hunt hollywood

On January 1, taking advantage of the high attention brought by the Golden Globe Awards and Oscar nominations, Gaomen Pictures increased the number of screens for "Driving Miss Daisy" from 26 to 278 at one time. The box office potential of the film has finally been released.

In the first week of its large-scale opening, "Driving Miss Daisy" won a box office of 895 million US dollars with a scale of 803 screens. The weekly box office ranking also jumped from No.7 last week to second only to "Batman: The No.2 high position of "The Hour of War".

After eight weeks of release, the cumulative box office only reached 1837 million US dollars, which seems to be unable to compare with the one-week box office of "Batman: Beginning of War" in the sixth week of release.

However, the large-scale box office figures in the first week rushed to No.2 on the weekly list. There are still many awards between the Golden Globes and the Oscars. The box office popularity of "Driving Miss Daisy" can easily continue. Going on, this movie is destined to walk out of a very bright box office curve.

Judging from the fact that the first week of the large-scale filming opened with a box office of 803 million US dollars, the industry predicts that the total North American box office of this film is likely to reach more than 6000 million US dollars.

The production budget of "Drive Miss Daisy" is only 700 million U.S. dollars, and the scale of announcement and release is completely incomparable with "Batman: Beginning of War".The cumulative box office of 1837 million US dollars in eight weeks is enough for Daenerys Entertainment to recover all production and publicity costs.

With an estimated gross of $6000 million, that's already a blockbuster.

Of course Simon knew that the box office potential of "Driving Miss Daisy" was not more than 6000 million.

However, in any case, an obvious fact is that Daenerys Entertainment has unknowingly created a box office dark horse again.

Chapter 335 Coppola's Elephant (Revised)

Like "The League of Pink", "Home Alone" in charge of John Hughes will also start filming in the near future.

Yesterday, he was busy with the three films of "The League of Pink", "Ghost Story" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Simon spent most of the day today discussing various aspects of "Home Alone" with John Hughes in Chicago on the phone aspect details.

Under the impetus of Simon, the hero of "Home Alone" is still determined to be the original Macaulay Culkin.

Macaulay Culkin happens to be a signed artist under the WMA. Although Culkin was unable to appear in John Hughes' "Uncle Buck" last year because of the influence of Simon the butterfly, the young actor has already appeared in many film and television shows. She has shown her face in the play, and she is still a contracted child model under the Ford Model Company.

In addition to Culkin, the roles of the two stupid thieves are also the original Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

After confirming the 'original' team, Simon doesn't need to worry too much.

Basically, Simon has such an attitude towards many projects in his hands recently.

Daenerys Entertainment has become more and more dazzling in the past two years. Even if one or two of these projects fail, it does not matter to Simon, or just right.

At the end of the day's work, Simon rushed directly from Santa Monica to Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills at seven o'clock in the afternoon.

The Coldwater Canyon neighborhood is part of Beverly Hills, just west of Trousdale Estates.The entire block winds its way up from Coldwater Canyon Park near Sunset Boulevard at the foot of the mountain to Mulholland Road at the top of the mountain, with a length of more than five kilometers.There are various luxury houses on both sides of the canyon street, which also belongs to the star-gathering area of ​​Los Angeles.

Arriving at the residence of Fox Pictures President Joe Ross, the sky was already dark.

Joe Rose's villa is a two-story simple-style white building that is common in Los Angeles. It covers an area of ​​about a quarter of an acre. Considering various factors such as location, this is considered a luxury house in Los Angeles.

James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger have arrived early, and there are many other filmmakers in the courtyard.

After Simon arrived, he briefly greeted some guests, and then came to the sunbathing terrace upstairs of the villa with Rose and Cameron.Of course, there was no sunlight at this time, and the urban lights of Los Angeles could be faintly seen from the terrace.

The three sat down by the seats on the terrace, and Ross first said: "I have talked to Jim several times, Simon, the budget of "Terminator 2" is confirmed to be 5000 million US dollars, and Jim will still be the director. However, once If the project is over budget, Jim will automatically give up the director's salary. At the same time, we will adopt stricter financial supervision measures this time to ensure that the film production will not get out of control, do you think this is okay?"

Simon didn't answer, but looked at Cameron and asked, "Jim, do you think you can do it?"

Cameron grinned a little bluntly, nodded and said, "It should be fine."

Simon didn't comment, turned to Joe Ross again, and asked, "How much is Arnold's salary?"

Joe Roston nodded, and said: "1500 million dollars." After saying this, seeing Simon raised his eyebrows, Rose quickly explained; "Stalone's salary in that "Furious Tiger and Mad Dragon" has already risen to 1500 million dollars." Ten thousand dollars, Arnold doesn't want to get less than Stallone's."

