Chapter 1087 1087 Call It Success

Compared with Hugo's previous works, even if the box office trend of "Before Sunrise" is excellent, it still lacks surprises. Before that, "Life and Death" and "Pulp Fiction" easily brought their cumulative box office to 100 million US dollars and hit 200 million US dollars. In this comparison, the box office data of "Before Sunrise" is indeed not worth mentioning.

But in fact, Columbia Pictures and DreamWorks are very satisfied with the box office trend of "Before Sunrise"!

After "Before Sunrise" experienced a steady rise in the first five weeks, the scale of the 890 screening theaters continued for another three weeks. At 16%, 5% and 14%, such a box office trajectory is enough to make any arthouse film cheer, and enough to give any studio more confidence in the film!

Then facing the torrent of Oscar, the irrelevant "Before Sunrise" trend is still stable. Although the work missed the nomination period for this year's Oscars, the popularity of the annual Oscar feast has had a positive impact on "Before Sunrise": audiences are willing to flock to the cinema to watch the awards at the awards ceremony or Nominated work, and "Before Sunrise", which recently won the Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlin, has benefited a lot from an enduring wave of praise from critics and audiences alike.

Affected by the Oscars, "Before Sunrise", where the screening theaters began to gradually recover, showed a slight recovery in the box office data. Although the increase was not large, it still performed well. For three weeks, the box office was 10% higher. It comes in the form of a green climb percentage.

As the release time has grown and audience feedback has become richer, "Before Sunrise" has faced a real severe test for such an experimental work: for many audiences, this is a boring work , No matter how many critics praise it, no matter how many literary youths praise it, they don't like it, they don't like it.

So, this also essentially limits the box office explosion of "Before Sunrise" similar to "Sleepless in Seattle". Storytelling, that's the core factor, and the lack of storytelling "Before Sunrise" is a lullaby for many people, without anything to watch.

Twelve weeks after the release, "Before Sunrise" was subject to its own literary and youthful attributes, and the number of theaters was further recovered to less than 500. It was only shown in more than 380 theaters, and it was gradually decreasing. middle.

In the end, "Before Sunrise" was released for a total of 16 weeks, and it was announced that it was offline. This cycle is much lower than the regular 22 weeks, but compared to many art films that are released after only a month, especially those who are offline. This is especially true for works that have not gained anything during the awards season. They can only hope that word-of-mouth in the videotape market will spread. In this comparison, the screening cycle of "Before Sunrise" is very "longevity".

After the screening, "Before Sunrise" ended up with $32 million at the North American box office, a very gratifying result!

For Columbia Pictures, this is definitely a good deal. Although the copyright fee of one million dollars is slightly higher, the return is huge - not to mention that the film and video tapes have been put on the market since then. There will also be a substantial income, which is not only a no-loss transaction, but also a transaction that achieves a substantial profit.

The same is true for DreamWorks, where a $2.5 million investment resulted in a $32 million box office -- plus a million dollars in royalties, and of course the subsequent video rental income will also be Give DreamWorks a share, and it's definitely a smart investment.

Although the $32 million box office is to be divided among Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks and the theater, the profit ratio is of course not comparable to the $239 million in exchange for $28 million. ”, much less than $8 million for $172 million in “Pulp Fiction,” but even so, given that the Chicago Tribune considers $7 million to be the limit, “Sunday "Before Out" completed the jump from $2.5 million to $32 million, a twelve-fold profit ratio enough to make everyone smile!

This also continues the wave of independent films set off by "Pulp Fiction". Overnight, the national influence of the Sundance Film Festival has risen by two steps, and maybe Park City will become lively next year. .

Not to mention the cheers of "Before Sunrise" today. The Silver Bear Award for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival is just the beginning. If it works well, "Before Sunrise" may not be impossible when entering the year-end awards ceremony. Occupy a place, then it is bound to generate a new round of profits.

An interesting comparison can be made. In later generations, the "Shawshank Redemption", which was regarded as a classic handed down by countless people, ended up with 28 million at the North American box office, while "Before Sunrise" at the box office was 32 million. It must be pointed out that the cost of the former is 25 million, while the cost of the latter is only one-tenth of the former.

