Chapter 1062: Safety Chapter 1

The "Horse Whisperer" is 2 hours and 50 minutes long, so considering the length, the premiere started very early.

At around nine o'clock, when the end credits of the movie were broadcast, the lights came on, and there was a polite round of applause in the theater. Eric felt a little stiff, but patiently did not get up immediately.

For The Horse Whisperer, Eric's overall personal review is positive.

The overall story of the film is very smooth, with inspiration and a touch of sadness in the warmth, and the prairie scenery of Montana is equally beautiful. However, Robert Redford has a common problem with Hollywood veteran filmmakers, that is, the film pace is slow. Nearly three hours is a long time, which is a test of the audience's patience. The slow rhythm of the film also causes it to be sloppy in its emotional expression, and it always lacks a strong force that can directly hit the audience's soul.

In the applause, the creators began to speak on stage, and Elizabeth, who was beside Eric, came over and whispered, "What do you think?"

Eric thought for a while and replied, "The key is to see how Harvey works."

If I had to rate it, Eric would give the movie a 75. It is not an excellent score above 8, but it is far beyond the passing line. However, this score does not make the audience have the desire to actively enter the cinema. To achieve this, the Weinstein brothers must use their own marketing and public relations methods to raise the film's reputation to more than 8 points.

Elizabeth actually had a similar judgment. Hearing that Eric did not exceed her expectations, although she was a little disappointed, she could accept it.

The movie was followed by an after-party hosted by Miramax at a nearby hotel.

It was still early, and Eric and Elizabeth were not in a hurry to go back to rest, so they came to the party together.

"Probably self-directing and self-acting, I feel like Redford just didn't put enough acting enthusiasm into the story, he's like Scott Thomas, and he even made me play a little bit, which is really bad," the party said. In the hall, the film critic Rut Stein from the "San Francisco Chronicle" did not shy away from facing Eric, Elizabeth and Harvey, expressing his evaluation of the film.

Elizabeth frowned slightly at Rutstein's words, but Eric stood by the side calmly, and Harvey listened with a smile. When the other party finished speaking, Harvey stepped forward and hugged the other party's shoulder affectionately, Dao: "Root, I have to admit, you are right, this is indeed some small flaws in the movie, but there is no perfect movie in this world, we should allow the existence of flaws. Besides, outside the performance , there are still many advantages of this film, um, how about we go there and have a good chat?"

"Of course," Rutstein nodded slightly, looked at Eric and Elizabeth again, and explained tactfully, "Mr. Williams, Miss Murdoch, I have absolutely no intention of targeting this movie. , I'm just seeking truth from facts."

Harvey didn't let go of the other person's shoulders, instead he used a little force and said, "Of course Eric and Liz don't care, hehe, let's go over, oh, Eric, and Liz, you can do it yourself. , have some fun."

When Harvey left with the film critic, Eric embraced Elizabeth's waist and said with a smile, "Okay, what's there to mind, you're used to being the eldest lady. Think back to that time, Michael Ovitz. In the face of the client's cynicism, in order to win the other party's trust, instead of getting angry, he stood on the table and tap danced, and he did not become the most powerful person in Hollywood later on."

"I don't mind, it's just that the guy said this on purpose to show his sense of existence when he saw us coming," Elizabeth retorted dissatisfiedly as Harvey and the two left, and grabbed it again. Eric's head: "The most powerful person in Hollywood is you now. Are you willing to tap dance for a client?"

"This, if necessary," Eric said, "I'll let Jeffrey and the others dance."

"You guy,

Elizabeth laughed, but chased after her: "But what if the client insists on letting you dance? "

Eric shook his head confidently: "Your assumption is not true, no one in this world is qualified to ask me to tap dance for him."

"Hmph," Elizabeth suddenly snorted, "what if I let you dance?"

Eric seemed to have forgotten what he said just now, and nodded happily: "No problem, I'll dance for you when I get back."

The corners of Elizabeth's mouth were curved, but she said with contempt, "I'm so spineless, I don't care to see what kind of tap dance you are doing."

Eric insisted: "This is not good. I will not go back on what I promised. You have to watch it tonight if you don't watch it."

After a few jokes, the two came to an empty seat in the banquet hall and sat down. They saw that another film critic had been replaced by Harvey not far away. The two were chatting enthusiastically, and Elizabeth raised her chin. Eric gestured and said, "Judging from the current situation, the reputation of the film should be fine, right?"

At this time, Eric can also see that Harvey is not generally interested in "Horse Whisperer".

This is actually quite understandable. "Horse Whisperer" is Weinstein's largest investment in a literary film so far. The Harvey brothers have already invested $50 million in Fox's $50 million film investment in Miramax. There is dissatisfaction with the upper limit. The box office status of "Horse Whisperer" is directly related to whether Miramax is likely to break through this limit.

If the box office of "Horse Whisperer" can reach the scale of a regular commercial film, as long as it encounters a good enough project in the future, Fox is likely to open this restriction. But if "Horse Whisperer" fails at the box office, Miramax will not be able to invest in high-cost literary films again.

"Word of mouth is definitely no problem," Eric nodded and said, "However, the key is to see if the audience buys it. The film is nearly 3 hours long, and after all, many impatient audiences will be discouraged."

Elizabeth did not agree, saying: "Remember the "Dancing With Wolves" you lied to me to buy a few years ago, it was only four hours, but the North American box office exceeded 1.8 billion US dollars, and the global box office was 4.2 billion US dollars. , but the cost is only more than 20 million US dollars. I think the two films obviously have a lot of similarities. They are both adaptations, they are both directed and acted by the main creator, and both have a very spectacular natural and humanistic background.”

