Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 19 First Day Box Office
In the morning, Link worked part-time at a fast food restaurant. At noon, he took the subway to the Burbank-Union Theater to check the box office performance from the previous day.

"Link, the first day box office figures are out. There were 12 screenings yesterday, 213 movie tickets were sold, the attendance rate was less than 5%, and the total revenue was $1810.5, which is far from the minimum guarantee line.

Under this situation, the same will happen if you show it for a few more days. I advise you to face reality and stop showing it, so you can recover some losses."

In the theater office, William Mason handed over a form with yesterday's screening information in several theaters and box office data, including how many tickets were sold at what time, the age of the audience, etc.

The audience of "Buried" are mostly young and middle-aged people between the ages of 20 and 50, with an equal ratio of men to women.

The other data are relatively poor.

"Mr. Mason, I understand what you said, but the movie has already been released, so let's keep it running for a few more days. It doesn't matter if the box office is not so good. Just treat it as a moment of willfulness."

"Well, Jerome said you are a very stubborn young man, and you are indeed very stubborn. I hope you won't regret it after the box office results come out."

"Of course, this is my own choice."

After looking at the first-day box office sales table, Link called Jerome Preston to inquire about the screening situation at the Grove Mall Cinema. There were only two theaters showing "Buried", but the customer flow was large, so he hoped the data would be better.

Jerome Preston told him that "Buried" was screened eight times yesterday, with a total of 442 movie tickets sold and a total revenue of approximately US$3907.7, ranking last among the movies released during the same period.

Jerome asked him about the box office figures at the United Theater.
Link said it was pretty good. Without much publicity, more than 200 movie tickets were sold, which was a result beyond expectations.

Jerome Preston exclaimed that he had a really good attitude.

Link said that it has already come to this, so what if I have a bad attitude?
After hanging up the phone, Link left the United Theater and swam a few laps at the swimming center next door. He returned to the cinema at around four in the afternoon and suddenly found that many people had come to the entrance of the cinema. There was a long queue in the ticket hall where only one ticket counter was open.

Although there were only a dozen people in line, this was a very unusual thing for the not-so-popular "Buried".

Link stood opposite the cinema for a while. In less than half an hour, more than fifty people came, which was more than the number of people who came in two hours yesterday afternoon.

This made Link curious. "Buried Alive" had no publicity and no popularity. Where did these people get the news?
Or maybe you have nothing to do on Saturday afternoon and come across a new movie coming out so you can stop by and watch it?
Link observed for a while, then pretended to be an ordinary spectator and came to the back of the team and patted the shoulder of the curly-haired fat boy in front of him.

"Hey man, what movies are on today?"

"Buried Alive, it's on the poster, didn't you see it?"

The curly-haired fat boy glanced back and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly having no desire to chat.

"Buried? I've never heard of this movie. Did you come here on purpose to see Buried, or did you just come across it and watch it?"

"Of course I came here specially to see it. Are you a reporter?"

"No, I want to watch the movie too, but I don't know much about it and I don't know if I should watch it."

"I don't know either. I just heard from a friend that this theater is showing a cool movie. I happened to have some time today, so I came here to take a look. Wait, man, why do you look familiar to me? I think I've seen you before."

The curly-haired kid scratched his hair, blinked, and looked at him.

"Really? Asians all look alike. You probably recognized the wrong person."

"Maybe!"

The curly-haired fat guy didn't recognize him as the guy on the poster. He waited in line for a few minutes, walked to the ticket counter, took out twenty dollars, bought a movie ticket, a bucket of popcorn, and a large glass of ice cola, and walked into Theater No. 9.

After waiting for three or four minutes, about half of the 150 seats were filled and the movie began to show on the big screen.

Xiaopang took a sip of Coke, put it on the cup holder, grabbed a handful of popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth, while also looking up at the big screen.

"Pfft~ cough cough, it's him, it's him, I've seen this person before, just now!"

The curly-haired fat boy pointed at Link on the screen and shouted excitedly.

