The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 653

On an office floor of the Disney Studios headquarters, Matthew walked down a corridor and into a vast conference room. He greeted Sean Daniel, Sofia Coppola, and the others seated along the long conference table, then made his way to the far end and pulled out a chair next to David Ellison.

"I heard you ran into some trouble?" David asked with concern.

The news had already spread, and Matthew saw no reason to deny it. "Yes," he admitted. "Someone threatened me."

David was also an investor in Fast & Furious, so he was well aware of what the crew had faced on the U.S.-Mexico border. "Was it the drug traffickers in Tijuana?" he asked.

Matthew couldn't be certain. "Quite possibly."

"Do you want my help?" David whispered. "A few small-time drug traffickers..."

Matthew just smiled and looked back toward the conference table. Sofia Coppola was in a quiet discussion with Sean Daniel and the producer in charge of publicity, while he and David were left waiting.

David suddenly asked, "There are rumors that Disney is interested in buying all of Marvel Comics. Is that true?"

"They've already made their move," Matthew said after a moment's thought. "I hold a small stake in Marvel, and Disney has already reached out. Helen's people are in negotiations with them now."

Two business managers from the Angel Agency began negotiations with Disney after Robert Iger contacted them.So far, the negotiations were going well. Disney planned to acquire his four percent stake in Marvel through a stock swap, valued at Marvel's share price at the end of the year.

Marvel Comics' stock price was rising steadily, and on the surface, it seemed like selling his shares at that valuation would be a bad deal for him.

But Matthew had agreed to the terms, his eyes on a different prize that was being negotiated.

Upon the successful acquisition of Marvel Comics, the Walt Disney Company would not only honor Matthew's existing investment agreement with Marvel, but also offer him an option to invest in six additional Marvel superhero projects.

In other words, on top of his original deal, Matthew would get to pick six more Marvel superhero films to invest in.

This forward-looking arrangement would undoubtedly bring him even greater rewards.

Of course, he understood why Walt Disney was willing to make such an offer. Hollywood's major studios rarely finance their films entirely on their own; outside investment always plays a significant role.

Absorbing Studio 13's investment wouldn't hurt Disney in the slightest.

"Disney is being very generous," David remarked, clearly impressed. "And Robert Iger is incredibly ambitious."

Matthew nodded. "The feeling is that during his tenure, he wants to make Disney the number one media group in the U.S., maybe even the world."

The conference room door opened, and Bill Felton, the head of distribution for Disney Studios and Bowie Pictures, walked in. After politely greeting Matthew and the others, he kicked off the meeting on the publicity and distribution for Twilight.

Hollywood's six major studios have highly developed conventional advertising methods. Bill began by having the plan distributed to everyone at the meeting, then gave a brief overview of some of the traditional approaches.

The plan covered the usual tactics—subtle placements, direct ad buys, and so on. There was nothing particularly new.

"First, I'd like to emphasize one point," Bill Felton said, shifting gears. "Twilight is not a mainstream blockbuster. Our publicity and promotion have to be targeted!"

Matthew gave a slight nod, in complete agreement. Twilight was a pure-and-simple teen romance film, and few adults were expected to enjoy it.

Bill stressed, "The key to marketing a film is to identify its core message and then convey it accurately and effectively to the core audience—not just to inform them that the film exists. Therefore, to maximize our marketing efficiency, we need to consider both the content and the channels."

"Everyone wants a miracle when they make a movie these days," Bill Felton added. "A 'miracle' means your target audience is the general public, which really means you have no focus at all. Developing a film's marketing strategy is all about finding that core audience. A film can't generate word-of-mouth buzz if it's not seen by the people who are predisposed to like it."

Finding the core audience, Bill argued, starts with clearly identifying the film's tone and message. Then, you have to cultivate the right kind of public opinion within the media channels that the core audience actually uses. That's a crucial step in film marketing.

Bill Felton was known in Hollywood as a master of marketing to the youth demographic. He was constantly researching and developing promotional strategies for Disney's young adult films.

He was, without a doubt, the perfect person to handle Twilight.