"But you have to admit," Eric said, "The Horse Whisperer is not as intense and hot as Dances with Wolves in terms of political connotation and humanistic sentiment. Relatively speaking, the biggest hit of The Horse Whisperer is The advantage is that its original popularity far exceeds that of "Dancing With Wolves", which was relatively unpopular back then. However, after what you have said, I feel that I can remind Harvey later, if he can make "Horse Horse" in the media "The Whisperer" and "Dancing With Wolves" may be linked together, and there may be unexpected gains."

...

The Weinstein Brothers' Oscar-running secret, to put it bluntly, has always been simple, that is, through a strong media and judges' public relations offensive, to create an undisputed reputation and a large number of award votes for Miramax's shortlisted films.

Of course, the specific operation method is very cumbersome and complicated.

Due to the pressure of returning the capital brought by the $50 million investment of "The Horse Whisperer", although the Weinstein brothers did not use the long-term operation method of gradually accumulating word-of-mouth and box office in a small-scale release this time, the media marketing methods accumulated over the years are still in the played a very important role in this film.

After the premiere, Miramax immediately launched a strong public relations offensive. The next day, almost all mainstream North American print media gave "Horse Whisperer" a positive review, even if many obviously didn't like the movie. Critics, the criticism of "Horse Whisperer" is also obviously less intense.

After preliminary statistics, the initial evaluation of "The Horse Whisperer" successfully broke through the excellent 8-point dividing line, and the average score of the media reached 82 points, which is much higher than the 75 points given by Eric personally.

"Horse Whisperer" was published in 1995, only three years ago. However, although this one has won the popularity of readers around the world, and many audiences have also recognized the excellent adaptation of the film version of "The Horse Whisperer", but at the beginning, "The Horse Whisperer" also had a very obvious one. The disadvantage, that is, the lack of topic points that can cause public discussion.

In many cases, a movie's controversial topic is even more important than its own movie score.

In this regard, Eric and Elizabeth's flash of inspiration at the party after the premiere played a huge role. With reminders from Eric and Elizabeth, the Weinstein brothers resolutely linked "The Horse Whisperer" to "Dances with Wolves."

Although it has been seven years since "Dances with Wolves", it is also a long period of time that makes this film that successfully won the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director and a series of heavyweight awards gradually become a lot of An unshakable classic.

Seeing that some media linked "Horse Whisperer" with the classics in their hearts, the fans of "Dancing With Wolves" immediately became reluctant. Therefore, in just a few days, major media in North America appeared Discussed the merits of "The Horse Whisperer" and "Dancing With Wolves". "Dancing With Wolves" has many supporters, but the original "Horse Whisperer" has sold 10 million copies worldwide, and the number of book and movie fans should not be underestimated.

Therefore, the debate between the two sides can be described as full of gunpowder, and it is difficult to distinguish the competition for a while.

This controversy greatly stimulated the attention and box office of "Horse Whisperer", and even brought a wave of video and DVD sales of "Dancing With Wolves", a detail that many people do not realize Yes, the copyright of "Dances with Wolves" is also in the hands of Firefly System.

Stimulated by such a high degree of topicality, "Dancing With Wolves" finally won the box office of 32.15 million US dollars in the first three days of the first weekend. Although this result cannot be compared with those blockbusters, it has already made many people very excited. satisfy.

The opening weekend box office was $32.15 million, which means the film can easily reach around $45 million in its first week.

With the word of mouth shown by "The Horse Whisperer", although it will face competition from several new films next week, it is still very easy to maintain the expected box office drop of 30%.

As long as the box office trend of low decline can be achieved, the North American box office of "Horse Whisperer" is just around the corner.

At a cost of US$50 million, the North American box office exceeded 100 million. Including the expected overseas box office, this basically means that this project is only released in theaters, and this project can bring huge profits to Miramax and even the parent company Fox Group.

Moreover, with the Weinstein brothers' Oscar public relations capabilities, as long as "Horse Whisperer" can achieve some success at this year's Oscars, the film's later peripheral distribution will be more profitable.

...

Ventura, north of Los Angeles, is the first time Eric has come here since the official opening of his private airport.

Compared with the original farmland, this area was surrounded by high barbed wire at this time. Inside the airport were two cross-shaped long and short runways, a monitoring and navigation center and six other large hangars. However, there are only two Gulfstream V jets in the hangar at this time.

It was already November 10 this year, and Eric arrived here in the morning, intending to take the Gulfstream V to fly directly to London.

Gulfstream V can be said to be the first ultra-long-range long-range business jet of Gulfstream Aerospace, with an endurance of 12,000 kilometers, and can even meet the needs of trans-Pacific flights.

However, after entering the Gulfstream V cabin for a visit, Eric immediately gave up the idea of ​​flying to London on this plane.

The reason is also very simple and rude.

too small.

Compared with the Boeing 767 that Eric used to sit on in the past two years, the fuselage is nearly five meters wide and has luxurious suites and spacious activity space. The internal width of the Gulfstream V cabin is only a little over two meters wide, with sofas and seats on both sides. , Basically there is no spare space for activities, Eric is really hard to imagine the situation of rushing from Los Angeles to London on such a small plane.

"In the future, this small plane will be used for short-distance flights." In the lounge of the airport, Eric said to the girl who came to see him off: "In addition, how is the construction progress of the two 747s?"

"It will take about half a year," the girl said. "However, I can urge Boeing."

Eric shook his head with a smile, and said, "It's best not to urge this kind of thing, safety first."

"Hehe, forget it," the girl said, raising her wrist to look at her watch, and said, "That Boeing 767 will take another hour to arrive, otherwise, Eric, let's go out for a walk."

Abandoning the Gulfstream V, Eric could only have the original Boeing 767 transferred over, and the two of them were waiting for this. r (battlefield literature)