The total budget was 5000 million US dollars, and Schwarzenegger took 1500 million. Although Cameron had a big stumble on "The Abyss", the base salary of 300 million must still be indispensable.

Counting other main creators, the funds left for film production are less than 3000 million US dollars.

With Cameron's profligate character, it would be hell if "Terminator 3000" can be completed with less than 2 million US dollars.

With a sneer at the corner of Simon's mouth, he said: "I checked the box office data of Arnold's recent action movies this afternoon. In "Predator", Arnold received 300 million remuneration, and the box office was 5900 million. Arnold's salary is 500 million US dollars, and the box office is 3800 million US dollars. Last year's "Red Square SWAT", Arnold's film salary rose to 800 million US dollars, but the box office was only 3500 million US dollars. According to this trend, "Terminator 2" With an asking price of 1500 million US dollars, there should be only 1500 million US dollars left at the box office, right?"

Joe Ross said: "Simon, Arnold has accumulated a lot of popularity in the first part of "Terminator". Of course, his salary cannot be compared with other original projects."

Cameron also chimed in and said: "Terminator 2 is different from those few movies. I believe this movie will definitely succeed."

"I'm also very optimistic about this project." Simon looked at Cameron again, and said, "However, Daenerys Entertainment is not Carlock Films, and we will not offer sky-high remuneration irrationally. Arnold has already started the post-production "Total Recall", if my information is correct, he should only get a basic salary of 100 million US dollars, right? For "Terminator 2", he can choose two options, one is the same basic salary as "Total Recall" + The sharing model, and the other one, the salary is maintained at the level of "Red Square SWAT", only 800 million US dollars."

Both Joe Ross and Cameron were somewhat silent.

Simon didn't wait for the two to respond, and quickly continued: "Compared to the previous three action films, "Total Recall" spent 6500 million U.S. dollars even though Arnold almost gave up his salary. Carlock wants to recover the cost. No, I believe that after this movie, no other film company will take risks on Arnold. "Terminator 2" can be said to be the project that can best guarantee his recovery. Therefore, I can give There are only the above two options. Or, everyone can wait for "Total Recall", and Arnold's salary may be lower by then."

In memory, Total Recall has grossed over $2 million worldwide.

Although Carlock Films only barely made a hard-earned money in it, it can be considered a success.

Because of the big sales of "Total Recall", Schwarzenegger has regained his position comparable to Stallone in the field of action movies.

Of course, Simon wouldn't say that at this time.

Moreover, Simon suddenly remembered that besides "Total Recall", Arnold had another relatively successful work during this period: "Kindergarten SWAT".

In my memory, this is also a blockbuster movie with a global box office of over 2 million, and it is similar to Arnold's unexpectedly successful comedy "Dragon Brothers and Mice Brothers" at the end of the year before last.

Simon didn't mention this movie just now, because the box office hit of "Dragon Brothers and Mouse Brothers" is a surprise to many people, and it is impossible for Schwarzenegger to turn into a comedian because of this, action movies are his fundamental.

Thinking of this, Simon made up his mind to cut "Kindergarten SWAT".

Even, if necessary, he can cut projects such as "True Lies" and "Vapor Secret Order" in advance. .

With his prophetic advantage, it is still very easy for Simon to snipe the acting career of a Hollywood filmmaker.

As for "Terminator 2", Simon is really not in a hurry.

And, although it hasn't been announced yet, Daenerys Entertainment and Fox Films have signed a partnership agreement as one of those 10 film projects.Therefore, the initiative of this project is now completely in the hands of Simon.

Joe Ross thought for a moment, and said to Simon: "So, shall I go down and talk to Arnold?"

Simon nodded and said, "I haven't had dinner yet, Joe, please ask someone to bring over some food, anything."

"of course."

Joe Ross agreed, got up and glanced at Cameron again, and walked downstairs.

Cameron looked at the young man in front of him, wondering if he should leave voluntarily.He has watched "Batman: Beginning of War" several times before, and he admires the various groundbreaking details in the film. He originally wanted to have a good chat with Simon.

It's just that Westeros in the state of the boss of the film company is really not very pleasing.

Simon looked at the restless Cameron, and suddenly said, "Jim, someone should have told you about Coppola and the elephant, right?"

Cameron had a puzzled look on his face.

