Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1590 It’s time to slow down your running speed
"Batman Forever set a record at the box office for the Batman film franchise, grossing $52 million in its first weekend. It was acclaimed by fans..."

"The bumps on Val Kilmer's skintight Batman costume ensure that the film will have a sequel, but it's hard for a logical person not to wonder what the purpose of adding this difference to a man's costume is."

After returning to Los Angeles, Ronald saw the reviews of the third film in the series in the newspapers, which were mixed. Even in the film review program broadcast last week by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, the two people's comments on the film were polarized, one gave a thumbs up and the other a thumbs down.

However, this did not affect the film's top spot in the box office rankings within three days of its opening weekend. In the first three days, the total box office surpassed the commercial blockbusters "Braveheart", "The Bridges of Madison County", and "Die Hard 3".

From Ronald's perspective as a film director, there is no doubt that Mel Gibson's Braveheart is a very thoughtful film. The film stars the British actress Sophie Marceau as the princess, and Gibson himself as the hero Wallace, the hero of the Scottish War of Independence.

Although the movie is very long, it does not seem boring. The various clues are laid out very well, and the climax at the end is also in line with the taste of Americans. He shouted "freedom" before being beheaded, and later inspired the ongoing Scottish independence struggle.

From a producer's perspective, this movie is also very interesting. This movie was financed by Mel Gibson himself, and a lot of the funds came from Europe. Moreover, the male and female protagonists are from Europe and Hollywood respectively, and the theme of the story is also in line with the common preferences of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

In history, there was a director who did this. He was David Lean, who directed "Lawrence of Arabia". He was particularly good at finding subjects that would interest audiences in both places, persuading funds from both places to join, and then finding an attractive tourist spot with a unique style for filming.

Several of his films at that time, including Lawrence of Arabia, A Journey to India, The Bridge on the River Kwai, etc., were shot in this style and were once given the name Pan-Atlantic Films.

Unexpectedly, many years later, such movies were revived again. Ronald was very happy about this, which meant that Hollywood productions had captured the hearts of European audiences again. The expansion of the market brought about endless new genres and the prosperity of film creation.

Moreover, Brave Heart is not a movie like Jurassic Park that relies on special effects and dinosaurs. Instead, it is an innovation of a very classic type of epic film, a new epic film that combines moving scenes, romantic love, exciting battlefields, etc.

If Ronald were to choose, this movie would undoubtedly be much better than Batman Forever. However, the audience still prefers the local comic hero Batman...

Another movie that performed well at the box office was The Bridges of Madison County, which was directed and starred by Clint Eastwood and starred Meryl Streep. There is a saying in Hollywood that no one wants to watch a love story about middle-aged people.

However, the box office performance of The Bridges of Madison County is also very impressive. Although it is not as good as Batman and Braveheart, it has been ranked in the top five of the box office charts for a long time.

The plot of the third Die Hard movie is not satisfactory. The civilian hero temperament of John McClane in the first two movies is gone. His wife wants to divorce him, and McClane is no longer a lone hero. There is also a black detective played by Samuel L. Jackson as his partner.

The first two films took place in Los Angeles and Washington DC, so the third film naturally came to New York. This time the villain is played by Jeremy Irons, and his target is the gold bars worth 1400 billion in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The family reunion plot that was prominent in the first two films no longer appears in the story, and it becomes a very clichéd story of a lone detective defeating a criminal gang. It is disappointing that 20th Century Fox no longer understands what made Die Hard so successful.

Most importantly, this Die Hard is no longer a Christmas story, but has been transplanted to the summer, so the motivation for those old fans of the series to watch it with their families is gone.

However, what is more interesting is that although the stories and completion of the two sequels were not very high, they won over Braveheart and The Bridges of Madison County at the box office.

Ronald asked someone to find out the marketing budgets of several movies, and the two sequels were not much more than the other two. This also made Ronald more aware of the nature of the recent Hollywood market, that marketing has a greater impact on box office than the movie itself.

