1novels Chapter 279 The Cheating Movie at the End of the Year
Chapter 279 The Cheating Movie at the End of the Year
In the Sherman Entertainment Group, Europa Films and Media Asia Films have the most special status, because they are responsible for transporting European and Asian films to the North American market.Especially Europa Film Company, they are mainly responsible for non-English films produced in Europe, and this company cooperates with Luc Besson, so this film company will also release related films of Luc Besson.
And this time Europa Films brought "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" to the North American market to seek distribution cooperation. Originally, Jed knew how much money the film was losing in the North American market, and wanted to persuade Luc Besson to come Just go to Europe and Asia.But Luc Besson has a dream of conquering Hollywood, especially with pure French movies.It's a pity that Jed is not a philanthropist, and he doesn't have a conscience to save French movies. Therefore, seeing that Luc Besson is so stubborn, he directly signed a gambling agreement.
According to the agreement, if the film does not meet the expected box office, Luc Besson will personally pay for the promotion and distribution costs.On the contrary, Luc Besson was very confident and directly signed the gambling agreement with Jed.Although if Jed wins, he will get Luc Besson's director contract for the next ten years.But Jed still hopes that Luc Besson will not be too foolish, after all, if he loses, it will be a dollar bill.And as the Sherman Entertainment Group gradually got on the right track, Jade and Shannette also started discussing how to promote the company's plan to go public.
"Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" is Luc Besson's seven-year film work. It can be said that Luc Besson has raised this movie as his own son.Luc Besson proposed the outline of the script seven years ago, but it was not until five years ago that filming began.Since CG films are very costly, Luc Besson paid for the production of the film for the first two years.It wasn't until three years ago that Luc Besson approached Jed with the outline of the story and the samples produced, that Jed agreed to invest in the production of the entire film.
However, the final product is indeed very beautiful, with exquisite pictures and moving plots, but the whole story is "French", and it is simply unacceptable in the North American market.The largest market for French films is Europe, followed by Asia.Because the countries in East Asia have more or less a little fresh literary and artistic temperament, French movies can be very popular here.But if you come to North America, a place with an extremely strong commercial atmosphere, Jed can only say that this movie is a bargain.
But now that the gambling agreement was signed, Jed ordered Pixar Studio to refine the whole movie, and at the same time invited famous Hollywood movie stars to dub the movie.After the generous production costs were dropped, the film budget also soared from the original 650 million US dollars to 860 million US dollars, and the increased money was mainly used for dubbing remuneration and publicity expenses.
According to the agreement between Sherman Entertainment Group and major theater companies, "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" will be available in the North American market on the penultimate day of 2006.Because of the great name of Sherman Entertainment Group and the popularity of Luc Besson himself, the major cinema companies gave the results of the first week's film schedule according to the treatment of first-line Hollywood blockbusters. "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" won more than 2000 canvases in the first week of the North American market, which can be regarded as the highest courtesy of a French film in North America.But what Jed didn't expect was that even though he invited big stars to help out and arranged a lot of publicity, "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" was still more than worth his life.
In the box office of the first weekend, "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" actually only won a box office of 429 million US dollars, and the average box office was only 1900 US dollars.Such an average score is usually achieved by ordinary Hollywood movies that are released for more than five weeks, but "Arthur and His Mini Kingdom" is actually like this in the first week.Without the analysis of professional magazines such as "Box Office" and "Influence", "Hollywood Reporter", "Variety Show" and "Vanity Fair" have already reported with certainty that "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" is a hit.
Such dishonest results made the major theater companies suffer, because the release contract was signed for three weeks, and it was also because of the good reputation of Sherman Entertainment Group that the theater companies gave it a go.But what they didn't expect was that they actually signed a cheat.Not only does it not make money, but it is also impossible to paint.But theater companies have a lot of ways. Although I can't download pictures, I can arrange you in garbage time and garbage screening halls.With the theater company's "non-violent non-cooperation" attitude, "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" even got a box office of only 300 million US dollars.
"Mr. Sherman, you are right." Luc Besson was already annoyed at this time.Because of the failure of the gambling agreement, not only will he be able to make films for companies under the Sherman Entertainment Group in the next ten years, but he will also lose his shares in Europa Films and the copyright of "Arthur and His Mini Kingdom". "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom belongs to you, but I hope you treat her well. Even if she has no sequel, she is still my most cherished little daughter."
"Who said I didn't plan to make a sequel?" Jed chuckled.
Although "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" failed disastrously at the box office in North America, it performed well in overseas markets, and Meribo estimated that it could basically recover its cost.And more importantly, Jed pays more attention to the adaptation rights of "Arthur and His Mini Kingdom".After acquiring Namco and Glory, Jade established Blizzard Tokyo Studio in Japan, intending to publish various anime-style adventure games based in Japan.
