Hollywood Road

In the new week, as Murphy's crew promoted in major cities in North America, the film continued to be shown in major theaters, and due to the relatively good box office performance in the first weekend, the number of theaters in North America also increased to nearly 2500. For the first-rate film, this is almost reaching the limit of the number of theaters.

As the weekend passes and the working day approaches, the single-day box office of any film begins to shrink, and "Planet of Horror" is no exception.

On Monday, the film’s single-day box office fell directly from the $5 million level last weekend to about one million U.S. dollars, and earned 1.35 million U.S. dollars on the same day; Tuesday was a traditional theater discount day in North America, and revenue rebounded slightly, with a daily report of 1.46 million dollars; It fell again on Wednesday, gaining US$1.14 million; on Thursday, the box office fell below the US$1 million mark and gained US$950,000.

In the four working days of the second week of the North American release of "Planet of Horror", another US$4.6 million was collected, plus the US$15.7 million already received, and the North American box office exceeded the US$20 million mark in one fell swoop, reaching US$20.3 million.

This is close to three times the production cost line. Even if the income from overseas copyrights during the Cannes Film Festival is not included, this film with a production cost of $8 million can be said to be a success.

It's just that its success is not as amazing as "Chain Saw", but throughout the entire North American film history, how many "Chain Saw"-like movies?

The revenue exceeding expectations has also increased Miramax’s investment in promotion and marketing. Promotional materials for "Planet of Horror" continue to appear on TV stations late at night, and the film can also be seen on websites where Internet fans often gather. Silhouette.

This kind of publicity investment can attract many audiences to enter the theater, especially non-B film fans, but the increase in the audience of these passersby has also caused the audience's reputation of the film to continue to decline.

On IMDB, the score has dropped below 8 points. Although there is still 7.9 points, the proportion of negative reviews in the comment column is obviously increasing.

The polarization of the audience's reputation is an unavoidable problem for "Planet of Horror". Although Murphy also expected this, and with the support of B-level film fans, the film also got good box office results, but just like all audiences With a limited range of noir style films, when the next weekend comes, the box office will inevitably have a dive.

And the magnitude of diving tends to surpass those mainstream commercial masterpieces that have a strong reputation.

In the three days of the next weekend, "Planet of Horror" continued to be shown in close to 2500 theaters, but the film's schedule rate dropped significantly, coupled with the declining attendance rate, when this weekend passed, the latest North American box office statistics were released At that time, the box office of "Planet of Horror" dropped by as much as 58% compared with last weekend, and it also fell out of the top five in the box office rankings, with a total of 6.6 million US dollars in three days.

It was released in North America for ten days, and the box office totaled US$26.9 million, which is close to the US$30 million expected by Miramax.

However, this is an extremely competitive summer vacation. The box office of "Planet of Horror" plummeted the next weekend, which also means that the film cannot continue to be screened at the scale of 2000+ theaters. After the new week begins, the number of theaters seems to be large. The box office that dropped has shrunk sharply, falling to more than 1,600.

And from the end of June to the beginning of July, new films were released continuously, including famous works such as "The Bourne: The Identity of Byrne".

In addition, after adding a certain amount of publicity and marketing investment, Miramax also began to reduce its support for "Terror Planet". After all, this weekend, "New York Gangs" was jointly produced and released by Miramax and Touchstone Pictures. It's about to be released.

No matter how it compares, Murphy, James Franco, Jessica Chastain and Robert Downey Jr. can’t compete with Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel. Day-Lewis combination ratio.

Movies are an industry that relies heavily on publicity and marketing. After a film with a mixed reputation like "Planet of Horror" loses strong publicity support, it is impossible to maintain its box office at a certain height.

In the four working days of the third week of the release of "Planet of Horror", the single-day box office fell below 500,000 U.S. dollars, and only 1.7 million U.S. dollars in four days, struggling toward the 30 million U.S. dollar mark.

Fortunately, the performance of the weekend has picked up. In the third weekend of the release, the box office of "Planet of Horror" fell by more than 60%. However, the box office of 2.75 million US dollars finally pushed the total box office of North America past 30 million US dollars. turn off.

In the following fourth week, the number of movie theaters dropped to more than 1,150, earning $1.95 million seven days a week.

The market potential of this film was basically exhausted in the four weekends it was released. However, the film can still produce a certain box office number and can continue to be shown in theaters without being swept out of the theaters immediately.

Murphy and others also ended their North American publicity trip and returned to Los Angeles.

