by Shahai Entertainment, this is a project that Ronan single-handedly finalized, and the whole company believes that this film will be a success.
Robert Iger didn't know what magical powers Ronan had, he only knew that the projects Ronan operated had basically never failed.
The only "Ace Agent" with poor box office and market response has also made a lot of profits in the company's operations.
However, the films operated by Ronan also have a characteristic. Except for last year's "Bourne Shadow", other films generally have a poor reputation.
It seems that this "Resident Evil" is the same.
"It's really thankless to shoot an original story under the name of a famous game. The obscure story and procrastinated shots made this movie a failure."
This is a column review by Kenneth Turan, a full-time film critic for the Los Angeles Times.
Robert Iger flipped through the other pages of the newspaper. The news related to "Resident Evil" was basically not very good.
"I hope the opinions of the media will not affect the market of the film too much..."
Robert Iger put down the newspaper, opened several movie websites with increasing influence on the Internet, and checked the relevant reviews and ratings.
The Rotten Tomatoes index is Rotten, with a favorable rating of 37%. If you only look at the Rotten Tomatoes index, it is very doubtful that "Resident Evil" is a super bad movie.
But the web page turned to the IMDB website, which is rated by ordinary movie fans. Robert Iger clicked on the "Resident Evil" page, and he couldn't help but feel refreshed. IMDB's audience score was as high as 7.3 points, which seemed to be a very high audience score in zombie movies. .
He has conducted a special investigation, and as long as the audience rating of this kind of film can reach 6 points, the market response is usually not bad.
However, the genre of game-adapted movies makes people feel uneasy.
Robert Iger didn't worry about it for long. When the box office of "Resident Evil" was released on the first day in North America, his heart basically fell back into his stomach.
On the first day of release in North America, "Resident Evil" got off to a good start with $10.16 million in more than 2,800 theaters.
The film that started on a large scale during the same weekend was New Line Films' "Immediately," a crime film starring Denzel Washington, which took in $6.81 million on its first day.
"Resident Evil" was released on its first day on Friday, that is, the box office leader on the day it airborne.
This also made some people in the industry look at game-adapted movies with admiration.
While the feedback from various parties was sent to Ronan, it was also sent to Robert Iger. Robert Iger had seen the first-hand market response statistics, and with years of experience in the industry, he concluded that "Resident Evil" would definitely be a success.
Although the increase in the number of film reviews has caused the Rotten Tomatoes index of "Resident Evil" to drop to 35%, Cinema's theater audience statistical score is "B+", which is extremely beneficial to "Resident Evil".
Even, Cinema predicts that the North American box office of this film will reach more than 60 million US dollars.
Robert Iger is very clear that with the investment in production and publicity of this project, if the film can get a box office of 60 million US dollars in North America, plus the overseas box office revenue will not be very low, it will be able to return only by box office revenue. It is not impossible to generate profit.
He specifically looked at the statistical fan reviews, whether it was game fans or zombie movie fans, most of them were more satisfied with "Resident Evil".
"As a film adaptation of the game "Resident Evil", it was shot unexpectedly well. The plot of the film always has a mystery, and the memory loss of the heroine creates more suspense for the story, which makes people watch the beginning, I couldn’t help but want to keep watching.”
Many game fans don't seem to insist on letting the movie follow the game's plot mode as they imagined.
"When I watched the trailer, I was still angry because of the original heroine and other adaptations, but after watching the first ten minutes of the movie, I was glad that the movie didn't stick to the original setting of the game, and added a lot of unexpected wonderful ideas How should I put it, the plot is very compact, the ups and downs along the way are extremely coherent, and the routine settings are also very imaginative, especially the scene where the laser array cuts up people is really cruel, and it is definitely much more shocking than simple zombies biting people."
Those fans who are not game fans have a very simple point of view.
"A very good-looking zombie movie, very exciting, with suspense setting and horror atmosphere. The heroine Alice is so handsome."
"Zombies and lickers are in line with expectations. The biggest highlight is the heroine. Alice is too beautiful. It doesn't matter what the plot is. It's worth the ticket price to see the beautiful Alice fighting zombies!"
"A classic among zombie movies, elements such as escaping from claustrophobic spaces, zombies, and human choices are all reasonable and not overwhelming. Milla Jovovich's red dress is unforgettable and so handsome!"
"I haven't played games, but this movie has a sense of sci-fi and action movies, and it also has the compactness and ups and downs of the movie. It's very good!"
Relatively good reviews from movie fans, coupled with the use of zombies as a gimmick, and the promotion for this type of audience, "Resident Evil" performed quite well in theaters.
After earning 10.16 million US dollars on the first day, the box office of "Resident Evil" not only did not fall, but rose slightly on Saturday, with a daily daily income of 10.62 million US dollars.
On Sunday, "Resident Evil," like all films, had a modest dip, taking in $7.65 million.
In its first week of release in North America, among more than 2,800 theaters, "Resident Evil" earned US$28.43 million, easily surpassing the US$20.75 million of "Immediately", and won the North American box office champion.
The box office revenue in the first week has exceeded the production cost of the film, so it can be said that it has achieved great success.
The following Monday is the President’s Day holiday. Thanks to the holiday effect, “Resident Evil” performed relatively strongly in North America, with a single-day receipt of another US$6.85 million and a cumulative box office of US$35.28 million in North America.
In just four days, the video game adaptation surpassed $35 million.
After Robert Iger got the box office statistics, he was completely relieved. Such a seemingly unreliable movie turned out to be a big success.
"I have to say that you have a really good eye when it comes to making decisions about film projects."
In the office, Robert Iger looked at Ronan and said: "The success of "Resident Evil" has made a good start for us this year."
Ronan said calmly: "It's better to promote and distribute."
Robert Iger suddenly thought of one thing, and said: "This project is not only the success of the movie, the book "Zombie Survival Guide" is also very good sales, influenced by the movie, it has sold 430,000 copies in North America."
Ronan couldn't help laughing: "Zombie culture is still very marketable. In our future production plans, we can continue to pay proper attention to the genre of zombie films."
I remember that Zack Schneider remade a "Dawn of the Dead" and officially started his director career. Looking back, I asked someone to find out which company owns the copyright of the old version.
"Last year, "Tomb Raider" was successful, and this year "Resident Evil" was a big hit." Robert Iger said at this time: "I heard that many companies in the industry want to follow up with game adaptation movies."
Ronan said directly: "I have "Dungeon Siege" ready to be adapted, and the sequel of "Resident Evil" needs to be followed up. Other games are adapted into movies, so let's not compete with other companies."
He has already talked with Paul Anderson and Milla Jovovich, both of whom are very interested in the sequel, and after a period of rest, they will devote themselves to the preparatory filming of the sequel.
In Ronan's previous life, someone once commented that "Resident Evil" was a movie made by the director to pick up the heroine.
Whether it is Alice or "Resident Evil", the influence on the other side of the Pacific Ocean is actually so great that it appears in many movies.
Ronan intends to continue this series.