Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1496 Betting on Next Week's Box Office

“Oh, God…”

In the penalty shootout in the World Cup final, Roberto Baggio of the Italian team kicked the ball into the stands.

The entire audience exhaled, and together, it sounded like a huge sigh. The award ceremony was about to begin, and this was another very tormenting moment for the losers.

The Hercules Trophy was placed right at the edge of the venue, so close yet so out of reach. The players of the runner-up were obviously much more disappointed than the players of the two teams in the third and fourth place finals.

"Roberto Baggio scored all of Italy's winning goals in the knockout rounds. It's really disappointing to be eliminated in the final in this way..."

Ronald, who had gone home early because there were few people at the award ceremony, turned on the TV and heard the NBC commentator commenting on the two star players from Brazil and Italy. This is a feature of America, professional teams always like to tell such heroic stories.

In fact, before Baggio missed the penalty, Baresi and Massaro had already missed theirs. Even if Baggio had scored, Brazil would still have lost if the goalkeeper had not saved the last goal.

But Americans don't care about these when watching sports games. What people remember is only the silhouette of the regretful player. Perhaps decades later, people will only remember Baggio's missed penalty in the World Cup final. After all, no one scored in 120 minutes.

The same is true for Hollywood. Everyone will only remember the number one on the box office chart this week. As for why you dropped to number two, for example, your movie audience is not that large, and it is not the kind of popcorn movie suitable for summer vacation, but in the long run, it may have a deeper impact on these audiences, and maybe they will still remember it after a few years. These will only be used as excuses for failure by Americans who like winners, and no one actually cares.

Because Ronald and Cameron's two films, "Forrest Gump" and "True Lies", were distributed by Paramount and 20th Century Fox respectively, and were released two weeks apart, making them direct box office competitors, neither of them went to each other's premieres.

Because of this, when the two of them talked on the phone, they had some competitive thoughts and were curious about who would have a higher box office that week.

After the weekend when True Lies was released, on Monday morning, the summary of the national box office figures had reached Ronald's home. Cameron's True Lies was released in 2368 theaters and earned a total of 2580, surpassing Forrest Gump and topping the list.

Seeing Ronald still frowning and reading the summary report carefully, Diane knew that Ronald must have lost. She also came over to take a look and found a problem. The box office performance of "True Lies" this weekend was created by 2368 theaters.

The total box office of "Forrest Gump" in its second weekend was 2410 million, which was achieved by only 2014 theaters. If we look at the average box office contribution of each single theater, "Forrest Gump" is still ahead of "True Lies" with a score of nearly 12000 US dollars, which is 10900 US dollars.

"Don't be sad, dear. In fact, your movie performed better than Jim's."

"Huh?" Ronald looked up. "Not really. My Forrest Gump is PG-13, and True Lies is rated R. I actually got a little advantage. Anyway, I'm already very satisfied that the second weekend's box office can match Jim's first weekend performance."

Ronald didn't lie. The biggest difference between Forrest Gump and other box office hits in the summer is that its box office decline was very small.

The second week, Ronald had finally finished making all the copies of the two small details that he had temporarily decided to modify two weeks before the release, and had sent them to the planned theaters the previous week.

Therefore, the number of theaters and copies released in the second week increased significantly compared to the first week. With this support, the box office of Forrest Gump in the second week was almost the same as that in the first week. Under the same conditions, the box office drop of Forrest Gump was also very small, only a dozen percent. Compared with the average summer movie, the performance of a 30% drop every other week is completely different from that of movies released in the same period.

In other words, Forrest Gump is continuing to penetrate the audience group that it is supposed to attract, allowing more viewers who usually do not watch movies to go to the cinema for this movie.

This makes Ronald very optimistic about the subsequent box office performance of Forrest Gump. After all, action blockbusters like True Lies consume the mainstream audience and cannot continuously attract new audiences into the market. It is also difficult to see some audiences who do not usually watch movies go to see True Lies.