Hollywood was seeing a flood of new investors like David, people drawn to the industry by the glamour of filmmaking. Their understanding of the market and the product itself was often superficial. They seemed focused on the "art" of marketing without grasping the underlying principles—the "way" of it. But a film, after all, is a complex product, a blend of commercial, artistic, cultural, and social elements.

Many people think that having energy and ideas is enough for film marketing. In reality, true professionalism requires a meticulous study of both the films and the market, and the ability to translate that understanding into grounded, creative marketing campaigns.

Pinpointing a film's core message is paramount. Doing that well requires a daily accumulation of market knowledge, deep thought, and constant communication.

That's why Matthew never developed marketing and publicity plans on his own. At most, he might suggest an idea, but turning that idea into a viable strategy required a professional like Bill Felton.

Of course, many small and mid-sized Hollywood distributors also outsourced their marketing and publicity these days.

Bill continued, "Twilight is a classic teen idol romance. The first audience we need to capture is teenagers. So, in addition to traditional advertising, we're going to pour our resources into social media."

"Since social media took off in 2006, traditional television, print, and web portals are no longer the centers of traffic. The media landscape has become more vertical and fragmented, which means audience attention is increasingly difficult to capture."

"In the social media era, every user is a gateway for traffic. Faced with this shift, our focus must be on integrating our media channels according to user preferences. In other words, precision marketing..."

Bill then went on to detail a wide range of marketing tools aimed at teenagers, including social media integration and brand partnerships.

For example, a partnership with McDonald's, whose primary customers are teenagers. We make money from co-branded products, and the audience is exposed to the film's message. It kills two birds with one stone.

It's also a way to create new revenue streams beyond the box office.

Films have too much potential to rely solely on box office revenue.

The meeting was not long, ending in less than an hour, and at the end of it Bill Felton also emphasized one point: the distribution of Twilight in North America and abroad would be handled by Disney Pictures and Bowie Pictures, respectively.

Matthew had no objection. He'd worked with Disney many times and knew this was their standard distribution procedure since the turn of the century.

Disney Studios used to be responsible only for production and rarely handled distribution, but the company's strategy had been changing in recent years.

It was common knowledge that U.S. law required the three arms of the Hollywood studio system—production, distribution, and exhibition—to be separate.

Take the Walt Disney Company, for example. It had production companies like Disney Studios and Touchstone, and then it had the well-known Bowie Pictures, which handled distribution.

Bowie Pictures could distribute films from Disney as well as other companies, and it was legally and financially independent of Disney Studios.

In fact, the production studios often operated at a loss, while Bowie Pictures was highly profitable.

The separation from exhibition was even more critical.

There had been an antitrust case in the U.S., and MGM was the first studio to be hit with penalties back then.

At the time, MGM owned its own theaters, studios, and distribution companies—it controlled production, distribution, and exhibition. It used every means at its disposal to push out competing theaters until outsiders couldn't make money and MGM dominated the market.

As a result, the U.S. courts forced the separation of production and exhibition, breaking MGM into three separate entities.

Current antitrust laws strictly regulate production and exhibition. The production and distribution arms cannot share board members with the exhibition arm, nor can they have cross-shareholdings. This is all to prevent any single company from becoming a corporate behemoth with too much power to control.

Publicity is a crucial aspect of any commercial film, and Hollywood had its own unwritten rules about timing: when to release the official trailer, when to grant press interviews, when to launch a viral marketing site.

Similarly, media relations were carefully orchestrated, with a clear strategy for which outlets to use and when. There was a division between high-brow mainstream media, like The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and the gossip outlets, like TMZ and others.

In the publicity and promotion plan Disney had developed for Twilight, everything was systematic and meticulously planned.

Additionally, Bowie Pictures was in negotiations with companies across the Pacific, trying to break into that vast and booming market.

Many people used to say that the market across the Pacific had changed Hollywood, but Matthew's observations over the last few years told him that was just baseless speculation.

Hollywood would certainly make accommodations for that market, but in essence, the Pacific Rim—those emerging markets—was just a cash machine. It wasn't going to fundamentally change the rules of the game.