Chapter 1363 1363 Supply in Short Supply
As a work that discusses controversial topics, "Death Ramble" was under great pressure before its release - in fact, strictly speaking, even if it received rave reviews after its release, the pressure was still not relieved. Because the death penalty topic involves religion and human rights, this is even more difficult. The issue of racial discrimination is even more complicated and intractable.
Until 2014, the death penalty debate was still not fully resolved around the world, and even because the topic was so complicated, human rights and religious groups were forced to divert their goals to try to win more on the topic of "abortion." advantage because of the fall. Childbirth, like the death penalty, involves respect for life.
It can be seen how sensitive the topic of "Death Ramble" is, it can be said that it is dancing on the tightrope of the border of the fire.
So, logically speaking, "Death Convict Walk" should have been suffering on the cusp of controversy, but after the film was released, it received overwhelming praise, which was almost beyond everyone's expectations, especially the ban The allies pretended to be nonchalant and sent the highest praise - the blinding hundred percent was the greatest irony, which temporarily painted the "confrontation" between the media and Hugo in the past year. A period, apparently, ended with a Hugo victory.
An 87-point comprehensive media review can almost be considered a rare victory, and 26 media have written reviews that make this data convincing enough.
As a work with a heavy theme and a controversial topic, "Death Convict Walk" won the love of film critics after its screening, which is the first step to success.
Objectively speaking, whether it is DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, or Tim Robbins himself, they do not have much expectations for the box office of this work. It is not that they lack confidence, but the fact. "Death Ramble" is not like "Seven Deadly Sins", the latter is at least a suspenseful work with a certain audience base, but the former is completely a deep plot work, and its box office driving force is even inferior to "Before the Sunrise" .
Despite this, people are still curious about the box office of "Death Ramble", especially when "Death Ramble" and "Twelve Monkeys" go head-to-head, how can people not be curious?
The grand screening of "Death Row" quickly became the focus of attention in the third weekend of December, especially in the context of the grand premiere of "Jumanji", "Death Ramble" actually showed no less. In the "Jumanji" premiered in 2,500 theaters, many people were too scared to speak.
"Jumanji" actor Robin Williams was also asked this question in an interview after the premiere of the film. Robin did not rush to answer at the time, but learned more about "Death Ramble" Pointing out the grand occasion of the whole day, and then he laughed, "Now Hugo shouldn't blame me for not arriving in person to cheer, on the contrary, I should call Hugo, he is absent. The premiere of my work, which cost me a lot."
Robin still did not lose his personal humorous style, and made fun of Hugo a little. From this, it can be seen that their friendship is very good. Then Robin said one more sentence, "I told them a long time ago, don't confront Hugo head-on..." After that, Robin spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders with a helpless look, which provoked the reporters. All laughed lightly.
As a work that was only screened in three theaters, the crowds of "Death Row Walk" on the day of the screening have attracted strong attention from all over North America, but unfortunately, only three landmark theaters in Los Angeles can be watched at present. To this movie, it even sparked dissatisfaction among many people.
Not only the audience outside Los Angeles, but even the local audience in Los Angeles is complaining. The three landmark cinemas, starting at 7:00 in the morning, run every two and a half hours for 24 consecutive hours, still unable to meet the enthusiastic needs of the audience, the sun on December 15 has not had time to set, Tickets for all the shows in the three theaters over the coming weekend have been sold out.
The Landmark Cinemas themselves are also in a trance. The heat wave of the "Death Walk" almost exceeded everyone's expectations, and the "advance tickets", which never happened to the art cinemas, have won the support of countless audiences. Those who bought tickets Audiences who didn't get tickets have all complained to Landmark Cinemas, demanding that they can pre-sell movie tickets for the next week, even if it's Monday to Friday.
What's more "worse" is that, as a publisher, 20th Century Fox's customer service calls have also been blasted by theater managers across North America.
At this moment, the mainstream theater chains in major cities across the United States are already in a state of embarrassment, not only art theater chains, but also commercial theater chains are facing the same dilemma. The audience walked into the cinema and watched the list of recently released movies. , actually more than 30% of the audience raised questions, "Why is there no 'Death Ramble'" or "When will 'Death Ramble' be released", which made the staff very embarrassed-because 20th Century Fox did not plan to do so at all Let the "death row walk" stationed in commercial theaters soon.
