The reason why Simon was able to reply to Ren Jingxi's email was mainly because he happened to be on the West Coast in recent days, and he was able to cultivate himself again, so he had more time.

In late July, the most important film in North America's continued summer season is undoubtedly "The Matrix".

Simon came here for this too.

Compared with the world-renowned "Godzilla" and "The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation" directed by Michael Bay, Wachowski's fame is much worse. Therefore, before it was released, this was the least concerned one of Daenerys' three major films this summer.

The results are naturally the most unexpected.

The film premiered at the Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on July 21. The next day, the media's reputation was lifted, and the audience was praised.

The Hollywood Reporter praised the film as ‘a film that is technically amazing and at the same time pioneered a whole new sci-fi genre’.

Variety Show magazine is directly convinced: "A must-see work for fans of the type."

The Seattle Times was even more unreserved: "A grand and exciting science fiction blockbuster."

Although some dissenting voices are inevitable, most mainstream media’s evaluation of the film is inseparable from words such as “amazing”, “exciting”, and “creative”, which shows the overall reputation of “The Matrix”. The comprehensive media rating of the film also proves one thing again, the preliminary estimate reaches 9.2 points, which is an absolute classic level.

Compared to Warner's previous dissatisfaction with the first song of "The Matrix", Daenerys was well prepared from the beginning.

The production cost of the film is US$80 million, exceeding the 63 million first film, and the promotion budget also reaches US$30 million, which is equivalent to "Godzilla" which started the summer season. As the reputation of the film exploded, Daenerys' promotion team also quickly followed up, timely and maximized the influence of the film.

Immediately afterwards, on July 23, the film officially opened on a large scale on 3,103 screens in North America.

A very outstanding weekend box office trend.

On the first day of July 23, "The Matrix" earned $16.87 million in a single day, which is already a good start.

On July 24, with the rapid spread of reputation, the single-day box office exceeded 20 million, reaching 21.46 million US dollars in one fell swoop.

July 25, Sunday, which best reflects the film's box office potential, is usually the lowest on three days on weekends. However, this time, the first Sunday box office of "The Matrix" is still as high as $17.4 million.

So, after three days of painting, "The Matrix" earned $55.73 million.

As the weekdays begin, the popularity of "The Matrix" continues. When the full first week from July 23 to July 29 ends, the cumulative box office of this sci-fi action blockbuster that won a lot of praise has reached 83.19 million US dollars.

Daenerys Entertainment’s three major summer movies, in terms of the first week, "The Matrix" is undoubtedly the lowest. Not to mention "Godzilla" with 111 million in the first week, "The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation" in early July also had a box office of more than 87 million in the first week.

However, first of all, "The Matrix" is undoubtedly the lowest among the three major films, with a total budget of only 110 million US dollars in production and promotion, while "Godzilla" is 140 million, and "The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation" is as high as 180 million. Besides, the reputation and follow-up, obviously, with such a dazzling start, no one would suspect that "The Matrix" will take a very outstanding box office curve.

The facts were soon proven.

In the second week of release, from July 30 to August 5, the final drop of "The Matrix" was only 26% the next week, and it closed at another $61.57 million, and the cumulative box office quickly reached a high of $144.76 million.

At present, when saturated full release has basically become popular, the opening screen with more than 3,000 yuan can still maintain the decline within 30% the next week, which is definitely a dark horse-like miracle.

In comparison, "The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation", which had a similar box office in the first week, fell by as much as 45% the next week. Although it slightly surpassed "The Matrix" in the first week, the cumulative box office of the two-week was only US$135.35 million.

Different trends naturally mean the gap in total box office size.

"The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation" has basically determined the total local box office volume of over 200 million yuan. "The Matrix" has such a brilliant trend, even if it is not as good as "The Peerless Heavenly Tribulation" in the first week, it will have great hope to hit the local box office of 300 million yuan.

After all three blockbusters appeared, Daenerys's summer performance in 1999 was basically clear.

Two movies are at 300 million, and one movie is at 200 million, and the conservative sum is 800 million. It is only 200 million away from Simon's 1 billion goal. Including another movie "Ghost Records 2", all other projects actually only need to complete a box office share of less than 100 million US dollars.

In fact, Daenerys' release plans for a total of 13 movies in the entire summer of 1999, and the remaining 9 may not be short of duds with a box office defeat, but it is impossible for him to only get 100 million yuan in total.

