Six Hundred and Ninety-Eight - What Is Box Office Appeal?

"Before I walked into the audition room of "X-Men," I had no idea that I would be able to get the role of Wolverine so smoothly. Yes, I had heard about Wayne Greenberg as early as when I was in Canada. People say he likes to give opportunities to newcomers, but this is Hollywood after all, isn't it? Of course, I am grateful to Mr. Greenberg for giving me the opportunity to show myself..."

On a talk show on the Fox Channel, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and film director Bryan Singer were promoting the film.

From the casting and preparation of "X-Men" to the official formation of the crew, the interesting experiences in various filming and some "little secrets" in the crew have all become the core creators at this time. When facing the live broadcast camera Talk.

Even several actresses, including Halle Berry, showed a special sense of sisterly affection when facing the camera and the host. They sat on the sofa holding hands and laughing at each other from time to time because they talked about some interesting things about the filming. He threw himself on the "sisters" next to him.

"Performing seems to be in their blood, doesn't it?"

In the living room of the presidential suite on the top floor of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, located on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, a symbol of New York's prosperity, Wayne leaned on the sofa and joked to Sergey next to him while holding a cup of coffee.

The Russian bear glanced at the TV, tilted his head and shrugged. "Then they must be good actors. Anyway, I don't see any trace of acting."

"That's right..." Wayne smiled and nodded. "They are all good actors."

After saying that, he stood up from the sofa and didn't even look at the TV show. Even on the TV show, both the host and the core creators of the show were mentioning his name intentionally or unintentionally.

Today is the second day after flying to New York. Since getting off the plane yesterday, 20th Century Fox has arranged a large number of promotional activities, including a fan meeting before lunch, media interviews in the afternoon, and a road show at a theater in the Imperial Cinemas in the evening. And now this talk show, the density of announcements is outrageous.

Fortunately, this show did not require Wayne to be present in person. After his interaction with fans in the theater, he rushed back to the hotel as soon as possible.

With the sound of the lighter, Wayne stood in front of the hotel window and lit a cigarette, looking down at the night view of Fifth Avenue with interest.

No one can deny that 20th Century Fox gave him the highest level of respect in terms of personal treatment. He is currently on the 52nd floor of the Four Seasons Hotel, which is said to be one of the most expensive hotel rooms in North America.

The Four Seasons Hotel located in the center of Fifth Avenue is famous, but undoubtedly the most luxurious suite in North America is even more famous. According to the official statement of the Four Seasons Hotel, they spent 50 million US dollars and took six years to transform the entire 52nd floor into the current super luxurious penthouse suite with an area of ​​nearly 420 square meters.

Whenever Wayne came to the Big Apple before, he basically stayed at the Waldorf Astoria. This time he stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in the center of Fifth Avenue, which gave him a rather strange feeling.

"Boss, the North American first-day box office statistics of "X-Men" have just been faxed by 20th Century Fox."

There were footsteps behind him, and then Nina's harsh words towards Sergei were heard. "Silly man, if you dare to continue watching disgusting adult channels in the living room, I will throw all your luggage out of the window, yes, including your damn game consoles and the handmade custom-made suit given to you by the boss. !”

"Hey, Nina, no wonder you can't find a boyfriend, you are too cruel..."

The sound of the Russian-born man's voice became smaller and smaller along with the shuffling footsteps, and finally there was a clang. Apparently Sergey couldn't afford to mess with the assistant lady, so he habitually returned to his room to play games. .

Wayne didn't bother to care about the bad things between them. In fact, he knew better than anyone else that whether it was Nina or Sergey, these two people were one of the smartest people.

One is a top student from New York University with an average figure and face, and wears a pair of large black-rimmed glasses, and the other is a former special forces instructor who is over two meters tall and as strong as a Kodiak brown bear. A simple-minded person.

"Sit down, Nina."

Wayne shook his head slightly and sat down on the wicker chair in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. After hearing Sergey's door closing, he pointed to the chair next to him.

"The distribution department of 20th Century Fox faxed detailed first-day box office data, audience survey report statistics after the film was released, etc..."

While reporting, the assistant lady pulled out a chair with a few fax papers and sat down. Seeing that her boss was just holding a cigarette leisurely and looking at the street scene downstairs, she shrugged slightly, glanced down at the fax document, and said directly:

"The first rest day of this weekend, that is, box office statistics on Friday. "X-Men" produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox, opened in 2,818 theaters, with a box office of US$21.55 million on the first day, plus advance screenings With a gross of US$7.53 million, the box office on the first day reached US$29.68 million, almost crossing the single-day threshold of US$30 million.”

"The box office of a single venue exceeds 10,000?" With a smile on his lips, Wayne flicked a cigarette in the ashtray on the table. "It's better than we expected."

Normally speaking, for a film that can be released on a very large scale, if the box office of a single theater exceeds 10,000 yuan in a single day, it can basically determine the market potential, and it can be regarded as a hit film.

