hunt hollywood

Under the strength of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3", the media reputation of "Bodyguard" after its release was bleak.

Mainstream media such as "Entertainment Weekly", "Variety Show" and "New York Times" all gave "Bodyguard" negative reviews.

Seeing the film review of "a mess" in "Variety Show", Amy was so angry that she almost wanted to withdraw all the company's advertisements in "Variety Show".

According to the comprehensive statistics of the 10-point scale, the media score of "Bodyguard" finally only broke through 3 points, which is very far away from the passing line.

However, among such one-sided negative reviews, some magazines such as "Rolling Stone" expressed their appreciation for the film's soundtrack, but these positives certainly did not reverse the media reputation of "Bodyguard".

Affected by bad reviews, the box office of "Bodyguard" in the first weekend was only 1661 million U.S. dollars in the three days.

Compared with United Artists' previous "Dragon Killing", such a box office result is certainly not a failure, with $1661 million in the first weekend, and it is expected that the box office will remain above $2000 million in the first week.

However, the media also generally predict that the box office performance of "Bodyguard" in the first week is more the result of Daenerys Entertainment's spare no efforts in publicity.Affected by negative word-of-mouth, the film will go out of a very ugly box office curve, and the total North American box office may only be 5000 million US dollars at most.

The production cost of "Bodyguard" is 2000 million U.S. dollars, the publicity budget is 800 million U.S. dollars, and the total investment is 2800 million U.S. dollars.In this way, the North American box office of 5000 million US dollars cannot be regarded as a failure in any case.Daenerys Entertainment can basically pay for itself at the domestic box office.

However, compared to the amazing box office results of a series of films produced by Daenerys Entertainment last year, "Bodyguard" is expected to have a box office of 5000 million US dollars in North America, but it is undoubtedly a failure. The release of the film's tepid commercial performance, the failure of this film means that Daenerys Entertainment has completely retreated from last year's miraculous box office halo blessing.

Corresponding to "Bodyguard", the release entered the third week, and the three-day box office figure of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" in the second weekend was still as high as 2123 million US dollars, with a box office drop of only 27%.In 12 days of release, Spielberg's blockbuster had a cumulative box office of $7714 million. ,

According to the schedule, on June 6, Columbia Pictures' 9 "Ghostbusters" sequel "Ghostbusters 1984", which won the runner-up of the annual box office in 2, will also be released. Raiders 2410" is even more.

In order to be able to stimulate the company's stock price as much as possible at the critical time of acquisition negotiations with Sony, Columbia Pictures spared no effort in the announcement of this sequel.

Faced with the attack of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" and "Ghostbusters 2", coupled with the failure of word-of-mouth, the box office prospects of "Bodyguard" are even more worrying.In such adversity, on Monday, June 6th, the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard" was officially launched in North America.

Chapter 266 Unexpected Record Sales (Revised)

Burbank.

Alistar Records is headquartered on Oliver Drive north of Warner Bros. Studios.

Today is January 6th, Wednesday.

Clive Davis, president of Alistar Records, arrived at the company early in the morning and welcomed Mark Belford, director of Daenerys Entertainment's "Bodyguard" announcement.Mark Belford was transferred to the announcement team of "Scream" by Simon himself at a meeting last year. Through the outstanding performance in the announcement process of the subsequent films, he was quickly promoted to the director of Daenerys Distribution Company. Vice President.

In the office, Clive Davis warmly entertained Mark Belford, but he tried his best to shirk his hope that Whitney Houston would return from Toronto as soon as possible to complete the follow-up announcement of "The Bodyguard".

After the release of "Bodyguard", the word-of-mouth quickly collapsed. Clive Davis saw that the opportunity was not good, and immediately sent Whitney Houston to Canada in the name of a vacation, hoping to avoid the "Bodyguard" in this cold way. The impact the loss could have on Whitney Houston's singing career.

In fact, in terms of box office alone, "Bodyguard" is not a commercial failure.