After returning, Murphy first went to the Fox Searchlight and met with the main members of the newly established "Chain Saw 2" crew. He also had a special talk with James Win, facing his victim, he The mentality is fairly stable, and some things are done as they are done, and regrets and guilt are not helpful.

If you change to someone else, Murphy will not bother to pay attention, but the other party is a Chinese after all, which is one of the reasons why he strongly recommends Fox Searchlight.

Just like himself, any director is the most difficult at the beginning. Although I don’t know how James Wynn moved Lionsgate, he didn’t want to throw out a script. Lionsgate’s management just He rushed forward like a remnant, crying crying and begging him to shoot.

There must be some hardships that are not well understood.

As long as there is the first step to success, the road behind will be much smoother. James Wynn’s "Chain Saw 2" has a high chance of success, so he will not worry about not investing in the future, and Murphy will not. Ready to continue to get involved in horror movies, if all goes well, James-Wen will still be the master of Hollywood horror movies.

After exchanging some ideas with James Wynn, Murphy felt much more relieved about the project, and returned to the beginning to deal with some matters left by the Stanton Studio and himself.

He and Paul Wilson organized the underground storage room of the Stanton Studio, sold the camera and vehicle-mounted police receiver they had left behind, and also sold some old unusable tables, chairs and equipment in the studio. Sold to a waste recycling station and replaced it with a new one.

The current Stanton Studio is not a small company that was on the verge of bankruptcy before. Murphy also needs some new equipment to improve work efficiency.

Then there is an appropriate increase in the treatment of Paul Wilson, Rosa Rodriguez and the financial officer.

In addition, Murphy also renewed an agency contract with lawyer Robert. Whether it was the initial stage of initial capital accumulation or the subsequent release of Ross on bail, Robert showed sufficient ability, and Murphy did not want to rush into an unfamiliar one. lawyer.

Accountant David will also renew the contract, and he will fully assist Murphy and Stanton Studios in tax matters.

North America’s tax system is complex and is definitely a country of ten thousand taxes. There are still many differences in the tax laws of various states, and there are also messy policies such as investment tax deductions. It is necessary to have an excellent accountant.

However, Murphy will not be missing one of the necessary supervision measures, and there are many examples of Hollywood being deceived by accountants or managers.

In addition, Murphy temporarily moved out of the rented house, let people sort it out briefly, and signed a lease contract with the real estate agent for another year, ready to start a new work and life.

These were completed in a few weeks. In mid-August, ten weeks after "Horror Planet" was released in North America, it finally withdrew from the theater market and officially rolled off all theaters.

After ten weeks of screenings, although "Planet of Horror" was not as super explosive as "Cry Saw", and the box office was not as good, it still achieved box office results that exceeded Miramax's expectations, with a total of $38.75 million in North America Box office.

This is close to five times the production cost and the North American ticket real estate output ratio, whether it is the investor or the theater screen, all are satisfied.

Especially for Miramax, Harvey Weinstein called Murphy directly, saying that as long as he is willing, the cooperation between Miramax and Stanton Studio will continue.

Such a posture is not difficult to understand. For the North American box office alone, Miramax not only recovered costs, but also generated profit. Even if Murphy had to pay a large share according to the agreement, the profit figure was still considerable.

According to the original director's contract, if the North American box office of "Planet of Horror" exceeds US$10 million, Murphy will automatically receive a basic incentive of US$100,000, which is one percent of the North American box office.

This is a tiered award agreement. For every US$10 million increase in the film’s North American box office, Murphy’s bonus will also increase by 1%, which means that if the North American box office reaches US$20 million, he can get 2%. As a reward.

Now "Planet of Horror" has a box office of 38.75 million U.S. dollars, and Murphy can get a total of 3% of the North American box office share, which is about 1.16 million U.S. dollars.

Even if Murphy has a small net worth now, this is a lot of money.

Of course, just like the previous "Chain Saw", Miramax will not pay the money immediately. After paying off the remaining $300,000 in Murphy's basic director's remuneration, Miramax first paid 40. Ten thousand U.S. dollars in share, the remaining amount will be paid in the next six months.

After the film was released, Miramax took advantage of the warm-up, and jointly launched the director's cut version of "Planet of Horror" DVD, which included more large-scale shots. After the listing, the sales were quite good. In the two leasing markets, they both broke into the top five at one time.

However, none of these have much to do with Murphy.

His eyes will always look forward, this Hollywood road has just begun!