The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 751

While G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was still in theaters, the principal cast and director Stephen Sommers were hard at work promoting the film. The lead actors crisscrossed the country, generating buzz and making headlines.

Much to Matthew's surprise, after the film's first week in North American theaters, Victoria's Secret and Karolina's agent announced that she would be walking in the 2009 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

The Victoria's Secret Angel, who had been unceremoniously dropped the previous year due to a thyroid condition, was suddenly welcomed back into the fold thanks to the attention she garnered from G.I. Joe.

This was typical of Victoria's Secret's usual style; at the end of the day, it was a commercial enterprise, not a charity.

Ahead of the second weekend, Matthew appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to promote the film.

It was a live broadcast. Matthew sat in the studio, a giant poster for the movie looming behind him, as he earnestly spoke about the film to the viewers at home.

The Good Morning America audience was predominantly made up of middle-class families, many of them working professionals over the age of thirty—not exactly the core demographic for G.I. Joe. While Matthew and the film's genre naturally appealed to a younger, teen audience, convincing this older demographic to buy a ticket was crucial for the movie's long-term box office performance.

So, sitting alone before the camera, Matthew made his case for the film with a thoughtful and serious approach.

"There are two big movies this summer based on popular toy lines," he began. "One is the one everyone knows, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and the other is G.I. Joe."

Speaking as if he were an impartial critic, Matthew tried to offer an objective perspective. "From a story standpoint, both films are thrilling battles between good and evil. But compared to Transformers, which leans heavily into science fiction, G.I. Joe is much more grounded in our own reality..."***

After a successful opening, G.I. Joe faced new competition in its second weekend from Sony Columbia Pictures' District 9.

With a budget of only $30 million, the film wasn't in the same league as its blockbuster competitor in terms of scale or the number of theaters it opened in.

Furthermore, its R rating limited its potential audience.

Instead of posing a threat to G.I. Joe, District 9 was the one that suffered slightly from the competition—after all, their target audiences overlapped significantly.

When the weekend numbers came in, G.I. Joe remained at the top of the North American box office with $48.9 million, while District 9 debuted in second place with a respectable $31.4 million. For a film with such a low budget, it was an excellent return; if the trend held, its domestic gross would almost certainly cross the $100 million mark.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs landed in third and fourth place, respectively.

Additionally, buoyed by the popularity of G.I. Joe, another of Matthew's films, Fast & Furious, surged back into the box office top five after two months in theaters, earning an impressive $11.2 million over the weekend.

Over its ten-week run, Fast & Furious had amassed $321.2 million domestically and surpassed $600 million globally, with its sights set firmly on the $700 million milestone.

The movie had become the breakout hit of the 2009 summer season.

After two full weeks in North American theaters, G.I. Joe's domestic total had easily sailed past the $180 million mark, reaching $181.2 million.

Perhaps it was the "Matthew Horner effect," but the film's box office trend was remarkably stable. It was on a clear path to cross $200 million domestically, with a strong possibility of even reaching $300 million.

Starting that weekend, G.I. Joe also began its international rollout. It had already opened in nearly fifty overseas markets, bringing in a cumulative foreign total of over $85 million.

The film was set to open in even more international markets soon. Crucially, it featured no villains from the Middle East, which meant it wouldn't run into any political roadblocks in that region.

G.I. Joe continued to dominate the box office charts across North America, but Matthew knew its reign would be short-lived. The coming weekend would see the release of a Warner Bros. juggernaut: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Matthew had received invitations to the premiere from both Warner Bros. and Emma Watson.

Emma had already arrived in North America, but unfortunately, she was so swamped with promotional duties that Matthew hadn't had a chance to see her yet.

Still, he found himself missing the enchanting young actress. But even with Emma on his mind, he'd received a phone call, relayed through the Angel Agency, from the other side of the Pacific. A young woman named Ni Ni was eager to fly to Los Angeles to meet him.

Matthew hadn't agreed yet, asking her to wait until after the first two rounds of auditions were complete before making the trip.

With both Fast & Furious and G.I. Joe becoming massive box office hits, sequels for both films were already on the agenda.

The Fast & Furious sequel would again be produced by David Ellison's Skydance Pictures, and he and Matthew would continue their arrangement of splitting the investment and profits down the middle.

David had been incredibly busy lately, mainly with trying to finalize the books for Fast & Furious. He was deep in the accounting, working to "minimize the profits" as much as possible.

After all, during the promotional tour, he and Matthew had promised to donate all of the film's profits to charity.

Of course, the two of them intended to keep their word and donate the profits. But as for the final profit figure on the books, well, there were plenty of ways to creatively massage the numbers.

It was notoriously difficult for outsiders to calculate the final costs of promotion and distribution, especially in overseas markets.

Many of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters officially "lost money" on the books—Saving Private Ryan was a famous example. DreamWorks had declared a significant loss on the film, a claim that shocked those outside the industry.

Compared to Matthew's own production company, David Ellison's Skydance Pictures was undoubtedly far more experienced in this particular art.

Matthew was confident that even after making a sizable donation, Fast & Furious would still end up being a profitable venture for him.

Since the massive success of Fast & Furious had revitalized the entire franchise, director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan had already started working on Fast Five just one week into the film's release. The principal cast, including Matthew, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Gal Gadot, and Daniel Wu, was set to return.

Tyrese Gibson, from the second film in the series, was also slated to join the cast.

Additionally, the script called for a new Chinese-American female character, a role Matthew planned to cast through a series of auditions.

Matthew carved out some time to meet with David Ellison, after which they held a three-way meeting with Disney to officially finalize many of the details for Fast Five.

The film's production budget was increased to $150 million. Pre-production was scheduled to begin in October, with the goal of starting principal photography in the first half of the following year. The target release date was summer 2011, with a worldwide simultaneous release no later than Memorial Day weekend.

While the plans for Fast Five were moving along smoothly, Matthew was caught off guard by an unexpected complication with the G.I. Joe sequel: Paramount Pictures wanted to replace the director, Stephen Sommers.