Just the expected domestic box office of $5000 million in North America is basically enough for Daenerys Entertainment to recover the full budget cost.It's just that the word-of-mouth of this movie is really bad, and many film critics also pointed the finger at Whitney Houston's acting skills.

It took years of ups and downs for Alistar Records to finally usher in a top superstar. Whitney Houston is the lifeblood of Clive Davis. Madonna is 'beaten and beaten' in Hollywood like that.

As for the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard", Clive Davis has no expectations. He only hopes that fans will not give up their support for Whitney Houston because of this low-quality album.

"Mark, Whitney has been exhausted from the promotion process for the first few months. Now that the movie is out, I don't think she needs to participate in these follow-up activities."

"It's just an MTV interview, Clive, or, if Miss Houston really can't find the time to come back, we can fly MTV's setup team to Canada, you just need to arrange someone to cooperate there."

MTV was originally the best publicity platform for singers.

However, Clive Davis has made up his mind to keep Whitney Houston out of the entanglement with "The Bodyguard" as much as possible, so he insisted: "Unfortunately, Mark, Whitney is on vacation now, and she does not want to be People bother you."

Mark Belford continued to communicate patiently with Clive Davis. Seeing that the other party insisted, the atmosphere inevitably became stalemate: "Clive, the success or failure of a project is always difficult to determine in Hollywood. If only Because a movie has a bad reputation, Ms. Houston will react negatively, and it will be difficult for her to develop much in Hollywood in the future."

Clive Davis was still unmoved, and said: "Mark, after this experience, I don't think Whitney is very suitable to be an actor. She will focus on her singing career in the next few years."

Mark Belford did not give up easily, and planned to try harder. There was a knock on the office door, and Clive Davis' secretary came in with a hesitant expression. Manager figure.

If it was any other time, Clive Davis would definitely be displeased with the secretary's behavior, but this time, he happened to stand up and said: "I have other work here, Mark, let's talk next time when I have time." Bar."

After seeing off Mark Belford, Clive Davis brought his distribution director, Charles Lord, into the office, and while turning to his desk, he casually asked, "Charlie, aren't you going in the morning?" New York?"

Before Clive Davis sat down, Charles Rhodes handed over a folder and said, "Clive, there seems to be something strange about the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard."

Clive Davis frowned slightly when he heard his subordinate mention the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard". After sitting down, he opened the folder and looked at it: "What is this?"

"Since yesterday afternoon, we have been receiving calls from some record distributors one after another. This is the record of all relevant calls from yesterday to now..."

Clive Davis had a bad feeling and interrupted, "They want to return it?"

It was originally expected that the sales of the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard" would not be very good, but only at the insistence of Daenerys Entertainment, the two parties jointly produced the first batch of 50 records, and completed the sales through the sales channel of Alistar Records. shopped.

Blunting the words just now, Clive Davis reacted.

The record has only been on the shelves for two days, and it is impossible for the distributor to ask for a return.After all, no matter how bad the reputation of "Bodyguard" is, with the popularity that Whitney Houston has accumulated in recent years, 50 records can definitely be sold.

Charles Rhodes also immediately shook his head and denied Clive Davis' guess, saying: "No, Clive, they all seem to be asking for additional orders for the original soundtrack of "The Bodyguard."

If his guess just now was unlikely, Clive Davis felt that what Charles Rhodes said was even less likely.

Additional orders?

What a joke.

According to Clive Davis, 50 records is already a large number, and the total sales volume of more than 90% of music albums in the world may not be able to reach this much.After Whitney Houston became famous, his second album was released two years ago. After a series of long-term publicity, it finally airborne at No.200 on the Billboard 1 list, and the sales statistics in the first week were only 46 copies.

This is already a rare good performance among female singers.

Now, a love movie that has been criticized overwhelmingly by the media as "cheesy cliché" and "lack of novelty", a "mixed together" mash-up album, and a distribution volume of 50 copies, only two days. Distributors began to request additional supplies.

is it possible?

or.