Others looked at him strangely, and some pointed the finger at him, asking him to stop making noise.

The curly-haired fat boy withdrew his hand and scratched his head, and stopped shouting. He held the popcorn and looked at the actor on the screen. When he thought about what he had just said to the actor, he suddenly felt very wonderful.

-

"Hey man, you mean you saw the review about this movie in the newspaper first, and then came to see it? Was it today's newspaper?"

"Yes, The Hollywood Reporter movie section." "Okay, thank you!"

In the ticket office of the cinema, Link pretended to be a customer and asked around for a while, and roughly understood the reason for the sudden increase in the number of customers.

One is interpersonal communication. After watching "Buried" yesterday, the audience recommended this movie to the people around them.
The second is media communication. Yesterday, after watching "Buried", a film critic wrote a review and published it in "The Hollywood Reporter". Many people saw the review in the newspaper and came to see the movie.

Link went to the newsstand downstairs and bought a copy of today's The Hollywood Reporter.

In the movie section, there is a film review of about 500 words, which seems inconspicuous when placed together with the reviews of several other films.

The guy who wrote the film review was named Will Rogers.

The title of the film review is: "Buried Alive", the loneliest movie in the world.

Will Roger said in his film review that he was invited to watch a very special independent film at the Union Theater yesterday. The special thing about the film is that there is only one actor in the whole film.

An actor and a few props, in an immovable box, support a ninety-five-minute movie.

Just hearing the introduction, a feeling of loneliness came over me.

Will Roger went on to say that when he arrived at the cinema in the afternoon, he found that there was no one in the theater.

He watched the movie alone in a screening room with more than 200 seats.

Will Roger claimed that he also felt the same loneliness as the protagonist of the movie while watching it.

Therefore, this movie is called "the loneliest movie in the world". Not only the actors and the plot reveal a depressing sense of loneliness, but the viewing experience is also lonely.

Will Rogers concluded his article by saying that when he heard that the film only had one actor performing in a small wooden box for ninety-five minutes, he thought the film would be boring and shoddy.

However, after watching the movie, I found it unexpectedly good. The actors' performances, the main plot, as well as the camera language and atmosphere are all at an upper-middle level among thriller movies. It is a new genre of movie worth trying.

This film review is generally objective, pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of the film while also arousing the readers' curiosity.

Probably many viewers came to try it out of curiosity after reading the film reviews.

After reading the newspaper, Link didn't know how many viewers this review would bring to the movie, but the word of mouth that would slowly build up was also worth looking forward to.

Link didn't go anywhere the whole afternoon. He sat opposite the cinema and counted the number of people who came into the cinema and bought tickets to watch movies.

At first, he could still count dozens of people, but by six or seven o'clock, hundreds of people came. Link forgot to count and started to get confused at 455, or he started to make mistakes at 465.

But it didn't matter, this was the first time he was happy about being bad at math.

Drop drop!
At around seven o'clock, the pager in his pocket began to beep. Link took it out, took a look at it, and walked to the phone booth to call Jerome Preston.

"Link, why did Mr. Will Roger write a movie review for you? How much did it cost you?"

"I thought you invited me here."

"Haha, Will Roger is a famous film critic. I can't hire him. It must be old Mason who did it. He has many acquaintances in the film industry."

"Is that so? Mr. Mason is a really good man, and you are a good man too."

"Don't praise me. I'm just following the contract. How's the attendance at the United Theater?"

"There are no statistics yet, but I counted for a while. As of 7 o'clock, there were about 500 people watching Buried. How is it going over there?"

"Not bad. As of 18:30, the two theaters had screened 8 shows in total, and a total of 646 people bought tickets to watch Buried. The attendance rate was 31%, which is slightly better than yesterday's data."

"Hope tomorrow will be better."

"Haha, good luck to you."

It was getting dark and his stomach was growling. He accidentally forgot to eat again. Link looked back at the cinema and went back to West Hollywood to eat.

(End of this chapter)