Chapter 1995 1995 Publishing Department

April is over in a blink of an eye, and the summer file in May is coming again. Although the overall downturn in the summer file last year made people disappointed with the performance of the film market, this is only in comparison with "Independence Day". In fact, " Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World", "Men in Black" and "Air Force One" all performed very well, especially the "Men in Black" who turned out to make Will Smith the successor to Danzig Another popular black actor after Bill Washington, Eddie Murphy and others.

This year's summer season will kick off with two works, "Deep. Impact" and "Godzilla", and stage a vigorous summer box office competition. Both are disaster movies, built entirely on what came on the heels of the stellar success of "Independence Day," especially the latter!

"Godzilla" is directed by Roland Emmerich. After the blockbuster director of "Independence Day", he cooperated with Sony Columbia Pictures and spent 120 million US dollars to create this movie. He also invited Jean Renault, who is famous all over the world because "this killer is not too cold", to join, which can be said to be menacing.

Although the summer season has not yet kicked off at this time, people have already begun to get excited ahead of time. What kind of box office performance will the two disaster movies contribute, and what kind of box office performance will Roland's new work after "Independence Day" contribute? , all of which have become hot topics of discussion.

Especially in the "Star Wars Prequel" series and Hugo's scandal has been raging in the past month, and the degree of discussion has remained high. Some people even jointly signed a letter hoping that Hugo can play Obi-Wan, and some people organized a rally in the form of a parade Protesting against Hugo's joining, the topic followed one after another, so that the heat of the summer vacation began to cover the entire North American continent early.

What kind of chemical reaction will happen between Hugo and "Star Wars Prequel" is temporarily unknown, but the box office performance of "Clash of Heaven and Earth" and "Godzilla" will soon reveal the answer. What's more interesting is that this time Roland will have a duel with Hugo.

With the approach of the summer vacation, Paramount Pictures also announced the schedule of "The Truman Show". This comedy movie with an investment of only 60 million US dollars can only be regarded as a small shrimp in this extremely competitive schedule. But it became hot because of Hugo's joining.

"Godzilla" will officially land on the North American market on May 22, and "The Truman Show" will be fully released in North America on June 5. Although there was an interval of two weeks, "Godzilla" still needs to face the impact of "The Truman Show". Subsequent box office pulling ability has a direct impact.

This will be the third time that Hugo has landed in the summer file after "Speed" and "Independence Day". However, compared with the previous two works, "The Truman Show" is not only Hugo's first challenge to a comedy movie, And it also needs to face the pickiness of the same type of movies in the summer market. This also adds a touch of uncertainty to the film's North American box office.

Of course, under Hugo's current momentum, people still generally believe in Hugo's box office appeal, and "The Truman Show" is bound to become a seed choice that cannot be ignored in the summer schedule. Under such circumstances, how much pressure the follow-up box office of "Godzilla" will bear, and whether the final cumulative box office will be directly affected have become the biggest points of interest.

People also lamented that this is the precursor of Hugo and Roland joining forces again after "Independence Day" to "dominate the summer vacation". It's ridicule, ridicule, and expectation.

Before the arrival of the summer holidays, everyone's attention is focused on the bustling movie market, and the topics around Hugo are always inseparable from the shadow of "Star Wars Prequel". But in the silence, there was a turbulent sea in the circle.

In less than 50 days, DreamWorks bought four small distribution companies and one medium-sized distribution company with large sums of money, and vigorously established DreamWorks' own distribution department. Only then did people notice that a huge sum of money had been injected into DreamWorks!

Prior to this, no rumors had leaked out. When it was heard that DreamWorks had acquired the distribution company, people in the circle did not pay much attention to it, because DreamWorks was an independent production company, and the Big Three headed by Steven Spielberg refused any form of Wall Street capital injection, so Everyone does not think that DreamWorks can make big moves.

But now, DreamWorks, which has been silent for a long time, suddenly burst out with such a powerful energy. He raised funds and helped DreamWorks complete the construction of the distribution department, which raised the competitiveness of DreamWorks several steps in one fell swoop.