If true, what does this mean?

After staring at his subordinate for a moment, Clive Davis suddenly lowered his head and glanced at the document, found a familiar name, picked up the phone on the desk and dialed it.

The phone was connected, and Clive Davis put on a sophisticated and familiar tone: "Hi, Jeff, good morning... Oh, it's already noon in New York, I forgot about it, haha... That's it Yeah, Charlie said you called yesterday about that Bodyguard soundtrack that Whitney was in..."

After making five or six phone calls in a row, Clive Davis put down the receiver and looked back at the file with a long list of phone records, feeling a little dazed.

it turns out.

It really happened!

Although the retail network has not yet been sold out, distributors in various regions generally said that based on the sales situation of the previous two days, the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard" sold much better than expected, and the first batch of distribution volume was basically Not enough, at least double it.

Doubled.

That's 100 million copies.

Clive Davis is 57 years old this year, and has been in the recording industry for more than 20 years. In the past 20 years, he has only envied watching other singers achieve sales of over one million in the first week.Moreover, there are only a few people such as Michael Jackson who can achieve this miraculous goal.

Alista Records was established in 1974. In 15 years, it fell into the brink of bankruptcy several times. The parent company changed from Columbia Pictures to RCA, and now it has become Bertelsmann.

Clive Davis did not expect that in his career, he could even create a record that sold over a million in the first week.

Dazed for a moment, Clive Davis picked up the phone again, dialed a hotel number in Toronto, Canada, and quickly told Whitney Houston to return to Los Angeles as soon as possible.

After finishing the call with Whitney Houston, remembering that he had just perfunctorily left the senior management of Daenerys' entertainment distribution department, Clive Davis only struggled for a moment, and decided not to inform the other party of the news for the time being.Alistar Records should now have a great deal of the initiative.

However, thinking about the sharing contract signed with Daenerys Entertainment back then, Clive Davis immediately felt pain again.

According to Clive Davis' experience of more than 20 years in the industry, the global sales of "Bodyguard" soundtrack records in the next few years should be about 40 to 50 times that of the first week, which is 4000. 5000 to [-] million copies, which is more than the combined global sales of Whitney Houston's first two records.

At the end of the 80s, although there were different materials such as vinyl tapes, the average price of each record was about 10 US dollars.

Total global sales of 4000 million to 5000 million copies means $4 million to $5 million in revenue.Based on a 50% gross profit calculation, Daenerys Entertainment’s 50% gross profit share is equivalent to taking $2.5 from each record. Multiplying this figure by the total sales volume is 1 million to 1.25 million U.S. dollars.

A single record has earned more than 1 million US dollars. Even Bertelsmann Music Group, the parent company of Alista Records, which has just been integrated, may not have such a large annual net profit.

Thinking about how to find a way to retain more profits, Clive Davis quickly ordered Charles Rhodes to call an emergency meeting of the company's top management.

Anyway, let's make sure the record sells first.

Clive Davis did not immediately announce the unexpected best-seller of the "Bodyguard" soundtrack, but Daenerys Entertainment quickly received word of it.

Employees in Daenerys Entertainment's recording department first heard the news and reported it to Nancy Brill, who was in charge of the company's recording business.Realizing the importance of this matter, Nancy Brill immediately called Clive Davis's office, and then rushed from Santa Monica to Burbank.

In this era, it is not uncommon for a record to sell 2000 million copies worldwide, which is roughly equivalent to a Hollywood movie with a box office of over 5000 million.However, a record whose global sales are expected to reach [-] million copies is completely at the level of phenomenal movies such as "ET" and "Star Wars".

Except for Simon, neither Daenerys Entertainment nor Alistar Records had any idea that the soundtrack of "The Bodyguard" would be such a hit.Everyone originally expected that the box office hit of "Bodyguard" would lead to the sales of the original soundtrack record. As long as the global sales of this record break through 1000 million copies, it will be a success in many people's eyes.

Later, in people's memory, when it comes to the original soundtrack of a movie, most people may think of "Titanic".

