America: Starting with the acquisition of MGM

Chapter 194 The king should sit on the throne, and the garbage should be swept into the garbage dump

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight's Conan Show. I am the host Shane Tooth. Let's welcome the host Conan O'Brien!"

In the studio, with a high-pitched baritone voice in the darkness, the lights suddenly turned on, the band next to them started playing, and Conan O'Brien, a little golden retriever, ran out from the backstage.

After twisting left and right, making a few sultry movements, and beating heavily to the beat of the drums, Conan opened his hands to greet the audience.

"I know you are not here to see my new hairstyle, so let us invite today's protagonist, the scariest, scariest, and most verbose Megatron!"

bang bang bang bang

kukukukiki

Amid applause and cheers, Megatron was invited to the stage. Due to the early publicity of "Transformers", Mr. "Buy a Bed" had already accumulated a lot of popularity.

MGM even opened a Facebook account specifically for him. In just over a month, he has gained more than one million followers, which is higher than many celebrities.

This time, in order to promote the movie, the "Transformers" crew specially came to participate in "The Conan Show", which has been very popular in recent years.

Eric and Conan met at the Emmy Awards, where he was one of the hosts, and he had a good impression of the latter.

Moreover, as a person in the circle, Eric had also watched this show before traveling through time. At first, he knew that this talk show started with Dapeng.

At that time, Dapeng had not yet made "Diaosi Man" popular, although "Diaosi Man" was also a plagiarism of "Diaosi Lady".

The program he hosted at that time was "Dapeng's Bar", and the program blatantly plagiarized the title of "The Conan Show" and was directly humiliated.

This incident had a certain impact at the time. It made Dapeng a little famous and made Eric watch "The Conan Show" for a period of time.

"Before the show officially starts, please let me say one thing first. I got news that a soldier who participated in Afghanistan lost his Dandan during the war."

"Fortunately, someone donated his elixir and transplanted it to the other party. This person is currently sitting in the audience."

As Conan spoke, the screen showed a man with intelligent eyes. Several women sitting next to him peeked at his crotch. Although they knew it was a joke, they couldn't help but cover their mouths when they looked at the bandaged crotch. Smirk.

"Sir, first of all, thank you for your sacrifice, but I really don't understand. After all, as a man, this kind of sacrifice is a bit too much."

"I've heard about Old Man Zangdan, but you really didn't leave any way out for yourself."

The wise man said proudly: "It's nothing. If he needs it, I'll cut it off and give it to him. Anyway, it will grow back after a while."

"What!" Conan looked at the other party in surprise.

"Why, why, why do you have such an idea?"

"It told me." The wise man pointed at Megatron.

Conan looked at "Buy a bed" in surprise again.

Megatron crossed his arms and shook his head slightly: "Sorry, I was a little busy yesterday so I didn't hear clearly."

"Well, I thought you said 'cock' at the time. Of course you can buy or raise chickens if they are gone, but I didn't expect you meant 'dick'."

"You should really make it clear or ask an ambulance to come and help, maybe he can put an electric one on you."

"You know it's a Cybertronian special edition."

Ha ha ha ha

Amid the laughter of the audience, the man's wise eyes looked towards the ceiling, making him look even more comical.

At this time, the camera showed another female audience member, and she was seen looking at Megatron's lower body with interest.

"Oh my god! Don't tell me you're interested in the Cybertronian special edition, ma'am."

"why not?"

Ha ha ha ha……

Conan clapped his hands: "Okay, okay, the joke is over. Let us invite the "Transformers" crew to the stage with warm applause."

Eric, Gadot, and Chris Evans walked out from backstage and sat on the sofa.

This is Eric's first time on a variety show like a talk show.

Generally speaking, he prefers to stay behind the scenes and show as little face as possible.

Popularity is not important to me. When I get high, I will be secretly photographed and pointed at when I go out, and I can't have fun with girls.

But in order to promote the movie, I had to go on the show. Thinking about the fact that Dong Wang and Ao Guanhai have both gone on the show, it doesn’t matter if I compare with them.

"Do you know? Now you are the most popular star in the United States, and everyone is going crazy talking about it."

Chris Evans shrugged: "Gadot is, but I'm not. I don't even have as many Facebook followers as Megatron."

"Because all Earth's technology comes from me, I can be as high as I want. Haven't you seen the movie?"

"I saw it, but I didn't pay attention to this detail. My attention was always focused on Gadot's legs."