Even though people keep comparing "Death Row" and "Twelve Monkeys" together, 20th Century Fox didn't get carried away knowing that the two films had very different box office pulls, even if "Death Row" "Wander" relies on Hugo's appeal to achieve good results, but it is still not the opponent of "Twelve Monkeys", which aims at the box office. Therefore, 20th Century Fox has formulated a steady and steady expansion policy from the very beginning. In the past few weeks, it has mainly focused on the art theater chain. After the film's reputation has spread among professional audiences, it will consider gradually expanding in North America. reflected things.
But now the situation has caught Twentieth Century Fox by surprise—to be precise, by taking everyone by surprise.
The film scheduling managers of major theaters have all called to inquire about the next expansion plan of 20th Century Fox - as a businessman, no one will push the door-to-door business, and now it is obvious that the audience wants to watch "Death Ramble", even if The number of people will not be too many, even if the theater line only arranges one screening hall and one screen to play, it does not matter, at least when the audience comes to ask "why there is no this movie", they can keep these audiences.
What's more, the theater managers know better than anyone about the additional effect that Hugo brings. Even if the audience is not "Death Ramble", after relying on the topicality of "Death Ramble" to attract audiences into the cinema, they buy tickets for other movies. Same effect.
Twentieth Century Fox was also quite in a hurry when faced with such a situation. Kevin Pence immediately held an emergency meeting to analyze the current situation. Distribution is a very advanced knowledge, which involves many aspects of knowledge such as marketing, advertising planning, audience psychology, publicity strategies, etc. A truly outstanding distribution company can often make a $100 million movie eventually get $200 million or more. more box office.
In the end, 20th Century Fox came to a conclusion: the current audience craze is actually just emerging, and the managers of the major theaters are only expressing their opinions, and they have not really reached the level of urgency - that is to say, they are not worried about the "death row walk." "The box office potential of the film is still not accurately understood, after all, even 20th Century Fox itself is not sure about the box office of this film.
Therefore, they decided that the pace of release in other parts of North America is not in a hurry, but in the next two weeks, the number of screening venues and screening screens can be gradually increased or decreased on the landmark cinema line, so that more art film lovers can watch this film. Movies, whether they are the original audience of Landmark Cinemas, or those who are willing to walk into Landmark Cinemas to watch "Death Convict Walk", they are the real target group, that is, the people who can really decide the direction of "Death Convict Walk" word-of-mouth. .
After three weeks of fermenting and precipitation, the feedback of "Death Convict Walk" will gradually become clear, and the movie box office trend curve can also be roughly estimated at that time. If there is a big hit, then it will enter commercial theaters for official release; if not, theater managers and those audiences are just curious because of the topic, then they will steadily expand in art theaters.
Anyway, 20th Century Fox did not intend to rely on "Death Ramble" to win the super high box office, and being able to recover the cost is a victory.
I have to say that Kevin is indeed a person with courage and skill. He can keep his mind clear and maintain the original expansion plan without being carried away by the grand scene in Los Angeles during the screening. This is not a decision that ordinary people can make. However, what kind of effect 20th Century Fox's strategy can achieve this time is not what Kevin said, but depends on the market's reaction.
Facing the unanimous praise of film critics and the unanimous pursuit of audiences, "Death Convict's Walk", almost everyone is wondering what kind of results the movie can achieve at the box office of a single hall. Twenty-four hours of continuous broadcast, it is difficult to break the historical record, this is the gap in the base, but the single-hall box office of "Death Ramble" still arouses countless curiosity.
Under such circumstances, "Jumanji" is better to say that it was fully released in 2,500 theaters, and the impact was minimal; but "Twelve Monkeys", which was also shown in three theaters, was not so good. Luckily, there is "Jumanji" before and "Death Ramble", and the "Twelve Monkeys" who are under attack are facing an extremely bad situation.
However, after the release of "Twelve Monkeys", it also brought a surprise. The film critics actually praised the film one after another, and the positive and positive responses accounted for the majority. For "Two Monkeys", it is really good news, the media comprehensive review is as high as 72 points, which undoubtedly relieves countless pressures for the film!