Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

After the awards season at the beginning of the year, major Hollywood movie studios are starting to get up and running.

There are 15 major movie projects produced by Lionsgate this year, including "The Hunger Games 4", "The Expendables 3", "Bad Boys 5", "Now Now 2", "Insidious 4", "The Conjuring 3" and "American Sniper" "Maleficent," "The Big Short," "The Butler," "Trainwreck," "Creed," "Sicario," "Inherent Evil" and "Split."

There are three movies produced by Palm Beach Pictures, "Into the Wild", "Lovers at the End of Time" and "Springtime for Ugly Girls"

There are two film projects in cooperation with Annapurna Pictures: "Joy's Struggle" and "Foxcatcher"

There are three film projects in cooperation with Paramount Pictures: "The Martian", "Terminator: Genisys" and "Armageddon".

Among them, Summit Entertainment's production department merged with Lionsgate's original production department.

At present, the new production department has been split into four parts. The first production department mainly produces commercial films, the second production department produces art films, the third production department produces horror films, and the fourth production department is responsible for working with Netflix. The company's film department produces online movies.

In addition to the film department, Lionsgate also has two production departments responsible for producing TV series and advertisements.

Lionsgate’s investment budget in movies this year is as high as 800 million U.S. dollars. Among them, there are six movies with production costs exceeding 100 million. Except for “The Hunger Games 4”, which is solely produced by Lionsgate, the remaining five movies are in cooperation with other film companies. Filming, including "The Expendables 3", "Maleficent", "The Martian", "Terminator: Genisys" and "Armageddon".

This investment model can also reduce the financial burden on Lionsgate Pictures. While avoiding risks, it can also produce more movies and get more box office.

Link is participating in the filming of three movies this year, "Avengers 2", "American Sniper" and "The Expendables 3", and has also made minor supporting roles in several movies.

There are 19 movies released by Lionsgate this year, including movies in partnership with Palm Beach Pictures, Annapurna Pictures, and movies produced by Summit Entertainment.

"Snowpiercer", "Fake Family", "Sashu Brothers", "Fatal Call", "Gone Girl", "The Hunger Games 3", "Dark Lady 3", "Ender's Game", "Divergent: The Alien Awakens", "Dance" 5", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Birdman", "John Wick", "Annabelle", "Insidious 3", "The Conjuring 2", "Neighbors", "Crunch", "American Hustle"

There are four movies that have been released so far, "Snowpiercer", "Joshu Brothers", "Fatal Call" and "Fake Family".

"Snowpiercer" was released in early January and was in theaters for 45 days, with a cumulative box office of US$16.65 million.

Including overseas box office, the film's global box office has now reached a cumulative US$124 million.

Lionsgate is expected to make about $20 million.

The second movie "Joseph" was released on January 17. It is a black comedy movie starring the famous black rapper Ice Cube. It tells the story of a black policeman who tries to break up his sister's engagement to a white psychiatrist. story.

Since the third day of the movie's release is Martin Luther King Day, there is a national holiday.

It is estimated to have grossed US$41.2 million in 2,663 theaters over the three weekend days, setting a January movie opening record.

It has grossed US$134 million at the box office in North America over two months after its release. It is Lionsgate's first North American movie with a box office of over 100 million in 2014. It is also the first movie in the North American market this year with a box office of over 100 million.

The performance in overseas regions is slightly worse, with the current box office of 19.08 million US dollars.

The total box office is 152 million.

Compared with the cost of 25 million US dollars, the movie's revenue ratio is 1:6, which is considered a good start.

When the North American box office of the film exceeded 100 million US dollars, it happened that the media announced the results of major film companies last year.

When the media saw the box office of this movie, they had to lament that Lionsgate was very good at investing in and producing movies.

In addition, the film sold more than 100 million at the box office during the off-season at the beginning of the year, which also gave Lionsgate Films a good start.

"Complete Movies" magazine used an exaggerated tone to say that Lionsgate Pictures is expected to surpass Disney this year and become the industry's number one.

This kind of publicity also puts great pressure on the ‘old six’.

Originally, the top executives of the six major film studios thought that Lionsgate's movie success was a short-lived flash in the pan, and would fall back to its original position when the "Hunger Games" series ended.

Judging from Lionsgate's movies last year and this year, although Lionsgate relies heavily on "The Hunger Games" at the box office, other movie projects also performed very well at the box office.

This also shows that Lionsgate's success is not an accident, but that it has found the password to invest in movies. It is no worse than the six major film studios in film production and distribution.

To this end, in addition to squeezing Lionsgate Pictures in terms of publicity, the six major film studios also announced multiple film support plans, increased investment in films, and strengthened cooperation with independent production companies, including Weinstein Pictures, Legendary Pictures Industry, Relativity Pictures, A24 Pictures, New Regency Pictures, and even Palm Beach Pictures have also received cooperation invitations from the six major companies.

