NOVEL WEB Chapter 582 North America Film Annual Report
After spending the Spring Festival in Capital City, Link took a flight out of Huaxia, stayed in Seoul and Tokyo for a few days, accompanied Jun Ji-hyun and some others, and also took the time to meet with several business partners to seal a few deals.
He now has about two hundred million US Dollars invested in South Korea, mainly in the entertainment sector, and close to one hundred million US Dollars in Japan, including real estate, apparel, and catering.
These investments are also under the supervision of the New York Golden Shell Asset Management Company, so he doesn't need to expend much effort on them.
After a few days of unwinding in Japan and South Korea, Link took a flight back to Los Angeles, just in time for the Academy Awards ceremony.
This year's Oscars ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Although Lionsgate Films had many nominations, Link didn't receive any, so he didn't attend the event. Instead, he and Ivanka watched the live broadcast of the ceremony at home.
Similar to last year, this year's attendees were all familiar faces; Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Meryl Streep, lady Gaga, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, and so on.
The first award presented was for Best Supporting Actor, which went to J.K. Simmons for "Whiplash." At the age of 60, he won Best Supporting Actor on his first Oscar nomination, a testament to both his talent and good fortune.
Simmons, while accepting the award on stage, thanked Link, jokingly calling him a candle that, despite not being able to win an Oscar, can illuminate others time and again.
This caused a burst of laughter in the audience.
The second and third awards given were for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, both unexpectedly snagged by the team from "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
The fourth award, for Best Foreign Language Film, was taken by the Polish film "Ida," which still dealt with the Jewish Holocaust, even though the Russian film "Leviathan" was the favorite before the Oscars ceremony.
The Academy Awards ceremony lasted for more than three hours. Originally, Link, Ivanka, and the three kids were watching it in the living room, but in under half an hour, the three kids had fallen asleep on the couch.
By the final hour, even Ivanka had dozed off on his shoulder.
Although the whole process was a bit dull, Lionsgate Films had a decent haul at this year's Oscars.
"Birdman" had 9 nominations and won 4 awards, bagging Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" also had 9 nominations and won 4 awards, taking Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Original Score, all technical categories.
"Whiplash" had 6 nominations and won 3 awards: Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
The above three films were the most awarded at this year's Oscars, with other films only winning a single award.
"American Hustle" had 10 nominations but did not win any awards, which was quite surprising.
"Gone Girl" had 1 nomination but didn't win.
The Best Actor went to 'Freckles' Eddie Redmayne for portraying Hawking in "The Theory of Everything," making him the first 80s-born actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor.
The Best Actress award was claimed by Julianne Moore for "Still Alice," making her the first artist in film history to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards, Cannes, Venice, and Berlin International Film Festivals.
The Best Supporting Actress went to Patricia Arquette for "Boyhood."
This year, Lionsgate Films had 35 nominations and won 11 Oscars. The result was fairly good, but the PR department of Lionsgate was surprised by the failure to win the key awards of Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress.
This year, Michael Keaton for "Birdman," Christian Bale for "American Hustle," and Ralph Fiennes for "The Grand Budapest Hotel" were all nominees for Best Actor.
Rosamund Pike for "Gone Girl," Amy Adams for "American Hustle," and Marion Cotillard for "Two Days One Night" were in the running for Best Actress, with the latter being a film produced by Paris Rose Films last year and only had limited screenings in six theaters due to timing.
Emma Stone for "Birdman" and Jennifer Lawrence for "American Hustle" were nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Lionsgate Films' actors accounted for more than half of the acting category nominations.
They were expected to win at least two awards but ended up only claiming Best Supporting Actor.
Post-analysis by the PR department suggested that the Oscar jury might have targeted Lionsgate Films.
In the previous three editions of the Oscars, Lionsgate Films had won Best Actress consecutively and had received several Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress awards, which made them a dominant force and caused much talk and controversy in the media.
The Academy probably wanted to end such controversies and therefore might have suppressed Lionsgate Films in the acting categories.
After the conclusion of the Academy Awards, media outlets realizing that this year's Best Actress and Supporting Actress awards hadn't gone to Lionsgate Films' actresses, but acknowledged that the nominated actors from the studio all had the caliber to win an Oscar, started to speculate on their own whether the Academy had been unfair to Lionsgate.
However, Lionsgate didn't want to be at odds with the Oscars and did not follow up on this topic with their PR department. The news "Lionsgate targeted by the Oscars" fizzled out after a few days of media hype.
Only Leonardo expressed his concerns over the phone; to perfect his portrayal in "The Revenant," he had put on more than thirty pounds, let his beard grow wild, and drastically decreased his appearance. He also suffered for over four months in the wild forests of Canada and the United States, and was nearly assaulted by a bear.
He had invested so much in this film and had high hopes for it, but did not want to miss the Oscars again due to the film company's controversies.
Link reassured him not to worry too much; the Best Actor at last year's Oscars was awarded to a Lionsgate Films actor, and if it had been won by Lionsgate again this year, there might be slim chances of winning the next year.
However, since Lionsgate didn't win this year, there would be a greater chance of receiving an award next year, provided that the film's quality is high enough, and Leonardo's performance is good enough.
Leonardo patted his chest and said the movie was fantastic, his performance beyond top-notch, and his sacrifice great enough to definitely qualify for the Oscar for Best Actor.
Link nodded and asked if the news of him being raped by the bear was true or false?