Realizing that Cameron hadn't heard the story, Simon took the initiative to explain: "This is a story in the process of filming "Apocalypse Now" by Coppola. Coppola wanted to find some elephants during the filming process. However, at that time, the project was already over budget and overdue. It would not only cost a lot of money to transport the elephant to the set, but also cause further delays in the filming cycle. The producer of the film dissuaded Coppola, saying that many things were wrong. It can be perfect, you have to give up something. Later, Apocalypse Now doesn’t have an elephant, and the movie is still very successful.”

Cameron naturally thought that Simon was talking about his "Abyss" last year, and couldn't think of any rebuttal words for a while, so he nodded embarrassingly and said, "Simon, I understand what you mean."

"I've seen the "Terminator" that year, more than once," Simon continued: "Jim, since you were able to shoot a perfect work with 640 million US dollars at that time, there is no reason why you can't sell it in the stipulated Finish other films on budget. Last year's "The Abyss" cost $6950 million. I heard you were stressed because of it, but it's just some mental pressure. Maybe you don't know it, Fox has a large group of people because of the failure of this project Lost their jobs. The biggest reason they got fired wasn't because of The Abyss, which was a risky industry. They got fired because the project's budget got out of control. You know, studio money It never fell from the sky."

Cameron's expression flickered for a moment, and finally said: "Simon, I will definitely pay attention in the future."

The waiter brought up some food at this time.

Simon waited for the other party to leave, and motioned to Cameron. Seeing the other party shaking his head, he pulled the tray in front of him, picked up the tableware and said: "I have studied the special effects scheme of "Abyss", and the CG alien technology in it should be able to Was it used to make the liquid metal robot in Terminator 2?"

The special effects of "The Abyss" were actually produced by Daenerys Special Effects Studio.

Moreover, whether it is "The Abyss" or "Terminator 2" in Simon's memory, the special effects expenses are actually not high.

The reason why the two projects are so expensive is mainly caused by Cameron's perfectionism and procrastination.

Last year's "The Abyss" had a shooting cycle as long as 5 months."Terminator 2" in the original time and space continued to be filmed for 6 months. Compared with the average filming cycle of Hollywood movies of about 3 months, this is the main reason for the budget out of control of the two projects.

From the standpoint of movie fans, with Cameron's box office performance, it should be as much as he spends.

However, for a film company, unless it is a master like Carlock Films who doesn't feel bad about burning other people's money, working with Cameron is definitely a torment.

After listening to Simon talking about the special effects technology of "The Abyss", Cameron regained some energy and started chatting with Simon.

Joe Rose came back after more than ten minutes, sat down and said to Simon: "1000 million dollars, Arnold's agent insisted on this much, he said that Arnold is considering taking another movie, if we don't agree, this project It can only be postponed until next year.”

Simon hesitated for a while, but didn't get too entangled, and said, "Let's officially announce the news tomorrow."

If you continue to entangle the difference of 200 million US dollars, Simon knows that Schwarzenegger will really continue to drag this project, and now the initiative is not with the production company.

Moreover, although he just expressed his dislike of "Total Recall", Simon is the one who knows the result best.Once Schwarzenegger turned around with "Total Recall" in the summer, it will be even more difficult to sign the other party.

Joe Ross also breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly nodded in agreement.

During this period, because of the box office of "Batman: Beginning of War", which was beyond everyone's expectations, Fox paid special attention to this project that Simon is optimistic about.

Now that "Terminator 2" has been confirmed, Fox's main film next year will also be settled.

After Simon finished speaking, he looked at Cameron and said, "Jim, in the next few months, hire someone to complete the complete storyboard script for the sequel. I hope you know exactly what you want after shooting starts, instead of developing and printing out the script. Hundreds of thousands of feet of useless film footage."

In the original version of "Terminator 2", Cameron developed and printed more than 100 million feet of lens film, and less than 1% was used in the end.These films actually mean a lot of money in the budget.

Simon will never allow this kind of thing to happen again 'second time'.

As long as Cameron's unrestrained spending during the filming process is strictly controlled, even if there will still be some overspending this time, it will never reach the original budget of more than 1 million US dollars.

Cameron naturally agreed.

The three continued to chat about some things. Cameron got up and left first. Joe Ross followed Simon's casual gaze and looked down the terrace, tentatively asking, "Simon, do you want to go down and chat with everyone?"

There were at least 30 people in the courtyard downstairs at this time, and although many people pretended to be chatting with each other, they were actually paying close attention to the movements on the terrace.

Simon just had a brief face-to-face meeting with everyone when he came here, and everyone downstairs was looking forward to having a few more conversations with him.

The success of "Batman: Beginning of War" and the many resources in Simon's hands have raised his status in Hollywood to a level that even he himself may not be able to fully understand.