And "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" is simply the best copyright work, and Jed has already handed over the film to the professional planning of Blizzard Tokyo Studio for evaluation.Jade not only wants to develop TVGAME for each platform, but also transplants it to the PC platform, even online games, page games and so on.Moreover, Redstone's Nickelton Company also took a fancy to this animated film, hoping to make it into an animated film and launch it in the Asian market.
If you count the peripheral development and so on, "Arthur and his miniature kingdom" is simply a small cornucopia.With all that money, Jade is sure to make a sequel to inspire generations of kids to love the cartoon.But Jed didn't dare to hand over the sequel to Luc Besson for production. Jed planned to hand over the sequel to Pixar Studios to complete.
When Luc Besson heard that there were plans for a sequel, he again had the cheek to recommend himself.Jed couldn't help mocking: "Didn't Mr. Luc Besson say that he would only make ten movies in his life? How do I remember that "Arthur and His Miniature Kingdom" is your tenth movie? If you continue to make a sequel If so, didn’t you break your promise and get fat?”
Although Luc Besson blushed, he still tried his best to argue.Fortunately, Jed is unwilling to delve into it. After all, Luc Besson will still produce well-received films like "Adela's Extraordinary Adventure" and "Aung San Suu Kyi" in the future. Jed has not many directors who can win awards. , so I don't want to offend him too much.So he said, "I heard you're still planning an adventure movie, so you can't direct the sequel to Arthur and His Mini-Kingdom, but you can be the executive producer."
Hearing Jed talk about his "Adela's Extraordinary Adventures", he also knew that it was really difficult for him to shoot two films at the same time, so he agreed to be the producer.Then the next time is to brag about how good "Adela's Adventure Travels" is, and hope that Jed can support himself with more funds.But Jed knew that this movie was another typical French movie, and it couldn't be released in the North American market at all.So Jed naturally declined, and just expressed his willingness to try his best to help with the release.
After sending Luc Besson away, Jade was entangled by Quentin again.Quentin Tarantino is a typical favorite of film critics. Almost every film can win many trophies from the Film Critics Association, and he also has his own diehard fans all over the world.But if it comes to box office performance, then Quentin is simply a nerd player.
Quentin can not only shoot "Pulp Fiction", which has a double harvest of box office trophies, but also "Django Unchained" and "Inglourious Basterds", which are box office hits. "Dead Bill" is a movie that is not well-received.For example, "Grindhouse" and "Death Evidence" that he brought to Jade today are typical works that failed badly at the box office but were licked by film critics.
The investment in "Grinding Chamber" is about 6700 million U.S. dollars, but the North American box office is only 2500 million U.S. dollars, and the overseas market has almost no income.As for "Death Proof", it was even more tragic. Although Quentin did not apply for a budget from the company, Jed knew that this movie almost emptied most of his deposits.
Jed has already seen the rough cut version of Quentin, a lot of plasma and various killing scenes made Jed almost collapse.Jed almost forgot that Quentin is a typical director with a heavy taste, and he has a special love for Japanese plasma films.Although the film was rated R by the MPAA in the end, it did not prompt Quentin to revise it again. After all, Quentin is one of the few directors in the Sherman Entertainment Group who has the final editing rights, and Jed also let it go. , so the release of this movie has become the biggest headache for Meribo.
The films released every year are actually negotiated after the previous year or even earlier. The theater company will arrange the films according to the script, trailer and other materials, and the two films of Quentin are very sad. "Grindhouse" is okay, at least some art theaters and B-movie theaters are still willing to show it.But "Death Evidence" was completely rejected by all theaters, and even some cult movie theaters said that the scale of this work was too large.Meribo has already suggested that the film should simply go the DVD route and not release it at all.It is estimated that Quentin was stimulated by the fact that it was not released, and this time I came to Jade to have a look.
But after Jed analyzed the situation, Quentin had no choice but to accept Meribo's opinion.Fortunately, Jed also gave a backup plan. Although the film cannot be finally released, Jed will arrange for Quentin to take this "Death Proof" to some independent film festivals around the world to try his luck.Quentin was happy to make friends with his friends, so he was satisfied with the disguised travel arranged by the company.
Although after solving the two great gods of Luc Besson and Quentin Tarantino, he did not expect that the 2007 Open Door movie caught Jed a little off guard.This is one of several second-line hero movies under the Marvel superhero project. After the release of "Soul Chariot", which cost up to 1100 million US dollars, it was not satisfactory in terms of box office or word of mouth.Many analysts believe that the so-called Sherman myth has ended, so they are not optimistic about Sherman Entertainment Group's return to the stock market.The Kaimen black incident not only affected the group's future development plan, but also vaguely caused some turmoil within the group.