From this comparison, it can be seen that art films are struggling in North America - Europe is paradise, but also no box office. Against such a background, it is really not easy for "Before Sunrise" to create such a good result, not to mention the ultra-low cost and near-zero publicity cost, which also allows the film to be made for the film before it wins the award. The company and distribution company turned a profit, no less difficult than the achievement of "Pulp Fiction".

"Before Sunrise" is a big win by any measure.

If the success of "Before Sunrise" only stops there, then it can only be said to be a laudable victory, and not worthy of celebration compared with the miracles that Hugo created before. But then, in the second half of 1995, Columbia Pictures arranged for "Before Sunrise" to be screened in 27 countries and regions around the world. Due to the remote artistic nature of the film, the global screening is very cautious, and naturally it is not comparable to the scale of many commercial films in 50 countries and regions, but even so, the performance of "Before Sunrise" in overseas markets is enough to make People were amazed.

"Before Sunrise" grossed $53 million in 27 countries, far exceeding North American box office figures.

If you read the global box office distribution map of "Before Sunrise", you can find that the European market has obviously given the most enthusiastic response, among which the three countries of the United Kingdom, France and Italy are the places with the best performance in the overseas market, Sweden, Germany , Poland and Spain also performed well.

The art film market in these countries is very mature. Although their base is far inferior to that of the United States, the audience still gives the greatest support to "Before the Sunrise", especially in the past two years, Hugo has become the biggest signboard of the film. , which created the brilliance of the "before sunrise" overseas market.

As a result, the global box office of "Before Sunrise" has reached 85 million US dollars, which is even more commendable compared with the cost of 2.5 million. In particular, Columbia Pictures has its own distribution network all over the world, so they do not need to split a portion of the interests and hand it over to local distribution companies for distribution work, which makes Columbia Pictures another profit.

That's the role of the distribution department. Many small distribution companies have no network overseas. When delivering works overseas, they often have to hand over about 80% of the box office dividends to the local distribution company, and they can only get a pitiful small part. That's why people say that only the real big movie companies will count the overseas box office. Most of the small companies are already snickering if they can release overseas. Their hope for overseas distribution is not to pay dividends, but to expand their influence for the future. foreshadowing the growth.

"Before Sunrise" once again achieved Hugo's small feat, and it also created an incredible record. Since "Scent of a Woman", all of Hugo's works have achieved box office profits - note, not including The video tape, which is profitable at the box office alone, is also the best footnote to the current Hugo box office appeal:

Even for an obscure art film, the box office came to an unbelievable $85 million.

Last year, there was a turmoil against Hugo's remuneration, and with the emergence of each work, the major film companies' desire for Hugo will only become stronger and stronger. After the "20 million remuneration" turmoil, First, the big victory of "Pulp Fiction", and then the low-key victory of "Before Sunrise", these two heavy weights are enough to make Hugo the number one person in Hollywood today!

At the end of 1996, eighteen months after "Before Sunrise" ended, a media outlet released a set of data that was interesting but didn't attract much attention.

After "Before Sunrise" was put into the videotape market, it created a profit of nearly three million US dollars in just one year. Although this profit has to be shared with the video rental store, it is a pure profit, that is, in addition to the box office. additional income. This income actually exceeds the cost of "before sunrise", which is really a very amazing performance.

From here, we can see the popularity of "Before Sunrise" among certain people, and relying on the wide dissemination of video tapes, it has accumulated a large number of fans.

However, while the $3 million profit was a lot compared to "Before Sunrise," it was nothing compared to the entire video rental market, so it didn't spark much discussion. It's just that people with a heart can still notice that the work "Before the Sunrise" has made so much money for Columbia Pictures, which is really a typical representative of making a fortune in silence.

Columbia Pictures made a good deal for a million dollars.

From 2.5 million to 85 million, "Before Sunrise" has achieved outstanding results that many people applauded; but from another perspective, Colin Meiler finally ushered in his dream The opportunity to fight back, so, in an instant, the "New York Post" can't wait to increase the entire force of suppression, because this is the "New York Post" after the official confrontation with Hugo, the "New York Post" The first The next time can truly prevail.

Even if this so-called "real meaning" seems to be in quotation marks, it is undeniable that this time Colin finally found a good opportunity, but he will never miss it.