Hollywood Road

A huge engine roar sounded, and a business jet glided across the runway, rushed into the sky, and quickly climbed into the stratosphere. After being notified by the flight attendants, the passengers in the cabin took off their seat belts and carried them on. Van Diesel with a bright bald head is no exception. He unfastened his seat belt and ordered a drink from the flight attendant.

The crew of "Fast and Furious 6" is going to Europe for publicity, and the publisher's Universal Pictures has specially provided this business jet for the crew.

The space inside the plane is not too big, but Van Diesel alone occupies the best four seats in the front cabin. The others are sitting in the back. No actor can sit with him.

Van Diesel heard the murmur of the people behind him, and looked back. Dawn Johnson, nicknamed The Rock, was joking with Michel Rodriguez, but after seeing his turning eyes, temporarily Shut up.

For the reaction of these people, Van Diesel is quite satisfied, because he is the real boss of this series!

As for whether the rookies in the back will feel overbearing, he doesn't care. What are those little actors? This series is about to be killed. If he hadn't returned like a savior, would the "Fast and Furious" series have the current results? Counting on such rookies? What a joke.

The most important thing for the crew under his control is to implement his will.

Van Diesel knows that he is very domineering, and the others in the crew are very dissatisfied in private, but this is his style. If you are not satisfied, you can quit the crew. This group of rookies can be found in addition to this series. Is there an opportunity to play a major role?

The cabin was unusually quiet. Van Diesel picked up the wine glass sent by the flight attendant and took a sip. It suddenly sounded that it was Saturday. At this time, yesterday’s box office statistics should have been released, and they were sent again. The laptop opened his mailbox.

Sure enough, in the newly received mail in the mailbox, there was a message from Universal Pictures with the title of North American Friday Box Office Express.

"There should be ten million dollars in a single day..."

Van Diesel suddenly became nervous. The box office of "Fast and Furious 6" at the first weekend was more than 97 million US dollars. Even if it was average, the single-day box office for three days on the weekend was more than 30 million US dollars. Yesterday’s single-day box office was 1,000. Ten thousand U.S. dollars is already a big drop. If 10 million U.S. dollars are dropped, it is really a cliff-jumping plunge.

He knew very well that the nervous mood was a strong oppression from Murphy Stanton's "Dark City".

After a day of screenings, this noir crime movie has a huge reputation and has become a super masterpiece among movie fans. Even professional film critics who have never been used to commercial films have lost their face and don’t want to kneel down and worship one by one. These feedbacks In the theater, it is the super high film placement rate and attendance rate.

Other films, including "Fast and Furious 6", which had a pretty good box office in the first weekend, can only tremble in the shadow of "Dark City."

Van Diesel moved the mouse and opened the email. The email was presented in a multi-page format. It was Murphy Stanton's "Dark City" that appeared on the front page. This was no accident, the only thing that surprised Van Diesel. It was the film’s box office. The Friday box office of "Dark City" was as high as $122.6 million!

The box office in a single day exceeded 100 million U.S. dollars!

This is not the three days of the weekend, but the box office results on the first day of the show! This surprised Van Diesel. It is also a hugely invested action commercial blockbuster. "Fast and Furious 6" only got more than 97 million US dollars in three days on the weekend, and "Dark City" was over 100 million in just one day... …

"People really can't compare with others." Van Diesel shook his bald head. "Compared to Murphy Stanton, what is this crew?"

Fortunately, there is only one Murphy Stanton in Hollywood.

He knows very well that "The Dark City" is completely different from the "Avengers" that hit last summer. It is a character-led film and the director's role in it is limited, while "The Dark City" is completely different. For the director's work, the former does not have Jos Weyden, and the odds are not small. Without Murphy Stanton, it is impossible to have the current box office and word-of-mouth explosion.

Van Diesel couldn’t help but watch some introductions behind the film’s box office. "Dark City" theater audiences scored A+ and IMDB temporarily has 9.7 points. Because the number of rated users is enough, it has entered the TOP250 and is currently in the No. One; the freshness of rotten tomatoes is 97%; the authoritative media comprehensive evaluation MetaCritic includes 65 media ratings, with an average score of 89 points...

Seeing this, Van Diesel's heart moved, and suddenly he remembered one thing. The box office on the first day of "Dark City" seems to have broken the record, right?

