Chapter 1376: July

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When the Americans celebrated the Independence Day holiday, in distant Africa, thousands of pro-Rwanda Tutsi soldiers mutinied in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on July 5, and another large-scale African scuffle broke out. It was the first international event in July. big event.

This thing started two years ago.

In the summer of 1996, Rwanda united with Uganda and other countries to attack the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the grounds of hunting down the war criminals of the Rwandan massacre. Together with the Democratic Republic of the Congo rebels, they invaded the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 1997 and overthrew President Mobutu who had ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 32 years. , and supported the rebel leader Kabila to power.

In the next year, thinking that the domestic political situation had been stabilized, Kabila began to kill donkeys and demanded that the Rwandan coalition forces withdraw from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Of course, the Rwandan coalition forces were not reconciled, which is why this conflict occurred.

In 1994, Simon took a great risk of uncertainty to intervene in the Rwandan genocide, basically to show his own strength. This time, he will just stand by and watch. Because this scuffle, in the final analysis, is still a major reshuffle of various forces in Africa and a redistribution of resources.

What the Westeros system can do is to gain its own benefits from it.

This is a tacit agreement formed in all aspects.

On the contrary, if you insert a large amount of money beyond your means, it will be an enemy of the whole of Africa and the Western society behind the scenes, and Simon will not do such a stupid thing.

As for the large melee known as the "Second African World War" that will cause millions of casualties, not many people care about it. Just like the specific death toll, there is no exact statistics. Some say five or six hundred Ten thousand, some say 8 million, others say tens of millions, who knows.

At present, compared with the war in Africa, even if he visited China, the major Western mainstream media are still focusing on Clinton's escalating zipper door scandal.

Or in terms of entertainment, the visual shock brought by the real and brutal war scenes in "Saving Private Ryan", as well as the moral conflict caused by eight people saving one, have sparked far more discussions than the wars that broke out in Africa.

this is the truth.

The strong ones attract all the attention, and the weak ones hardly exist.

Simon personally only held a secret deployment meeting of the Weijia private army about the developments in Africa, and then put it in the back of his mind.

The former "Saving Private Ryan" won the North American box office in 1998 with a local box office of 216 million US dollars. This achievement is not to mention compared with "Titanic", even if "Men in Black" ranked second in the previous year. "It's not comparable to the third place "Jurassic Park: The Lost World".

It can only be said that 1998 on the original timeline is a small year for movies.

This time is of course different.

Only the currently leading "Jurassic Park 3" has already exceeded 300 million in its home country, and is steadily moving towards the 400 million target.

In any case, Saving Private Ryan didn't fare too badly.

The popular Independence Day holiday started filming. In the first seven days, this war film with high reputation and popularity earned a box office of 53.46 million US dollars, easily winning the single-week box office champion position.

The question this time is whether "Saving Private Ryan" can still achieve a good result of breaking through 200 million US dollars in North America.

The key is actually in the future.

In the new box office week of July 10th, Simon's rotten boy gang brought a brand new "The Hangover" to North American theaters.

Then, on July 17th, there was Warner's blockbuster "Lethal Weapon 4", and on July 24th, Fox's "X-Files" movie version, Simon did not interfere with this very popular TV series, It was still taken by Fox a few years ago, and at the end of this year, it plans to make another one.

At the end of the month, on July 29, "Hero" will be released.

Speaking of which, starting from this week, Simon's attention has been fixed on China and the United States at the same time, because "Hero" will land in mainland theaters in North America on July 9 ahead of schedule.

For "Hero" in China, Simon's first concern is public opinion.

Once "Hero" was scolded to be worthless after it was released in China, Zhang Guoshi was almost depressed. This time, Simon asked people to send the media feedback during the Cannes period back to China to set the tone in advance. .

Even if there are criticisms, it is such as "the story is weak, but the artistry is strong".

Not really a criticism.

Simon didn't bother to complain about it.

If the previous "Hero" was criticized because it did not meet the tastes of the Chinese people, and the reason was probably that it was filmed specifically for foreigners, then the record-breaking 250 million yuan box office of domestic films in mainland China cannot represent the attitude of the Chinese people. Is it, or is it that only a very small number of pens can represent the attitude of the Chinese people?