Leonardo immediately became furious, loudly telling him it's all fake. How could a female bear rape him? It was a matter of shooting angle, not like what was circulating online.
Link was stunned for a moment, "Female bear? Wasn't it a male bear just now? Or do you prefer male bears?"
"Fuck! Link, you'd better shut up, otherwise we're done,"
Leonardo shouted angrily.
"Alright, alright! Let's not talk about this anymore."
Link smiled slightly, telling Leonardo that Oscar jurors prefer to vote for the actor who made the biggest sacrifice while filming. If he wanted to win an Oscar, he might as well admit to the incident with the bear, given that such a sacrifice is unprecedented in the history of world cinema.
Considering the enormity of his sacrifice, perhaps thousands of jurors would be willing to cast their votes for him.
"...."
After a few seconds of silence on the phone, Leonardo begrudgingly expressed disagreement through clenched teeth.
Link held his forehead, he had been joking, but to his surprise, Little Leo took it seriously for a moment before disagreeing.
This guy was really pulling out all the stops to snag an Oscar.
On that point, Link felt inferior.
Around the time of the Oscars ceremony, films nominated for Oscars receive a lot of attention, which is most directly reflected in the box office.
Since the nomination list was announced in January, several films under Lionsgate Films saw a significant increase in box office revenue, with lesser-known films experiencing even greater increases.
Among them, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" saw its North American box office rise from over 68 million to 76.6 million US dollars, with global sales accumulating to 188 million US dollars.
"Birdman" North American box office rose to 52.5 million US dollars, with global sales totaling 115 million US dollars.
"Whiplash" North American box office increased to 38.77 million US dollars, with global sales at 71.15 million US dollars.
"American Hustle," after being out for over two months, has a current North American box office of 165 million US dollars and global sales of 268 million US dollars.
"Gone Girl" currently has a North American box office of 205 million US dollars and global sales of 485 million US dollars.
According to statistics from the data department, the Academy Awards brought an increase of about 160 million US dollars to the global box office for several films. From this, it's clear that the Academy Awards hold great value, making it meaningful to spend money on Oscar lobbying.
In late February and early March, the American Film Institute Report released several articles analyzing the 2014 film box office data, including North American cinema box office, global cinema box office, and box office analysis for seven major film companies.
According to this report, the total global box office for 2014 was 36.4 billion US dollars, an increase of just 1% compared to 2013's 35.9 billion US dollars, the lowest increase in the past decade.
In North America, a total of 849 films were released last year, with a total box office of 10.4 billion US dollars, a decrease of 5.4% from last year. The average box office per film was 12.21 million US dollars, an 8% decrease from last year.
The Huaxia film market made the largest contribution last year, with a 34% increase to 4.8 billion US dollars, becoming the first film market outside North America to break the 4 billion barrier and continuing as the world's second largest for three consecutive years.
On the cover of the Film Association Annual Report, the Lionsgate Films logo is colored gold, topped with a crown, and accompanied by the gleaming number $2,033,540,000; this is the total North American box office revenue for Lionsgate Films in 2014.
Lionsgate Films unprecedentedly claimed the top spot in the film industry's box office for the first time.
Last year, Lionsgate Films released 19 movies; two of them surpassed 200 million in North American box office—"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1" and "Gone Girl"—eight films surpassed 100 million, and 15 films had revenues over 50 million.
In 2014, for movies released in the North American region, there were 10 films that exceeded 200 million, 31 films that surpassed 100 million, and 68 films that went over 50 million.
From these three sets of data, Lionsgate Films made a tremendous contribution to the North American box office last year.
Among the major studios, Disney Pictures came in second with a total box office of 1.76 billion US dollars. Four of its films broke the hundred-million mark in North America, with animated films accounting for a significant share.
Fox Films ranked third with 1.53 billion in revenue, successfully releasing popular movies such as "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," "X-Men: Days of Future Past," and "Rio 2."
Warner Bros. Pictures dropped to fourth with 1.25 billion US dollars. Its movies "The Lego Movie" and "Godzilla" exceeded 200 million in North America, but films such as "Transcendence," "Blended," and "Frozen" underperformed, causing Warner Bros., which had been in the top three for several years, to fall to fourth. This was also the first time in five years that their total revenue didn't reach 1.5 billion US dollars.
Paramount Pictures ranked fifth with a total of 665 million US dollars, with films like "Transformers 4," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," and "Interstellar" surpassing 100 million in North America and the rest having modest box office results.
Universal Pictures fell to sixth with 487 million US dollars. Last year, it released 22 films, with only "Lone Survivor" breaking the hundred-million mark in North America, while others fell short of expectations.
Sony Pictures ranked seventh with 465 million US dollars. Last year, Sony Corporation faced some bad luck; the first half of the year saw the satirical film "The Interview" boycotted over its mockery of Peninsula leaders and was unable to release as planned, resulting in tens of millions in losses. The second half of the year was affected by the departure of a top female executive and the alienation of a host of stars and agents due to the hacking incident, making the 465 million dollars hard-earned.
Weinstein Company ranked eighth with 320 million US dollars. Last year, Harvey's productions of "The Imitation Game," "The Giver," and "St. Vincent" achieved solid box office scores, becoming leaders in independent production.
As for Relativity Media, affected by a debt crisis, only "Echoes of Earth" and "Three Days to Kill" surpassed thirty million in North American box office, with most other films failing to profit, further exacerbating Relativity Media's financial deficit and pushing it to the brink of bankruptcy.