Birth of an actor

Chapter 208 Another Will's Ambition

Inside a New Mexico-style mansion in Malibu, California.

Will Smith has been in a bad mood since the morning, and his cell phone, which usually rings non-stop after the premiere of the movie, has been silent for a long time today. After reading all the newspapers, I immediately changed my plan to stay at home on weekends, called a nanny to take my son and daughter out shopping, and left the quiet space at home to my husband.

Less than half an hour after Jada Pinkett left, the agent from CAA rushed over. When he saw Will Smith's face, the first sentence he blurted out was: "How many people called you today? phone call? What about Colombia, the statistics are out already?”

The statistical results asked by the agent, of course, refer not only to the box office data. In fact, many well-informed media have also obtained all the box office figures of the North American film market last week, and they have published them. What the agent refers to includes midnight Detailed data on box office, box office on the first day, box office on the first day, attendance rate, box office per venue, attitude of professional film critics, ratings of media reporters and audience ratings, etc.

Hollywood professional film market research companies can use this data to predict the future market potential and even the final box office performance of a film when it is just released. The accuracy rate is so high that it is often almost the same as the result. The direction and theater company's increase or decrease in the number of screening screens are generally based on this statistical result.

Will Smith shook his head with an ugly face: "I only received two or three calls." As he spoke, he pushed a fax in front of the agent, and shook his head and laughed at himself: "The statistical results are here, and there may be already Hundreds of people have seen something on it, so how are they going to call me to congratulate me on opening with more than half the box office?"

""Boxing King Ali" is not a commercial film, Will, don't forget why we accepted this film in the first place, the box office is not everything." The manager casually comforted, and picked up the piece of paper Look carefully.

The first thing that catches the eye is the box office results. "Boxing King Ali" achieved a box office of 2248 million US dollars on 1471 screens, ranking second in the North American box office list last week.

After seeing the first row of numbers, the agent's expression didn't change. Although the result of 1471 million US dollars was a bit lower than he expected, it was not bad.

Although this achievement is definitely a figure that will seriously damage the film company if it is placed on any commercial film starring Will Smith, and may even cause a series of changes in many important positions in the studio, but "King of Boxing" "Ali" is a biographical film with a strong artistic atmosphere, and the scale of its theaters is only half of that of Will Smith's previous commercial films. This figure has become acceptable.

Art films are one of the few types of films that are not swayed by the box office results in the first week. Many classic art films only have a few hundred theaters when they premiere-this treatment is not available to every art film, at least It must be a masterpiece by a famous director or have actors above the B-list. Many works by new directors and actors usually have an initial release scale of only a few dozen theaters—the box office in the first week is only a few million dollars, but the vitality of art films Most of them are very strong. After several months of long-term screenings, there are not a few films with a total box office of over [-] million.

For example, the box office of "Sleepless in Seattle" released in 1993 was only 700 million U.S. dollars at the premiere, but relying on long-term screenings in art theaters, the North American box office finally reached more than 600 million U.S. dollars, and the second year Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's "Forrest Gump", the golden partner, was released in 1595 theaters across the United States in the first weekend, and the box office was less than 500 million US dollars. It was quite an upset, but with the intensification of the publicity campaign and the film's rapidly fermenting reputation, "Forrest Gump" finally won nearly 3.3 million US dollars, becoming the champion of the North American box office chart that year.

So as long as the premiere box office reaches the pass line, the manager is relieved. He pays more attention to the feedback from media reporters and professional film critics. Now that the influence of paper media is still huge, these people guide most of the word-of-mouth of the movie.

However, what the agent saw next was something that did not surprise him at all.

The comprehensive score of "Fighter Ali" is 77 points. Only two of the 10 professional film critics gave it a perfect score of 7.1. The IMDB score is 70.00, and the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes is [-]%. B-.

It is worth mentioning that the last piece of data comes from CinemaScore, a professional Hollywood film market research company.

This company is well-known in the industry for its amazing accuracy in predicting the box office. As for the ratings, it is easy to understand. A+ is very successful, A is successful, B is satisfactory, and C is so-so. In fact, C is bad news. Movies with this score It rarely tops the $[-] million mark, and the ratings are as low as an F, which means audiences don't think the film should have been released at all.

The ratings released by CinemaScore, the Hollywood industry has its own set of judgment standards, B- should be basically satisfied, and it’s okay, but because audiences generally have great enthusiasm for newly released movies, they often don’t give too low a rating Scores, so this B- is about the same as C+.

This is a bit not optimistic.