Now, no one is scolding, and "Titanic" just set a box office record in mainland China in the first half of the year. Stimulated by some emotions, Simon feels that "Hero" is very likely to hit the 300 million yuan mark.

Let's talk about North America.

Simon certainly paid more attention to The Hangover than Hero.

On the one hand, this movie is Simon's support for the Bad Boys, to avoid any dominance of the Hollywood comedy circle. Someone's intention to accept a large number of casino hotels must activate this part of the assets.

After the film held a grand premiere in Atlantic City on Wednesday, July 8, the word-of-mouth ban was lifted the next day.

Even if many media realize that this is a film about Simon Westeros pushing

The promotional film in Atlantic City, even if the film critic circle is biased against comedy movies, "The Hangover" still scored an excellent media score of 7.8 points.

Among them, the comment of a film critic in the "New York Times" can be said to be the most representative: "Before entering the theater, I had the lowest expectations for "The Hangover", and it turned out that it brought me more laughter than I expected. need more."

In fact, to put it bluntly, the biggest task of a comedy movie is to make the audience laugh.

Even Jim Carrey's highly acclaimed "The Truman Show" in the first half of the year, on the basis of making the audience laugh, triggered some thinking, and the core is not putting the cart before the horse.

From the "New York Times" film critic and other feedback, Simon can be said to be quite optimistic about "The Hangover".

The facts did not live up to Simon's expectations.

Only three days after the filming started, under the overwhelming praise and the enthusiasm of Daenerys Entertainment's spare no efforts in marketing and promotion, "The Hangover" easily won a box office of 37.29 million US dollars in the first weekend, and it is expected that the box office in the first seven days will reach about 55 million. , which is even higher than last week's "Saving Private Ryan".

With such a result, not to mention the outside world, even Simon himself will inevitably struggle again.

Simon's initial expectation for "The Hangover" was only to break 100 million locally, which is enough to play a good role in promoting Atlantic City. Now, the first week is expected to be 55 million. Unless it hits the end of the world, breaking 100 million locally is almost certain , even breaking 200 million is not impossible.

As it turned out, it was an inevitable snipe to Saving Private Ryan.

Subsequent facts also proved this point.

After a full week, "The Hangover" was even higher than originally expected. In the end, the seven-day box office in the first week was 56.51 million U.S. dollars, easily recovering the production investment of 25 million U.S. dollars.

Under the impact of "The Hangover", "Saving Private Ryan" fell by 36% in the second week, earning $34.21 million.

The decline still seems to be within an acceptable range, but within Daenerys Entertainment, because of the excellent word-of-mouth, it was initially predicted that the second-week decline of "Saving Private Ryan" may be enough to be controlled within 30%. Only such a trend, The film can only reach the box office of more than 200 million US dollars in Simon's memory.

Now, the next week's drop is 36%, even if it narrows in the third week, because of a big drop, the hope of "Saving Private Ryan" hitting the 200 million box office is much smaller.

If I had known earlier, Simon would have moved the schedule of "The Hangover" back by at least a week.

But just think about it.

The choice of the July 10 schedule is also the result of careful consideration. After that, the most popular stage of the summer schedule will pass, unless you have no confidence in the film or fight for word-of-mouth such as "Hero" and "The Horse Whisperer" Only long-term movies will step on the tail of the summer vacation.

In the final analysis, there are only 52 weeks in a year, and it is impossible to become 104. With Daenerys' entertainment ambitions, it is inevitable to beat yourself.

In China, the performance of "Hero" is also quite dazzling.

After the filming started on July 9, with the support of a series of strict anti-piracy measures such as escort, the film successfully won a box office of 91 million yuan in four days after the filming started. As of July 16, in eight days, the cumulative box office quickly reached 139 million RMB.

It earned 139 million in eight days after the opening of the film, and in addition to the fact that Chinese films generally have a good long-term success, the possibility of hitting 300 million in the future is very high.

Of course, even if it reaches 300 million yuan, considering the production cost of 250 million yuan, even if the theater share is raised to 40% in advance, it is impossible to pay back the cost. This movie still needs to be watched overseas.

