Chapter 34: Followup Box Office
The time came to the second week after after the release of "Legally Blonde". This week "Jurassic Park 3" produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Joe Johnston officially landed in theaters of North America. At the same time, romantic comedy "America's sweetheart " starring Julia Roberts was also released in the theaters. This is Julia's first movie after becoming the Oscar queen.
One is a classical blockbuster with both strength and support, and the other is a romantic comedy with usual American style starting the Oscar queen.
On July 23, "Jurassic Park" which had been released for five days, made 30 million $ at the box office. Although not directed by Spielberg, this much box office is enough to be called a box office success. It has become a cash cow for Universal Pictures now.
On the other hand, after the success of "Runaway Bride" and "Pretty woman".
Julia Roberts who once again stared in a romantic comedy after becoming an Oscar queen, also made a big splash at Box office. "America's sweetheart" made 40 million $ in the first week of release. This shows the terrifying appeal of Oscar queen.
Under the effect of these two, Box office of "Legally Blonde" was naturally affected. Especially the main audience of the movie are young women in their 20's. They are also keen on watching another Romantic Comedy, "America's Sweetheart".
MGM and creaters are concerned about this. The decline in box office of "Legally Blonde" is inevitable, but the extent to which the decline occur is the main issue. In many cases, movies do very good at the first week, but they decline greatly just after in the second week. This often determines the life and death of a movie. But when the second week box office of "Legally Blonde" came out, everyone couldn't help dropping their jaws.
18 million $, a drop of only 10 percent. Following the attack of "Jurassic Park" and "America's sweetheart", "Legally Blonde" achieved excellent results.
This is a summer vacation with powerful enemies on lookout.
In summer season, box office miracles and box office nightmares are often staged at the same time. A movie which has achieved good box results in the first week may even experience a sharp drop in the following week, even a 40 percent decrease. That's why, the results of "Legally Blonde" are commendable. In just two weeks of its release, "Legally Blonde" has reached a massive box office of 43 million $,which is more than double of the movie's budget.
This number is still growing, people are now predicting how far this number can reach.
Regardless, box office of "Legally blonde" was good enough, enough to achieve a place in the box office chart of the year 2001.
The success of the movie has huge influence on Amy Collins, the heroine of the movie. Amy who was a total newcomer just few months ago, has risen from the status of a newcomer to the line of second tire stars. It has become a name tabloids are now constantly searching and looking to report. Amy's influence among the younger generation is the most. Women are going to theaters to watch the movie solely based on a women representing women's empowerment. Men are going to theaters to see America's new sweetheart.
In the words of "Entertainment weekly", critic Nick Trusk says that "Legally blonde" is a movie that teaches women to be independent. It is a perfect postive movie with a hidden feminist theme. Although what happened to the heroine in the movie is ridiculous, but overall view of the movie is bright and positive.
At the same time, Amy Collins came in the eyes of CAA. Although Amy has always been the artist of caa, but she hasn't recieved any resources from CAA yet. The movies she previously did, one of which she was the investor and the other, she received it with the help of Marc Platt. The resources of brokerage companies always belong to the well known stars and new comers mostly have to rely on themselves at the beginning. This is the same everywhere in Hollywood. Now CAA has also seen the most promising newcomer of the year and it also belongs to their company, but Amy has not recieved any resources from them yet. They are also in urgency, if they don't do anything, then Amy may be poached by another agency tomorrow.
Richard's status in CAA has also risen a lot. Everyone couldn't help but pay attention to the agent who single handedly bought the new star. After all, it is not easy even for the top agents to promote successful new stars. They also poach little famous artists from other agents and use series of plans to make them reach the top.
Richard said to Amy: "Amy you are going to be busy now for a long time. I participated in the senior agent meeting and guess how many big scripts I received? I received ten scripts and all of them are from the major studio. MGM alone sent three scripts. There are even Columbia, Paramount, Universal.."
Richard was really excited. Although he had some scripts before, they were not from big studios. Even the recent "A walk to remember" is just a small venture between a small studio and Warner Bros. The latter is only responsible for the distribution.
"Has the contract with studio of "A walk to remember" signed yet?" asked Amy.
"Yes, it is. They cannot give the 3 million $ salary. So they are ready to pay 10 percent of the box office shares with 500 k initial salary." Richard replied. Amy passed the audition for the move but the studio was delaying the contract to reduce the salary. But after the release of "Legally Blonde", it is the studio who is desperate now. Amy's salary has risen, so they compromised to pay 10 percent of the box office shares.
Amy smiled hearing Richard's reply. She has always wanted the box office shares in "A walk to remember". For this, she can even reduce her salary to minimal.
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P.S. Recommend some movies for the year 2002 and 2003 for the heroine.
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