Chapter 790： Pit, the Lord of the Rings producers are down, woohoo

"The film tells an amazingly magical story with a little bit of epic in it, and Nicole Kidman's terrifying and focused performance is the best, I'm sure she can replace the others Monsters, become the biggest nightmare of children's childhood." Guardian

"Director Chris Weitz's style for the film feels more like routine than practice makes perfect. The editing is also unsatisfactory, too hasty leading to a sense of compulsion." Critic

"The special effects of the film are magnificent and magical, but the dream of magic has been lost." The Times

......

After the premiere, the Golden Compass did not have a high evaluation. Whether it is from film critics or the audience who actually went into the theater to watch the film, it can be roughly said that adults think this film is not grand enough, and they are sorry for such a high production cost, while children feel that the film is not grand enough. This film is too difficult to understand, and it falls into a misunderstanding in its positioning.

The investor New Line Pictures, and the distributor Warner Pictures, the former created a classic production like The Lord of the Rings, and the latter made Harry Potter popular all over the world.

It can be said that these two studios are the leading figures in the rise of Hollywood's magic theme in recent years, but when the two come together to make a movie, there seems to be no reason not to make an excellent magic movie.

However, the truth is cruel.

New Line and Warner show us with a living example that 11 may even be less than 1.

From a relatively superficial point of view, the Lord of the Rings from New Line is an adult fantasy movie, and Warner's Harry Potter belongs to a children's fantasy movie, so they together made a children's fantasy "epic" blockbuster like the Golden Compass.

But the problem is that the original meaning of the work is "epic", not "children".

So this kind of movie feels awkward no matter how you look at it.

As a work that is also an adaptation of a famous European novel, the treatment of the golden compass is far different from that of the Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings directly drove the global magic fever, and the Golden Compass didn't even make the audience interested in learning about the original book, which is almost inferior to a quasi-children's film such as The Chronicles of Narnia.

After officially entering the film, the development of the story almost has a trend of children's films.

Some of the things that should have been highlighted were not inked, leaving the audience a little confused. For example, why does the Holy See authoritatively divide children's spirit beasts, and what is the purpose of the experiment?

And such a small-scale conflict between a group of children and a few tribes is hard to be rendered as an "epic", which is even more ridiculous than the fight between a few children and a group of animals in the Chronicles of Narnia. The battle in the dark night was not exciting at all.

The plot is thin, the war scenes lack atmosphere, and the two major elements needed for an epic film are not shown in the film, so boring that only pictures and special effects are left.

In general, it may be that the market is a little tired of the magic theme, like last year's Dragon Knight, isn't it also a loss, or Nicole Kidman's strong physique of box office poison really can't help but believe that since winning the Oscar in 2003. , the former Mrs. Cruise seems to have fallen into the curse of the queen.

Films such as Copy Wife, Translation Storm, Family Fairy Wife, Dog Town and other films starring her in the past were basically neither applauded nor popular, and Nicole was ridiculed by the media as "box-office poison".

This time, Nicole planned to use the Golden Compass to justify her title of "Hollywood's No. 1 Rewards Sister", but unfortunately she killed the Golden Compass as always.

A cost-effective actress who used to "get $8 for every $1 invested", with a salary of between $13 million and $15 million, and the fourth-ranked first-line actress among all the female stars, it is very likely that she will be the first-line actress because of gold. Compass pay cut.

Even her die-hard fans are complaining online, "Nicole always picks the wrong script, I hope she can learn a lesson this time."

......

The results of the opening weekend of the Golden Compass are out.

3,500 theaters won 26.12 million box office, and the average single theater is only 7,462 US dollars.

New Line President Shay sat in the boss chair, his hands shaking violently with the data.

Since the premiere, he has been a little worried, but he doesn't want to become a reality.

On the side, the distribution manager is still reporting some unfavorable news, such as the word-of-mouth of the film, the media and the Internet have brought a lot of rhythm, it is very easy to dispel the desire of watching passers-by...

Shay leaned heavily on the back of his chair and sighed.

This time, it really hit people.

"What's the news from Warners?" Shea tried to cheer up, not to be affected by the temporary market indifference.

"Um... I heard that they are discussing cancelling the remaining publicity funds to reduce losses." The distribution manager replied.

"Short-sighted. The top priority should be to guide the momentum and suppress the unfavorable reports of the film..."

"Warner won't listen to us." The distribution manager shook his head slightly, a little disheartened.

He knew that Warner had a lot of complaints about their new line, and believed that business overlap and waste of resources were a problem left over from the early development process and needed to be solved.

But he, like Shay, did not want to be included in Warner Pictures, and his status and power were not guaranteed.

For no other reason, Warner can't squeeze out a position inside.

If the new line is merged, the best result is that the old people such as the new line will retreat to the second line and be completely marginalized.

"Where's the theater line?"

"It may be time to downsize the screen."

Definitely.

Is it a waste to give resources that are not useful? According to the current situation, the Golden Compass does not have the potential to boost the box office market.

The two were silent.

This time, the board of directors is not easy to explain.

No matter how special the status of the new line is, it is also because of its good management. Without this premise, it would not be so easy to talk about.

If a general project fails, at most, summarize a report and reflect on it. Xie Yi himself was a little overwhelmed by the failure of a large project of 180 million.

He is sure that compared to the previous favorable treatment, there will be no more from now on.

My brain is buzzing, and in just a few days, the situation has changed so quickly that it is dizzying.

Shay couldn't figure out how it would turn out like this, and why the audience didn't accept the golden compass so much. Qiqi's novels are first published on the whole network

Movies aren't bad, they just don't sell well.

Shay was enveloped in a sad mood, and he couldn't even raise his anger. He didn't know who to blame, or the film was a mistake from the beginning of the project.

Shay fell ill.

When I went to bed at night, my throat was very dry. The huge pressure, inexplicable fear and regret overwhelmed such a traditional senior film and television executive.

Warners finally rejected his proposal Even the last bit of luck, the idea of ​​expecting the film to turn around overseas was not given to him.

Publicity funds have been cut, and unfavorable public opinions have been ignored. Those overseas audiences only need to pay attention to the screening of the film to understand what kind of work the Golden Compass will be.

In the Internet age, the speed of information transmission is too fast. Warner does not expect to spend more money to cover up anything. It may have some effect, but it is not necessary.

Word of mouth can’t be saved, screenings are already on the decline, with little success and a lot of hard work, no one wants to do it, even if New Line is a subsidiary of Time Warner.

As the schedule pressure is approaching, the academy and businessmen put together, the total box office in the first two weeks of December fell by 13% compared with previous years, and there is a single chain theater chain in the United States that has not made any money.

There have been so many films released during Christmas, and there will be good income. As a result, Beowulf crossed in November, and the golden compass in December was not very good. Compared with the real fierce competition during the summer vacation, this year's Christmas is not on the top of the list.

Can you imagine that among so many blockbusters, none of them can exceed 50 million at the box office in the first weekend?

During the summer vacation, there were several films that exceeded 100 million in the first week. This gap is too big.

When the market is cold, the most uncomfortable thing is the cinema.

You must know that many of them are still stepping up financing, building new theaters, and expanding the scale of revenue. When this happens, who can be happy?

Under this premise, I am a hero has entered the focus list of the theater.

Afterwards, I was a hero for the internal preview, and major theaters actively participated.

After the trial screening, Lionsgate won 3,420 films for the first time in terms of movie theaters that audiences did not pay attention to, which was a small breakthrough. Quantity up.

:. : m.x