I’m in Hollywood

Eric had always kept his head down and flipped through the documents in front of him. In fact, he was a little distracted. He was also thinking about Batman. Although the first Batman was a great success, in memory Warner also began to The long road to the Batman series.

Over the next ten years, Warner Bros. has produced several Batman sequels in a row, with an average investment of more than 100 million US dollars, but the North American box office is only over 100 million. It is estimated that the global box office and surrounding areas, Warner can only maintain a balance of payments , For a large-scale production with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, even if it is a small profit, it is actually equal to a loss, because even if the capital of over 100 million is deposited in the bank, it can reap a large amount of interest in a few years. And maybe even double that on other items.

It was not until Amy poked his arm lightly with a pen that Eric realized that he had become the focus of everyone in the conference room, and many people still had obvious dissatisfaction in their eyes.

Although the project of Dark War was snatched from Fox at a great cost by Columbia, it does not mean that Eric will be loved and welcomed by Columbia executives. In fact, few executives in the entire office like it. Eric, even Amy Pascal, who has always had a good relationship with Eric, has a somewhat complicated sense of Eric in his heart.

All of this is mainly because of Home Alone. After the release of Home Alone at the end of May, the box office of Home Alone has already begun to settle. Eric will receive a share of about 120 million US dollars. It is a well-known thing in the conference room, and Columbia It can only take more than 40 million profits, and the overseas distribution rights were also snatched by Fox for various reasons. Therefore, Eric took most of the profits, which means that the dividends of all the executives present at the end of the year will be a lot less.

In addition, because of the sharing agreement of Dark War, no matter what the box office result of the film is, Eric is actually the biggest profiter. This project does not have a penny of Eric's investment, but the other party can get high profits. Proportional share of the box office. That's for sure. While many shareholders would also benefit from Dark War pushing up Columbia's stock price, most of the executives in the conference room didn't own Columbia's stock.

Under this complicated mood, it is not difficult to understand that everyone ignored Eric's existence at the meeting, intentionally or unintentionally.

Eric had not received a response to a document of his own propaganda ideas submitted before. He had already anticipated the situation today. Although he had specially prepared some speeches before he came, but because of the cold reception at the meeting, Ai Rui had already made some predictions about the situation today. Rick didn't bother to jump out again to be offensive.

Anyway, according to the original agreement, he will be the biggest beneficiary no matter what the result is after the movie is released, it is just the difference between earning more and earning less. For Firefly, who has not invested a single penny, there is no possibility of loss. sex. Originally, Eric was indeed a little worried about the box office prospects of this movie. After all, this is a new work that was completely made up and did not exist in Hollywood.

But after a series of internal and critic screenings that were well-received, Eric was relieved.

Internal test screenings can basically determine the commercial value of a film. Although there are sometimes mistakes, in most cases, the vision of professional film professionals who have been immersed in Hollywood for decades can still be correct, while film critics The results of the test screening also indicate the reputation of a movie in the minds of fans after it is released. Before the Internet era, the establishment of movie reputation was mainly through various movie reviews in the media. Many fans have read the newspapers. After reviewing the movie, you will decide whether to watch a movie or not.

Now that both have basic guarantees, Eric no longer worries that this movie will become his Waterloo,

As for the unfortunate encounter with Batman, it can only be said that luck is not a crime of war.

Amy Pascal saw Eric's dazed look when he raised his head, so he had to lean over and whisper a few words in his ear.

Sorry, everyone, I was just a little distracted. After Amy reminded, Eric said apologetically, and then continued: Actually, my advice on publicity has been sent to Colombia through documents before. It may be because I am relatively unprofessional in this regard, and the content of that document is not reflected in the propaganda strategy of Dark War that I have seen.

There was a buzzing discussion in the conference room. Most people didn't even know that Eric had submitted such a document, and the head of the publicity department was a little guilty. He was promoted by Blunt Cohen, although Brown T. Cohen has left, but he has also maintained a good relationship with each other.

In the same way, because of Blunt Cohen, he didn't have much affection for Eric. After the secretary sent Eric's document, he sneered and threw the document aside without looking at it. , he neither wanted Eric to interfere in the promotion of Dark War, nor did he think that Eric could come up with any novel ideas.