In fact, this news confuses many people in the circle. Everyone knows that Steven refuses capital injection—rejecting various forms of capital. The three helmsmen of DreamWorks are all full of personalities. They reject external capital, In fact, they are refusing others to direct their creations. But this time, DreamWorks accepted Allen's capital injection, which is really an incomprehensible problem.

Not long after, there were rumors in the circle: Hugo Lancaster will serve as Allen's executive officer and enter DreamWorks. Allen did not interfere with any day-to-day affairs of DreamWorks, and left it to Hugo to handle it. In other words, now DreamWorks is no longer the Big Three, but the Big Four! Along with Steven, David, and Jeffrey, Hugo became the helm of the future development of DreamWorks.

The news was quickly acknowledged by David Geffen. One stone stirs up a thousand waves!

No one can predict how this change will affect Hollywood-the success of "LA Confidential" and "As Good as It Is" is still vivid in the memory, and Hugo's undefeated record since the Golden Raspberry Award It has won the reputation of Hollywood's "Golden Touch", and even the success of "Titanic" is considered to have been predicted by Hugo.

Therefore, after Hugo joins DreamWorks, what changes will it bring to DreamWorks, and what vitality will be injected into the works produced by DreamWorks, all of this is worth looking forward to.

At the same time, Hugo's joining is also linked to the establishment of the distribution department-the funds injected by Allen are used to establish the distribution department. It is not difficult to guess that these two things are closely related, and it can also be seen that DreamWorks has a strong ambition.

After careful and in-depth digging, it can be found that among the five distribution companies acquired by DreamWorks, the only medium-sized distribution company was acquired from Disney. The long-term screening cooperation rights of 1,300 theaters, and also have some cooperative relations with Disney's theme parks, peripheral sales, and video rental business.

Among the other four distribution companies, three are self-made independent distribution companies, and their distribution capabilities are mainly concentrated in the West Bank and the central area centered on Chicago; there is also a cooperative distribution company under Paramount, which owns six The long-term cooperative projection rights of hundreds of theaters, but the superior geographical location is definitely the leader among small distribution companies, and it is only a matter of time before it develops into a medium-sized or even a large company.

As we all know, among the current eight major Hollywood film companies, Paramount has the strongest distribution ability, but Disney has the most peripheral business marketing ability. DreamWorks chose these distribution companies for acquisitions, and it is definitely not aimless.

People in the circle immediately sensed the exchange of benefits. Although they couldn't clear the fog and see the truth of the matter, the truth will always come out after time has passed. At that time, they will know what happened after this transaction. How many bloody storms.

What people don't notice are a few minor turbulences in the long months that followed in Hollywood.

First, the CEO of ABC Television, Robert Iger, was promoted in early July. He successfully entered the Disney headquarter, became one of the many helpers of CEO Michael Eisner, and became the president of the international business department. Disney's global distribution and opening, and concurrently serves as the chairman of the ABC Group.

Almost at the same time, there was a personnel turmoil in Bowei Films. CEO David Vogel's most trusted deputy, the chief operating officer, was dismissed. Michael from the Disney headquarters personally sent a new chief operating officer to assist Bo Wei The business development of Wei Film Company.

In addition, Kenneth/Mitchell Films, owned by Kathleen Kennedy, signed a cooperation agreement with DreamWorks. In the future, they will jointly develop several works, and DreamWorks has priority distribution rights-provided that DreamWorks' distribution department It can meet the distribution capacity of 2,500 theaters.

These trivial news did not attract too many people's attention, because the personnel changes within the large film company are very frequent, except for the changes in important positions such as CEO and COO, otherwise it is difficult for people to pay too much attention— — After all, he is still a strategist figure behind the scenes, the less attention the better.

However, those who are really interested can notice the subtle connection, especially a week after DreamWorks completed the acquisition of the mid-sized distribution department, Hugo officially announced through Rick Rosen that his new work will be a horror movie. — "The Sixth Sense," with new director M-Nate Shyamalan and fellow cast members Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Beckinsale and Toni Colette.

The low-key horror film, with an investment of $55 million, will be Hugo's third as producer. But it is worth noting that "The Sixth Sense of Spirituality" is not a work invested and shot by DreamWorks, but is invested and produced by Bowei Films.

The connection among them makes people have to imagine.