Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Chapter 158 Anime Premiere
"Outside the number, outside the number!"

"The Superman movie will be playing in New York theaters!"

New York, early morning.

Newsboys waved the "Courier" in their hands, walking through the streets and alleys

"Superman movie?"

Take out two cents and buy a newspaper from a newspaper boy hawking along the street.

The first thing that catches the eye is the content printed in huge black font on the front page - "Superman and Mickey"!
Following the title, you can see Superman wearing a blue tights, a red cape, and a big "S" mark on the shield logo on his chest, with his head held high.And beside him is Disney's symbolic cartoon character, Mickey being pulled by the excited Brutal and floating in mid-air.

After half a month of Walt's hard work, the joint animation movie of Superman and Mickey was finally completed.

Judging from the news from Disney, the response to the film after its release in Los Angeles was enthusiastic. Although Hollywood is not keen on animated short films, as Disney's second color animated short film after "Flowers and Trees", the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Still affirmed.

And, it is different from "Flowers and Trees".

The characters of "Superman and Mickey" are more modernized, and the background of the story is transferred from the previous forest to the metropolis where Superman lives. "Tree" is also more vivid.

If it weren't for the Oscars, it has been confirmed that the first best animated short film award will be awarded to "Flowers and Trees".

This is the first color film produced by Disney to affirm Walt's efforts and attempts in animation production.

Or "Superman and Mickey" is likely to replace "Flowers and Trees" for this honor.

At the Short Film Awards, Walter also wrote a letter expressing his apology to Colin.

Colin didn't care about that.

The Oscars in this period are just an awards ceremony that exists in Los Angeles, and the sphere of influence that can radiate is only in Hollywood.

Even if they awarded him an award, it was just a slightly special title for Colin, which was better than nothing.

What's more, he didn't participate much in the whole "Superman and Mickey", except for providing the role of Superman and the plot direction of some stories.The rest of the animation production is all done by Walt himself. Even if he wins the award, it is Walt who wins the award instead of him.

Therefore, instead of caring about the results of the Oscar Short Film Awards, it is better to pay attention to the effect of "Superman and Mickey" in New York.

"Are you going to see a Superman movie?"

On the radio that morning, countless listeners heard such a question on CBS Orson Welles' "Mercury Theater in the Air" radio show.

Wells himself is a loyal reader of "Superman". Before the comics were serialized until the debut of "Batman", he had already raised questions on the radio.

In addition, recently, CBS has completed contact with Colin and confirmed the production intention of the radio drama.

Therefore, it became a matter of course for CBS to promote the release of the short film for him.

After all, the higher the popularity of short films, the better for CBS to produce radio dramas in the future.

Compared with newspapers, the influence brought by radio is somewhat greater after all.

In particular, CBS ranked first in the ratings of the three major broadcasting companies for a long time. After Wells' publicity, many readers who did not know the short film before also learned the news that the film was about to be released.

Of course, the vast majority of listeners who listened to the radio during this period did not have much money to go to the cinema to watch movies.

Perhaps the only valuable thing in their home is the radio used to listen to the radio.

However, when they heard that the ticket price of "Superman and Mickey" was only 10 cents on the radio, they still couldn't help but feel a little excited.

Hit by the Great Depression, the film business was bleak throughout the year.

In New York City alone, more than a dozen movie theaters have closed their doors, and the rest are just struggling.

The reduction in the number of moviegoers has forced movie theaters to drastically reduce ticket prices in order to attract audiences to the theater. The ticket price for a feature-length movie has been reduced from 30 cents to 20 cents. Even so, there are still a large number of The audience is far away from the movie.

Considering the relationship between the "Superman and Mickey" animated short film, the cinema offered a ticket price of 10 cents, which is already a great concession for the theater. Although "Superman and Mickey" is only a short film, the viewing time It's not long, but the cost of color animation and sound production is also not low.

If it is not considered, the film was released in Los Angeles, and the response was good.

At the same time, I have confidence in the popularity of Superman, one of the protagonists in the short film, and the movie theater may not dare to offer such a ticket price.

Of course, although such a ticket price is given, it is for the box office of the short film.

Movie theaters don't really have any confidence.

1932 was an extremely difficult year for the film industry, not only because of the sharp decrease in the number of moviegoers, but also because of the frequent box office failures of many films that were originally put forward by big film venues with confidence.

At present, Paramount, which has suffered the most losses, has almost lost 2000 million yuan and is on the verge of bankruptcy.

The same is true for other studios. Although their respective losses are not as serious as Paramount, they are more or less in a state of loss, and the least one has a loss of nearly 400 million.

Movies are dead!

This is a slogan that has spread from Hollywood in recent times, and it contains the cries of more than tens of thousands of unemployed employees and extras.

Movie theaters are bracing for possible losses on animated shorts.

Even mainstream feature-length films are already in the red, let alone an animated short film that is only ten minutes long.

However, the night of the premiere.

A large number of spectators surrounded the movie theater, vying to see what Superman looks like on the big screen of the movie.

The movie theater obviously didn't expect this, or in other words, everyone in this period didn't expect that an animated short film would be sought after by so many people.

The movie theater, which was not well prepared, was immediately crowded by a large number of audiences who came to buy movie tickets.

Many uninformed people even thought it was another parade.

It is said that that night, more than dozens of police officers were at the scene to maintain order, and it took two or three hours for the situation to ease.

The shop windows around the movie theater burst due to the crowd, causing several minor injuries.

The last time something like this happened was when Chaplin's "City Lights" was released.

At the same time, on the other hand, various chaos also occurred in the movie theater.