Kenneth Turan, a famous commentator on the Los Angeles Times film column, jokingly said that Lionsgate Pictures has single-handedly stirred up the Hollywood film market, making competition in the film industry more intense. The next ten years will be a decade of life and death for film companies. They cannot Film companies that adapt to this kind of competition are bound to be eliminated.

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The third film released by Lionsgate this year is "The Call", which was released in mid-February. It was directed by Brad Anderson and starred Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut and others.

The film tells the story of how Turner, the operator of the 911 reporting center, helped the little girl Casey escape a robbery through the phone and successfully caught the murderer.

This is one of the low-cost films produced by Lionsgate last year, with a production budget of 12 million US dollars.

It has been released in North America for three weeks and currently has a box office of 41.98 million US dollars, and is expected to exceed 50 million.

The film has also been released in 16 countries and regions overseas, and currently has a box office of 13.2 million US dollars.

The box office revenue ratio also reached 6:1.

The fourth film is "The Fake Family", which was released in early March. It was directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, the deputy director of "The Gossip Project", and starred Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Jason Sudeikis and others.

It tells the story of a smuggler named David who saw a homeless woman named Cathy being blackmailed, so he offered to help her, but was robbed of all his wealth. In order to pay off his debts, David prepared to smuggle marijuana to Mexico. In order to cross the border smoothly, he found a few people to pretend to be the "Miller family" and pretend to travel in Mexico.

It is also a comedy.

The film cost 37 million US dollars to produce, and it earned 45.61 million US dollars in 3,260 theaters in North America in the first week.

The box office recovered its investment in the first week, and the performance was very good.

The North American box office reached 74.33 million US dollars in two weeks of release.

Although it has not yet exceeded 100 million, the attendance rate of the movie is very good, reaching 75%. Compared with last week, the box office fell by less than 20%.

This shows that the film has great box office potential and is very popular with movie fans.

The theater predicts that the box office of the film will exceed 100 million next week, and the North American box office is expected to be no less than 150 million US dollars.

The overseas box office performance is also good. Due to the high popularity of Jennifer Aniston and Emma Roberts overseas, the current box office in 23 countries and regions has received 55.48 million US dollars, and the box office is expected to be more than 100 million US dollars.

Lionsgate released four movies at the beginning of the year, two of which had a North American box office of more than 100 million, and the total North American box office of the four movies is expected to exceed 350 million US dollars.

This result not only exceeded the expectations of Lionsgate, but also surprised Hollywood peers.

According to the situation of North American film releases last year, a total of 33 movies had a box office of more than 100 million, with a total box office of 10.9 billion, which is probably about the same this year.

Lionsgate has just opened the year and released two movies with a North American box office of more than 100 million, accounting for 2/33, and the box office performance of the four movies accounts for 3.5/109 of the total box office.

Ranked first among the movies released by the "New Seven" at the beginning of the year.

According to this situation, Lionsgate's box office performance this year is likely to continue to rank in the top three.

The Hollywood Reporter said in the article that Lionsgate's films led the 2014 film market, but also posed a big problem to its peers. Disney, Warner, and Universal Pictures should put aside their arrogant attitude and actively ask Lionsgate for advice on how to sell big movies.

"Damn, what's wrong with Lionsgate? Why do their movies always get good box office? Don't those fans have any appreciation ability?"

In the office of the president of Warner Pictures, Kevin Tsujihara, who took office last year, looked very unhappy after seeing the news in the newspaper.

Warner Pictures also released four movies in the first three months of the year. Only one 3D animated movie "The Lego Movie" had good box office results. Two of the other three lost money and one barely broke even.

The total box office results of the four movies in North America were less than 300 million US dollars, and the production cost of these four movies reached 200 million US dollars.

This was only with the support of the strong publicity and distribution capabilities of Warner Bros. Group that these movies were sold at the box office.

Compared with Warner, Lionsgate is inferior in terms of publicity and distribution channels. The production cost of the four films was only 110 million US dollars, but all four Lionsgate films were hits.

This made Kevin Tsujihara very confused.

He also went to the cinema to watch four Lionsgate films. Although these films were good, they were not much better than the films of the same period, but the box office results were very good.

This made him very suspicious whether Lionsgate had any magic that could trick moviegoers into the cinema.

"Did you find any problems in the investigation?"

Kevin Tsujihara looked at Pam Abdi, the marketing director opposite, and asked.

Pam Abdi had a gloomy face and shook her head. Since the Lionsgate films sold well the year before last, the marketing department of Warner Pictures began to investigate the reasons for the Lionsgate films' success. At first, they suspected that Lionsgate's box office was inflated, but after investigation, they found that it was not.

They also arranged for people to investigate Lionsgate internally, but no problems were found.

For this purpose, Warner Bros. also poached three producers and assistants from Lionsgate. However, their performance was mediocre after they started working at Warner Bros.