Chapter 86: Box Office
The word of mouth of a movie sometimes seems to have little effect. Indeed, people such as Spielberg and Michael Bay say harsh words, claiming that their films are not made for critics, and they don't care about word of mouth at all. But the blockbuster movies they shoot don't care about reviews because the investment is large enough. They have a good box office, no matter what. But for other movies, word-of-mouth is often closely related to the box office, and movies with good word-of-mouth can be popular for a long time and continue to maintain a high box office. In contrast, movies with poor reputations are likely to plummet in the second week.
Levi has seen a literary film that has kept its box office unchanged for ten consecutive weeks. Relying on its excellent reputation, it has sold a total box office of nearly 300 million. And he has also seen movies whose box office plummeted, such as the 2014 version of Godzilla, which had a very good box office in its first week of release, which made Warner immediately excitedly announce that it would make a sequel. But the film fell by 61% in the second week due to too few special effects scenes and excessive production.
The Lives of Others is a political film, and such a film must have a smaller audience than an action film. But such movies often have better stamina than action movies. People watch action movies as a novelty. Once the freshness wears off, there is nothing to watch, but political movies are not the case. The level of the shooting of such movies is very different, which also makes some audiences not eager to watch the premiere, but hope to wait until after reading the reviews-this also makes movies with good reviews often have a long time to work.
Levi's movie always received good reviews after it was released. Such reviews may not have much impact on some viewers, but it is very important to some people who are used to seeing good reviews before going to the cinema.
For general literary movies, if the evaluation is good enough, it is very common for them to rise a little by the second week, but even so, the rise has more than doubled all of a sudden, which is impressive. After 12 million, it reached 26 million in the second week, which is still a bit staggering. Alexander's astonishment was just like that—he never expected that movie reviews would have such a significant effect.
Levi just smiled at this.
"We are making literary films, not commercial films. The better word of mouth, the more people will watch the film. This is normal."
"Who would have thought that it would have risen so much? The box office is now close to 40 million. Even if it starts to decline next week, we will definitely make some money when the movie is released." Alexander was doing a brief calculation and then ruthlessly sighed fiercely, "This is really unexpected - if we had known that media reviews were so effective, we should have paid more for media reviews, and maybe we would have earned more." This conclusion immediately made Levi feel
helpless. Just after getting higher box office due to better word-of-mouth, he immediately slipped to want to buy media to create false propaganda-Alexander is really qualified as a businessman.
"Movies don't lose money, so don't ask too much." Levi couldn't help but persuade Alexander's enthusiasm, "If you want to make money, you should start with TV dramas. The income there is stable. Don't worry about the income within ten years, as long as the level can be maintained."
It is not difficult for a film to have a high box office as a commercial film, and it is not difficult to have a high evaluation as a literary film. With a not-so-low box office, this is very difficult. Levi is not that greedy. He wants to make a film like The Lives of Others. To have hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, he can only hope that this film can have a similar income. There is no shortage of money, and Levi also knows that the box office itself will, no matter how you fight, you can't compete with those blockbuster movies.
In terms of making money, "Men in Black" and "Jurassic Park 3," broadcast in the summer of 1997, are both big money-making productions. Any of them can bring considerable returns to investment companies. The investment in these films, strength, star influence, and film shooting technology are all unmatched by ordinary movies. Movies are a mass consumer industry. There are always more people who like to watch lively, curious, and unseen things than those who want to think seriously. It is inevitable that realistic themes will never be able to compete with romantic ones at the box office.
Realistic movies will be admired, but it is difficult to make too much money. This Levi has long been mentally prepared.
It's just that Levi doesn't expect the movie to make much money, but someone has a different idea from Levi. After the box office figures for the second week of The Lives of Others came out, the media was now highly interested in the film's box office figures.
"This is a film with an excellent reputation and box office, and it is a rare good film-a film that has reached the best in both storytelling and artistry is rare." Made such a comment.
They have some reasons for saying this: the box office of the movie The Lives of Others may not be as good as those blockbusters, but the box office of 40 million will at least guarantee that the movie will not lose money. It is extremely rare to see a literary film that does not lose money—whether it is The Shawshank Redemption or L.A. Confidential. Is there any film that does not lose money in these years?
Don't be too demanding on literary films; it will be difficult not to lose money.
The movie "The Lives of Others" can be said to be a movie with a political theme. In order to pursue truth and word-of-mouth, a film with such a theme cannot be freely played during filming and earn a high box office. And this movie was able to break this vicious circle and had quite good box office revenue, which amazed the media.
"The extremely special narrative structure, the ever-changing contradictions and suspense from the beginning to the end, and the obvious transformation of the characters are all displayed under the almost perfect interpretation of the camera and actors. A plain narrative can also have a very good story. The Lives of Others tells us art movies do not necessarily have to lose money; if the way the story is shot is clever enough, the movie can also have a good box office. It is definitely not difficult for this movie to have a box office of over 100 million!"
The North American box office has continued to rise in the past two years. Last year, there were 15 movies with a box office of over 100 million in the United States. People's estimates for the box office of movies are also quite optimistic. With a two-week box office figure of more than 40 million as a base, achieving a total box office of more than 100 million may not be difficult.
Such estimates make the media even more optimistic: it is not easy to shoot a movie with extremely profound ideological content, and the literary and artistic films that are shot can still sell a lot of box office. Such a director is simply so rare.
"Maybe Hollywood has a new Oliver Stone."
At this moment, Levi, the director of the film, can begin to be known to people. On the one hand, people are amazed at the youngness of this director: it is very difficult to make such a profound movie when he is in his 20s. On the other hand, people are also amazed that his talent is indeed amazing.
In the media comments, Levi already has a position: he graduated from NYU and shot a political film that is of a very good standard, similar to Oliver Stone.
Yes, the current Levi has not yet reached the height of Oliver Stone, but he can write scripts, has excellent shooting skills, and his thinking is deep enough. At least, he has this potential.
The film industry is a lucrative industry, and there are many directors who can make money; the film is an art, and there are many people who make films into works of art. But there are not many people who have both.
At this time, people are also rumoring about what the next movie Levi will be directing will be. For a while, various rumors were rampant. Some speculated that Levi would film Hoover, while others believed that Kennedy was a subject he was always passionate about.
"No matter what kind of movie Levi chooses, there will always be people who are willing to pay for him. There are too few film directors who have a good reputation with excellent reviews and can not lose money at the box office, and director Levi is only 26 now. At the age of 20s, he has already shot a work with such an amazing depth of thought. What will his future works look like? It is very worth looking forward to." After the film's box office was promising, there were many more praises for Levi in the media. In the beginning, people just thought that he was an ambitious and thoughtful director, but now people think that he is very likely to be a great director with great potential in the future.
This kind of flattery did not end until the box office results of the third week came out: in the third week, the box office of The Lives of Others only reached 54 million—compared to the box office of the first week, it seems to be quite a lot, but compared to the second week, it directly dropped by one-third. Such a decline made many media lose their voices.
There is only one reason for such a sharp decline in the box office.
"Titanic proved to the whole world that this movie is worthy of its investment!"
On December 19, Titanic was finally released. The film seized the market with a destructive momentum, and The Lives of Others was affected by it. The box office of other movies released at the same time all dropped.
In just three days, the box office of Titanic reached 40 million—from the third week of The Lives of Others' release, the biggest competitor came suddenly.
*****
Thanks and kudos for my patreons Cherif Doghri, Abdishakur Hasan, Adam LV, Danny York, haze2343, Scott DePaepe, Dario Cameruccio, MMMCMXCIX, or 3,999, and The Main Man.
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