It seems that there are not many news reports in the media about movies that have exceeded 10,000 yuan per museum, but those films are almost all art films that are screened on a small scale. Once a commercial film is released on a large scale, it can achieve such outstanding results. At least the early box office results are guaranteed.

According to Wayne and 20th Century Fox's estimates, the film is blessed by Greenberg's name, coupled with the expansion of the market for DC superheroes in the past few years, as well as fans' expectations for superhero movies, "X-Men" The North American box office on the first day exceeded 25 million US dollars, which met their expectations for the film's performance.

"Yes, "X-Men" was undoubtedly yesterday's North American box office champion."

Glancing at the statistics again, Nina nodded and said: "The box office figure of more than 29 million for "X-Men" accounted for about 52% of the total output value of North American theaters yesterday. The remaining % Over 40, including "Ace vs. Ace" released by Warner Bros. last week, Miramax's "Ghostbusters", Warner Bros.' "Saving Private Ryan", Warner Bros. It is composed of international films such as "A Match Made in Heaven" and so on."

More than half of the summer vacation has passed, especially since July, basically every weekend, at least two new works will be released, but even so, no one distributor still dominates the movie industry. Within one to two weeks at most, they will be immediately surpassed by latecomers.

The competition in this period has always been like this. The high enthusiasm of movie fans can completely enable a film to achieve good box office results within one to two weeks.

Such fierce competition, as well as the world's hottest enthusiasm for watching movies, have created a very special situation. Once a blockbuster movie emerges that can crush everything and dominate the movie, it will often become the top box office hit of that year. Bit.

If you look closely, you will find that basically every year, more than half of the top ten movies on the annual box office list are from this period.

"According to 20th Century Fox's survey statistics, during the early screenings and the first day of the release of "X-Men", the group of movie fans who bought tickets to watch the movie were mainly young people between the ages of 16 and 30. And among this group of moviegoers, the main group At least half of the troops are senior DC superhero fans."

Speaking of this, Nina looked at her boss specifically and stopped talking. He hesitated before saying, "Twentieth Century Fox has done a good business."

"They paid enough, dear Ms. Klein." Wayne smiled, waved his hand, and blew out a cloud of smoke.

There is no doubt that the reason why 20th Century Fox has listed him as a major promotional and marketing focus is to attract his own fans and the fans cultivated by Warner Bros.'s DC movie series.

There is only one DC superhero movie a year. From the perspective of fans who are interested, the supply is definitely in short supply. Now that another superhero movie has appeared on the market again, and it also bears the name of Greenberg's production, it is naturally satisfying. Winning the appetite of countless movie fans.

Even if this "X-Men" has nothing to do with the DC superheroes directed by Wayne himself, as long as the movie's reputation is acceptable, there will definitely be no shortage of support from this group of movie fans.

"The marketing department of 20th Century Fox, based on the data feedback analysis on the first day, at least half of the main audience of "X-Men" during the first weekend are your fans and fans of DC superheroes."

Nina curled her lips and continued: "This situation is very good for the first weekend box office, but when these fans go to the theater to watch the movie, "X-Men" will face a new test. Twenty Century Fox's marketing department estimates that this time will most likely begin after the first working day."

"This is part of the reason why 20th Century Fox is willing to spend so much money to hire me." Wayne nodded, and he had a very clear understanding of himself.

Just like when a movie company is preparing for a project, the first thing they do is consider which superstar to join. Everyone knows that top-tier superstars in the industry have never been easy to get. Not only do they have to meet some seemingly unreasonable living and working conditions, but they also have to pay a high price that far exceeds that of ordinary stars.

But the film appointments of A-list superstars have never been cut off. Every day they face invitations from major film companies. This is because they themselves are a scarce resource. To put it bluntly, they have their own box office appeal. Are there any A-list stars? The joining of superstars has a huge impact on the early box office of a movie project.

From another perspective, the cooperation between 20th Century Fox and Wayne is almost the same as spending a lot of money to invite a first-line superstar with box office appeal.

Because of his continuous success in recent years, his name has become a brand among movie fans. It's too long to say, but if we talk about the first weekend of the film's release, there will definitely be countless movie fans who don't even watch the content of the film. They just go to the theater to buy tickets and watch the movie based on the name Wayne Greenberg, and There are still many people in this group.

"Boss, the North American box office of "X-Men" will not start high but fall off a cliff after the working day comes, right?" Nina saw that the man next to her was not very interested in other data, so she simply sent the fax He threw the paper on the table, stared at the other party's tough face, and asked curiously: "

"To be honest, you didn't shoot this film yourself, and from my personal viewing experience, this is at best a fairly good commercial film. There is a big gap between it and the DC superheroes you shot yourself. .”

"Just watch, there's a good chance it won't happen."