This is next.

Taking advantage of the big sales in the first week, Jinshu launched another wave of publicity in due time. The focus of public opinion is still to compare "Titanic" with "Influence" to stimulate the public to buy tickets and enter the theater. There is no reason why Chinese films are better than foreign films. Poor blah blah.

Last year's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" only broke 100 million at the box office in mainland China. This time, "Hero" broke 100 million in the first week, and there is even hope of breaking 300 million yuan. As a result, the "Chu Han" trilogy that has been seeing and seeing has been taken a step further.

July 17th, a new week.

Mainly because of the release of Warner's "Lethal Weapon 4", because of the influence of Simon, the big butterfly, the difference in "Lethal Weapon 4" is that there is no more Jet Lee as the villain. However, regardless of whether Jeter Lee participates or not, Simon is actually not too optimistic.

The point is that the old-school Hollywood action movies of the '80s, the Lethal Weapon series, are outdated.

Warner didn't hesitate to burn 120 million US dollars of cost this time, which is even more unwise in Simon's view. After all, "Lethal Weapon 3" was already 6 years ago. There are a lot of people who have almost forgotten about the "Lethal Weapon" series.

Of course, Simon wouldn't worry about Warner.

Hollywood's fried rice is often helpless, especially when the cost of film production is getting higher and higher.

Even if Daenerys entertains herself, this year is not a series of "Rush Hour 2", "Jurassic Park 3" and "Haunted Mortuary 3". One big reason.

Also, by the way, in South Korea, Showbox's second horror film "Girls' Tales" was also released on July 17, local time. Controlled by Hollywood movies for so many years, except for the different box office statistics, the distribution model of Korean movies is basically the same.

In fact except

After June's "Rose Flower and Red Lotus" and this time "Girls' Tale", the film companies supported by the Westeros system in South Korea have released many films this year, but on the one hand, Simon did not pay special attention to them, on the other hand On the one hand, the main reason is that it failed to splash water.

Compared with "Rose Flower and Red Lotus", which cost 3 billion won and adapted from a Korean legendary storybook, the production cost of the original "Girl's Tale of High School Girls" is only 1 billion won. If the number of viewers in the region can reach 300,000, it will be able to pay back.

This is a project in history, and it was among the top ten Korean films of the year. Simon has high expectations for the success of this film.

Los Angeles.

After finishing work on the last day of the week, Simon returned to Cape Dume Manor, and Janet gave Simon a pair of surprises.

Twin sisters Gisele and Patricia Bundchen.

The girls raised in the past few years gradually began to grow up, because they were strictly trained, they were basically placed in a position closer to the Westeros family, and the same is true for Sister Giselle this time.

Sister Giselle celebrated her 18th birthday on July 14th, and this time she is officially employed.

Frankly speaking, even if there is a pair of faces in front of him that are exactly the same as the world's number one supermodel in memory, Simon is not particularly interested.

Once in the sea.

I have experienced too many women of all kinds in these years, and coupled with the high status at this time, it is difficult to have too much lust for actresses and supermodels like some rich men who pursue famous women to become their own decorations.

It's still the same reason, it is impossible for a person who has obtained a doctorate to fluctuate with the little red flower in the kindergarten.

Janet clearly remembered that her man was very special to Giselle among those girls, but now, he is not special, but worried.

Is my husband going to go 'evil way' again?

So when Simon flew to the east coast the next day, he deliberately brought Giselle and sisters over. The two sisters had obviously been explained, and they started to take the initiative when they got on the plane.

This time the destination was not New York, but Atlantic City.

Arriving in this gambling city on the east coast, the two sisters, who were subdued by Simon because they took the initiative to get angry, got off the plane and were sent to Simon's mansion here.

Of course Simon has business to do.

Tonight is the final of the 1998 Elite World Elite Model Contest. Simon was invited by Grace to fly over to join him.

From "The Hangover" to the elite model contest held in Atlantic City for two years, plus various other activities, it can be regarded as a complete set of marketing combinations of the Westeros system to promote Atlantic City.

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