DC movie universe projects such as "Batman: The Dark Knight", "Superman", "Wonder Woman", "The Flash" and so on will start casting in the near future.All of Hollywood is watching this.In addition, the 2 planned projects such as "Terminator 10" and "The End of the World" also mean a lot of opportunities.

Simon didn't have any interest in sex hunting tonight, but he didn't refuse Joe Rose's invitation, nodded, got up and went downstairs with him to join the crowd.

Chapter 336 Rushing to be exposed (repair)

Fox couldn't wait to hold a press conference the next day, announcing that "Terminator 2" was officially launched as one of Daenerys Entertainment's 10 film projects.

Including "Terminator 2", 10 of the 6 films that Daenerys Entertainment plans to cooperate with have been confirmed.

The global box office of "Terminator" that year was only more than 7800 million US dollars, but it made Schwarzenegger's status as a top-line action actor in Hollywood in one fell swoop, which shows the influence of this movie.Therefore, the establishment of "Terminator 2" immediately attracted strong attention from the media and movie fans.

James Cameron has already completed the script of "Terminator 2". With Daenerys Entertainment and Fox Films jointly giving the green light, the film is expected to start shooting in the middle of the year and will be released next summer.

After the weekend, the preparations for "The Fugitive" also made a breakthrough.

Harrison Ford officially joined the film, and his salary was also confirmed at $1000 million.

Successive male stars such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Harrison Ford's base salaries have exceeded [-] million, which means that the salaries of Hollywood's first-line stars have officially entered the era of tens of millions of dollars.

The salaries of filmmakers actually represent their status in Hollywood.

Without the appearance of Simon, because of the rapid expansion of the film market and the improvement of the economic situation, a lot of hot money has poured into Hollywood, and the 90s will be the era when top filmmakers have the strongest voice in Hollywood.This strength will continue until the rise of special effects films after the new century.

Now, relying on the success of "Batman: Beginning of War", Simon has actually opened up a film operation mode that is driven by IP and technology instead of relying on stars.

Of course, most people don't realize this right now.

Entering the new week, although Schwarzenegger agreed to participate in "Terminator 2", Simon still looked for the project "Kindergarten SWAT".

The "Kindergarten SWAT" in my memory can't be regarded as a dark horse project. Besides Schwarzenegger, the director of the film, Ivan Reitman, is also well-known in Hollywood. He is the director of the "Ghostbusters" series. Years ago, he also collaborated with Schwarzenegger on the rather unusual "Dragon Brothers and Mouse Brothers".

At the reception at Joe Rose's house, Schwarzenegger's agent mentioned that Arnold was considering participating in Reitman's new film "Kindergarten SWAT".

However, because most people regard the success of "Dragon Brothers and Rats" as an accident, Schwarzenegger did not have enough confidence in participating in another family-style comedy, so he finally chose "Terminator 2" .

After learning about the general situation of "Kindergarten SWAT", Simon gave up the idea of ​​competing for this project.This is not only because Reitman can only choose other actors after Schwarzenegger gave up, but the main reason is that this project has been signed by Universal.

As long as the MCA can be successfully merged this year, Simon will be able to obtain this project, and there is no need to do anything more now.

In the midst of being busy, another week passed quickly.

2月2日到2月8日这一周，《蝙蝠侠：开战时刻》以13%的跌幅再收2035万美元，累计票房达到3亿4711万美元。

However, this week, the movie that received the most media attention is still "Driving Miss Daisy".

The ninth week of its release, the second week of its large-scale opening, due to the recent continuous spread of word-of-mouth and popularity, the box office of "Driving Miss Daisy" not only did not fall back, but experienced a reverse decline, although only a weak 0.5%. But it also exceeded many people's expectations.

With a box office of $818 million in a single week, the cumulative box office of this originally inconspicuous film suddenly reached $2755 million.

With a box office of 2755 million US dollars, it seems that it cannot be compared with any movie at the top of the list.However, among all the 502 films that entered theaters in the past year, the box office performance of "Driving Miss Daisy" with 2755 million US dollars has made it rank 43rd in the box office list for the whole year last year, and the box office performance can be said to exceed 90% of last year's movies.

And, this is just the beginning.

After the box office of "Driving Miss Daisy" was released last week, various box office evaluation agencies generally predicted that the film's total North American box office is expected to exceed 6000 million US dollars.

Now, with the film's second week of massive opening nearly matching the previous week's stellar box office results, and Daenerys Entertainment's move to increase the film's screen count again this week to 1302. The North American box office potential of "Driving Miss Daisy" is obviously more than many people's boldest predictions.