But in fact, until the rebirth of Simon, the best-selling movie soundtrack in music history has always been "Bodyguard".

The original soundtrack of "Titanic" sold only 3000 million copies, while the album sales of "Bodyguard" reached a staggering 4500 million.Even in the general list of all types of record sales, the sales of "Bodyguard" soundtrack can be squeezed into the top five.

Now, the word-of-mouth of the "Bodyguard" movie has failed, but the unexpectedly best-selling original soundtrack has become a breakthrough to feed back the movie's box office.

Clive Davis is also a man who is good at seeing the wind and the wind.

The "Bodyguard" original soundtrack has become a hot seller in North America. However, the sales volume of this record is the largest in overseas markets. If you want to replicate the success in North America, you must cooperate with the release of the "Bodyguard" movie. The likes of film critics are also a carrier to convey the influence of original soundtrack records.

If it weren't for the emotional conveyance of the film's story content, an old song from the 70s such as "I Will Always Love You", the main soundtrack record, would not have become popular at all.

Therefore, when the record was successful and Daenerys Entertainment came to the door quickly, Clive Davis immediately forgot his previous refusal to let Whitney Houston continue to participate in the promotion of the film, and reunited with Daenerys. On the one hand, they negotiated the follow-up announcement and release of movies and records.

In order to achieve the greatest "event marketing" effect, under the active control of Daenerys Entertainment and Alistar Records, the distribution of the second batch of "Bodyguard" original soundtrack was artificially delayed by one day in some designated areas.Therefore, in the last few days of this week, news that the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard" was out of stock quickly appeared in urban areas with great media influence such as New York and Los Angeles.

Things are always unexpected.

The song "I Will Always Love You" released by Dolly Parton in 1974 has not attracted many people's attention for more than ten years. A love movie with bloody plot like "Bodyguard" has also been criticized by film critics.But the addition of the two is like a glass of carefully prepared fine wine, producing a magical chemical reaction.

With the hot sales of the original soundtrack of "Bodyguard" and the rapid popularity of "I Will Always Love You", audiences who were originally prejudiced against "Bodyguard" due to the influence of media reputation began to pay attention to this movie again.

6月2日到6月8日的一周时间，《夺宝奇兵3》轻松把持周票房冠军的宝座，再收3085万美元，累计票房达到8676万美元。

The box office of "Bodyguard", which ranks No. 2 on the list, was as expected. It ended up with 2363 million US dollars in the first seven days, which was almost only half of the box office figure of "Raiders of the Lost Ark 3" in the first full week.

However, when word got out that The Bodyguard's soundtrack miraculously and unexpectedly sold well, neither the studio nor the outside media generally believed that The Bodyguard's domestic box office potential was only $5000 million.

Chapter 267 The Fall of the Next Week (Revised)

While "Bodyguard" hits theaters, the later stage of "Batman" is still advancing steadily.

The soundtrack stage of the film has recently started. Simon hesitated among several major soundtrack composers in Hollywood, and finally decided to do it himself.After all, no one in Hollywood knows what he wants better than he does.

Warner Bros. Studios has the top recording studio and other related equipment, and this part of the work is still in Burbank.

After a busy morning, Simon left Warner Bros. Studios and rushed to the nearby Daenerys Entertainment Burbank branch.

Today is Friday, June 6th.

Ella Deutschmann returned from Europe yesterday. Simon came to the company branch. Everyone chose a nearby restaurant for lunch. Deutchmann talked about the work results of this trip to Europe.

"In order to snatch "Paradise Cinema", Universal offered a transaction plan of 500 million U.S. dollars in advance payment plus post-production share. It is just a pure North American distribution right. This is already a sky-high price, and I can only give up. When we arrived at the Palme d’Or, there were a lot of people who wanted to invest in his next film, and he and I also had disagreements on the script of the “Family Journey”, and we couldn’t reach an agreement on this matter either.”

Things were completely expected, Simon just asked: "What about the others?"

