novelraw Chapter 624: Continued Madness, the Reason Behind It
Chapter 624: Continued Madness, the Reason Behind It
[Chapter 624: Continued Madness, the Reason Behind It]
Time passed quickly, and before anyone knew it, it was already 1998.
After entering the new year, the burning-hot movie market also began to cool down.
Although many new movies were released during the New Year's Day period, the daily box office gross clearly declined.
However, something that shocked everyone happened again.
During the New Year's Day period, Titanic actually raked in $45.37 million in its third weekend over three days, accounting for 45% of the total box office revenue with a 22% screen share.
Winning the box office championship for three consecutive weekends—this kind of box office miracle hadn't happened in 20 years; the last time such a miracle was created was in 1977 by George Lucas's Star Wars.
At that time, this movie was not favored by anyone in the industry or the media; film critics criticized the movie as worthless, and George Lucas even had trouble finding a distribution company for a while.
Ultimately, only after making significant concessions on distribution fees did 20th Century Fox reluctantly take over the film's distribution; as for the movie's merchandise, 20th Century Fox didn't care for it at all and didn't even mention it in the contract.
But because of this, George Lucas was lucky enough to fully retain the merchandising rights for Star Wars.
Everyone knows what happened next; after the movie was released, it was sought after by audiences across the United States, and its popularity remained unabated, taking the box office championship for three consecutive weeks and finally raking in over $300 million; Star Wars also became a cultural symbol for Americans.
George Lucas also became the richest person in Hollywood because he luckily retained all the merchandising rights for the movie, making all the Hollywood giants at the time turn green with regret, and the faces of the film critics were even more swollen from being slapped.
However, with the development of the times, competition in the movie market has become more intense; film companies pay more and more attention to the promotion and distribution of movies, and the promotion and distribution costs invested before release have become larger and larger, as if they can't wait to drive the audience into the theaters the moment the movie is released.
The screening curve of commercial movies has also undergone fundamental changes; today, for a commercial blockbuster with word-of-mouth that meets the standard, the ratio of the total box office to the opening weekend is about 3 to 3.5 times; if word-of-mouth is good, the ratio might be higher, and if it's bad, the ratio will be a lot lower.
In the 1970s, the screening cycle of a commercial film could reach more than 4 months, but after entering the 1990s, normally, the screening cycle of a commercial film is at most two months, and the most important box office output is also concentrated in the first week, after which it rapidly decreases.
This makes movies that win the weekend box office championship for two consecutive weeks a rarity in today's movie market; once they appear, they are considered remarkable box office hits.
This includes Mission: Impossible, independence day, and The Man from Nowhere starring Linton, as well as Jurassic Park, which once pioneered the heavy industry of Hollywood movies; they all only took the weekend box office championship for two consecutive weeks.
...
Once the box office data for the third weekend of Titanic was announced, it immediately ignited the entire North America film and television industry and the media.
While feeling incredulous, everyone sent people to investigate the reasons for the box office miracle achieved by Titanic.
Soon, everyone found the reason; the reason Titanic's box office continued to dominate the charts was that the fans were too crazy, or rather, the girls were too crazy.
You should know that because of different personalities and focuses, the main force of moviegoers in theaters today is predominantly male.
Except for female-oriented films like chick flicks, the proportion of male audiences for most commercial movies is above 65%.
But the situation for Titanic completely subverted this phenomenon; not to mention the first week, starting from the second week, the main force of moviegoers became female audiences.
The data obtained from the theaters was simply unbelievable; the proportion of female audiences for this movie was as high as 61.83%.
Whether it was Linton's infinite charm or the charm of the movie itself, it attracted many fanatical female moviegoers and fans to repeatedly go to the theaters to watch this movie.
And offline reporters from various media outlets found during interviews that many girls were not going to the theater to watch Titanic for the first time; they would watch the movie repeatedly, and female viewers who had seen it three or even four times were everywhere.
After watching the movie with tears in their eyes, they would walk back into the theater the next day with tissues; some girls even said fanatically in front of the reporters' cameras, "I love Jack to death; I want to watch Titanic at least 10 times."
Similarly influenced by these girls, some male audiences would also passively walk into the theater repeatedly.
Because these girls, besides going with their best friends, would also go with their boyfriends, husbands, lovers, and so on.
And as time went on, not just young girls, but many professional women and housewives also flocked to the theaters because of Titanic.
It is precisely because of the many fanatical female audiences that the lasting movie-watching craze for Titanic was created, and the box office also climbed steadily, creating today's eye-catching and brilliant achievement.
