Chapter 615: Vampire

Universal Pictures has high hopes for "Van Helsing". The production cost of this film is as high as 160 million U.S. dollars, and the public promotion budget is 100 million U.S. dollars. The total high investment of 260 million U.S. dollars also shows Universal Pictures confidence.

High income also means huge cost recovery pressure.

Contrary to Ronan's expectations, according to the news he received, the market prospect of "Van Helsing" is quite optimistic during the internal test screening of Universal Pictures, and some people even think that this will be no less than the three "Lord of the Rings" films. A magical production of music.

Universal Pictures' confidence comes not only from the film itself, but also from director Stephen Sommers.

When it comes to Stephen Sommers, we have to talk about the two box office bombs he created, "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns". The myth of the sequel movie was staged. The box office set a box office record of 68.1 million US dollars in North America in the first week of its release, and finally the global box office totaled 429 million US dollars.

In addition, Stephen Sommers served as the screenwriter and producer of "The Scorpion King" in 2002. This film topped the North American box office with 36.1 million in its first week of release, and later the global box office also reached 151 million. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.

With such a brilliant record, people have to have confidence in Stephen Sommers.

Ronan hadn't seen "Van Helsing," and wasn't sure if it would change.

However, the success or failure of "Van Helsing" will not have too much impact on Relativity Entertainment. At most, "Shrek 2", which will be released in the next weekend, will be affected to a certain extent.

"Underworld 2", also starring Kate Beckinsale, was not only released two months before "Van Helsing", but by the end of April, it had already been fully released in North American theaters.

The North American box office of this film finally stopped at 88.74 million US dollars.

Next, the "Underworld" series will undergo a period of cold storage. Even if "Van Helsing" fails, it will not affect this series for the time being.

Probably due to the relationship between the "Hulk" and the "Fast and Furious" series of copyright transactions before, Universal Pictures and the NBC Group behind it specially sent Ronan a premiere invitation.

Ronan also went to the premiere of "Van Helsing."

At the grand premiere, fans and media reporters were all enthusiastic,

Universal has clearly invested heavily in hosting the premiere.

Nowadays in Hollywood, it is gradually becoming the norm to invest more than three million dollars in the premiere of a first-line blockbuster, and even a huge premiere of a few films can cost as much as five million dollars.

Most of the Hollywood premieres will be held in popular locations in first-tier big cities, and the various rents alone are a huge expense.

With hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the premiere, if you don't come up with some novel tricks, it will be more and more difficult to attract people to stop.

The characteristics of the eyeball economy are especially evident in the entertainment industry.

Ron Meyer had already resigned from the newly formed NBC Universal Entertainment Group. Ronan was not familiar with the new executives of Universal Pictures, so he greeted them casually and entered the theater.

Compared with the other five of the six major companies, Universal Pictures has not caused much trouble for Relativity Entertainment in recent years.

The merger of Universal Pictures and NBC Television, two large companies, just think about it for a while, and you will know how much work is involved, and how difficult it is to deal with personnel and business relationships. It will take at least two years for NBC Universal Pictures to completely complete internal integration.

During this period, Universal Pictures did not have much energy to actively suppress other companies.

To a large extent, Vivendi has tossed the circle of Universal Pictures, which means that Relativity Entertainment has lost a roadblock.

In fact, since the beginning of the new century, several of the six major companies have experienced constant internal problems, namely 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Sony Columbia Pictures are relatively stable.

Disney's internal strife is intensifying, Universal Pictures frequently changes hands, and Paramount Pictures' production business has a big problem...

While thinking about this, Luo Nan thought about how Relativity Entertainment could use the situation and seize the opportunity to break out from the tacit and loose encirclement of the six major companies.

The possibility of the once giant Walt Disney appearing is shrinking day by day, and both Robert Iger and Marvel have fallen into the hands of Relativity Entertainment.

The rest of this year is used to digest and reorganize Marvel Entertainment, develop Netflix, and develop new development plans, and we will have to wait until next year at the earliest.

Otherwise, Relativity Entertainment will be unstable internally, and the seemingly loose capital chain will be tight.

A blockbuster movie has brought huge cash flow to Relativity Entertainment, but the money is not unlimited.

Netflix made a profit last year, and this year its disc sales and leasing business developed more rapidly. However, Internet sharing and the upcoming streaming media business are both costly. It is very difficult for Netflix to maintain no losses in 2004.

Ronan will not have more profit requirements for Netflix for the time being.

The movie started to show, and seeing Hugh Jackman's familiar face, Ronan stopped thinking about work and focused on the movie, as if he was watching an interesting movie to relax.