He quickly opened the website and checked it, and it turned out to be like this. The box office score of $102.5 million on the first day of "Dark City" not only broke the $92.1 million North America created by "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". The single-day box office record also naturally created the highest Friday box office record in North American film history, and it was also the first film in North American history to break the $100 million mark in a single day.

There is no doubt that Murphy Stanton has carved his name deeply on the film history!

Van Diesel sighed, knowing that he can't compare with Murphy Stanton. If he keeps comparing with Murphy Stanton, he will definitely lose confidence.

He dragged the mouse and clicked to open the next page. Although he had a bad premonition, he still had to watch it. After all, "Fast and Furious 6" hadn't seen it at the box office yesterday.

The page flipped, and the second place on the North American box office list yesterday was "Fast and Furious 6", which made Van Diesel breathe a sigh of relief. However, seeing the box office numbers behind, he was still a little disappointed.

Eight hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars!

This is the Friday single-day box office of "Fast and Furious 6", which is a little bit more than the fraction of "Dark City"...

Van Diesel frowned. Under the strong impact of "Dark City", "Fast and Furious 6"'s North American box office next weekend seemed to be a cliff-jumping plunge.

Fortunately, with a certain amount of psychological preparation, he would not be very depressed.

For the box office statistics of the latter films, Van Diesel didn’t bother to watch it again. He turned off the computer, closed his eyes and prepared to sleep. He always compares his films with Murphy Stanton’s works. It's better to get a good night's sleep for abuse.

Saturday is a rest day. The major theaters in the United States are crowded with people. The attendance rate of the theaters showing "Dark City" has reached two-thirds, and nearly two hundred IMAX theaters are full. There has never been IMAX since it entered Hollywood. The grand view of the past.

However, IMAX was well prepared. Firstly, they had full confidence in Murphy, and secondly, the crazy publicity also increased their confidence.

A few days ago, IMAX decided to add additional screenings of "The Dark City" starting at six o'clock on Saturday morning.

In North America, when hit movies are released, in order to maximize revenue, theaters often arrange screenings at "abnormal" times. The advance and midnight shows have now become the tradition of summer box office blockbusters.

Nowadays, the popularity of online ticket sales makes it possible for movie tickets to be sold out in advance. In order to meet the upcoming "Dark City" boom, in addition to IMAX, there are more than 3,500 companies in the United States that only start business after 10 am on weekdays. The theater welcomed its first group of guests at six o'clock in the morning.

And the number of this group of guests is quite large.

"I came to see the magician of James Franco."

"This is Murphy's movie, of course I want to watch it."

"IMDB's rating is very high. Isn't such a movie worth watching?"

People who walked into the theater early in the morning had their own reasons, but they bought tickets to support "Dark City."

The staff in the prosperous theaters have also begun to enter the busiest stage. An IMAX theater manager complained about the popularity of "Dark City" in an interview with a media reporter.

"I worked until 3 in the morning last night, and got up at 5:30 this morning, and I didn't even return home." He pointed to his dark circles, "I didn't sleep well at all!"

"The attendance rate is very good?" the reporter asked again.

The theater manager smiled and said directly, "The evening show last night was not only full, but there were many people who didn't have tickets refused to leave. We had to temporarily add a dozen chairs to the theater."

He sighed, "IMAX theaters have never seen this before. The company should have sought Murphy Stanton's cooperation sooner."

However, the attendance rate of "Dark City" on Saturday dropped significantly. The early stage and one-day screening on Friday consumed too much audience enthusiasm. This is a very normal market law.

And with the increase in the number of audiences coming to the theater due to the spread of word-of-mouth, it is impossible to avoid some bad reviews.

"At most 60 points. If this is not a movie by a Hollywood super director, I think it is not worth even 50 points. I like "Iron Man" and other movies very much, but this "Dark City" is too impressive Disappointed, who likes those dark and desperate content? And it's not refreshing enough, the whistling magician is annoying."

"It didn't mean anything, but the motorcycle was still making up. A boring movie played a beautiful woman and a handsome guy crazy. It's ugly and terrible."

There is no movie in this world that can satisfy all audiences and fans. It is normal for people to hate a movie like this kind of dark style, and then bad reviews.

Besides, such bad reviews are rare among many movie audiences.

Like Murphy and Twentieth Century Fox, they did not pay attention to these at all, because the number of bad reviews is so small that it can be ignored!

Compared with the few negative reviews, "Dark City" is not only recognized and praised by the vast majority of fans, but some partners such as IMAX are also preparing to urgently mobilize resources to fully support this film.