novelraw Chapter 622: Reversal
Chapter 622: Reversal
[Chapter 622: Reversal]
The overwhelming mockery from the media didn't affect Linton's mood in the slightest.
The next morning, he bid farewell to a reluctant Jennifer Aniston and continued to Chicago for promotions with Kate Winslet.
At Chicago's airport, the fans who came to welcome him were also unaffected by the media; they were just as numerous and just as fanatical.
To avoid disrupting the airport's normal operations, Linton, as usual, gave a simple greeting to the fans before quickly leaving with his entourage. Afterward, he had his subordinates sponsor a fee for the airport as compensation.
At the Hilton Hotel in Chicago, a beautifully dressed Mariah Carey was already waiting for him.
Just like Jennifer Aniston, Mariah completely ignored the swarming reporters and paparazzi, naturally joining Linton's promotional team. That afternoon, she accompanied Linton to start promotions at Chicago's cinemas.
Unlike yesterday, Friday, when many office workers had to work during the day, today was Saturday. Even in the afternoon, there were many people watching Titanic, and the theater occupancy rate was very high, far exceeding that of other screening rooms.
Of course, the arrival of Linton's group also added a lot of heat to the cinemas.
Especially in the evening, the Titanic screening rooms were basically full. Many people even arrived at the scene and couldn't buy tickets, so they had to buy tickets for the next day.
It wasn't just Chicago; according to information gathered by Universal Pictures' distribution department from various theater chains, the vast majority of theaters across the United States were the same—the occupancy rates for Titanic were incredibly high.
After Levitt finished reporting to Linton, he also slowly began to believe Linton's viewpoint and started to have more confidence in Titanic's box office.
By 11 PM, Linton's group emerged from the New World Cinema. Mariah sneakily got into Linton's car and returned with him to the Hilton Hotel.
Finally, while Kate Winslet rolled her eyes, Mariah linked arms with Linton on the other side and entered Linton's presidential suite with him in a grand manner.
Several rounds of passion later...
At 2 AM, the phone in Linton's room rang. Linton picked it up, and Levitt's voice came from the other end.
"Boss, yesterday's box office numbers are out."
"How much? Tell me."
"About the same as the day before yesterday, 35.87 million dollars."
"That's not right. Since the day before yesterday had 10.71 million from the midnight screenings, the occupancy rate should actually be much higher than the day before."
"Correct. According to the data we got from the theater chains, for all the screening rooms showing Titanic yesterday, the daytime occupancy rate was super high, with an average exceeding 61%. The average evening occupancy rate was as high as 92%."
"What about the audience word-of-mouth?"
"Excellent. It's better than all your previous works. According to the results of a survey of 10,000 audience members conducted by CinemaScore over two consecutive days at cinemas, 9,516 people gave the film an A+ rating, 348 gave it an A, and fewer than 50 people rated it B+ or below."
"So, no need to worry about the box office. Just continue with the original promotional plan."
...
Although the outside world was still full of mockery, influenced by their big boss Linton's calm and confident demeanor, the main cast and crew's uneasy hearts slowly stabilized. They continued their intense roadshow promotions, and their morale during the promotions remained unaffected.
The marketing teams of both companies also settled down, and various promotions continued to be implemented in an orderly fashion.
MCA Television and UPN even drove their live broadcast vans into commercial center cinemas in major cities, showing the occupancy rates of Titanic screenings and the audience evaluations after watching the film directly to the national audience, allowing everyone to see more intuitively how popular Titanic was with the public.
Thus, Sunday passed. To everyone's surprise, Titanic's box office for that day didn't drop like other movies; instead, it was almost the same as Saturday, taking in 35.48 million dollars.
For the first three days of the opening weekend, Titanic's total box office was 106.63 million dollars, successfully breaking the 100 million mark. This performance was second only to the opening weekend record of Mission: Impossible.