Because I didn't expect so many audiences to enter the theater, the theater didn't prepare so many movie tickets at all. In addition, "Superman and Mickey" is an animated short film, so the viewing time itself is not long.

The first batch of audiences came out of the movie theater, and the next batch of audiences poured in, followed by a steady stream of people who wanted to enter the theater to watch the movie.

The ticket sellers of the movie theater simply didn't have time to handle such a huge number of moviegoers. It is said that later, all the staff and even the boss of the whole movie theater joined in the ranks of selling tickets, so that the theater was not overturned by the surging audience.

"...too many people, they rushed into the movie theater and told me they wanted a copy of "Superman and Mickey". We didn't have time to react. The audience came to see the movie. This was almost unimaginable for the movie theaters that were in the Great Depression at that time. It wasn't until that moment that I realized that we were in 'big trouble'..."

This was the answer given by the manager in charge at the time in the interview later.

From this we can see the popularity of "Superman and Mickey" when it was released.

It grossed $278 million, an almost astounding achievement for an animated short.

And this is only the results in the United States. In fact, in the subsequent international market, "Superman and Mickey" has accumulated a box office of more than 500 million. Since then, the image of Superman has been popular outside the United States. well known in continental Europe.

The more far-reaching impact of the success of "Superman and Mickey" is that because of the success of the animated short film, Disney has more confidence in the production of animated films, and it is precisely because of this that the later "Snow White" The birth of this classic feature-length animation.

Of course, when it was decided to make this movie, all of Hollywood thought Disney was crazy.

Hollywood called making such 80-minute films a "Disney folly," at a time when people couldn't believe that audiences would pay for what was then called a cartoon and keep them in theaters for more than an hour.

But for this, Walt has his own persistence. The success of "Superman and Mickey" has proved to him that animation can also attract audiences.Since "Superman and Mickey" can do it, why can't "Snow White"? They are also Disney-produced movies.

At the time, the only person who expressed support for Walter's decision was Colin Looper, the owner of the Courier-Journal.

He not only agreed with Disney's determination to create feature-length animations, but also provided financial assistance to avoid the worst chain breaking.It was also proved afterwards that the decision of Disney and Colin was correct. "Snow White" achieved unprecedented success and became the second animated film to achieve success in the international market after "Superman and Mickey". The first feature-length animated film.

……

"Give me a ticket to Superman and Mickey."

"Ten cents."

In the movie theater, I paid 10 cents to buy a movie ticket.

Ke Lin glanced at the thin movie ticket in his hand, and then turned his head to look at the ostentatious queue behind him.

It has been three days since the release of "Superman and Mickey", but the movie theater is still overcrowded.

Holding a movie ticket, he entered the theater from the crowded crowd and found his seat. Colin sat down and listened to the sound of discussion in his ears.

Under the effect of [Super Hearing], he can hear the sound of the entire theater while sitting still. Most of these audiences are loyal readers of Superman, and of course a small part of them are also fans of Mickey.

It is undoubtedly an exciting thing to see two of my favorite characters appearing in an animated short film.

In the expectation of the audience, the lights in the cinema gradually dimmed, and then Mickey's big head appeared on the big screen, which is the opening sign of Disney animation.

"Superman and Mickey"

With the darkening of Mickey's head, the title of the movie began to appear on the screen.

It is worth mentioning that the title order of the short films is slightly different in the Los Angeles and New York releases.

In the movie theater in Los Angeles, the name of the short film screening was "Mickey and Superman", but in New York where Colin was located, it was replaced with "Superman and Mickey".

This is an idea that has been discussed between the two parties at the beginning of the animation design.

The purpose is to highlight the difference in popularity in different cities.

As the headquarters of Disney, Los Angeles naturally needs to focus on promoting Mickey, while in New York Colin naturally needs to focus on this being Superman's first appearance on the big screen.

In my mind, a little story about the order of the titles of the short films flashed.

In the movie, along with the classic whistle of "Steamboat Willie", Mickey also appeared on the big screen of the theater.

Mickey: "Brutal, Pluto!"

In the kitchen, Mickey whistled and cooked breakfast, and suddenly felt that the house was a bit empty.It turned back to the direction of the other party's living room and called a few times, but did not hear Brutal's response for a long time, and tried to call a few more times with its hips akimbo.

Brutal: "Wow..."

Suddenly, several faint voices came.

Mickey: "Oh, Pluto, where have you been?"

Amid Mickey's scolding, Brutal, covered in mud, ran back to the living room.

Looking at the dirty Brutal, Mickey was about to say something when Brutal suddenly pulled his trousers and ran towards the basement.

Mickey: "Brutal, look what you've done, you've made a mess of this place!"

Looking at the messy basement, Mickey was a little angry.

Brutal: "Wow, woof, woof..."

However, Brutal wagged his tail again, brought a poster and handed it to Mickey.

Mitch: "What's this?"

Mickey: "Superman?"

Taking the poster from Brutal's mouth, Mickey opened it and looked at the poster, wearing a blue tights and a red cape, with a big "S" mark on the shield logo on his chest, holding a car high above his head The man, then read out the name on the poster.

Mitch: "Superman? What's it? Where did you find that poster, Pluto?"

Looking at the Superman in the poster, Mickey has a puzzled expression on his face.

It asked Brutal, who wagged his tail and barked at Mickey a few times, then pushed open the entrance to the basement and nodded at Mickey.

Mitch: "Why don't I remember that there is such an entrance in the basement?"

Looking at the sudden entrance, Mickey had a surprised expression on his face.

However, before it had any reaction, it was suddenly pulled by Brutal's trousers and fell into the entrance.

Mickey: "Boo~lu~to~"

Brutal: "Wow~Wow~"

(End of this chapter)