To achieve a major breakthrough in the North American box office market, you either need a marketing gimmick to drive audiences into the theaters, such as the big dinosaur, or shoot a sequel to attract the attention of familiar audiences.

The Bridges of Madison County was successful because the original novel ranked first on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 20 consecutive months, and there is a fixed readership of the novel. However, Brave Heart does not have too many such factors to reduce marketing costs. The story of Scottish independence is a relatively unpopular historical fragment in America and even in Britain.

Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a successful non-sequel commercial film in Hollywood.

There were two animated films on the box office charts last week. One was Universal's "Casper," which tells the story of a mischievous elf named Casper making friends with human children.

This is also the first time that Hollywood has used computer-generated characters (CGI) as the protagonists of a movie and co-starred with real people.

There have been many movies that used CGI characters before, such as the T-1000 liquid robot in Terminator and the disabled image of Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump, but it is the first time that CGI has played the leading role like Casper.

Another animated film is Disney's Pocahontas, which tells the story of cultural conflict and reconciliation between the Native American Indian princess Pocahontas and the British colonist John Smith.

This movie also made history. Disney's princess series has always been an animated film with female protagonists, and it is also the first animated film to use non-European white people as princesses. Although Princess Jasmine in Aladdin is also a non-European Arab princess, she is a supporting role, which is still a big gap from the princess movies with heroines.

Ronald felt that Disney seemed to be transforming towards diversification. The princess series is not only about box office performance, but also many derivative businesses such as dolls, which are all based on the appearance of the protagonist. Pocahontas can become a princess, which means that Disney thinks that the purchasing power of children from ethnic minorities in the future has risen to a point where they need to customize new princess images for them.

By extension, will the heroic image of male protagonists in future movies also start to lean towards ethnic minorities? Or will romantic love movies be made for different ethnic groups?
The box office of Pocahontas and the subsequent doll sales, and most importantly, whether Pocahontas scenes will be introduced in Disneyland, will be an important indicator.

Ronald wrote all this down in his notebook and would ask someone to oversee the research for reference in future Daydream Pictures production plans.

"Warner Bros. is very satisfied with Batman Forever and is preparing to hold a celebration party."

Richard came in and said to Ronald.

This sentence pulled Ronald's thoughts back from the production business. The most important thing now was to prevent Ovitz from taking over as CEO of Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. CEO Gerald Levine was under a lot of pressure. If Warner was really interested in changing its leader, then Ovitz's move would mean that Ronald and his two enemies would join forces.

This possibility was originally small, but before Batman Forever was released, there were indeed some complaints about this third film among them.

Val Kilmer's performance is not as good as Michael Keaton's in the original version. He does not have the gloomy temperament of Batman in the original comics. The whole story is not compact enough, as if a lot of plots have been added to it. There are signs of a revolving lantern, and even two main villains are arranged.

However, the box office results of the first weekend made everyone shut up. The result of 5200 million US dollars broke the record of the Batman series of movies. In front of this result, all criticisms became a kind of personal jealousy. Those shortcomings that were criticized have now become advantages. More comic characters will attract more comic fans to watch it.

"They're having a celebration party so early?" Ronald felt a little strange. Generally speaking, it seemed a little too early to open champagne on the first weekend, unless...

"Yes, there is a lot of criticism internally. I guess Gerald Levin wants to use this to calm down those who want to attack him?" Richard said.

"It won't be that simple. Go and find out what the Cinema Score of this movie is."

Soon, the Cinema Score was found, and it was A-. This score was much better than the B of the second film, and second only to the A of the first film.

However, this rating is inconsistent with the current film reviews on the market and Ronald's own impressions.

"What do you think?" Ronald asked Richard, "is this rating real?"

"Very true. As far as I know, there is no rumor that Cinema Score will change the rating for money. Besides, this is not a film review. Only people in the industry will pay attention to the rating. What motivation is there to modify it?"