"No matter what, you will always be the best in my eyes, Ronnie." Diane didn't care and gave Ronald a big kiss.

"Hehehe... I love you, honey." Ronald was very happy to enjoy his wife's unconditional love. It was a very comfortable feeling to have someone blindly adore you.

In fact, Ronald was mainly focused on the details of the box office. He was so absorbed in it that he did not feel uncomfortable at all, as Diane thought, because his box office was surpassed by his good friend.

The Cinema Score for True Lies was released at the same time. This score was one level lower than that of Forrest Gump, and it received an A.

Although in general, the box office multiplier represented by A and the box office multiplier represented by A+ are not much different. However, when other conditions are basically the same, Ronald got better audience feedback than Cameron, which made him feel very happy.

In "True Lies", there are fighter jets hovering in the air and firing, people climbing out of the car and hanging on the helicopter cable at the critical moment when the bridge is blown up, and people riding horses into the elevator to the top of the building to fight the bad guys. The action scenes are three times more exciting than those in other action movies.

In addition, there were Schwarzenegger's two erotic tango dances, Jamie Lee Curtis' pole dancing and other ice cream for the audience, but none of them could be as touching as the cry of "Jenny" from Tom Hanks, who played Forrest Gump.

It is not only this kind of direct sensory stimulation that is the successful formula for the summer box office. Ronald proved that the traditional way of telling a good story is still a successful way to make audiences and critics applaud at the same time.

Because True Lies had the temperament of a summer action blockbuster, while it was well received by the audience, Cameron was also criticized by film critics.

Kenneth Turan, a film critic for the Los Angeles Times, was dissatisfied with the portrayal of a certain ethnic group in Cameron's film. In California, where the progressive left is dominant, in Los Angeles, one of the most progressive cities in California, and in Hollywood, the most progressive place in Los Angeles, Turan was very angry and directly criticized it in his film review.

“Taken individually, the film’s crude and juvenile elements—like its insistence on portraying unshaved Arabs as terrorists and the pleasure it takes in continually humiliating a crooked used-car salesman (Bill Paxton) on the most personal level—might pass unnoticed, but taken together they leave an unpleasant impression.”

Another Los Angeles film critic, John Simon, criticized the plot in which the hero (Schwarzenegger) uses the resources of his intelligence agency to stalk and intimidate his wife, calling it cruel and misogynistic.

In the liberal atmosphere of Los Angeles, the biggest protest Cameron encountered was some not-so-kind words from film critics. But on the East Coast in New York and Washington, D.C., it was much more serious.

About 60 protesters marched outside New York's Centre Theatre, holding signs that read "Goodbye Tolerance" and "Stop Portraying Arab Americans as Terrorists" and handing out leaflets.

The smaller protests were organized by the Washington Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that held "peaceful protests" against the true lies at multiple locations over the weekend, said Ibrahim Hupel, a spokesman for the group.

Hooper also gave an interview to the TV station, in which he pointed out that the villain that Schwarzenegger's character faces is a fictional Arab terrorist organization "Red X-War" who threatens America with nuclear missiles.

This is an unwarranted accusation and an insinuation of the behavior of a particular ethnic group. Although they added a line of subtitles at the end of the film, "This film is a work of fiction and does not represent the behavior or beliefs of any particular culture or religion," it does not work.

Hupel said he had been waiting to see if there would be such a disclaimer at the end of the subtitles. In the end, only he, his three companions, and a cleaner saw this line of subtitles. The rest of the audience had already left early.

The film's distributor, 20th Century Fox, said, "We don't label our villains as Arabs," but Americans are used to seeing cues that trigger their reactions:
For example, the Arab headscarves worn by the villains. And there is no motive given for these terrorist acts, which is also a stereotype of Arabs - full of irrational hatred of the United States."

And Hooper is unhappy with Cameron's balancing act on identity politics, though a colleague working with Schwarzenegger explains the effort to achieve that balance by having an Arab-looking actor (Agent Faisal, whose ethnicity is never clearly identified in the film).