In particular, the agent knows how good Columbia's publicity work is. Except for Roger Ebert, AO Scott, Todd McCarthy and other top North American film critics who are hard to be impressed, the rest of the well-known film critics are many More or less public relations, at least what the agent learned, the two film critics who gave the film full marks, he has met many times at various previews held in Columbia.

The agent is not afraid of the low box office of the premiere, because he believes in Will Smith's strong box office appeal, but if coupled with the very mediocre word-of-mouth under the strong publicity of Columbia, it will be a bit bad.

If the premiere performance is generally mediocre and word-of-mouth is mediocre, theater companies will not agree to expand the screening, and they may even reduce the number of theaters where it will be shown. In that case, it will be difficult for the film to obtain a high box office.

The agent started to frown, and he had a bad premonition—could "King Ali" be Will's first movie that failed to exceed 1995 million at the box office since "Bad Boys" became famous in 1.07?The cost of this movie has reached [-] million US dollars!

"The expansion is out." As if seeing what the agent was thinking, Will Smith said directly: "Even if the theaters want to expand the screening, they will probably choose "A Beautiful Mind" with a better box office."

Hearing this, the agent remembered to pay attention to the box office of "A Beautiful Mind", which premiered at the same time as "Boxing King Ali", but when he scanned the numbers on the newspaper, he almost screamed out.

What! "A Beautiful Mind" debuted with $2876 million?

Isn't that twice the size of "Boxing King Ali"!

It's even $400 million more than the premiere of Tom Cruise's new film "Vanilla Sky" at the beginning of the month!

Moreover, if the agent remembers correctly, the number of premiere screens of "A Beautiful Mind" is more than 200 less than that of "King Ali"!

After skimming through the cover headlines of "Premiere", "Variety Show" and "Los Angeles Times" and other newspapers, "A Beautiful Mind" won the North American box office rankings last week and the word-of-mouth news occupied the largest section. , "King Ali" only occupies a small piece or just a line of words on the cover.

Moreover, the media scores of "A Beautiful Mind" are generally above 8.5 points, and more than one-third of the 40 professional film critics gave more than 9 points. The audience's word of mouth is also A or even A+. Every data is telling the film great success.

Willard is right. Art theaters are inherently less profitable than commercial theaters. If Landmark Theaters and American Artists Theaters choose one of the two films for expansion, they will definitely choose the one with better box office performance. "A Beautiful Mind"—maybe these two theater companies are already discussing expansion with Universal.

The manager's face suddenly became cloudy, and he muttered to himself: "The situation is not good." He was out of balance for a moment, and he said what he was just thinking about.

In fact, it's not his manager's fault for losing his composure. This situation is indeed beyond his expectation.

In terms of subject matter, although both films are biopics, "Boxing King Ali" focuses on one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century, the legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Although John Nash, the prototype of "A Beautiful Mind", has won The Nobel Prize, the public popularity is still incomparable with the boxing champion; in terms of actors, Will Smith entered the 2000 million salary club earlier than William Bradley, and now he is at the peak of his popularity, and his box office appeal is not mentioned in Hollywood. He is one of the best, and he must be among the top three; in terms of director, Michael Mann is an all-rounder, and "The Wire" written and directed by himself six years ago is a textbook-level masterpiece of police and robbers, and his reputation is not much inferior to that of Ron Howard; in terms of investment, The cost of "King Ali" is 1.07 million US dollars, not only the production cost is 1.5 times that of "A Beautiful Mind", but the investment in publicity and distribution is three times that of the latter.

The combination of these factors, which can almost be called advantages, is the reason why Columbia and Will Smith want to premiere "Boxing King Ali" on Christmas Day, and are not afraid to fight face-to-face with "A Beautiful Mind".

Because they don't think they can lose.

What I never expected was that "Ali the King of Boxing" and "A Beautiful Mind" had just faced each other, but they were knocked down by the opponent after only one round.

Even if the two sides are sparring with each other, media fans are arguing about which of the two films is better, and which of the two leading actors has more superb acting skills, it is better than the current situation of almost being completely suppressed.

At the beginning, Will Smith even postponed the filming schedule of "Men in Black 2", and he almost insisted on taking over the film "Boxing King Ali", not to make this film short-lived.

……

"Can I get a copy of "A Beautiful Mind"? I want to see this movie." Just as the agent was thinking hard about the countermeasures, Will Smith ordered.

The agent thought he heard it wrong: "What? You want to watch "A Beautiful Mind"?"

"You have to understand what level of opponent I'm competing with." Will Smith's expression was calm and composed.