According to the box office patterns of Hollywood's top commercial blockbusters, for films that receive an overall audience rating of A+ or higher during the summer and Christmas seasons, as long as the marketing is effective, the upper limit of the film's box office in the North America market can often reach four times the opening weekend box office.
Based on this projection, Titanic's box office in North America is expected to reach over 400 million dollars, potentially breaking Mission: Impossible's North America box office record of 407 million dollars.
Adding in the overseas box office, the global box office might truly reach 1 billion dollars.
Such a box office performance would be an extraordinary achievement for any commercial film, enough to hold a celebratory party.
However, for Titanic, which had a production cost exceeding 310 million dollars, marketing costs over 100 million dollars, and a total cost exceeding 410 million dollars...
From the perspective of box office revenue alone, even if the global box office reached 1 billion dollars, the box office earnings would at most be just over 300 million dollars. After deducting the box office shares for Linton and the James Cameron (40% of the North America box office revenue), it would still be a massive loss.
Even including the film's short-term ancillary revenue, it could at most be considered a small profit. To truly make money, it would still rely on long-term copyright operations.
However, seeing this performance, the outside world's doubts and mockery regarding the film's box office finally began to gradually disappear. At most, only a small number of media outlets continued to bring up Linton's box office predictions.
Because back when the film premiered, Linton had predicted that the film's North America box office would exceed 600 million dollars and the total global box office would exceed 1.8 billion dollars.
Looking at it now, while the film's box office was impressive, the absolute ceiling for the North America box office was just over 400 million dollars; the goal of 600 million was simply too far off.
From this perspective, saying Linton had overhyped it wasn't wrong.
However, Titanic's subsequent box office trend completely exceeded everyone's expectations.
On Monday, Titanic's box office continued to rake in 28.53 million dollars.
This box office figure truly stunned all industry insiders.
As everyone knows, generally speaking, if a commercial film's weekday box office drop compared to Sunday is within 50%, it's considered a healthy trend. If the drop is within 40%, it's an excellent trend. A drop within 30% can simply be called a masterpiece.
But Titanic's box office trend was a completely different concept compared to other films; Monday's drop was incredibly less than 20%.
After Monday's box office numbers came out, all the doubts and mockery in the media vanished, and more people began to pay attention to Titanic's subsequent performance.
Universal Pictures and Linton Film Company, along with the film's main creative team, were naturally boosted in morale. The marketing personnel also publicized Monday's box office performance through various channels to increase the film's promotion.
Executives from other film companies were all praying in their hearts that Titanic's Monday drop was just an accident and that it would start to drop significantly and normally starting Tuesday.
However, what happened next completely overturned Hollywood's common sense, making everyone truly realize the terror of this giant ship, Titanic.
On Tuesday, the film continued to rake in 28.36 million dollars, basically flat compared to Monday.
On Wednesday, it was 29.83 million dollars. Because it was Christmas Eve, the box office actually rose slightly.
In other words, during the first week's three workdays, the film's box office drop compared to the weekend consistently stayed within 20%. This was simply a world-shaking rhythm.
At this time, professional institutions quietly raised their North America box office predictions for Titanic to 500 million dollars.
Other media outlets also began to completely change their attitudes, voluntarily joining in the praise for Titanic and analyzing this unprecedented box office curve.
The New York Times, controlled by Hillary, took a clear stand and began to sing praises loudly, reporting in a prominent front-page headline: "The Unsinkable Giant Ship: The Titanic Box Office Miracle Sweeps the United States; Linton's Box Office Prophecy Was Not Arrogance."
The article analyzed the film's box office curve since its release in detail, as well as the incredible drop during the weekdays, pointing out that Titanic had already become a cultural trend.
The great love in the film had already conquered the American audience, driving countless young girls crazy and making them go to the cinema repeatedly.
The article boldly predicted that Titanic's final North America box office would certainly exceed 600 million dollars, just as Linton had previously predicted.
And it believed that such a great love with universal values would surely follow the giant ship Titanic across the seas, conquering audiences worldwide and creating a new world box office record—1.8 billion dollars is not a dream.
*****
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