Looking at the different styles of luxury stores downstairs, Wayne shook his head slightly and said casually: "There are no other movies of sufficient weight released in the same period as "X-Men". Twentieth Century Fox's ambitions are not small. They hope to start the "X-Men" movie series with an extremely successful opening, so they will definitely spare no effort in publicity.

And, Nina, you can't ignore one thing. Nowadays, superhero movies are in short supply for movie fans and the theater market. Didn’t you say that? The film quality of "X-Men" is considered excellent, and that's enough, at least for now. And the most important point is, don’t ignore the role of word-of-mouth among movie fans. "

In Wayne's view, 20th Century Fox's choice of release time is great, which laid a very good foundation for "X-Men". Before the filming of this film started, the most popular screening period of films such as "Saving Private Ryan" had passed, and subsequent films such as "The Matrix" had just begun sporadic promotions. The timing was chosen very accurately.

Since this film does not exist alone and has other meanings behind it, 20th Century Fox is very willing to spend money on promotion and marketing.

It is undeniable that the best way to get more passerby movie fans to enter the theater and buy tickets is to continuously bombard with publicity. Another important point mentioned by Wayne is the word-of-mouth effect among movie fans, which is also a good way to get passerby movie fans into the theater.

The reason is actually very simple. To put it another way, if you accidentally see a good movie, you can't help but recommend it when chatting with your relatives and friends, right?

Human nature is like this. Audiences in all regions of the world are similar. When they watch a movie that feels good, they will always involuntarily make friends around them. Don't underestimate this. Normally, if your friend recommends a movie to you, your trust in your friend will also be invisible to the movie he recommends.

It is this kind of preconceived impression based on the recommendation of friends. After watching the movie, once the person who has been amused thinks that it is quite exciting, he is destined to repeat the above process and can't help but amway to his relatives and friends around him.

And this is the most traditional and useful word-of-mouth effect among movie fans, which exists in almost all movie markets in the world.

The reason why many movies that were not announced in the early stage have gradually become dark horses at the box office are basically relying on this word-of-mouth effect. There are countless similar examples.

When Wayne followed the creative team of "X-Men" and began an intensive publicity roadshow, he probably never thought that he had underestimated the enthusiasm of movie fans for superhero movies and the impact of Greenberg's works on movie fans. attractiveness, but also underestimated its own box office appeal.

Santa Monica, Los Angeles, is a traditional wealthy area and a place where many high-tech companies choose to settle. Internet companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are all located here.

In addition, Santa Monica also has popular shopping malls and entertainment venues, which have many well-known brands and are very popular among young men and women.

At an Imperial Cinema in Santa Monica, movie fans, mainly young people, lined up, chatting noisily with each other, buying and checking tickets, and waiting to enter the screening room to start watching the movie. Especially in a theater where the screening had just ended, hundreds of movie fans walked out excitedly, making the entire theater hall lively.

Since early Saturday morning, the theater has become the main battlefield for young people, and most of these movie fans come in groups for "X-Men."

The media has a very keen sense of smell, especially after the first-day box office of "X-Men" was announced. At this time, there were several entertainment reporters in this theater interviewing the fans in the hall.

Facing reporters' questions, a young blond girl said: "We came to see Wayne's new movie, yes, it's "X-Men". My friends had already seen this movie yesterday, and they told me The film is outstanding and I can’t wait to see Wayne’s new superhero.”

"Yes, we all came here for the works of Wayne Greenberg. God, this "X-Men" is definitely an unexpected surprise this summer. I didn't expect to see two superhero movies in one year. .”

"I like the fantasy scenes of my youth and the exciting feeling of appearing on the big screen. Wayne has done this perfectly. I will not miss any of his superhero movies..."

"..."

When interviewed by reporters, most young people gave straightforward answers. They didn’t care whether it was DC or Marvel. Most of them believed that as long as it was a superhero movie produced by Wayne Greenberg, the quality would be the same. Don’t worry, it’s a great movie that you definitely shouldn’t miss.

And it is undeniable that many fans who are fascinated by superhero movies have their own feelings for comics. After all, when first reading comics, who still chooses DC or Marvel?

Under such hot conditions, "X-Men" slowly spent its first weekend of release. When the working day arrived, Wayne's name was once again placed on the headlines of many mainstream entertainment media , and each title is eye-catching, even sensational.

"Wayne Greenberg, a sweet date nearly eight years overdue!"

This is the headline on the entertainment front page of the "Hollywood Reporter", and a whole page is devoted to reports related to "X-Men".

"Seven years ago, a film and television graduate from the University of Southern California knocked on the office door of the former distribution director of Twentieth Century Fox with his graduation film "Happy Death Day." In a sense, Tang Mr. Rothman personally brought a dazzling "black crown" to the Hollywood film industry. From then on, there was a touch of black in the mainstream film genres of Hollywood..."