Just like the new film scheduled for August 6, "Fighting Club".

Many directors have some films, which may not have high box office when they were first released, and even ended in failure, but their subsequent reputation became better and better, and even eventually established the director's film and television status to a certain extent. "Fighting Club" in the original time and space is such a movie for director David Finch.

This film, which once ranked among the top ten in IMDB, was released in the first round. Not only did it fail in box office, but its reputation was not outstanding.

Then counterattacked all the way.

In the end, David Finch's magical character was much better than the other party's famous work "The Seven Deadly Sins".

Let’s talk about the present.

Simon, the big butterfly, has been struggling all the way to the present. If he does nothing, the probability of "Fighting Club" reappearing is very low. However, because I just remember some of the creative background of this film, coupled with Simon's position in Hollywood at this time, he slightly tugged the strings of the time, and history has returned to the track of the past.

Having said that, after the successful collaboration with Daenerys in "The Seven Deadly Sins", Finch's subsequent film, the $50 million "Psychological Game" in 1995, ended in failure. Another original film that had never been before was silent, which is considered the third after "The Seven Deadly Sins".

There are also rules in Hollywood that there is no matter how many things happen.

If you fail again, Finch may be silent.

However, due to the failure of the first two films, the cost of "Fighting Club" is much lower than the budget that once exceeded $60 million. Although the main creators are basically the original version, the budget given by New World Pictures was only 40 million. Even if Finch inevitably overspending again, he still spent only 46 million this time.

Of course, 46 million is actually not low, not to mention the $15 million in publicity and promotion given by Simon after personal interference, with a total investment of $61 million, which is also the level of bombshell.

David Finch obviously also understood that he could not bear another failure, so he has been working very hard since the film was launched.

Besides, the reason why Simon interfered was that the final film was that New World Pictures was very unpopular, or even unable to understand it. This was exactly the same as the original producer 20th Century Fox.

Therefore, after several consecutive internal screenings, media screenings, movie fans screenings and ordinary audience screenings, and finding out the general attitudes of different viewing groups, "Fighting Club" finally determined the distribution strategy of small-scale painting opening, online marketing, controversial marketing, and pursuing long-term screenings.

The film's opening period is August 6, but "Fighting Club" held its premiere on July 31 a week in advance. Then, on Sunday, August 1, a series of movie fans were screened in some major cities in North America.

Then there is a word, stir-fry!

The battlefield is mainly on emerging online media.

First of all, the comprehensive premiere on July 31, and the next day, the word-of-mouth began to be lifted. Traditional media actually gave a pretty good review. The comprehensive media score reached 7.9 points, which is obviously a more recognized attitude. However, "Fighting Club" is not a popcorn movie, which means that if the score does not exceed 8 points, it is actually difficult to win by relying on word-of-mouth.

Therefore, of course, we have to provoke controversy.

As a result, on the online platform, the reputation of "Fighting Club" has rapidly become "polarized". Those who like it very much like it, directly regard the film as a masterpiece, and have only given the traditional media a score of only 7.9 points in total, and those who hate it are very annoying.

Among them, the focus is on some media comments that do not like the movie as targets. For example, a film critic of the San Francisco Chronicle strongly criticized "Fight Club" for catering to cynical teenage audiences through mysterious sensationalism. The so-called satiricality of the real society in the film is purely a farce.

This made Finch movie fans who have watched the videos and liked them very much could not stand it. They posted a large number of unfair posts on major movie websites, message forums and other platforms, and unconsciously gathered into a large number of Polish-style tap water.

Of course, there is no shortage of straightforward curses and insults, but these extreme remarks were quickly deleted by various platforms, and relevant accounts were also subject to certain bans.

This involves the issue of scale.

You can argue, quarrel, but you can't scold people, otherwise it will still affect the film itself.

In such a lively atmosphere, "Fighting Club" was officially released on August 6, with only 1,263 screens.

Of course, the fan group is not clear about the specific distribution strategy of the New World Film Team, so the obviously pitiful 1,263 screens soon became a hot topic of controversy under the leadership of those who are interested. Many movie fans think that Daenerys is also planning to give up "Fighting Club". Not only did they launch a petition on the Internet, asking Daenerys to increase the scale of screenings, but they also called on like-minded netizens and even relatives and friends in real life to support the movie.
Chapter completed!