This is a large collection of Universal movie monsters, and it can even be called a monster version of the Avengers.

Van Helsing, Dracula, Werewolf, Vampire Bride, Frankenstein, etc. all made appearances, and each had a lot of roles.

Like those previous blockbusters, the main plot of this "Van Helsing" is not much different from the one Ronan has seen.

Just like before, Ronan felt that the filming was not bad.

From Ronan's pure view of the audience, although this movie is not very exciting, it is also very interesting. From his point of view alone, it is no less than the two "Mummy".

Perhaps after the two "Mummy", the audience's expectations for Universal's monster movies have been raised; or it may be that there is no preparation before, and the production method of a monster hodgepodge is difficult for the audience to accept.

The response after the premiere of "Van Helsing" was not very good.

For a summer commercial film with such a huge investment, word-of-mouth and evaluation are false, and everything will eventually be reflected in the box office.

On its first day of release in North America, "Van Helsing" earned $19.5 million in nearly 4,000 theaters.

This result is not bad, but compared to the investment of the film, it is not much better.

On Saturday, the box office of "Van Helsing" did not break out, and there was no bonus due to the rest day effect. The box office of 19.64 million US dollars has already made the executives of Universal Pictures feel a chill.

Combined with the film's not-so-great reputation, including Universal Pictures, they already have a judgment on "Van Helsing" in their hearts.

As soon as Monday arrives, the new box office rankings are released. Not surprisingly, "Van Helsing" topped the North American box office rankings, with a North American opening weekend box office of 51.7 million US dollars.

Putting it on a film with a medium-scale investment, $51.7 million is definitely a box office hit, but it is too low in the face of a production cost of $160 million plus a promotional and distribution budget of $100 million.

Moreover, as the number of viewers who saw the film increased, the word-of-mouth of "Van Helsing" also deteriorated. From the plot of the film to the monsters to the main actors such as Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale, they all became the object of criticism from the audience and the media. .

Especially for Kate - Beckinsale, "Van Helsing" almost announced that Kate - Beckinsale has since ended her fate with Hollywood's first-line production.

The rose of England, not yet blooming in Hollywood, has withered.

Stephen Sommers and Hugh Jackman's life is also difficult. If the box office trend after "Van Helsing" does not improve, the pressure brought by huge investment will make them blacklisted by many Hollywood production companies.

Hugh Jackman is better, after all, Wolverine has the bottom line.

But this "Van Helsing" failed, and Stephen Sommers must lose all the grace and aura brought by the two "The Mummy".

The former executives of Universal Pictures who stayed at NBC Universal Entertainment Group will have a harder time. Ron Meyer, who decided to promote this project, has resigned. There must be other executives responsible for this.

The failure of top big productions to settle accounts has always been a reserved item in Hollywood movies.

Maybe there are a large number of people who will be kicked out by NBC.

Including the film's main creators and Universal Pictures, their only hope is that "Van Helsing" can maintain a sufficiently stable box office trend, and the final North American box office can be as high as possible.

After all, the box office of "Titanic" in North America in its first week was only more than 28 million U.S. dollars.

But with the arrival of the second weekend of the summer holidays, all the hopes accumulated were in vain.

The second weekend box office of "Van Helsing" plummeted 60% compared with the first weekend, and it only won 20.7 million US dollars in three days.

Ten days after its release, the North American box office of this super big production has just reached 85 million US dollars.

Anyone who follows this film knows that "Van Helsing" will inevitably lose money, and may even generate huge losses.

Even if income is obtained through the long-term offline operation model, how many years will it take to recover the investment? ten years? twenty years? Or thirty years?

How to calculate the time cost? How much will the currency depreciate then?

By contrast, this weekend's "Shrek 2," produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Embassy Pictures, shines brightly.

The first "Shrek" had caused a huge sensation.

Two years of TV broadcasts and offline DVD rentals have cultivated a larger audience, all of which exploded during the opening weekend.

The quality of "Shrek 2" is not much better than that of the first one, but thanks to the sequel effect, it opened a box office of 115.26 million US dollars in 4,210 theaters in North America during its premiere weekend.

This also set a record.

The box office score of 115.26 million US dollars means that in the North American film market, it is the first time in history that the opening box office of an animated feature film has exceeded the 100 million US dollar mark.

Although DreamWorks Animation Studio is the most dazzling, but as the distributor, Embassy Pictures can also get huge profits from this animated feature film.

To a certain extent, Embassy Pictures has also successfully transformed into a vampire in the upper reaches of the industry chain, lying on the studio.