Eric pretended to look at him in surprise: "As the leading actor, you don't even watch your own movie seriously. It seems like you should change your character for the sequel."

"Whatever, everyone says Ryan Reynolds is the leading actor anyway."

Ha ha ha ha

In just a few sentences, Chris Evans pointed out something that many movie fans have been teasing recently, which immediately caused a burst of laughter.

He continued: "I'm not even as good as Gadot, she can fight more than me."

Conan looked at Eric: "Director, your vision seems not to be very good. The male protagonist is not very well-behaved."

"It doesn't matter. He just wants more fighting scenes and wants to become stronger. It won't be long before the next movie will satisfy him. Just don't complain about pain then."

"Of course, the more the merrier."

Eric smiled and said, "When the filming of "Captain America" ​​starts next year, you can go shirtless.

"Gadot, your heroine is really brilliant. Hahahaha, have you really learned Chinese Kung Fu?"

Gadot waved her hand: "Not at all. I just follow Eric's request and exercise my physical strength every day to make myself look both beautiful and powerful."

Conan pouted and leaned back tactically: "It looks like it is. Your biceps are bigger than mine. It seems like you can make me lie down with just one punch."

Ha ha ha ha

"I noticed that in the final casino battle, you drove Bumblebee to perform a difficult speeding maneuver. Did you use a stuntman?"

"No, I did it myself. If you don't believe me, just ask them."

"You must have suffered a lot of injuries. Drifting, drifting, and sudden braking. This is not easy."

"Yes, bruises, sprains, ankle bones, arms, backs, all injuries are normal. Every time I finish filming such a scene, I have to relax."

"Masasha?"

"There are also spas, but a strange thing happened. I went to a spa, a new spa."

"The waiter took me in and said, this is the public bath and this is the changing room. You can take off your clothes and take a bath."

"I was a little surprised and asked him, do you need to change into underwear?"

"Then he told me no, I thought he was going to say you can wear a bathrobe or something, but he said you have to be naked and I just stared at him."

Conan said with great interest: "Maybe he only said this to you. He is such a smart young man. He should come to work here."

Ha ha ha ha

With the situation looking great, "Transformers" launched an intensive publicity campaign, including "Conan Show", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The Show".

Forget it about Oprah's talk show. Eric hated this fat black woman and her character was even more scumbag. Even if the other party actively invited her, he would not allow the crew to go.

On November 23, the weekly box office of "Transformers" was released. Countless people and countless pairs of eyes were staring at it until the moment the data was released.

The box office of 8.8 billion US dollars still blinded everyone's eyes.

Not counting inflation, just looking at numbers, $8.8 billion has broken the North American box office record for a week.

The original number one was still "Spider-Man", and Peter Parker was kicked off the throne again.

Second place "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" can only be moved down the list.

The third place "The Matrix 2 Reloaded" has only been sitting on the screen for half a year, so it has to give up its seat obediently and return the crown of third place.

This figure has truly exceeded Eric's expectations. He originally predicted that the box office would reach 700 million in a week and he would be satisfied.

Analysts from BOX and other institutions gave a box office forecast of 5.5 billion in the first week, which is more conservative than Eric.

Unexpectedly, the Autobots and Decepticons were too powerful. Plus, it was a three-day weekend, so students and office workers had enough time to relax.

With the accumulation of word-of-mouth, these people immediately rushed into the cinema.

Among them, Friday's box office was the strangest, with more than 2 million U.S. dollars more than Thursday's. The downward trend of Saturday and Sunday's box office also slowed down significantly, probably staying within 15% per day.

The special situation also caused the box office curve of "Transformers" to strangely hit another hill on Friday.

According to the survey, the movie-watching group is also significantly different from that of ordinary blockbusters.

Students and teenagers are naturally still the main force, but the movie-watching group over 35 years old actually accounts for nearly 40% of the total number of people, far exceeding the 30% or so of general blockbusters.

Having discovered a new business opportunity, the MGM team immediately expanded its promotional methods.

Hire gunmen and trolls to build momentum on the Internet and in the media.

The focus of the promotion is to watch Transformers and recall the beautiful childhood, vowing to attract another group of middle-aged people into the cinema.

As for the opponents of "Transformers", they are naturally in a state of mourning, and the major film and television companies are in mourning.

The first to bear the brunt was Miramax's "Expedition," which was released three days earlier than "Transformers." It took all the time but only took in $25 million at the box office.

The fourth day ushered in the attack of the Autobots, and the results were even more disastrous, with only more than 2 million box office receipts in one day.

