Chapter 760

"The exact news came from the European branch of the company..."

In the living room of wave manor, Bill rosis took the coffee from Gail gado and continued to Murphy, "Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed his retirement."

"Oh?" Murphy got interested. "When exactly?"

Bill rossis put down his coffee cup and said, "no later than this Wednesday night, the Vatican will call a press conference to officially announce the news."

Gail gado poured another cup of coffee for Murphy, put it on the coffee table in front of him, and asked Bill rosis, "who is the successor of the Pope?"

"Cardinal Francis." Said Bill rossis.

Murphy scratched his head, apparently not knowing who cardinal Francis was.

"He." Gail gado apparently heard of the name, explaining to Murphy, "Argentines, formerly the Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Argentina."

"And..." Bill rossis added, "if Benedict XVI is the representative of the Vatican conservatives, Francis is the leader of the Liberal Party."

These Gail gado do not know, listen to Bill - rosis said, can't help but frown, "is the church going to make reform in this area?"

"Even if the reform, it is extremely limited." Murphy does not agree with Gail gado that "sitting in the position of the Pope is bound to safeguard the interests of the whole Vatican."

Bill rosis nodded. "That's right."

Just like the rotating chairman of the Academy of film arts and Sciences, no matter what the internal situation is, the first thing to do is to safeguard the interests of the Hollywood film industry. Otherwise, this position will not be stable.

In Murphy's conjecture, in some ways, the Catholic Church has something in common with national politics. For example, people always want political leaders who can represent their voices to come to power, but every politician who comes to power first protects the interests of the vested interest class, and then others

Therefore, no matter who the new pope is, it will not really change the current situation of Catholicism.

This kind of reform driven by internal forces is often more difficult than that driven by external forces.

Bill rosis took a sip of his coffee and said, "it is said that Francis and Benedict XVI have a very different idea. He thinks that the Vatican should take more severe measures to correct the internal problems in the Catholic scandal."

"So he's a little more enlightened than Benedict XVI." Gail gado said.

Murphy then said, "the more secretive, the less let people say, the more restrictions on speech, in fact, the more guilty it is."

In the place where he once lived, there was an old saying that "defending the people is better than defending the Sichuan". Maybe powerful power can suppress the unfavorable opinions for a while, and even make many people compromise and have to obey their will. But when these things accumulate to a certain extent, they will burst out with huge energy and blow up everything they maintain.

Since last year, various scandals of Catholicism have erupted. In fact, Murphy and 20th Century Fox have just made a start. The crazy follow-up by the media and the public is actually a collective explosion of dissatisfaction with Catholicism in the past many years.

This outbreak of madness directly led to the downfall of the current Pope.

In the next few days, Murphy, in addition to continuing to be busy with the publicity and public relations of focus, took time to pay attention to the changes in the Vatican.

As he thought, the Vatican has a lot in common with the change of political power in a country.

Many European media suddenly revealed that the elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger, had a serious child sexual assault incident in the chorus led by him in 1960, and he did not report the incident to the police. Although Ratzinger has denied it, these sexual assault scandals have once again damaged the image of Catholicism.

In addition, a sexual abuse scandal broke out in the Vienna Youth Choir, which was later in charge of by Ratzinger. Two adult former choir members accused that they had been forced to wash their lower body in front of the choir managers between 1985 and 1987

As long as some people with a sense of politics can sense it, all this is directed at Pope Benedict XVI himself.

Soon, the Vatican called a press conference to announce that Benedict XVI had decided to retire for medical reasons, and the Vatican would choose a suitable successor among the existing Cardinals.

The news shocked the whole western world.

Anyone with a clear eye can see that Benedict XVI's retirement due to physical reasons is just an excuse. The series of scandals about Catholicism in the past ten months may be the real reason.

Even tabloids, such as the sun, have been eager to hype on the front page headlines such exaggerated news as "Benedict XVI was ousted by Murphy Stanton and Hollywood movies".