Facing the gazes of everyone, the supervisor could only stammer and defend: I...I don't think Mr. Williams' plan...isn't anything out of the ordinary, so I didn't care too much, just... At once……

Forget it, don't say it anymore, the current president of Columbia who was sitting at the top waved his hand to interrupt the other party's defense. So many people have already seen that he is lying, and if he continues to argue, it will only make people laugh: Ire Ke, it happens that everyone is here, briefly explain your... um, plan.

Okay, it's like this, Eric stood up and walked to the writing board in front of the conference room at the other's suggestion, picked up a black pen and wrote a word on the white board: I call my plan called 'Topic marketing', of course, this is just a more appropriate term I came up with temporarily, if there is no such concept in the orthodox marketing theory, please don't mind.

The propaganda before Dark War has reached the maximum, so it is impossible for us to make any further efforts in the orthodox propaganda method, so if we want to make a breakthrough, we can only choose a topic that does not seem to have much to do with the movie. Propaganda, in fact, I think that some movies have attracted the attention of fans by hyping up the scandal between the male and female protagonists, which can be classified as topic marketing.

After Eric finished speaking, he took a look at everyone's reaction before continuing: The focus of everyone's debate before was whether to delay the release of Dark War for a week. I think my plan can just achieve the best of both worlds. There’s no need for an extension, and if done right, the movie’s second-week box office will have unexpected results, maximizing the loss from the first-week box office squeeze from Batman.”

Under the curious eyes of everyone in the conference room, Eric wrote down the words 'Advertising' and 'TV series' on the whiteboard.

Everyone knows that there are a lot of advertisement placements in Dark War, so we had some small disputes between the two sides, Eric pointed to the placed advertisements and smiled. The executives in the conference room He also smiled cooperatively, because Eric had previously received $6 million in advertising fees with a large number of embedded advertisements in Dark War, and Columbia wanted to take a share of the pie after learning about the situation. After all, $6 million can be used. Not a small amount of money can make a movie. But Eric converted this advertising fee into his personal income through a specific contract, not the income of the movie Dark War, and as a result Columbia did not get a penny.

After everyone's laughter fell, Eric continued: My plan revolves around the topic of placing advertisements and the TV series I'm about to make. I am confident that the placement of these advertisements is still very clever, so Even those film critics who participated in the test screening didn't find anything wrong, and they didn't notice the TV series that appeared three times before and after the movie. Even these film critics didn't notice, I believe the audience is even less likely I have noticed that they are more immersed in the plot of the movie. The topic marketing I am talking about is that after the movie is released, we artificially create topics to guide the audience to pay attention to these, if we can successfully attract fans to the movie. Just how many advertisements there are and the curiosity about the content of the three flashed TV series can cause a large part of the audience to return and even watch repeatedly in the second week of the movie.

Speaking of this, an executive below the stage interjected: Eric, you can try the topic of your TV series, but I remember you specifically told us before that you should not mention anything about the placement of advertisements when promoting. Isn't it to prevent fans from being disgusted by it?

Eric explained: Of course, so, what I just said was revealed after the movie was released. After the first weekend and three days of the movie, the word of mouth of Dark War must have been confirmed. The word-of-mouth of this movie is full of confidence. Now that the fans have determined that this is an excellent movie, then we will reveal it again, and the fans will not be disgusted, but will regard it as an interesting thing, like We are always tolerant of the small shortcomings of those who are talented. No one will criticize Napoleon's height, Einstein's indifference, or Marie Curie's... ahem, of course, this still needs to be passed. The media guides public opinion. We must ensure that most of the media's attitude towards this matter is mainly ridiculed rather than criticized. I have already written the specific plan in the document I submitted, and of course it is necessary to Professionals make corrections, I'm just a layman in this area after all, and many things may not have been taken into account.

After Eric finished speaking, he walked back to his seat again. The president of Columbia turned his attention to the executive in charge of publicity: Ren, is that Eric document still there?

Ren rubbed his knees with his hands hidden under the conference table, and said uncertainly: Maybe... it's still there, I'll ask the assistant to find it.

Go in person. After you find it, make a few more copies and send them over as soon as possible.

Okay, I'll go. The other party stood up and left the conference room in a hurry. The meeting fell into a tentative state. Everyone was chatting about what Eric just said, and Eric stopped talking. Being coldly received, a circle of people gathered around him to discuss with him.