The new film with great efforts and high expectations did not cause much splash. If such a gap is replaced by other big-name actors in Hollywood, those with bad tempers may have lost their mentality, find someone to take the blame, or blame the public for not appreciating. If you have a good temper, you have to be self-depressed and self-doubt for a few days, and vent to your agent by the way, asking why the other party accepted the film contract for yourself.

But Will Smith is different from others. He is a black actor, and he has been living in the Vanity Fair of Hollywood since he was a child. He can have his current fame and status and become the representative of Hollywood's first-line black male stars in the hearts of movie fans. Loved by countless white and black fans, a grumpy black actor will never go so far.

Will Smith's psychological quality is actually better than many actors of the same age. For example, the feedback from the premiere of "Boxing King Ali" is not very good. He also encountered certain blows and pressure, but soon, he was thinking about what to do How to reverse the current decline of the film, and why the film lost to "A Beautiful Mind" is up.

The agent actually wanted to know the answer to this question. He took his mobile phone and called the theater manager he was familiar with. After more than an hour, two film runners from two movie theaters drove to deliver the movie copy.When they found out that the destination was Will Smith's home, the theater staff were very surprised. One of them seemed a little excited, but he restrained himself from asking for an autograph.

There is a small projection room in Will Smith's villa. Although it can only accommodate seven or eight spectators, it has a lot of necessary equipment and is also very luxuriously decorated. The projectionists have been busy for a while. LOGO soon appeared on the screen.

The agent was sitting next to Will Smith. The large leather sofa was very comfortable. When the movie started playing, he would still check his phone every few minutes, send emails and reply to messages, etc., but it didn’t take long. The mobile phone that would flash once and pop up "A new email has been received" began to be neglected, and then it was stuffed directly into the pocket, and the few new emails received were not checked immediately.

"A Beautiful Mind" is 135 minutes long, and the screening ended after more than two hours, but it made people feel a little reluctant. The manager was preparing to revisit the next few memorable shots, and suddenly remembered his identity, and immediately felt Feeling guilty, he stood up from his seat, turned around, and saw that the film runners of the two theaters were also sitting behind, as if they had watched the whole film with them.

The agent was a little curious: "This movie has been released for three days, haven't you seen it before?"

"I've watched it five or six times, sir." One of the film runners replied, "But I'm still attracted to it during screenings. Maybe good movies have a kind of magic? I also know a lot of mathematics and psychology. "

The agent hated himself for being cheap, and by the way, he didn't want to see Will Smith's expression now.

However, Will Smith didn't care about this trivial matter. He just waited for the film runner to take down the copy and left, and then he sat quietly for a while before ordering to his agent: "I will withdraw from my account. I will transfer you 500 million U.S. dollars, and you can help me operate it."

The agent was taken aback: "What do you want to do? It can't be—buy box office, right?"

Even though there were only the two of them in the room, when he said "buy the box office", the agent still unconsciously glanced around and lowered his voice.

Although such things as buying box office or falsely reporting box office data are rare in Hollywood, it cannot be said that there are no such things. After all, no matter how strict the supervision mechanism is, there are loopholes to be found.

To give an example of a very skillful method used by the Big Seven—if a senior executive of a film company fails to meet expectations at the box office at the premiere, he is likely to be blamed by his superiors or competitors for this, so the senior executive began to operate, and eventually The box office data released by the company was more than 100 million US dollars more than the actual one, barely meeting expectations, and also had a good position in the North American box office rankings. , The high-level executives then reduced the box office falsely reported in the first week on the grounds that the previous data statistics were not in place, and even the hidden dangers were eliminated.

The agent is also a senior gold medal agent of CAA. He knows a thing or two about all the dark deals in the dark corners of Hollywood. In practice, it is easier to buy box office than false data. acquaintances can do it.

Just when the agent was hesitating whether he should find James from Camek Cinemas or Nicholas from Landmark Cinemas for this matter, he heard Will Smith say in a surprised tone: "When did I say I'm going to buy box office?" ?”

"That $500 million..."

Will Smith put it succinctly: "Find me the best PR firm in Hollywood."

The two have worked together for many years with a tacit understanding. The agent instantly understood what Will Smith meant. After thinking about it, he also knew that he had misunderstood the speculation about buying the box office, or that his own actor's idea was more secure and safer.