...
At this time, everyone discovered that the bold words Linton released at the premiere were not only not big talk but were actually very conservative predictions.
According to the current trend, the North America box office of $600 million for Titanic is definitely not the end; the latest prediction from professional institutions has been raised to $650 million.
As for the goal of $1.8 billion in global box office, no one dared to raise it casually because this data was truly too dreamlike.
The movie was equally crazy overseas; in just 10 days of release, it raked in $548 million at the box office.
You should know that this was the achievement in the first batch of 38 countries and regions, which did not include the world's second-largest box office market, the Japanese market.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hollywood has continued to expand in the global film market, coupled with the blockbusters continuously released in recent years, such as Jurassic Park, independence day, and Mission: Impossible.
These special-effects blockbusters were simply a dimensionality reduction strike on the film markets of various countries around the world, and new markets were opened one by one.
Everyone believed that the giant ship Titanic would surely be able to break through the few remaining conservative markets, allowing audiences in more countries to appreciate the charm of Hollywood blockbusters.
Therefore, in the eyes of the public, $1.8 billion globally no longer seemed like an impossible goal.
...
While the movie was a hit, the peripheral products were also selling like wildfire; however, Titanic is a romance movie after all, and there aren't many peripheral products that can be sold; only movie image dolls of Linton and Kate were launched, along with a model of the big ship.
In less than 20 days, the sales of these three products in North America exceeded $200 million, especially Linton's image doll, which sold like crazy.
Facing this crazy sales situation, the phone of Universal's merchandising department was blown up by distributors every day, all of which were orders for additional shipments.
Overseas merchandising sales were also pleasing, with sales already exceeding $150 million.
The movie also brought a super influence to the music market.
That is, the soundtrack of Titanic also sold like crazy; in less than 20 short days, global sales of the soundtrack reached as high as 8 million copies.
The movie theme song My Heart Will Go On has firmly occupied the top of the Billboard singles chart since it was released in late November to coordinate with the movie's promotion.
As of now, it has dominated the chart for 9 consecutive weeks, and it looks like it will continue to do so; the sales of the single have exceeded 17 million copies.
Shania also reached a new career peak because of singing this song; in the latest ranking of the five great divas, she rose from the last place to second place, surpassing Mariah Carey and second only to Madonna.
Shania was pleasantly surprised; while Linton was still on the roadshow, she called many times to tell him that she would definitely give him a special surprise when he returned.
...
The media began a new round of carnival, starting a new round of reports on Titanic.
The New York Times was even more flattering, publishing a commentary on the front page, believing that Titanic had created a box office miracle of a new era, and believing that this was not just entertainment news but had become a social phenomenon and a major economic event.
...
Amidst this bustling movie-watching craze, Linton, Kate, and other main creators of Titanic also ended their roadshow and returned to Los Angeles.
After returning from the promotional roadshow, Linton naturally saw the box office analysis reports submitted by Universal Pictures and Linton Film Company respectively; when he saw the audience proportion analysis, he couldn't help but smile knowingly.
Titanic is a very special existence among Hollywood blockbusters; this movie attracted many audiences who do not belong to the commercial blockbuster demographic to the theaters, and they went repeatedly—for example, the group of housewives who usually don't watch movies much.
And compared to the Leonardo DiCaprio of the previous life, Linton's advantage was even more obvious.
In the previous life, before starring in Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio was only a movie star with a small reputation in art films, not even a third-tier star.
But the current Linton is a Hollywood superstar, a United States super idol, a super music star, and a global super-rich man; his influence is in a league of its own, and he has countless fans around the world.
With him starring in Titanic, it ignited the market as soon as it was released; the North America market's opening weekend box office directly exceeded $100 million, which was more than twice the opening weekend box office of the previous life.
There is another factor that cannot be ignored; in the previous life, because of the problem of too much investment in this movie, although the James Cameron was a technical maniac and a set tyrant, he ultimately had to make compromises and did not achieve perfection—for example, only half of the giant ship was built.
Even so, the total production cost of the movie was as high as $230 million, almost forcing the executives of 20th Century Fox to sell their backsides.
But in this version, Linton's fulfillment of the James Cameron's investment needs could be described as unconditional, and the total production cost of the movie was as high as $310 million.
Naturally, the movie presented to the audience was more refined and more capable of touching the hearts of the audience.
With so many advantages, Linton naturally had full confidence that his version of Titanic would inevitably achieve box office results higher than those of the previous life; perhaps a global box office exceeding $2 billion was also possible.
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