Ella Deutschmann said: "Considering the situation at the time, I selected 10 films from the main competition unit and each screening unit, and seriously communicated with each producer, and then gave them one after another. They sent limited time offers with only one night to consider. In the end, of the films I was looking at, I still didn't get the Jury Award winner "Too Beautiful", but Jane Campion's "Sweet Sister" got it, North American Omni-channel copyright, the transaction price is 30 US dollars in advance plus 50% of the box office net profit share. There is also a Swedish film called "Woman on the Roof", 10 US dollars in advance, the same 50% of the box office net profit into."

Simon noticed the smile on Ella Deutschman's face when he talked about this incident, and he could probably imagine the situation where he was fighting wits and bravery with other filmmakers who were keeping an eye on Daenerys' entertainment.

"The Woman on the Roof" is just an addition, and the focus is still on "Sweet Sister".

30 US dollars plus 50% of the net box office profit share, this price is not worth mentioning for Hollywood commercial films.However, according to Simon's judgment, the production cost of "Sweet Sister" will not exceed US$50.Just for the sale of North American copyrights, the New Zealand film studio can basically recover most of the cost, not to mention the sharing clause.

Simon is actually more inclined to buy out, but he also understands that this idea is not realistic.

Just like his persistence in "Run Lola Run", those who make movies more or less expect miracles to appear.Deutschman's offer actually reduced the risk for Daenerys Entertainment.

Moreover, the share only involves the box office, and the income from videotapes and TV broadcasting rights in the later period is all Daenerys Entertainment. This can also avoid long-term financial disputes, and both parties are willing to accept the transaction model.

The prepayment cost is 30 U.S. dollars, and about 50 U.S. dollars are invested in the promotion. The North American box office of "Sweet Sister" needs to be more than 150 million U.S. dollars to break even.

Simon does not expect much from the box office potential of "Sweet Sister", as long as it can get 300 million US dollars, it will be considered a success.

Based on this figure, Gaomen Films can make a small profit at the box office, and the video tapes and TV broadcasts in the later period can also bring in good income. The New Zealand film studio can also get another 30 to 40 US dollars in revenue. Both parties are happy .

Simon was about to ask about other things, and noticed Robert Rem's slightly frowning expression when listening to the two talking, and asked, "Bob, is there a problem?"

Robert Rem glanced at Deutschman, and said, "Simon, I just think that you value these small businesses too much."

"It's no small business, Bob, like 'Run Lola Run' and 'Pulp Fiction', both of which are more of a literary genre, and they've done amazing box office. Now that I can do that, I trust other movies People can also create such miracles. I don’t expect Gaomen Pictures to dig out a movie similar to "Run Lola Run" every year, but as long as there is a blockbuster literary film in two or three years, it will be a success. "Simon explained seriously, and finally said: "Besides, for me, I have never had the concept of big business and small business. I hope to do a good job in every job in my hand. Expectations. This is a very important issue of attitude, if a person can’t take a $30 “small business” seriously, then, if you give him $300 million or even $3000 million, he can’t do it either.”

When Deutschman, Jennifer, and Danny Morris, the president of New World Pictures who had dinner with them this time, were refuted, although Simon's tone was very peaceful, Rem was still a little bit hesitant, and he still insisted. From my point of view just now, I just forced a smile, nodded and said: "Okay."

Simon sighed secretly, and turned to Deutschmann again.

Without waiting for Simon to ask, Deutschman took the initiative to say: "According to your request, I then successfully signed two film contracts with Campion, and she is going to shoot a film called "Angels and Me" I have read the script of the biographical film "At the Same Table", and it is also a very suitable film for European film festivals. In addition, she also has an idea for an original script, telling the story of a speechless woman who brought a piano to New Zealand , because the script has not yet been formed, I can't judge the pros and cons for the time being, she said that she will draw up an outline in the near future."

The story about the piano and the mute girl is obviously the "Farewell to the Piano" that Simon likes very much.