Judging from the existing data, the box office gap between "Ali the Boxer" and "A Beautiful Mind" will only widen, and there is no hope of catching up. Discussions on film quality shifted to ideas on actors’ performance, especially focusing on the promotion of Will Smith’s acting skills, striving to transform his image from a commercial idol superstar to a powerful actor, which is of great help to broaden future prospects. The play path is also a help.

Moreover, the awards season will be right after the new year. If the publicity and public relations are in place and Will Smith can get an Oscar nomination for best actor, "Boxing King Ali" may have a chance to turn around-how much is the box office for the first release? Aren't art films with millions of dollars, after being nominated for Oscars, their fame soared and they ushered in the opportunity of expansion, and then the box office doubled several times?

……

Because of its outstanding reputation and excellent premiere results, "A Beautiful Mind" has undergone another round of expansion from this week, directly expanding from more than 1000 theaters to more than 200 theaters, which means that even in Lian Art Theater Even the most remote town in North America that doesn't have one can see this movie.

A follow-up effect brought about by the large-scale expansion of screenings is that the film earned 4200 million U.S. dollars in the three days of the weekend, and the box office rose by more than 50% in the next week. Some media estimated that the box office of "A Beautiful Mind" will fall within 20% in the next week, and the North American box office is likely to stop at around [-] million U.S. dollars. I did not expect that the box office numbers will rise like a rocket after the expansion. Little people's glasses.

CinemaScore, a well-known Hollywood research company, made another splash at this time. CinemaScore not only announced the forecast data for "A Beautiful Mind" very early, but also said that the final North American box office of the film will definitely exceed [-] million US dollars. The North American box office that reached the "prophecy" exceeded [-] million U.S. dollars, and the global box office exceeded [-] million U.S. dollars. It will take a few months to see the outcome.

"Good news! "A Beautiful Mind" won the North American box office rankings for the weekend!" Amon Goffman said: "When I woke up and saw this news, my appetite was so great that I even ate more of Hawaii's special hot scones piece."

Barbara Wilson's voice came in, with a bit of disdain: "Oh come on, you eat so much when you don't have a big appetite, and you wipe out the last piece of sushi at every buffet."

Amon Goffman: "I know you're jealous that I'm spending New Years in Hawaii, Barbara, and I'm getting a long vacation while you're as busy as a bee in Los Angeles."

Barbara Wilson: "I don't want to argue with a middle-aged man who's calorie-crazy."

"Hey guys, how about let's stop bickering and get back to business? I read the papers in New York about movie box office." William coughed, interrupting the perpetual bickering between PR and agents, and said, " But the exact figures are not clear."

"The box office in North America was 1.53 million US dollars, and the global box office was 2.78 million US dollars. This movie was the most beautiful film in the global film market during the New Year in 2002. It was even better than our best expectations." Barbara Wilson said.

"With such a well-received and well-received movie, your fans will finally stop scolding me for always picking up commercial movies for you." Amon Goffman's emotional voice was clearly conveyed through the smooth phone line: " You know what a fan I met last year accused me of? He actually said I corrupted Will with barrage of blockbusters and criminal dollars that would keep you from getting an Oscar! Oh my god, I'm definitely the most wronged in Hollywood the Jews!"

William reassured: "Okay, Ami, are you still on vacation in Hawaii, right? Stay an extra week, and I will pay for it."

"Haha, that's what I've been waiting for! Thanks, Will, I'm going to put all the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles behind me and enjoy my vacation."

("Wrong numbers. The latest worldwide total for A Beautiful Mind should have been $2.93 million, and it only opened in Australia last weekend, so you didn't count it." A comment on Barbara Wilson and Amon Goffman A voice that is unfamiliar, but also feels a little familiar, interjected incessantly.)

"What?" Amon Goffman and Barbara Wilson asked at the same time: "Who is talking?"

"Will, who are you with?"

—Amon Goffman is on vacation in Hawaii, William is in New York, and Barbara Wilson, who is in the busiest part of the year because of awards season, has nowhere to go but stays in Los Angeles , the three are in three different cities, but they will use the conference phone to hold remote conference calls every few days, such as now.

With the emergence of interactive multi-party teleconferencing platform systems, multi-point remote teleconferencing has become common. However, limited by technology, the era of remote video conferencing has not yet arrived, so Barbara and Amon suddenly heard the voice of the fourth person, and he was inevitably taken aback.

"It's Lance, he's in my apartment, and we're looking at the financial reports just sent by several companies we jointly hold." William replied.

Lance Roderick, who was sitting on the opposite sofa and had been reading documents, came over and sat opposite William, and said to the conference phone, "Good morning, Miss Wilson and Mr. Goffman."