~： Four Hundred and Ten - Premiere

In the Burbank Disney conference room, everyone's faces were very serious. In two days, the two films will meet head-on, and "The Departed" is coming. The probability of a solution will be discussed at this meeting. Most participants are infinitely close to zero in their minds.

"Wayne Greenberg's ability will never be lower than Zack Snyder, right?" Michael Ovitz, sitting at the end of the conference table, said in a low voice, breaking the long-lasting dull atmosphere. "There's no guarantee that this will turn into another Matrix, and we can only prepare for the worst."

There is another reason why the people at Disney are facing the enemy, and there is another reason why they cannot avoid it. "Tornado", which has exceeded 100 million US dollars at the box office, has passed the most popular viewing period, but now they are facing the treatment It's almost a copy of Paramount.

Four weeks ago, when Paramount's blockbuster "Mission: Impossible" was released, its competitors were not only "Tornado", which was released at the same time, but also "The Matrix" with strong stamina.

The final result also proved that in the face of the encirclement and suppression of Warner Bros.'s two major productions, "Mission Impossible" has no possibility of turning over at the box office.

In this way, Paramount's luck has been very good. Because of Tom Cruise's huge box office appeal, "Mission Impossible" has been under pressure and friction by "Tornado", at least the box office gains are close. As for my expectations, there is not much pressure on the box office to recover the cost.

Now it's Walt Disney's turn. On the one hand, they have to face "Tornado", which is also very strong at the box office, and on the other hand, "The Departed", which opens on the same weekend. Everyone knows that they have no Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson do have good box office appeal, but they're not even close to the superstars.

"Can we do this?"

Mel Gibson's sudden speech attracted everyone's attention, and he looked at Michael Ovitz with a slight frown and said, "Can we increase the hype about Wayne's scandal, I remember once There have been media reports that his crew had more than one contraband scandal."

This kind of method is regarded as the six conventional means of competition. Mel Gibson knows that it is like the gossip tabloid under Time Warner that blackmails itself. This method of blackmailing each other through the media will not cause the six giants. go to war.

As long as you stay in this circle for a long time, you can understand what the state of the six majors is like. The complexity of the relationship between these six giants can be described as a mess. They maintain uninterrupted cooperation and will not miss the opportunity to stumble upon each other, but they will maintain the most basic restraint, so as not to appear indiscriminate. Restricted vicious competition.

In a big way, the Big Six can also be regarded as a community of interests. No matter how they compete internally, as long as there are emerging forces that may threaten them, they will immediately abandon all internal disputes and strike together in tacit understanding.

"You can continue, but it doesn't make much sense."

Ron Howard, who was sitting next to Mel Gibson, shook his head and said with a serious face: "To put it bluntly, Wayne is not the same as you. Movie fans are more tolerant of movie directors than movie stars. After all, the director is a behind-the-scenes type of work, even if he is a much more special director."

[To tell the truth, recently I have been using Mimi to read and read books to keep up with updates, switch sources, and read aloud tones, which can be used by Android and Apple. 】

Mel Gibson couldn't help but blurted out when he heard this. "F**K, a freak like Wayne Greenberg can be considered a behind-the-scenes job?!"

His rhetorical question represented the aspirations of most people in the conference room. Although that dark lunatic lived a relatively low-key life, he never hesitated to hype his own movie when it was released. Most importantly, he also owned a group of Die-hard movie fans exist, which can be said to be unique among directors, even surpassing most of the stars standing in front of the stage.

"Okay, no matter what, there's nothing to lose by trying it." Michael Ovitz tapped on the table, then stood up. "I want to remind everyone here that there is no need to deify Wayne Greenberg too much. The word of mouth of the test screening does not represent the potential of the box office. Everything depends on the word of mouth of ordinary fans after the premiere.

I'm sure that most of the movie fans invited by Warner Bros. during the preview are either Wayne's die-hard fans or R-rated movie fans, otherwise the reputation of "The Departed" cannot be abnormally high. You must know that these people are only a minority, and their reactions do not represent the market at all. "

His words were recognized by most of the people present, and then Michael Ovitz's eyes swept across the faces of everyone in the conference room again, and said confidently: "We have a good foundation for success, I firmly believe that "Ransom Storm" "Commercial productions like this are the most popular killers for fans in this schedule, and at least it won't be a problem to overwhelm an Olympic film."

"Yes, that's it."

"That's right."