Hooper complained that "the character of Agent Feisel is like an Arab Stepin Fetchit."

Hooper was very dissatisfied with Cameron's handling of the matter. He said, "You will notice that the way Agent Faisal proves himself is by killing other Arabs."

The reporter also asked Hupper in return whether he thought there could be no Arab villains in Hollywood movies?
Hoopel, visibly annoyed by the question, responded that he and the group had no problem with depicting Arabs as villains, as long as the ethnic group was also portrayed positively.

The reporter was obviously hoping to make some news, and he asked in return, "Cinema Score's audience ratings gave Cameron's new film an A. So, isn't the dissatisfaction with the villain being an Arab also a form of oversensitivity?"
Hooper replied angrily, "What A? I only saw that it was a B-movie with only bombers, billionaires, and belly dancers."

Then he angrily ended the interview...

Ronald thought for a long time and realized that this person mistook the vertical take-off and landing fighter jet driven by Schwarzenegger for a bomber and mistook the pole dance performed by Jamie Lee Curtis for belly dance. As for the billionaire, he couldn't figure out where this person had made a mistake. Could it be that he was the terrorist disguised as a wealthy man auctioning cultural relics?
It seems that this Hupper doesn't know much about America. Although he has the title, he speaks more like a person from the Middle East rather than someone who lives and works in America.

However, Ronald still found the title of triple B-movie director mentioned by this person very funny, so he called Cameron.

"Jim, did you hear about your new nickname? Hahaha."

"What nickname? Are you talking about 'Ronald's box office beater'? Hahaha."

The two old friends joked about this, and Ronald told Cameron about the so-called triple B-movie director.

"Hahaha, I don't feel offended, but rather a compliment." Cameron and Ronald both graduated from Roger Corman Film University. They say their films are made like B-movies. That means they use the budget and stars of big-budget A-movies, and are meticulously crafted, but in terms of attracting audiences, they are as good as the old B-exploitation films.

This practice of using the budget and stars of A-level films to make B-level films has indeed been a trend in Hollywood's box office successes over the past decade.

"Hahaha, Jim. You're right..." Ronald and Cameron laughed and joked for a while. Ronald still expressed his concern about this trend. "Don't you think people are too sensitive nowadays? No matter what ethnicity a villain is, they will bring it up and regard it as an insult to their group."

"Aren't you one too? I saw that you handled some of the scenes with the black comrade Bob very carefully in Forrest Gump. And I heard that you seemed to have deleted some of them before the release..."

"Hey, wasn't I worried about OJ Simpson?" Ronald recounted his difficulties and explained why he had to delete all the scenes involving human rights leader Martin Luther King.

"OJ, what a terrible actor, did you see that performance in court? I never really liked him."

The two directors complained about OJ Simpson's exaggerated and poor acting skills. But they also had to admit that with the sharp increase in the box office of Hollywood movies in North America and the conquest of the film market in other parts of the world, there are more and more sensitive things that directors need to pay attention to.

No matter who you portray as a villain or who you portray as a positive hero, you are likely to offend an audience somewhere in the world.

Are we only going to be able to film scenes of defeating aliens? Anyway, there are no alien audiences in the cinemas of this world who will protest. And who will be the good guy may become a very troublesome problem. We may need to find some very politically correct people to be the hero.

"Hey, anyway, you can't say that you beat me at the box office..." Ronald finally said to Cameron that this was his second week of box office and he didn't actually lose to him.

"Numbers are numbers, everything else is explanation..." Cameron also joked. The two old friends are directors who value box office, and they cannot give in on this matter.

"We have to keep looking forward. The number of theaters showing my film will only be equal to yours this week..." Ronald refused to admit defeat.

"You mean, you can beat me in the third week? Wanna bet?" Cameron laughed. With each passing week, the box office would drop faster. Ronald was making a far-fetched argument.

"What do you want to bet on?" Ronald really felt that he could make a comeback with Forrest Gump next week.

(End of this chapter)