It has been in theaters for 10 days now, and its gross has reached 32 million U.S. dollars. It even exceeded one million in a single day on Sunday.

Russell Crowe, Peter Weir, Oscar-winning director and best actor, all of them don't work.

Compared with the cost of up to 500 million US dollars, it is foreseeable that the loss will be a loss.

When the media interviewed Harvey Weinstein, he didn't say a word and walked away with a sullen face.

It is said that various planned promotions have also been cancelled. Do you have the nerve to promote yourself at this level? Do you want to promote how bad you are?

Now Miramax can only place its hope on overseas markets. The theme of sea battles may be popular in regions such as Spain, the United Kingdom, and Southeast Asia.

If it still fails, "Windtalkers" will be its fate.

"Polar Expedition" was swept into the trash heap, and other movies were equally unhappy.

The box office of "The Matrix 3" was also squeezed in its third week, taking in only 14 million US dollars. The current North American box office is 1.1 billion US dollars.

Compared with the summer's "The Matrix 2", it is really inferior.

As many media and movie fans commented, watching two "The Matrix" movies in one year makes people feel a little tired.

Warner is too anxious to make money. At the very least, it should be like "The Lord of the Rings", with one film a year being the limit and giving the market some time to recover.

There are indeed some die-hard movie fans who are crying out for food and want to watch three movies at once.

But we must also consider the tolerance of ordinary audiences. When several equally exciting blockbusters are presented in front of them, will they choose a somewhat homogeneous movie or one with more freshness? The answer is hard to say.

Eric feels that "Harry Potter" has done very well in this regard. Until "Deathly Hallows", it has maintained a rate of one film per year or one every two years.

Neither fast nor slow, neither urgent nor slow, the audience's appetite is whetted again, and the company can make a lot of money.

Even though "The Matrix 3" was already miserable, it still sat in second place at the box office for the week.

The third place "Christmas Elf" is no longer cut in half. Compared with the previous week's box office of 33 million US dollars, this week only has 13 million US dollars left.

People seemed to be ignited by "Transformers" and suddenly lost interest in this gentle and gentle theme.

Disney's masterpiece "The Haunting of Hill House" has already grossed less than US$5 million at the box office, and it's uncertain whether it will hit US$3 million next week.

As for the remaining small fish and shrimps, it’s okay not to mention them.

Is the market miserable?

Of course, it was tragic. Except for "Transformers", other movies almost made me cry. Many crew members could only humblely ask for help.

But the audience doesn't like it, so it's useless no matter how hard you try to get help.

But I want to ask if the market is good?

Very good too.

Because compared to the same period last year, the total box office performance increased by 11%. The upward trend is obvious, which is a very good signal, but most of the benefits fall into the mouth of MGM.

In addition to MGM, some of them naturally fell into the hands of theater chains.

Therefore, the theaters that arranged Transformers are also very happy. They can make a lot more money than last year, and they can't wait to give Eric a thank-you call.

The theater owners who ignored Transformers could only beat their chests, thinking that they could no longer change it.

Contracts are signed in advance, and for at least a month, you can only show these movies.

Even if "Polar Expedition" has only one audience per show, cinemas must show it.

Even if there isn't a single audience, you can't show other movies.

Because all major film and television companies have investigators who pretend to be audiences and go to movie theaters for random inspections.

Once violations are discovered, the film and television companies have the right to sue, and the theaters are waiting to lose money.

Miramax would definitely be happy if that happened.

Because the money lost can always make up for part of the box office losses.

But even if you have missed the first month, you can still drink some soup.

I can't drink the soup, but I can just wash the bowl.

There's no bowl left, at least let me smell it.

Therefore, there are still many theater owners who missed "Transformers" and are hurriedly seeking film sources. They can earn a little bit, and they also need to make up for the losses caused by "Polar Expedition".

Under the powerful propaganda offensive, the time came to November 27.

After another four days of screening, "Transformers" once again took in nearly 60 million U.S. dollars at the box office, approaching 500 million U.S. dollars in 11 days, still knocking all the movies to the ground.

And just today, Miramax has always been the focus of publicity, the release of its second blockbuster "Kill Bill" in November.

The media predicts that "Kill Bill" will take over from "Expedition", start a real battle with "Transformers", and use a samurai sword to chop off the heads of the Autobots in the second week.

Movie fans and major companies are paying attention, and theater owners also hope to make the market hotter.

But will it really be what they expect?