Chapter 811： Increasingly high cost environment

Throughout January, Lyman was with the team, and more than half of the filming progress of "The Incredible Hulk" had passed. During this, Kevin Feige gradually became less arguing with Li Press and more praised. , I only mentioned it when I chatted with Lehman in private.

A good and excellent director's control of the crew and the filming of scenes can be observed by the eyes, and his ability will always shine.

And focus on the North American film market.

In the past week, Fox's new comedy "The Bride Steps aside" debuted in 3,057 theaters with a premiere of about $22.5 million, with an average of about $7,300 for a single theater. For a low-cost romantic comedy Has been a success.

After landing at the top of the weekly list, it shows that the 20th Century Fox camp has made another successful choice to "prove its vision" after "Alvin and the Chipmunks" at the end of last year.

The only fly in the ointment is the 47-point media comprehensive review after the release. Yahoo is C+, and the Rotten Tomatoes website has a freshness of 36% (34 votes in favor: 60 votes against), and the evaluation focuses on--

"Ordinary works that make money from female audiences", "The biggest problem of the film is the stereotyped stories without surprises", "There are many wonderful scenes, but there are no amazing ones, the average level of assembly line grinding tools", "The hero and heroine Kai Sallene Hill and James Marston did a great job"...

On the other hand, the situation of another female-focused comedy "Women Die for Wealth" is much worse due to the pressure of the same type of works. In 2470 movie theaters, the average figure of only 3,100 US dollars is about 7.7 million US dollars. The box office of the opening weekend can be regarded as a complete defeat to "The Bride's Sideways Flash".

It stands to reason that the story of Diane Keaton, Quinn Latifah, and Katie Holmes teaming up to rob a bank is not new, but the female director Kelly Curry obviously failed. He showed his ingenious skills when he wrote the script of "Crazy Flowers at the End of the Road" and made a mess of the story, and the media's comprehensive evaluation was only 41 points.

What's more worth mentioning is that among the newly released new films, there is also "Dream of Cassandra" which was screened in 107 theaters. The average price of 4,700 US dollars for a single hall is really mediocre - as director Woody Allen The first work produced in 2008 received a 49-point media review, Yahoo's C+, and Rotten Tomatoes' freshness rating of 46% (29 votes for: 34 votes against), neither applauded nor popular——

"The story of the brothers' opposite purpose caused by the misfortune was turned into a boring preaching play by Mr. Allen", "The directing idea of ​​pursuing the effect of Greek tragedy and paying tribute to the old movies of the 1940s failed completely and failed to be effectively implemented", "Ai's humorous There is no use in this film, which is inherently deficient in story.", "Although it is unable to save the crappy film, the performance of the cast has lived up to expectations."

It was under such circumstances that "I Am a Hero" won the final $730,000 with less than 100 theaters and was eliminated from the market.

After the film was painted, Blue Butterfly Pictures and Lionsgate were happily busy with the offline promotion of the film, keeping in touch with major partners and calculating the profit for all parties.

Because of the good quality of the film and the audience flow blessing of the main creators such as "New York Tour", "The Walking Dead", and Cage, "I Am a Hero" ranked fifth in the North American annual rankings in 2007 with 302 million in North America and 325 million overseas.

The first is naturally the "Dark Knight" that ignited the market a year earlier with 489 million, the second is "Spider-Man 3" with 336 million, the third is "Shrek 3" with 322 million, and the fourth is "Pirates of the Caribbean 3". of 309 million.

Throughout 2007, Firefly's independent films ranked 3 in the top 20, "Juno", "Twilight" and the best performing "I Am a Hero".

Other box office is not so good, such as "Passerby", which can make a return, "Her", which made less than 15 million yuan, and "The Edge of Society", which has not yet made a return.

The main reason is that the acquisition of Marvel delayed too many things, so that Lehmann did not have as much energy to produce as he did in 2006, so in 2007, only in terms of financial income, it fell a lot compared to 2006, but it was all worth it.

