Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 364: Fierce Battle on Christmas, Link Earns a Fortune

After spending a relaxing afternoon at Cindy Crawford's home, Link returned to the company to continue his busy work promoting his new movie.

In order to increase the popularity of the movie "The Sixth Sense", Link and the crew members participated in more than 20 TV program interviews or newspaper interviews, and were very busy.

After the first round of film promotion ended, he temporarily put down his work, returned to the editing studio, and began editing "The English Patient".

It took four weeks to complete the initial cut of the film.

After editing "The English Patient", he went on to edit "Scream", which was completed in November.

"Scream" is a popcorn-style comedy thriller movie with relatively simple content and narrative structure, making it easy to edit.

It took only two weeks to edit.

While I was busy editing the movie, the Christmas season arrived and many blockbusters were released in the North American film market at the end of the year.

Including 2 movies such as the action blockbuster "Heat" produced by Warner Bros., the comedy film "Jumanji" produced by Columbia Pictures, the family movies "Father of the Folks 2" and "The Naughty Boys 26" produced by Disney Pictures, "Sweetheart" produced by Paramount Pictures, "When We Wake" produced by Fox Pictures, and "The Swordsman" produced by MGM Pictures.

The cost of these films is also between 3000 million and 7000 million, and they are the annual key projects of the seven major film studios.

During the promotion and marketing process, the Big Seven film studios will invest more money in publicity.

On the one hand, they are trying to make these movies famous and attract more audiences to watch them. On the other hand, the seven major film studios are also competing secretly. Even if their annual box office totals cannot surpass Guess What Pictures, they have to find a way to surpass other peers, otherwise their report cards at the board meeting will be ugly.

After the seven major film studios made their efforts, the box office competition in the two weeks before and after the Christmas season became increasingly fierce.

Hollywood film studios use various methods to increase the popularity of their films.

For example, in order to promote "Heat", Warner Bros. had director Michael Mann and leading actors Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight and others hold more than 80 road shows across North America, visiting almost every city.

They also spent a lot of space to hype the script, saying that the movie was based on a real robbery case and was exciting and thrilling enough.

In order to promote "Father of the Folks 2", Disney introduced rumors about two older actors, the lead actor Steve Martin and Diane Keaton.

In order to promote "The Sixth Sense", Guess What Pictures also started to hype it up. They found a little boy named Paul from Pennsylvania who claimed to be able to see ghosts.

Paul is 8 years old, has a cute appearance and a pair of clear blue eyes.

His situation is similar to Cole in the movie. He comes from a single-parent family, has an introverted and sensitive personality, and can see things that ordinary people cannot see.

Initially, news about Paul Jr. was only spread in local media in Pennsylvania and he gained some fame.

But under the operation of Guess What Pictures, Paul Jr. appeared on many TV talk shows in succession, talking about the experience and feelings of seeing ghosts. He also discovered a ghost on the spot on NBC TV and told the touching story of what happened to the ghost.

After investigation, it was found that the situation described by Paul Jr. was consistent with that of the staff member who died suddenly at the TV station last week.

After hearing about this, experts in physics used energy detectors and discovered that there was an abnormal energy field at the location of the ghost, but they were not sure whether it was a ghost.

After the show was broadcast, the ratings exceeded 3000 million.

In just three weeks, Paul Jr. became an American sensation, and his popularity is no less than that of first-tier stars.

In addition to little Paul, there is also Maria, a female fortune teller from Kentucky who successfully predicted a library fire by talking to ghosts.

There is also Kate, a 6-year-old girl from Florida, who helped her neighbor find a long-forgotten jewel necklace by talking to ghosts.

Etc. Influenced by these news events, the exposure of The Sixth Sense in the North American media increased significantly.

During this period, Guess What Pictures spent less than 500 million U.S. dollars on publicity, but The Sixth Sense had higher exposure and was more popular than films such as Heat and Jumanji that cost tens of millions of dollars to promote, and its daily box office grew faster.

"This bastard is hyping it up again. It's despicable."

Michael Ovitz pouted in displeasure when he saw the news in the newspaper about a child who could see ghosts.

"For film companies, hype is the best way to promote a movie. It can save a lot of money, and the publicity effect is often doubled."

Michael Eisner said slowly.

Ovitz also knew this, but he was very unhappy when he saw that "The Sixth Sense" remained popular and Link and Guess Pictures could make a lot of money from this movie.

"Guess what, this method of hyping a movie is simple for the film studio. Why don't our company's publicity department learn from it?"

“It’s not that we haven’t thought about borrowing from this, but using this method to promote a movie requires more money. If the hype is successful, it’s good. If the hype fails, the invested funds will be lost, and the publicity department will also be held responsible. The risk is very high, similar to gambling.

Taking this into consideration, they are often reluctant to take risks in publicity. Guess Pictures does not have such concerns. Their publicity plan is proposed by Link, and even if it fails, Link is responsible. The publicity department of Guess Pictures has no concerns when it comes to publicity. In addition, in terms of film themes, films released by Guess Pictures are also easier to hype. "

Michael Eisner explains.

Ovitz thought about it and understood the difference.

This is probably the difference between the Big Seven and independent film companies in the promotion and distribution of film projects. Big film companies pursue stable income, while independent film companies have more flexible management methods that can be adjusted at will, but they also have greater risks in operation.

Ovitz originally wanted to learn from the model of Guess What Pictures to hype Disney's movies, but if the hype failed, he would have to take responsibility and it would weaken his voice in the company, so he decided to give up.

Jingle Bell!
Ovitz's cell phone rang. It was Harvey calling. Harvey talked about the cooperation with Guess What Pictures on the phone. Guess What Pictures sent him three scripts and asked him to choose one to cooperate with.

Among them, the script of "The Rock" is very good, with a production cost of up to 1 million US dollars, and 30% of the investment share remains.

Harvey wanted to invest in the film.

"Dare to the Rock?"

When Ovitz heard the title of the script, his voice immediately became sharp, "No! Do not invest in this project. There are huge problems with this project."

"what is the problem?"

"I gave this script to Link."

Ovitz smirked.

"You gave it to me? Why?"

"You don't need to ask so many questions. Just listen to me."

Ovitz's voice turned serious.

"Okay, I'll take a look at the other two scripts."

(End of this chapter)