For this kind of hype, Murphy paid no attention to it. On the contrary, he was quite interested in the news from the Vatican.Although the Vatican has not officially announced it, according to the CAA, Francis's assumption of the new Pope has become a foregone conclusion. Compared with his predecessor, Francis seems to be more suitable for this highly information-based society.

The Vatican has started crisis public relations with regard to the various criticisms that the Holy See has recently received for focusing.

A new spokesman for the Holy See said at a regular news conference that "focus" on the Catholic sexual abuse scandal faithfully depicts how Catholicism tries to defend its position in the face of "cruel truth", but it is not so anti Catholic.

Then, many European mainstream media appeared some articles about land washing.

"The observer of Rome commented:" sexual offenders are not necessarily dressed as clergy, paedophilia does not necessarily come from vows of chastity and abstinence. But now it is clear that there are too many people in the Catholic Church who care more about their image in the church than the seriousness of such acts. "

"As an agent of God, no matter who abuse innocent people by using his power, he can not rationalize this extremely serious crime for these reasons: This is clearly expressed in the film," the Italian news said

Focusing on the power of persuasion, the film argues: "it's not anti Catholic in itself."

Later, Francis became the new Pope of Vatican.

"The public still believes in Catholicism and the Pope, and I am continuing to push Catholicism to launch reforms," he said at his inauguration.

Francis announced the establishment of a moral Review Committee in the Holy See, which will severely punish any priest who participates in child molestation

After seeing Francis become the new pope, Murphy doesn't pay much attention to the information of Catholicism, and doesn't fight with Catholicism again foolishly. "Focus" has been shown with the attention of countless people, so there's no need to do anything like paint a snake and add feet to it.

As for the tabloid hype that he and his films made Benedict XVI step down, only those with simple minds will believe that these are just opportunities for those people in the church who are different from Benedict XVI to make trouble. Although we don't know how much power Francis represents, Murphy knows very well that if there is no such power, Marquez Coase will be defeated Archbishop Trow is enough to carry the black pot.

A stronghold like Catholicism can only be broken by internal forces.

According to the conjecture of CAA and bill rosis, Francis's choice of this time period to launch is also related to focus. It's a good public relations to put on a low posture before the expansion of focus.

But it's also good for focus itself.

After all, on the surface, the film has a direct impact on the level of papacy change

It's not hard to guess what kind of box office results a movie in the air will achieve after it has enough topics, good reputation, various ways to spread its fame, and excellent director brand effect.

In the 20th century, Fox and Carla Firth adjusted the distribution strategy of focus in time according to the current social situation. In the second weekend, they expanded the number of North American Theaters showing the film from 10 to more than 1800.

In a short period of one week, from contacting the cinema to preparing to copy, 20th century fox has done all the work almost perfectly, fully showing the super strength of the six major Hollywood companies.

The performance of focus did not disappoint Murphy and 20th century fox.

The theme and type of the film really do not meet the taste of the mainstream market, but the scandal about Catholicism has been shaking in North America for ten months, creating countless concerned people and creating a good market environment for focus.

Anyone who has a little knowledge of the film market knows how much influence the social environment has on a film.

On the first day after the expansion, that is, Friday, "focus" won $9.8 million from North American theaters. On Saturday, the box office continued to rise, with $12.3 million on that day.

With $9.2 million on Sunday, "focus" won $31.3 million in the second weekend, easily winning the North American box office top of the week.

There is also the box office of $1.1 million from the previous screening. The cumulative box office in North America is $32.4 million, which will soon exceed the production cost line.

What complements the box office is the film's word-of-mouth. With the expansion of the screening scale, the word-of-mouth of "focus" has not declined at all. Whether it's Internet scoring and media scoring, or professional comments and fans' views, all remain at the previous level.

It's very rare for a film to be expanded rapidly by point screening.

Excellent box office and high reputation all indicate that the film will go straight to next year's Academy Awards!