A few days later, the detailed accounts of "I Am a Hero" were released.

In North America, the theater chain took 100 million percent, and overseas theater companies took 162.5 million US dollars, leaving 328.6 million for the producers.

After removing the 32.86 million channel fees taken by Lionsgate, 53 million in the cost of publicity and distribution, and 194 million in production expenses (including labor costs, transportation, etc.), Firefly still has 43.34 million left.

But this money also includes a part of Zha Dao's studio and the box office incentives of the main creator. After all, the box office performance of "I Am a Hero" only brought a net profit of 29.71 million US dollars to Firefly.

However, the majority of the studio's projects have always been in the offline market and around copyright. A rough calculation shows that in addition to the distribution revenue of 32.86 million, Lionsgate will have an offline share of no less than 21.75 million, while Firefly can get 178.89 million. Home entertainment income, plus 24.68 million in the copyright licensing market (zombie movies are not easy to sell), the total profit should be around 233.28 million US dollars.

The reason why it is almost difficult for the studio to take the bulk of the box office revenue, aside from the theater line, the box office of "I Am a Hero" made Firefly spend 13.63 million US dollars for the incentive share of the crew. Key creators such as screenwriters and starring actors will get most of the rest.

For major Hollywood studios, the revenue sharing mechanism can help them reduce the financial pressure in the early stage; for the main creators, this is the dividend that CAA and other brokerage companies will extract from the capital side after they have grown bigger. How can there be any previous actors? So much money now.

In addition to this, among the miscellaneous expenses, Hollywood studios also need to pay a certain profit to the guild composed of various staff members. The average first-line masterpiece costs about 11.76 million US dollars.

Of course, the operating costs of Hollywood film companies will also be allocated to each film, which means that the daily expenses of Firefly are all offset by the production volume of one year. This method of reducing profits is an unspoken rule recognized by the industry. The game between employers, brokerage companies and trade unions.

From the point of view of big data, this kind of game is generally based on the fact that the capital is constantly ceding benefits. It can even be said that the studio attaches so much importance to offline and copyright value because the studio can’t make much money from the box office alone.

The average profit margin of Hollywood blockbusters in 2007 is specific to the situation of a single movie. Only half of the box office made money, and the rest all lost money. The only difference is that the loss is less, the loss is less, the offline can make money, and the loss is too much. Then hehe...

Speaking of which, what’s even more interesting is that films with the lowest cost in the first-tier range ($100 million-$125 million) performed the worst in terms of profitability, with only 1/3 earning box office money. And three-quarters of the movies with the highest cost (over $200 million) were profitable, further illustrating the importance of quality + marketing.

From the perspective of the market, it can also be seen why the cost of movies is getting higher and higher. In 2007, three movies spent more than 300 million yuan, which was completely driven by the general direction of the market.

The director is getting more and more expensive, and the actors are getting more and more expensive, but if you don't choose a big director + popular actors, you will face a lack of attraction to the audience, plus the audience's eyes are raised, and the special effects scenes are not macroscopic enough, and you will be complained. , and the big scene is to spend a lot of money, it is impossible to save Under the pile of various factors, the Hollywood production environment is becoming more and more luxurious.

In this environment, many studios have seen more and more how awesome Fireflies are.

Because after a little analysis, you can find that the average cost of the movies produced by their family is 47 million, but the average net profit is as high as 116.7 million US dollars. But they are far from the standard of profit margins for large movies (122% is the general profit margin of commercial masterpieces, but both of them are almost 3.2 times).

Lehman didn't know that many people in the industry were secretly calculating Firefly's business situation, and even Warner decided to increase the investment in "Watchmen" after careful consideration, which made Zha Dao a lot happier - it can be more Big hands.

The division of the account, the operation project that spends time operating the market, Firefly’s capital reserve is slowly recovered after the acquisition of Marvel, but only the refurbishment money of the studio is first returned to the bank.

On February 7th, the second version of the script of "District 9" after Ryan's polishing was released, and Lyman also began to look for new actors...