Amid the chorus of the crowd, the pre-screening meeting disbanded in an eerie atmosphere, and Ron Howard and Mel Gibson walked out of the room together, looking at each other more than once along the way.

After leaving Disney, the two did not rush to separate, but walked to the cafe across the road. They both knew that some problems were there, and they were definitely not something that Michael Ovitz could ignore with a few words of blood.

"Ransom has just over 2,800 theaters, Michael Ovitz and John Brown, and their work in the theater alliance doesn't help at all."

After the two sat down, Mel Gibson looked at the pedestrians outside the window and said with a mocking sneer on the corner of his mouth. "Even if they didn't win the same number of theaters as "The Departed", I regret joining this project now. The level of chaos at Disney has far exceeded my initial estimate."

"If you want to start on a scale similar to The Departed, unless Michael Eisner himself calls the three major theater companies to get it." Ron Howard shook his head, his mood was not as low as Mel Gibson's , is simply dissatisfied with Disney's distribution work.

"Even if Michael Eisner fought for it himself, I am afraid that the number of screens in "Ransom" will be difficult to compare with "The Departed". In the past few years, Wayne Greenberg's films have given theater companies. It has brought too much revenue, even if the commercial properties of this film are not outstanding, they will first guarantee Wayne's opening screen number, who can guarantee that this film will not be a big hit?"

As he looked at the Australian movie star, he breathed a sigh of relief and continued: "The specific performance of the two films depends on the premiere in two days. Now it is too early for us to worry."

"I hate that **** lunatic," Mel Gibson muttered softly. "Jewish shit..."

There are still the last two days before the release of the film. Disney and Warner Bros. are now exactly the same. Intensive and crazy publicity advertisements are emerging one after another.

The happiest group of people in this situation are the movie fans who are ready to go. This year's summer season is particularly exciting. The past few weeks have fully proved that the big productions are released together, which is a game for movie fans. Movie feast.

Two days passed in a flash. After intensive publicity and good distribution work by Warner Bros., on the evening of June 18, The Departed, like most films in the Hollywood area, the premiere of the film was held in Bishop. Foley's Hollywood Chinese Theater.

The tit-for-tat premiere was staged again. During the same time period, the grand premiere of "Ransom Storm" was also held at the Shrine Theater in Los Angeles.

"You came here from New York? It's rare."

There was a lot of people in front of the Hollywood Chinese Theater. It was still early, and there were no movie stars on the red carpet. Next to the second-floor window of the theater, the famous film critic Todd McCarthy was looking at the people who appeared beside him with a look of surprise. familiar faces.

"I hope this masterpiece, which is known as Wayne Greenberg's R-rated film, can give people enough surprises." It was David Denby, the famous film critic of "The New Yorker" who spoke, with a smile on his face. Looking forward, he also looked at the red carpet show that was about to start outside.

The internal preview of "The Departed", because of distance and other reasons, David Dembiduo missed it perfectly The reason why I happily agreed to the invitation of Warner Bros. this time is to watch it for the first time to this film.

"David." Todd McCarthy thought for a moment, and then said, "This film, in my opinion, is indeed a masterpiece of Wayne Greenberg's film noir, but the film's flaws are relatively obvious. , Forget it, wait until the movie starts and watch it yourself."

Todd-McCarthy has been paying attention to his words. In his eyes, the advantages and disadvantages of The Departed are very obvious. If you only look at an R-rated film with Clut attributes, this film can be said to be violent aesthetics. But in his heart, he still thinks that "The Departed" and "Joker" are too far behind.

"Ha." David Denby glanced at the other person's face in surprise, and his curiosity about the film was even stronger at this moment. "At least from the tone of your voice, it's not a bad movie, is it?"

"here we go......"

At this moment, hundreds of movie fans gathered in front of the Grand Theater suddenly let out a shout like a tsunami, because the first person to walk on the red carpet was the film director Wayne.

Usually whenever he attends an event that requires a formal female companion, Wayne is always by his side Naomi Watts, which both his fans and media reporters have become accustomed to.

The same is true tonight. The Australian actress was dressed in a gray off-the-shoulder evening dress. The whole person completely restored her pre-production brilliance. Wayne, who was wearing a black suit, walked on the red carpet with a radiant face.

Although the fans screamed one after another, and the flash lights in the media area illuminated the entire front of the theater, the two did not slow down their footsteps. They walked across the red carpet at a fairly fast speed and came directly to the prepared media interview. Area.