"Well, you don't understand... they are still motivated." Ronald said what he thought. The change in senior management of Warner Bros. was related to this. "Is there any way to get a more objective result?"

"Can we entrust NRG to do a special sampling survey?" The NRG that Richard mentioned is Cinema Score's biggest competitor and a long-established polling company.

As a production company, it is a reasonable reason to entrust him to conduct market research on several films currently on the market.

"The result is indeed a level lower than the Cinema Score."

A day and a half later, NRG received the results of a sample survey in ten cities across the United States. They used a method similar to Cinema Score to conduct exit polls, and the final score was significantly lower than A-.

"NRG explained to us that they believed that most of the people who watched the film on the first weekend were comic book fans and fans of the previous two films, and their ratings for Batman Forever might have been systematically biased. However, the survey they conducted was in the middle of the week, which was relatively a general audience group, so it was closer to the real evaluation."

NRG's market position is not as good as Cinema Score, so it also suspected that there was something wrong with its sampling and had to explain it in detail to its employer.

"I understand...it looks like the box office will drop significantly in the second week." Ronald raised his hand to show that he understood.

It seems that Gerald Levine has made a lot of moves to consolidate his position. Ronald frowned, it seems that there may be changes within Warner Bros.

"Call Eisner's wife. I want to visit Mr. Eisner." Ronald thought about it and decided to start from another direction.

"Ha, you're here, Ronald. It's just a simple surgery. I went home on the weekend, but Jane was always nervous and asked me to rest at home."

Eisner was surprised by Ronald's visit. He was wearing pajamas and looked in good spirits.

"This is the black tea my friend brought from China. It is said to be good for cardiovascular stability. I thought you like to drink coffee, so I found a substitute with less caffeine. You can try it."

Ronald placed the tea on the table and nodded to Eisner's wife Jane.

"Okay, I'll go and try brewing some. Ronald, you're Michael's old friend, so give him some advice. This surgery involved bypassing four blood vessels, and now he can't run at full speed like before."

Jane is a typical wife of a Hollywood executive. Eisner was fine with the surgery, but she was terrified. More than half of her four blood vessels were blocked. If she hadn't had a physical examination for the acquisition of ABC, she would have developed coronary heart disease at any time...

"Jane is always too nervous, but I don't have any problem..." Eisner didn't care what he really thought, but he was also nervous about Ronald's visit. Could it be that there were some rumors about his health problems?

"I didn't see you at Sun Valley Golf Course until your company issued an announcement and I learned that you had surgery. But I was relieved when I saw you in person. You look like you can play 18 holes with me at any time."

"Hahahaha..." Eisner was originally a suspicious person. Hearing Ronald say that, he was happy, but he also felt a little suspicious about the rumors about him. He talked to Ronald and wanted to get some information about what people were saying about him.

"You have to play more basketball with us. This time when I went to Sun Valley, I met the top two on this year's rich list. They are not very good at playing basketball. If you were there, we could beat them by thousands of dollars as a team..."

Ronald dealt with him with a smile. As long as the message was passed on, the purpose of this trip would be achieved.

"Tell me, Ronald, what do you want?" Eisner went straight to the point.

"I heard that the acquisition of ABC is about to be announced? You know my DDH, we have a lot of local TV station resources. If ABC can..."

"No problem, I'll let them cooperate with you on ESPN's sports broadcasting too..." When Eisner heard this business question, he immediately regained the demeanor of a Hollywood tycoon and made the decision in one word.

After Ronald said goodbye and left, Eisner drank the black tea he brought and felt very good. Even though he had undergone surgery, someone like Ronald still wanted to discuss business with him, which showed that he respected him very much...

However, the rumors about me in the market are not good. It seems that I have to hurry up and find someone who is easy to control to keep an eye on those shareholders for me during my recovery period after the operation.

"Jane, please call Ovitz for me..."

"You should have fought long ago. Wouldn't it be better to let him help you? I think you should slow down your running speed now..."